I agree with the essence of your posting, that students should not be held
back from participating in meaningful projects and are both fun and
rewarding. I would add, however, that it sure would be helpful if a
student could type 30-50 words a minute. I don't think you are saying that
there should be no comp literacy training in a lab situation, (but if you
are, let me know), but it would seem more appropriate to have students
learn relevant and necessary comp lit skills before attempting to
participate in a complex computer-based project, whether it be e-mail or
multimedia authoring. I don't think many teachers in the subject areas are
going to have the time, patience nor the know-how to train each student in
the ways of their particular computer application.
In a book, "Teachers and Machines" by Larry Cuban, he pointed out that
teachers have been willing to adopt technological innovations in the
classroom, but ones that were "simple, durable, flexible, and responsive to
teacher-defined problems in meeting the demands of daily instruction". He
went on to say that movies, radio, and TV usually required a lot of set up
work, preparation and scheduling, and did not mesh with lesson plans. IMHO,
it seems that if computer lit skills are relegated to the classroom, then
they will not be integrated with the daily curriculum.
This training would be best served in a lab with a distinct amount of time
devoted to learning and practicing the skill (however, not to the point of
brain-dead boredom).
Finally, I don't know how business does it, but I don't think a business
would train its workers at their own desktop how to type or use Word
Perfect.
Looking forward to continuing discussion,
Brad
Brad Pearl, M.Ed. mailto:bpearl@airmail.net
Spanish and Computer Plano Independent School District
Literacy Teacher Texas
Home: (214) 423-3855 School: (214) 519-8886 x6271
http://members.aol.com/BradEdTrek/main.html
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