The tipping point, design affordances and learning with wikis:
While working on the wiki for ETEC 510 I reflected on the effectiveness of such a design for my own classroom. The one major hurtle that kept red-flagging itself in this effectiveness debate was the time it would take for me to scaffold students to a level where they would be competent wiki authors. When I think about the process as I was involved as a student, and the skill set that I brought to the project when compared to my own students there would be large gap that would have to be crossed. Reading about the approach adopted by Beasley-Murray in the implementation at the post-secondary level and how they made the assignment accessible to students by simple role-modelling I realized that it would be possible with the right set of laddering steps. It seems that in this case as well, the students were quick to recognize the authenticity involved with completing this assignment. It spoke to them so strongly that they voted to increase its weight to that of a major assignment – that speaks volumes
Most of the time, audience depending, it is quite difficult for me to acknowledge that sometimes our educational systems do not adequately preparing students for further academics or real-world careers. We are not speaking to our students in a way they understand and there are occasions when we are not assigning projects/assignments that are relevant to their generational medium. Furthermore, many educators are in denial about the affordances of the tools that the students themselves place a great deal of value in. And in some instances we are separating/segregating ourselves from the world that our students inhabit. There may be some parallels here to events that have occurred in our not so distant political and social pasts….. Revolutions.
We live in networked social constructs and networked economies with education lagging somewhat behind but slowly coming to its own mariposa realization… its own design metamorphosis. This process can be uncomfortable and unpredictable. One thing is for sure – it is never simple. The caterpillar doesn’t just go to sleep and wake up with wings. During the caterpillar morph it consumes its own flesh at the cellular level to create brand new cells in novelle designs. Like in nature our giant social constructs will have to actually consume (for building materials and energy) the very cells that had been used to make the original entity. It will be a challenge but schools must take funds out of buildings, supplies and other costly entities (administration budgets) and redirect those dollars to build a new and advanced construct. This process may have more parallels to our little caterpillar’s lives then I have the space to write about. For instance, the signal that sends the caterpillar into the cocoon is related to how much it is eating. As it grows and eats and grows and eats it reaches a tipping point where it cannot seem to consume enough to support its growth. The district that I work in has also reached this tipping point. We cannot seem to obtain enough nutrition through our consumption of board dollars to support our growth. Last year’s budget short-fall was close to 11 million and this year it is projected to reach 10 million. Perhaps it is time for our next stage in the educational metamorphism – we cocoon and identify ways to pull dollars out of educational cells that we can no longer support to create a new educational vision. One that is free of the constraints of the terrestrial classroom and can obtain flight: through technology.
Perhaps this is the most significant affordance of wiki’s and parallel activities. That they allow us certain unexpected freedoms and the chance to break free of constructs that no longer fit.