Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4622] Re: Statement 9 - Theory for eLearning
From: Bill Williams (bwilliams@esce.ips.pt)
Date: Thu 20 Mar 2003 - 16:55:18 MET
From: "Bill Williams" <bwilliams@esce.ips.pt> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:4622] Re: Statement 9 - Theory for eLearning Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:55:18 -0000
Hi Mark and all,
I welcome the consensus about the usefulness of clear working definitions
of education and of learning
As Stephen has said, education can be defined either in terms of a process
or an outcome. Personally I prefer to focus the former because I believe
that it helps us to view education as something dynamic - a process with
general aims which can be subdivided into more specific outcomes in various
learning domains. The means/strategies to achieve the outcomes can be set
out in detail as in the case of a curriculum or can be left more open-ended
I believe. However, at the end of the day success or otherwise must be
judged on the basis of the outcomes of the process.
Mark:
> My major contention is that attitudinal and affective learning are not
suddenly made possible because we have
> eLearning tools in our pedagogical arsenal.
I have never maintained this, Mark. My concern is that they are in danger of
disappearing off the map completely if we adopt eLearning without a clear
view of our educational aims.
> I do like your rewording however I am uncomfortable with the underlying
assumption that eLearning has "profound implications". This is a
> generalization. Perhaps "profound potential" might be more realistic? That
way responsibility for the 'profoundness' that results from eLearning rests
> on the educator using the tools and not the tools themselves.
Well, I continue to think that "implications" ("significant implications"
maybe) is nearer the mark - the nature of ICT and its potential already
have implications for both the process of education and its outcomes. I
believe Stephen was making a similar point in an earlier post of his (but I
have to say that the fact that threading and weaving of posts are not
favoured by the list-server technology we are all using here, makes it
difficult to produce real collaborative dialogue. Having said that, I would
like to express my gratitude to Mark for the enormous effort he has put into
overcoming the limitations of the technology by keeping up a constant flow
of detailed response to our posts in this discussion)
Bill Williams
Setúbal Polytechnic
Portugal
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