Category Archives: Language

The Myth of the Autodidact

By Ray Watkins | Published: August 23, 2010
Now, don't get me wrong, I think that if information is available more and more people will tend to use it. I love that universities are starting to try to put at least some of their information and course materials out there for the public to use. (Of course, in most cases we, that is, the public, paid for these materials already). Let a hundred flowers blossom, as Mao apparently said. This piece on free online courses ("11 Ways to Find Free Classes Online") shows that there is a lot of this material available now, and more is surely on the way. My only gripe is that too often these sorts of things intersect with two unfortunate...
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Technology and Common Sense

By Ray Watkins | Published: June 14, 2010
We all want that silver bullet for learning. In the movies it's that computer input thing that you watch and quickly absorb the history of a civilization or maybe it's a pill that allows you to instantly speak a language. We all want a short cut but it may be that the more or less laborious process of learning is exactly what makes learning so effective. Our brains may be structured to learn and change slowly, over time, in a a kind of trial and error, or at least non-linear, fashion. Those of us who teach online need to be skeptical when it comes to the latest technological innovation or tool. The hype is usually louder than the reality. A...
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Instant Literacy

By Ray Watkins | Published: April 28, 2010
I enjoyed this piece on Read Write Web ("Do Kids Read Blogs? New Study Aims to Confuse") becuase it does a great job of talking about the various ways that a survey can be designed and or manipulated to make the points that you want to make. In this case, it's BlogHer and iVillage 's apparent desire to make blogs seem younger and so, presumably, more marketable, than what was recently reported by Pew Internet. What I find most interesting, though, is the way these debates illustrate the role of consumerism on new communication technologies. In a general sense, blogs became the "thing" a few years back and as such were used to illustrate that these new technologies...
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Teaching as Working at Home

By Ray Watkins | Published: April 21, 2010
A colleague sent me a link to this New York Times piece ("Debunking the Myths of the Telecommute") about telecommuting. It's an interesting comparison to my own working-at-home teaching. There are a lot of similarities: the writer and I both use lists, and we both try to respond to our colleagues and bosses promptly. There are some real differences too. I don't care if my neighbors see me walking around in shorts and a t-shirt all day (my pajamas) and I don't begin the day by taking a shower, exactly as if I were going into an office. I might do that, though, if I didn't live alone. My days are structured by meals and exercise and...
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It’s the Inequity, Stupid

By Ray Watkins | Published: April 19, 2010
Doug Henwood has a great interview with Diane Ravitch about her new book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education." (I am once again catching up on podcasts.) Ravitch basically repeats what's more or less common sense among people who study education: it's not bad teachers, or the unions, or not teaching the basics that's so damaging to public education. It's the inequity, stupid. A school's potential impact on a child's learning is dependent on certain preconditions. If you are poor, not well fed, don't have good medical care, etc. you won't do very well. Duh. Of course, what's so horrific is that instead of dealing...
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The Next Technological Fix

By Ray Watkins | Published: March 31, 2010
I bought my first ''personal computer' in the early 1980s, when my Uncle Benson died and left me a few thousand dollars. (I won't say what I did with the rest of the money.) I've been teaching using PC's since the early 1990s; and full-time people online for the last several years. So I am no Luddite. I have to say, though, that I am beginning to get tired of the successive waves of technological change and the accompanying claims for education. "A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution," is typical of the big claims for technology genre. These arguments always have two main themes. The first claim is that some capability of the...
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