Technology, Teaching, Learning

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Originally uploaded by Lulú De Panbehchi

I read two essays, “From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments” by Michael Wesch (from 2009), and “Learning Networks in Practice” (from 2007) by Stephen Downes. Both authors deal with the issues of technology, teaching and learning. Usually, I do my readings in chronological order, so that I can analyze the changes in perspective and technological references. But this time, I decided to start with the most recent one. The only reasons I can cite are that this was the order in which the professor posted the materials on Blackboard, and that I always tend to read first any books or articles with the word “knowledge”--or any of its variants--on the title.

Time is important. With technology, just like with medicine, the time of publication becomes as important as the information published. Wesch's essay appeared on January of last year (2009) on the journal Filtered: The Academic Commons Magazine; which means that it was written in 2008, and that Wesch probably started his research in 2007. Stephen Downes' essay falls into a similar situation. It mentions mostly 2005 and 2006 technologies and social changes. This is not new or bad, but it is important to have this time references in mind, since some of the statements and arguments make even more sense now, even if some of the technologies mentioned are fading out or have changed names or features, never took off or are dead. (ipodder is now juice; and jumpcut is no longer a tool for online video editing).

Stephen Downes defines “Personal Learning Environment” (PLE) and explains its characteristics and the tools used to build it. What amazes me from this essay is how easy Downes makes it for the reader to follow the essay, without presenting a graph or an illustration. By the time the reader looks at the final page, he or she has no problem following the graph about “future virtual learning environment” (FVLE). In a way, Downes works out his essay very similar to a good poem: a metaphor or a symbol slowly, slowly take form and at the end, the reader understands and owns that metaphor or symbol. Aside from the structure, Downes essay describes a reality that was changing in 2006 but one that we are living in now in 2010. Four years ago, Facebook didn't have more than 300 millions of users and Twitter didn't exist.

A section of “Learning Networks in Practice” by Downes that I highlighted and will probably stay for a few days in my jumpcut memory—the software that allows the user to retrieve erased text in several programs—is the following:

“The PLE connects to a number of remote services, some that specialise in learning and some that do not. Access to learning becomes access to the resources and services offered by these remote services. The PLE allows the
learner not only to consume learning resources, but to produce them as well. Learning therefore evolves from being a transfer of content and knowledge to the production of content and knowledge.” (p. 19)

The first sentence makes me think that most services teach us something, even if the knowledge is, let's say, meta knowledge or, in Wesch's terms, the site makes us more knowledgable. Twitter serves as a way of finding and disseminating information in just 140 characters or less, in a very fast way. Access is a key word here. Not only the students have access to resources in remote servers, they also have access to the teacher's resources at all times. The teacher's office hours are extended now until whenever the teacher decides to stop answering emails, text messages, Skype calls or chats, etc. Therefore the access has to be extended to the teachers who lead the class, plus other teachers who may have their own resources online, like the MIT teachers who have their lectures online.
One point that Downes doesn't mention is that even if they're surrounded by technology and they use some of the services, some students may still be reluctant to use those services as a learning tool. In my experience, there are some students who have never quoted Wikipedia as a source for a presentation or a paper, or students who pretend not to know how to upload photos to a wiki.
There are a few students who still believe that a good teacher is the one who lectures at all times, gives paper-and-pencil quizzes and exams, and never demands the reading of an online document or reference.

Michael Wesch's “From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments” offers the reader several ideas and multiple layers of information, from how he teaches his anthropology class to philosophical reflections on why we learn.
The quote that I believe is most important is the following:

“The technology is secondary. This is a social revolution, not a technological one, and its most revolutionary aspect may be the ways in which it empowers us to rethink education and the teacher-student relationship in an almost limitless variety of ways.”(p. 4)

If Downes mades the reader aware of the multiple connections and access to remote services, and how this environment promotes learning, Wesch goes a step up by saying that “[t]his is a social revolution” and that what becomes more important is to teach and learn how to approach, broadcast and create information than knowing or recalling facts. The student becomes knowledgable and both, the teacher and the student, participate on producing and sorting the same knowledge.

As I mentioned before, some students still believe that technology doesn't improve, support or facilitates knowledge and the way we acquire that knowledge. Wesch calls it “the crisis of significance,” which is ”the fact that many students are now struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.” Last semester, I took a class on curriculum. In several of the articles we read the authors mentioned that “content is king.” Wesch thinks that “content is no longer king,” however, we now have tools to keep this content somewhere and retrieve it whenever we need it. If somebody asks me what my husband's cell number is, I would answer “I have no idea. I have to check my speed dial, where it's a the top of the list.”

Maybe school—any school level—is now similar to graduate school. Students are responsible for doing research and producing knowledge.