The discussions about open educatoin on Alec Couros's blog had many interesting ideas. I found the metaphor of the teacher or educator being the "network sherpa" properly describes the popular idea of who the teacher has become in this digital world. As Professor Curt Bonk mentions, the teacher is now a facilitator/guide/mentor/tutor/expert. The metaphor helps realize these new (and old) roles of the teacher. On the other hand, I find it somehow confusing. If the teacher "knows the terrain", but is lead by the student interest and knowledge, how can he not be the expert? Is there a contradiction when I say that the teacher may not know everything, but must at the same time be able to go in any path the student asks him to go to? I am also referring to the diagramatic representation of the metaphor. A mountain guide either knows one way through the mountains, and thus cannot be lead by the student interests, or know all the ways, and in this case he "is" the expert.
I find the issue of the changing role of a teacher very controversial. I am not a teacher, and enrolled in the MA course to know how to be a teacher in the digital world. When I got to know my colleagues in this program, I thought they had an added advantage of already being teachers who wanted to develop their technological skills and update their teaching methods. Now I think I might have an added advantage since I will start fresh with the new modern teacher role in mind - instead of switching roles and the accompanying confusion this might have.
Another issue I read about in the discussions is the belief that younger teachers may be more resistant to technology than older ones, that is, more authoritarian. This came to me as a surprise, but when I thought about it more, it did make sense to me. Younger teachers know about the technology, and fear that at the start of their careers they may not be the experts anymore. They may be more enthusiastic about proving themselves in their positions rather than updating their skills and methods to suit the digital world that they already know about.
I found that professor Bonk's reply about the digital divide lacked some depth. He simplified everything to simply having a CD containing the contents of whatever information obtained from the Internet. Yes, this does allow information to be distributed, but what about the issues of creativity, collaboration, literacy, and so on? These issues are always stressed on when talking about digital education. Accessing the Internet, being freely able to choose and filter out the information there, synchronous and asynchronous learning, and so on are all aspects of online education, who the under previliged - or people without access to the internet will never experience. So the digital divide is still there. Yes, those people may be able to 'freely' receive information, but what about the rest of the accompanying issues that the others will have. Won't this all increase the digital divide?
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The biggest challenge here in the UAE, particularly in the government school reform project that I'm involved in, is to move teachers away from "teaching from the mountaintop, and to lead students up the mountain."
ReplyDeleteI agree with your observations about Curt Bonk's rather optimistic response to briding the digital divide. It's simply inadequate (in the case of parts of the developing world) to have one internet machine for miles around and hold that to be an example of open access.
I think by "know the terrain", I meant more of the generalities than the specifics. For instance, a professor may not know a lot about Facebook (technically how it works), but he/she may know that it may be damaging to one's career to post certain images online. Just one example.
ReplyDeleteThe digital divide is more real than ever, and something that is not just about poverty or low-income. It deals with language, culture, technical expertise, age, gender, etc. The divides are everywhere. As William Gibson said, "The Future is here, it's just not evenly distributed". As a teacher, we must always understand how our use/misuse or lack of use of technology will affect our students.
Thanks for the post!
Thanks for the post Deena. As Alec notes, digital divides are, unfortunately, pervasive. Reducing the issue to access to technology (or income inequality, or any other single issue) is dangerous and perpetuates the belief/understanding that the digital divide can be eliminated by tackling one single area (recall the article that i emailed to the listserv about the UK government providing broadband connections to all in an attempt to reduce the divide?). What we need is concerted efforts on multiple fronts, including systemic change...
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