Ruminating on impact of technology on my students and myself as lecturer

Well where does this ruminating leave me - one the one hand wanting to log off and spend time in what I still find the most satisfying of occupations - in the classroom face to face with my students or in my garden interacting with the plants etc. I guess first I will share my thoughts.

Listening to George Siemens talk I felt the questions he is pursuing in research highly relevant. (1) How do these digital tools impact on students in a practical sense? and (2) How does digital world relate to our pedagogical beliefs?

His blog site http://www.elearnspace.org/about.htm

George's reflection on how the structure of formal education was at odds with how he had been learning is really interesting and he concludes with the comment that: Most importantly, I've realized that certain learning challenges, by their nature, require formal, structured processes, while others require more fluid, informal approaches. The nature of each intended learning experience should drive the selection of tools and processes. Rather than outright dismissing theories and techniques which have served the learning field well for centuries, we need to retain their value for appropriate tasks. No one concept or theory is universal in its application.

As I am a strong believer in opening the doors for students to consider multiple perspectives /theories I agree that the world today is certainly a much more equitable space for learners, at least for those who have access to internet and who have the learning dispositon of curiosity and perseverance. There is a shift away from the gurus but in my field of early childhood it is happening very slowly - the percieved giants like Piaget, Dewey and Vygotsky are still usually understood from a minimum of a third hand interpretation. This has lead, for a very long time, to a simplification and lack of depth of understanding of the ideas, questions, theories held by these 'gurus'. George sees a move away from the 'gurus' especially as a result of digital technology and that this is where the role of being 'curator' , a guide on the side' rather than sage on the stage, the one from whom all information comes or is monitored. However there are many constraints, some we can deal with and others are outside of our jurisdiction. It does require creative thinking and being prepared to take some risks and try new things.

For example when reviewing our programme we can ask "do our assignments encourage students to seek multiple perspectives, to go to the source of some of the theories, to seek out opinions from around the world?" We have noticed as we have built in this to assessments and given students the tools to be more research savey using the internet that the depth of discussion and analytical thinking increases for many students. However there remains the issue of access. This can be for our students who are mainly women with families from across the region that access includes: time, ability to access broadband both financially and physically, lack of internet discernment when googling. This is where our role as instuitions and as lecturers come in but you can still only do so much - I guess like George says about not letting our students wander around in cyber space getting lost.

What is so exciting is when students discover how through the internet their understanding on a topic is vastly increased and their views challenged, resulting in news ways of thinking or affirming current beleifs.

In an ideal educational world when the gatekeepers and institutions who confer qualifications are committed to taking some risks , trusting that you can achieve 'centralised outcomes from decentralised means' then there would be more opportunity for the teacher to be the curator. Curator defined by George as one who sets up the structure in appealing way, developing and providing access to excellent resources and 'lay them at the feet' to pick up run with. My team of lecturers endeavour to do this through physical reading and other resources and class work as well as through digital means. Diversity of opinion is not seen as a threat and we try to inspire and encourage students to read widely (either on line of printed word). I can see we have some work to do on setting up better arrangements and structures.

Part of our current problem is that we can only offer blended delivery so our 'online 'component is deemed mainly as support and the hours allocated to staff for this 'online guidance' is minimal so they we may want to do much more we have to be realistic about the time spent ' in the digital world' both for us and the students. So this links into what I quoted from George earlier.