Robert Mendenhall on Technology in Education

I think this will be my last in this series of blog posts dissecting the 1995 House Committee Hearing on Technology in Education. When I started posting these clips a couple weeks ago my intent was to create a collection of highlights of Seymour Papert's testimony. Fortunately I found many other great clips in this piece from others including Kay, Dede, Goodling and Foley. However, the second two hours a different panel took the floor.

This has been fun revisiting this hearing. It has also been fun to read the comments both on my blog and on Twitter that these clips have spawned. In general it feels like they have sparked a kind of nostalgia in people as if to say, "Oh yeah, that was what we dreamed things would become, wasn't that dream great." I still hold out some hope that the vision of education so clearly articulated by Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and Chris Dede back in 1995 can still come to fruition but worry because to a large extent Dewey and Kilpatrick were saying these things in the first half of the 20th century. Perhaps we are nearing a moment though of transformation that has simply taken a century to come as Pete Reilly suggested on his blog post back in December: Technology Transformation: The Death Valley Bloom (If you have never read this it is definitely worth your while).

I will leave this series with Robert Mendenhall's testimony (from the second panel). Knowing that this was fifteen years ago and knowing what has transpired in education policy since then you have to wonder if the politicians listening to this testimony only honed in on where Mendenhall says we need better standardized tests and ignored everything else.



Here is a list of all clips from this series:

• Chris Dede on School Change
  

• Seymour Papert on what schools of the future might look like
  

• Rep. William Goodling on Curriculum
  

• Papert vs. Shaw on cost of putting computers in schools
  

• Alan Kay & Seymour Papert on teachers as learners vs curriculum implementation
  

• Kay & Papert throw Rep. Lynn Woolsey under the bus
  

• Kay on Motivation, Papert on how schools discriminate against learners, and Dede on social learning
  

• Rep. Mark Foley's reaction to Papert, Kay, Dede, & Shaw

• Seymour Papert on motivation & education research

Weekly Tech Tips - Virtual Guest Speakers

Tech Tip:


Related Links:

• Skype
• Ubiqq
• Wetoku
• DimDim
• Video about Skype
• Cool Cat Teacher Tips for Skype in the Classroom
• 
  
• Inclusion — helping a classmate join the classroom from home
• See Me, Hear Me: Skype in the Classroom
  
• Skype in the Classroom - by Wesley A. Fryer
  
• Classroom Collaboration with Skype

Link Stew:

• Creating our Future: Students speak up about their vision for 21st century learning Speak Up 2009 National Findings
• Google Search Tricks by Tony Vincent on Prezi
• Top 10 Rules for Video Editing
• Sitehoover - Simple to use homepage creator
• Various broadcasts about technology in Education by Steve Collis - Currently on this Ustream channel Steve is broadcasting and recording sessions from ACEC2010
• 5 Fantastic Free iPhone/iPod touch E-book Reader Apps
• Examples of Exemplary PBL Projects
• ISTE's Designing New Spaces for Learning Initiative via David Jakes
• Good sites to use with Interactive Whiteboards
• Video of Steve Anderson's (@web20classroom) TeachMeet Keynote Speech
  
• 
  
• Audacity Tip Sheet
• Touchable Holography (This is by far the most impressive thing I have seen in a while)
  
• 
  
• After Words - Diane Ravitch, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," - Book TV
• scvngr - Create cellphone scavenger hunts
• Eye-Fi Wireless Camera SD Memory at The Photojojo Store Iwant one of these! Wirelessly and automatically downloads your photos from your digital camera to your computer and uploads them to Flickr, Facebook, Walmart, etc. without you doing ANYTHING.
• 2008 MIC Keynote by Bernie Dodge: What Would Dewey Do?
• The Internet in 1969
• Re-Imagining Learning in the 21st Century

Blog Carnival:

• We Learn by Stephen Downes on Half an Hour
• It Was Good Enough for Me by David Warlick on 2¢ Worth
• Can You Get an Education in Spite of School? by Stephen Downes on Stephen's Web
• Standards-Based Grading: Shifts by Mr. Cor­nally o nThink Thank Thunk
• Ani & the iPad or “Much Madness is the Father’s Curse” by Bud Hunt on Bud the Teacher
• Who is Going to Defend 21st Century Skills? by Aaron Eyler on Synthesizing Education
• Essential Skills for 21st Century Survival: Part I: Pattern Recognition by Venessa Miemis on emergent by design
• What Makes a Learning Experience Unbelievably Satisying? By Ben Johnson on Edutopia
• High School 2.0: Can Philadelphia’s School of the Future live up to its name? By Dale Mezzacappa on Educationnext
• Innovative Ideas for Using Cell Phones to Summarize and Take Notes on The Innovative Educator
• LEGO Smart Creativity Contest by Kelly Tenkely on iLearn Technology
  

Seymour Papert on motivation & education research

I love the respect for kids, their ability to understand, & recognize when they are being "duped" Papert expresses here:

Rep. Mark Foley's reaction to Papert, Kay, Dede, & Shaw

Yes, this is the same Mark Foley who resigned in 2006 following a scandal where he allegedly sent sexually explicit instant messages to teenage male Congressional pages. But, don't let that detract you from his words here at the 1995 Congressional Hearing on Technology in Education:

Kay on Motivation, Papert on how schools discriminate against learners, and Dede on social learning #edchat

This is another fantastic clip from the 1995 Congressional Hearing on Technology in Education that is loaded with important points about motivation in learning.

In this clip Alan Kay eloquently describes the Montessori model of education and how the Macintosh OS is a kind of Montessori learning environment. He also highlights how kids want to learn how to do things they find value in and that our schools do not look like places they resemble from any other part of their lives. Part of this problem, he adds, is they don't see their teachers learning and if they did they might be more motivated as well.

Seymour Papert jumps in to add that our traditional school model is well suited for only a minority kind of learner and that this model discriminates against students who learn differently. He goes on to speculate that with time congress might see this as a human rights issue and declare that schools violate a basic human right by discriminating on the basis of learning style.

At the end of this clip Chris Dede jumps in to add that learning is also social and highlights the ability for computers to foster activities of collaboration and communication. His statements sound like he was describing today's social networks.



Well, that's all I have time for tonight. Stay tuned, when I have a little more time I will try to get through the remaining 170 minutes of this hearing.