regardingjohn

One of the speakers at the ELI Educause event was Peyton Jobe (his talk here), a language teacher. I wanted to point folks to his article Cell Phones in the (Language) Classroom: Recasting the Debate where he  outlines how he uses Google Voice in a language learning course. It’s a pretty good, practical example of how the world has changed, and how educators can adopt to these new (not necessarily scary) methods by simply taking “old” proven ideas, and accessing them via new methods.

Teaching isn’t changing, it’s just that tools for it are getting better.

The article dances around a larger topic, which is why I’m posting this article in a few “different” places — it’s about mobile, but it’s also about participatory learning and about how learning changes when you have access to the world in your pocket. Things overlap. Subjects no longer have to be artificially separated and siloed within classroom walls; they can exist happily in the larger connected system as they naturally occur. It requires, however, what Peyton Jobe continues to refer back to throughout the article: a paradigm shift. The idea of a paradigm shift was made famous through Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and refers to a significant change in the manner of how we see the world. A great example is the shift in Physics from a Newtonian paradigm to an Einsteinian  one — both consider the same stuff, but in tremendously different ways.

Education is going through a similar paradigm shift. Peyton notes:

it is no longer only what takes place inside the classroom that needs debating. Paradigm shift also means embracing the notion that learning takes place in more collaborative, interactive ways and also — at least potentially — everywhere and (nearly) all the time.

We all know that learning occurs outside the classroom (where did you learn to kiss?), but we often don’t consider how course-related learning can happen outside the classroom, except through the notion of homework, conducted at a quiet, well-lit desk, in one- or two-hour blocks, where students takes out the textbook (or log onto the LMS, now) and their notes, and do some instructor-designed “learning activity.” As the article hints, this needs to change because technology has changed the way we see the world. A few examples:

• our friends and family are *always* “nearby”— we don’t have to dress up and meet them in the parlor with tea when they call.
• information and knowledge is always at our fingertips — no need to wait on an answer until the Library opens.
• the knowledge we get in the classroom is out of date — in fact, by the time we read it online it’s probably old too, and we’re starting to become sensitive to that, and it’s starting to affect what we value.
• we can experience more, faster, and easier with simulations — when was the last time you killed an orc, traveled in space, or performed surgery?
• we learn more through direct experience

Okay, so the last one isn’t new, but it fits nicely with all of the above. And if we keep it in mind, and realize that we have all this tremendous access to experts and content, doesn’t it seem a bit sad that (for the most part) we’re still stuck in a top-down learning paradigm?

I’ve been struggling at my job to consider how to easily and incrementally usher in new approaches to learning. I’ve witnessed how potential game-changers in the past have merely replicated the model, where computer technology = PowerPoint (instead of overheads — a great leap forward?), and I hope that mobile doesn’t just become “a better clicker” — but maybe that’s where we need to start.

That, and things like what Peyton Jobe is doing.