I ran across an interesting article in Wired Campus entitled “U. of Manitoba Researchers Publish Open-Source Handbook on Educational Technology.” Two researchers have created a web based guide (Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning) in an effort to help colleges and universities modify their teaching methods to reflect better the new ways that students absorb and process information. I am intrigued by the idea, but have some reservations about some of the information in the article.
- In the its introduction, the handbook declares the old pedagogical model—where the students draw their information primarily from textbooks, newspapers, and their professors—dead. “Our learning and information acquisition is a mash-up,” the authors write. “We take pieces, add pieces, dialogue, reframe, rethink, connect, and ultimately, we end up with some type of pattern that symbolizes what’s happening ‘out there’ and what it means to us.” Students are forced to develop new ways of making sense of this flood of information fragments.
I intend to spend some time on the site and see what it says.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 