I have 2 blog posts on the go right now that I can’t get myself to complete.
One is on Digital Citizenship which looks at a post by Vicky A. Davis. The concepts I am formulating are in need of some more deep thought, and I don’t know when I will get to it?
The second post is on a 1-1 project in our district. I invited myself to a presentation for parents of students receiving computers for the project. Although the post is almost done, (and sitting in a Google document), I’m feeling bitter about my lack of availability of computers to teach my Planning 10 classes and so I don’t think I can complete the post until my frame of mind is one that can frame the post in the positive light I feel it deserves. (I feel childish admitting that, but that’s where I’m at right now.)
A third post has been looming in my head, but my feedreader fed it to me in the form of someone else’s post: It’s time for some perspective here by Kelly Christopherson.
Here is a little more perspective: I am attempting to fully engage, but still can’t keep up… I’ve been to Second Life, but can’t find anything useful there… I don’t Twitter (yet?)… and to me Ustream seems like nothing more than a car accident that everyone is slowing down to look at…
All these tools are technological with only the potential to be pedagogical… but they aren’t designed with pedagogy in mind. And so with regards to education, I wonder if those in the lead are actually worth following? Will Richardson has a great blog, but I’m not going to give him and his buddy 45 minutes of my time to get information that a 4 paragraph summary of their talk could give me!
…And as for the big hype around backchannels… why do people think this is something worth having transcribed? If a backchannel is used correctly -in my humble, ‘perspective from the outside looking in’, opinion- then it would influence the presenters, and so the meaningful components would be integrated into the presentation. As for any ‘interesting sidebar conversations’ that happen- they are mostly relevant in context with the presentation and if they are worth expanding on and investigating… great, investigate them and blog them for me, just don’t ask me to read 200+ comments to find a gem in the rough. Backchannels have tremendous value in the ‘here-and-now’, during a presentation, but what’s with all the analysis after the fact? My point is that not only do I not have time for all these new tools, these new tools are time consumers that don’t add to my learning experience in a meaningful way.
Looking at Kelly’s post, he states:
“Primarily, little has changed with education despite all the tools. I firmly believe that until we examine the curricula, change some of those objectives and rework others, making it relevant to the students, no amount of cool tool is going to create change.”
I couldn’t have said it better!
[Pink Floyd tune in my head… clocks ticking/bells chiming] The coordination of the Graduation Transitions Program at our school is consuming so much of my time. I have to be realistic about what else I can do!
- How much of the K12Online07 conference will I participate in?
- Is FieldFindr worth spending time on?
- Am I Ning-ing for my Planning 10 class project or blogging?
- When will I finish my other posts?
I could go on but I think my point is made, and I want to turn my questions outward…
- Am I the only one who feels like a 30 hour day would still be too short?
- Are there others out there who wonder what kind of commitment it will take for a teacher to be technologically savvy enough to meaningfully engage students with all these new tools?
- Are we focusing too much on the tools and not enough on pedagogy?
- Will educational structures change fast enough to provide our students with a relevant education?
- … and for that matter… What would an ideal education look like today?
*Update: What technology should do for us…
Learning Authentically in the Language Arts Classroom by Jamie McKenzie
Here are the bulleted criteria under 1. Rationale …
“authentic teaching” that involves students in “authentic intellectual work” outside school.
…pass the test of authenticity because they meet the following criteria:
- They are rooted in issues, challenges or decisions that people face in the world.
- They are genuine.
- The act of wrestling with these challenges is purposive – saturated with meaning and significance.
- A student can see a payoff in the future for work well done and skills acquired.
In short, authentic intellectual work passes the test of “so what?” It is meaningful, worthy and generative – in the sense of provoking ongoing growth and development.
I think that if the use of technology is authentic in this way, then the technology is being used appropriately in education. (Rather than just to play with the newest toys, as I seem to be noticing with Ustream- more on this misguided ‘use of technology in education’ in my next post). Also noteworthy, the author’s Anti-Prensky article.
Originally posted: October 15th, 2007Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: In his post, Kelly linked to Stephanie Sander’s post over at Change Agency, which fits well with the quote above that asks (in the last sentence) “so what?” Stephanie’s post asks “What?, So What? and Now What?” and is well worth the read! – – – – – An interesting aside… the 1-1 presentation I invited myself to in October, ended up being at the school I was promoted to in February. I introduced Mr. Mak to wiki’s and this amazing teacher has made the class wiki into a class portal for almost every subject for his class and in some cases his team. Hard to believe that he just got the laptops in February! More thoughts after the comments… – – – – – Comments on the original post:
– – – – – In my comment above I mentioned ‘pedagogical merit’ and to be honest, I have been on a bit of a focus in that direction recently. What I really mean by that is finding the right tools and structures for the right job in order to meaningfully enhance learning and engage learners. That said, I think that it is important to read George Siemens post: Pedagogy First? Whatever.
So the context is more important than the pedagogy. It is more important to design the learning space, to create a learning environment that is friendly, useful and meaningful to the learners, than it is to focus on the content or intended outcomes. In a recent presentation I did to teachers in our district with 1-1 Laptops, I talked a lot about Scaffolding. Creating structures in your technology/web-based projects that supported student learning and engagement. (I’m reworking this to be in one of my presentations at BLC08.) So, now this is what I think: ‘Context‘ is where you start. ‘Scaffolding‘ is the structure(s) we build in order to increase the effectiveness of the technology use. ‘Pedagogy’ is the artful things we do to enhance learning regardless of technology use. I’m not sure if scaffolding as described is fundamentally different than ‘good pedagogy’, but the term scaffolding suggests that we build something onto the context, rather than just add something ‘pedagogically sound’ to it… whatever that means! |
Dave MacLean on Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 06:15 CEST