Friday, November 17, 2006

T& L speakers challenge educators?

Hi All,


Educational technology trade show's theme: Today's students need high-level skills to succeed.

Yah think?

Thanks for the breaking news out of the 1989 SCANS report.

As far as the "world flattening" commentary about China, see my earlier post about that one. (scroll down to 1/9/06 to see it.)

Also, I find it interesting that more than half of this article (the last two pages) were dedicated to highlighting corporate entities from the exhibit hall. Shouldn't that have warranted a different article title so I could miss that section? May I sugest, "Educational Technology Corporations Seeking your eRate Dollars!" (You realize I am being kind here.)

Jim :-)

3 comments:

Tim said...

I find it interesting that there is little or no blog traffic about this conference. Do educators attend T&L? As you note, it seems to be all about companies selling expensive, complicated bells and whistles to the people who pay the bills.

Other than Ray Kurzweil's talk (which, as much as I like his work, is probably similar to the one he's been giving for years) there didn't seem to be much about how technology is, or should be, affecting students and their education.

Anonymous said...

glad you're back! i read through the whole article, and almost fell asleep. "Duh" again, but unfortuantely these guys have a stranglehold on the imagination of educational power brokers. They have huge profits to generate and huge PR budgets and spin doctors to go with it.

What do you know about the success or failure of digital textbooks? Our technoguru is suggesting we trade them in on tablets for all, thanks

Jim Forde said...

Hi Tim end Judy (is that a Ben Franklin pseudonym??),

I think that, although they touted the number of people attending the conference, it does sould a little low. I like TandL magazine but have very little experience with their conferences. You realize that the whole "conference thing" is totally about selling stuff. Just like every other media outlet.

Yes, the imagination is always controlled by powerbrokers. An idea can be great but if it doesn't sell you particular solution why would you promote it? That only makes sense. When you have a hammer the world looks like a whole lotta nails!

I am not very familiar with digital testbooks but I do like the digital supplement materials that publishers add nowadays to their texts. They are generally helpful. The "tablets for all" thing is hard to go against. Please excuse my ignorance on this, but if you are moving from the digital equivalent of a textbook to a fully functional lap top, with the same capabilities, you are moving in a more powerful direction. The bigger question is whether or not either are providing the right solution given the costs of staff development, maintenance, safety concerns, and upgrades.

Peace. Jim :-)