Impact on Teaching and Learning March 31, 2007
Posted by mgonzalez02 in Themes.trackback
What will be the impact of technology on teaching and learning for both student and teacher?
Society and Technology 2015
What will be the impact of technology on teaching and learning for both student and teacher?
Researchers Explore Scrapping Internet
I just read an interesting article from the Associated Press in Forbes magazine on-line about the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) project, the new cyberinfrastructure initiative from the NSF. (The link is below)
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/15/ap3614134.html?partner=alerts
In case you are not familiar with GENI, there is a school of thought that we need to create a “clean slate” for the Internet and build a new network on entirely new principles.
The article mentions that it may take 10-15 years before some of the ideas come to fruition in a commercially viable Internet. But many commercial parties, such as Cisco and NTT are already at the table funding some of this research. Government officials, such as the FBI are also chiming in on this new design. So, what might a new Internet look like in 2015, with all these competing interests involved? Can we repeat the tremendous success of the current Internet when we may not be able to recreate the openness and trust that existed when researches and academecians created the first Internet? What impact will an entirely new Internet have on teaching and learning and research?
I think a clean slate internet is the way to go. But the trust and openness must remain. My fear is it will be come security overload and you will have to pass a security test to use it.
I am reminded of conversations over the years I had with Frank Newman, now diseased, who ran the Educational Futures project at Brown who said, and I am paraphrasing: “Kids today are random, lateral learners and the entire education system is a command and control model based on lectures as the source of knowledge. Today information is stored electonically. Thus there is a huge disconnect between the current educational model and the learning approaches of young people.
I love grand synthesizing lectures, but that is a lost art and Frank said he didn’t find much good lecturing. Instead he found teachers presenting information easily found on line.
Further, society demands a new learner, a life long learner so they can invent their future along with the future inventing itself. It requires someone who can co-create solutions with others.
Seth Goldenberg, who is the thought leader for this topic, looks for and shops for all his books on line. Me the 60 year old romantic still longs for and goes to cool bookstores where the staff post their favorite books with note cards saying why the book matters or where I stumble onto a book that changes my life.
The word education implies an institutional approach today despite its origin in the latin educare — to draw out. Perhaps the way to go is to drop the focus on education and go with the idea of teaching and learning — a back forth conversation where one moment you are teaching and the next learning, or even both at the same time. Blogs and wickies do this. Thewy intrigue me as an emerging form of teaching and learning.
I am interested in learning more about teaching and learning using gaming and virtual worlds —
Olga’s comments remind me of a conversation I heard a few years ago at an EDUCAUSE meeting. How are we going to use new tools and technologies to truly improve how we teach the next generation — or perhaps more importantly the lifelong learners.
In the Strauss article on “The Future of the Web …” he speaks of how the television reporting model should be considered in improving on our model for delivering content to students.
At the EDUCAUSE meeting, Ron Hutchins, Vice Provost at Georgia Tech, explained that we are going to be challenged more and more to be able to reach a more dispersed student body. We know that in the future we are going to need to continuoulsy be learning in order to keep up to date with our jobs and careers. Our sons and daughters will need to reinvent themselves several times in their carreers, all while still trying to raise children, coach soccer and balance life and work.
To date we have used distance learning technology to deliver a “talking head” that “talks at” a large audience watching at the other end of a public TV broadcast, or a streamed video. There is little interaction between the professor and the students. Sounds a lot like we have used technology to repeat one of the worst teaching models we have ever used — the 400 person lecture hall with little interaction between the student and teacher.
So we need to create rich environment, where a person at a distance can have the same experience that one finds sitting in a classroom with about 30 classmates. Perhaps Olga’s curiosity about how to use virtual worlds or gaming could help get us there.
Following up on Robert’s notion to drop the “e” world (education) in favor of something more like teaching and learning, that is in fact a transition that has been a slow revolution. From “Teaching to Learning” harkens back to an article by Barr and Tagg which appeared in the November/December 1995 edition of Change magazine (and is available online at http://critical.tamucc.edu/~blalock/readings/tch2learn.htm
The full title is informative – “From Teaching to Learning – A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education”. Like most revolutions in higher education it’s decades in the making. They compared the then (and largely still) dominant paradigm in higher education the “instruction paradigm”. In it’s place they write is the “Learning Paradigm”, The Learning Paradigm “ends the lecture’s privileged position, honoring in its place whatever approaches serve best to prompt learning of particular knowledge by particular students.”
Of course, there is much impeding this shift and that’s grist for good discussion.
Phil
Ah virtual worlds. There is much to be excited about in the prospect of education in virtual worlds. One of the major opportunities they afford is the chance to try out new identities. A colleague and executive at IBM recently gave a talk on what he calls the 3D web, in which the discussion arose when is it Ok to come to a business meeting as a chipmunk? He was referring to the options one has in virtual worlds to construct one’s own avatar (virtual representation of one’s self), and in this case a researcher at IBM showed up with his ‘chipmunk avatar’ to the meeting in the virtual world conference room.
That’s not a question you get asked every day. But the interesting thing about it is the new perspective that emerged as they contemplated what, in fact, makes for a good, efficient, and useful business meeting? Are some conventions important statements of practices that work, or are they there “just because”?
Virtual Worlds certainly seem to have a greater engagement factor. Indeed I’ve heard the complaint from students, ironically, that one thing the don’t like about virtual worlds (in this case referring to Second Life – http://www.secondlife.com) was they couldn’t multi-task as much as they liked. Interacting in the VW required more cognitive attention! I’m not sure that isn’t an ‘good thing’
Phil
Those interested in best practices in teaching and learning in the virtual world of Second Life might want to note an upcoming in-world conference addressing this topic at
wiki for the conference scheduled for May 25th is:
http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/
Venues in SL where events will be held are listed at:
http://slbestpractices2007.wikispaces.com/Venues
For general information on Second Life there are a number of options. The SL Educators list is VERY active (25 msgs. a day – maybe more). I don’t recommend that for any but the most stalwart.
SL Educators List: educators@lists.secondlife.com
(subscribe in the typical listserv fashion).
A more manageable way to get a sense of Second Life from the persepective of teaching and learning is to look at the NMC (New Media Consortium) web presence called the NMC Campus Observer at http://www.nmc.org/sl
Phil