Simplifying teacher expertise is no big deal– heck, textbooks are an old tech version of that, saving us all from the trouble of coming up with our own materials. I actually have spent some time thinking about this, resulting in my decision a few years ago to stop using the grammar textbooks my school bought for our classes. I dumped them because they kept my teaching tied to their pace, their ideas, their examples, and their limited practice materials; I decided I would rather take my cue from my students and what they needed and how they could best be helped to understand. Could i have done this when I first started out? Probably not enough hours in the day– and the fact that I can type materials up on a computer and have them printed out on a machine on the other side of the building certainly helps, so I guess I both object to and agree with Arnett’s point.
Or maybe my point is that if you aren’t very careful, labor-saving (or labor-transferring) technology will tell you how to do your job instead of helping you do it.
I do believe that technology will be coming for almost all jobs, including teachers. How soon? It could be 30 years off. Or, it could be 10. Alexa and Siri still can only answers half the time, but they are improving.
After years of teaching using the principles of standards-based learning and grading, I encountered two findings that radically changed my perspective on assessment, grading, and reporting. Source: Teachers Going Gradeless – Arthur Chiaravalli – Medium Joe Bower’s blog, for the love of learning, has a ton of additional resources on getting rid of grades. Sadly, Joe…
Computational thinking has been a hugely successful idea and is now taught at school in many countries across the world. Although I welcome the positioning of computer science as a respectable, influential intellectual discipline, in my view computational thinking has abstracted us too far away from the heart of computation – the machine. The world…
More than 40 years before women gained the right to vote, female “computers” at Harvard College Observatory were making major astronomical discoveries. Between 1885 and 1927, the observatory employed about 80 women who studied glass plate photographs of the stars. They found galaxies and nebulas and created methods to measure distance in space. They were…
Libraries are repositioning themselves as cultural and learning centers for the digital age. Many lend out mobile hotspots, often for weeks at a time. Others offer classes in the latest tech, such as 3D printing and music-editing software. And libraries have some of the savviest social media editors around. Source: Libraries go high-tech to stay…
Coding is a vital component of tech education, but it won’t be enough to sustain the next generation of workers. With a rapidly evolving tech world, employees will require continuous training in basic digital skills, according to Sundar Pichai. The Google chief executive explains in an opinion piece published Thursday by NBC News THINK that the notion of getting…
You don’t need to be a Dickens scholar to understand that for many teachers it is both the best of times and the worst of times. Let’s start with the good stuff. Digital innovation is inspiring imagination. Educators from all over the world are learning how to responsibly blend technology into their teaching, while sharing…
