Hi Leigh,
Thanks for that very well-considered post. I like the flipped classroom
concept as well. Would you mind if I forwarded your email around to other
people and lists?
Thanks!
Pine
On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 9:56 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter <osamadre(a)hotmail.com>
wrote:
If you think of "education" as the provision
of information, then yes, the
Internet is "replacing teachers". However, it is really not doing anything
different than books, video and audio; none of which has replaced teachers.
There is a social component to education, the interaction with those who
have more experience and yes, knowledge, that a computer cannot match. Even
with a memorization-heavy subject like history, you still need a teacher,
if for nothing else, to help sift through and analyze the mass of
information and interpretations now available.
Remember, we went through similar predictions with videotaped lessons,
before that, televised lessons and even before that, correspondence
courses. However, the completion rate on these are dismal, because people
need interaction and structure at the very least.
Rather than thinking of technology as replacing teachers, it is radically
challenging teachers and educational institutions, not so much because that
it is providing information in a radically different way, but because
information is now ubiquitous. If teachers and schools dont exist simply to
provide a set of information to learn, what should we be doing? There is no
clear answer, but from experience, I do know it will require being a LOT
more active and interactive than it used to be. If students are going to
plunk money down for formal education, those hours in the classroom need to
count for a lot more than they use to.
As for Wikipedia, I dont see the educational value in it so much as the
technology, but rather that it provides an opportunity for students to
"apprentice" especially from my point of view as a language teacher.
Students are creating and modifying texts, which are not simple exercises
but the "real thing" with real consequences. And not just texts, but other
forms of media such as video and digital animation.... Wiki Learning is
doing a couple projects of this type as we speak now.
However, none of this indicates that working with Wikipedia means a purely
online environment. Perhaps just the opposite. Creating Wikipedia content
is not drill-work,but rather so-very human. With its mass of rules and
norms, the involvement of someone who has experience becomes more
essential. This is why very few new editors stick around and why the
Education Program has the concept of Campus Ambassadors.
IMHO, technology is best used in these situations: to take drill work out
of the classroom, to take lecture out of the classroom (flipped classroom)
and to allow students to do activities that before were not possible
before. Wikipedia fits in the last category, because perhaps its greatest
contribution to education is allowing students to publish work for the
world to see within a community that is outside campus.
Leigh
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 08:30:06 -0700
From: wiki.pine(a)gmail.com
To: education(a)lists.wikimedia.org; wikimedia-cascadia(a)lists.wikimedia.org;
wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia Education] Wikipedia's role in Internet-based education
I'm interested in hearing experienced educators' and researchers' thoughts
about what roles Wikipedia, and Internet-based learning in general, can and
can't do well.
Articles for consideration:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0608-godsey-altschool-teachers-2…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/04/technology-wont-…
What does Wikipedia education do well, and what doesn't it do well?
Is Wikipedia-based education amplifying the learning of students who are
likely to be from highly resourced schools?
Do we have evidence that Wikipedia based education has outcomes for
students that are similar to, or better than, other kinds of online
learning?
How can we offer a service that is widely beneficial for students and
teachers with limited technological resources? Or should we not try because
of the additional challenges?
Thanks,
Pine
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