-- Sean FitzGerald Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291 Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342 Skype: seamusy Second Life: Sean McDunnough Email: se...@tig.com.au Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/ To attain excellence, you must care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical. -- F. Rhodes
The traditional classroom concept will disappear, replaced by "learning spaces". The school will be referred to as a "learning community" and teachers will be known as "learning advisers", Mr Whitby said. "The walls of a classroom become redundant because students are able to access real-time, any-time learning."
Mr Whitby said this vision could not be realised without harnessing the Information Communications Technology (ICT) capabilities emerging through Web 2.0 developments. 'Web 2.0 is the second generation of Internet-based services that allows for greater sharing of information and networking,' he said. 'Tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis and the like mean that we can access information and collaborate anytime, anywhere.'
-- Stephen Downes ~ Research Officer ~ National Research Council Canada http://www.downes.ca ~ ste...@downes.ca __\|/__ Free Learning --
I don't know why you would call those ideas 'extreme'.
-- Sean FitzGerald Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291 Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342 Skype: seamusy Second Life: Sean McDunnough Email: se...@tig.com.au Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
Focus on opportunities rather than problems. Problem solving prevents damage but exploiting opportunities produces results. Exploit change as an opportunity, and don't view it as a threat. -- Peter F. Drucker
We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing. -- RD Laing
Although I pose these questions, I'm very optimistic - Greg Whitby
has an excellent track record as an innovator, educator and leader, and
this looks like a very promising venture!
This is a bit like claiming that "traveling" was not possible before
the fast trains, such as the TGV. For me the revolutionary technology
is the web - not the web 2.0. Same way in traveling the revolutionary
technology was the train - not the TGV.
Of course it is great if people see the light under the brand of "web
2.0", but still, we should more think about the process of learning
and less the tools and the widgets used in it.
And if we do we may actually find out that we still need "teachers"
who are committed to help the development of their students, "group"
that are creating culture and maybe even "schools" that will be the
places for all this. :-)
- Teemu
-----------------------------------------------
Teemu Leinonen
http://www.uiah.fi/~tleinone/
+358 50 351 6796
Media Lab
http://mlab.uiah.fi
University of Art and Design Helsinki
-----------------------------------------------
This might be a further step in that direction, though still within the institutional framework: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/10/05/as_world_changes_so_may_harvard/
In part: …future course requirements should connect scholarship with ``what you are going to be like and what the world is going to be like when you get out of college," said Louis Menand, an English professor and task force cochairman; `At least [the proposal] is attempting to give us a range of what seems important, so we won't just take Alexander [the Great], Dinosaurs, Cosmic Connections, and Magic of Numbers," said junior Olivia Brown, referring to well-known core courses; ``No general education should be timeless," he said. ``There's no question it's a response to the world we live in now."
Interesting to read this so closely with the creation of the Harvard Law class in Second Life. Times, they are a changin’… Bob Dylan may yet be right for education, too.
Mark.
From: futureof...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:futureof...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Stephen Downes
Sent: Tuesday, 10 October 2006
6:04 a.m.
To: futureof...@googlegroups.com
Subject: ::FLNW:: Re: Well I'll
be...!
I don't know why you
would call those ideas 'extreme'.
Anyhow:
The traditional classroom concept will disappear, replaced by "learning spaces". The school will be referred to as a "learning community" and teachers will be known as "learning advisers", Mr Whitby said. "The walls of a classroom become redundant because students are able to access real-time, any-time learning."
Definitely a step in the right direction.
Also:
Mr Whitby said this vision could not be realised without harnessing the Information Communications Technology (ICT) capabilities emerging through Web 2.0 developments. 'Web 2.0 is the second generation of Internet-based services that allows for greater sharing of information and networking,' he said. 'Tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis and the like mean that we can access information and collaborate anytime, anywhere.'
Right. This is what we have been saying.
Even if they have coercion and curriculum now, this can't hold for long.
-- Stephen
Sean FitzGerald wrote:
Someone actually gets it!
"A 24-hour school with no traditional classrooms and where students use
mobile phones and laptops to learn is being built in Sydney."
E-volution
of schools - Technology - smh.com.au
Parish-based
learning community breaks the mould
And yes, I know there's curriculum, coercion and a whole bunch of things that
aren't in line with some of the more extreme ideas some of us hold about the
future of education, but it's a step in the right direction... one that
recognises where technology is taking us and how young people actually want to
learn.
Sean
--
Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Second Life: Sean McDunnough
Email: se...@tig.com.au
Website: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/
To attain excellence, you must care more than others
I totally get the article and the ideas just wondering if we are
splitting conversations and why.
I do like the quote and information....just a thought thats all. I read
somewhere in this thread Sean that you were getting out of e-learning ?
How so ? It would be a shame to see the reserve of your talents
channeled elsewhere however we all have that choice......I still dont
get why.
I'm looking forward to seeing you in SL at the Elearning06 showcase
soon with Jo and team meanwhile
:-)
Alex Hayes
It's old news but at last someone's standing up with a CEO title and
saying enough is enough.
Goes to show that it's going to occur from the outside in. Perhaps in
ten years we might see some traction in the public Mcsector.
More connected learning principles being explored at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/elearning06
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 16/10/2006
We all saw how powerful the f2f FLNW meeting and roadshow was in
building relationships - you couldn't have achieved that online - even
if it was just getting drunk together - something changes.
These students I mention are people who are pretty Internet web 2
savvy. So I think it may be us who thinks that young people want to
learn with laptops and mobile phones and no classroom NOT the students
themselves.
If we are not careful, we are in danger of becoming as inflexible as
the wooden benches, desks, chalk, blackboard and "strap you for
talking" regime. We will become as bad if not worse than the
well-intentioned white folks in america and Canada who forced the
indigenous people into wooden buildings to learn and wear white folks
clothes and speak only english.
Instead we will make them wear the uniform of the online web 2 brigade
(laptop, mobile phone, Internet) and only speak techno speake. It
bothers me.
Bron :))
Actually, I thought Bee was talking for me in her last post (thanks!) I'd like to step in though, and offer some thoughts (in the hope that you are exaggerating your position!)
Let me start by saying that I am yet to meet a teacher, lecturer or other educator who would tell students that they cannot learn outside the structured learning environment, or even insinuate that informal learning cannot or should not take place.
Second, there is actually considerable scope for teachers to do innovative things - even within structured environments. 'Systems' exist only to ensure a particular level of quality which, I would suggest, is a different matter entirely. The real issue is that not many teachers or educators make use of the scope that they have. Jane Nicholls, for example (no relation!) is being innovative within the existing paradigm. Very seldom is an academic (in my experience) told how to do their job - or, if they are, they are not pressed into too stringent a mould. And, for the record, I go to the toilet whenever I want to (and I work in a University!)
No teacher or educator would deny a students' freedom to talk with and learn from others outside of the 'formal' learning environment. Speaking personally, I would probably learn far more from a teacher or expert on a topic in a fifty minute lecture (if I was paying attention!) than from a full day of potential serendipity - though the latter is also an important part of the mix. At the conference you recently attended, didn't you learn alot? Was that not a structured learning experience of a sort? Is it not possible that your experience there might also be possible within on-campus courses, given an excellent lecturer and appropriate instructional design?
I fear that when you paint teachers with the same brush you do a tremendous disservice to a professional body of people - not all of whom are slaves, and not all of whom enslave.
Does anyone have a 'good teacher' story they could share? It is those that we should be promoting, rather than trying to tear down a system that has done - and continues to do - society rather a lot of good. I have sympathy for your frustration, but would like to suggest that while you are focussing on the moon you are missing the beauty of the stars beyond.
Cheers,
Mark.
-----Original Message-----
From: futureof...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Leigh Blackall
Sent: Fri 10/20/2006 2:44 PM
To: futureof...@googlegroups.com
Cc:
Subject: ::FLNW:: Re: Well I'll be...!
Probably it is not a surprise for anyone that I also do not find the
24/7 school necessary that good idea at all.
I think the model of the school is totally based on a modern
corporate culture where the company claims to own all their employees
time: here is a laptop and a phone for us to reach you any moment we
may need you. We expect that you are there always for us. BTW if you
have a dog why don't you take it with you in your office - this way
you are not spending too much time in woods with so bad network
connection.
The hidden curriculum is not too hidden, at all. The school will
train perfect corporate robots. Is this what schools are for?
Leigh: Referring to the pointing the moon metaphor you (and Papert)
are using, I actually find looking at the finger and especially
*whose* finger it is very relevant. The real question is why is this
person pointing the moon?
- Teemu
Barbara Dieu kirjoitti 20.10.2006 kello 4:25:
> One technology replaced by another...the plow... the industry...
> the computer...Where is the human? We will now be knowledge
> slaves... who think they are working for a cause on top of it.
Bron kirjoitti 20.10.2006 kello 1:57:
> If we are not careful, we are in danger of becoming as inflexible as
> the wooden benches, desks, chalk, blackboard and "strap you for
> talking" regime. We will become as bad if not worse than the
> well-intentioned white folks in america and Canada who forced the
> indigenous people into wooden buildings to learn and wear white folks
> clothes and speak only english.
> Instead we will make them wear the uniform of the online web 2 brigade
> (laptop, mobile phone, Internet) and only speak techno speake. It
> bothers me.
-----------------------------------------------
In the here and now as Bee says "a new social order" is emerging. Now
we are not only slaves to the corporate machine but slaves to the
technology. Slaves to the Grid!
I for one don't feel particularly comfortable that I could be tracked
by everything I do, my blog, my mobile my wikis, every presentation I
have given, any articles I have written etc. but I see these as a smoke
screen in a way as well because THE MACHINE will never really know what
I think or feel and when it really matters they wont be able to find
me.
Has anyone read The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks? That is about this
very thing. I would like to stay "off the grid" and "away from the
surveillance networks of our modern lives" just like the "Harlequins"
had to, so I have to play at being a model "Citizen" to keep up the
smoke screen of normality and be invisible by my visibility.
having GPS devices right at my doorstep so that my home can be located
from a satellite is not my idea of fun. But this is the new social
order - we are able to track people very easy. your cards, your
passport, your every move....yeah we are on data bases everywhere. This
isn't some dope-induced paranoia energing this is the reality of how
our society has changed over the last 50 years. I should know I was
there. Microchipping babies as well as dogs is not really that far away
and in a way we are all contributing to this new social order. We are
fuelling it.
But hey we can dream and think we can change things but in all truth I
think we should just realise that "Girls just wanna have fun" (Cindy
Lauper).
Bron :))