I was recently asked by a colleague about my ‘vision’ for eLearning and 21st century learning. Inspired in part by Gary Stager educational philosophy in 100 words, as well as my work with with DET exploring the EDUSTAR planning tool, this is the list of attributes that I came up with:
eLearning …
Is Transformative: More than just redefined, learning is purposeful and involves wider implications.
Is More Doable: Makes things like critical thinking and collaboration more possible.
Enables Student Voice: Technology provides a voice for students to take ownership over their work and ideas.
Involves Modelling Digital Citizenship: More than a sole lesson, eLearning should be about foster competencies throughout the curriculum.
I supported this with a list of readings to clarify where my thoughts had come from. Although as I have stated time and time again, it takes a village and recognising everyone in the village can be a futile act.
- ‘Do We Really Need New Things in New Ways?’ by Bill Ferriter. This post discusses problem with ‘redefining’ learning and instead argues that it makes such activities as communication and collaboration more ‘doable’.
- ‘Clearing the Confusion between Technology Rich and Innovative Poor: Six Questions’ by Alan November. Moving beyond redefining learning, November outlines six questions that we need to ask in order to transform and innovate learning practices. Anthony Speranza provides a useful take on this with a helpful video summing it all up.
- ‘Why Small Pedagogical Changes are More Likely to Positively Impact Student Learning’ by Richard Olsen. I have discussed Olsen’s whole IOI Process elsewhere, but this post in particular highlights the importance of small steps in order to make sustained change.
- ‘The Problem Finders’ by Ewan McIntosh. Often we talk about getting off the stage as teachers, for some this means becoming learners, while for others it is about being a meddler-in-the-middle. Whatever it maybe, McIntosh captures in this TED Talk what I feel is the most important change, that is supporting students in finding their own problems.
- ‘Without Student Voice, Technology Just Fosters Another Type of Compliance’ by Peter DeWitt. Although this is something that many of spoken about and Steve Brophy and I also presented on, however I think that DeWitt represents the problem most clearly in this post.
- ‘Digital Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools’ by Alec Couros and Katia Hilderbrandt. Too often students are delivered lessons on digital citizenship as if it were some vaccine needing to be delivered on a regular interval, Couros and Hilderbrandt provide a different take on this. They provide a framework for a more holistic approach to digital citizenship in school.
- ‘Why Even the Worst Bloggers are Making Us Smarter’ by Clive Thompson. A chapter from his book Smarter Than You Think, Thompson provides a fantastic argument for the power of blogging, but more importantly publishing for a wider audience.
- ‘Infusing SAMR into Teaching and Learning’ by me. There are so many different takes and interpretations on SAMR and although it maybe useful as a point of conversation, it is important that we realise that like an solution, there are no silver bullets.
- ‘The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies’ by me. A review of sorts of Doug Belshaw’s fantastic book, what needs to be understood is that there is no one digital literacy, instead it is something that we do and that it is something constantly changing with the ebbs and flows of the river.
My concern with this whole process though is two-fold. Firstly, a vision is not created by one person, however compelling that may be. A point that George Couros makes in his book Innovator’s Mindset. This is a problem I had with the DET EDUSTAR training where a few random representatives were expect to be the voice of a whole school. While secondly, an eLearning vision needs to marry with the school’s wider vision for ‘learning’. The question then remains as to how we make a vision for learning and technology which supports the whole school with a common goal?
So what about you, what is your eLearning vision? How is it integrated within the wider school vision? As always comments are welcome.
If you enjoy what you read here, feel free to sign up for my monthly newsletter to catch up on all things learning, edtech and storytelling.
Vision for eLearning by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Earlier today, @mesterman prompted me to read another blog post by the continually inspiring @mrkrndvs: Vision for eLearning. A confident and provocative post, there is a lot to take from Aaron’s work. However, there was a point I felt I had to make to Aaron on Twitter and the resulting discussion involving @rgesthuizen, @ozjuliancox, @rhonimcfarlane prompted this blog post.
Basically, the issue is:
My current slog through a PhD, researching Improvements to Technology Integrated Pedagogy: The Role of K-12 Students, has this description:
In Aaron’s blog post, he cited work by @PeterMDeWitt: Without Student Voice, Technology Just Fosters Another Type of Compliance and, to my mind, much of what he talks about in this post concurs with my views. Terms such as ‘fostering’, ‘amplifying’ and ‘working collaboratively with students’ are the essential ingredients to student voice being action. They are the foundations for active involvement of students in technology enhanced education.
In many ways, @rhonimcfarlane is right to argue that these are merely labels and it is what we do that really matters. What I think is important, however, is that we distinguish in two ways for this context:
between those in education who think they have done enough to ‘modernise’ and empower their school by letting students have a voice, for example in a student council but there only real power is at such a low level as changing the quality of the toilet paper as opposed to those who are willing to let their students get involved in education decision-making from top to bottom, real projects that they own, learn from and learn with the staff in the school and communities beyond
that technology continues to revolutionise education, to upset the traditional relationships and roles that have existed for centuries. I love this as an explanation:
Thus, the language does matter because in some ways, student voice could be argued to have been tainted by weak, low-level empowerment of students and because we are now facing power shifts on a completely different level due to technology. Whether you agree or not, I will keep banging the action NOT voice drum
Thank you Aaron. This reading list is excellent, and is familiar to me. Defining and describing learning environments and learning experiences is a challenge because interpretations are so varied. This is why the blog posts, comments, and conversations are essential; to develop some common language, coherence, and as you mention, vision. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at consensus without these conversations. Have all stakeholders perspectives been invited and considered? Have school goals been clearly communicated? Are opportunities provided for self-evaluation and reflection? My appreciation and understanding of learning is growing through web interactions. My eLearning vision has the e “embedded” in my everyday learning activities.
Bob
Source: What is the purpose of educational technology? by Martin Weller
Martin, this has me thinking about a post I wrote too many years ago about my ‘vision for eLearning‘:
Source: Vision for eLearning by Aaron Davis
The thing that struck me then was that vision is a collective enterprise and so often is contested, no matter how much work is done. For example, this week, I got caught talking with a colleague who argued that there are three facets to the technology project that we are a part of: finance, student/community and pedagogy. The problem that we face is that there is nobody who is properly invested in all the areas, therefore any decisions made are always made based on the priorities of the group in question. When I started too many years ago now, my focus was all about the students, as outlined in my vision, and although this is still the case and will always be something of a north star, my day-to-day focus these days is on administration and finance. Sadly, I have come to learn the reality that when it comes to technology at scale (financial benefit, you might say), the focus becomes the quality of data you are working with and improving the steps to producing such data more efficient. Many prefer to call this ‘magic‘, but to me it is the foundation that allows the house to be built. Invisible to most, until a massive crack appears in the wall and you need to go digging.
I was also left thinking about Ewan McIntosh’s post about the various purposes alongside Ewan McIntosh’s discussion of a school’s ‘value proposition‘. He posited that beyond two values, teams get lost:
Source: Working out a school’s competitive position even when it’s not competing #28daysofwriting by Ewan McIntosh
All in all, your post has me intrigued to think about what has changed and what remains the same regarding education technology.