“We tell a story about the power of learning that is very different from what we practice in traditional models of school
If we really want children to grow up to become self-reliant and reach their full potential, “we would be doing something very different in schools. We live in a state of cognitive dissonance.”
“What are most kids getting out of 12 years of school?” he asks. “The honest answer is they’re learning how to follow
The reason so many adults find the situation tolerable, he says, may stem from the fact that they experience little control over their own lives. Additionally, they themselves are products of the system
For models of healthier ways to frame education, Hargadon suggests looking to food and libraries. “No one says that from age six to 17, we will give you all the same food, at the same time, regardless of your individual circumstances or needs,”
“In some ways, traditional schools have co-opted a lot of traditional parental responsibilities,” he says. “That’s really unhealthy,
Recognizing the different needs of every student, and the desire to help each one become personally competent as a learner and find productive things to do in life—that won’t happen online.”
Technology can support a transformation, but it’s not a silver bullet
one way change agents get tripped up is by promoting a particular model, rather than a process by which people can develop (or adopt) models
“Living in a democracy means involving people in decision making,” Hargadon says. “You can’t just create a new system to implement top down; you have to provide the opportunity to talk about it and build it constructively.”
Great post by Steve Hargadon, explaining why educational technologists may lead the way to effective alternatives - decentralization, differentiation, transformation in schooling.
On a blog, the main author is on a pedestal, and blogs tend to favor posts which
reflect the self-importance of the blogger or comments which tend toward
extremism
What makes social networking for professional development so powerfu
not geographically or physically bounded
takes place 24X7
llows for asynchronous contribution
contribution by those who would never previously have written an article for a
journal or made a formal presentation
Comments on the founding of Classroom 2.0 and how teachers who were not previously participating in online social networking were more comfortable using the Classroom 2.0 site than maintaining and otherwise participating in blogs
NSDL recently underwent a reorganization into discipline subsections with intense work by degree candidates. One of them from WCU was denied credit for work and publication because there were no page numbers. The head of the project called her advisor and fixed the problem, but they rethought the model and added separate online journals for contributors. At this point, the chemistry portal is a model of how the whole thing should turn out. http://chemdl.org
It has moodle modules, a textbook, lessons, virtual labs. I will link to a google spreadsheet with all URIs in a few days. Right now my kids are putting it together. ;-) Bob