Hi everyone. Ok, so I am currently (May-June 2013) in an online graduate course, on emerging trends in education and distance learning, and enjoyed this week’s lecture notes and required readings. I just posted this to our “discussion board,” and thought I could share it with you, my dear visitors! Here’s what I learned today!
Learning is a good thing, I say! Here I sit, in my classroom, reading our assigned lecture materials, and I’m happy to report that my mind is engaged and I’m learning. I know this may seem funny, but as some of you know, after plenty of grad work, one can often feel “Tell me something I don’t already know…” How refreshing it is to learn new content. I would like to first share how I enjoyed learning about theories that I don’t think I learned about in college; those of industrial sociology, Fordism, Post-Fordism, and the industrialization in education.
Something peculiar though, I thought, is how Instructor Skipwith shared that this “is the best way” to do distance education, for large numbers of students. I understand it’s probably the most efficient, and most profitable, for the institution, but in reading more beyond the materials given this week, I learned that industrial sociology, Fordism and Neo-Fordism have a negative light/ negative basis. I think I understand the basis of these ideas, and it’s easier to explain when we look at a business. Let’s say a business wants to streamline production, and so can change workers’ jobs to simpler tasks, in which each worker focuses on being the most efficient with only a few tasks. This is turn makes for less-skilled workers, which means that the business can have more control over the production, and thus can hire and fire more easily and pay less, since they don’t need to pay for very talented workers; rather only pay for the simple/ less-skilled workers.
It should be stated that the history behind these terms is not all negative. From the capitalist perspective, Fordism was a great and ingenious way of streamlining production. Profit, in general, is a good thing, because it allows business to strive, reinvest in the business, pay dividends to investors, grow the business, hire more workers, and allows individuals to work harder and smarter (i.e. incentive). The Russians, after WWII, for example, loved Henry Ford’s idea, and wanted to replicate it. They even hired professionals from the U.S. to come over and show them how best to accomplish it.
Now, to one of the Bb discussion questions. Q1: What are some of the ways you currently go about choosing technology to support your learning (or teaching)?
I must say that I like smart, simple, useful applications and software, like Dropbox and Evernote. I use them often because they do so much! With Dropbox, I can save and retrieve anything, from any internet-connected device (well, from most devices), and with Evernote; it’s like a digital notebook that allows me to save things I want to learn more about, highlight or cut parts of them to use for future personal and professional development. In teaching, I save things in both Dropbox and Evernote, but I also use and like the Reflection app and the iMovie app. Reflection is just sort of fun for the kids, since they get to show the whole class what’s on their iPad (like part of their writing... or a project). I recently had a student use the Reflection app during her whole ELL Project Presentation, because she made the whole video there, with the help of Video Editor Free.
Q2 - And what are the trends and technologies that you think have the most potential to satisfy the different learning styles in emerging education?
I think we’re still at the beginning of it all. I agree with several points in the lecture notes, such as how you still need to remain true to your objectives, and that it can simply support your learning or teaching. I think we’ll see more soon about software, sites and apps that allow a teacher to do more for a class. Something like Blackboard is awesome, but too expensive for public schools. I know several teachers use EdModo, and I used it for a bit, but found it limiting. There needs to be a capacity for text, uploads, links, as well as all the audio-visual bells and whistles like in a virtual classroom in which everyone can do audio; to listen, speak, share, etc.
Thanks for reading,
Adam C.
Skipwith, K. Introduction to Emerging Trends and Technologies. [PDF Document]. Retrieved https://nuonline.neu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-6669541-dt-content-rid-7169070_1/courses/EDU6320.80917.201335/EDU6320_Week2LectureNotes.pdf
This is cool!
ReplyDelete