"Our goal as technology-using educators, should be to allocate to the learners the cognitive responsibility for the processing they do best while requiring the technology to do the processing that it does best."
By using Mindtools, teachers are encouraging students to think about and expand upon what they know, using the computer programs not as an easy cop out (in that they do all the work), but as a tool to do basic organizational things (retrieval, storage of info etc), allowing students more time to think about the topic at hand, with a clearer head. When you construct something yourself, you are forced to really think about what you are doing- when you make the text boxes, create the links or whatever- rather than simply filling in a pre-constructed worksheet.
The descriptions of the various Mindtools available to teachers were kind of scary-sounding at first- SEMANTIC ORGANIZATIONAL TOOLS, DATABASES, DYNAMIC MODELLING TOOLS... But once Jonassen gave examples of what these were, I realised I had used many of them- Inspiration, spreadsheets and that. Admittedly, as a student, I never really felt that the computer was helping me that much... sure, it was handy, but did it really advance my learning and thinking? Maybe it was just second nature, suing those technologies, and I was used to it. Nevertheless, this article definitely has convinced me of the fact that teachers should, when possible, harness these Mindtools and introduce them in the classroom.
One thing I had a problem with was the subheading of "conversation tools"-
"Online communication presumes that students can communicate, that is, that they can meaningfully participate in conversations. In order to do that, they need to be able to interpret messages, consider appropriate responses, and construct coherent replies"
Obviously, this guy has never been on MSN.
2 comments:
jess you picked up on some interesting points. i also thought that it was the best article so far.
i think that if you want to learn the world you have to live it.
there are tasks such as cooperative learning projects that enhance learning and social interaction.
i think this article had some valid points.
Post a Comment