Watters: Toward a Future Of Humanity, Caring, and Grace

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1. Bob Shepherd says:

   June 10, 2020 at 12:29 pm

   This talk is, as always from Ms. Watters, superb. Brilliant. Profound. Learned. Compassionate. Human.

   Reply
2. Bob Shepherd says:

   June 10, 2020 at 12:35 pm

   Here’s my description about how the nightmare world that Ms. Watters warns us about comes into, is coming into, existence:

   https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/he-sees-you-when-youre-sleeping-2/

   And here’s a scene from that world:

   https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/stories/he-sees-you-when-youre-sleeping-a-short-story/

   and another such scene:

   https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/sci-fi-stories-visions-of-the-future-as-verdicts-on-the-now/

   Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     June 10, 2020 at 3:25 pm

     A sentence from the last of these stories linked to here:

     It’s in the interest of bureaucracies to confuse agents and the acted upon, to call the later “Users” instead of “The Used.”

     Reply
3. retired teacher says:

   June 10, 2020 at 12:55 pm

   “Teaching machines are a parody of pedagogy.” We should let this profound message sink in for awhile. Machines imitate, but they do not create anything new other than what they have been programmed to do.

   Watters is a brilliant observer and writer about all the issues related to technology. She cautions us to be conservative in how we use technology because it is void of human considerations. Just because certain technology is available to us is not an endorsement for its use. In education today business trained leaders are infiltrating the leadership of educational institutions which often results in a misuse of technology. We are not “all watched over by machines of loving grace.”

   A consideration that Watters does not discuss in this article, but it is a fact that should be considered. Many of the components that go into computers, smart phones, electric car batteries and solar panels require precious metals. Are these products progressive if they exploit poor children from Africa and India? Mica is a product that is used in these technologies. Who better to mine them than small children? Precious metals are the new blood diamonds. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/mining-mica-can-the-industry-overturn-its-legacy-of-exploitation/

   Reply
4. Susan Lee Schwartz says:

   June 10, 2020 at 1:42 pm

   Thanks Diane, and Bob, too. Reading here is unlike anywhere else!

   Reply
5. Laura H. Chapman says:

   June 10, 2020 at 3:41 pm

   I am not known for being a fan. I am a fan of Audrey Watters and I especially appreciate her deep knowledge of edtech, history and the present glut of tech pushed into education. I look forward to her new book “Teaching Machines.” A very long time ago I witnessed children being taught to program a turtle-shaped object so it could “draw” a square. That was mid-centrury last.

   Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     June 10, 2020 at 5:30 pm

     Me too!!! I love the ambiguity of that title, “Teaching Machines.”

     You are thinking of Seymour Papert’s Logo, in one of its instantiations, Python Turtle.

     Reply
     • Bob Shepherd says:

       June 10, 2020 at 5:31 pm

       Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon

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