Why Do Some Schools Cling to Old-Fashioned Educational Traditions?

Posted by in Uncategorized Aug 29th, 2007

A new article by The Globe and Mail poses an interesting question: "Why, in the Information Age, are students heading back to classrooms?"

Distance learning offers so many opportunities for students to learn in alternative, technology-friendly ways. But, many schools cling to old-fashioned educational traditions.

Here's a blurb from the article, Researchers Question School in High-Tech Age:

"Researchers say students weaned on collaborative learning with high-tech devices are suffering in classrooms ruled by defenders of lecture-based orthodoxy wielding overhead projectors and reciting from dog-eared history textbooks that climax with Paul Martin's run for 24 Sussex Drive.

"It's not about using technology for technology's sake. It's allowing students to access the right information because of the information explosion," says Mohamed Ally, director of the Centre for Computing and Information Systems at Athabasca University, Alberta's distance-learning pioneer."

While I believe that online learning offers students some positive alternatives, I still believe that the traditional style of teaching has some benefits. Sure, the power point presentations are annoying (often presented by instructors who seem to believe they're using the latest technology…), but face-to-face discussions are still beneficial. What do you think?

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