Group items tagged

The most profound technologies are those that disappear.

school teachers are no longer the primary means to knowledge, but should act as a coaches or curators, rather than broadcasters.

Now in the age of digital media, the best content and the best people to teach, co-learn and share with are accessible on the network, making centralized models less efficient.

“A culture of sharing resources and practices will help facilitate change and innovation in education” (OER Commons, 2011).

Open access initiatives to make research publications freely available online or the adoption of open source software solutions, such as Moodle or Mahara, are already having a big impact on education.

This two-day conference focuses on the impact of adopting openness as a key principle in education.

The insanely irresponsible advertising for BlackBoard 8 suggests that Academic Suite release 8.0 will “enhance critical thinking skills” and “improve classroom performance.” What LMS can do this? What Web 2.0 tool can do this? This is total bullshit, how can they make such an irresponsible claim? These things are not done by technology, but rather people thinking and working together. Our technology may afford a unique possibility in this endeavor by bringing disparate individuals together in an otherwise untenable community, yet it doesn’t enhance critical thinking or improve classroom performance, we do that, together.

The learning happens not as a by-product of the technology, it is, or rather should be, the Raison d’être of the technology. The teaching and thinking happen within the medium of texts, videos, film, images, art, conversation, game playing, computers, etc. Technology may provide new ways of delivering and accessing this information, and mark the basis of many a medium, but the idea of a community and its culture is what makes any technology meaningful and relevant.

BlackBoard makes an inferior product and charges a ton for it, but if we reduce the conversation to technology, and not really think hard about technology as an instantiation of capital’s will to power, than anything resembling an EdTech movement towards a vision of liberation and relevance is lost. For within those ideas is not a technology, but a group of people, who argue, disagree, and bicker, but also believe that education is fundamentally about the exchange of ideas and possibilities of thinking the world anew again and again, it is not about a corporate mandate to compete—however inanely or nefariously—for market share and/or power. I don’t believe in technology, I believe in people.