Re: the computers and isolation blues

["Kafkaz" <kafkaz@xxxxxxxx>]

Oh, sure. And if you compare the kind of absorbing assignment John Bush
describes to the paper-wad throwing professor's lecture based classroom, I
think it becomes fairly clear that it's also quite likely that students have
been anesthetized and desensitized and not served at all by lectures or by
classrooms in which the only approved role for students is taking
notes--ennui and alienation seem close enough cousins to me for the
relationship to be worth noting with an inquisitive question mark.
Certainly, it also grows increasingly apparent that not everyone enjoys
whatever combination of  inclination, experience, instruction, and support
it took for John to create such an incredible sounding thing.  Under the
circumstances, then, it does seem that judging (sizing up the conditions,
and thinking about both what causes them and what might be done to change
things) is called for, though I certainly *wouldn't* automatically equate
that with "being judgmental"--guess this whole thread is, at the heart of
it, really about quite the reverse.

For instance, one thing I wonder, which is not addressed at all in the short
article that I summarized and responded to, is why teachers who are
frustrated enough to cause the installation of "kill switches" or rules
banning (for gosh sakes) connecting wires are in wired classrooms at all.
Have they no choice in the matter?  Was there no training in how to operate
the available equipment?  No faculty development sessions geared toward
exploring the pedagogical implications?  No support or consideration at all
for "where they're coming from" but simply some directive to wire rooms,
stick unwilling or overwhelmed teachers in them, and then require students
to attend toting laptops?  Something--or rather an whole series of
somethings that hasn't even played itself out, yet--has clearly gone wrong
there.  I'd like to know what, both so I can learn something about what not
to do, and so I can think about how such transitions might be better
facilitated.

(Meanwhile, I will cop to being judgmental about throwing stuff at either
students or their laptops as a strategy for asserting control.  Sounds like
a plumb bad idea to me, and the glee with which at least one professor
reports doing just that *is* disturbing.  How deep must frustration run for
it to reach such proportions?  How have we--me! 'cause I do sometimes feel
personally responsible for such things--managed not to see that, or attempt
to alleviate it?  Conversely, could it be just the sort of thing that *must*
and *should* happen, as Fred Kemp has been known to argue?)

Finally, as I've been saying right along, I do wonder why such stories are
so commonplace, and to what extent those who proselytize about computers in
education are responsible for inadvertently feeding the techgeist in which
those stories thrive.  Susan Dodge, author of this piece, is, according to
her byline, the "Higher Education Reporter" for the _Sun-Times_.  I'm not
familiar enough with her body of work to know whether she carefully balances
pieces like this one with stories about folks like John, Nancy, Lori, or
Ted, but I'm aware enough of overall patterns to guess not.  (Maybe
speculation *is* a bad habit, but I can't seem to break it.) At the very
least, whatever opposite numbers might be out there in the general press
aren't finding their way so predictably into my mailbox.

Kathy at C.O.D.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dorothy and Vince Puma" <snickers@aug.com>

> Does this phraseology mean that you equate "boring" with "alienating"?  I
> assume that there is a difference, if you listen hard enough.  And has it
> occured to you that the professors mentioned in the article may be trying
to
> get the attention of some students who may have been, by and large,
> anaesthetized and desensitized and self-served by the magical mystery
tours
> they've taken though cyberspace?  Perhaps there is less to be judgmental
and
> more to be inquisitive about?


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