Re: [xmca] Given Tablets But No Teachers, Ethiopian Kids Teach Themselves

[Helen Harper <helen.harper@bigpond.com>]

What language are the activities on the tablet in? It wasn't made explicit in the article, and the implication seemed to be that the script was Roman script with English words. It's a bit odd to claim children are learning literacy in a language they presumably don't speak, in a script which isn't the script for the language they do speak, surely? 

As for the XOs - arrrrgggh! A few Aboriginal schools I've visited recently in north Australia have them and there's not a lot of enthusiasm for them - from either teachers of kids. Mostly they don't get used. Those useless green things, people call them. But maybe this is unfair. We're a rich country and everyone's seen iPads (and lots of schools have found funding to get iPads too). Who would want an XO when you could have the 'real thing'? Think horse and buggy versus air conditioned 4 wheel drive.

In fact, using iPads is sometimes a default successful classroom activity with kids who don't engage well with schooling generally, I've observed. All kids can play around with the cameras and funny fonts and we can say we're doing 'multiliteracies'. Having said that, I've also seen some stunning classroom work using iPad apps that draw very low-literate kids in to use rich language, print and images to create beautiful texts that are also meaningful. But this work is always mediated in a very purposeful way by a highly literate person, at least in the early stages, from my observations.

Helen


On 02/11/2012, at 1:34 AM, Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> It would great if we could do on the spot research of this situation as
> well as the hole in the wall context. What precisely is the tablet
> mediating?
> Carol
> 
> 
> On 31 October 2012 18:13, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Interesting story, Peter.
>> 
>> I found it interesting that the "learn to read" precedes "reading to learn"
>> formula used in the article.
>> 
>> Not at all clear that a print-literacy notion of what reading is and what
>> the ordering of sense making through graphic symbols and representations is
>> appropriate for what people hope is going on there.
>> 
>> mike
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:52 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> http://mashable.com/2012/10/29/tablets-ethiopian-children/
>>> 
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> -- 
> Sessional Teacher: Wits School of Languages
> Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa
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