We were taken through the history of educational technology by Rick Schwier in our EC&I 831 class this week. I too enjoyed Rick’s story about his science class that Travis shares in his blog and remember similar experiences in my own education where there was a meager attempt to incorporate a technology, but the philosophy of the teacher really hadn’t changed.
The chart Rick presented showing the major shift in epistemology from individual learning [objectivism (1975-programming/drill&practice), cognitivism (1980s-CBT), constructivism (1990s-IBT, 2000- elearning)] to group learning [collective constructivism/social learning (2003-social software & free and open content)] was really interesting. This is definitely a different way of looking at how our students learn today. This is extremely important for teachers, parents, and society in general, because teachers need to change their philosophy of teaching and receive adequate PD and support to do so. Parents need to understand and support these changes. Society needs to be aware of this also because the workplace will also see these changes in how people learn and work.
Traditional teachers may show some resistance to group learning because it will be noisier and in some cases more difficult to assess individual achievement and just as its predecessor (individual learning) did not suit all learners, neither will group learning. The level of comfort that the teacher has with technology will also determining the amount of resistance.
New technologies = new philosophy = new pedagogy = progress?
Social Networking Humour
January 31, 2008
A humourous look at Social Networking:
Demetri Martin Trendspotting – Social Networking
Enjoy!
