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

[Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>]

I've heard similar anecdotes, Helen, about the fate of xos in remote
indigenous Australia

There have been various sophisticated arguments about new media replacing
old media (Seymour Papert and others). I recall an article by Papert titled
"Literacy and Letteracy in the Media Ages". Also similar work by James Gee
about semiotic domains and video games.  I was once an enthusiast about
this. In practice it is only a real consideration for middle class kids who
have been taught to read and write before they get to school by their
caring parents.

Once you actually work with disadvantaged kids who can't read, write,
subtract and have never heard of "divide" (and they are 15 years old) then
the mindset changes about what is needed.

Then we have some academics who love to play with technology and do
education in a way that *they* find interesting and engaging. Then if we
can present an argument that this *also* is an efficient way of teaching
the *basics* (3 Rs) to kids who don't have them then not only can we have
fun in the things that interest us but also pretend that we are liberating
the wretched of the earth.

Negroponte says in the original article:

In an interview after his talk, Negroponte said that while the early
results are promising, reaching conclusions about whether children could
learn to read this way would require more time. “If it gets funded, it
would need to continue for another a year and a half to two years to come
to a conclusion that the scientific community would accept,” Negroponte
said. “We’d have to start with a new village and make a clean start.”


Don't hold your breath. That won't happen. The real discussion should focus
on the most effective ways of teaching kids who don't have the 3Rs about
how to acquire them.


On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Helen Harper <helen.harper@bigpond.com>wrote:

> 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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