Total Recall - C. Gordon Bell [51]
A complete e-memory will allow a much more detailed analysis of a student. Every single answer in assignments and tests can be considered looking for strengths, weaknesses, and trends. The exact time editing an essay down to the history of changes made to each individual sentence can be known.
Teachers will be able to know each student’s learning style, and to quickly look up the details of areas that need help. The kind of in-depth insight into a student that might have taken significant one-on-one time to discover will be made automatic, allowing the teacher to go straight to remedial tutoring or to the introduction of an advanced topic. If e-lectures are embraced, and e-memories automatically evaluate the status of students, we could see a radical change in how teachers apportion their time. Instead of spending it dealing with the entire class, teaching to a common denominator and unable to address the needs of both the brightest and the slowest, teachers will be able to concentrate most of their time one-on-one or in dealing with small groups of students who are roughly at the same level. The instruction will be much more targeted to individual needs.
By pooling data about students’ learning styles, study habits, and the results they obtain, we can advance our knowledge about learning itself. Anonymous learning data can be shared to give us a detailed picture over thousands, even millions, of students. The number of students studied and the level of detail examined will be unprecedented. A poor chapter in a standard textbook won’t last long, nor will a teaching method that falls down in a certain subject or with a certain kind of student.
Teachers will acquire as much self-knowledge about their teaching as students will about their learning. It will be easier for teachers to repeat their successful moments and to compare notes with one another about the most effective techniques. Suppose you are teaching grade-six science, and you notice that your students did poorly on a certain topic in Chapter 3. You can ask to view a colleague explaining the concepts to her students to see if there is a better way. Or, you may review the relevant assignments and find she has used some supplementary material rather than the textbook. You may recall that a certain unit of history went really well last year, and look back in your e-memories to refresh your memory of just how you taught it.
E-TEXTBOOKS + E-MEMORY = STUDENT MEMEX
Even more certain than the move to e-lectures is the transition to e-textbooks. I remember my Microsoft colleague Chuck Thacker holding up his tablet PC in one of our conference rooms a few years ago.
“Now, if I drop it like this . . .” said Chuck—and then let the tablet crash to the floor.
“You can see I’ve dropped it on that edge a number of times and the case is cracking.”
Chuck was clearly enjoying his job that day. How often do you get paid to drop your PC? As he explained to the group around the conference table, the PC was still running just fine, but he wasn’t pleased that the case was cracking. He started explaining the difference in g-forces involved in a landing on carpet versus concrete, and how a little bit of shock absorption protected the normally delicate hard drive. Chuck is interested in dropping tablet PCs because he wants them in the hands of children, and of course, everyone’s second question (after the price) will be: What about when they drop them?
Textbooks should be replaced by tablets, notebooks, PDAs, or even cell phones. Rather than lugging a backpack full of textbooks—sometimes so heavy that children have had their backs damaged, leading to some regulations to limit