Page 164 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

152
178
4. Technology & Innovative Learning Environments178
From page 4 of this text: “The fourth paradigm shift in learning is far more recent, arriving in the form of the internet, whereby we could access information in any combination of media, at almost no cost. The internet has substantively changed many aspects of our lives, specifically, how we learn and the sophistication of that learning”
Frustratingly, despite the arrival of the fourth paradigm shift in learning, schools are continuing to focus on students remembering and recalling large amounts of information that has almost no relevance to the their daily, or future lives. Gone are the burnt edges of posters about famous scientists and the water cycle and tea stained posters about Captain Cook and his discoveries, to be replaced by 64-slide PowerPoint (less) projects with downloaded imagery of burnt edges and tea stains! Really!! Was that our collective best shot at integrating technology into the classroom along with apps that help Susan rote learn her alphabet faster? Seriously; that was what all that Professional Development and financial investment was about? If it is, we have wasted the greatest possible opportunity educators have ever had!
The whole point of this paradigm shift was to bring a staggering halt to projects entirely! Why do we need to know all this trivia about the water cycle, famous mathematicians and Captain Cook? Who cares about what the Aztecs ate, where they lived and their religious symbolism?? How does that help anyone in their life? The tech equivalent of the project is still the project; the same thing as before but
we have moved from a couple of pages of research on a piece of cardboard to sixty-four slides of trivia via a PowerPoint presentations or via an app on the iPad! To make matters worse most parents thought that this ‘transformation’ was amazing and that each of their children were destined to be the next Bill Gates and lo and behold, the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ gets another outing.
This is the equivalent of upgrading from a Morris Minor to a Lamborghini and driving on the autobahn at 10km/hr in first gear; why would you do that? The whole point of the paradigm shift associated with access to the internet was that we could migrate the end-point of learning from learners knowing and remembering stuff, to understanding and then being innovative and ingenious. Who cares what year Captain Cook left England; no-one cares, especially when the learners are ten years old! The important learning is not about the context but about the concept! So, what is the concept underpinning Captain Cook sailing to the Antipodes?
Put simply the concept underpinning all exploration involves only a few of variables and this is encapsulated in the concept of investment. You put up some money, build a good ship, man it with capable sailors and send it off to find countries that are either undiscovered of have existing people that are less technologically capable than you are. Once you arrive you claim or capture said land and once the king/queen owns that land they sell it off to a new group of settlers who
178 The chapter 26 summary video can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJb2NjgfWKU if you are reading the book, otherwise click on the video icon at the top of the page
26