While I’ve been moving to the notion for some time now that what I should be doing as a teacher is to help individuals work their way into learning networks, I certainly haven’t been thinking so in isolation. One person that’s really, really helped me to clarify my thinking on the matter, as well as to help me rediscover some of the passion that’s been missing from my work in the last couple of weeks, is Stephen Downes. His podcast from his recent excursions into New Zealand has really been useful. Defniitely worth a listen, maybe at least two. I’ll probably be returning to that piece of audio a few more times. I dig his passion. Lots.
Network, Not Group Work
2 thoughts on “Network, Not Group Work”
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Bud, What I don’t understand is why this concept of learning community is still so foreign to so many teachers. Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to speak with a few teachers about using palms in their classrooms and they said that the risk of cheating was too great. I responded, why do we think of it as cheating instead of collaboration? Why? Collaboration and participation in learning communities is so important to the development of sustained capacity and we are missing such an important opporutnity in schools to help students learn how to do this. Thanks for your post.
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/blogger.html
Andy Curtis would be a great person to get involved with. I jsut heard him speak at KOTESOL and it sounds like he really wants to bring teachers together. I think if the right technology guys gave him a hand he’d really help non profit education get off the ground.
Check out his paper on Cost benefit analysis.
http://www.andycurtis.org/