I arrive back at my blog after a stint as a student in the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge class. I created a separate blog, and found myself in an environment led by marvelous techno-utopians who believed that learning would be vastly improved if teachers got the hell out of the way and let learners find their own way among the sea of information and perspectives available via “today’s technology”, by which they meant the internet. In such an environment, I became (uncomfortably, to be sure) a traditionalist, pointing out the value of historical perspectives, 17th and 18th century learning theories, and previous media revolutions. I also became very critical of the current net hype.
The abilities of individuals to engage in this “connective” activity was assumed, rather than discussed. Even before the class I was aware that there was a perception that the “Net Generation” is different, that those born after, say, 1990 think and behave differently, that their brains are wired for speed, multitasking, simultaneous multiple inputs. I have even taught other faculty, in workshops on individual learning styles, that those who are younger (or, I was quick to add, sophisticated in their use of technology regardless of generation) didn’t see technology the same way as the other people. The net gen’ers, of whatever age, don’t see the technology itself, and only care about what it does.
While taking the class, I read Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation (2008), with its extensive research demonstrating that the younger crowd is self-centered (or friend-centered) and permanently adolescent, thanks in part to their overuse of the internet for social networking. I can easily see his research in my own students, many of which are entitled, dependent, and print illiterate. [Only just now, while writing this post, I had a student frantically contacting me because she did not submit an assignment when it was due, by 5 pm. I closed the assignment at 6 pm (an hour's grace, I thought), so it afterward required a password. In the last few hours she has emailed me 5 times, asking why I'm not immediately answering her message to give her the password. This pecular combination of entitlement, dependency and lack of personal responsibility is endemic -- this is an "A" student I'm talking about.]
Now I am reading Don Tapscott’s Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World (2008), which shows research the opposite of Bauerlein’s and promises a better world led by this generation. And it was here I finally understood the word “transparency”, the idea that a technology with which one grows up is transparent: you don’t see it. Most people of my generation still see the technology, talk about “using the computer” to do something. To Net Gen’ers, that would be like “using the television” instead of “watching Dancing with the Stars”, or “using the refrigerator” instead of “getting something to eat”.
This view connected immediately into my (recently evolving) position on the role of online education. In the Program for Online Teaching, we have begun seeing the same faces at the workshops, and they aren’t the faces on our technology decision-making bodies. When I invite other faculty to a workshop, many tell me they’re not interested in teaching online, so they don’t go. A couple of months ago I began sending out the POT newsletter to all faculty instead of those on the interest list, but there was no increase in participation. Then just in the last few weeks, we’ve had people who are new to campus searching around for some online teacher “training”, as if the Program for Online Teaching, with its extensive pedagogy-based workshops, didn’t exist.
I have begun to realize that the problem is separating online from teaching. Online teaching is, in all substantial ways, the same as any other teaching. When we say it’s different, we are seeing the technology — it isn’t transparent. And the result is that we focus on the technology, the course management systems and who runs them, and how to do this thing in Blackboard, and how to “train” college instructors. We create separate Distance Education departments, with separate deans, and talk about our “Distance Education program” because we see it as separate from our other education program. And I’m starting to think that such a perspective might be hopelessly old-fashioned and backward-looking, like asking how we can improve the reception with the rabbit ears instead of wondering if there’s something better to watch on the television.
I think it’s time for some good old-fashioned desegregation. Good teaching is good teaching, regardless of venue/mode. Not every lecturer can do well with small group work, not every constructivist can give a great lecture, not every in-class teacher can teach well online. No big surprise there. The technology itself has advanced enough that we can afford for it to be as transparent as the chalkboard, the overhead, the VCR. (Did anyone ever offer training on how to effectively use a video in class?) Perhaps we can stop separating our “distance”, “classroom”, and “hybrid” thinking, and instead work on teaching and learning.
Great point! I still say ‘watch tv’ and ’surf the web’ so I guess that makes me old.
Yes.
We are at a stage of techno-fetishism on one side and technophobia on the other. The technology is too apparent, too distracting – we see the technology, not the content – the medium is still the message. Perhaps the best thing we can do – those of us comfortable with the tools and what they can do – is simply to use them, without fuss, to model rather than ‘teach’ or ‘train.’ Several times the idea of modeling came up in #CCK08 – I think it a good one. I think you just made a strong case for it.
Great post. I especially found it useful where you stated…
I really enjoyed this post Lisa and working in Distance Education I definitely agree – good teaching is good teaching. I think eventually we will get to a place where education is education – regardless of the method of delivery. However, my one concern is that people – even teachers – do not realize all the research that has been done in the field of distance education. It is a legitimate field of study. I find too often teachers who think they can make a jump to online teaching without building additional skills just because they feel they are good teachers. Or I see teachers re-inventing the wheel by trial and error in good online teaching strategies just because they fail to recognize that the field of distance education can provide guidelines. I just hope before distance education becomes a part of education that the legitimacy of the field of distance education is recognized. Thanks for the post!