[ExI] attn: spike esp. - robot teachers

[William Flynn Wallace]

We now have the animated CGI options that do not require talking humans.
 spike

How about the social cues the article was discussing?

When our college got the big computer we faculty could finally use (imagine
a day when only the administration could use the one we had) they offered
classes in everything:  word processing, spreadsheets, etc.  We had a
workbook that the teacher followed.  After a  few minutes I never heard
anything he said.  I was on the computer and sailing through the workbook
about twice as fast as the class was going.  That's fine if the book is
really good enough.  It was.

I don't sit and listen any more.  No TED talks for me.  Too impatient.  I
want a book that I can go through at my speed,and sometimes the teacher's
voice just goes into my two hearing aids poorly and so I have to back up -
frustrating.

Will you send me a cgi thing so I can see what you are talking about?  I
will assume that in Khan and elsewhere one can stop, speed up, slow down,
go to the loo, etc.

This kind of learning, as implied above in my computer class, requires the
words/text to be very clear and at the proper level.  Otherwise people will
need to ask questions and that slows everyone down.  I guess you have to
pay extra to send in questions?

I can't see anything but having a teacher to ask is going to work in
advanced classes in psych.  Don't have an opinion about other subjects.  My
Ss seemed to need more examples and I supplied them.  Reactions?

bill w

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 3:30 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *spike
> *Sent:* Monday, August 28, 2017 12:40 PM
> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] attn: spike esp. - robot teachers
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> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org>] *On Behalf Of *William Flynn
> Wallace
> *Subject:* [ExI] attn: spike esp. - robot teachers
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> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/26/opinion/sunday/good-
> robot-teacher-secrets.html
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> bill w
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> >…Hi BillW, great article, thanks, I agree with much of it.  I disagree
> with the premise, in the first line:
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> >>…Why is educational technology such a disappointment?
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> >…It isn’t.  Or isn’t now: good educational tech was a long time coming.
> But now, the online sources are available and it is excellent indeed…spike
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> Further thoughts please:
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> There is an old joke, short version: guy gets shipwrecked on a desert
> island with only a dog and a sow, after a few days, the sow starts looking
> tasty, but every time he tries to mount her, the dog intervenes, bites him
> in the ass, etc.  This goes on for months, guy really is desperate, tries
> everything, can never get the dog to let him have his way with the sow,
> then one day he sees a boat go down, wades out and rescues a comely maiden
> who is so grateful for saving her life she vows she will do anything for
> him, aaanything he wants.  So he has her turn away and hold the dog for a
> few minutes.
>
>
>
> OK then, apply the lesson to modern education, shall we?
>
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> For so long we have had the factory model for education, which requires
> gathering a group of around 30 similarly-aged children and having one adult
> talking to them.  Much of the earlier online curriculum was nothing more
> than video of good teachers lecturing.  Later it was cartoon characters,
> lecturing.  So we can try to create a robot teacher to continue that model
> of one person up front lecturing to a classroom, but it is too much like
> using the maiden as a means of restraining the dog.
>
>
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> We have new models of education which do not involve anyone talking.  Or
> if so, few images of people talking are necessary: we can do plenty of
> history lectures using maps and animations, we can do plenty of math and
> programming education with animations and graphs, we can do chemistry and
> physics with moving diagrams, as is done with Khan Academy and some of the
> other online resources.  We don’t need robots, nothing 3D, nothing
> non-virtual.  We now have the animated CGI options that do not require
> talking humans.  We need not continue the old models with the new tools,
> any more than we need to have the comely maiden hold the dog.
>
>
>
> spike
>
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