Interesting post Ken. And you are right, statements by politicians as the one you quoted are ultimately scary, no matter what party they belong to.

As a kid one is being forced to participate in an education system designed by pencil sharpeners and swivel chairs. If the material being taught is of interest to the student is of no interest to the ones come up with the curriculum. We have created a school system designed for no other purpose than to bend and mould children into the right shape for a worker bee.

Howard combined neglect with attacks on the subjects and methods that teach critical thinking and evidence based argument. The absence of those attacks could be enough for educators at all levels to just get on with it.

Also I think if they try to push the instrumental thing too far they run the risk of alienating (even further?) kids in high schools who, thanks to their critical thinking skills, recognise the sausage factory they’re in and refuse to go along with it.

They could make it work if they do some serious consultation with real live teachers at all levels I guess. And recognise that work skills involve a much broader skill set now than the current narrow traineeships provide.

Can we change how we learn without changing how we teach?
The greatest barrier to implementing new technology into any teaching/learning environment is learning the technology itself. For many, learning to use then implement the technology can be quite daunting and can decrease the effectiveness of the teaching that follows. A utopian solution would be one that was totally transparent to the end user (teacher and student) yet provide a significant increase for a individuals cognitive capacity and increase the transfer of learning taking place, with an embedded study and review process to ensure better understanding and retention of the content being taught. For the solution to be transparent it must provide no barrier to both teacher and student in its implementation, allowing them to engage in the learning process without learning how to use the technology, better yet, not even being consciously aware that any technology is being used.
This therefore provides an outcome that does not change the way teaching is implemented but does significantly impact on the effectiveness of the learning taking place.

Towards Today’s Classroom …
The three essential activities that occur in all teaching/learning environments that have remained constant for thousands of years are talking, listening and recording (by various means). The degree to which these three activities are implemented varies according to the type of teaching and learning taking place as will the level of engagement and interaction of the participants involved.

Historically, the teacher had all the knowledge and passed their interpretation of it onto their students through verbal discourse and demonstration. The students listened, questioned, and (possibly) recorded what they heard and saw so that they too may gain the knowledge (and remember it) to pass onto the next generation. Not much changed until the invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg when the new dimension of reading augmented the process by making books more accessible to scholars. For teachers, this meant that they could record what they knew into a relatively cost effective medium and thereby being able to disseminate their knowledge to a far greater audience than they could reach personally. For students, books provided an alternative means of studying - one where they could control the pace and not be tied to one teacher, but linked to many alternatives and/or opposing views of knowledge.
Over the last 100 years, the tools and materials that teachers could access to enhance their teaching has increased exponentially from print-based materials to electronic media to computers, but the essential activities of talking, listening and recording have not changed. The methodologies for implementing these activities may have changed, moving from teacher-centric to student-centric approaches, as too have the expectations of students towards the way teaching is implemented, particularly enhancing the processes within a methodology with different technologies, often shifting the mantle of learner onto the teacher at an increasing rate but not allowing them enough time to do the learning themselves (Butler and Sellbom, 2002b; King, 2007).

The push to provide (inter)active learning environments, has seen an increase in use of technology within the classroom (Fernandez-Manjon and Sancho, 2002; Rollins and Almeroth, 2004). Students expect a hands-on approach to their learning, access to multiple sources of information, and flexible learning environments that meet their changing needs (Sander, 2005). Teachers are expected to know how to implement each new technology with little or no training, be up-to-date as advances to the technology are made, and above all else maintain their quality of teaching. For many this is achievable, but for some this is quite daunting and stressful and often “giving teachers technology without training has often done more harm than good to teaching and learning.” (Trinkle, 2005:21). So, how can we reduce the technology learning curve for teachers and ensure the benefits of technological tools for the students?

Implementing Seamless Technologies
“A critical question that often faces educational technologists is how to deliver excellence in teaching and subject matter content to learners.” - Naidu, Barret, and Olsen (2000:112)
Assuming that transparent augmentation of the content is the desired goal from any form of computer-enhanced learning environments, both the teacher and the students should not even know they are using the technology. In a typical class, the teacher delivers some content and the students listen, discuss and take notes, in varying degrees depending on the teaching/learning methodologies being implemented. So, what technologies can we implement to reduce the teacher’s interaction with it and also augment the student’s learning using it?
Although many students are computer- and Internet-literate there are still many that have little or no experience with computers and electronic networks (Naidu, Barret, and Olsen, 2000; Oblinger, 2004), and for some teachers, using technology in their every day teaching is quite threatening (McNaught and Kennedy, 2000). Therefore, the technology being used should be minimal - a laptop connected to a data projector, and a lapel mike.

A typical lecture at a university may be one where the teacher uses PowerPoint slides or an electronic whiteboard to present the content and students take notes either on a laptop or using pen and paper. However, are the students using laptops really taking notes or are they playing games, surfing the net and answering e-mails? Also, are these multi-tasking students effectively processing the information being presented? (Plymale, 2007) Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) suggests that multitasking is really rapid toggling between tasks rather than simultaneously processing them - “You’re doing more than one thing, but you’re ordering them and deciding which one to do at any one time,” and argues that “Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren’t going to do well in the long run.” (Wallis, 2006) Therefore, a suitable alternative to note taking on a laptop needs to be available but it must also be capable of plugging into other forms of data captured during the lesson.

Furthermore, students can collaborate with others by linking or sharing their notes and commentaries to any given file without altering the original content. This functionality not only enhances the student’s study but can also provide opportunities for further co-operative or collaborative tasks.

This product exists – today.