iPads < teachers
medium.com
medium.com
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rein...
As for the US - yes it is somewhat astonishing, it's probably on a similar level of dysfunctional as healthcare.
English classes were particularly bad as well. I'd imagine in Russia you read Pushkin in first or second grade. In the US I don't think we were assigned an English classic instead of one of those bestselling children novels till grade 7 or 8.
Around Highschool it got a lot better, classes became differentiated based on student levels, also AP courses (we were offered the opportunity to take other AP subjects which weren't taught in school for free online as well).
Also I certainly don't think IPads are the cure here, as far as I am concerned ed-tech is a blatant scam to build a business from poor administrative use of tax-payer money.
I'd suggest that anyone here thinking of producing content for those iPads (or any platform) think in terms of maximum granularity and adding tools for a teacher to select items for use.
Disclaimer: I've been teaching maths for 28 years now and so may be either part of the problem, or a 'great teacher'. I tend to let the students make up their own mind about that one.
The article says: "Finding and growing great teachers is devilishly hard. Retaining them is very expensive." How do we even know who is a great teacher?
One of my best teachers told me, after years of me skipping his classes to play around with computer stuff, that he loved my style of learning. My style was to mostly ignore school, stay out of trouble, and read and tinker on my own.
I might be biased and wrong, but from my perspective, it seems like there's way too much talk about teaching, and way too little about learning.
The kids in that nightmarish Indianapolis "learning center" are being oppressed. If there's anything they're interested in on their own, they're probably too burned out when they come home from the "learning center" to pursue it.
And they learn that learning is something you do with someone else's permission, guidance, and monitoring. I learned that learning happens when I'm free to play around, follow my curiosity, and work hard with the natural zeal of a restless child.
Alan Kay had the idea of building an educational tablet computer in 1972, and was quite realistic about it. [1] Since he has a humanistic and child-centric view of learning, he envisioned the tablet as a tool for children to learn on their own. When interviewed in 2013 about whether new computing devices are helping in the classroom, he said:
"The perspective on this is first to ask whether the current educational practices are even using books in a powerful and educative way. Or even to ask whether the classroom process without any special media at all is educative.
"I would say, to a distressing extent, the answer is 'no.'"
[1]: http://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-comput...
This is my humble proposal: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=158
I intend to realize it in practice and will be happy to work with people who feel the same. If you feel there's truth in what I wrote, contact me by going to http://qbix.com/about - I am Greg there.
Veritasium, "This will revolutionize education".