Technology can help, but in recent history, there's a track record of bogus pedagogy that insists on incorporating technology without any sound justification. Some of this was motivated by corporations trying to sell shit (like computers), some by silly or clueless teachers and administrators. Some of it is informed by dubious pedagogical methodologies like gamification.
For the most part, it's a matter of clear presentation, student engagement, and effort. A well-written textbook (many suck) and a good teacher (same) and a properly disposed student (which presupposes things like certain virtues; parents are responsible for teaching and supporting these for the most part). Technology won't get around the basic human reality, and sometimes, there's nothing to fix. Some people aren't interested.
Technology is a tool to expand the possible ways to educate, but isn't necessary for education to happen.
i.e. we've been educating people for 1,000s of years even without textbooks.
Education itself isn't primarily a technology problem. Treating it as such is an administrative failure, as is pursuing a technological solution in many scenarios that are first social in nature.
> i.e. we've been educating people for 1,000s of years even without textbooks.
And we've been doing a pretty crappy job educating people without written texts. The written word led to a tremendous acceleration of knowledge transmission. The printing press enabled that transmission at a larger, but unified, scale.
Anything we even remotely recognize as science has only ever been practiced by literate cultures.
Discarding technology for education because it's not a panacea is an absolute failure as educator.
> i.e. we've been educating people for 1,000s of years even without textbooks.
By using the tools available at the time we did, certainly. That involves physical tools like writing, but also non-physical tools like better ways of conveying and disseminating information, better ways of testing the efficacy of various approaches, etc, etc.
Education has to evolve, as it always has. While I'm not sure TFA is it, I do think LLMs will have a role to play in making learning more accessible and enjoyable for everyone, not just kids.
lo_zamoyski|5 months ago
For the most part, it's a matter of clear presentation, student engagement, and effort. A well-written textbook (many suck) and a good teacher (same) and a properly disposed student (which presupposes things like certain virtues; parents are responsible for teaching and supporting these for the most part). Technology won't get around the basic human reality, and sometimes, there's nothing to fix. Some people aren't interested.
mattlutze|5 months ago
i.e. we've been educating people for 1,000s of years even without textbooks.
Education itself isn't primarily a technology problem. Treating it as such is an administrative failure, as is pursuing a technological solution in many scenarios that are first social in nature.
groby_b|5 months ago
And we've been doing a pretty crappy job educating people without written texts. The written word led to a tremendous acceleration of knowledge transmission. The printing press enabled that transmission at a larger, but unified, scale.
Anything we even remotely recognize as science has only ever been practiced by literate cultures.
Discarding technology for education because it's not a panacea is an absolute failure as educator.
squigz|5 months ago
By using the tools available at the time we did, certainly. That involves physical tools like writing, but also non-physical tools like better ways of conveying and disseminating information, better ways of testing the efficacy of various approaches, etc, etc.
Education has to evolve, as it always has. While I'm not sure TFA is it, I do think LLMs will have a role to play in making learning more accessible and enjoyable for everyone, not just kids.
SgtBastard|5 months ago
unknown|5 months ago
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