Challenges

[ Information ] [ Information and Knowledge ] [ Complexity and Models ]
[ Contexts and Quality ] [ Anarchy ] [ A Media Culture ]
[ Time and Space ]

I have used Rousseau as a label on the the "after the web" period, and we have used an association based on the "technology as nature" metaphor. This may hopefully provoke some thoughts and debate. It may however be useful to try to discuss in more detail some of the challenges we are facing as pedagogues.

Information

The amount of information which are available at a click is overwhelming, and increasing. This is not only due to the number of contributors, but also of the form of the contributions. Some numbers may illustrate the point:

The 10 commandments
100 words

The American declaration of independence
1300 words

The Starr Report on Clinton - Lewinsky
~120000 words

It is hard to see that the volume is proportional with the significance. The three pieces of text have been generated in different periods, and with different technology. The technology itself will underpin the growth of available information in at many ways. For the first time i history it is probably easier to publish than to read. We can make our texts available for millions with a simple click of the mouse. The threshold to do this click seems to decrease. We will also see a tremendous growth in volume because of our tools for automatic, semiautomatic or manual generation of information based on extracts from other sources.

Information and Knowledge

Information is not the same as knowledge, and access to information is not an assurance that it will be used. It is a widespread misunderstanding that pupils and students become "little scientists" merely because the framework of accessible information is available. This misunderstanding is a easy way out for many teachers and it invariably leads to the conclusion that the learner is to blame when the expectations of scientific behaviour is not met.

Own experience with students in computer science is that the important difference between those who succeed and those who does not, is not the experience they have in using computers, but the training they have in learning. The general arguments that access to technology in school is important has only limited value if it is not combined with a training to learn. This may seem obvious, but it is a fact that most children has a lot of routine i being teached, and lack training in learning.

Complexity and Models

When I have used Rousseau and the association between nature and technology as metaphor, it is necessary to comment on the complexity of the surroundings. The table below is personal view of what I consider apprehensible dimensions, that is what I can relative to directly, without abstractions or instruments like clocks and meters.

Distance	1 cm - 1m - 100m
Time	1s - 1 min - 10 min
Speed	10 km/h - 100 km/h
Structure	Tree structure, lists, tables
Amount (of text)	1 page - 1 book
Number (of choices)	7 +/- 2

One of the foremost characteristics of todays technology, cyberspace if we like, is that all this limits are systematically superseded. This in contrast to my desk, bookshelf and physical working conditions. We should ask ourselves if our relation to this "nature" is as unproblematic as the relations we have to nature in general.

We have as a civilised species experienced quite many centuries with changing authorised and nonauthorized models of nature. The earth have been flat, it has been the centre of the universe and a satellite. We have seen a number of models to describe our natural surroundings, some of them based on religion and some on science.

Seen from a pedagogical perspective it may be reasons to investigate what this complexity does to learning and what kind of models are dominant as seen from the learners in different ages. We can use the telephone as an example of models and understanding. The main reasons why many users have problems to understand and utilise modern telephone systems are probably that their mental model of the technology is that of a line connecting two instruments. A more fruitful model is probably that of two terminals hooked up on a (network of) computers.

Contexts and Quality

The information we reach on the Internet is to a great extent without context. Our safe and protected microworlds have disappeared and scientists, advertisers, politicians, entertainers tries to sell us their information, ideas or concepts of reality. We don't know who they are, we don't know what they are and we don't know what they want to achieve.

My preparation of this article may serve as an example. Two of the first results of a search on the Internet with the "declaration + independence" was a porno site and a vigilante group who used the declaration of independence as an argument for their activity. Many teachers would probably have chosen an other perspective on the introduction of the document, even if the two references mentioned may be interesting enough as actual sociological and political phenomena.

The absence of context is of course a general problem with implications beyond teaching and leaning. It is part of the fundamental challenge that any society meets when information cannot be controlled. We are reminded that we are living with a few institutional and explicit control mechanisms, but most of all that we are living with a lot of unnamed controls, based on moral and tradition.

The absence of context is a great challenge to any reader. It has one perspective that is interesting seen form a teachers point of view. That is the quality control of material used in schools. This is probably handled differently in different countries. In Norway we have two actual mechanisms for quality control.

First of all the publishers of books for schools have maintained a quality control in their mixed position as business- and culture institutions. There are no signs that indicates that the established publishers will be as dominant as they have been in producing educational material.

Secondly we have an official clearing of teaching material that is used in public schools. It is hard to see how this clearing can survive as anything more than advisory information in an open information situation.

Anarchy

The Internet is anarchistic in its structure. From one point of view it is also reasonable to say that the culture it nurtures has strong anarchistic characteristics. Many of the subcultures that emerge in a symbiotic relation to the net, in the sense that they get their input from the net and feed the output back in to the net, shows a expressed distance to our established social and organisational institutions. Many of the institutions that we consider vital for a democratic society, such as the press, the political institutions and the school system, seems to be considered in opposition to the culture found on the net. It is no denial that the Internet has a great democratic potential, but it is very dangerous if this is considered as something else and in opposition to the institutions we have relied on so far.

This is an area that should be considered with interest. Those who are willing to draw the Rousseau metaphor a little further may look back at Roussaeu's description of the conflict between nature and society.

A Media Culture

The integration of all our known communication technologies as a digital digital technology leads to a situation where the technology for learning and education is the same, and is indivisible from, the technology for entertainment and communication in general.

What we get in the bargain is the remote control. As adults we may have a perspective on the technology that is not necessary the same as the pupils or students. We have, as we say, access to information that scientists could only dream about a few years ago. On the other hand the Internet is an el dorado for uncensored entertainment and participation in all kinds of activities. If we shall use a television metaphor we will probably experience that in the choice among some millions of channels, the channel directed towards schools may not be the preferred one. There are a lot of pitfalls in this battle for the remote control, censorship is one.

Someone, I don't know who, has coined the term "homo zapiens" as a fairly accurate description of the human as media consumer. There seems to be a dominant reaction among learners, as well as others, to switch channel when thing gets boring or difficult.

Time and Space

Many observers of the field of technology and pedagogy has up to this day stressed that we are in a very early phase, and the things we have done is at best preliminary exercises to gain experience. Serious applications is not meaningful until the access to technology is almost unlimited. The technology must be part of every learners daily tools. This idea was first expressed as the idea of the Dynabook in the work at Xerox Parc, and has been elaborated on a number of times since then.

We are now, much faster than most observers would have anticipated, getting closer to this situation of general and unlimited access. We are not prepared for this. One of the greatest challenges we are facing are the organisation of time and space in learning situations. The organisation we know from the school with "computer laboratories" is not a suitable way to face this challenge. It will put the schools in a situation where access to technology is better in most homes and in a lot of other public situations.

The organisation of time as 45-minutes lessons with a break and change of subject will be put under pressure. The "one teacher speaks to 30 pupils for 45 minutes" will not work. The lesson as an event for distribution of information will loose its relevance relative to organised project work. The school system, on all levels, must justify its form as a consequence of the learning that takes place or the learning that we want to take place. This will be a frustrating situation for teachers and student for quite some time.

The ultimate issue of this challenge is that the public schools system will tend to loose ground compared to alternatives. This will happen on all levels in the school system, from kindergarten to university. If we want to keep a public education with high quality we do not have much time to make the necessary changes.