Lloyd Davis is doing a great job blogging Podcastcon. So I don’t feel so bad about missing it. This section of his notes on a talk by Milverton Wallace especially caught my eye.
Technologies challenge traditional ways of transmitting knowledge.
Last October he’d just got into podcasting. A friend had a big contract with a south london borough for remedial education. The borough decided they had too many unemployed uneducated kids. So they got loads of hardware and software (even quarkexpress and adobe!) equipped a room with state of the art stuff. Big opening ceremony – everyone there. had a phone call saying kids didn’t turn up for the lectures in this hi-tech wonderland.
Looked again – it’s just another classroom – nice carpets & cool kit, but still a classroom and these kids are those who rebelled against classrooms. That model of encouraging people to learn doesn’t work for a significant minority of kids. Milverton said give ’em ipods so they can hang on the corners pretending to listen to music, but really listening to a maths lesson. Not taken seriously – now closed the facility. An illustration of how difficult it is to get established professionals to accept what’s new and experiment with stuff.
