Group items tagged

’m talking about the effect a serious and interested and knowledgeable adult can have on a group of children

learning happens regardless of the curriculum, or the objectives, or the strategies. In any given school, on any given day, you could walk by rooms with master teachers doing their thing. One might be a lecturer, and every day students would go into her class, get out notes, and pay attention. Another might be totally committed to large-group discussion, and every day that teacher’s students would be seated in a circle talking to one another. The teacher next door might deal exclusively with small groups. The one next to him might be convinced that a writers’-workshop approach is the best.

When you walk by such teachers’ rooms, students will be smiling. There will be no one asleep (well, let’s not get too carried away).

the Utopian, blue sky ideas of technology as a singular harbinger of possibility and liberation ignores the cold and all-consuming role that capital plays in the shaping of technology as means of control.

The insanely irresponsible advertising for BlackBoard 8 suggests that Academic Suite release 8.0 will “enhance critical thinking skills” and “improve classroom performance.” What LMS can do this? What Web 2.0 tool can do this? This is total bullshit, how can they make such an irresponsible claim? These things are not done by technology, but rather people thinking and working together. Our technology may afford a unique possibility in this endeavor by bringing disparate individuals together in an otherwise untenable community, yet it doesn’t enhance critical thinking or improve classroom performance, we do that, together.

The learning happens not as a by-product of the technology, it is, or rather should be, the Raison d’être of the technology.

Einstein's theory of special relativity includes electricity and magnetism in a simple, logical extension of the relativity of Galileo and Newton. Its conclusions, including time dilation, length contraction, and E=mc2 have changed profoundly our ideas of time and space, matter and energy. These multimedia modules (click on menu above right) give a brief overview of relativity - they present the main ideas. Inevitably, you will have questions. So the related links (below) give more complete explanations, at levels with () or without mathematics ().

D-roms and exam papers are handed out together. This is the Danish language exam. One of the teachers stands in front of the class and explains the rules. She tells the candidates they can use the internet to answer any of the four questions. They can access any site they like, even Facebook, but they cannot message each other or email anyone outside the classroom

The Danish government says if the internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations.

"The main precaution is that we trust them. I think the cheat rate is very low because the consequences of cheating are very big."