Monthly Archive for October, 2006

Orthodox Education to make a comeback

Published
by
Michael
on 30/10/2006
in education and government
. 4 Comments

Mr Howard said the government would continue to press its case for the need for an education system that is “built on traditional orthodox methods of instructions”

I was interested to read this statement on educational policy from our Prime Minister, John Howard, recently. I mean, what are “traditional orthodox methods of instructions”? We were chatting about this at work today… and came up with a few ideas such as the cane, chalk-n-talk, etc., which of-course is not what was intended (I hope!). But for most people, the idea of “traditional orthodox methods of instructions” evokes some picture of teacher-centric method of disseminating knowledge and/or skills, requiring learners to absorb and practise and obey. But is this what John means?

Should learners be empowered to set the direction of their own learning? In what contexts, at what ages? I was incredibly interested today to read about Ricardo Semler on Artichoke’s blog (thanks Leigh):

“For nearly 25 years, Ricardo Semler, CEO of Brazil-based Semco, has let his employees set their own hours, wages, even choose their own IT. The result: increased productivity, long-term loyalty and phenomenal growth. ” April 1, 2004 Ricardo Semler: Set Them Free

… he’s turning his attention to something grander - shaping Brazil’s next generation. Education without compulsion… The man who believes in managing without managers wants to teach without teachers. His Lumiar primary school in Sao Paulo uses tutors and ‘masters’ instead. The masters are architects, astronomers, painters, musicians real experts chosen by the students themselves to come for weeks at a time. It sort of helps if they are not teachers. The thinking is that children want to learn and that ordinary schools stop them.

There’s a lot wrong with traditional education. The real question is why do we think we have anything to add to that field and what we find is that the adults that come to us after being uniformalised and homogenised over the years and calcified in the school system, they come to us ready to follow orders, to understand what it is we want them to do, and we’ve realised that the only way to change this, and it’s very expensive and difficult and long to change it with the company, the only way to really change it is to start working at the moment that society does all the harm to them which is really at two.

Wow. Looks like Brazil is at least going to try different things in education (along side “traditional orthodox” educational options I’m sure). I wonder if we can be so bold in Australia.

(It’s been great to read recently about the 24hr school in Parramatta and to watch a video interview with the director of Catholic education talking about the new learner-centred schools that they are trialling… maybe in Australia it’s the private sector that will need to innovate first?)

How to start a presentation (and how not to)

Published
by
Michael
on 23/10/2006
in presentation and teaching
. 0 Comments

After thinking about the lecture as a motivational talk the other day, it was great to read some tips for motivating and engaging people in Kathy Sierra’s post “Better beginnings, how to start a presentation, book, article” :

Nobody knows more about the importance of beginnings than novelists and screenwriters, but too often we think their advice doesn’t apply to us. After all, we give technical presentations. Lectures. Sermons. We cover professional topics, not fiction. Not entertainment.

Oh really? Regardless of your topic, the only way they’ll read or listen to it is if you get them hooked from the beginning. And like your mother always said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” (Or as one writer put it, “You can’t be in the room with the reader to say, ‘trust me…it gets better.’)

Some great ideas for do’s and don’ts, like:

If you have to TELL your audience that they should care, you’re screwed. The motivation for why they should care should be an inherent part of the story, scenarios, examples, graphics, etc.

A lot of the tips here are similar to those in Kathy’s 10 Tips for new Teachers/Trainers, but for me they’re always worth a reminder and reflection on how I can use some of these tips in class.

Connectivism with George Siemens

Published
by
Michael
on 17/10/2006
in education, learning, reflection and tafe
. 6 Comments

I had the wonderful experience yesterday of participating in a workshop with George Siemens. I’d read George’s connectivism article a while ago, and jumped at the chance to be involved in this workshop.

One of the pre-readings: Beyond the Horseless Carriage - harnessing the power of ICT in education and training, provides a really excellent summary of all that George talked about during his presentation segment of the workshop, but for me, the most interesting part of the workshop was the dialogue on issues like Intellectual Property, Security, online identity, LMS’s and using the right tools fol learning (the ones that our learners can use in life, work and learning - something that I’ve been thinking about lots lately - see Learning Tools for Life).

George comments on a recent post about this very issue (the tools that we use with our learners):

We shouldn’t own the space of learning. The students should. We shouldn’t ask them to create a new account, or learn a new tool every time they switch to a different institution or a different job. They should have their own tools…and we should “expose” our content so they can bring it into their space (pick any tool - drupal, blogger, myspace, facebook, elgg). And the conversation that ensues should be controlled (from a public internet or private ownership stance) by the learner. When the learner graduates, the content and conversations remain his/hers.

When we make our content available for learners in a format that is recognizable by their existing tools, the content itself can be integrated with how they live their life. Learning isn’t a classroom centric process. Life doesn’t have to stop when learning starts. We can live and learn simultaneously…but only when we are dealing with tools that we control…and models that permit adaptation for changing environments.

For me this is the most important point: that learning isn’t a classroom centric process. As long as learning remains a classroom centric process, our learners will tend to be dependent on classrooms to learn. We’ve been trying to extend learning outside of the classroom and into the lives of learners with our Web Design course, and I had the opportunity to demonstrate how we’re trying to do this as part of the workshop - which was great fun for me! I did a bit of a role play/performance to keep it interesting - and hopefully it provided an example of how the tools can be used.

I only hope that George’s workshop starts conversations that will help us question and adapt our practise as educators. Of course we won’t all agree, but the important thing is that the conversations happen and we learn from each other. One of the principles of Connectivism is that:

  • Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning

The funny thing is, I find it easier to nurture connections and learn with educators from outside of the institution within which I work! Why is that? Why is it difficult for us to nurture and maintain connections within the organisations that we work? Is it related to time? Or organisational structures? Access to information? Until we can connect, we’re not going to be the learning organisations that we aspire too. Hmm…Any thougths!

The lecture as a motivational talk

Published
by
Michael
on 12/10/2006
in education, reflection and webdesign
. 2 Comments

As learners gear more and more towards learning themselves, the “lecture” has been debated and even disposed of by lots of us in education - but Christian Montoya gives a great reflection on a Web Design lecture he recently presented:

I wasn’t trying to teach everything there is to know about [Contrast, Repitition, Alignment and Proximity - a.k.a. C.R.A.P.], but rather just introduce the class to it and build some enthusiasm that will motivate them to learn more about it. What was great about the lecture was that as time progressed, the dynamic between the crowd and I became a 2-way exchange; I could sense that they were feeding on my enthusiasm and energy for the material, and I was further motivated by the enthusiasm that was building up in them.

We talk a lot about learners not being motivated for listening to a lecture for an hour (and that certainly is true in lots of cases), but then we (I?) can tend to replace this with a bunch of things to “read and reflect upon” from the net. If I had the choice of (1) reading the great article on C.R.A.P. design then reflecting on my blog, or (2) listening to Christian’s 50min lecture on C.R.A.P. design in person and taking part in the activity together, I know what I’d be choosing… why is that?