| Yes. The Khan Academy is a prime example of how to use technology well for learning, particularly in instances where there is a "right" answer (such as math, at least how it's taught now). The danger from this is that the interactivity is lost; I can assign the questions from the end of a chapter in a textbook (which requires no more original work on my part than assigning questions in a digital textbook), but if things are checked by computers then they're likely things that are easily checked. When I taught, I used those "objective" questions as launchpads, Bloom's Taxonomy-style (one cannot understand "Romeo and Juliet", for example, if one thinks that they lived happily ever after). A combination between this and some type of small-group/1-on-1 interaction (and even some larger discussion groups) could be extremely powerful. Given how much curriculum feels like a list of checkboxes to be ticked off (and in many cases, given how it is a list of checkboxes to be ticked off), computerizing the brute, low-level stuff would allow more time for the high-level stuff, particularly if all we're concerned about is rote memorization and recitation. There are more ways to branch out from there that foster critical thinking and creativity, but this would be a start. This would be a very definite start. |