Thread by @ashleystaz1

What are my thoughts on the innovation that is the calculator? #bolt677

Well. Firstly, as this video describes AI and its use in the classroom … the calculator certainly doesn’t seem like a huge innovation anymore!

In the above video, Martin McKay discusses machine learning and its use in the classroom. This is a hotly debated topic among educators as there has been ample chatter about the concept of AI replacing the role of teachers (see my previous tweets about this!)

But McKay discusses the positive aspects of AI: accessibility or accommodation. This could be in terms of translating language on a webpage or providing identification to educators re: student support for reading and writing.

Our friend Skinner in 1968 argued that teaching machines would eventually replace teachers, whereas Papert argued in the 1980s that computers would empower learners rather than teach them directly.

Source: tonybates.ca/2016/01/11/aut…

The reality is that technology is forever and rapidly changing. You can see 2 different perspectives change in a time span of 20 years. While the calculator is and was an absolute innovation at the time, its use nowadays is a simple app embedded within a smartphone.

I recall my high school teacher telling us that we wouldn’t all carry calculators in our pocket, which provided a basis for their rationale to learn math and algebra by hand. How wrong was this teacher!? In fact, I’m sure there’s an app for algebra now, too.

The calculator, then, and now, is simply a tool that we use to learn and apply mathematical problems. The same can be said about a computer, iPad, internet, etc. Bates argues in the article referenced above, that a constructivist approach to learning cannot be automated.

Automated, meaning we cannot simply use technology in place of an educator. It is simply a tool. (Bates argues that this is perhaps why MOOC’s didn’t take off in 2011 like everyone else claimed they would)

Student learning therefore is dependent upon the high quality interaction between the knowledge experts and learners, and technology can play a role - even a leading role - but not in place of the educator and through a purely automation fashion.