Engaging and empowering teachers and learners. What does this mean for pedagogies?
I apologise for spelling mistakes…. Blogging on the fly is something new for me!!! I will play with these posts later tonight.
The technology really does matter…. It is our environment of where the learning is happening. An interesting thought considering many are slugging that it is all about pedagogies and learning and teaching skills.
Technologies… (What makes things engaging and empowering)
Engage – Captivate, engross, fascinate, immerse, involve, rivet.
Empower – Permit, facilitate, make possible, endow, capacitate.
Examples:
1) The traditional computer lab setup in rows: Engaging but not in a social sense. We should want students to engage on a social level with technologies not engaging with software etc.
2) Traditional Discussion boards: Discussion threads do not engage students.
3) Quizzing tools: Does nothing for empowerment. Raising the issues of online assessment. No ownership to content and a lack of range of media. A need to engage and empower tools with video and media.
So What has Changed? (James Farmer)
A community of Inquiry:
Social Presence, Cognitive presence, Teaching Presence
Incorporated Subversion – Designing tools for education that can be subverted to fit their personal needs. Tools that allow people to subvert them. Making it relevant to the needs of different educational environments.
Success of Edu.Blogs:
1) An example of incorporating subversion and creating an environment of inquiry.
2) Allows people to communicate in ways that haven’t been possible by other means. Allowing people to present in a number of different roles. Teachers presenting themselves as real people – conveying personality.
3) Open source creates an environment of freedom.
The Case Against Blackboard:
1) A system that is taking away the real socail learning oppurtunities of students. Some traditional learning thoughts from John Dewey and Paulo Friere. Not focussing on teaching and learning and what it is, rather than the easy to use marketing strategy.
Technology can force us into poor pedagodgy… Thinking about quality education – What about the power of group work!!
Question time:
1) Assuring the future of edublogs. The technology is there to expand the service. Duty of care and the issues involved…. Creating a culture of dealing with problems as they arrive (softer security).
Tech tag: edau2.0
Technorati Tags: eduaueventaug06
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I came across your site while I was browsing through Technorati this evening. I wanted to ask you if you could post some more information about why James Farmer thinks the Blackboard delivery system is so bad, and what kind of method he thinks should supplant BB? He says part of the problem is “not focusing on teaching and learning…” Isn’t that pretty much an obstacle to all online class formats? The focus shouldn’t be on the delivery method to begin with, but what the instructor and student do with the information after they give or receive it.
I am still here live at the conference… I will pose this question during question time later this afternoon… Stay tuned!!
The human element, the social interaction must be present. So pedagogy must be reviewed with every new “tool” that is invented for education. From the brief account of Farmers argument I am not sure of his point. Is he suggestiong that Technology is replacing the human element?
Because if as a teacher (human element) I simply had a text book to give to the students and said read that and complete a question sheet. Why would that be any different to using Blackboard? In fact Blackboard creates support systems, i.e. chats and forums.
Blaming technology for poor pedagogy I believe is a cop-out.
Or have I have read his points wrongly?
That stirs the belly!
Hi Jane,
I would suggest you have a listen to his presentation. http://eduauweb2.edublogs.org/2006/08/04/podcast3-james-farmer-engaging-and-empowering/
I understand your points here…. however, your example of using texts is probably something that I don’t think James would argue. The human element he addressed is taken away when we try and use technology to replace everything. I haven’t personaly used blackboard, but I think we need to be careful what we think the technology can do for students learning. Teachers do use technology in a way that creates poor pedagogy. If you throw your students in front of a computer and send them on their way that is rubbish teaching. That is the cop out. The technology is a tool to enhance teaching and many teachers are using it as a tool to replace the hard work aspect of teaching. When a mass comercial product is marketed to the education market it’s number one sell is “Makes the teacher’s life easier.” There is nothing wrong with a product delivering on that promise…. However, we need to be extra cautious of falling into the “slack” mode.
I think this was James’ point. We need to be careful, that we don’t let teacher’s use technology to replace the hard yards of good pedagogy.