tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25363477.post114565339230685385..comments2023-08-16T08:20:49.857+01:00Comments on Tom Franklin - Green activist: web 2.0 and personal learning experienceTomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12401954736797120470noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25363477.post-1146042811036753782006-04-26T10:13:00.000+01:002006-04-26T10:13:00.000+01:00Thanks for a very thoughtful response to my presen...Thanks for a very thoughtful response to my presentation - check out the mp3 if you'd like to get more of a sense of where I was taking this, maybe it will help fill some of the gaps!<BR/><BR/>I think I've been pretty conservative prediction-wise, based on the teens and pre-teens I know, but then in the UK have it would seem we have a very technologically-capable generation currently in the 10-15 age group (although there is by no means at all a widespread level of capability). <BR/><BR/>I think we have to be careful about where and how we introduce technology - for example, while txting isn't very useful in most learning activity, however in an educational context there are alerts (class starting, homework due, come see me now! etc) for which they are very useful, and one secondary school I'm familiar with has skipped email entirely in favour of SMS alerting.<BR/><BR/>I deliberately left aside the motivational aspects, and in particular the impact of lack of engagement, literacy, and resources in compulsory education. <BR/><BR/>(As Jill pointed out, as a technologist I concentrate on the technology, as thats my main specialism).<BR/><BR/>As a former disengaged learners myself (I dropped out of school at 15 before my exams, and only entered formal education again in my mid-twenties) I think technology offers some possibilities for alternatives to the dominant design of pre-18 education which could try to address some of the recurrent issues in this sector such as motivation and commitment, but only where there is a will to innovate; a will which is difficult to generate given the assumptions made by parents, teachers, and politicians about what school is, and should be. (E.g. this addication to individual testing, standardised curricula, and the panics about plagiarism, that are driving the development of the school system.)<BR/><BR/>Just an example to think about: remember that the design of schools and their core organisational technologies has its roots in the military academies, prisons, factories and workhouses of the 19th century (Foucault has a good analysis of this, as does Illich, though from a more radical perspective). <BR/><BR/>Timetables and the sounding of bells at the beginning of shifts was an effective technology for these industrial systems. However, we have created many, many more sophisticated systems for handling the orchestration of human activity and the planning of resource allocation. <BR/><BR/>So, why can't we apply this in schools? I seem to remember a Dutch colleague mentioning they had already implemented a flexible ERP-based study management system in at least one location, eliminating the fixed timetable entirely. <BR/><BR/>(There was also a UK example whose name I can't remember, but who also adopted a resource-oriented learning strategy with no timetable but instead pupils had a target number of hours per subject to fill each week in whatever combinations they wanted to do them - presumably this was pre-NC!)<BR/><BR/>So, hopefully some of these Web 2.0 technologies (or whatever) can stimulate some ideas about what we might propose if we want to do some real innovation in education.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09360976971169846084noreply@blogger.com