technology or pedagogy October 20, 2006
Posted by kieslinger in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farLove technology more
One of the common arguments I hear when discussing e-learning is that ‘pedagogy should come first’, and ‘we shouldn’t be enamoured by technology.’ This is difficult to disagree with and everyone nods sagely when its said. However one of three responses occur to me when it’s said:
i) “If I hear that again, I’ll effing scream.”
ii)”It’s an excuse not to engage with technology, by claiming the higher ground of pedagogy.”
iii) “No, no, no – we need to be enamoured by technology more. I don’t sit around with a pile of pedagogies waiting for a technological breakthrough. Rather what happens is that I see a good technology and I think – I could use that to do X. For instance, I didn’t know I wanted social bookmarking until I saw delicious, and then I instantly saw the educational possibilities.”
Just to be contrary – Instead of creating a course by starting with learning objectives, or pedagogy, I wonder what it would be like to ask ‘what are the ten coolest technologies?’ and then construct a course around them. My guess is that it would be as pedagogically sound as the more worthy approaches and maybe a bit more fun. So, my new slogan is ‘do the technology, the pedagogy will follow’. Expect to see it on t-shirts soon…
Seems that we still have not overcome this “black and white”, either/or discussions in eLearning, when I read this post from Martin Weller. I think that we should already have advanced here and agree that we need to involve experts from both or even more disciplines.
There are numerous examples of why eLearning should not be left to “techis” alone. Scott Wilson asked the audience of the EC-TEL06 conference about how many persons (around 60-70 people in the room) were actually using SCORM compliant learning objects and only one person was raising his hand. The same happened with the question who was using and LMS for his/her own learning activities. A lot of technology that is especially intended or developed for educational purposes will not succeed if there is no dialogue with the practitioners or pedagogical experts. On the other hand, there is of course great technology that can be used in many educational settings that was not at all intentionally designed for that purpose.
I think that participatory design approach and participatory technology assessment has its value, especially in eLearning.
technorati tags:eLearning
alternative poster October 19, 2006
Posted by kieslinger in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farfor those who have not seen it yet, we, the iCamp project, had a rather outstanding poster at the EC-TEL06. Thank`s Sebastian for the fotos.
Unfortunately there was no best poster award…
job vacancies at our institute in Vienna
Posted by kieslinger in : Uncategorized , add a commentThree vacancies with immediate effect
We – the Centre for Social Innovation – have to offer three vacancies with immediate effect
Two Scientific Project Managers for the projects
IS2WEB (Extending Information Society Networks to the Western Balkan Region), running
SEE-Innovation (Facilitating Innovation for ICT SMEs in South Eastern Europe, running
SCORE
(Strengthening the Strategic Cooperation between the EU and Western Balkan Region in the field of ICT Research), project start: February 2007
For detailed information:
http://www.is2web.org and http://www.see-innovation.org
Requirements:
- University degree (preferably social and/or economic sciences)
- Very good knowledge of English (working language of the projects)
- Perfection in MS Office Software
- Affinity to IT themes (ICT-policies)
- Experience in project management (preferably in an international environment)
- Communicative personality
- Able to work on his/her own initiative
- Good apprehension
- Knowlegde of a Southeast European language of advantage
- Interested in science and technology and knowledge economy
Full and part time, place of employment: Vienna
Please send your significant application papers by e-mail until 26th October 2006 to:
Bettina Leypold, leypold@zsi.at
Scientific Project Manager for the project
LAC-ACCESS Connecting High-Quality Research between the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean Countries)
project start: November 2006
Requirements:
- University degree (preferably social and/or economic sciences)
- Very good knowledge of English and Spanish (working languages of the project)
- General knowledge of the European Research Landscape, EC-Framework Programme for Research and Development
- Knowledge of socioscienfic methods
- General knowledge of/interest for Latin America
- General knowledge of the Latinamerican Research Landscape of advantage
- Interested in questions on globalisation and development cooperation
- Interested in science and technology policy and knowledge economy
Part time, place of employment: Vienna
Please send your significant application papers by e-mail until 26th October 2006 to:
Bettina Leypold, leypold@zsi.at
More information is available in the German version.
technorati tags:job vacancy
from technology enhanced learning to social innovation… October 8, 2006
Posted by kieslinger in : events,people , add a commentthis is actually not a suggestion of how to derive social innovations from technology enhanced learning experiences. it is only to say that I am busy running from one event to the other. just back from the ec-tel06 conference I will attend the week of social innovation starting tomorrow. seems like a busy week again.
this actually calls for a reflection on how much time we spend running from one event to the next without having enough time to digest the information that we receive and the people that we meet…..maybe I get inspired during this week of social innovations.