Scott Wilson's Workblog

17-July-2006

comments (1)
[ ICT and learning , social software ]
Scott Wilson suggests esponsibility onto learners to teach their teachers to understand what they have accomplished and how it relates to their learning goals

PLE Workshop | Scott Wilson's Workblog:

I missed this post by Scott Wilson in his comments about the Cetis PLE event in Manchester.

Scott asks:

"Can we adopt an approach whereby a teacher does not have to have mastery of - or even familiarity with - the technology used by learners? This moves responsibility onto learners to teach their teachers to understand what they have accomplished using Blogs/Wikis/Writely/Second Life/dead trees/etc and how it relates to their learning goals."

This is a big question. Given that one of the perceived barriers to the use of ICT for learning is seen as the competence and confidence of teachers with technology and - despite massive training programmes - that barrier still appears to remain, Scott's approach offers a welcome rethinking of the problem and ways of solving it.

An added advantage of this approach is it could free up the system to recognise all learning - not just that which takes place in the school

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Graham Attwell; 17-July-2006 18:08:59;

1 Replies (comments)

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1 No need to be an expert.

I believe that teachers should not need to be experts at everything.

Teachers need to have a vision of how they would like their students to learn, and see the potential or otherwise in some of the tools like web 2.0. I have worked with high school students who develop their own curriculum- sometimes individually, sometimes in small groups and sometimes as a larger group. The teacher becomes a guide and facilitator- stretching the thinking, pointing out possibilities. This works with students of different abilities. Curriculum links were backmapped to show coverage after the learning had gone to where it needed to go. (I do have a problem with the limiting effects of outcome based learning).

These same ideas apply to expertise in the use of digital technologies. The teacher may be able to see the potential, and the students could then test drive the technologies.

It is all about giving up the power, trusting the students and changing the pedagogical approaches.

Not easy, but a very rewarding and motivating way to teach and learn.

Louise Starkey, 19-July-2006 03:32:46