Martin Weller argues in the article “The distance from isolation", that communities are the logical conclusion in e-learning. He uses the three features "openness, robustness and decentralisation" to underpin the theory.
I have discussed with my husband this idea and we came to the conclusion that there is one important point missing: It is size of the group of potential contributors.
Contribution to communities is a motivation matter. We all experience all the time that many people use a resource but only a very small group contributes in one or the other way. The nice thing about communities is that you can but don't have to contribute. Some people are motivated for long time, some just for a short time or occasionally. Only a high number of potential contributors insures a significant amount of contribution takes place. And here we see the crucial the difference to learning communities. There are usually not enough voluntary contributors over time to give the community enough momentum to fly.
Another issue we see is, that without some clear guidance of teachers, learners might spend much more time researching and collecting quality information on a subject. A matter of reducing the amount of information and complexity.
We are not at all sure if this is just our mindset and we are not able to think in other learning dimensions. It will be very interesting to follow the development. It will be a challenge to even do that - because if there is a change, it might happen outside of our radars, when the digital natives use other channels of communication.
On the other hand - as long as teacher education does not change significantly - how shall the learning socialisation of the children change that radically?
Reference: M.Weller, “The distance from isolation", The Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
No comments:
Post a Comment