GARETH MITCHELL: But first it started as a search engine and has gone on to be pretty much everything engine. Googles march to world domination has taken in advertising, mapping, television and at most recently news. And now it appears to be entering the classroom, if a recent speech by googles chief technologist is anything to go by, and we are not just talking about students typing assignments titles into google and then copying and pasting the contents of the top five hits into their essays. The firms director of research Peter Norvek has been in the UK speaking at a meeting organized by the association for learning technology, a scholarly group interested in the information society. And just before he addressed delegates to the get together called learning for the social network generation, Norvek took a few moments to give me his views on technology at teaching.
加雷思•米切尔：它刚开始的时候只是一个搜索引擎，后来通过不断的发展几乎成为了万能引擎。谷歌席卷全球，在广告，测绘，电视和最近的新闻上都能找到其身影，逐步确立起它的统治地位。而现在，如果谷歌的首席工程师最近发表的讲话遵循了什么，他似乎正在走进课堂，我们不是在谈论关于学生在谷歌里面输入指定标题，然后复制和粘贴相关内容到他们的论文中。该公司的研究部执行长彼得•洛维克在英国举行的一次会议上发表过讲话，会议是由技术学习协会举办的，该协会是一个学术小组，对信息社会很感兴趣。他呼吁代表们要团结起来，为了社会网络一代而学习，在此之前，洛维克抽出片刻时间跟我谈论他对教学技术的看法。

MR NORVEK: Instead of trying to control all the learning so that there is a set lesson plan, instead set the students free ,and give them an interesting problem to work on, give them some collaborators to work with, either fellow students in the class or people they meet in the online community throughout the world and let them use all the world’s information to solve the problems that are interesting to them, and then the teacher can just serve as a mediator so they are going back and forth checking the progress of the students.
洛维克先生：与其尝试着去控制所有的学习，从而产生一套教案，不如让学生自由发挥，给他们一个有趣的问题让他们去讨论，培养他们的团队合作，无论他们是在同一课堂上，还是遍及全世界的在线社团，让他们利用世界上的一切信息去解决他们感兴趣的问题，于是老师只需要充当仲裁人的角色，反反复复检查学生们的进展。

GARETH MITCHELL: And there maybe people over the age of sixteen listening to this horrified at that thought, they’ll say this is all very undirected and so on.
加雷思•米切尔：也许16岁以上的人听到这个觉得有点不可思议，他们会说这完全是无人指导等等。

MR NORVEK: Yes so I think you are really shifting the burden from upfront of trying to teach them the right thing to the back end of saying well now what we got to do is evaluate them, so you set the students free we're out of control, they go out and learn something. There is still this task of evaluating. What have they learned? Have they learnt it well? And are they ready to move on? And we've got to do that instead. And I think you know you always have a choice when you are working on a process, do you make sure upfront that you are doing it perfectly, or do you let things go, and then check them? And you know only release the products that actually make it passed quality control. I think that we are seeing a shift more towards that second type of model.
洛维克先生：是的，所以我认为你是真正把担子转移了，从前期的尝试教他们有用的东西，到现在我们要做的只是去评价他们，所以你给了学生自由让我们无法控制，他们走出去并学到了一些东西。我们仍然需要对他们进行评价。他们学到了什么？他们可以学好吗？准备继续学下去吗？我们必须做这样的改变。我想你明白，当你在工作过程中你总会有一个选择，你可以在此之前保证你可以做得很好吗，或者你先放手，然后去检查他们？你知道实际上只有放开产品才能让它通过质量控制。我认为我们正在看到这个转移更倾向于这第二种模式。

GARETH MITCHELL: And where does that quality control come in? Because one of my questions was going to be is this the end of the teacher? Or is this the whole point of where the teachers would come in and they'd somehow would enforce that quality control and direct this learning somehow?
加雷思•米切尔：那么质量控制从哪里来？我有一个问题，这会是教师的终结吗？或者这是一个关键点，需要教师在那里发挥作用，由他们执行质量控制和引导学习过程？

MR NORVEK: Yes I think that becomes more the job of the teacher to react to the way the students are going, saying, “yes this is a good direction, yes you accomplished what you needed to do.” or “know, that this isn’t quite right.”
洛维克先生：是的，我认为这种情况会变得更多，老师对学生学习方式的反应会是:“是的，这是个好的方向，是的，你完成了你需要去做的。”或者是“你知道，这不太合适。”

GARETH MITCHELL: And people might be saying how come google has suddenly become an expert in education? Ok you guys know technology and as a research director you definitely know your technology and I know that you have worked at NASA and places like that. Teachers might be saying “but he doesn’t know anything about the way children learn, who is he to tell us how these things should be done.”
加雷思•米切尔：人们可能会说，怎么谷歌突然成了教育专家了？好，你们知道技术，作为研究部执行长，你一定了解你们的技术，而且我知道你曾在NASA和跟其性质差不多的地方工作。老师们可能会说:“但他不知道任何有关儿童的学习方式，凭什么他来告诉我们这些事情应该那么做。”

MR NORVEK: At google we recognize that we are being used informally, if not formally as part of the learning tools for students or supplementing what they are getting at schools. So if we are being used this way anyways, we might want to understand better, how that might be done better and how it might integrate with both the classroom and a non classroom setting.
洛维克先生：在谷歌，我们发现我们正在习惯这种非正式，如果不能正式成为学生学习工具的一部分，或者作为他们在学校所学的一个补充。所以不管怎么样，如果我们习惯这种方式，我们想更好去了解他，怎样才能做得更好，怎样把它与课堂和非课堂形式结合起来。

GARETH MITCHELL: Peter Norvek there. Well Bill Thompson is in the studio with us, he joins us every week as our studio commentator. Hello Bill!
加雷思•米切尔：以上是彼得•洛维克的评论。现在比尔•汤普森来到了我们的工作室，他每周都会作为评论嘉宾来到这里。你好，比尔！


BILL THOMPSON: Hello there Gareth!
比尔•汤普森：你好，加雷思！

GARETH MITCHELL: Right. So teachers around the world might have been listening to that and start thinking along the lines of the questions that I just asked which are: who is this technologist to come in and tell us how to run our classrooms?
加雷思•米切尔：好的。世界上各地的教师可能已经听过这些了，并开始沿着这个方向去思考我刚才问的问题，就是：这位工程师是谁，凭什么他来告诉我们如何管理我们的课堂呢？

BILL THOMPSON: They might be, but I suspect many of their students will also be thinking, way. Hey! At last somebody who realizes we are using Google we're using MSN search and all these other tools already when we're doing course-work when we are out of the class, why can’t we have access to them in the classroom setting as well? Maybe be shown how to use them more effectively, but at least give us access to the same sort of services and tools as we're gonna get in the wider world, why should we be stuck in a classroom with a much more limited domain of activity just doing the tasks that the teacher sets them.
比尔•汤普森：他们可能会，但我猜测他们的许多学生也将思考，处理方式。嘿！最终有人意识到，当我们在课下做课程论文的时候，我们会用谷歌，用MSN引擎和其他所有的工具，为什么我们不能同样的把他们运用到课堂上呢？或许可以让我们知道如何更有效的运用他们，至少允许我们用同类的服务器和工具，因为我们要进入一个更广阔的世界，为什么我们要被课堂上极为有限的行动范围所束缚，只是去完成老师布置的作业。

GARETH MITCHELL: But if I was a parent and my child came home from school today, and said “what did you do in the classroom?” and they said “Oh we spent all day just on Google typing things in and seeing what we were going to find out!” I wouldn’t be that impressed, but I guess Peter Norvek is making more new once argument than that.

加雷思•米切尔：如果我作为家长，我的孩子们今天从学校回到家中，我会问：“你在教室都做了些什么？”他们回答：“我们花了一整天的时间在谷歌上搜索看看我们会在上面查到什么!”我不会那么印象深刻，但我猜彼得•洛维克有比以前更新的观点。

BILL THOMPSON: Well actually perhaps although he did say that set the students free let them collaborate, then he said let them use all the world’s information and I think that will be a real danger. Because the thing about the classroom setting, the thing about teaching, the things that teachers bring to the process. They say “ok look over here” or “these are the boundaries for your observations at the moment”, because then there is stuff in there that you will understand, you can make sense of yet you can bring back into the classroom. I think it will be a real danger to just let students go out onto the big wide internet where as we know every fact is true, where as we know there is nothing salacious or unpleasant for them to come across. Much better to have tools，in place, to help them in their guided research, and areas where they will go out and do research where they can be pretty sure their gonna come across things that are useful. It's much harder to build an educational environment, than just to say let the kids go, let them go and have a look. I’m sure they will come up with something.
比尔•汤普森：实际上就算他曾说过要放手让学生自己去做，让他们合作，然后他说让他们利用世界上的一切信息，这才是我认为真正危险的。因为这关系到课堂设置，关系到教学，关系到老师的处理方式。他们说：“好的，来看一下这里”或者“这些是你此刻观察的界限”，因为这会是一个素材，是你将要明白的，你可以了解你仍可以回到课堂上。我认为让学生们去接触如此大而广阔的网络真是件危险的事，我们要清楚知道哪里的事物是真实的，哪里不会让他们碰到一些淫秽或令人不快的东西。在适当的位置，最好有工具来帮助他们完成指导性研究，划出他们做研究的区域范围，一个他们十分确定他们将要发现有用的东西的区域范围。比起对孩子撒手不管，让他们随便看看，要建成这样一个教育环境是很困难的的。但我确信他们随便看看会遇见一些不好的东西。

GARETH MITCHELL: Sure, alright Bill, well, thanks for that. 、

加雷思•米切尔：当然，比尔，感谢你抽出时间接受采访。