Serendipity. Just seeing my thwirl swirling on my screen when I saw Jefflebow there. Well, out of curiosity, because these guys at edtechtalk are always around new stuff, I decided to click on the link Jeff suggested to test mebeam. Bang! I was there with him, John Schinker, Dave Cormier and Jen Madrell. What a great pleasure to see all those little video thumbnails. I laughed to myself because I had no idea they would all be there. It’s just like getting in the wrong room when people are into interesting conversations and you interrupt them…Well, Jeff has this very fast-thinking (forward-thinking, too!) reactions and asked if I wanted to join them. I asked when and he said it was in 10 minutes. There I was busted and glued in the room of those edtechtalkies who know how to run a show! It was great. Except that I don’t know if Dave liked the fact that I pushed him into some discussion related to his teaching approaches and mine, as well, based on his rhizomatic view of learning. Interesting discussion with a taste that I want to go futher on the discussion…or, at least, go deeper into the topic.
Love the fact that you pushed the thinking… that’s exactly why i put it out there. Now i’m just trying to resist the urge to go out and set up an online course to test it out. I will though… i found your critique very useful
d.
Great Dave.
I was going to send you an email as I felt like, “well, I’m part of somebody else’s show and still am discussing stuff that the guy has been studying for some time….” I’m glad that you enjoyed the talk. I loved it, for I feel this is the way we can really make a difference to others, testing new approaches and checking how they work in different settings. I’d love to see you running an online course to see how it goes and how it differs from a f2f setting. Also, I saw that you mentioned later on that you would think that you have this “edtechtalk” approach for an online environment. Well, I’ve been part of the Webheads, Webcastacademy, among others, and what I see is a convergence of bright minds that are, if not tech-savvy already, at least, daring educators. My experience with teacher training shows me that, for some, the online world is totally daunting and they have no clue where to get started. That’s where I believe in the need of a helping hand. It’s not about reaching the bright ones, for the will go out there and figure it out. It’s about making it a transformative experience to the average educator in any country who works tons of hours a week and is totally underpaid. At least, this is the case in Brazil. Can you imagine working 40 hours a week at school and earn something like U$ 500? Well, this is reality in most public schools in Brazil.
So, getting back to our point. It’s just like being there with any group of learner. Are we trying to teach only the bright ones, or keep inspiring them plus the ones who have less resources, time, etc? In my case, I want to try to reach them all and affect them in a way that this will transform them as educators and the learners in their educational settings. A dreamer? Maybe. Idealist? Totally, but I truly believe we can foster some kind of change in the microspheres we navigate.
Ramblings…
Dave just wrote me back:
Dave,
As I mentioned yesterday, I still think we have the same goals. Empowerment is certainly a view we share. What we might be diverging here is how to get there. And I wouldn’t say it’s really diverging because I also believe that we should let learners find their way and check for themselves what strategies work for them or not. However, I feel that in the online environment, instruction lacks the kind of natural empathy and trust you can establish in a f2f environment. It’s not a straightforward process online. You have to build that up with your students. And part of the process is to get them started in a smoother way (though I don’t consider it smooth at all! They suffer in the beginning!) with guidance. Do you really think it’s viable just to say to online participants of an online session: OK, go there and open a delicious account. I know that you mentioned the tagging scaffolding you went through with your educators before asking that to them. However, in my case, an online session with no credit requirement where educators join just because they want to take that step beyond, don’t you think we need to give them options? Otherwise, they will be stuck in a hyperlinked world without really having any focus. So, yes, I’m for options, but, at least in the beginning, I give some options. And not that they need to follow them. They can go out there and find even better resources than the ones I’ve offered, but, at least, it’s a start.
In fact, I think the ideal would be a balance between my approach and yours. No, I can’t be there all the time for them, they need to find their own paths by making mistakes, clicking, asking for help in the network. However, I’m not totally convinced that a tutorial won’t save time for the moderator, as it will help participants get started.
All this talk has made me think of ways in which I can find a balance between my views and your approach. I guess it could be a perfect fit in an online setting for beginners!