November 26th, 2011 Here’s an election day treat from the NZ
Herald: an interesting article on the use of technology in
education, a review of ideas from Microsoft’s Partners in
Learning Forum. And I like that the article has both a
disclaimer: Chris Barton travelled to the Partners in Learning
Forum in Washington as a guest of Microsoft. And a few wee jabs
at Microsoft (although nothing untoward): Microsoft’s Partners
in Learning Forums, with their focus on teachers and teaching
rather than technology, are very much a soft sell of Microsoft
products. But, as a New York Times article this month pointed
out, “the courtship of public school officials entrusted with
tax dollars is a sensitive matter”. I wish more NZ journalists
would learn to take a few more nibbles at the hands that feed
them… It gives many interesting examples of how technology could
be changing education, such as: Often the learning is informal.
Richardson’s children wanted to learn Scratch, an educational
programming language developed at th