Wittgenstein,Social Views and Intransitive Learning

Wittgenstein often refers to matters of learning, and there have been efforts to extract a social conception of learning from his writings. In the first half of this article, I look at three such efforts, those of Meredith Williams, Christopher Winch, and David Bakhurst, and I say why I think these efforts fail. As I go on to argue, though, there is a fairly trivial sense in which learning is a social rather than a psychological phenomenon: ordinarily, there are public criteria for whether someone has learned something. Yet, in the second half of the article, I point to an exception to this general rule. Taking a cue from Wittgenstein, I call this ‘intransitive learning’, as it refers to learning experiences where we cannot say what we have learned or where there simply isn't anything in particular that we have learned. This is a use that is not easily accommodated by received definitions of learning. It also represents a genuinely psychological use of the word ‘learn’. In contrast to ordinary cases of learning, claims about intransitive learning function like expressions and are marked by first‐person authority.     

Sailing the Seas on an Even Keel

The Lord has declared to the Hindus, in the incarnation of Krishna, “I am in every religion, as the thread through a string of pearls.”     

Canadian Teaching and Learning Centres on Facebook and Twitter: An Exploration Through Social Media

Teaching and Learning Centres (TLCs) play a role in the professional development of faculty, staff and teaching assistants in higher education institutions. One of the functions of many TLCs is that of outreach, not only to the individuals within their institutions who are their primary clientele but also to the greater higher education community. This paper presents an introductory review of Canadian TLCs’ use of social media, seeking to address questions regarding the extent to which Canadian TLCs use social media and the ways in which these are used. Based on frequency of accounts, and on the content of posts in these accounts, the authors found that social media are used by nearly half of all Canadian TLCs to a wide range of purposes. Areas for further inquiry are suggested.     

Teaching with Social Media: Disrupting Present Day Public Education

Because social technologies present illuminating educational, ethical, economic, and structural challenges to existing constructions of public education, they catalyze a fundamental examination of what public education should look like and be like in a democracy. Given their performances in other arenas, mobile and electronic technologies have the potential to further critical pedagogical praxis by enabling more democratic and participatory discursive practices. At the same time, they are significant vectors for market infiltration. They intensify surveillance, reproduce existing structures, and constrain conceptions of the possible. To examine what emerges regarding the construction of teacher as a subject when these latest technologies are incorporated, this article reports on findings from a multiple case study of five secondary school teachers using social media in their teaching.     

媒体技术优化数学教学的几点思考

随着信息技术的飞速发展，以计算机多媒体和网络技术为核心的现代教育技术受到了教育界的普遍关注，信息技术与课程整合已经成了教育改革中的一个亮点。将计算机与数学学科实现合理整合，应该结合数学学科的特点，设法找出计算机在哪些方面能完成传统教学解决不好或解决不了的问题。计算机优化数学教学应该考虑的是使数学内容趣味化，运动变化直观化，探索过程多样化，抽象问题具体化和无限问题有限化等几方面的内容。一、数学内容趣味化爱因斯坦说过：教育应该使提供的东西，让学生作为 一种宝贵的礼物来欣赏，而不是作为艰苦的任务来负担…     

Teaching Social Policy: Integration of Current Legislation and Media Resources

Social work students enter the field of social work for many reasons—from wanting to become clinicians to wanting to advocate for a more socially just world. Social policy classes can be the ideal courses to provide instruction on conducting research on current policy issues. Teaching students about policy advocacy can lead to a class rich with practical application for future legislative action. This article summarizes methods of teaching social policy courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. It includes details about resources (e.g., newspapers, news programs, blogs, Web sites) that students and instructors can use to track current policy topics.     

Learning and Collective Knowledge Construction With Social Media: A Process-Oriented Perspective

Social media are increasingly being used for educational purposes. The first part of this article briefly reviews literature that reports on educational applications of social media tools. The second part discusses theories that may provide a basis for analyzing the processes that are relevant for individual learning and collective knowledge construction. We argue that a systems-theoretical constructivist approach is appropriate to examine the processes of educational social media use, namely, self-organization, the internalization of information, the externalization of knowledge, and the interplay of externalization and internalization providing the basis of a co-evolution of cognitive and social systems. In the third part we present research findings that illustrate and support this systems-theoretical framework. Concluding, we discuss the implications for educational design and for future research on learning and collective knowledge construction with social media.     

A Wittgenstein Approach to the Learning of OO-modeling

The paper uses Ludwig Wittgenstein's theories about the relationship between thought, language, and objects of the world to explore the assumption that OO-thinking resembles natural thinking. The paper imports from research in linguistic philosophy to computer science education research. I show how UML class diagrams (i.e., an artificial context-free language) correspond to the logically perfect languages described in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein disputes his previous theories by showing that natural languages are not constructed by rules of mathematical logic, but are language games where the meaning of a word is constructed through its use in social contexts. Contradicting the claim that OO-thinking is easy to learn because of its similarity to natural thinking, I claim that OO-thinking is difficult to learn because of its differences from natural thinking. The nature of these differences is not currently well known or appreciated. I suggest how explicit attention to the nature and implications of different language games may improve the teaching and learning of OO-modeling as well as programming.     

Being-in-the-World and the Horizons of Learning: Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Cognition

The work of Heidegger and Wittgenstein still influences research and development in such areas as sociology of science, cognitive science, and design of computer-based work environments. The purpose of this article is to show how the writings of Heidegger and Wittgenstein can be used to: (a) throw new light on studies of real-time learning in school science, (b) understand the situated nature of cognition during science activities, and (c) inform the design of new learning environments. Two case studies are used to illustrate the fruitfulness of such an approach.     

远程教育的媒体教学思想:从物性到人性

本文认为,远程教育的媒体教学观经历了一个从关注学生的外在行为反应到内心文化人格的变化过程,当人类的远程媒体教学从单纯的以强调教学效果为旨归的学生学习中心主义,发展到更强调人文关怀意识的以学生的人性为需要基础的学习个性主义时,这恰恰说明,远程教育媒体教学在突出教学媒体"物性"的同时,也在最大限度地彰显着媒体教学的"人性"意义,教学媒体的"物性"其实正是为实现媒体教学的"人性"服务的,学习者"人性"的学习需要结果,竞然以教学媒体"物性"的媒体教学方式为前提,这进一步反证了远程教育媒体教学模式的复杂性、荒诞性和反讽性。     

班杜拉的社会学习理论与数学教学

班杜拉的社会学习理论以交互决定论为基础,以观察学习为主要内容.班杜拉的社会学习理论给数学教学的启示是:(1)数学教学中存在交互决定;(2)数学教学中应重视榜样的作用;(3)重视数学教学中的强化,培养学生的自我调节能力.     

Understanding and Changing Older Adults' Perceptions and Learning of Social Media

An exploratory study was conducted to answer the following questions: What are older adults' perceptions of social media? What educational strategies can facilitate their learning of social media? A thematic map was developed to illustrate changing perceptions from the initial unanimous, strong negative to the more positive but cautious and to the eventual willingness to actually contribute content. Privacy was the primary concern and key perceptual barrier to adoption. Effective educational strategies were developed to overcome privacy concerns, including: 1) introducing the concepts before introducing the functions; 2) responding to privacy concerns; and 3) making social media personally relevant.     

一种新兴的多媒体教学模式--美国中小学国际课堂教学模式述评

近年来,随行为主义的衰落和以建构主义为核心的现代多媒体教学观形成,如何根据新的理论和现代信息技术本身的特点和要求来重新组织课堂教学、而不仅仅是将它作为传统教学组织形式的一种补充,逐渐成为教育界的共识.反映在教学实践中,越来越多的教育研究者和中小学校对多媒体教学技术的应用进行了探索,由此形成了一些新的、与中小学教学改革目标相呼应的教学实践模式.美国中小学的国际课堂多媒体教学就是这些新型教学模式的典型代表之一.     

Harnessing the Power of Social Media in the Classroom: Challenging Students to Create Content to Share on Social Media Sites to Improve Learning Outcomes

Many young adults consume news, political, and historical information through social media sites, and yet students do not always connect this information to the academic knowledge they learn in their classes. In addition, while students learn academic writing and presentation skills, they may not feel equipped to present the knowledge that they have learned to a non-academic audience. I detail a class assignment in which students produce a social media project that imparts academic knowledge to a general audience. These have taken the form of short videos, websites, a documentary and even poems and songs. Drawing on a survey of the students, as well as a content analysis of the projects, I find that the project is successful in achieving several teaching goals, including knowledge retainment, critical thinking skills, making real world connections with class material, student empowerment, and improving communication skills.     

社会学习理论视域下的互动式口译教学探究

基于美国新行为主义心理学家阿伯特·班杜拉的社会学习理论,结合教学实践,着重探讨了实现教师和学生互动的策略和意义,简述口译教学中的人机互动,以期优化口译教学,推动其持续能动地向前发展。     

Teaching Social Work in a Global Context: Models of International Social Work Learning Experiences

This article examines three models of international social work learning experiences through the lens of Gray’s (2005) three paradoxical processes: indigenization, universalism, and imperialism.     

社交媒体在大学英语写作教学中的应用

社交媒体对英语写作教学有着积极的作用,本位结合社交媒体用于英语教学的可行性分析、理论基础和特点等方面,对社交媒体应用于大学英语写作教学的主要方法进行了阐述。     

新媒体在中学英语课堂教学中的应用

本文根据认知理论主要观点,分析了传统中学英语课堂教学模式存在的不足,分析了新媒体的自身特点及比较优势,并尝试提出了新媒体在中学英语课堂教学中的应用思路。     

Digital Media for Low-Income Preschoolers' Effective Science Learning: A Study of iPad Instructions with a Social Development Approach

As digital media devices have been increasingly used in early childhood educational settings, this study examined whether the iPad with a Vygotskian social development approach—namely, More Knowledgeable Other—can be integrated into low-income preschool classrooms to improve science learning. An analysis of variance was used to examine the overall improvement and differences in improvement among English language learners, children with special needs, and children without special needs or English language learner status. Results showed that all participants improved their science learning abilities as a consequence of the iPad instruction. Among all groups, English language learner children benefitted more than the other groups, but only with a game that had less verbal directions. There were no significant differences by gender.