learning matters (nz)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Why Bother ?
eLearning is hard work. Somewhere it moved from an 'ism' to a 'wasm', without making a signficant impact on teaching practice, i.e. pedagogy.
So the challenge is how do we shift the focus back to the learner and how ICT can make them a better learner. How do we shift the focus of ICT from being just a tool, or conduit to others' information ... to being a collaborative tool that helps students to build their own and collective understanding?
I like what Julie Lindsay writes in her blog:
What about the Content?
OK, I am a little left of centre on this. Content is not king, content is important, essential even, but it is not king. It is time teachers and administrators decided that content is subservient to higher order educational objectives and ran their schools accordingly. It is time teachers stopped being so precious and protective of 'their' content area.
As I mentioned on the Skype call, what is the good of content if we do not DO SOMETHING with it? For example, what is the good of learning about the Iraq invasion if we are not able to discuss this with someone living int eh Middle East who may have a different perspective. What is the good of knowing facts and figures and writing about them just for one teacher, one examiner and perhaps a fwe classmates?
The other day I was back to discussing with staff about why can't we have more suites of 30 computers. Staff want to take all their students to the computer suite to do the same thing (research, use EXCEL to do an assessment) simultaneously.
Dr Marc Rosenberg asserts that today's e-learning is both inadequate
and ineffective. Starting with the punch-card learning he experienced 30 years
ago, enthusiasm for technology rather than pedagogy has all too often driven
development. This has resulted in 'vending machines' churning out 'PowerPoint
learning', poor learning experiences and a market penetration of only 20
percent. In conclusion, Dr Rosenberg explains that he is here to save
e-learning, not to bury it, and demands new, better forms of e-learning to
address the skills of tomorrow. For now though, the 'e' of e-learning stands for
'enough'!
So the challenge is how do we shift the focus back to the learner and how ICT can make them a better learner. How do we shift the focus of ICT from being just a tool, or conduit to others' information ... to being a collaborative tool that helps students to build their own and collective understanding?
