Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good
Understanding the Context
Oblinger argues that the learning context is changing from the what learners
do and who they are, how knowledge is being created rather than processed, and
how students are accessing learning experiences are changing with mobile
devices. I was reminded of two popular videos that puts for this same call.
In the Machine is Us/ing Us describes a new landscape of media in which learners are working with to collaborate, contribute, and create.
The Machine is Us/ing Us
This advertisement by Kaplan University, which I believe tries to reach adult
learners or those looking for flexible schedules approaching learning from a
different perspective. Rather than simply using computer based instruction
that is often referenced as being “online learning” this provides an engaging
collaborative learning environment.
Kaplan University
Although there is much discussion about the learning environment and the
learners in that environment changing. I like that Oblinger’s comment
detailing that students might know how to create a mash-up, but might not know
how to use an electronic spreadsheet. It is an interesting thing to
consider that we often think that students are demanding these environments but
they might not have the technical knowledge to effectively use these in formal
learning environments.
Flexible Learning Environments
Knowing that we have so many tools and information easily available on the
Internet (learning objects, audio, video, screencapture, etc),we need to begin
to thinking that it is not having access to information that is powerful.
Instead, it is about using this information to build new knowledge. To me
this means that we need to focus more on how we are developing learning
activities for students. How do we create real-world activities that
students can investigate with each other, while using the the key concepts that
are available on the Internet. Surely, developing these types of
real-world activities is hard to develop in practice. Students are
unskilled at making the connections to the “big picture.” Is there a way
to develop a structured learning guides while situating this in a problem based
learning environment.
Scott Wojtanowski
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