I hasten to add that critical thinking is a major plank of teaching and learning. I have personally been wondering why our society is increasingly lacking in the authority of precedent. For instance, quotable quotes, parables, originality, etcetera are limited to old thinkers. The wisdom attributed to the founding fathers of the American nation such as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, James Madison, etc is seriously lacking in contemporary thinking. It is exremely difficult to find quotable quotes from even amongst the learned fraternity of the clergy and the judges. We can only quote serious scandals, corruption, wars, bombs, earthquakes, typoons. Probably modern society is more preoccipied with stomach issues. I suppose this serious intellectual erosion could be attributed to absence of a culture of critical thinking.
Ochieng M Khairalla-Nairobi-Kenya.
--- On Mon, 7/7/08, Taylor, Jackie <jataylor at utk.edu> wrote:

From: Taylor, Jackie <jataylor at utk.edu>
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2197] from Steve, Critical Thinking and Learner Leadership
To: "The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List" <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Date: Monday, July 7, 2008, 7:19 PM








The following is posted on behalf of Steve Kaufmann. Please read on ~ Jackie Taylor
 




From: Steve Kaufmann [mailto:steve at thelinguist.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 7:26 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: Re: [ProfessionalDevelopment 2193] Critical Thinking and LearnerLeadership
 
I do not understand the advantages of increasing the use of technology in the classroom. The classroom has the great advantage of getting people together face to face. Learners and teachers have the opportunity to talk in pairs, or groups or as one large group. Communication is happening at many levels. Everything from a cafe setting, to a cocktail party, to a business meeting can be simulated with real people. Why introduce technology in the classroom?

To me the advantage of technology lies in the opportunity to help learners do more learning away from the classroom.  MP3 players are but one example. The computer is another. One can read on a computer and use an online dictionary. New words can be kept in a learner's own database. Lists of words and phrases can be automatically created and from these flash cards can be generated. Statistics can be kept of the words and phrases saved and learned. 

Teachers can record material for specific purposes, such as critical thinking, for learners to listen to and read and then be prepared to put into practice in class.

Teachers can correct essays online and record the corrected writing. These can be part of a learners portfolio and can also be shared around. 

The benefit of technology is to increase the ways that learners can stay active away from the class so that they can enjoy more intensive interaction in class.

Steve


-- 
Steve Kaufmann
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