I have always admired Dougal's ability to so simply capture my thinking of the moment. Mind you I quite like Morin's more elaborate take on the same thing. Edgar Morin: “Everything we know is subject to error and illusion” - Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future UNESCO 2001
I teamed up with “Magnet for Misadventure” and re-started work this week – the first couple of days were packed with eagerly sought disruptions, but yesterday I settled down. I disciplined my ever errant mind to writing copy for an educational website, re-editing some bloated ideas on a Thinking Curriculum, proofing a paper on the Plant Variety Rights Draft Amendment Bill 2005 (don’t ask), and preparing professional readings for our ict_pd cluster teachers.
I had picked up a book in Singapore at that Thinkfest for ICT and teaching and learning - the ICCE2005 - because I was attracted to the way it had been structured. Yeah I know that it is kind of geeky to fall for structure over content, but every now and again I am enslaved by the Mistress of the Template.
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Teaching and Educational Practice seemed to encourage deep thinking and cognitive conflict – it undermined the reader and immersed them in a Bereiter and Scardamalia like Popper’s World 3. It was impossible to read a chapter and not be challenged to form an opinion.
I wanted to mimic this clashing views approach with the professional readings and exercises we provide for our ict_pd cluster teachers this year and played with the following ....Is only a first draft, but is already proving interesting, and makes it clear why classroom teachers are increasingly lost in "big crowds of invisible ducks"
Lesson#1: Detecting that big cloud of invisible ducks
Task: Create a LMS Clashing Views (e)Sheet based on information from the web.
YES: The ABCDE is an unparalleled New Zealand learning management service that facilitates the effective sharing of knowledge and communication between cluster schools, teachers, administrators, students and parents/caregivers delivering a rich teaching and learning environment. The ABCDE is a world class innovation, initiated by teachers, tested and refined by teachers and is now available for your school.
NO: Learning Management Systems (LMS) are often viewed as being the starting point (or critical component) of any elearning or blended learning program. This perspective is valid from a management and control standpoint, but antithetical to the way in which most people learn today. Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start learning November 22, 2004 George Siemens
YES: ABCDE ... Your Vision, Our Technology, Their Future
NO: In fact, an LMS is often the albatross around the neck of progress in technology-enhanced learning". The issue is not that an LMS is not needed for learning (though that point in itself could be argued). The real issue is that LMS vendors are attempting to position their tools as the center-point for elearning - removing control from the system's end-users: instructors and learners. Parkin
YES: "..The ABCDE will change forever how students learn, how we "do" school and provides all learners with the tools to build their own knowledge and realise their full potential in the 21st century.."
NO: LMSes replicate the traditional classroom structure, which is an industrial model designed to pump out compliant workers content to work within hierarchical organisations and obey their superiors. If we want to dislodge the bureaucrats, then we must promote pedagogical models that produce workers who are self-directed, independent, confident, flexible, who believe in collaboration and sharing and who scoff at rigid hierarchies. And I believe that learning environments based on open social networking tools are much more likely to achieve this than LMSes.
Another way to describe this is in terms of power - there is a very different power dynamic between a teahcer and their students in a classroom (or LMS) than there is in a learning environment using social software. The tools we use in education are very important and can make a big difference to the type of citizens we produce. Sean FitzGerald - Blog Comment
YES: The Learning Federation has approved the ABCDE to host and make available to a select group of schools the use of the approved Digital learning Objects (DLOs). The Learning Federation is a Joint Venture between the Department of Education Australia and The New Zealand Ministry of Education.
NO: Learning software vendors still doggedly pursue their vision of reusable learning objects that integrate via a central standards-conformant LMS. Meanwhile, trainers who really want to encourage experience-sharing and dynamic learner-created content are scrambling to understand blogging, RSS, and peer-to-peer networks. Parkin
YES: ICT PD clusters can use cluster funding to contribute to or fully purchase a Learning Management System long as the stated mission of the cluster is directly assisted through the purchase of a Learning Management System. The LMS purchased should facilitate professional development across the cluster and not be solely for the the schools internal management. If the stated mission of the cluster is not directly supportive of this intent but the cluster sees the value in acquiring an LMS such as the ABCDE (which allows for sharing of resources and professional development opportunities across the cluster) then the cluster can ask for a variance to their ICT cluster proposal.
Note to self: This is a surprise – I knew the Ministry was providing schools with financial support for the accredited SMS systems, but didn’t realise that this also extended to LMS systems – must ping an email to the Ministry tomorrow to see what else an ICT_PD cluster variance can purchase. Perhaps "invisible duck detectors" will feature on the list.
Guess the most eloquent thinking about the limited way in which we approach Learning Management Systems I have read recently is eLearn Magazines Unbolting the Chairs:Making Learning Management Systems More Flexible
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