Dvorak says,
"Tech firms are looking forward to selling more machines for the classroom, where student can struggle by themselves on what amounts to a "teaching machine" that essentially does not teach. Teaching machines have never worked in the past, and they will never work in the future...
Teaching machines have been around for some time and stemmed from the ideas of controversial behaviorist BF Skinner. He developed something called programmed learning, which quickly morphed into teaching machines that culminated in the Control Data PLATO computers, or Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations."
I am familiar with Skinner's work and while operant conditioning may work in some cases to learn certain less complex behavioral responses (touch this = pain), it does not work well in learning complex information that becomes building blocks for even more advanced skills. It is designed to produce robots with predictable responses and with Skinner, ones that can be easily controlled by someone else - think Big Brother.
Dvorak concludes:
"There is something weird and pathetic about a teacher who goes from student to student to help them individually on the computer. This is not teaching, this is IT support.
Computers are great, I agree. But teachers teach and computers compute. Get gadgets out of the classrooms and watch things improve."
I am familiar with Skinner's work and while operant conditioning may work in some cases to learn certain less complex behavioral responses (touch this = pain), it does not work well in learning complex information that becomes building blocks for even more advanced skills. It is designed to produce robots with predictable responses and with Skinner, ones that can be easily controlled by someone else - think Big Brother.
Dvorak concludes:
"There is something weird and pathetic about a teacher who goes from student to student to help them individually on the computer. This is not teaching, this is IT support.
Computers are great, I agree. But teachers teach and computers compute. Get gadgets out of the classrooms and watch things improve."
Call me old-fashioned, but I agree.
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