Ed Begle:

Mathematics education is much more complicated than you expected, even though you expected it to be more complicated than you expected.

If anyone tries to tell you the problems of math education, educational technology, or capital-E education are simple, or that the solutions are simple, or that the people who don’t accept those solutions are simple-minded, kick the crash bar and don’t stop running. They’re wrong and none of this work would be very much fun if it were that simple anyway.

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Peps Mccrea:

Ever heard of Veik’s law of commensurate complexity? He suggested that no model can simultaneously be both: simple, general, and accurate. It can be 2 of the 3, but not all 3. ‘Simple’ can be important, because complexity is difficult to manage. Particularly in a world where no one person can know enough to make an informed decision. It helps get things done. Just sometimes at the expense of the general and the accurate.

Scott McLeod on people who say, “We didn’t have computers when I was in school and I turned out okay.”

Is it wrong of me to wish that people who espouse this view be prohibited from holding political office or serving on school boards?

Stephen Downes pivots off McLeod and offers his own response to those people:

You didn’t have Segways in schools when you were a kid and look how the world turned out. We don’t get to make those mistakes a second time. We need to get it right, now. That’s why we need Segways in schools.

He actually cites computers, not Segways, but it’s the same logical error. Likewise, McLeod admitted he couldn’t think of any elected officials who actually thought that way. It’s the same old harangue, only now they’re making up villains. They’re fabricating cretins and idiots and then criticizing them for their idiocy and cretinism.

2011 Nov 7. Scott McLeod notes that just because he couldn’t give me a link to those comments doesn’t mean he hasn’t heard them. Which is absolutely correct and qualifies my comments here. Here is my response.