Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler
By Barry Kort
President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology
recently held a session dealing with Educational Technology, during
which the committee first heard a report saying that no evidence could
be found that computers are beneficial in education. A reporter
turned to another attendee for comment, who in turn posted a call for
responses on an educational policy mailing list operated by the
non-profit Consortium on School Networking.
Here are the comments I posted back to the list regarding the benefits
of computers in education...
From: bkort@copernicus.bbn.com (Barry Kort)
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 08:36:18 -0500 (EST)
To: cosndisc@list.cren.net (CoSN Discussion List)
Subject: Measuring benefits of educational technology
After 10 years of research, I have one durable finding on this point.
What works in education (regardless of the medium of communication)
is intelligent, caring adults spending lots of quality contact time
with children in a close one-on-one setting.
Computer communications networks enable more adults (Hillary Clinton's
"Village") to spend quality time with individual children, through
technologies such as E-Mail Mentoring and Online Learning Communities.
My own personal work in MicroMuse, at the Museum of Science, in
E-Mail Mentoring, and through Internet Conferencing all reinforce
this finding. Technology all by itself isn't the answer. What
ended up mattering was whether I and others like me bothered to
pay attention to individual students, to work with them over extended
periods of time in cooperative and collaborative learning activities.
Whenever I harness Communications Technology to support Learning
Communities and Learning Environments, the Magic happens. It also
happens when I show up at a school or at the Science Museum and
engage in the same kind of quality interaction — coaching, mentoring,
challenging and paying attention to kids and their learning.
It's a lot easier for me to do this in Cyberspace than in face-to-face
venues because I can do it at odd hours of the day and night, sometimes
for brief moments with any one child. But I can do this consistently
over protracted periods because the cost of adult participation in
cyberspace learning environments is essentially zero to all participants.
So if you throw computers at children and leave them to fend for themselves,
nothing much will come of it. But if you use computers to make it easier
for intelligent caring adults to spend quality time with children, doing
interesting, engaging, and educationally meaningful things, then you are
using technology wisely and appropriately.
Barry Kort, Ph.D.
Consulting Scientist
Educational Technology Research
BBN/GTE Learning Systems and Technologies
Cambridge MA
Gwen Solomon, Editor of the Well Connected Educator, has asked me
to gather up some examples of One-On-One and Small-Group Interactions
from E-Mail and MicroMuse. Here they are...
Examples of One-On-One and Small-Group Interactions
Over the years, I've engaged children (and adults) in a very special
kind of One-On-One and Small Group Interaction in a format that I like
to call Rabbinic/Talmudic Philosophy 101 Discussions. Online, I began
these with E-Mail and UseNet, then extended the format to newer media,
including the Muse and
Cafe Utne.
E-Mail Mentoring
Some years ago, Media Technologist and Librarian, Jan Wee, advertised
through a K-12 teachers mailing list for a correspondent to exchange
E-Mail with one of her brighter students. My E-Mail correspondence with
Lolly Glenaire (not her real name) remains one of my brightest memories.
-
E-Mail Conversations with Lolly Glenaire,
a 10-year old gifted student from rural Wisconsin.
Lolly and I discuss a wide range of subjects, including some Astronomy and
other general science topics in a relaxed, friendly exchange.
In the first few letters, Lolly ends them with formal closings like
'Sincerely', but notice what happens about halfway through the collection.
Muse Mentoring
On MicroMuse, I've led inquiries and discussions in that same spirit
in both private conversations and public seminars and discussions.
MicroMuse is an Online Learning Community governed by a Social Contract,
in which participants adopt fanciful names and identities in an informal
and playful setting. Such online identities are called 'Avatars' and
they represent one's Persona or Character in the Muse.
In the transcripts below, I appear variously as
Moulton the Schmeggegy Scientist or as
Mymosh the Self-Begotten.
Mymosh purports to be an Artificial Intelligence Robot
(like Artoo Detoo or See Threepio of Star Wars fame).
Through the use of such 'Puppet' avatars, I can engage discussants
in the charming tradition of the pioneering 1950's
children's television puppeteer, Burr Tillstrom
(Kukla, Fran and Ollie ), or the 1970's
Sesame Street puppeteer, Jim Hensen (Kermit the Frog ). My
normal avator of Moulton, the Schmeggegy Scientist is based
on my real life role as a weekend volunteer in the Children's Discovery
Center at the Boston Museum of Science.
My correspondents are young people on MicroMuse, speaking through
their own avatars. Two of the Muse transcripts below feature
one-on-one conversations with Kalany and Sear.
Both are exceptionally gifted students, and both were about
13 years old when these conversations were logged.
Most of the remaining participants in the group discussions are
teenagers, but now and then an adult participant appears briefly.
The tenth transcript below is different from the others in that it
records an actual Judicial Hearing in which a young participant
incurred the wrath of the MicroMuse Community after violating the
terms of the MicroMuse Social Contract.
-
A Conversation with Mymosh the
Self-Begotten on topics in Artificial Intelligence and
Artificial Wisdom, in which one of the discussants tries to
administer the Turing Test to see how smart Mymosh really is.
-
Small Group Discussion on MicroMuse — An
Ethical Conundrum: When the Moral Majority Meets the Ethical Minority
in which Moulton leads one of his patented Rabbinnic/Talmudic Philosophy
101 Discussions.
-
Kalany and Mymosh Discuss the Moral Majority
Conundrum in the context of a homework project.
Kalany is a
home schooler from Palo Alto, California. Her avatar is a Blue Dragon.
-
Christmas Night Discussion on MicroMuse:
Dealing With Bullies in which the participants share their
experiences and their solutions to this ubiquitous problem.
-
A Conversation with Sear on Collective
Decision Making, Voting Paradoxes, Civil Rights, Methods of
Reasoning, Argumentation, and Persuasion in which Moulton and
Sear spend an entire evening in the rapture of intellectual discussion.
Sear is a student from Cambridge MA whom I have have also met in real life.
-
A Conversation with Montag on esoteric
topics in physics and metaphysics. Montag, an Assistant Professor
of English at Western Kentucky University, chats with Ramtha,
a puppet of mine who purports to be a New Age Channeler of Voices
from the Future. Montag's intrigue with Ramtha begins with some
whimsy but quickly evolves into deep and thought-provoking discussions.
-
A Psalm of Peace and Comfort in which
Moulton and Moonbeam engage in a spiritually healing fantasy to
erase the effects of an unpleasant episode earlier that same evening
on another online community.
-
A Conversation on Newton's Laws in which
two high school students explain the fundamentals of space travel to an
adult inner-city school teacher. Note that Moulton is not a participant
in this conversation, which illustrates the power of the medium to
foster learning in which the youngest participants assume the leadership
role.
-
A Conversation with Flop in which Moulton
engages an exceptionally bright and creative future scientist from Edinburgh
who is working her way through Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize
winning book, Goedel Escher Bach. In this dialogue, Flop and
Moulton review a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise, and then
go on to craft their own spontaneous discussion in the same spirit.
-
Transcript of a Judicial Hearing on
MicroMuse in which the Community addresses and resolves a
violation of the Social Contract.
-
A Conversation with AnneLions in which Moulton
explores the emotions of Inspiration and Exasperation with a young woman
who has been pondering an especially mind-boggling puzzle.
The diligent reader who has looked at the above transcripts and
abstracted out their essence will note that the particular topics of
discussion were chosen not so much for their pure academic value, but
because the discussants found them engaging. The entire point of these
exercises is to stimulate thinking for its own sake and for the joyful
pleasures of learning. Note that all of this is accomplished with
retrograde, low-bandwidth technology using junk computers. No glitz,
no high-tech sparklers, just a lone schmeggegy scientist carrying
a candle.
Spark or Sparkler?
Finally, by way of comparison, I include a transcript of a
recent School Network Event which pushed the technology envelope
with Internet audio, video, and high-fidelity audio. This last
transcript represents both the excitement of high-bandwidth technology
and the real problems that arise when the technology interferes with
the educational content.
The Story of MicroMuse and MuseNet
A few years ago, Rob Reilly, a pioneering teacher-technologist from
western Massachusetts organized an Internet Mailing List aimed at
the K-12 Community. At one point, he invited me to be the guest
discussant for a week. Here is my 6-part Articles on EdNet
in which I journalize my adventures in crafting an unfunded,
non-profit online learning community on the Internet.
Additional Reading
Some of the articles below originally appeared in print,
others are only available via the Web.
Some are written by professional journalists, others
are contributed by teachers, parents, and students.
Note — as time goes on, some of these documents will begin to disappear
from the Web, or may end up in archives elsewhere.
-
Thinking About the Future — Leaders in the Field of Education Technology Tell Us What They See Ahead —
Cover Story in The Electronic School
-
Multi-User Virtual Environments — Article in Release 1.0
by Jerry Michalski
-
Design
Principles for Online Learning Communities — A student paper
by Caleb J. Clark, San Diego State University.
-
Computer
Networks and Informal Science Education — a FARNET Success Story
-
The Muse In Education by Barry Kort
-
Thoughts on Community Building by
Barry Kort
-
Virtual
Education by Jessica Chalmers
-
The Act
of Teaching on the Internet by Tony Brock.
-
MicroMuse
at an Elementary School by Kathy Manning
-
Virtual Space Learning: Creating Text-Based learning Environments by
Billie Hughes, Barry Kort, and Jim Walters — Paper presented to the
1994 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (PDF Format)
-
Amazed and Amused by the MUSE
by Michael Clifford, Mark Tozer,
James Cleere and Erin McGuirk of the A.L.L. School in Worcester, MA
-
Testimonial Letter from
Carol Shilinsky, Principal of the A.L.L. School in Worcester, MA
-
Online Fantasy
Worlds Benefit Inner City School By Howard Rheingold
-
Article on Angela L. by Howard Rheingold
-
Oceana: Sailing the Educational MUSE at SDSC
-
Building a Better Moose Trap — Article in Netguide Magazine
-
A Student Speaks — Prize-Winning Essay by Lucia Somberg
-
Pueblo: A
Parent's Perspective — Reflections from a Parent
-
Taking
Kids Out of Cartoon Land — Article in Arizona StarNet by Sean Fitzpatrick.
-
Jon Caroll Article from the San Francisco
Chronicle
-
Excerpt of Article in Long Island Newsday
by Josh Quittner
-
The Virtual Community
by Howard Rheingold (see especially
Chapter Five)
-
Socrates
at the Terminal: Emotion's Neglected Role in High-Tech Education by
Norman Weinstein, Educom Review 32:6, Nov/Dec 1997.
-
MicroMuse Press Packet, containing
basic background information on MicroMuse and a further list of printed
references.
See also:
MicroMUSE / MuseNet has been awarded the 1996 NII
Children Award for pioneering innovation in children's educational
computer networking.
MuseNet is the flagship activity of
The Orenda Project.