Learners as contributors – the end of the industrial model
I’ve just read one of the best posts that shows how the Internet changes everything in education; many just don’t realise it yet. Christian Long at Think: Lab has a long post on the connection between blogging and formal education. Christian starts by describing a new billboard from AT&T that has only one word on it – Blogging – and then talks about a major difference in life for a 15 year old today and ten years ago. This is the ability to connect with anybody in the world on any subject, no matter how narrowly defined:
We’ve discussed a basic definition of blogging (web-based journaling). We’ve accepted that anyone can immediately create a website now called a blog. And if you think about being a 15 year old and wanting to share your ideas about music or sports or whatever comes to mind in a creative and individual way, a social and collaborative way, you can see why someone would create one. Even see the potential for a teacher and a class full of students to create ‘class blogs’ for a project or portfolio. But is there more?
Yes, and it all comes down to something so fundamental to the very existence of schools and even education itself that it’s actually pretty easy to overlook: information and who owns/creates it.
This final point, the question about information and who owns/creates it – is shaking our concept of education to the core. The ability to be the co-creators of worldwide knowledge now lies within the means of a large percentage of the world. For example, anyone can contribute their individual area of expertise to the wikipedia knowledge repository.
The discussion at Education Bridges echoes a similar vein. In the creation of wikibooks as online textbooks for the world, should only the experts build and distribute the accepted official curriculum or should learners be involved in the co-creation of knowledge? Personally, I feel that this is no longer a valid question because of the nature of digital networks. If you don’t allow for the co-creation of information (construct, deconstruct, reconstruct) then your information will gather electronic dust in its uselessness.
Albert Ip states it another way with this picture, which asks how anyone could limit peer interaction to "just" the classroom.
Teachers and educational organisations can longer hide behind the classroom firewall. As Christian says, just imagine:
Imagine that student able to create a blog in seconds and within days or weeks or months have an audience spread out around the world that is genuinely interested in the ideas and stories and links and images that are on the blog, beginning to be taken seriously as a writer or an expert or a legitimate voice, and beginning to use the blog as a way to further explore ideas and develop a far-reaching network of thinkers and beginning to be seen on a level playing field as any adult. And now imagine that student going back to school the next day and being asked to sit still, read books or notes that expect no interaction, being forever being seen as inexperienced and incapable, and not being able to contribute any ideas or questions to the larger body of research or ideas.
Both of my boys are in middle school and have their own blogs. One of them writes a lot, including the creation of a fantasy religion, while the other builds animations and shares them online. The eldest is learning Java on his own, via tutorials he finds online. At school they can use Google as an online library (find, access, use) during their limited time available during "computer lab". The physical library does not have any information for a report on the Avian Flu, and there is only one computer available. Access to Blogger is forbidden.
Teachers cannot teach the students how to get involved in the co-creation of knowledge because they don’t have a clue. The kids live in a completely different world than school. School is fast becoming irrelevant.
Next year, our eldest son will be 15. What will he think of school then? [I think I know the answer]
Filed under: Learning, OpenSource
powerful
This is powerful, powerful stuff. Thanks for sharing your personal example in this context — the contrast between the expectations of school and the learning we (including kids) are becoming capable of is truly mind-boggling.
I bet you’d be interested in Michael’s comment on one of my recent posts — he was a teacher-on-call with a difficult class and found one of the students particularly troublesome. One day while he was in the school library perusing some magazines, he noticed the troublemaker’s face on the cover of a BMX magazine…it changed his view of the kid and has him pondering the hidden talents and interests of every student.
Personal storiesThanks Jeremy. I guess this reinforces the power of blogs when you make them personal – they resonate with people. Michael’s point is one that we should all remember, inside and outside school. BTW, my son enjoyed your post too. Christian has continued this theme with another great post on The Transformative Power of Blogging.
re: personal stories
I think I’ve been over-theorizing and pontificating about these topics – the personal account grounds things somehow, and confirms some of the ideology. Glad your son enjoyed that post…and thanks for the introduction to Christian’s stuff — I hadn’t encountered his excellent work before.
RE: Access to Blogger is forbiddenHello, Harold,
When I read things like
it makes my blood boil. As an educator who has worked as both an English teacher and a Technology Director, it is frustrating beyond belief to hear about schools retrenching in the face of technology/ideas they don’t understand.
RE:
While this is true of many educators, this feels like an oversimplification. There are some teachers who get it. These teachers empower kids to learn a la Malcolm X: by any means necessary.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have the teachers who run from new ideas — some out of laziness, some out of fear, some because they think they have it all figured out, etc, etc. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t excuse a pedagogical closemindedness that, at its worst, can damage kids.
In the middle, however, you have the teachers who want to do it right but don’t know how. Many of these teachers aren’t supported by administrators; many of these teachers aren’t given the time to learn or implement methods of student-centered co-creation of content; many of these teachers don’t have access to colleagues, mentors, or teachers from whom they can learn new methods. Within this group of teachers lies enormous potential. As an educator, I simply have to believe that people can learn — and want to learn — to do better.
Bill
OversimplificationYou’re right Bill, my comment was an oversimplification. I guess my frustrations came through in my writing. There are some good and motivated teachers. I’m just tired of fighting the system. For instance, most of the projects that my sons get from school require the creation of a large paper poster. They spend more effort making it look pretty than in doing the research. Due to the lack of resources and connectivity, all research has to be done from our home Internet connection. School is where the assigments are given and then a week is spent in listening to the other students presenting their posters. My issues with this methododology are that it is used too often, that creating posters has little relevence for life today and that schools offer limited access to information.
One project recently completed was on the properties & effects of magic mushrooms. The school’s network filtered all web searches on this topic and there were no books available, so my son could only do his research after school. I often feel that school is not for learning but is just a glorified daycare system so that parents can go off to work.
I’m trying to do more than complain, which is why I have set up a list of online student resources for our boys and I’m getting involved with Education Bridges.
It is frustratingAnd, frequently, I see teachers abusing the notion of student centered learning as a way to do less work. To be blunt, a class where students talk about a poster requires no preparation. While this does, technically, make students the "content creators", this methodology will not work if it is the only tool in a teacher’s pedagogical toolkit. But, having students read from posters looks good, and it is readily defensible: "Look! The students are creating the content of the class!"
True student-cented teaching takes more preparation than traditional lecture because the teacher needs to be prepared for whatever outcome organically arises. Really, it requires an openness to possibility that many teachers feel uncomfortable with because they labor under the paradigm that they need to be the expert in any subject covered in their classroom. True student-centered teaching also requires teachers to explicitly teach critical thinking skills, media evaluation skills (a must for internet-based research), and a host of other skills that are necessary for life but are not directly measurable on a standardized test.
[...] In a recent post on Learners as Contributors, which received some good comments, Bill Ferguson said that: True student-cented teaching takes more preparation than traditional lecture because the teacher needs to be prepared for whatever outcome organically arises. Really, it requires an openness to possibility that many teachers feel uncomfortable with because they labor under the paradigm that they need to be the expert in any subject covered in their classroom. True student-centered teaching also requires teachers to explicitly teach critical thinking skills, media evaluation skills (a must for internet-based research), and a host of other skills that are necessary for life but are not directly measurable on a standardized test. [...]
[...] At my suggestion, Lucas posted the story on his blog and wants to continue writing stories over the Summer. He’s even said that he prefers writing these stories to playing computer games. Having his stories on a blog may also give him more positive feedback to continue writing. There is no option for students to use blogs or other web-based learning tools in school, so we supplement these skills at home, as I’ve mentioned before. If you’re interested in blogs and creative writing in public education, take a look at Lucas’ first story posted online – Sakata. This is unedited creativity from an 11 year old. Lucas had a great teacher for English this year (thank you Mr. Stewart) and he was given a lot of freedom to explore writing. I think that the results of this positive learning experience are incredible. [...]
“The ability to be the co-creators of worldwide knowledge now lies within the means of a large percentage of the world. For example, anyone can contribute their individual area of expertise to the wikipedia knowledge repository”
The fact that 10,000 people believe a thing to be true is not sufficient to make it so.
The ability to type words into a keyboard does not make the words valuable, interesting, or accurate. In short – it does not make them “information”.
“Truth lies within ourselves: it takes no rise from outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness and to Know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for light supposed to be without.†Robert Browning
The mismatch between the educational model of certification that the student has gained a prespecified kind of knowledge and the model seeks to challenge and foster the learner’s creativity is at the heart of some of today’s problems in education. How can education be redesigned to produce the needed combination of specific skills and development of a lively and creative intellect.
I believe it’s more a case that our educational structures need to be redesigned, Joan. As Churchill said, “First, we shape our structures. Then, our structures shape us”. Our schools need to be transparent, connected to their communities and flexible. That means abolishing factory-production approaches to education, such as standard curriculum, standard class times, age-based cohorts, bells, etc.
Perhaps it’s time to introduce democracy to our public school system.