http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/francesbell/weblog/566.html
I read with interest Nicola’s and George’s posts about ‘e’ learning and blended learning, and this has induced a mild if longish rant. I am very much with Nicola here, and have to admit that George’s reference to blended learning slightly provoked the rant ;-) The term blended learning tends to have that effect on me. Given that it would be pretty difficult to think of learning that isn’t blended, what is the point of the term – to distinguish itself from terms like ‘networked learning’ or ‘elearning’?
Don’t get me wrong, I think the Blended Learning literature review is very useful and interesting, it’s just that marking something as different can be suspect, as well as useful. The concept of ‘networked learning’ being explored along side networked society concepts was and is useful in that there is/was significant opportunity for innovation around networking with the introduction of the Internet and mass information and communications technologies. Much of the writing also adopted a critical stance.
Why would we want to focus on technology with respect to learning?
“….. the distinction that Heidegger [5] drew between things we think about and things which we use, i.e., between those objects which are vorhanden and those which are zuhanden. In this distinction, vorhanden refers to the theoretical aspects of objects which allow people to contemplate these objects. I suppose if the reader was asked to ‘describe a screwdriver’, it is possible to produce a verbal description containing handle, shaft and head. On the other hand, zuhanden refers to the user’s relationship to objects in use. This notion of zuhanden seems to reflect Butler’s proposal that nothing is a tool unless during use’.”
Cognition and Tool Use; Forms of engagement in human and animal use of tools, Christopher Baber, 2003, ISBN 0–415–27728–0, http://www.eee.bham.ac.uk/baberc/Documents/Baber.pdf
When in the carpenter’s hand, the hammer becomes almost part of her body, fulfilling the hammering action to drive the nail into wood. Lying in a pile of broken glass in a car window, we can see it differently.
So it’s interesting to focus on technology for learning, if it’s new to us or when we are considering a new use for it but what is important is what we are doing, learning or not learning. Those of us whose subject discipline involves technology and/or who spend quite a lot of time learning to use new technologies can get a bit confused at this point – what are we doing and why?
If we want to think about blending epistemologies and learning styles, why would we start from technology? What’s new about blended learning?
The tensions between ‘instructional design’ and ‘social constructivism’ are real to educators trying to make improvements in their teaching and students’ learning. Sometimes we learning technologists make a veiled suggestion that using certain technologies might bring magical benefits in formal learning or even bring ‘freedom’ from formal learning or by informal learning. Learners and teachers might find such suggestions do not increase their freedom at all. As a teacher, I have simple goals: that the students I teach will (sometimes) disagree with me and might be able to teach me; and in disagreeing with me and teaching me, they will enjoy constructing clear arguments, supported by evidence. With varying degrees of success, I work with technology and colleagues to support different activities that help achieve those goals, and then reflect on how things might be different next year. Sometimes a technology is ‘noticeable’ – that group blog used by students to communicate with a client – and sometimes it’s invisible - students using their mobile phones to keep in contact during project work, what is sometimes called multiplexity. But that’s enough ranting for one day.
