What+hasn't+changed

=What hasn't changed over 30+ years in education and technology?=

This great question was asked by Renee in her introductory responses on our MeetUp site. Here are a few responses from Liza.

1) For many people, the chance to work with a keyboard, pointing device and screen, especially one with lots of graphic capability is motivating regardless of the subject matter displayed. It is a component of 'engagement', a state of mind that enhances learning.

2) The computer is a content-free recording and transmitting device. Its generality makes it adaptable to use in all academic, vocational and entertainment-related disciplines.

3) Computing promotes communication among humans whether in the same room or a world apart. Sometimes this is not apparent to an observer in a room where several people are communicating with remote partners and ignoring those in the seats next to them.

4) When the 'man-machine interface' used for an educational application is more difficult to learn than the content of the target lesson students are less likely to want to use it.

5) The development of a mediated (online) lesson is likely to be more expensive than the materials used to deliver the same lesson in a face to face classroom. However the marginal costs of teaching more than one lecture hall full of students is likely to be significantly less.

6) Computing cannot replace teachers. It does change the nature of the tasks teachers do when face to face with students because, like other long distance teaching technologies, such as books, radio, TV and snail mail, computers can deliver recorded lessons when no human teacher is present.

7) Throughout the last 30 years, commentators (including teachers) have confused the concepts of teaching and learning in their statements. E-learning or electronic learning should refer to learning by the machine which is vastly different from human learning. E-teaching is the process of putting instructional materials onto electronic media and using remote communication devices (such as computers connected to the internet) to interact with students.

I can come up with hundreds of similar statements that have been true and unchanged for over 30 years as well as misstatements that have been repeated during the same period. I'd rather collect your ideas. Please comment on mine (Liza's) and add your own in this discussion thread. Some of the topics introduced here will probably be worthy of a separate discussion. Feel free to copy or restate something you find here as a new discussion.