Write Your Own Scenario

This semester we considered, researched and responded to educational technology issues: textbooks or laptops, elements of constructive learning lessons, artificial intelligence in education, interpretation of copyright laws. For each topic we read a scenario and then needed to choose a side, take a stand and write a coherent supporting statement substantiated by research. Now it is time for us to write our own itec scenarios.

I believe a good scenario should be:
Open-ended
Have a variety of possible solutions without one being clearly better than another.
Be on a topic that can engage students
Have information about it available
Have real-life application

With that in mind, I have decided to create a role playing scenario in which a middle school technology advisory committee must choose whether to purchase a COW (laptop computers on wheels) or inter-active white boards for the 6th grade.

This has prepared us for the next step to go out and live our own scenarios in the real world of educational technology. I’m ready!

Will Computers Replace Human Teachers?

In the early 90s, I instructed an 8-hour, hands-on class called Introduction to Microcomputers and MS-DOS. More than 100 times I said, “A computer is a device which can perform computations including arithmetic and logic operations, in a predetermined sequence without human intervention. …. Can computers think? No, a computers follows a predetermined sequence of instructions or a program….” We’d talk about computers lacking the quality of human compassion, and I’d tell students that I didn’t think that computers would ever replace human teachers in education.

Today, I’d say pretty much the same thing. I don’t believe that computers think , even though I accept that in a couple of years their computing power will surpass that of the human brain . Computers lack consciousness, free will, intuition, conscience. I don’t feel threatened by computers in education. How could a computer ever replace a caring teacher? Teacher’s kindness and encouragement can do so much toward motivating students to learn, to think, to stretch their minds. Put a teacher and motivated students together and there is a synergy with the potential for incredible new ideas to be generated that no machine could possibly match.

“The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.” Edsger W. Dijkstra

“Computers can prepare students for tests, but teachers prepare learners for life” - unknown

A New Take on Professional Development

"Teachers must become comfortable as co-learners with their students and with colleagues around the world. Today it is less about staying ahead and more about moving ahead as members of dynamic learning communities. The digital-age teaching professional must demonstrate a vision of technology infusion and develop the technology skills of others. These are the hallmarks of the new education leader."

—Don Knezek, ISTE CEO, 2008 (http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS)

I rather like this “take” on professional development - an evolution of self, but not by yourself - with others, a collaborative, social approach to constructing knowledge, taking turns being teacher and student, both: co-learners. Not a competition but a journey meant to last a lifetime, each new step building upon the last, unfolding, never-ending.