Thompson
The chapter "Digital School" offered a wonderful set of examples of "the centaur" at work in classrooms. I remember that I used to see stickers/posters etc saying things like "100 computers can never replace one good teacher." Maybe a better way of thinking about computers in the classroom is that a good teacher knows how digital technology can help them make better use of their teaching abilities or fill gaps that they always wished they could fill in their teaching practice.
I would add that the flip side of this shows up when Thompson says that a lot of technology in schools is being used for tasks that can be done just fine by analog means. It seems to stem from this logic that, because technology is omnipresent outside of school, it should be omnipresent within as well, as if the act of using a higher tech platform has some educational value in and of itself. Which, in turn reveals a high degree of confusion about why certain activities are valuable in the first place, in terms of the type of thinking they're supposed to engage. It also strikes me that a lot of classroom technology falls into the "nobody asked for this, nobody wants this" category of gadget. I distinctly remember an economics teacher in high school complaining about Moodle or Blackboard being implemented, strictly for the fact that 1) he didn't know how it would help him do anything better 2) the district was demanding that he fully integrate it into his classroom 3) the district would not be offering him any paid training time to at least see how the thing worked.
All of the examples Thompson provides are teachers who are engaged enough to recognize what their students need in order to do better, humble enough to recognize the limitations of their own methods, and therefore willing to seek out those technological solutions that extend their reach. That could be gaps in insight into the student experience, something filled by the data provided by Khan Academy, or it could be discovering meaningful contexts for learning, as in the case of games and reaching out to online audiences.
I would add that the flip side of this shows up when Thompson says that a lot of technology in schools is being used for tasks that can be done just fine by analog means. It seems to stem from this logic that, because technology is omnipresent outside of school, it should be omnipresent within as well, as if the act of using a higher tech platform has some educational value in and of itself. Which, in turn reveals a high degree of confusion about why certain activities are valuable in the first place, in terms of the type of thinking they're supposed to engage. It also strikes me that a lot of classroom technology falls into the "nobody asked for this, nobody wants this" category of gadget. I distinctly remember an economics teacher in high school complaining about Moodle or Blackboard being implemented, strictly for the fact that 1) he didn't know how it would help him do anything better 2) the district was demanding that he fully integrate it into his classroom 3) the district would not be offering him any paid training time to at least see how the thing worked.
All of the examples Thompson provides are teachers who are engaged enough to recognize what their students need in order to do better, humble enough to recognize the limitations of their own methods, and therefore willing to seek out those technological solutions that extend their reach. That could be gaps in insight into the student experience, something filled by the data provided by Khan Academy, or it could be discovering meaningful contexts for learning, as in the case of games and reaching out to online audiences.
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