Thursday 12 January 2006

Interactive Learning Fails Reading Test (Or Does It?),

via OLDaily

What I am not happy about is the reporter who reported this story in the first place and the "quality checking" procedure of the publishing "journal". This should not have been published in the first place AND it does not have any value for the general uninformed readers.

Rather, I would like to use this as a springboard for another topic.

In the Slahdot discussion, b17bmbr (608864) said,

I am a high school teacher (seven years junior high 3 years high school) and have yet to find a piece of software that is effective and better than a more traditional approach.


Well, let me describe to you a sucessful use of technology by Mary Noggle. She is currently teaching literacy to a group of radiologists in her community college. She searched the web and found some interesting cases involving radiologists in a hospital. She devised a scenario based on the cases and asked her students to roleplay different fictional characters devised. Using a discussion forum, her students enjoyed the experience. While she admits that it is not as good as running a full role play simulation using Fablusi, it is good enough to get her students very engaged.

Technology is always a tool. The art of helping people learn still lies in the hand of the teachers. Hoping to have a software to automate this process is a false expectation - at least with today's technology.

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