On 07/03/2011 08:35 AM, Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2011/7/2 Rony <gnulinuxist(a)gmail.com>om>:
> That is precisely what you dont want to do -
buying someone else's idea of an
> idea. Content creation must be part of the students work, whereby they can
> directly feel the original idea. Amit Dhakulkar's use of a gps to teach
> physics, maths and geography is one such. Kids in Khalapur recording tales
> told by their grandparents is another. Many such absolutely interesting
> stuff in Khalapur.
[Apologies for the attribution error. I did not receive the
email with
this original text]
The teachers have to tread a middle path here. Significant deviations
from the syllabi prescribed by the powers to be leads to the wrath of
the parents/guardians who dream of their wards acing the class XII
exam and getting into a good professional college. Thus they, in the
current Indian milieu, cannot allow the students unrestricted content
creation access.
True. There has to be some syllabus affiliated to some Board for formal
certification and further acceptance of the certification in other
institutions. For very interactive communication, the number of students
per class has to be drastically reduced too.
So, what happens (again, I am recalling from the
market research I did for Next back in November 2009) is that the
schools get the hardware and software aligned to the syllabi from the
company, and then encourage the students to explore while staying
aligned with the pedagogical requirements.
This is not happening in all the Mumbai schools that have these IWBs.
Hardware is being sold with limited or no software and teachers are
being asked to make power point shows for their daily teaching. Plus, in
case any contract is over, _some_ multimedia content will not open. I am
repeating my earlier point that showing a video or a slide show or a web
site can be done using a simple computer and projector too. The students
can also interact as they do with the IWB, by using the mouse and keyboard.
If a subject /
topic is to be understood for the first time by a
student, how will the discovering method work unless he has some clue of
what he needs to discover.
This is a very naive view of the world. How did
stalwarts like Newton,
Darwin or anyone else ever discover anything? Nobody pointed Einstein
that there is something called the General Theory of Relativity that
is waiting to be discovered.
Newton, Darwin, Einsten were not school children. They had experience
and learning behind them. For adults, learning new things is easier as
they already have some knowledge foundation over the years. For school
children learning everything for the first time, this is not possible.
--
Freedom is a shared resource. Take some, leave the rest for others.
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Post your replies below the relevant original text, leaving a line space.
Regards,
Rony.
http://ronybill.blogspot.com/