After reading "The Victorian Internet" it makes me think back to when I first stepped into a High school classroom, BoysTown 1988. My learners had books, notebooks and pencils and were ready to learn. I had My teachers edition, notes and an overhead. We thought this would help our learners learn, because we had notes for them to see and write for better retention, and we could keep the notes on the transparencies....But did it?
Just like the book, education has had growing pains. With each new technology or teaching strategy, it's suppose to make teaching easier and our learners will be better for it....But are they?
My answer is yes, but with some qualifiers. Every new technology and teaching strategy has help both learners and educators, but they have also hurt both.
Today, there is always "One more thing" for us and learners to have. It has become so much information that I believe we don't know where to start. The school system believes that it will make us better educators while improving our learners "high stakes" tests scores, but it has created learners who regurgitate information and educators who put things in Google classroom or Blackboard and don't check for understand. My students talk about how their teachers do that and that they do not learn anything and that they feel that they could do most of their classes at home. When they ask questions for better understanding, they usually get "this is on the SOL". I know that it's not all educators, but this is what technology has done to some. My learners also tell me that they take some classes online, because the all the answers to test are online.
Technology is important, because that's todays schools and businesses, but at what cost? Learners are socially inadequate and cannot speak to others. Does technology bring people together or does technology cause us to be less connected.....That is the question for the future.
You make a great point about the cost of technology and online education. Online courses, which have readily available answers online, are a failure of the parent program to design an educational program to accomplish meaningful learning. But what is "meaningful learning"? Is it a box to check on your high school graduation requirements? You can breeze through two years of classroom Latin in online semester Latin courses--and this meets half of the Advanced Studies Diploma World Language requirement (2 years of 2 languages). How much can you actually learn about communicating in a second language and appreciating a multicultural world from a computer screen? I know people do it every day; I've considered enrolling in NVCC's online Spanish courses. What are our learner goals, what is the product, what tools are available, etc. ?
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, in taking the summer class class EDIT 784, "Designing for Community Participation," I learned and grew with my Group 2 classmates (Jealous Canolis Underground) as if we had learned and met in a brick and mortar classroom. When I met one of them in person a few weeks ago, I felt a camaraderie that could only be reached by meaningful learning and an appreciation for that person's input towards my personal growth. How can online classes replicate that experience?