TEL-lingit like IT is

TEL isn’t just about the techie stuff, though I do like that. As I mentioned in the second post to this blog , TEL is predominately about learning, even though the ‘Learning’ part of TEL comes last. I try to read up on learning as much as I try to keep up with technological developments – and I admit that I often find the learning literature more interesting! A few years ago I purchased Daisy Christodoulou’s book Seven myths about education  (see The Guardian's review here ). The book is brief, authoritative, clear, and punchy. Christodoulou suggests that there are seven pervasive myths about how students learn, and how teachers should teach. The myths find their expression in education ministries, teacher's colleges, and right across the schooling system. I reckon the same myths are equally applied across the HE sector.  Critically, the myths are in opposition to good education practice. Her book is well worth the provocation; here’s a quick overview.  M...

We don't just store bits of knowledge as stacked Lego bricks. Instead, we assimilate new knowledge within the stream of what we already know. In turn, the newly assimilated knowledge influences the stream of how we interpret new knowledge. In Making it stick , Brown, Roediger III and McDaniel define learning as "acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so [one] can make sense of future problems and opportunities" (2014, p.2). Learning, then, is a process of assimilation and extension. Sort of like a smudge.  The process of learning is often described in terms of a developing schemata   (Wikipedia article again highly recommended!) whereby what we already know both determines and changes as the result of what we learn. Such development might be equated with transformative learning , whereby an education doesn't just shape what we know; it also fundamentally changes our view of the world. It is here that the cognitive sciences ...

In a logical turn of events, Udacity, the online educational service founded by artificial intelligence guru and ex-Googler Sebastian Thrun, is offering a new set of tech degrees that guarantee a job in six months or your money back. ( ElecCafe.com ,  Code School Udacity Promises Refunds if You Don’t Get a Job ).  Now this is very, very good news. It demonstrates how achieving career qualifications can finally overcome the unsustainable and, let's face it, unjustifiable debt that characterises higher education worldwide. Education is clearly in need of a "gale of creative destruction", to quote Schumpeter . There is much to applaud here. However, philosophically there is also much to be concerned about. The same article exposes the underlying assumptions around the approach taken by Udacity's Sebastian Thrum: “The ultimate objective of education is to find people a job” Hmmm. Finding a job is a great outcome, and in purely economic cost/benefit analysis it...

It's a curious thing, the acronym TEL. The 'Technology' part comes first. I much prefer "Learning Enhanced by Technology" for the subtle reason that it puts the horse in the right place. Anyway. In this blog, it's the 'Learning' bit that leads. So, an orientation to learning as I consider it. Learning is one of those terms used rather too casually, a word with such broad and everyday use it can describe almost anything. I recall the most memorable learning experience of my MA: defining the term "interactive", in the context of e-learning. Is merely clicking on something interacting with it? From a certain perspective, yes... but true interactivity implies reciprocation. The thing being clicked should be able to also interact with the one clicking. Once you think about "interactive" in this term you become that much more critical of claims related to it. How we define terms ultimately reveals our assumptions about them. For the...