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I’d love to hear thoughts.
I’m delivering a ‘Sound for media’ module at an HE institution in the UK and I’m using a ning network (albiet set to private) for all portfolio development, discussions and communication, then a wikispaces site for resources. The students choose there own platform for their final portfolio spaces, but MS word and CDs are banned! I’m free at last! There are just so many benefits and I can’t see any reason to go back to paper or even a vle.
[...] Embedding Student Expectations [...]
Powerful insight and stimulating questions. I’d love to see the ideas of portfolio thinking and content aggregation coupled with life long learning, distributed resources, and a broad community used to model learning that’s not technology or media focused. What do the changes in learning, communication, and resource management mean to a course in archaeology? or mechanical engineering? Will any model we create apply across the university’s list of courses? I have no idea, of course; there are certainly aspects that will. I wonder what the impact change will have on which careers students value?
No doubt the post makes insightful claims. My first concern is that overtaxed professors, especially ones on tenure-track, may not have time to rethink the old school ways of interacting with students and designing their courses. If change is on the horizon, it’s going to be a slow one. In a college where both students and professors are skilled in web 2.0 tech, integrating new web media into their curriculum is easier because technology is part of the program. But in other faculties, take English, for example, both students and professors may not be as technically literate. Yet, although students may be comfortable using social networking sites and youtube, senior professors are probably not. Also, junior professors, even if they are versed in web 2.0 technologies, may not be recognized by the department for bringing new media into the curriculum. Junior professors spend their time on things that will get them tenure and if rethinking a course using new media does not reward them for tenure, at least somewhere along the line, then they are less likely to do it. However, I could see integrating new learning through web 2.0 reflecting back positively on teaching evaluations, and that would count for tenure.
What I like about the possibilities of web 2.0 and new media is the ability for students to go find things that interest them and synthesize their learning through creativity.
It is an amazing time that we live in and I agree that the future is now. I have been thinking about education a lot lately, but not necessarily only college level instruction. I was talking to a friend yesterday about the struggles that her child is having in school because the curriculum that is taught in the local school district is so inflexible, closed and limited. He has a different learning style than the curriculum allows for and a learning disorder on top of that. He’s falling behind and the teacher’s only recourse is to hold him in from recess to try to catch him up. His mom is beside herself because he needs physical activity to be able to concentrate better as part of his learning disability. She was complaining about “No Child Left Behind” and asking me what our new President’s view on it was. I told her what I thought it is was, but I don’t want to get into politics here. So what does this have to do with the discussion?
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