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TIME between TIMES: the joy of educating during a time of rapid
technological change.
- compiled by Jonathan Nalder, http://uLearning.edublogs.org,
[email protected], @jnxyz
- Wordle.net Word cloud of responses recieved to the statement
below.
Which educator with even a vague interest in keeping pedagogy up
to date hasnt shakentheir head when overhearing comments like these
in staffrooms or education gatherings:
I have a school provided laptop, but it just sits in my
cupboard.
Our network is always down so Ive just given up trying.
All mobile phones in schools should be banned.
Im just a digital immigrant, so cant be expected to learn
that!
Im retiring in 5 years, so Im not going bother with
technology.
Youre the guru, you do it!
At my own large primary school with over 65 teaching staff, I
sadly know of several forwhich the first comment holds true. Anyone
reading this could probably similarly pick outthe ones they have
been exposed to. Day after day, and year after year of being
anadvocate for transformational learning in the face of these kinds
of attitudes can have apretty disheartening effect. Thank goodness
that one of the benefits of the technology thatso many educators
still shun is that we can now access other colleagues via
Facebookand Twitter who feel the same, but just as what is still
most needed across nearly allEducation sectors is not necessarily
more money, but a total mindset change, so can wewho are charged
with leading change benefit from turning around our thinking.
The Digital revolution is a fast moving beast. Change is now a
constant, not a once everynow and then event. Mobile, wireless and
cloud computing developments are leading veryquickly towards a
world of ubiquitous, or everyware computing. Its no secret that
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Education has been slow to respond to rise of these
technologies. In fact, a 2003 reportinto the ICT-intensiveness of
55 industries found that Education ranked last. While itseasy to
get down about such a result, as well as the responses that many
teachers stillgive today when invited to incorporate digital
pedagogies into their students learning, thereare plenty of great
examples where educators have responded in wonderful ways to
thedigital revolution. I encourage you to seek them out, perhaps by
visiting the sites of thedistinguished educators youll find below
who have responded to this:
Statement:This is the time between times for educators working
with technology. Before mobile,ubiquitous and everyware computing
become the invisible norm, but after a time wheneducators could sit
back and wait for the digital revolution to pass on by. As slow as
somein education have been to respond to rapid technological
change, this is however the mostexciting and dynamic time to be an
educator of the educators because ...
George Siemens, Canada.
Founder of Connectivism, Associate Director with the Learning
TechnologiesCentre at University of Manitoba.www.elearnspace.orgI
believe that we are seeing, in educational technology, a rare
convergence oftechnological transformation and ideological
development. Twin trends of this sort areinfrequent, last occurring
with the industrial revolution when (rudimentary) concepts
ofdemocracy compounded the trends of industrialization. In
education, the last century hasprovided growing consensus of
learning as a social and participative process. While notalways
ideologically aligned, thinkers like Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget,
Bandura, Bruner,Engestrom, Wenger, Lave, Pea, and others have
emphasized the distributed, social, andmulti-faceted dimensions of
learning.
The last several decades has also produced an increase in
technologies that enableparticipants to engage with information in
a manner not seen in history. The rise of socialnetworking
services, participative web, and growth in mobile technologies and
broadbandaccess, provides a compelling argument for change. When
the technological movementcombines with the ideological shift in
learning theory, the impact on education may betransformative. The
future of education will be shaped by those who are able
toanticipate and understand the impact of the dual forces of social
learning andparticipative technology.
Tony Vincent, USA.Former teacher, now trainer and education
consultant.www.learninginhand.comWhat I love even more than
teaching is learning. And in the changing digital and
sociallandscape, I get to learn constantly and reinforce my
learning by sharing it with others.
Dr Tony Karrer, USA.CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a software, web and
eLearning development firm.http://elearningtech.blogspot.comMy only
real formal learning on the metacognitive methods and tools that
are the heart of
the value I bring as a knowledge worker was by educators. But I
learned in an era of cardcatalogs, microfiche readers, notes on
paper. There were no laptops or mobiledevices; no instant access to
trillions of web pages; no networks of millions of people; nor
http://www.techempower.com/http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/http://umanitoba.ca/http://www.techempower.com/http://www.techempower.com/http://umanitoba.ca/http://umanitoba.ca/http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/
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free access to thousands of new tools. Educators today are in
the midst of one of themost interesting transformations where
individual knowledge becomes devaluedbut the ability to teach new
metacognitive tools and methods is more important thanever.
Toni Twiss, NZ.
Former teacher, now a director of eLearning for secondary
schools and a lecturer atWaikato University.http://tonitwiss.comOf
the opportunity we have to remind ourselves of and rekindle our
passion for learningwithin a truly authentic context. We are
forming our own new way forward, often throughexperimentation, and
along the way are experiencing the feelings of satisfaction
whensomething new is learned or achieved. I think as teachers it is
also a timely reminderof what it feels like to be a learner and
perhaps at times a struggling learner. We areput in the shoes of
the very students we teach as we explore and experiment with
thepotential of new technologies and perhaps most importantly
reconstruct and refresh
understanding of our own pedagogy and practice rather than just
doing what we havealways done.
We are developing teaching methods to allow our students to be
successful contributors tothe world that they will be part of when
they leave school. It is exciting because by thechoices we as
teachers are making about what and how we choose to teach, we
arehelping to define the values and skills that we see as being key
to the future.
Shane Roberts, Australia.Secondary HPE teacher, and Advanced
Pedagogical Licence holder.
http://shanetechteach.edublogs.orgThe change in others that can
be realised and witnessed is immense. This could be atime
considered for preparation for anywhere, anytime learning and as
such thephenomenon of educators learning from each otheris a rising
river. Innovators and earlyadopters can educate through means other
than direct tuition which is impacting on theteaching and learning
methodologies and practices experienced by todays students.
Therange of devices available is also transforming ideas about
teaching and learning, and theprocesses that distribute this
teaching and learning.Change is an exciting process, for me in
particular as it means trial and experimentationare welcomed. Less
effective or productive practices can be discovered, trialled
andreported on without fear of being labeled incompetent as long as
learning isachieved and demonstrated. Accompanying this is the
ability to gain feedback from aworldwide audience, leading to
inspiration within ones own practice.
Mathew Nehrling, USA.Sr. Instructional Designer with a Fortune
500 telecommunications
company.http://mlearningworld.blogspot.comDuring a transition
period like this, many minds are not in the box to solutions and
ideas.Everyone is looking for how to integrate the new innovation
(be it idea or technology).After an innovation is standard,
creativity is often stifled because people have the baseline
as to 'how it is'.During the economic downturn as much off the
world is having, it forces people to thinkabout real, practical
application. It sharpens the focus like a sword. How can you take
the
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innovation and produce the greatest ROI? It takes all the
creative ideas and helps onehone in on what is practical.We are at
a point now where we have a perfect combination of the two. There
is atechnological revolution in anywhere, anytime computing, but
with economicdownturns, you have to focus on real, productive
solutions, thus more energy isspent on what can be produced and
static (data asphyxiation) is pushed aside.
Emma Heffernan, Australia.Manager Discovery Programs, eLearning
Branch, Education Queensland.For the first time in history,
students and teachers are consciously playing the same
role;learners. Technology is a great democratiser of education. It
is no longer expected thateducators hold the knowledge to impart to
their learners, rather that we are alllearners. The role of the
educator is evolving to one of true facilitator, guide and
modellearner. We have unprecedented access to people, information,
resources and wisdom,and as we develop new ways of learning and
working we are reshaping our view ofeducation and schooling.
Professor Stephen Heppell, U.K.Founder, Ultralab and
Think.comwww.heppell.netBecause we are in a world recession. Every
past recession has seen a step change forNew Learning as Keynesian
investment boost the new, rejects the old and favours
publicservice; because we have moved from the flat start of
technological progression'sexponential curve to the steep part.
Where before we had good time to reflect on smallchanges, now we
have little time to reflect on momentous changes - that meansthere
is no time for a top-down quality control model and we must rely on
people,
practitioners and communities for judgement for what might be
effective;Because technology destroys cartels: music, automobiles,
banks and more. Those whosought to build value from vast scale and
barriers to new competition see their wallscrumble as a people's
century erodes their foundations. It was people that called time
onrecorded music and rediscovered live performance; it's small
local mutual banks that havesurvived. Learning is about people, not
corporations.Because all the old certainties of a last century
world of factory schools with its formulaicrigours of "met before"
learning have palpably failed to meet the needs of a world full
ofsurprises and the unexpected. It's the death of factory education
and, as I have oftenreflected before, the dawn of learning..
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And the winner is ? Based on all the above responses, and a word
count/analysis,LEARNING is now king, and being a learner the key to
educators finding a place in 21stCentury learning. Many thanks to
all the respondents for their key contributions.
- Jonathan Nalder, August 2009.
