Basically one very powerful message: since Moore's Law promises to make today's innovation outdated very quickly, don't focus on today's changes, but on longer term educational benefits, and hang loose, expect change, don't sign long term contracts!
This link has been bookmarked by 15 people . It was first bookmarked on 13 Nov 2008, by John Travers.
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19 Jun 14
renabp25We're far more likely to make demonstrable, valuable improvements in outcomes if we focus on all the needed ingredients, not just the technology and if we develop strategies that respect the fact that it takes longer to make such improvements than any one technology can last.
education technology staffdevelopment professionalreading schooldevelopment
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09 Aug 12
Catherine Hillmancited in an ATS vision document for expanding Faculty Development
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20 May 10
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17 May 09
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Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
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Whether you are in1968, 1988, or 2008, only twelve to eighteen months “ago” computer chips were only half as powerful. Twelve to eighteen months from “now,” they will be twice as powerful. That's Moore's Law.
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Moore's Law is real, and there is no way to completely escape the battering. The world's use of technology will continue to change, and if we tried to ignore that fact, we'd be making the biggest mistake of all: allowing education to fall behind the world in which its students must live.
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educational outcomes take far longer to improve than the likely lifespan of a single generation of technology. Therefore, if an institution or a nation is to make educational and technological progress, its technological choices must to some degree be subordinated to some long-term educational priorities.
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27 Mar 09
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18 Nov 08
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17 Nov 08
Debra HicksA Counter-Intuitive Strategy for Using IT to Improve
The Outcomes of Higher Education -
Melanie HughesTechnology Changes Quickly But Education Changes Slowly. A Counter-Intuitive Strategy for Using IT to Improve The Outcomes of Higher Education by
Stephen C. Ehrmann, Ph.D.
Vice-President, The TLT Group
Director, The Flashlight Programeducation ICT-research ICT articles technology web2.0 for:metaljar for:paulinel
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14 Nov 08
Salli-Jane Campbellcounter argument about why technology is not transforming the education system
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Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
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Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
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Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
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Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
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Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
-
Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
-
Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
-
Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
-
Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
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Three Reasons Educational Outcomes Often Don't Improve as a Result of IT Investments
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Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
-
Confusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement). As a result, when too much attention is invested in just one ingredient and, when initial improvement results are disappointing, the response has usually been to buy a newer, better version of the treasured ingredient while continuing to ignore the rest of the recipe.
-
Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes. Thus, long before outcomes improve, new technologies begin distracting attention from the “old” improvement agenda. Worse, course materials and skills developed for (what is now) old technology may not fit the new technology.
-
Trying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware. It's an educational recipes that has been tried (and failed) with almost every new technology of the last four decades.
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13 Nov 08
John TraversThoughtful, intelligent, funny and perceptive story of why technology often fails in education. Focus is on higher learning course ware delivery, but the basic message applies across education, and explains why we are so frustrated!
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A Counter-Intuitive Strategy for Using IT to Improve
The Outcomes of Higher Education -
Add Sticky Note
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Fantastic summary, John! Thanks
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Add Sticky NoteConfusing one ingredient (technology) with the whole recipe (educational improvement).
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The arrival of a new application is constantly alluring and allows one to feel that the previous failure will be overcome by this new tool.
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Forgetting that the life span of many new technologies is far shorter than the time it takes to implement that recipe for improving educational outcomes.
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Add Sticky NoteTrying to improve outcomes and save money by using tutorials and other forms self-paced, branching courseware.
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This is the big problem surely, that failed pedagogy is at the heart of many innovations. I remember my father, a headmaster, being fascinated in the early '60s by the new program learning in book form from the Ford Foundation.
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Even worse, rapture of the technology leads people to believe that, each time technology changes, the experiences of the past become irrelevant. Who needs to learn about 35 years of past experience with educational uses of technology now that we have the World Wide Web? Isn’t that history of success and failure now irrelevant? For this reason, and because so many new people are drawn in by each new technology, rapture of technology creates a kind of amnesia.
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Add Sticky NoteMoore's Law, unfortunately, is a double-edged sword.
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a huge problem for implementing software or hardware focused innovation: illustrates the value of focusing on long term trends rather than specific tools and techniques.
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Add Sticky Notea small pedagogical step backward precedes the larger step forward.
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Old technology like editing newspapers had a long traditional expertise that is much more polished than the new technology practitioners.
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Such courseware only works well in areas where learning can be organized into chunks, and sequences of chunks, and where answers can be predicted and marked right/wrong
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But so far, as a means of improving the outcomes of a higher education on a national scale, interactive courseware has proved to be a mirage, always imminent, never quite here.
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The real costs, however, come from the time it takes humans to conceive, design and debug all those branching educational pathways: the more branches, the greater the pedagogical complexity of the task.
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So instead of triggering an educational revolution in its discipline, the award-winning version 1.0 of the courseware fades away. Of course new interactive courseware will spring up, designed from the start for the new generation of technology. But it's often so different from the old courseware that everyone must start over or stop using interactive courseware. Many choose this second option.
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The single most important message of this essay is that educational outcomes take far longer to improve than the likely lifespan of a single generation of technology.
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However, looking at forty years of waste and frustration may stiffen our resolve.
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Public Stiky Notes
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