technology or pedagogy October 20, 2006
Posted by kieslinger in : Uncategorized , trackbackLove 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
Comments»
Your are quite rigth. Sometimes we are making systems and designs that are other peoples nightmares, but nobody wants to say it.
Why we dont start an iCamp representation into Second Life or MySpace and becomes part of the “real” virtual world?????
http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=21541