Re: The survival of settings
David Dirlam (ddirlam who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Mon, 22 Sep 1997 17:47:38 -0700 (PDT)
On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Graham Nuthall wrote:
> Does any one else experience the same control-by-setting frustration? Must
> I change to email/internet connected classes to get the freedom that good
> teaching requires?
> Graham
>
I had a problem of this sort in a new computer lab. When it was
installed, people didn't bother to think how it would be used and set it
up in the typical classroom style used since at least the days of Ur --
benches for students to face frontward and look at the professor. The
trouble is that besides having to holler over the roar of 24 unison disk
drives and fans, I can't see what the students are doing.
Bonnie Nardi's beautiful little *A small matter of programming*
describes the emergence of *gardeners* within worksites that have
*programming communities of cooperating users*. The gardeners are
productivity growers -- supporting other community members so that they
can be as effective as possible. I had performed that function for
several small manufacturers for most of the 1980's before returning to
college life.
When I decided to use the computer laboratory to teach
psychological data analysis, I planned to do it in the same gardening
fashion. But the furniture arrangement turned me into a blind gardener. By
the time I figured out which were the weeds (somebody hopelessly stuck on
a minor detail that I could easily have fixed), I had crushed the flowers
(somebody having a new insight about their own or one of their classmates
research data). I asked the lab manager if the benches could at least be
turned into columns, but found that the wiring had been embedded in the
floor so that it would cost the price of several computers to change it.
My only solution is to wander back and forth from the computer in front of
the room that displays my input to the back of the room where I can see
what the students are doing. I wonder how I could convince the community
that it would be worth the price...
David