the relevance is that it involves what human nature prefers. It is in our nature to gravitate toward light-hearted, less taxing mind activities. Also, some people do prefer reading books to reading social websites. Is it right to make such broad generalization?
Surely it (higher education) can’t be as bad as the video seems to suggest
I had become convinced that the video was over the top, that things were really
not so bad, that the system is not as broken as I thought
the classroom environment. It speaks directly to those who propose the move from
a ’sage on the stage’ teacher style to that of ‘guide on the side
Scanning the room my assistants also saw students cruising Facebook, instant
messaging, and texting their friends. The students were undoubtedly engaged,
just not with me.
“My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that
they can ‘get by’ without paying attention in their
classes.”
Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half
of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning,
no hands were raised. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school.
What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning
This was my experience. I loved to learn. But I always felt the learning in school had absolutely no personal relevance to me. Sad. I only began to enjoy school when I entered college, and learning things that were personally meaningful.
Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of
our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around
our ’subjects,’ ‘disciplines,’ and ‘courses.’ McLuhan’s statement about the
bewildered child ….. still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have
become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today
there is something called ‘the real world’ which is foreign and set apart from
our schools
the 'modern
malaise', which manifests itself primarily in a 'centring on the
self, which both flattens and narrows our lives, makes them poorer
in meaning, and less concerned with others or society' (The Ethics
of Authenticity), and which can lead even further to a disorientating
dislocation from those things that give our lives meaning and sense.
"Uncanny" may be a feeling that most of the parents of students in my online course may be feeling as they support their child in taking an online class.
Some of the students in my online course may identify with the character TechTiger. Being part of the millennial generation, they may feel misunderstood by their parents and teachers.
Click on Kanying's name. We are familiar with blogs and journaling, however it is amazing to see a blog that is written in a different language. It is even more amazing to think about the 112.8 million blogs that are created and how many of them are in foreign languages. If we were cultural anthropologists, what could we learn from viewing these diverse digital journals?
This is a common misconception for parents. They think that because their child is working on a computer it is unconstructive. In some ways their theory is true, especially if their child is not taught how to constructively use the computer as a learning tool. How do we instill in our children and students that the computer is a powerful learning tool?
These are just a few things students could do using a web blog. What if they were instructed on how to use this technology based environment in an educational setting?
The child's learning possibilities would soar.
Parents, teachers, and administrators need to be instructed on how to create meaningful learning activities using new technology such as the computer. Students are longing for this kind of authentic and meaningful learning. What is the purpose of school if students are not presented with critical thinking and problem solving activities that bring them to a higher level of thinking and learning?
The resource I would like to add for the MERLOT project is actually a resource that I submitted to MERLOT back in April. The resource is a blog/power point presentation that is designed to be a resource for parents. The information in this power point presentation comes from Victoria Carrington's article "The Uncanny: Digital Texts and Literacy". The power point presentation is designed in an easy to read story book format which tells of a modern day child named "TechTiger" who changes the perspective of his parents, teachers, and other in the older "uncanny" generation due to his media literacy and experiences with contemporary culture.
I will incorporate this resource into my online course by adding it to my parent corner. Since my Life Cycle course is intended for a third grade audience, I have designed an area for parents so that they are aware of what their child is learning in this course as well as ways they could enrich their child outside of my course on topics they are learning. Some parents who have their child enrolled in my online course may be "uncanny" to media literacy and have some of the concerns that are addressed in the resource TechTiger's Space. The resource TechTiger's Space may put into perspective some parent's fears with technology as well as the added benefits to put their minds at ease and support their child's online learning experience.
It has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
t has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
t has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers
It has often been noted that when a new technology arrives we tend to use it in old ways (eg Twigg 2001), before we begin to understand what it really offers. So, for example the television was initially treated as ‘radio with pictures’
In an attempt to move towards the possibilities offered by a completely digital, online world, they have started with the education model we are familiar with. They are, in effect, a virtual classroom, or course, with content (which map onto lectures) laid out in a linear sequence with discussion forums linked to this (mapping onto tutorials). In one LMS (the open source Bodington system, http://bodington.org) they even went as far as to make this mapping explicit by making the interface a building which you had to navigate to your lecture room.
Heppell (2001) argues that “we continually make the error of subjugating technology to our present practice rather than allowing it to free us from the tyranny of past mistakes.
Daniel (1996) has argued that elearning is the only way to cope with expanding global demand for higher education, claiming that “a major university needs to be created each week” to meet the proposed demand.
f we view our online learning environments not as analogies of how we currently teach, but rather as a metaphor for how we engage with changes required for a digital society, then this provides us with some insight in to how to tackle the issues above (and others).
Siemens (2008) argues that “Learning theories, such as constructivism, social constructivism, and more recently, connectivism, form the theoretical shift from instructor or institution controlled teaching to one of greater control by the learner.”
To learn is to acquire information
Information is scare and hard to find
Trust authority for good information
Authorized information is beyond discussion
Obey the authority
Follow along
lecture hall ‘said’ about learning,
Why would we seek to recreate the sort of learning affordances Wesch highlights in a virtual environment, when we are free to construct it however we wish?
Arguably then there has never been a better alignment of current thinking in terms of good pedagogy – i.e. emphasising the social and situated nature of learning, rather than a focus on knowledge recall with current practices in the use of technologies – i.e. user-generated content, user-added value and aggregated network effects. Despite this, the impact of Web 2.0 on education has been less dramatic than its impact on other spheres of society – use for social purposes, supporting niche communities, collective political action, amateur journalism and social commentary.”
"Tools such as blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging systems, mashups, and content-sharing sites are examples of a new user-centric information infrastructure that emphasizes participation (e.g., creating, re-mixing) over presentation, that encourages focused conversation and short briefs
connectivism (Siemens 2005) places decentralisation at the heart of learning:"Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing"
Wikipedia succeeds by decentralising the authoring process, YouTube succeeds by both decentralising the broadcasting production process, but also by allowing embeds within blogs and other sites, thus decentralising the distribution process
Knowing how to link to and locate resources in databases and search engines is a skill for a decentralised information world. The result is that online references are forced into an existing scheme, which has an inherent preference for physical resources. The traditional reference is often provided in papers, when it is the online one that has actually been used because the referencing system is biased towards the paper version.
SocialLearn has been conceived as a deliberate attempt to discover how learners behave in this sphere, how to develop the appropriate technology and support structures, what pedagogies are required and what are the business models for education in a disaggregated educational market.
As Siegel (2006) points out, “children have always engaged in what are now called multimodal literacy practices” (pg.65) Children naturally talk about, dramatize and draw ideas that they are reading and writing about. Furthermore, using multiple modes or sign systems can provide new and deeper meaning (Siegel, 2006, pg. 71)
Research to date shows that when curricular changes include multimodality, those youth who experience substantial success are the very ones who’ve been labeled “struggling reader” or “learning disabled” (Siegel, 2006, pg. 73)
Many progressive pedagogies such as constructivism, experiential learning and inquiry learning emphasize the importance of building upon students’ experiences, knowledge, skills and interests (Rowsell, Kosnik & Beck, 2009.)
In his recent video, An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube, Michael Wesch (2008) persuasively outlines the ways in which the world has changed through new media, and how education can and should harness the potential of this new world.