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Old 09-28-2015, 04:06 AM
 
3,167 posts, read 3,983,007 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest View Post
Yes. That's what you do in college. You read opposing arguments, discuss them, develop a coherent view supported by empirical evidence and present on it. By the time you've completed your undergrad, you've done it hundreds of times. At which point your ready for the real world where you present original arguments in a peer reviewed fashion.
What undergrad school does that?? I don't know a single adult with a college education who has any ability at all to do that, and I teach undergraduates, and I can say for sure that they have no ability to do this, nor do most develop it during their 4 years of college. And "hundreds" of times? The average undergraduate writes, at best, a couple of papers a semester, which means they might have attempted to do this a handful of times before graduation.

And presenting original argument in a peer reviewed fashion? Seriously? I have only seen this done among PhDs in academia. Never in the real world. Even in the education field - perhaps most of all in the education field - nothing is decided on the basis of empirical evidence, and no one knows how to evaluate those arguments anyway.
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Old 09-28-2015, 04:48 AM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,650,599 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post
Well, yes, but I was asking a bit more.

Are we teaching college students so they can can walk into a room where an exercise is going on and take notes of what happened? Can they go to a conference where during a workshop, not only do they take notes, but they have understood it enough to be able to ask the presenter questions afterwards? Can I send them to a country where religion prohibits certain technologies and I need them to come back with a report of what is going on there?

Are we teaching students to be able to go out into the world and come back with useable information?
What religions prevents the use of PowerPoint?
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Old 09-28-2015, 04:53 AM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,650,599 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mnseca View Post
What undergrad school does that?? I don't know a single adult with a college education who has any ability at all to do that, and I teach undergraduates, and I can say for sure that they have no ability to do this, nor do most develop it during their 4 years of college. And "hundreds" of times? The average undergraduate writes, at best, a couple of papers a semester, which means they might have attempted to do this a handful of times before graduation.

And presenting original argument in a peer reviewed fashion? Seriously? I have only seen this done among PhDs in academia. Never in the real world. Even in the education field - perhaps most of all in the education field - nothing is decided on the basis of empirical evidence, and no one knows how to evaluate those arguments anyway.
I went to plain old Rurgers and we did it what he described regularly if not hundreds of times. Now it even has a mandatory class where students write position papers for the entire semester.

We mostly did it during discussion in classes. Every week in my environmental politics class we would have reading in a new topic pick a side, stage a debate and then be expected to write up both sides while showing which one was correct and why. Actually, we had several classes throughout my undergrad in oceanography that relied on this method at least in part. Maybe it is a function of what degree you pursue?
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Old 09-28-2015, 05:36 AM
 
Location: Texas Hill Country
23,504 posts, read 13,740,491 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
What religions prevents the use of PowerPoint?
You're missing the point.

It's not about going somewhere and writing up the report in PowerPoint; it's about being able to go here or there and transfer what one sees, what one hears, what one experiences into notes and then into a report to bring back to their superiors.

Now, one might say, "Well, I'll use my smart phone or tablet and record the entire thing." That's where a religion may prevent the use of such devices. It happened in the 70's in Saudi Arabia when the products of companies that supported Israel were not allowed in country. Hence, one could have Pepsi but not Coke, Chevrolet but not Ford (may have those details reversed, it was a long time ago). In the book
K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit (Adventure Press): Heidi Howkins: 9780792279969: Amazon.com: Books ,
Heidi Howkins mentions at one point how her radio telephone was forbidden in a country she was passing through (she fooled customs by duping them that she was just carrying replacement parts).

It's about whether or not college students, as they sit in this or that lecture learning about this or that subject, are actually learning how to be someplace outside the classroom and receive, process, and report on the information they experience.
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Old 09-28-2015, 09:04 AM
 
3,613 posts, read 4,095,077 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth View Post
Seriously, Powerpoint is a bogeyman, now? Educators have always used visual aids: overhead projectors, slide shows, and the like. I don't recall there being any public outcry about that. Is this part of some anti-technology thing?

Much ado about nothing.
Exactly!! We had overheads starting back when I was in elementary school. Teachers wrote bullet points, drew graphs, added data to the film and we looked at those while listing to the teacher. How is a Powerpoint any different???
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Old 09-28-2015, 09:07 AM
 
3,613 posts, read 4,095,077 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mnseca View Post
What undergrad school does that?? I don't know a single adult with a college education who has any ability at all to do that, and I teach undergraduates, and I can say for sure that they have no ability to do this, nor do most develop it during their 4 years of college. And "hundreds" of times? The average undergraduate writes, at best, a couple of papers a semester, which means they might have attempted to do this a handful of times before graduation.

And presenting original argument in a peer reviewed fashion? Seriously? I have only seen this done among PhDs in academia. Never in the real world. Even in the education field - perhaps most of all in the education field - nothing is decided on the basis of empirical evidence, and no one knows how to evaluate those arguments anyway.
Really???? Your school doesn't do this? My college was doing this back in the Caveman days when I was there. Maybe that is the difference between a good 4 year college and a community college where you teach???? 100's of times might be an exaggeration, but I know we wrote far more than a couple papers each semester, I know our current college aged children write a couple papers/week between their classes, some only a couple pages, other 10+ pages.
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Old 09-28-2015, 07:13 PM
 
11,573 posts, read 12,590,322 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
Have you seen a small child use an ipad? It is nearly native.

I was taught doceri by an elementary school teacher who used it with great success in 2nd grade. Anyway, if it works for your kids great.

My point is and remains, a smartboard is not inherently better than powerpoint as either a software or hardware and as a system has rivals that maybe both more intuitive and more open to other uses.
The kids that I work with are much younger than 2nd grade. They cannot read. No, they cannot use an Ipad. By the way, I am also a technologist. Last year, I worked on a project for an Edtech company who was in the process of designing a tablet, like kindle, for toddlers and preschoolers, who do not have the coordination to independently use traditional tablets and are also more likely to break them because they are fairly delicate. The smartboard makes a great center because 3-5 children can work together on a sorting activity or counting activity or one of the many notebooks available for download for that age. Many teachers do not realize all of the uses for interactive whiteboards and tend to use them for slideshows with or without animation and for writing on them with the pens or smartink. BTW, they are great for little children because they can "write" on them with their finger.
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Old 09-28-2015, 09:44 PM
 
11,573 posts, read 12,590,322 times
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Originally Posted by Qwerty View Post
Really???? Your school doesn't do this? My college was doing this back in the Caveman days when I was there. Maybe that is the difference between a good 4 year college and a community college where you teach???? 100's of times might be an exaggeration, but I know we wrote far more than a couple papers each semester, I know our current college aged children write a couple papers/week between their classes, some only a couple pages, other 10+ pages.

That has been my experience as well.
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Old 09-28-2015, 09:58 PM
 
24,488 posts, read 41,016,315 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post
Well, yes, but I was asking a bit more.

Are we teaching college students so they can can walk into a room where an exercise is going on and take notes of what happened?
No. That happens in K-12. There's little or no focus on that in college.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post
Can they go to a conference where during a workshop, not only do they take notes, but they have understood it enough to be able to ask the presenter questions afterwards?
In college, yes. College students spend a lot of time doing just that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post
Can I send them to a country where religion prohibits certain technologies and I need them to come back with a report of what is going on there?
That's a very specific example. After receiving a college education, they would be able to accomplish that. During college, they would have similar experiences at least a few times, but not necessarily the specific one you outlined.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah View Post

Are we teaching students to be able to go out into the world and come back with useable information?
Absolutely. But not just that. They learn how to present it and obtain feedback from experts and peers.
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Old 09-28-2015, 09:58 PM
 
11,573 posts, read 12,590,322 times
Reputation: 15686
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qwerty View Post
Exactly!! We had overheads starting back when I was in elementary school. Teachers wrote bullet points, drew graphs, added data to the film and we looked at those while listing to the teacher. How is a Powerpoint any different???
I agree. These visuals have been around for decades and serve the same purpose. If you are only going to use PP to write bullet points and text on a slide, it's silly because you could write the same information on a big piece of paper in a lot less time to make one slide. But Powerpoint is useful for creating slides with original graphs and charts because that is faster to do in either Excel and then importing that to PP or if you have a simpler graph, just creating it on PP. Real computer scientists, not fake-tech hipsters, know that for certain purposes and functions of computer use, the rule is to keep things simple or stripped down with as few unnecessary complications, as per the preference for use of a Linux OS. They even use, gasp, a pencil and a piece of paper to plan their basic design and applications first.
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