🚀 go-pugleaf

From: Danny Choriki <dchoriki@igc.apc.org>

Hey Folks,

The first step in deconstucting any problem is to first, find the
right scale to ask the right question...

> >From: Frank Bokhorst <bokkie@uctvms.uct.ac.za>
> >
> > I was pushing the point
> > about "transfer of information from head to head" because it
> > seems that with CMC the proliferation of data, and given the ease
> > with which it can now be stored copied, and transmitted, one has
> > to re-consider models of learning, discovery, education.
>
> From: David Petraitis <davidp@mare.ch>
>
> Anyway to sum up I believe that the CMC environment provides methods for
> transmission of almost any type of learning (maybe except Zen-like
> modelling). But that the structure of our learning environment (including
> classical schools) is somehow wrong in ability to provide a coming together
> in goals, roles, methods and motvations that can lead to learning.

These are indeed heady times.  Everything seems possible.  Nothing
seems written in stone.  The entire universe seems up for grabs.
Heck, I argue regularly that I can cobble together an information
technology mix that can deliver any informational message, including
"nothingness" :).

So, why the incongruity between anything is possible?  And nothing
seems to happen?   Cause, when you  have a hammer in your hand, every
problem looks like a nail...  :)

I would argue that of the "definitional" nature of this discussion is
due to the lack of attention on the levels and different natures
of the different processes that are being discussed.  It is easy to
lump everything that has to do with education and learning into one
big "failure of education" mess.  Makes for great cocktail party
conversations and we sound both concerned and intelligent.

But it is, of course, much more complicated...

Let's take a step back from the problem and list out the processes
involved in "educating" a "student".

Cognitive processes.

There are a bunch.  These are the ones I think are most important,
described here in lay terms...

Understanding.  Yep, something goes on inside the student's head.
Links are made between disparate pieces of information (one of these
typically being the student's own experience base).  And a light goes
one.

Discovery.  A fine line here between understanding and discovery, but
sometimes the links lead to an understanding, a cognition if you
will, which is beyond the experience and information bases being
used.  Something new comes into the world....

Motivation.  The student has to want it to happen.

Perception.  We all view the world through our own filters which are
based on our experiences and existing understanding of the "world".

Communications processes.

I won't go into detail here.  Suffice to say that for the student to
learn from the past experiences of humanity, the past experiences of
humanity must be available to the student.  Information must flow
from the heads of those with the information into the head of the
student.

This is the process that CMC is changing.  And of course, changing
the communications process, changes the related process.  However, a
new communication process does not change the processes that operate
in the student's head.  It might change the level in which each
process is involved.  It might change the outcome.  But it isn't
changing the cognitive processes themselves.

Teaching processes.

Again, I won't go into detail.  What is the relationship between the
student and the teacher/mentor?  How does the teacher/mentor use the
communications processes available to invoke the cognitive processes
in the student's head?

In academia, this is referred to as praxis or practice.  Or as the
ethnomethodologists might say, "How do you do teaching?"  How a
teacher/mentor practices is limited by the communications process
used.  It should also be informed by the types of cognitive processes
that the teacher/mentor intends to invoke in the student.

Conversely, of course, as new means of communicating appear, new
practices evolve, and the teacher/mentor to student relationship
changes.

Education processes.

Oh, you want 10,000 students to learn?  Not just one?  How are you
going to pay for it?  Who decides what gets taught?  How does the
teacher pay thier rent?  Feed their kids?  I am not even going to
start to break this one down.  Suffice to say that  a lot is involved in getting
a teacher/mentor and a student into the same communicative space
where learning become possible.

And, of course,  the support behind teaching becomes a process of
its own.

Remember, Danny's Organizational Rule #1.  "Vision creates.  Rice
bowls pertutuate."  Organizations are created by visionaries who want to
do something and are then "professionalized" into bureacracies.  In other words,
once created, control is shifted to the "professionals", that is the managers.
An organization in "management  mode" is more concerned with the
organization than with the vision.

Now I am not saying this is a bad thing.  I am saying that it always
happens.  The kids of visionaries are usually the poorest dressed kids on
the block.  The rest of us mere mortals take mundane concerns like
paying the rent or mortage and feeding the kids seriously, and give
it a higher priority than "ideals" when making decisions, and rightly
so.

The point is that the implicite motivation for any organization,
inspite of any explicite rationale, is for the continue existence of
the organization, usually in the monthly form of, that's right, the
paycheck.

To think that information technologies will change this by changing
the way we practice teaching, is, in my opinion, naive.  If, on the
other hand, information technologies are used to change how we manage
education, we might have more luck.  For information technologies to
have a radical impact on the process of education, I would argue
requires finding a way of using the new communicative processes to
increase accountability.

However, I would argue that radical change will not happen without a
clear analysis of the reward structure in any organization, and a
clear linking of these rewards to learning for managers and
teacher/mentors alike.  This is structural change, and while
communications technologies can and should play a role in the
innovation of said processes, they are not sufficient in themselves
and are not critial to such a review.  However, they can be used to
provide the context for such a change -- and this is what I find most
intriguing about the implementation of information technologies in
educational systems.

So, to return to the original question, why don't we do a better job
of educating?  I would argue that the problem lies in that we keep
looking for the solutions in the heads of the students or in the
relationship between teacher/mentor and student and not where the
real problem lie, in the support structure.  Because we use the
words, to educate, to teach, to learn all to mean the same thing,
when they are not.

I'll close with one last parting shot.  The following is what I think
is the most cost effective information technology tool which if
implemented widely will have the most radical effect on education as
it is practiced in the United States (I can't speak for other
cultures or countries, though I suspect that the effects are
generalizable to the industrialized world).

Put a phone and outside phone line into every classroom.  Give each
teacher thier own answering machine, or even better tie it all into a
voice messaging system.

I leave the outcome of this "radical" solution as an exercise for the
reader.  :)

Later,
Danny
---------------------------------------------------------
Danny Choriki (dchoriki@igc.apc.org)
  www.inforamp.net/~dchoriki/index.htm
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"...the street finds its own use for technology."
   William Gibson, _Neuromancer_