non-programmer intro (topic drift)

Vassili Bykov vassili at parcplace.com
Sun Aug 5 00:05:01 UTC 2001


From: Roger Kenyon <edutec at idirect.com>
> Over 20 years ago, R. P. Taylor identified 3 basic ways of using
> computers in schools. I think they are still valid:
>
> 1. As tutor, such as drill and practice, remedial exercises, training
> simulations.
>
> 2. As tool,  such as word processors, spreadsheets, multimedia
> encyclopedia CD ROM, HTML editors.
>
> 3. As tutee, such as macros, scripting, domain-specific programming and
> any other development environments that enable the student to teach the
> computer how to perform some task.

I think all of these are only true if you view a computer as a cross of a
microfiche reader with a calculator, designed to "aid" the learning process.
This was probably OK 20 years ago.  It is probably still OK now, since
nothing has changed in computers in 20 years.

I am questioning what "using in schools" really means and achieves.  Is
"using" as in spending money and having kids do (1), (2) and (3) something
that is a goal in itself?  Perhaps it could be achieved by doing the right
thing, training teachers, giving them "edutainment" software of all kinds,
evironments with robots and whatnot.  But, what is the ultimate goal: the
process or the result?  Will following the three nicely categorized ways
really make the student realize the creativity she has, learn about the
world around her, and express herself in that world?  What is the untimate
goal -- building a more efficient pipeline to download preprocessed
knowledge into students' minds, or creating an environment where students
learn to *use* those minds?  I am afraid the three ways above concentrate of
the former much more than on the latter.  Here are my specific qualms about
them.

1 - Computer as a tutor.  Everybody thinks different.  Helping a person
learn to use the cognitive and creative potentials that they have is about
nurturing, not about stuffing them with correct concepts in the correct
order.  Computer in the role of a tutor -- in the sense of something giving
instructions and controlling progress -- has as much appeal and chance of
success with people as voice mail in the role of customer support.  You can
lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink.

2 - Computer as a tool.  This is too narrow-minded.  Computer is a tool only
because most people have too little imagination to think of it as anything
else.  After all, the whole history of technical progress was about building
better tools.  People rarely see what they are not used to seeing.  Apple
engineers of the 80-ies didn't see anything in Smalltalk except a mouse and
windows, and OO technologists of the 90-ies didn't see in it anything but
techniques for assembling the innards of their black box "applications" in a
slightly more convenient manner then before.

3 -  Computer as a tutee. What percentage of "normal" people out there enjoy
teaching computers how to perform tasks?  We may think it is fun and
important because it is so in our little geeky world.  What if I am an
8-year old who wants to sculpt, or compose, or make a cartoon, or build a
rocket to fly to the moon?  Will I be told to stop that and "do what's
important" instead?  Computer can be an environment where everything is
possible -- unconstrained by physics, time, money and common sense.  Using
it should not be about "using a computer", rather about doing what you want
to do.  We certainly are not even close to that.  Not when the majority of
people who are comfortable using computers are programmers, and the majority
of those think a powerful environment is when you have a source-level
debugger.

Sorry if this sounds loony or somewhat offensive to any of the previous
posters.  This was certainly not intended.  This is just what got
accumulated while looking at the kind of problems the average CS/IT crowd
out there is concerned about.

Cheers,

--Vassili

--
Vassili Bykov [|] <vassili at parcplace.com>
VisualWorks Engineering





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