Engaged Learners are active in making sense of the world – through media literacies.
They are not listing, identifying or seeking, but collectors (delicious), critics (comments), creators (youtube), phototogaphers (nokia), composers (garage band), joiner (facebook).
The pace of change has not yet been matched within education-especially higher education. We need curriculum leadership that values flexibility over rigidity, and process over content.
Media Literacy should be a core component of all school learning frameworks.
Yet with our complex system of faculties and departments, courses and units, curricula and assessment, we offer students little control over their own learning. We should be discovering which are the most effective way of using technology to facilitate learning and building classroom practice from the student outwards.
The NSW Quality Learning Framework promotes
- Intellectual quality
- Quality learning environment
These are very ’rounded’ desires. As a parent, I am not sure these things are anything less that I expect from the educational system. Whilst some schools are still preparing to adopt the aims identified in the QLF, the Rudd government has released proposals that transcend many of the ‘desires’ of the older framework. Specifically, greater ‘online’ learning.
Online Learning is in itself a complex notion – do they mean ‘learning management systems’ or facebook? However the original NSW QLF is far less specific about technology than the federal government is.
The Howard Government’s was cited as having a lack of investment and passive approach to technology. Rudd’s ‘digital revolution’ has been labeled ‘too ambitious’ by the NSW Teaching Federation and the Department of Education – who deliver on the QLF. By 2012, over 16,000 of teachers will retire anyway – placing the burden on higher education to deliver ever greater levels of ‘tech savvy’ teachers.
Darcy Moore describes the problem.
Engaging students through ‘frameworks’ is problematic using 20th Century management strategies. The ‘lag’ between policy and adoption is getting bigger. We need to be brave and clear about what ‘online’ means. Engaged online means active online, not spectators – for everyone – not just students.