[Edu-sig] An OLPC comment ("Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools")

[Arthur]

Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> Personally I'm not into Waldorf education as a big picture, but I like a 
> lot of the parts, especially their stand against media for young kids. I'd 
> say the same about the Montessori method too (the other big well known 
> alternative).

How did we get to Waldorf??/

Interesting.

The Alliance for Childhood is, I believe, affiliated

"""
New report says government and high-tech industry foist expensive and 
unproven technology on schools, hurting children and undermining real 
technology literacy
"""

http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/projects/computers/index.htm

Looking for friends, I had just (like yesterday) reached out to a 
technology writer whose work I admire, and who I believe, is influenced 
by some of the thinking coming out of the Steiner folks.

As it happens, I have admired and studied some of the work on projective 
geometry that somehow Steiner's thinking has provoked.

OTOH, (and as I related to the writer who I reached out to) when this 
provoked me into attempting to read Steiner directly, I ran into a 
jaw-dropping no go.  Not for me.

Art


> And then of course there is bablefish automatic translator,
>     http://babelfish.altavista.com/
> though it is obviously an awkward mechanical translation:
> http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=en_de&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.johntaylorgatto.com
> [That link translates a page on Gatto's site from English to German and 
> continues to translate as you click on links; it breaks sometimes]
> See also:
> http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=en_de&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.johntaylorgatto.com%2funderground%2findex.htm
> http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=en_de&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.johntaylorgatto.com%2funderground%2ftoc1.htm
> 
> It's really interesting to at least try bablefish; it seems a miracle it 
> works at all; I've used it a couple of times for translating Spanish sites 
> about programming -- it's a funny experience to suddenly have such a site 
> in a different language make (some) sense..
> 
> All the best.
> 
> --Paul Fenrhout
> 
> Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> 
>>Am Jan 18, 2007 um 6:45  schrieb Paul D. Fernhout:
>>
>>
>>> so no matter how cheap you made distributing a
>>>diversity of text books or related educational materials, schools  would
>>>not want any but the standardized ones to be used at the standardized
>>>times. The point of conventional schooling was then ansd still is to
>>>produce a standard graded product, not amplify differences. As I  
>>>point out
>>>in my previously linked essay
>>>      "Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
>>>http://patapata.sourceforge.net/ 
>>>WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
>>>computers linked to the internet have revolutionized just about  every 
>>>area
>>>of life today related to information access and education -- except,
>>>ironically, schooling. I think there is a reason. Schools are  *actively*
>>>in the way of everything the better side of the world wide web  
>>>promises --
>>>diversity, expression, disintermediation, innovation, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>>Hi Paul,
>>
>>I *very* much enjoy reading your thoughts on technology and  education. 
>>I wish they were in German, to be able to show them to  people here ... 
>>Do you know any German writer with similar views?
>>
>>- Bert -
> 
> 
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