Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4612] Statement 3
From: bev trayner (bevtrayner@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue 18 Mar 2003 - 12:53:57 MET
From: "bev trayner" <bevtrayner@hotmail.com> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4612] Statement 3 Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:53:57 +0000
Hello Marc
>You seem to be saying that often the technology chosen does not really give
>us a choice in terms of what we can do.
Actually, it’s not really what I’m saying. Let me try and be clearer.
Technology itself doesn’t DO anything. And technology itself doesn’t have
anything innate like values or principles.
But the people who design the technology and the people who implement and
use it DO - and it's these people who have values.
On the one hand technology was designed by (teams of) people, with their
values and beliefs (about learning) and who are operating from within
social, cultural and economic constraints and expectations. The technology
these people design will reflect all those things.
At the other end, as it were, technology is used by teachers (and then
learners) who have their own values and beliefs (especially about learning),
and who are operating from their social and cultural context, which includes
the parameters of their learning histories and their institutional
constraints and opportunities.
Hence – technology will reflect the pedagogical values that went into its
design, but will be used in different ways by people with different
pedagogical values.
This makes sense of the second part of your statement “how technology is
used is more important than which technology is used”. (For myself, I am
confident about being able to use different types of technology for my own
pedagogical purposes).
But let’s look at the first part of the statement in a particular case: “The
choice of eLearning tools should reflect rather than determine the pedagogy
of a course”.
The case: An institution is deciding on what technology to buy and scans the
elearning tool market. Should it choose a technology that that is designed
to be a “course content delivery” system, where staff will be only too happy
to pass their materials to the technology department to upload for students
to download "any place, any time", and where the biggest adjustment teachers
will need to make is to be available to reply to student questions through
the online mailbox. (Oh yes, and where they’ll be delighted with the
innovation of a café where students can socialise online).
In this case the choice of eLearning tools will certainly reflect the
pedagogy of almost all the courses in the Institution of our case - holding
true to your statement 3.
On the other hand, should the institution choose a technology that is
designed to be a “conferencing system”, where it is a little clumsy for
transmitting materials but where the discussion and/or community tools are
excellent? Apart from those teachers who doggedly continue to either ignore
or use the technology as a means of transmitting information, this might
lead to disgruntled teachers asking why this technology has been chosen and
possibly to demanding more training for how to use it. It might even lead to
teachers discussing the technology and sharing ideas about how colleagues
are using it.
(The Institution could, of course, choose something in between)
Yes, in all cases an informed pedagogue can use the technology strategically
for their own purposes. And a determinedly uninformed lecturer will use the
technology to do exactly as s/he has always done.
But the world isn’t divided simply into the informed pedagogues and the
determinedly uninformed. There are a whole host of people at different
stages in between. Most people are at different levels of receptiveness for
being nudged, cajoled, carroted, encouraged into reflecting on and possibly
changing (i.e. learning about) their views on learning and teaching. And
technology MAY be one of the ways in which to stimulate this.
Therefore, I’m suggesting that the first part of statement 3 could read:
“The choice of elearning tools could be one of the factors that helps
determine (in the long run) the pedagogy of a course rather than merely
being something that reflects the existing pedagogy”.
Cheers
Bev
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