As described in Richardson, there are numerous shifts that have occurred in education. He certainly seems to overrate just how profound these shifts are in affecting the manner in which content is delivered. Still, I will concede that I have been affected by some of these shifts. The one I will focus on is that of many teachers and twenty-four seven learning.
If nothing else, the web 2.0 environment allows for access to any number of content experts in the online domain. Some of these, to be sure, are more deserving of the credentials “expert” than others. Still, students need to be mentored in how to analyze the information. For example, every semester, I assign a research paper to my classes. That assignment now includes in the assignment attendance at a session led by an information librarian that examines which websites are useful and which are not. The notion of the school-day has altered drastically as a result of the influence of technology.
Students, especially those in online courses, tend to work at all hours. It is now common for me to receive e-mail dated at 4AM, and so forth. Some colleagues assert that they expect instant replies at all time, but I do not find this to be the case. On a colleagues suggestion, I made it part of my syllabus, especially for online, that I would be on at certain times of the day—a sort of online office hour. This has worked very well for me as students tend to post their questions around that time. Along the same lines, I have let it be known that I do not keep office hours on weekends. (I do still check the course, but leave time for replies). This way, I do not feel such a slave to the course. Again, this is yet another way in which the shifts have affected my teaching. (If you think about it, it has changed our language, as affect used to mean only emotive changes, whereas effect meant cause and effect. Now this has changed because of Microsoft. \Who is in charge of the language anyhow?)
In the future, I am sure more use of technology will be expected in teaching. The push is on, and will likely remain so to incorporate greater technology in the classroom. This is fine, if it is done in a clear and well-thought out manner. Too often, however, that is not the case. Several years ago, there was a great push at my school to use Second Life in our classes. It flopped. those behind the push, who were not classroom teachers, blamed the students for not being up enough on technology! Who are we here to serve?
If anything, this course has made me more critical of the use of technology in the classroom, and less inclined to support it. I think it is currently a blind alley that some tread down at their own peril. Some good will certainly come of this, but not in the near term, and not until we make certain significant decisions, as a society, about the role we want technology to occupy in our society. Mostly, it will result in some weak educators with strong tech skills stealing the limelight with the spiffy lesson that really does not teach anything useful, just how to look like you know how to make a PC perform.
Jim Mc Intyre
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