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New Technologies Means New Learning (or should it be //New Ways// of Learning?)
Does it? I think it does, and I have some ideas about how the use of new technologies changes //how we learn//, but I'd like to elicit what others think before I write too much here. And on the flip side, //how we teach// should also change. - Michael

//So, how// does //the use of new technologies change the way we teach and learn?//

WHAT IS LEARNING?

To be clear, we will need to separate the two - the two processes being such very different things. To use [|A.N. Whitehead]'s old saying, "In the Garden of Eden Adam saw the animals before he named them: in the traditional system, children named the animals before they saw them". So in terms of teaching a pedagogue will name an elephant and then go on to describe the various attributs from which an elephant is composed - trunk, ears, tail, legs, etc and their shape, size, connection. And then go on to decrivbe it's eating, digestive, reproductive, etc processes.

But as learners we are like blind men grabbing its tail, trunk or legs and each coming to different conclusions. Only when we have been over (and inside) the entire animal and figured out the things a teacher already knows can we say that we understand the beast. The problem for teachers is that by describing animals in great detail they they may be led to believe a student understands that is may be fed vegetables rather than meat; that teaching leads to understanding. Whereas good teaching leads to good teaching. It has only a little to do with good learning.

So, if we are to be sure about what works with new technology, all we can do is figure out approaches that work for us in our learning, and by doing it, encourage others to do the same. Do what i do, not what i say is still the safest approach.

Research and Cognitive Processes
If you consider that the cognitive processes of the brain have not changed in the last few years corresponding with the rise of the internet, you cannot make the claim that technology changes learning. If the definition of learning is a change in long-term memory, that is. If on the other hand, your definition of learning is that it is the process of perception and cognition, and that memory is of lesser importance, technology changes nothing. It simply offers more paths to investigate an intuition and more opportunities to discover new ideas or confirm a hunch.

[|Prensky] has however (famously) claimed that young people these days are [|'wired differently;']that their brains have been structured differently - [|neuroplasticity]. This apparently happens throughout life. Brain structure is affected by experience. Does this affect cognitive processes?

Prensky's claims DO fly in the face of [|Darwin's theory], that evolution takes many generations for natural selection - adaptation to an environment - to take place. If brain structure were to take place as a consequence of experience, then we would only need to offer the right experience and expect that everyone's behaviour would instantly changed; like reprogramming a computer. Except the slow learners of course. Accepting this belief, one could argue, is proved by the use of advertising or propaganda to change social behaviour. But I could argue, as an old student of media, and watching the intimidation that passes for social engineering - don't smoke, don't drive too fast or drink when you do, we have a plan, etc - that we are seeing the passing of an old form of media, which, due to it's atrophic habits (one way), is largely ignored.

I know from my own life that something has changed. I am now a much more social learner. I like to draw on the knowledge of others who I can contact and with whom I can discuss issues - just like what we are doing here. I have definitely changed the way I learn, and have found a better more enjoyable way of learning. Technology, and the connections it has afforded, has made that possible. But the question remains - is anything cognitively different going on learning in this connected manner? Maybe that doesn't matter.......

Maybe. The buzz for me is that it's a global learning, not a National one. The problem is that most of our teaching habits - our institutional routines - are so small, so limited, in comparison. The thing which is very different is that our perceptions are so remarkably increased, just like all students, whereas our teaching institutions are locked into "delivering an education". I don't think its too far removed from when Francis Bacon was saying, "now we have print, we don't need lectures" a few hundred years ago. The thing that's annoying is that we can watch global summit's come and go, people get together in a hotel room and bombard one another with papers to the point where they're entirely overloaded, then go back to their institutions where they fall into the old boring routines. It's this perception more than any other which seems to have changed our cognition. Coming up with a "more balanced approach" is the hard bit.


 * Assumptions about Computer Use**

On another tack, [|this article] addresses the assertion made by [|Jonassen] that the "educational potential of computers as cognitive or "mindtools" ...form(s) a close “intellectual partnership” with the learner, “amplifying” her thinking “by transcending the limitations of the mind". It argues, I think, that a computer represents a particular mental model that not all users instinctively share, and to use a computer successfully requires taking on the mental model that it represents.

If I was a teacher I might talk like this. But to kids it's just not technology it's just another form of media from their perspective. Using a computer successfully is just not in their vocab (in the main), any more than successfully using an ipod. There is certainly a 'particular mental model' though. Compare using a VCR to a DVD. The difference confused the hell out of me first time round. Trouble is, when you talk about computers, teachers are just terrible at interface design. You only have to look at groups.edna to see how pedagogues take a simple concept and make it unnavigable, and if you look at thelearningfederation objects, (usually) boring. I talk with some professional designers of interactive stuff, and DEST won the worst design two years ago. The simply can't look at an object from a learner's perspective.

//Question: then what is the learners' perspective?//

Technology is a tricky bird, because research has not shown a definite positive correlation between technology and improved student achievement. Are we basing that on high-stakes testing? Sometimes. Even in controlled studies, the affordances of technology do not prove to me that much more beneficial. Now, should we use web 2.0? It's not about the technology, it's about the pedagogy. If your pedagogy is changing to more accurately reflect the outside world, then by proxy your use of technology will change and will increase.

I guess the problem here is the old one, especially if we're trying to encourage lifelong learning, which all institutions studiously ignore. If the aim of teaching is to "learn how to learn' and 'know thyself', and we want a sustainabl institution, then surely the aim is to find places around the web 2.0 space which attracts lots of learners, and figure out what attracts them and keeps them coming back. I was fortunate to get pointed at this site a long time ago, and although I don't get into it, as I'm not a web designer or programmer, it's been a revelation in how the new institution looks at the moment. It's global of course, and brings the tools together - blogs, videos, forums, libraries, no wikis yet but yu know this Web 2.0 stuff is pretty easy to programme. The main point is that it's around 250 on Alexa's top 500, and you'll find a social grouping of teachers, students and employers all interested in one subject. It rflects the 'outside' (as yu call it) or 'real' world (as i see it) Sure beats having to chase the Aussie crew I see locked up in groups.edna around the global traps

Wiring and Rewiring
It is our attitude towards teaching and learning that is changing most rapidly, as is illustrated in the 5 minute movie from //Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University// Michael presents us with a visual image of [|//mediated cultures.//] as part of this approach to Digital [|Ethnography]. There is 'new rapid learning' taking place as you watch this powerful message. The final point sums it up beautifully - "We’ll need to rethink ourselves". That's what [|rewiring] is all about - its part of evolution. - Carole

Rewiringing ourselves? don't you dare (Carole), you're perfect as you are. No, it's just rethinking the spaces we inhabit that's needed. The new networks are like this one; a little group trying to make some sense of things together. The problem is that we haven't figured out a way to give groups who are interested in a particular subject a fixed spot in cyberspace, and come up with a directory by which to find them. If we use the sitepoint approach - bring all the widgets into one place so a groups' widgets aren't spread around the world, and a newbie doesn't spend most of their life tracking their slipstreams and registering a million times - that's one step.

The next is to come up with a directory to their environments. I've been flogging the idea of using the dewey code to do this so a group or project managr or event cordinator could go to a public library, and say, "which room for this kind of research or projects or conference?" And the librarian could go through their www.groups.edu.au directory (for Aus) and say, "try and these rooms". www.xxx.xxx.edu.au Just like they do in real life. And librarians in other domains could do the same.

Until then we'll just have to throw everthing in a huge national databse like Pandora, where nothing can be found i context, or leave it our here in some unknown domain on a wiki, blog, whatever.

More Options for Engagement?
Perhaps the new technologies just give us more options. More ways to engage...and be engaged. More ways to relate to different learning styles. Alternatives for delivery methodologies. More options to expand the social aspects of learning. Different ways to communicate. I don't think that new technologies necessarily mean new learning.....just new (and often improved) ways to achieve it. - Marlene

Embedded into the Human Psyche
New technologies seem to be on the way to be coming an embedded element of the the human physical and spiritual psyche.

Take for instance blue-tooth technologies and tracked technologies that allow your to interact with others, live on the move and ahead of time in some instance.Teachers are becoming increasingly aware of the possibilties of critically appraising or rejecting use of these technologies either surfing with the wave or trying to paddle out over the back to avoid the larger waves.

//How// we teach is less important. //Why// we teach is at the core of the issue. is it our addiction to control or can we let the best surfers teach us a few tricks or two ?

Social Learning
For a while, e-learning wasn't seen as a social thing. Independent and individual, self-paced learning modules without teacher support were the way. Now that web-based learning has become more social, technology-based learning is approaching face-to-face in the affective domain.

More people are talking about Networked Learning than ever before. In [|a discussion about Personal Learning Environments], George Siemens has [|a graphic map of "Learning Ecology"], saying that Connectivism is a new way of creating a network. One area where the new technologies are having huge impact is in building networks. If creating or joining a network is a kind of learning, then MySpace and EdNA are important new ways of learning. (michalki)

Yep they are. MySpace for the individual, Edna for (community) groups. Do a search on virtual organisation and everyone has a flavour. If we're talkig about networks, as engineers, there are only two models we might use. The first is grids =sharing cpu's, the second is P2P= sharing files. Both work around the model of setting up a node like this wiki and offering authorization (through the moderator) and authentication (once the moderator has says yes you can post). The only question then is how these nodes can be found, and the easiest way is to classify them, like bookshelves in a library.

Balance of Power between Teachers and Learners
Many people say that the teacher needs to become a "Guide by the Side", and surrender control to students, who need to become more active and self-directed in their learning. This shift has been noted within the e-learning crowd, but has it had a real impact? Not on the inside of any teaching institution, but there'sn industry in online moderating.

Multi-media and Multiple Intelligence
The beginnings of online-learning were also heavily text-based. Now, as voice + image + video have entered the field, more people are likely to be engaged.

I guess you are talking about the usual web IP networks and not the [|web IP broadcast networks]. It's hard in australia as our telco monopoly still has us thinking that broadcast networks are still kings, while the IP stuff is too slow (expensive) to take for granted that if we miss a show that we can go online (to a computer or TV monitor) and [|demand it]. And then, if we are interested what was said, go to a spot in cyberspace where we can meet people interested in the same things, and that doesn't go away after an hour.

I'll continue to say it. All we are doing //(comment: all we are doing?? This is significant surely?)// is watching the change from one-way, institutionally-centirc media to two-way media built around working groups. And we could learn a lot more if, after we've finished watching a broadcast (radio or TV). we were directed to a spot in cyberspce that didn't go away. At the moment we have to get up (in Oz) and move from one screen to the other. Buts it's the same digital signal.

On a kinaesthetic level, sitting at a computer screen, working with an unfamiliar keyboard and mouse remains difficult. How long before we have motion-detecting devices like the new [|Wii] in our classrooms?