Hi Dante,
I was in no way suggesting that you saw this as replacing humans with machines. My caution is that there are several very powerful forces in the current models of education being promoted, many under the rubric of "education for sustainable development", that very much do have that exact long-term goal. This in the US, is part of the issue on both sides
of the eventual benefit/destruction controversy of public university models promoting the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) by some of the top private universities in the US. Currently offered many times for free.....but......in the future? And at what loss to the basic premise of universities -- that people from different worlds, views and backgrounds come together in a "combustion" of these different ideas? That often necessitates interpersonal listening and dynamics I haven't seen often well exemplified in truly difficult conversations, on the computers alone.
In the individual case, like yours, many valid points do exist such as you say,
"Such approaches have been central in my own learning - up to a point where I felt I could learn faster / feel less alienated in my learning by leaving school."
Multiple modalities and ways of learning need to be open wide to all to access their preferred way of doing so, and the computer is among these. Even Marco mentions an important one of these with the Boy Scout more Dewyan -- "learn by doing" -- model. But all of these systematic models embody the mostly un-excavated and un-examined prejudices of their dominant instigators and thus in the clear case of the Boy Scouts -- discrimination against girls (handled by funding a separate sex organization in the Girl Guides) and the latest, against homosexuals.
There are also some dominant Western "Enlightenment" and entitlement-based ideologies that systemized certainly sexist models of defining ways of most productive thinking and evening feminine/humanities/irrational/nature vs. masculine/science/rational/technology dichotomies with Father-Force and technology having the thus naturally accepted right to dominate and subjugate "Mother-nature".
This is one reason many females under that system found it very difficult to proceed in their most productive-to-learn ways and style of learning, and one reason
many "others" of different groups also find the computer less judgmental of what "intelligence" most mattered in these limited ways found in our standard educational "systems" and thus found it easier to learn on their own. But my concern is that these still underlying judgments of the technological-dominant view of the world prevail and often remain, now with no dissenting "teachers" at all, and will thus be the only view children are "exposed to" at all, to what is most important to learn.
That computers can add to this connecting and learning from others at all ages -- that I think is where your argument is very
much more powerful. I completely agree on that point, but it is still necessary to learn the most critical emotional/social/cultural intelligences for a sustainable (healthy, peaceful, caring and more equitable) world only interpersonally with others and critically when children are mostly "emotional" learners and thinkers -- when they are young and until the age of 10 -- before just letting the machines take over.
Which again, is where some "educational policy leaders" are definitely headed, so much more "cost-effective" for getting "test-takers" taught on easily measurable quantitative and thus inherently
reductive tests of what that "education" should encompass. I was only arguing that despite its advantages, technology as systematic education can have some very negative outcomes and certainly cautions to consider as well.
Warmly,
June
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson@gmail.com>
To: June Gorman <june_gorman@sbcglobal.net>; P2P Foundation mailing list <p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org>
Cc: Myra Jackson <mljack19@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2013 9:20 AM
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Fwd: Wired : learner centered movement
Hi June,
Thanks for your reply,
I personally do not see this as a replacement of humans by the
machines.
I rather see the internet as a powerful tool for access to information,
both supporting and facilitated by dynamics between learners.
I believe that the pedagogies it can be inspired of are that of Piaget, Montessori, ...
And as Marco underlined, hardly any new self learning ( or mutual learning ) approaches.
What is new, is possibly broader mainstream recognition, possibly supported by the more widespread usage and interconnection of information technologies globally, and in peoples lifestyles, facilitating a shift away of "the expert", or "the teacher" as monopoly in terms of knowledge.
Such approaches have been central in my own learning - up to a point where I felt I could learn faster / feel less alienated in my learning by leaving school.
The challenge, then, for me at least, is to build up recognition through networked approaches, with peers, rather then through top down , centralized certification programs and education environments.
Although one may argue that the tests could at some point confirm the acquired ( self ) learning, the self learner ( or rather, the mutual learners in self organizing approaches ) does not, contrary to official enrolled students, benefit from such "student" status, and at least in my experience, faces pressures from society, even if only in terms of lack of support.
Cordially,
Dante