This is a continuation of my previous post (Part 2).
This paper provides a useful critique on Pedagogy 2.0. Owen however paints a critical picture of Pedagogy 2.0. He says:
“Pedagogy 2.0 is clearly in crisis. The task now before us is to envision and then apply a qualitatively better and more effective upgrade to Pedagogy 2.0 in order to eliminate the serious “bugs” and shortcomings in the current version and anticipate future challenges. Any next-generation “Pedagogy 3.0” for coming decades must be crafted to enlist the power of existing and future digital technology, with all its real capabilities and even realer limitations, to the task of helping our students succeed, individually and collectively, in an ever harsher, more challenging and increasingly dangerous online and material world in decades to come.
The crisis of Pedagogy 2.0 is more ideological and rhetorical than it is educational. Any real solution, if it is to be successful, must address the ideological and rhetorical issues raised in this study”.
“Is it best to teach our students, developmental or mainstream, as though everyone were destined to produce at Pixar Studios, write the Great American Novel, or become the next Steve Jobs? If not, what do students need to learn in college to allow them to be what they dream of becoming over their lifetimes? And how can and should Pedagogy 3.0 help form that next generation of proud American working people? “Nurturing true talent in a sea of amateurs may be the real challenge in today’s Web 2.0 world. … The reality is that we now live in a highly specialized society, where excellence is rewarded and where professionals receive years of training to properly do their jobs” (Keen, 2008). Our job should be to enable, empower, and yes, require our students to achieve precisely that degree of excellence.
And, our Pedagogy 3.0 must serve the larger society as well. Dron (2006) suggests that “increasing use of social software and informal instant communication technologies may distribute control more evenly through the system.” Though the “system” he refers to is the Internet, we must also apply his statement to the broader “system” that is society and the working world.”
I think that there are many potential benefits which technology could offer, and the merits of conversation as an essential part of learning – with diversity of opinions, and distributed knowledge growth whilst learning with the Pedagogy, despite the crisis of Pedagogy 2.0 as cited.
I would like to reflect on some of the teachings by Confucius on character development and self improvement, relating to what makes a better person, who also values diversity of opinions, and the importance of objectivity.
“Confucius recommended a more universal perspective. “The better person can see a question from all sides without bias. The lesser person is biased and can see a question only from one side.”98 The broader view enables one to be guided by the higher standard of justice. “A better person in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything; one follows what is right.”99 The higher viewpoint begins from neutrality in order to see objectively. What is it which leads most people away from justice? “The better person understands what is right; the lesser person understands profit.”100
How about Higher Education and Web 2.0?
One of the findings reminded us of the implications of Web 2.0 technologies : “The processes of engaging with Web 2.0 technologies develop a skill set that matches both to views on 21st century learning skills and to those on 21st-century employability skills – communication, collaboration, creativity, leadership and technology proficiency.”
In this post by Tony Bates, he argues that technology is an essential part of innovation, especially in distance education and online learning: “innovation is essential, and why learning technologies need to be a central part of such innovation.”
How to develop a Pedagogy that would serve individuals, based on personal autonomy, and would serve the larger society as well?
There are evidences indicating that PLE/PLN together with a learning model based on MOOC and Connectivism do have great potential in the development of a Pedagogy that would serve both the individuals and the larger society as reported by Rita in her post on the research publications of Massive Open Online Courses and PLE.
In this Kop, R., Fournier, H., Mak, S.F. J. (2011). A Pedagogy of Abundance or a Pedagogy to Support Human Beings? Participant Support on Massive Open Online Courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Vol 12, No. 7 (2011).
“A challenge associated with the educational use of the Web, social networking, and media, based on the MOOC distributed learning model, is that the open, emergent, chaotic nature of online interaction might conflict with the rigidly organized social structure of formal education, which involves prescriptive learning, standardized goals and curricula, fixed schedules, age-based grouping, classroom-based organization, and examinations. This formal view of education is problematic for professional learning and highlights a tension between learning in everyday life facilitated by emerging technologies and the philosophical stance and the pedagogies adopted by universities. A change in the thinking, philosophy, design, and pedagogies of institution-based online courses may be necessary if the affordances of emerging technologies are embraced and adopted within formal educational institutions. Considerable efforts will also be required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraints when an online institutional course is fused with social networks.”
Internet of Things
We would likely be relying more on the Internet of Things in our future of education and learning. This means that we can no longer rely solely on the traditional means of transferring knowledge and information behind class walled gardens – lectures. Learners would resort to more innovative technology to support their life-long learning, and so HE institutions must respond to such needs in order to be relevant and to provide valuable learning experience for their educators and learners.
Social Networked Learning
Here is George’s presentation on social networked learning in complex information environments: