{"id":2922,"date":"2010-12-25T14:08:09","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T18:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2010-12-25T14:08:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-25T18:08:09","slug":"toys-tech-and-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=2922","title":{"rendered":"Toys, tech, and learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, Michael O'Malley summarized very nicely the cultural history of a middle-class Christmas<\/a>. (He gives proper credit to Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas<\/a>.) One of the consequences of a gift-giving culture within families has been the evolution of consumer electronics as children's toys. No, Christmas commercialism isn't entirely responsible for this; there's the long history of toy-making in Nuremberg<\/a> as an example of the type of thing to think about around the construction of toy and play<\/a>. But I think the commercialization of Christmas and birthdays has helped spread the idea of toy-buying and, within the niche of clever gadget-toys, electronics. Maybe two centuries from now we'll have The Tamagotchi<\/em> ballet performed alongside The Nutcracker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So last night and this morning, there are an enormous amount of electronic gadgets unwrapped around the country. Some of them were marketed or purchased as educational toys. Early-childhood folks will laugh at such marketing, pointing out that for a two-year-old, a large ball or a picture book is as educational as whatever electronic things are being pitched this year. A gift certificate for a bookstore, a bookshelf with a promise to help fill it in the next year, and so forth–these are educational gifts. <\/p>\n

But the fact that something is electronic does not prevent<\/em> it from being educational, and here is where the cautions of Larry Cuban and Rick Hess below make sense: the use of technology is what matters, and the existence of technology does not determine its use (either wise or unwise). They're not in the context of toys, but the cultural meme of the educational tech toy<\/em> is fairly broad:<\/p>\n

\n

Most techno-centrists believe that more integration of innovative machines into daily lessons–from interactive white boards to laptops to clickers–will move teachers away from teacher-centered to learner-centered pedagogy. Wanting both integration of devices into lessons and the reform of teaching confuses, if not irritates, those teachers and professors who believe their integrating software and hardware into teacher-directed lessons (see above examples) is both worthwhile and effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

Larry Cuban, Clickers and Technology Integration | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I'm a huge fan of using technology to rethink schooling. But it's the rethinking that matters, not the technology. What matters is how we use these tools to solve problems smarter, deliver knowledge, support students, reimagine instruction, refashion cost structures, and challenge students in new ways. Unfortunately, in far too many places, educators, industry shills, and technology enthusiasts seem to imagine that the technology itself will be a difference-maker. Good luck with that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rick Hess, When "Digital Natives" Discover the Encyclopedia – Rick Hess Straight Up<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think that's enough today for "academicizing" a holiday (as Stanley Fish would put it). For those who celebrate Christmas today, a Merry or a Happy Christmas as is your preferred greeting, and for all readers, a peaceful end to the calendar year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, Michael O'Malley summarized very nicely the cultural history of a middle-class Christmas. (He gives proper credit to Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas.) One of the consequences of a gift-giving culture within families has been the evolution of consumer electronics as children's toys. No, Christmas commercialism isn't entirely responsible for this; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-policy","category-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-L8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2935,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/2935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}