Tuesday, April 12, 2005

My Kind Of Course 

Brought to you by the letters I, V, and Y.

Today's Boston Globe reports on "Informal Learning For Children," a new course-based partnership between Harvard (see previous rant) and Sesame Street (see previous rant).

Despite my ongoing concerns about both institutions, and despite an overuse of the usual technology-in-education straw men (media-driven kiddie violence, tech-savvy students who "know more" than teachers) in the interview that follows the article, it's hard not to like class lecturer Joseph Blatt's response to the question "what results are you hoping to achieve?"

The immediate results we hope of this first venture together would be a large number of students who are trained both in learning theory and other sorts of human development that we teach here, and in how to reach children effectively through media. So we imagine that we're going to be graduating a number of students who will be skilled and prepared to be the curriculum developers, researchers, evaluators, possibly writers, maybe even the producers of new educational media for kids.

Kudos to Blatt, as well, for recognizing that the partnership between formal and informal learning has strong merit...and for mentioning museum education as another example of the informal. It's nothing new: I was working on the same issues in partnership with Harvard way back in 1994 during my tenure at the Museum of Science. But I suppose Big Bird has more news cache.

Bonus: In other Sesame Street news, Cookie Monster is curbing his cookie intake in response to public concerns about promoting healthy eating habits among kids. Sheesh! Thanks to Captain Platypus for the find.

posted by boyhowdy | 2:37 PM |

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