Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age

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Mitchel Resnick

..."the declining cost of computation will make digital technologies accessible to nearly everyone....from inner-city neighbourhoods in the United States to rural villages in developing nations"

If politics don't come into the picture. Depends on the regime. Look at the vast amount of aid pouring into war-torn countries, none of which reaches those who need it most. Not so sure about Resnick's optimism.

I agree that it's very often the case that "the technologies are used simply to reinforce outmoded approaches to learning." What I have witnessed in these instances is often due to later of teacher PD in the new tecnologies ie I'm not really sure how to use PowerPoint so I'll put a few of my notes into a ppt, project it and read it out to the class as usual. At least my supervisor can see I'm using the technology.

.."ideas about and approaches to teaching and learning remain largely unchanged"
I have to disagree on this one. Constructivism is making great in-roads, in my opinion. Learner autonomy, independence etc etc. I think people are adopting these new approaches more and more. Just because they are not educated in how to merge these ideas with technology does not mean that there hasn't been a positive turn in what it means to teach and to learn.

There's a great debate that goes on in our college about English teachers Vs content teachers (yes, the word stress on content is very important!!) Only English language teachers here are expected to have full teacher training and are constantly being pushed to upgrade their qualifications. Not true for the non-English teachers. Strange, don't you think. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this results in a lot of transmission teaching. I'm just wondering about the generalisations Resnick is making. What kind of teachers has he observed? What kind of teacher training have they received?

Whole-heartedly agree "we need to move beyond these information-centric views of computing and learning."

Must have a re-read of Clark(***FIND REF) who created a storm by saying that the medium used to teach something didn't affect the learning that occurred.

Computers are "a new medium through which people can create and express." Like the finger paint analogy! He boldly goes on to say "the computer is the most extraordinary construction material ever invented...Computers can be seen as the universal construction material." So he's a big fan, then?

Discussing what people should be able to do on a computer (digital fluency) reminds me that my students are second language learners with a weak command of English, but all the software they are expected to use here at college is in English. It's a whole other hurdle.

...being digitally fluent involves not only knowing how to use technological tools, but also knowing how to construct things of significance with these tools (Papert and Resnick 1995). Surely there must be some scope for allowing learning activities to be designed by a 3rd party with more experience and using them with the students. I don't think you have to be such an expert to meaningfully integrate ICTs into your teaching in some way. Does knowing how to use a class textbook most efficiently mean you have to be able to write one?

Will resume tomorrow!