“The Flickering Mind”
Posted by Jamin Lietze on October 29, 2007
Every now and then it is good to engage with someone or something that challenges your thinking.
Last term I was asked (along with my colleague) to present to the School BOT on the topic of what a 21st Century Classroom and Learner looked like. During the question time one Trustee asked us “what is the difference between information and knowledge…… Have you read “The Flickering Mind” by Todd Oppenheimer?” Well………..
- Firstly this book is critical of the use of computers in education. It comes out of 3 years of research completed in American Schools.
- He agrees to some “exceptional” use of ICT but believes ICT is often used in excess.
- Click here for the excerpt.
To cut a long story short I want to share my current thoughts after reading this book. These are a collection of positive and negative thoughts on the impact of using ICT in education:
November 1st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I am so proud to be one of the first to comment on your brand new edublog. Welcome to the NZ blogging community.
Thanks also for leaving a comment on our Voicethread.
http://voicethread.com/share/15642/
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November 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for this! It looks like an interesting read.
Amanda
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November 2nd, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Hello and welcome to the edublogosphere. I really enjoyed your summary of the book and was glad to see both positives and negatives. Thanks for this
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November 2nd, 2007 at 11:31 pm
You are definitely on your way to making heavy contributions to the blogosphere conversations. This was a great post!
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November 4th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Hmmm the lure of the “wing dings” is often too great, especially for students in upper primary, luckily this is not too much of a threat for me
A great post to start with Jamin
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November 5th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Hey well done Jamin, great start to your blog. Thanks for inspiring me to read ‘The Flickering Mind’.
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November 10th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Hi there from Wales – A wonderfully thought provoking post, I can see there is going to be a high quality of discussion here – RSS feed (yes).
Regarding The Flickering Mind – I think that from an educational point of view the positives of engagement and collaboration far outweigh the negatives. ~Indeed some of the negatives can be turned into positives – eg while use of the computer may not suit every child’s learning style – not using it will drastically reduce the benefit for those for whom it is a way to free their creativity – we surely need to give opportunity to all pupils to reach their full potential. As for the web being full of opinions – isn’t it our job to allow our pupils to access a range of sources and to react critically to them ??? New technology is by its nature not expensive ( I rarely touch anything in Web 2.0 terms which is going to cost me money. While other sources of information for my pupils certainly do cost.
Thanks for the post – it may well force me to read ‘The Flickering Mind’
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November 12th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
@Paul Harrington ICT definitely brings engagement to a higher level.
A good point about learning styles Paul, we do need to cater for all the children and there are many who thrive using ICT.
I also agree, we need to teach our students to read and be discerning – maybe I was a little hasty with the comment regarding the many opinions on the web. Upon reflection I can see there is also lots of opinion in the library too!
Paul I’m not sure what you meant by “new technology is by its nature not expensive” – you should see our ICT hardware budget!
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