Re: I, Robot
Katherine Goff (Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu)
Sun, 20 Dec 1998 08:58:27 -0700
Jay Lemke writes:
> Not every form of learning requires
>a human teacher. And in fact no one can say, certainly not on the basis of
>empirical studies, just what kinds of learning, for what kinds of
>students,
>cannot come from reading books, much less from interacting with
>quasi-intelligent tutorial programs, but _require_ a human teacher in
>face-to-face interaction. We don't really understand the differential
>affordances of various learning "media" (including human interaction) --
>we
>have concentrated too much on trying to create universal models of
>learning
>applicable to all media, and not enough on understanding how people learn
>and teach differently with different media.
>
because we cannot not learn, i wonder about what students are learning
_about themselves_ in those training environments that are modeled after
efficient assembly-line productions. and what will students who spend most
of their learning time interacting with robots learn about themselves
while they see some of their so-called peers spending more time in rooms
with a "real" human teacher? this could so easily become another marker of
status and method for sorting and marginalizing.
>
>Behind every text stands an author; the text still mediates inter-human
>communication. This fact does not change when the text is a video or an
>interactive program -- or even if the text is embodied in a robot. What
>may
>become different is how unpredictable the meaning communicated may be, not
>simply as a function of the user/reader, but as a function of the medium.
>Pathways through a hypertext mediate between author and reader differently
>than more traditional genres do. Interactive programs can produce
>text-like
>events unforeseeable by the program writer. Which dimensions of difference
>among media matter to learning and how?
interacting with hypertext requires access to internet technology, so it's
exclusionary to that point, but then the reader has potentially as much
authority as the author to construct meaning. with a teacher (human or
robot) the reader's constructed meanings are corrected, and often judged.
the power of the role of teacher constrains the possible individual
student meanings. and what would it mean to the identity of the student to
have her/his constructions negated by a non-human with all the weight of
the institutionally granted authority behind it?
still worried,
kathie
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
life's backwards,
life's backwards,
people, turn around.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^sinead o'connor and john reynolds
fire on babylon: universal mother^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html