Learning Learning/Parable 2/Bites: Difference between revisions

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This week’s Bite: Teachers can only teach what they already know.


In a narrow sense of “teach” this may have a grain of truth. But if the intention is to say that OLPC can’t bring anything new it is not
This week’s Lick:
Just wrong – it is EXACTLY wrong. OLPC liberates teachers from the limitations of their subject specific knowledge and allows them to use their human knowledge.


The simplest example is learning a language. Learning a language in a place where nobody could speak it was almost impossible before any electronic technology existed. With the previous round (like radio) it became possible though still very difficult. The laptop opens the door wide.
I get upset when people say that the point of the laptops is that its allws children to learn “all the time, everywhere.”


The teacher still has an important role -- bringing maturity and experience to guide the learner. Or best of all: co-learning.
Of course it’s true -- children with laptops can learn all the time everywhere.


If you want something to think about try to anticipate what I’ll have to say next week about applying this principle to mathematics. I hope someone will outdo me.
But the statement insulting to children. Whether they have laptops or not, children are learning all the time wherever they are.
Maybe not what you want them to learn – but that’s a very different story.

It's not only your kind of learning or school's kind of learning that counts as learninjg.

What we really want to think about is how to ''connect'' the very good learning (and thinking)
that children know how to do with more areas of knowledge.

Revision as of 20:04, 29 April 2006

This week’s Bite: Teachers can only teach what they already know.

In a narrow sense of “teach” this may have a grain of truth. But if the intention is to say that OLPC can’t bring anything new it is not Just wrong – it is EXACTLY wrong. OLPC liberates teachers from the limitations of their subject specific knowledge and allows them to use their human knowledge.

The simplest example is learning a language. Learning a language in a place where nobody could speak it was almost impossible before any electronic technology existed. With the previous round (like radio) it became possible though still very difficult. The laptop opens the door wide.

The teacher still has an important role -- bringing maturity and experience to guide the learner. Or best of all: co-learning.

If you want something to think about try to anticipate what I’ll have to say next week about applying this principle to mathematics. I hope someone will outdo me.