Stuff about using computers to help people teach and learn better.

Research

Why We Teach

Posted Wed, 2009-03-18 06:45 by pfaffman

I have been thinking lately about how it is that it's very hard to recruit people to be teachers, scientists, and especially science teachers. When I talked to one of the most intelligent kids I taught some years after he graduated from college he explained that there was no reason to go into a technical field, there was no money in it. What did he do? Traded derivatives on Wall Street.

Yesterday I got a friend request from a student I taught in my first job (from 1987-1990). Here's what he wrote on my wall:

why shouldn't i seek you out? i graduated with a computer science degree. your classes at "perk" were awesome. to this day i will never forget you retrieving info from a hard drive. i wanted to know that stuff!!! unfortunately, i was a u.s. history major in college - then i switched to computers. i went on to graphics and finally got to edit corporate videos on an avid for a fortune 500 company. thank you for waking my mind up to that field! take care -

So it seems that something I did helped someone turn out OK. I'm not quite sure how these two stories are connected, besides they're both people that I taught. I guess it's good to know that when I was flying blind as a new teacher establishing a computer program where none had existed (something that I'm not sure I'd do again) I did some stuff right. I'm glad that Chris learned enough about computers to make it a career, I'm still worried, though, how our country is going to again convince people like Nimrod that contributing to knowledge and making stuff is a better career choice than manipulating numbers to "make" money and destroy our economy.

Looking in the Wrong Places

Posted Thu, 2007-06-21 09:24 by pfaffman

The Challenge

We in the field of educational technology need to pay more attention to finding ways to provide students in teachers with the tools that they need to increase identifiable learning outcomes. Too often we can be pulled in by the sirens of cool toys or be convinced that if only we could train teachers to understand how to use them, students would learn better. I posit that teachers and students now know quite well how to use computers to increase learning, but that the computers they have do not provide even the simplest supports that they need to do so.

Laptop Lashback

Posted Wed, 2007-05-23 11:35 by pfaffman
Dangerously Irrelevant has a piece called $2,000 pencils where he links to a piece about a a "Laptop Lashback". It seems that throwing laptops in schools doesn't really change things and that what we have are $2,000 pencils.

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

Posted Tue, 2007-05-22 14:21 by pfaffman

TechTrends came today. The cover says: "Also in this issue: Open Source Software," and it's my article: "It's Time to Consider Open Source Software." Before I post a copy online, I suppose I need to re-read the thing I signed to see how many of my rights I gave away to them.

Update

And this is interesting. The thing has been picked up by LinuxInsider. It's in Two parts and they provided links for everything. The electronic version of the original TechTrends article is now available to subscribers or to UT people..

Now I really am on the cover of the Rolling Stone

So I submitted the article to Slashdot, "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." My article is on the front page. Since the article's not on my server, I don't suppose I'll get Slashdotted, but I do suspect I'll get a bit more traffic tomorrow than I usually do.

Something about Multitasking

Posted Thu, 2006-09-07 15:18 by pfaffman
This article from the Washington Post (may require registration) says something about multitasking being harmful. I guess. I don't really know. I was listening to Steve Earle at the time, so I really couldn't concentrate on it.

Webliographer Has Arrived

Posted Fri, 2006-06-02 16:42 by pfaffman
Webliographer is, to the best of my knowledge, the first web-based application for managing and sharing bookmarks. The first usable version was in use in October of 1998. It replaced my home page, which consisted primarily as a set of categorized links. I was especially proud of the fact that it tracked the use of URLs, so when you clicked on a link a counter was updated in the database and links that got more hits were promoted to the front page of Webliographer's display. Though I used, and still use, Webliographer primarily for my own purposes an individual, my target audience for Webliographer was primarily teachers who wanted kids to use the web in their classrooms.

CDW-G National Teacher Survey

Posted Tue, 2005-08-30 11:35 by pfaffman

eSchool News has linked to a National Teacher Survey published by CDW-G. It's a little interesting that it's funded by a computer products vendor. It says that more teachers are interested in and comfortable with technology and that 31% of teachers have received no technology training in the past year. I'm still on my Technology Training is a Waste kick, so I'm wondering how many non-teachers have had technology training in the past year. My wager is that more of them haven't had training since they have computers that work. (I think that teachers need training, but that technology should be a means rather than an end.)

The Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools

Posted Mon, 2005-07-25 14:23 by pfaffman

Well, it's not exactly "news" since it's from 2002, but it's a bit more recent than Becker's Internet Use survey. This report shows that, according to students, students use the Internet fairly effectively, but it's almost in spite of their teachers and technology leaders. Connectivity is bad, filters keep them from going to legitimate sites, teachers and administrators put up restrictions, teachers are afraid to really take advantage of the Internet for homework assignments for fear that it's unfair to those who do not have access.