http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2006/01/08/comment-at-dinner/ (bôr'dər-lănd') n. Located on or near a frontier. An indeterminate area or condition. Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:43:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2006/01/08/comment-at-dinner/#comment-1066 Marco Polo Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:18:56 +0000 http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2006/01/08/comment-at-dinner/#comment-1066 This reminded me of something a teacher said at one of the conferences Dave Warlick podcast recently (I think <a href="http://davidwarlick.com/connectlearning/2005/11/29/episode-48-web-20-at-the-ncetc/" rel="nofollow">this one</a>, or maybe <a href="http://davidwarlick.com/connectlearning/2005/12/29/episode-50-the-future-of-education/" rel="nofollow">this one</a>; they're both excellent, so you won't have wasted your time): (I'm quoting from memory)"[in a school where all the students have laptops] the students don't always bring them [their laptops] to school, they leave them at home. They say they're boring, that the CD-ROMs are out of date. They like using computers, but they don't like the way they are made to use them in school." School seems to be able to take almost anything fun, and make it boring! Perhaps this has something to do with the "bean-counting" mentality that you referred to in <a href="http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2006/01/10/dibels-and-the-seductive-lure-of-snake-oil/" rel="nofollow">your post on testing.</a> This reminded me of something a teacher said at one of the conferences Dave Warlick podcast recently (I think this one, or maybe this one; they’re both excellent, so you won’t have wasted your time):
(I’m quoting from memory)”[in a school where all the students have laptops] the students don’t always bring them [their laptops] to school, they leave them at home. They say they’re boring, that the CD-ROMs are out of date. They like using computers, but they don’t like the way they are made to use them in school.”
School seems to be able to take almost anything fun, and make it boring! Perhaps this has something to do with the “bean-counting” mentality that you referred to in your post on testing.

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