Use new things in new ways, else don’t bother?
2:46 pm on the 17th of March, 2007Historically when a new technology comes along the trend is to initially use new medium in the same way, with the same content as what already exists, in education the example is to use the internet to post papers, or to make lectures available outside of the lecture theatre. This is fine, but it doesn’t aid learning, in a lot of cases it can have a negative affect. Making available a set of lectures that were recorded one year isn’t a replacement for giving the lectures again the next year. The challenge is to use the new technology in a new way that makes use of its potential, a good analogy might be using teletext just to present a newspaper review of a football match; later it was used to present real time scores and match summaries.
One thing the internet is very capable of is storing information and making it available to you. It is very easy to make your own information available to everyone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean that by putting information on the net you are helping people to learn about whatever topic it is. Sharing information isn’t the same as sharing knowledge.
For a learner what is important is finding the right information and then constructing some sort of understanding of it. This understanding can come out of discourse the learner engages in - with their peers, their lecturer/teacher, themselves. This is what needs to happen with the internet, it is what is happening in the places where it is being used well. Face to face discourse shouldn’t be disregarded though - very little comes close to that - but it can be complemented with blogs/wikis/podcasts/VoIP…
This is a post that I’ve had in draft for a while, then over the last few days there has been discussion about Blended Learning with a comment on why there will probably never be such a thing as a ‘Glow lesson’, and a presentation from BarCampScotland has been made available to listen to on why lecturers shouldn’t record their lectures. All this has prompted me into finishing this post off.
So what is it that I actually have to say? Well, my main point I suppose is that it is going to be interesting to see how Glow develops and what use teachers make of it, I personally don’t know enough about what is going to be possible for me to do (I don’t know what school I’ll be in, what subjects I’ll be teaching, what access I’ll have to computers; I also don’t know enough about how Glow will actually operate) but I will have to keep in mind that what I am doing with Glow has to be something worth doing with Glow, if it can be done as effectively without it then I need to change what I’m doing, or do it another way.
Another point I wanted to make is the importance of teaching not just certain subjects from the curriculum, but also teaching people how to make use of the information available to them and how to select the useful bits from the useless bits. With such a wealth of information available we need to know how to cherry pick the good bits - this is a more important skill than ever before.
And one final thing was the importance of making the most of new technology and not just using it in the same old ways, and also making other people realise this too. It is all to easy to just share resources that enable pupils to complete course related work (don’t get me wrong this is enormously useful - you shouldn’t expect every teacher to create a great resource for every topic, and often it is good to see things from another person’s perspective), but the best part comes when you can take the resources and create new activities around them that maybe weren’t possible before.
[tags]learning, glow, web2.0, education, collaboration[/tags]
Tags: collaboration, education, glow, learning, web2.0
March 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm on the 18th of March, 2007
I fundimentally disagree with ‘Don’t bother’. Your example of Teletext shows that change comes with use. Therefore the use creates the change, hence you should most definately bother.
I agree that new technologies will produce change but that change might not be, in fact probably won’t be, what is expected of the technology.
I am a great believer in the evolutionary cycle of produces and uses. Just because a product is designed for a specific purpose does not mean that some creative individual will not come up with another use.
PS have you seen http://www.teachertube.com/
March 18th, 2007 at 3:33 pm on the 18th of March, 2007
I agree with that Ian, especially the part about the use of technology not being what was originally intended or expected.
I always find that the hardest part of blogging is coming up with a title for each post, this title doesn’t really match up with the post very well.
I saw TeacherTube a week or so ago but hadn’t been back since. My main concern for it is the cost of keeping it going, there’s only so much advertising you can get away with before it starts getting blocked in schools and a site like that eats up huge amounts of expensive bandwidth.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:50 pm on the 18th of March, 2007
I haven’t found the advertising to be too intrusive but you are right about the costs
Maybe LTS should be looking to provide this service for scottish schools
March 19th, 2007 at 12:35 pm on the 19th of March, 2007
It may very well be the case that Glow will encompass a database of education videos made by schools for schools similar to Teachertube.
As for the rest of your post, its crucial that staff in schools realise that by using the social media tools contained within Glow in new and innovative ways they will be actively evolving it. Its long term success may very well depend on staff feeding back into the the system its shorcomings and what exactly they want it to do for them, their classes and the pupils.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:57 am on the 27th of March, 2007
Hi Ian,
Thank you for sharing TeacherTube with the world through your blog.
I am Jason one of 3 co-founders of TeacherTube. Along with my wife, Jodie and brother Adam we created TeacherTube to form a community where the best teachers in the world are sharing their best practices with other teachers and with students. My wife and I are 14 year veteran public educators and my brother is our tech guru.
TeacherTube is designed to be a safe place for learners of all ages so schools can feel confident allowing TeacherTube into the classrooms. We also understand TeacherTube will only be as good as the content our community members places into the site. So it is very important to us that our community members keep high standards for uploads through the ability to flag and comment on any video lesson.
Regarding the cost of bandwidth, you are correct it is expensive, however, the price of bandwidth is dropping over a third in price per year. We are sensitive to advertising and its impact on TeacherTube being school friendly. We are currently seeking partnerships with educational companies and applying for grants. However, we are always open to new ideas. So please encourage your readers to give us input, for TeacherTube is learning as the site continues to grow.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:05 am on the 27th of March, 2007
Hi Jason, thanks for the comment.
I’ve been keeping an eye on TeacherTube, there’s a lot of videos going up now which is pretty exciting!
Unfortunately here it is often not the teachers or schools who get the say over what gets blocked in their classrooms - it’s usually the tech support guys in the local council usually, or sometimes the head of education. I should say that it’s not always because of rubbish reasons but it can still be frustrating when you find a great site at home and then find you can’t access it at school.
Good luck with TeacherTube!
Stuart
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