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

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Yes, all of that seems perfectly likely. But in so far as the children
actually engage with visual/motion/sound simulations that the buttons
produce, might they become involved in a process of meaning making that
could
have, as one of its outcomes, the ability to read this message?

I really think we have no idea. The idea that the kind of literacy embodied
in this message could disappear and be replaced by some other, "more
adaptive" semiotic system is at least wrong and perhaps dangerous.
But we are seeing all sorts of hybridity arise.

This brings us back to the role of INSTRUCTION (Obuchenie) in the
acquisition of the ability to read and write an alphabetic language. We
know that the process ordinarily begins near, or around, the major
bio-social-behavioral shift associated with losing front teeth. Up to now
such instruction comes in packages called "classes" and in those classroom
events, face to face, paper and pencil and chalk in hand, And there, a
microgenetic process of change-in-interaction occurs.

People seem pretty well agreed that something important changes between the
ages of 5-7 (roughly) around the world, except in cases of extreme lack of
normal environmental support. That counts as development.

So I have been trying to focus down on the level of what happens in those
events with respect to the process of obuchenie, teaching/learning. At this
level, which seems to encompass the temporal scale of microgeneis, is there
change we would also call develoment, or not.

If not, then it seems to me that the notion of a Zone of Proximal
Development is an oxymoron.

I believe that Werner had a way of trying to resolve this problem that Joe
has tried to educate us in. I am unsure of its application, say, to the
process of acquiring an alphabetic written language. Would it change our
modes of instruction? My guess is yes, but I am not sure how.

Anyway, its interesting to observe how the young appropriate the artifacts
we encompass them in. That process might also be thought about with respect
to obuchnie.
mike

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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