Musings
This will be the first entry of a blog which I will try to make interesting and provocative. I welcome comments. The first effort is directed toward how education if being is being affected by the electronic age. Seems appropriate because of the impact CTSnet is having on the availability of educational material for cardiothoracic surgeons worldwide. An article appeared in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago that illustrated the new algorithm. The issue can be judged on two levels. Should students have access to their computers, and the Internet, in classrooms where wireless access is available, or should they be forced to sit and listen ( or not) to the professors lecture? Granted many of the students on the Internet will be doing non-academic rubbish. However, consider all the lectures you have sat through,add up the number that were truly worthwhile and not brain numbing dull, and see what your conclusion might be. Perhaps the threat of students wandering off into cyberspace might prompt some professors to work up some new and improved lectures, not just dust off last years material. A followup letter to the editor directed toward this puzzle seemed appropriate to me.
Letters Wall Street Journal Nov 4, 2005
I'm Surfing to Learn -- Please Don't Lecture Me
"Did you notice the teaching style most often associated with faculty complaints about the use of wireless laptops in class ("The Laptop Backlash: Wireless Classrooms Promote Messaging and Web Surfing, Not Learning, Professors Say," Marketplace, Oct. 14)? It was lecture, the deadliest form of teaching ever devised, considered by many to be the world's most effective sleeping pill. Wireless laptops as competition for a passive, inert classroom lecture is nothing new. Before wireless laptops, there was solitaire on Windows. Before that there were doodles on paper, and before that there were daydreams.
An engaged and engaging teacher has little to fear and much to gain from technology. Technology can excite visual learners and give the teacher control and intimacy in the largest classroom as he or she participates in a lively, evolving conversation with students. This engagement fosters deep and lasting learning.
Teaching in my smart classroom with wireless laptops, wireless microphones, Sympodium Smart Board with dual theater-size projection wall screens, live Internet access and full computer capability at the podium is a joy and a delight. The answer isn't to become an atavistic Luddite in rebellion against technology. The answer is to embrace technology and use it; any teacher who does will earn the attention of students in every class."
James P. Beckwith Jr._Professor of Law_North Carolina Central University_Durham, N.C.
At the Concert night at the EACTS in Barcelona this year, a troupe of Spanish dancers gave a beautiful performance. Here are a couple of photos I took . those of you who were there will recall this event, and those of you who were not might consider the EACTS meeting next year in Stockholm where I am sure something like this will be on the menu. Bob Replogle
