Archive for the ‘Learning (general)’ Category

There was some very interesting stuff that came out of O'Reilly's recent ETech Emerging Technology Conference. For educators, one of the important concepts in the conference is the "Attention Economy". There is this realisation that the gadget providers may have shot themselves in the foot. The average attention span of teenagers is something akin to […]

It seems to me that getting students to write essays by hand in an examination situation, especially when they have all become used to writing using computers, is retrogressive. We need a device that is secure, reliable and cheap - and that allows students to type their examination answers.

Differences between plagiarism and cheating?

An interesting interview with Robert Kvavik (in PILOTed newsletter - no longer available) discusses the recent Educause survey on technology use in education. What was surprising to the researchers was how students were unimpressed with the use of technology and tended to prefer face-to-face contact. Kvavik says: At this point, technology is not pedagogically transformational. […]

A few scary experiences recently made me wonder about the future of book reading - and reading generally. Kids do read a lot - but it is mostly on screen reading, scanning in nature and rarely deep and reflective. Give 'em the answer in the first line or two, or forget it. Instant gratification. Do […]

My Interactive Mathematics site has a "Comments? Questions?" facility. Some users ask a question, but do not leave an email address, so I cannot respond to them. In such cases, if it is a good question, I will include it (with answer) in the site in due course. But sometimes users will ask a question […]

An article by Karl Kapp, Games, Gizmos and Gadgets (no longer available), argues that the current generation of students (brought up on gaming) has a very different view on "cheating" compared to the view held by the boomer generation. Gamers look for cheat codes. They expect a way to work around a difficult situation. This […]

"Confronting Cognitions in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments" Volume 1, Andriessen, J., Baker, M., and Suthers, D. (Ed) Kluwer Academic Publishers, ©2003. Summary Review We do not learn much by just listening to a teacher. We learn more by: Solving relevant, challenging and interesting problems By teaching others By having to defend a point of […]

Some interesting statistics about UK school children... (from Grey's Essential Miscellany for Teachers, pp 26, 52.) 1. Common causes of bullying: being fat being thought of as gay 2. In Scotland, 20% of 12 yr-olds are clinically obese 1/3 is overweight 3. Homosexual adolescents are 2 to 3 times more likely to commit suicide or […]

"A Reflective Case-based Approach" © Kauffman, J. et al, 2006 Summary Review Teaching ain't easy - you could almost say that a good teacher requires super-human talents. Included in those talents is the ability to control classroom behaviour. All students in a class need to have a safe environment where they can get on with […]