This core paper from week 10 discusses some ideas that we’ve come across already – the impact that technology will have on the ‘transmission’ model of teaching (for teacher, learner and institution) and what cyberspace means for learning.
Some of the implications that technology and cyberspace have for education -more individualised learning (by making it more active, interactive and flexible), providing a social space for ‘new forms of interaction’, new identity construction, and the change in the power dynamic between teacher and student. It also highlights the fact that ‘cultural’ differences aren’t necessarily geographically bound. It defines ‘anti-podality’ as an experience of dislocation caused by this transnational and globalised communication, an active trajectory between places and identities, with no borders. Possible troublesome areas such as the reader as author (as a result of texts being based online) are also touched upon, as is the fact that knowledge and access to it can’t necessarily be contained by and within an institution. At our institution we are experiencing some of this at the moment- from an IT point of view, they are a little reluctant to support applications outside of their safe protected zone, and from an academics point of view, some are apprehensive about ‘their’ material being made available to everyone. I think the driver for change here could be the learner- if they gain sufficient skills in digital literacies and carry out most of their work in the new spaces, tutors and institutions may be forced to follow.
At present, students are bound by the ‘spaces of enclosure’ (a phrase I liked)- book, classroom and curriculum, which in turn have been threatened by cyberspace as it promises activities and learning to be egalitarian, purpose-driven, self-imposed, self-monitored, have a learner-determined path of learning, not requiring an interpretation of pre-given meanings but active collaboration in its creation.
For the teacher this all means a different type of role, with the focus away from them as a central authority, as the availability of information will be equal to both teacher and student, with the teachers’ role being seen as ‘aiding’ the learner, especially with regard to being stimulated and thinking critically. Green is quoted as seeing new technologies as ‘amplifiers’ of human potential- with the brain playing more of a management role. I wondered about this in an earlier post- about whether our brains would be changed in any way due to technology- if the cognitive processes would be altered. You would imagine that technology will constantly be advancing, and our brains would need to keep up with this, requiring quick learning/re-adapting to be important. Also being able to discern quality or useful information amongst the reams of data. I wonder about ‘deep’ thinking and the role it will have to play- if we won’t depend on processes much such as data analysis and ‘crunching’, will we use it? Also, with all the ‘noise’ of our enhancements going on around us, will we have peace enough to think deeply?
Another helpful slant on the cyborg was given in this paper- it blurs the boundaries between nature and culture, technology and nature, body and subjects, active agents and involuntary machines. The word ‘cyborg’ is a ‘good metaphor for restructuring of boundaries which are no longer stable, and questions some fundamental divisions which were the basis or reality of the world’. In an educational context, this translates to formal/informal, teacher/student, classroom/home, print text/ electronic text- all educational ‘spaces of enclosure’ which have been challenged by technology.