Another cool Web 2.0 site I discovered recently is Standpedia. On their FAQ, they call it a “wiki-style encyclopedia of controversy” where “tough questions are answered from a variety of perspectives, instead of a single ‘neutral point of view.’” What I like about the site is that they encourage users to problematize ideas, rather than [...]
Tag Archives | education
New Classroom
I have been suggesting something similar for years. Along those same lines: maybe students shouldn’t listen to their professors? Long live classroom underlife!
Blogging in Primary Education
Prototype points to Stephen Downes’ “Educational Blogging” on Educause Review. It looks at the yet unspoiled attitudes of primary schoolers on blogging and the Internet. One student states: The blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more. When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world [...]
Ralph Goodwin
In another stack of photos, I found some from high school, mostly friends doing their goofy things, but some of teachers that really made an impact on my life. Ralph Goodwin was one of those teachers. Goodwin was a science teacher; I believe he taught computer science in our high-tech classroom full of TRS-80s, but [...]
Educational Conditioning
Computer-assisted instruction, applied thoughtlessly and imitatively, threatens to extend the worst features of education as it is now. (Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream Machines, 1974) Perhaps one of the reasons why many students have difficulty with online literature courses is that their educational experiences do not train them to meet the expectations that distance education [...]
Kafka’s Challenge
I think we ought to read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us with a blow in the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and [...]