e-learning: how to get there
I’ve previously said that the ipad is the biggest recent change in education. As I go through job interviews, reflect on my own experience, and what I can see as commercial developments in education I’ve realised that the big change is really e-learning.
Socrates is often regarded as the father of education. Lecturing to youths, day after day was his model. I recall (but – annoying, can’t cite) a quote from his era about reading and writing:
I despair for those who now have become reliant on reading. Their memory suffers… [or words to that effect]
This highlights a huge change from:
- teacher (+ memory) = knowledge
to
- teacher + library = knowledge
Teachers must have hated this. They used to be the top of the pyramid. No one could disagree with them. Then, another authority entered the equation. One which must be analysed, judged and argued with. Yes, there would have been argument (there would have been more than one teacher in a large community), but when thoughts could be published it must have been very stressful.
I think this is similar to where we are now. The encyclopedia is dead.Text books are almost dead. In fact, the whole point of retaining information seems weird because you can find a record of it somewhere. Wikipedia – now there’s a thought. Conclusions (and surprisingly accurate ones) decided by consensus.
We live in a stream of information. We are either overwhelmed and swept away, or we learn to swim. We become part of the stream by adding to it. Twitter is the embodiment of this. We actually gain more from it by contributing to it.
So: E-learning – how do we get there?
Start by involving teachers in e-learning.
- Model it. Create an awesome online course about e-learning.
- Give links – not handouts.
- Engagement is the key to getting teachers to understand point of e-learning. This is contributing to the stream. There must be a way to comment or rate everything.
- Introduce a series of web 2.0 tools (blogs, facebook, twitter…) that become forums hubs of knowledge.
If you have anything to add, please do.
I agree that teachers should be involved in e-learning for educators and students alike.
I agree that teachers should be involved in e-learning for educators and students alike.
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