At the urging of BJ, here’s my first blog entry,
This site is supposed to be about my reflections about the ISWO course I'm currently enrolled in. I've set myself up for a significant personal challenge – I'm a very experienced (20 years plus) classroom teacher. And, (I don’t know how to say this without sounding arrogant) I can also say that I've been a very successful one, if we are to believe the comments in student evaluations.
But time marches on and new approaches to teaching and learning need to be explored – that’s why I'm doing this course. And, oh yes, I have to teach an online course in a couple of months so I felt I should learn what I could to be as successful as possible.
All this is said in the context of skepticism that I must work to rein in. The skepticism flows (partly) from the kind of learner I believe I am…very immature (to to put too fine a value judgment on it ). What I mean by this is that I prefer to learn what I want to learn, when I want to learn it, with little of anything (read “technology”) getting in the way. So when I have a question that doesn’t get answered right away, I get frustrated…my problem! And when, to answer a question, I need to navigate through multiple pages, multiple discussion forums, multiple posts…well you get the idea.
So, this could just be me. Maybe most of the learners I’ll be dealing with will be more patient than I am. Or maybe I just need to learn to chill…life’s a journey, ain’t it?
Wow Stephen, what's most interesting to me about your posting is that the arguments about only "learning when you want to learn" and only "what you want to learn" are exactly what many researchers in the field of education technology use to support the idea of online learning!
ReplyDeletejust enough, just in time, just for me
I believe I'm exactly the same type of person -- easily frustrated when I can't find what I want -- BUT I find that technology is a helper to me, not a hindrance. I guess I am past the learning curve.
I'll give you a couple of my blog posts pointing to places to look if you want to pursue this concept.
1. Learning and Web 2.0 – supportive research from Europe (a research-based analysis).
2. Wesch - (Digital) Writing on the Walls (an account by a passionate anthropologist who embraces social media and new technologies).
Stephen, I thought I posted a comment, yesterday, but don't see it so I'll comment again and make it brief. I always say that I am a 'bratty' student - I want to learn what I want, when I want and how I want. Maybe you and I are alike in that way. In fact, maybe most (adult?) learners are that way. Mark Twain and Winston Churchill might be in the same camp:
ReplyDeleteI never let schooling interfere with my education. (Twain)
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. (Churchill)
I love those quotes BJ. And I'd say that in general most learners (kids included) feel this way too. If I think something is irrelevant, and the person teaching me doesn't have a convincing argument to change my view, I'm going to be a very poor learner. Of course there's always the behaviourist/electric-shock method of *making* people (and animals) "learn". :-)
ReplyDeleteI think it's very interesting to observe how the internet (and online learning environments seem to mimic it) does BOTH these things... That is, on the one hand, it makes it consummately easy to find answers to specific questions with blinding speed exactly when you want them, i.e. "who sang that song with the lyrics, 'blah bloo honey bee honey'", and you find it within seconds. On the other hand, the deluge of information out there and diverse presentations of it are making it harder and harder to find true quality answers and quality discussions in relation to complex questions, i.e. try googling "trouble in the mid-east" and look at the mess of wildly different qualities of info you get compared to searching this topic in a decent local library 20 years ago.
ReplyDelete"Ribbedy" (Rob) you are making a great observation and I think you've identified a compelling reason to establish a personal learning network. When the easy answers from Google are not enough, your PLN (people you respect and trust because you've observed them over time) can help point you to the more relevant resources. And those people can also respond to the subtle shades of your query.
ReplyDeleteAnd for understanding world conflict, well, definitely social media is changing how we'll be doing this in the future. I'd recommend the Clay Shirky TED talk as an eye-opener on this topic
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html
And for an ISWO blog where the human side of learning technologies gets discussed:
http://sallysreflectionsonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/05/learning-to-pogo.html