The Song Remains The Same

(or, The Medium Is Still the Message)

The linked video was passed to us earlier today via Twitter, from MyLearningSpace. It is the type of thing that usually crops up in Education and Technology sessions, pointing to the discrepancy between teaching styles and learning styles in the digital age, we recommend viewing it - but if you are familiar with Prensky's Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants, then you are already thinking along the right path.

However, what captured our attention in this video was the opening scene of an empty university lecture hall, with rows upon rows of seats, along with a caption mentioning how are 21st century students are sitting in 19th century institutions. It instantly reminded us of economic theories talking about how changes in modes of productions can bring about changes in social relations. Shouldn't changes in the storage, production, and transfer of knowledge bring about changes in educational relations?

Many writers on educational issues have discussed how the image of the lone authoritative speaker in front of the classroom suggests that the speaker has knowledge and the students do not. What this also supposes however, is that knowledge or information is scarce. It is the speakers' prior acquisition and mastery of information that grants him or her a privileged position. The explosion in information storage, production, and transfer that started with the printing press, radio, telephone, and computer has made information shockingly abundant. Many educational techniques centre around mastery of information retrieval, a skill that as practiced in the 19th century is no longer relevant. Instead, information retrieval for the 21st century needs to focus more on analyzing and judging value or worth.

Students intuitively understand something is wrong with the educational equation when they ask the perennial question "Why Do We Need To Learn This?" The question is likely to be directed not so much as the content, but the task - "Why do I need to learn how to remember this?" since the possession of a textbook, let alone web-enabled cellphone with online search capabilities makes memorization redundant. Instead, students are looking for a way to engage with the content, to explore its uses and relevance.

Many of the educational reform theories that we encounter deal with enhancing our current teaching technique - how to ask better questions, craft better activities, or assess better. What we need though, is not to refine our technique, but to develop a better one that honours a reality in which students have already mastered simple data retrieval.

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