Revisiting educational theories to inform learning and education in media rich

environments

Markus Deimann | FernUniversität in Hagen

Education is about to take off to a new and exciting journey

Destination: ??

Flight time: ??

...so please fasten your seat belts and stay tuned!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mawari/3165432915/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Don’t Lecture Me: Rethinking How College Students Learn

● Most of the students in his lecture classes were not motivated to learn physics, and they didn’t seem to be learning much.

● “With modern technology, if all there is is lectures, we don’t need faculty to do it,” Redish says. “Get ‘em to do it once, put it on the web, and fire the faculty.”

Physicist Joe RedishUniversity of Maryland

Open Educational Resources“The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.”

New practices?

For a MOOC (#change11):

„You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is PICK AND CHOOSE content that looks interesting to you and is appropriate for you. If it looks too complicated, don't read it. If it looks boring, move on to the next item.“

But is this really new?

● Fusion of education and technology is proclaimed as a new dimension

● Yet, Distance Education has attempted to bridge the gap between learners and teachers via media

● “to provide access to education for all learners, no matter how dispersed or disadvantaged by economic, personal, or political situations“ (Feasley & Bunker, 2007, p. 25)

More teaching and learning go on – throughout life – outside the classroom than in; yet the myth persists

A good educational system should have three purposes:1. provide all who want to learn

with access to available resources at any time in their lives

2. empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them

3. furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.

Stopover● Education changes in various ways and there is a non

linear relation to technology

● Some changes are not new

● Theoretical lens needed to detect innovation

● “In important transformations of our personal lives and organizational practices, we must learn new forms of activity which are not yet there. They are literally learned as they are being created. There is no competent teacher. Standard learning theories have little to offer if one wants to understand these processes” (Engeström, 2001, p. 138).

Bildung and Learning● Learning follows inter-related steps:

– Step I: classical stimulus-response

– Step II: context matters

– Step III: traditions, cultures, patterns etc. become fragile

→ new frameworks to engage with yourself and the world need to be generated, i.e. new skills and competencies to master the challenges, especially in open complex environments

● It is not a learning process, it is a process of Bildung

Classical and modern Bildung

● unique in the world and originated in Idealism (philosophical roots)

● reflect conditions of society

● Humboldt's educational ideal was entirely coloured by social considerations

● Bildung as a transformation of current problem solving patterns

Theses

● A theoretical foundation is urgently needed to reconcile the open education movement

● Increasing diffusion and availability of open material leads to an increase of potentials for Bildung

● “Share alike” adds a new dimension to Bildung → social Bildung

● OER can play an important role for transformative processes of Bildung

Questions for discussion

● How is Bildung related to open complex contexts (e.g. MOOCs)?

● How can Bildung in media-rich open settings be investigated?

● How can we ensure that Bildung takes place in its pure meaning? (not limited to economic principles)

● How and what can Bildung “learn” from a transatlantic dialogue?