Online Teaching and Learning

20/3/2013

1 Comment

 
The idea of OTAL has been widely discussed. Is there a need for teachers or classrooms if everything we need to know is online? What are the benefits of sitting in a classroom compared to staying at home working on a computer?

Education has evolved so much over the years; chalkboards, pen, paper, Interactive Whiteboards, tablets, etc, and the argument is why not incorporate these new technologies in to education?

OTAL can be carried out in so many ways; in a teaching environment, at home, synchronously (online the same time as a teacher), asynchronously (carrying out set tasks in your own time ), even just looking something up yourself is still OTAL.
1 Comment
Helen
16/4/2013 01:51:59 pm

Sian, I think the questions that you pose here are so important because they get us to question critically some of the core assumptions that are held about what teaching and learning is. I think if we continue to be constrained by the assumptions that any changes that happen within education must necessarily be within the same traditional parameters that have defined education for centuries (e.g. in classrooms, taught by one teacher whose role is to provide information), then I think we limit ourselves.

So when you ask "Is there a need for teachers or classrooms if everything we need to know is online?" I think this challenges us to think about a number of things:
- What SHOULD the role of a teacher be in education today, given not only the availability of information of the Internet?
- Who should the teacher be? Should there be one, of can the role of teacher be shared? Related to this, what should the role of learners be now?
- What should students be learning today, especially if information that previously had to be memorised can now be found with a few keystrokes, and given the changing nature of what is required in the workforce today? Also: How do students know if what they find online is correct? So shouldn't education be about helping students learn to critically examine how to ask meaningful questions, how to find answers to these and be able to judge the accuracy of what they find?
- and if learning isn't about the acquisition of facts, what knowledge and skills are needed today?

That then leads to your next question of where this learning should take place -- in a classroom or in any one fixed place? Always in the same place? Is is an either or? Should all students have to follow the same model?

What I enjoy here about your blog post is that you are moving us beyond the technology to the more important, "So what?" questions behind our use of the technology. I'm eager to know what you and others think about in response to some of these questions… :)

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