Education BETA 2
Sometimes it seems to me that the use of so-called “Modern technology” has become a kind of fetish of our educational system - a useless subject, and in the form in which it is used - just harmful, but, nevertheless, constantly disturbing the minds of people in power, and not very.
Although, in its pure form, I have encountered “modern technologies” in education twice in my life, but, as they say, face to face, I have experienced in my own skin all the charm of “innovative trends”, their positive and negative sides.
Everyone is aware of the benefits of using interactive and multimedia technologies in the learning process. This includes enhancing the involvement of pupils and students in the educational process, and increasing the digestibility of the material through the use of visual models, real-time process modeling (take at least the same notorious Phun) and interactive maps, and the ability to work with rapidly changing sources. Everything is fine, no doubt. However, look at what we have in real life.
But in real life, interactive and multimedia technologies turn into those same “modern technologies”, over which a semitransparent skeleton with a scythe, whose name is PowerPoint, hovers.
I don’t know who was the first to use PowerPoint to organize “modern” classes, but without a doubt, this person should have been killed in a gas chamber after having been shot three times.
My own experience with such “innovative” trends is sad to the point of horror. At our university, we had a whole course of lectures using "modern technology." It looked like this: students, having read lecture material at home (which was all printed in a special book, is broken up by lecture and numbered), at the designated hour they come to the audience, where they watch the lecturer reading poorly opened PowerPoint slides for an hour and a half. You can’t come to the lecture - attendance is strictly controlled by the method of answering the control questions that are given to the teacher at the end of the lecture, and no one has the desire to hand over the material thus read.
But the innovation process cannot be stopped, and after a semester of such disgrace, in the second semester a new fetish appeared, called Smart-board and flipcharts. Smart-board (if someone is not in the know, this is a board that supports feedback) was used to be the screen on which the PowerPoint presentation is projected, and flipcharts have replaced handwritten tests. To do this, each student was given a control panel with six buttons for a pass (so as not to be stolen), and the game "who wants to become a millionaire" began. Students had to read the test questions that were projected onto the very Smart board and press the buttons corresponding to the correct answer options. Naturally, because of the crookedly written software that interacted with the consoles (which on Vista worked only under a super admin, and apparently was built
In the end, it should be noted that the lecturer in question was the head of the department of innovative technologies in education, in that particular university. Again, in the fifth round, stamping and PowerPoint defeats progress and common sense by knockout. Clear victory.
Oddly enough, I do not at all affirm that PowerPoint is evil in the flesh. He has his own niche in which he successfully applies. But for its use in education should be shot, and that's why.
Education (especially high school and primary - secondary school can still be put on stream, but with reservations) - a creative process. If the goal is to teach a person, then one should follow his needs, questions, and how he perceives the material. Many times I saw how teachers on the go changed the lecture plan when I saw that the students' reaction was different from the planned one. An ordinary board paired with chalk (or even a felt-tip pen, which is also now considered an innovation) allows such a move.
PowerPoint - no. It sets a rigid plan for the supply of material, and any variation becomes physically impossible. Even if you are a talented lecturer and feel the audience inwardly, PowerPoint binds you hand and foot, inserting a gag in your mouth, and you become a speech synthesizer attached to the presentation. You can’t stop at any point in the lecture and explain it in more detail - you don’t have the necessary means for this, you are forced to perceive by ear, and this is difficult.
In addition, building a good presentation is also an art. Unfortunately, the level of computer literacy among teachers is often very low, and the age of many does not make it so easy to master new material. New cadres do not correct the situation - at the courses of innovative technologies in education (there are some) they are taught the same thing - how to make a presentation in PowerPoint and conduct a lesson on it. A step to the right, a step to the left - an attempt to escape, a jump in place - an attempt to take off. University teachers still have some freedom in this regard, they are free to give lectures as they please, and school teachers are squeezed within the strict control framework of the department of education, which simply does not understand why children play games and watch in the classroom cartoons, not a presentation.
Innovation policy cannot be entrusted to people with template thinking. Now, the innovation policy in education is reminiscent of nailing with a spectrum analyzer - everyone understands that a spectrum analyzer is cool and should be used, but for some reason they use it in the most inappropriate way.
The same problem is with the teaching of computer science at school. Everyone understands that computer science is important, but no one knows what to teach children. To programming? Yes, the basics should be taught (as well as the basics of biology, chemistry and physics, why is computer science worse?), But for this there must be a qualified teacher with knowledge of the language (which is rare in itself). General literacy? There are so many copies broken between the proponents of the industrial approach (to teach what they will work with later, that is, Windows and Microsoft Office, although Linux and OpenOffice are gaining more and more popularity) and the proponents of comprehensive development (which for some reason only means Linux and OpenSource, although on Windows no one bothers you to fully develop), and it seems to me - the parties will never agree with this approach, because they forget about the child and his interests, and only think about how to drag more people to their camp. Or maybe, really, you should teach children how to write queries on Google and the rules of behavior on the Web? Ethics lessons were thrown out of the school curriculum, and as experience in communicating on forums scored by 14-year-old children shows in vain.
This is a slight digression. I return to the topic of the modern approach to education.
Ideally, the lecture process using “innovative technologies” should be structured as follows.
The teacher comes to the audience, opens a laptop, where he has a set of materials prepared for the lecture (models, graphs, slides, applications) in which he is fluent. He begins to give a lecture, projecting certain materials from his collection onto the blackboard, skillfully wielding a marker, puts emphasis on various lecture points. By the reaction of the audience, he determines the level of perception with the material, and on the move changes the lecture plan, revealing either materials that are designed to facilitate students' perception of the material difficult for them, or, conversely, shows additional interesting models designed to arouse people's curiosity about the lecture topics. If a student asks a particularly interesting question - the teacher does not hesitate to get into Google, find an article on this topic and understand the problem, or postpone the discussion until the consultation or the next lecture (if the subject matter is non-core, or the lecturer is not aware of the question asked). Students observe on the board not only definitions and static drawings (which are also important), but also dynamic models and video clips.
Here, the most important condition is the lecturer's lively thinking and his interest in this topic. That is, innovation will have to raise enthusiasts. This is normal, in principle, it has always been so. The main thing is that something good and useful should not be crushed in the bud by the education department.
However, for now, these are dreams. Although, maybe someone present here will someday be faced with the need to teach, or will go to teach people of their own free will, and my article will prompt a person to think about how to do it in order to teach people, and not in order to deliver a check mark opposite the line “budget development allocated to innovative technologies”.
Mandatory set of notes:
Although, in its pure form, I have encountered “modern technologies” in education twice in my life, but, as they say, face to face, I have experienced in my own skin all the charm of “innovative trends”, their positive and negative sides.
Everyone is aware of the benefits of using interactive and multimedia technologies in the learning process. This includes enhancing the involvement of pupils and students in the educational process, and increasing the digestibility of the material through the use of visual models, real-time process modeling (take at least the same notorious Phun) and interactive maps, and the ability to work with rapidly changing sources. Everything is fine, no doubt. However, look at what we have in real life.
But in real life, interactive and multimedia technologies turn into those same “modern technologies”, over which a semitransparent skeleton with a scythe, whose name is PowerPoint, hovers.
I don’t know who was the first to use PowerPoint to organize “modern” classes, but without a doubt, this person should have been killed in a gas chamber after having been shot three times.
My own experience with such “innovative” trends is sad to the point of horror. At our university, we had a whole course of lectures using "modern technology." It looked like this: students, having read lecture material at home (which was all printed in a special book, is broken up by lecture and numbered), at the designated hour they come to the audience, where they watch the lecturer reading poorly opened PowerPoint slides for an hour and a half. You can’t come to the lecture - attendance is strictly controlled by the method of answering the control questions that are given to the teacher at the end of the lecture, and no one has the desire to hand over the material thus read.
But the innovation process cannot be stopped, and after a semester of such disgrace, in the second semester a new fetish appeared, called Smart-board and flipcharts. Smart-board (if someone is not in the know, this is a board that supports feedback) was used to be the screen on which the PowerPoint presentation is projected, and flipcharts have replaced handwritten tests. To do this, each student was given a control panel with six buttons for a pass (so as not to be stolen), and the game "who wants to become a millionaire" began. Students had to read the test questions that were projected onto the very Smart board and press the buttons corresponding to the correct answer options. Naturally, because of the crookedly written software that interacted with the consoles (which on Vista worked only under a super admin, and apparently was built
In the end, it should be noted that the lecturer in question was the head of the department of innovative technologies in education, in that particular university. Again, in the fifth round, stamping and PowerPoint defeats progress and common sense by knockout. Clear victory.
Oddly enough, I do not at all affirm that PowerPoint is evil in the flesh. He has his own niche in which he successfully applies. But for its use in education should be shot, and that's why.
Education (especially high school and primary - secondary school can still be put on stream, but with reservations) - a creative process. If the goal is to teach a person, then one should follow his needs, questions, and how he perceives the material. Many times I saw how teachers on the go changed the lecture plan when I saw that the students' reaction was different from the planned one. An ordinary board paired with chalk (or even a felt-tip pen, which is also now considered an innovation) allows such a move.
PowerPoint - no. It sets a rigid plan for the supply of material, and any variation becomes physically impossible. Even if you are a talented lecturer and feel the audience inwardly, PowerPoint binds you hand and foot, inserting a gag in your mouth, and you become a speech synthesizer attached to the presentation. You can’t stop at any point in the lecture and explain it in more detail - you don’t have the necessary means for this, you are forced to perceive by ear, and this is difficult.
In addition, building a good presentation is also an art. Unfortunately, the level of computer literacy among teachers is often very low, and the age of many does not make it so easy to master new material. New cadres do not correct the situation - at the courses of innovative technologies in education (there are some) they are taught the same thing - how to make a presentation in PowerPoint and conduct a lesson on it. A step to the right, a step to the left - an attempt to escape, a jump in place - an attempt to take off. University teachers still have some freedom in this regard, they are free to give lectures as they please, and school teachers are squeezed within the strict control framework of the department of education, which simply does not understand why children play games and watch in the classroom cartoons, not a presentation.
Innovation policy cannot be entrusted to people with template thinking. Now, the innovation policy in education is reminiscent of nailing with a spectrum analyzer - everyone understands that a spectrum analyzer is cool and should be used, but for some reason they use it in the most inappropriate way.
The same problem is with the teaching of computer science at school. Everyone understands that computer science is important, but no one knows what to teach children. To programming? Yes, the basics should be taught (as well as the basics of biology, chemistry and physics, why is computer science worse?), But for this there must be a qualified teacher with knowledge of the language (which is rare in itself). General literacy? There are so many copies broken between the proponents of the industrial approach (to teach what they will work with later, that is, Windows and Microsoft Office, although Linux and OpenOffice are gaining more and more popularity) and the proponents of comprehensive development (which for some reason only means Linux and OpenSource, although on Windows no one bothers you to fully develop), and it seems to me - the parties will never agree with this approach, because they forget about the child and his interests, and only think about how to drag more people to their camp. Or maybe, really, you should teach children how to write queries on Google and the rules of behavior on the Web? Ethics lessons were thrown out of the school curriculum, and as experience in communicating on forums scored by 14-year-old children shows in vain.
This is a slight digression. I return to the topic of the modern approach to education.
Ideally, the lecture process using “innovative technologies” should be structured as follows.
The teacher comes to the audience, opens a laptop, where he has a set of materials prepared for the lecture (models, graphs, slides, applications) in which he is fluent. He begins to give a lecture, projecting certain materials from his collection onto the blackboard, skillfully wielding a marker, puts emphasis on various lecture points. By the reaction of the audience, he determines the level of perception with the material, and on the move changes the lecture plan, revealing either materials that are designed to facilitate students' perception of the material difficult for them, or, conversely, shows additional interesting models designed to arouse people's curiosity about the lecture topics. If a student asks a particularly interesting question - the teacher does not hesitate to get into Google, find an article on this topic and understand the problem, or postpone the discussion until the consultation or the next lecture (if the subject matter is non-core, or the lecturer is not aware of the question asked). Students observe on the board not only definitions and static drawings (which are also important), but also dynamic models and video clips.
Here, the most important condition is the lecturer's lively thinking and his interest in this topic. That is, innovation will have to raise enthusiasts. This is normal, in principle, it has always been so. The main thing is that something good and useful should not be crushed in the bud by the education department.
However, for now, these are dreams. Although, maybe someone present here will someday be faced with the need to teach, or will go to teach people of their own free will, and my article will prompt a person to think about how to do it in order to teach people, and not in order to deliver a check mark opposite the line “budget development allocated to innovative technologies”.
Mandatory set of notes:
- My first post
- No karma, I can not write to a specialized blog
- Yes, utopia, but something needs to be changed. While there are only strategic goals, I would like tactical