Their real-life experiences, however, often contradict the more lasting expressions of their genius. For example, Rousseau, for all his marvelous education theory and support of breastfeeding children instead of farming them out to wet-nurses, abandoned his own child. So then we’d have to get into all that, about the philosophy being more important than the philosopher.

Here are some thoughts/questions/riddles which maybe you can help me answer/debate/understand:

1. History is fundamentally a matter of time
2. Story is embedded in History
3. real-life, experiential narrative is about historical events, though not always of the ‘Hi-” typology
4. The word entered the English language in 1390 with the meaning of “relation of incidents, story”. In Middle English, the meaning was “story” in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History
5. History is interpretive

I also think that historical figures (Locke, Rousseau) are still alive, through their recorded writings, adherents, and mimics. So accessing their real-life experiences is easy.

The stories ‘put content into context’, as the students report.

Stories can be relayed in the classroom, or at a distance via video access. Combined with Q & A, ‘handouts’ and summary of the key points, storytelling is liked by my students.

Perhaps similar to the ‘vivid lecture’, described above?

Please do join us next week if you like. Dr. Schwier is our guest, and he’ll be doing some neat things.

Why does the vivid lecturer work? Because she entertains, she conveys information in a way that is not too demanding for the ‘audience.’ Most students have been conditioned to accept education passively.

But she also conveys her own passion and excitement. I think that is where those of us who think the new digital media offer intriguing possibilities for better learning have to really make a commitment. We have to model using the tools. But we also have to model having fun with them. Learning is fun (point one of the as-yet-unpublished EduFunk Manifesto). Better learning is more fun. We will not get students out of their rut of minimum-effort information download without jolting them out of it, by exciting them, by showing them how much fun they are missing out on. (I am not suggesting you didn’t do this in that course. I’m just saying it is a key challenge for us all, and one we won’t easily overcome, particularly not without both practice and sharing our successes and failures via our PLNs)

We know what the new media can do. We know why it can make for better learning. But THEY don’t. Yet.