Thoughts on “From Papyrus to Cyberspace”
Dr. Engell and O’Donnell’s lectures were very intriguing for a number of reasons. I had never considered the impact the printed word had on civilizations of the past. The early Christians used printed books to spread their message and eventually ascend into power. In a way, that was the “digital” revolution of the time. We are faced with another revolution today; one that Engell and O’Donnell started to experience when they gave their lecture in the 1999.
The Internet has completely revolutionized the way we communicate. It has never been easier to share thoughts and ideas with people all around the world. This is a far contrast from the days before the Internet was around. It seemed that the only way to get recognized was to have your written works published. This, unfortunately, meant that many individuals would not have their voices heard. Jump back to today and we see people sharing their stories through blogs or personal YouTube videos. Anyone with access to a computer can achieve this. A famous example is Tucker Max who began blogging about his party days. He has now published two books based off his blogs and is currently filming an adaptation of “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”.
The main point that I took from this lecture was how are digital technologies going to affect the classroom. Engell briefly spoke on blended learning and the importance of incorporating new technology with the old. It is important to note that, if used wisely, new educational technologies and blended learning, “can help improve student learning and allow schools to offer a greater selection of interesting courses” (Friedman & Friedman, 2011, p. 162). More and more students are coming into school completely fluent in all forms of technology. A traditional, lecture-based teaching style is no longer effective with the students of today.
Many studies looking at the effectiveness of blended learning have found that, “students in online classes perform modestly better on formative and summative assessments than students in Face-to-Face [FtF] instruction studying the same material, and that students in BL classes “perform better” than Face-to-Face” (Means et al., 2010, p. xiv).
I do believe FtF instruction still has a place in our education system. It helps to keep the social aspect of education intact. It also allows the teacher to ensure students are not falling into bad habits with technology. This includes, for example, the influence Twitter has. Users are only allowed to send 130 character tweets, which results in the use of abbreviations. It is very easy for those abbreviations to transition into the classroom and it is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure students don’t lose sight of proper writing techniques. I had submitted essays containing abbreviations such as, “u”, “r”, “btw” and “gr8”. It was amusing to see but from that point forward, I did my best to ensure my students left their bad habits at the classroom door.
References
Engell J. & O’Donnell J. (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace. [Audio File]. Cambridge Forums.
Friedman, H., & Friedman, L. (2011). Crises in education: Online learning as a solution. Creative Education, 2(3), 156–163. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2011.23022
Means, B., Yoyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2010). Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. US Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf
Great post Sean! I couldn’t agree more that our students are so technologically literate that learning online would suite so very many of them better then the classroom setting. I often wonder how much time we’re wasting ‘holding’ our students inside when they could be using there time better outside exploring the world. I really hope schools will be changing to encourage more online interaction within the school environment.
I am hoping to include in my LA and Math classes this fall an online component where students are expected to share resources, discuss in forums topics of interest and study, and reflect on each others conversations. This will be something required of them later in life and it will help teach them appropriate online protocol, a requirement in life!
I like your example of how powerful blended learning can be. I like the idea of having students set up a blog in first term and requiring them to carry it through all year – posting twice a term minimum. It could be a wonderful online experience – especially if you opened it up to them to choose what medium they wanted to discover and blog on. You could even have a peer-review where peers mark there work on the same rubric as you would, so as to get a peer feedback/view of the blog posts.
Thank you for providing me with TONS of great thinking – can you tell I’m already beginning to plan for next year?! Can it be June already?!
I find myself wondering about the future of face to face education in its current form a lot these days as well. I actually decided to get into the MET program because I believe that blended learning will be the way public schooling looks sooner than later. I just don’t believe that society is ready to give up what Sean called the ‘social aspect of education’ or what I call the,’child care aspect of education’ just yet. In the modern society of constant supervision and lawsuits it seems unlikely that parents would just allow their children to stay home and learn online without supervision. Blended learning and Inquiry allow for some more creativity and exploration by the students and still has a teacher guiding and supervising learning activities.
Our school did a cross-grade Inquiry project this year where every afternoon for two months the 8th graders worked on their Inquiry topic, supervised by their eight grade teachers who moved from room to room between their assigned groups answering questions and making suggestions. While the logistics of of the pilot were daunting the quality of the work and the depth of the students’ learning was in stark contrast to their performance on the traditional textbook exercises. It was a very promising debut and I look forward to expanding my use of Inquiry activities next year. Keep encouraging the kids to share resources and help each other (as well as us teachers!) to learn.