Category: Education

I concluded my last post without supporting why I think a traditional education is extremely valuable.  In going back through my feeds, I found that Stanley Fish articulated it quite well in A Classical Education: Back to the Future – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com. He addresses it more in terms of the new emphasis on testing and the “practical” sciences, but I think he also makes a good case for a structured or traditional education.

In short, get knowledgeable and well-trained teachers, equip them with a carefully calibrated curriculum and a syllabus filled with challenging texts and materials, and put them in a room with students who are told where they are going and how they are going to get there.

Worked for me.

It worked for me as well.

Ed tech folks will be very interested in this thought provoking Chronicle article: A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man ‘Academy’ on YouTube

A few highlights:

The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet.

… occasional mistakes are part of his method. By watching him stumble through a problem, students see the process better, he argues. Sometimes they correct him in comments on his YouTube videos, and he says this makes students more engaged with the material.

Over all, he said, he’s collected about $150,000 in donations and makes $2,000 a month from ads on his Web site.

I would still argue that, while inquiry based learning has a place in education, there’s still a number of things gained from a traditional classroom education (especially for the average bear).

After having a chance to give the iPad the “reading in bed” and (my daily) “reading the newspaper on the bus” tests, I think I have a better feeling for how this thing works as a reading device.

First and foremost, everyone else is right about the weight–it’s heeeeeavy! It’s possible to hold it up for an extended time, but not comfortable. Best to find something to lean it on (your chest, a bag, etc).

Second, the glossy screen is truly a problem for reading anywhere out in the open. The reflection from overhead lights and the mirror effect were very distracting to me.

Again, the programming was the part I found most interesting.  Books are made to look like books. When you consider that the form of a book (pulp pages between a cover, with margins on the side and spaces between words) evolved over a long period, it seems a bit unnatural to attempt to impose this form on a new device. I’m sure some will want it to work like a book, but this might not be the best fit for the medium.

Perhaps a bit closer to home are news apps like the NY Times Editor’s choice. This app acts as a sort of a hybrid between their iPhone app and the desktop reader.  It uses the space to display a variety of articles in an a manner that isn’t too far off from a traditional newspaper, integrates ads in a tasteful way, and yet is different enough from the print version to seem at home on this screen. The editors also take advantage of the larger screen to include the graphics that were in the print edition.

This app causes me to think further about how well this thing might work as a learning device–be it as a textbook replacement or a more interactive learning tool.  While heavy, it’s lighter than a stack of textbooks, and does a good job of integrating graphics and multimedia on the page. I see digital textbooks as having the potential to keep a book’s linearity while still allowing for more interaction and following links for more information when something doesn’t make sense. I think a text on the iPad could allow a good “textbook author” to do just that.

My ultimate conclusion is that I’m not dropping my netbook for an iPad anytime in the near future, but I’m starting to see how it really might be something new and different for digital publishing. I’ll never admit Steve is right about it, though.