Una entrada cañera acerca de la enseñanza de la informática en general (no para los informáticos) y lo que se puede escuchar en estos días en Dumbing Down.

Remarco algunas frases llamativas:

Sobre el cambio de informática (computación) por el de tecnología, TIC y similares, que encierran efectos perversos relacionados con el alejamiento de la cosa en sí (¿cuántas veces hemos escuchado a alguien decir que sabe informática porque se apaña un poco con la configuración de algo o usa algunas herramientas de manera más o menos eficaz?):

Things sped downhill when we removed "computing" from our lexicon and replaced it with "technology" (like a Pez dispenser or Thermos). We quickly degraded that meaningless term, technology, further by modifying it with IT and ICT. Once computing was officially erased from the education of young people, teachers could focus on keyboarding, chatting, looking stuff up, labeling the parts of the computer and making PowerPoint presentations about topics you don't care about for an audience you will never meet. The over-reliance on the Internet and the unreliability of school networks ensures that you can spend half of each class period just logging-in.

Sobre la falta de capacitación de los profes:

Teachers with post-graduate degrees are being compelled to receive iPad training. My 95 year-old grandmother figured it out all by herself. No tax dollars were harmed in the process. Apparently, we also need to provide teachers with interactive white board training so they may hung unused in their classroom, just like all of their peers.

Esta la veo algo injusta, porque el ser capaz de utilizar las herramientas no significa necesariamente que se sea capaz de utilizarlas para enseñar a otros algo.

Por supuesto, enseñar a la gente a tener un blog, o a usar el Twitter, etc. no es informática y probablemente no debería enseñarse en el colegio (¿tal vez usarse y ya?):

I am sorry, but social media is not a school subject. There are conference workshops on using Twitter and masters degrees in educational technology that culminate in a rap about hashtags. If social media is any damned good, it needs to be as complex and reliable as a dial-tone. PLN, PLC, PLP, etc... are just fancy alphabet soup for having someone to talk with. We should not need an National Science Foundation grant to make friends.

Sobre los profesores que utilizan ordenadores, si rebajando las expectativas la cosa no está mejorando, ¿no sería mejor ser más exigente?:

If the percentage of teachers using computers remains constant over time, regardless of how we lower expectations, shouldn't we ask a great deal more of them and set our sights higher?

E insiste sobre el valor de la enseñanza de meras herramientas:

If you have the audacity to speak of digital literacy or technology literacy and do not teach computer science, then this is the first time in the history of education when the functional definition of "literacy" has been so devalued, diminished and degraded. All other expectations for literacy increase over time.

La polémica está servida. ¿Cómo lo ven?

Etiquetas: informática, enseñanza, aprendizaje, educación, word, blog, rebajar, expectativas, saber, menos