This is from James Farmer’s Incorporated Subervision, and it’s a wonderful progressive manifesto for how technology and education should co-exist:
I may be an educational technologist, I may teach online, I may write online, I may advocate others doing so and I may spend more time typing than talking, but:
- I do not want technology to replace teachers nor do I think it ever will.
- I don’t think online education can replace or replicate people getting together in a room.
- I would rather study and teach in a real classroom with people, I would, seriously!
I may prefer learning face to face, I may get frustrated with online education and virtual meetings, I may get horribly depressed by the crap that gets churned out in the name of educational technology, the myths of learning objects and the anonymity of a WebCT discussion board but:
- I do think that communicating, collaborating, expressing and exploring your learning online can be unique and amazing.
- I do think that online education has the potential to revolutionize teaching and learning for the better.
- I would rather blog this than stick it on the fridge at home!
It’s not the technology… it’s the pedagogy!
And I don’t have much to add. Technology allows us to talk… to create… to extend the walls of our classrooms so that the entire world can see. That’s good stuff. One teacher, projecting his lectures as a Power Point presentation on a screen at the front of the classroom does nothing but take an old methodology and jazz it up with a new tool. We have to keep remember to keep thinking about what we want our schools to be and how the new tools can help us get there.
