Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

The first lines of the seventh book in “A Series of Unfortunate Events” read:

“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don’t read is often as important as what you do read.”

… and when it comes to ICT in education, this is probably very true. First there are all the documents relating to new government initiatives, frameworks and other bang-up-to-date things that you should be engaging in. Then, there’s all that new software or hardware that has just become available that you have not heard about, or warnings of the dangers of wireless, or the latest guidelines on cyberbullying or data protection. Then there are blogs, wikis and educational podcasts that you need to read and digest. Keeping up to date is a full time job even with tools such as aggregators that help us select and prioritise, list and categorise.

Will in a recent post talks about “Innovation Overload”; where the teacher audience presents a, “kind of eerie quiet where the only sound I seem to hear is that of arms folding in defense or heads bending in despair”. It’s difficult to consider change … in fact it’s even difficult for those that want to embrace change let alone those that are tired and want change to go away. Unfortunately, educational technology is about change and the way in which we fundamentally think about learning and teaching. The aspirations we have both for learners in our care, and for society in general rely on adopting an attitude of change. Technology may provide us with an increasing array of tools to help us cope, but can also be part of the problem as well as the answer.

Blogged with Flock