Learning Tools

Here is a collection of tools from UBC for making learning objects. Whether a given tool actually works seems hit-and-miss, but there are some interesting ideas here. From the October, 2008 CALL newsletter.

Weboword

In the true spirit of Web 2.0, site members are jointly creating a visual dictionary of the English language. So far, it is tiny. But don’t just use it to look up what others have done. Consider having your own students contribute—thereby learning their target vocabulary thoroughly, while gaining a legitimate sense of accomplishment. From the May '09 newsletter.

Death in Rome

Another interactive fiction adventure from the Beeb. Good for testing reading comprehension.

The Roots of English

Here's a nice writing challenge with a secondary value. Students compose a poem with the words supplied, and are then told whether the words they have used come from French, Anglo-Saxon, or Norse roots.

Here's what I managed:

tremble tattered foot
screech sky
love is drink
loud the secret cry

Mostly Anglo-Saxon.

Battle of the Atlantic

From the BBC and the British taxpayer, a very short interactive fiction with a lot of text. Good for reading comprehension.

History Channel Games

Of possible ESL use, but great for teaching history at the el-hi level.

Student Writing Coach

This one is a little scary. Students are guided through the process of writing an academic paper, prompt by prompt, sentence by sentence, in a selection of genres. It just makes it all seem too easy.

Crack the Case

A nifty little bit of interactive detective fiction courtesy of Biography Channel. Great for painless reading comprehension practice.

Multiple Intelligences

The idea of “multiple intelligences” still seems to be all the rage in educational circles. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education points out that it has been empirically disproven. It is, to use an apt phrase from the article, "persisting without adequate evidence." It has “survived long past the stage of empirical disrepute,” for political, or even religious, reasons. People want to believe that “everyone is equal” in the false sense of being equally intelligent, equally moral, or equally competent. This is obviously untrue on even the most casual observation, and “multiple intelligences” is one fudge to try to work around the evidence. It argues that, if someone is indeed not so good at mathematics, it must then follow that they excel at dancing, or at the ethical use of the environment, or at getting along with others; so that there is some ultimate balance.

Surely this is a religious, not to say romantic, and not a scientific, notion. Which is fine, in itself; there is nothing wrong with having a religion. When, for example, John Locke or Thomas Jefferson argued that all men were created equal, this too was a religious, not a scientific, notion. They meant that, since all are equally created by God, all are equally loved by God, and therefore have equal rights in his eyes. It does not follow that he would make them all the same—rather the reverse, that he would want to make them all different, else what's the reason for more than one?

But when a religion makes a scientific claim, or claims to base itself on science instead of faith or first principles, it must be held to the standards of science. If the claim is empirical, it is possible to falsify it, and if it has been falsified, it must be abandoned.

Accordingly, the thesis of "multiple intelligences" belongs in the dustbin.