"The new culture of learning is based on three principles: (1) The old ways of learning are unable to keep up with our rapidly changing world. (2) New media forms are making peer-to-peer learning easier and more natural. (3) Peer-to-peer learning is amplified by emerging technologies that shape the collective nature of participation with those new media" (pg 50).
As it will be difficult to sum up the book and relate it to online tools and games, I will stick my relation to the book to using social tools, such as Blogs, in the classroom to increase learning.
As I was reading the book I was wondering how to use new media forms to increase peer-to-peer learning. Blogs would be a great example and the book talks about how blogs give students the opportunity to become part of a collective that is greater than themselves and they give students the opportunity to play with new ideas and refine them through beginning conversations around ideas that are important for the learner.
"Because a person's blog is subject to revision by others, the influence of the collective can powerfully and meaningfully shape the blogger's view of the world, just as the blogger at the same time can shape the collective" (pg 66).
This is my first blog that I have done for a class and I would have to say that I really like how the information and reflections on my blog have helped me in my learning process. I look forward to seeing others comments about some of the tools that are reviewed and I am constantly learning. I am looking forward to implementing blogs in my future classes. I will keep you updated about how that goes.
I began reading the book to tie in the tools that have been reviewed in this blog with learning. After all, I truly believe that it is not about the technology. I realize that this blog may look as though online learning is all about the technology. I wanted to use the following quote from the book as perhaps a disclaimer for this blog to suggest that it really is not just about technology:
"We don't mean to suggest that every interaction with the new media creates a learning environment. Rather, we suggest that each collective has the potential to make learning fun and easy to allow people to follow their desires and passions in productive and fruitful ways" (pg 72).
Thomas and Seely sited a study comparing Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The study found that they were equally accurate. That piece of knowledge should calm the parents or teachers who still view Wikipedia as an evil source of information. Score a thumbs up for Wikipedia.
Thomas and Seely also address how students learn through play and imagination. "As children encounter new places, people, and ideas, they use play and imagination to cope with the massive influx of information they receive" (pg 47).
I know that I haven’t done the book justice through this brief discussion. The book dives much deeper into playing, how gamers learn through experimentation, and how through knowing, making, and playing can change our culture of learning. So to try to do some justice to the book, I would invite anyone to please add comments about how you use online games in your classroom to enhance learning and to please add comments about your view points on this book.
Perhaps to add a bit of the content from the book that I have left out, I will leave you with some of my favorite quotes from the book:
- In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes a strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it (pg 48).
- In the new culture of learning, the classroom as a model is replaced by learning environments in which digital media provide access to a rich source of information and play, and the processes that occur within those environments are integral to the results (pg 37-38).
- For most of the twentieth century our educational system has been built on the assumption that teaching is necessary for learning to occur (pg 34).
- In blogging authorship is transformed in a way that recognizes the participation of others as fundamental to the process. A blogger is not writing to an audience; he is facilitating the construction of an interpretive community (pg 66).
1 comment:
Racquel, nice to see you turn your attention to a reading in the area, and you've selected a great one. By the way, I'm a big John Seely Brown fanboy. One of the things that excites me about your selection isn't just the item you chose, however, but how you came across it. You connected with someone else and acted on their recommendation -- exactly the kind of thing you're talking about building through blogging. Nice symmetry.
Another key point you make is that "It is not about the technology." I agree with your take on it. We use technologies for reasons, and it is those reasons that drive us, not the technologies themselves. Of course technologies provide affordances that are unique and powerful -- the amplification that Seely Brown talks about.
And play. Don't get me started! I really think play is at the heart of great learning, and I don't just mean the running around in the back yard until you barf kind of play. I mean playing with ideas. Imagining. Being tentative and trying new stuff just for the fun of it. You know what I mean.
At any rate, thanks for the neat reflections, and to CPBW for throwing this in your direction.
Post a Comment