According to a Wikipedia, "a meme acts as a unit for
carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices."
"21st Century learning" is a meme over which
there is a cultural struggle in the area of education. Needless to say, the technology industry has
been quick to grab the phrase for its commercial purposes. After all, what could be more pushing us into
the future of this new century than technology?
However, even among those promoting a new paradigm for
education that takes advantage of information and communications technology, there are, in fact, different approaches
that reflect different views of what technology is appropriate and how each
might contribute to education.
Meme X is about clearly defined outcomes, databases,
individualism and "mass customization."
Meme Y is about fluid and rich communication networks,
process as outcome, growth and collaborative work.
What does Meme X
look like?
One version
of Meme X is presented in a set of PowerPoint slides titled "The Future of
Learning" from IBM Global Education Industry. The essence of it is
presented in a "Road Map for Education Transformation," provided to
executives to sell clients on what IBM has to offer.
Of course,
what it has to offer grows out of the nature of its technology and the
understanding of the world built into that technology. The IBM definition of the purpose of
education is quite telling of that view:
Provide every student with optimized
learning and skills development to enable them to compete in the new economy through a dynamic, cost
effective and adaptive learning environment.
If education is about preparing social capital
for the economy. How can the technology
accomplish this?:
- Increase results by shifting to data-driven
decisions
- Leverage analytics to identify performance issues
early
- Build and manage customized intervention plans
using district and other models
IBM, of
course, has some tools to sell, as well as space in the cloud to store and
manipulate the data: a student performance data system, predictive analysis,
intervention case management and digital content delivery.
To some
degree, these are the basic steps a teacher always takes: assessing where the
student is, identifying problems and strengths, providing resources and
assignments and offering lessons and resources that help students learn.
However,
there are significant differences.
To be fully digitized,
all the aspects of the process must be predefined. Pre-define the objectives to be achieved, the
processes that will develop the skills, the specifics of possible interventions
based on the analysis and the delivery of the specific lesson plans and
resources. This leaves the teacher
primarily to make sure the students show up and are following the program.
This is what
Ursula Franklin calls a prescriptive technology production model. It requires every element to be broken down
into identifiable steps to make production predictable. She says that "prescriptive technologies
are designs for compliance."
21st Century
Meme X as exemplified by IBM's "The Future of Learning" has its goals
and processes built in and is non-negotiable.
What does Meme Y look like?
Franklin
talks about needing a holistic technology based on a growth model for
education. The model calls for
interventions by the teacher to find the best conditions for growth, assessing
the environment, the person and the intention.
It draws on craft knowledge to accomplish this, being able to apply
experience to each unique situation, unlike Meme X which seeks to define and
digitize the craft knowledge.
"Any
tasks that require caring," Franklin says, "whether for people or
nature, any tasks that require immediate feedback and adjustment, are best done
holistically. Such tasks cannot be
planned, co-ordinated, and controlled the way prescriptive tasks can." Further, "if there ever was a growth
process, if there ever was a holistic process, a process that cannot be divided
into rigid predetermined steps, it is education."
The IBM
vision of Meme X is clearly about a very different kind of education than
Franklin's. Franklin is not alone is
seeing an alternative to the prescriptive approach.
Another view
is nicely captured in the title of a small book: A New Culture of
Learning: Cultivating the Imagination
for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown.
Thomas and
Seely Brown say that the new culture of learning in the fluid environment of
technology is like play: "When play
happens within a medium of learning it creates a context in which information,
ideas, passions grow."
While
today's typical classroom does not produce these conditions and "much of
the new learning takes place outside traditional educational forums, we do not
argue that classrooms are obsolete or that teaching no longer matters. Our goal is quite the opposite. We believe that this new culture of learning
can augment learning in nearly every facet of education and every stage of
life."
They say
that this new culture of learning comprises two elements. One is the massive information network that
gives the opportunity to learn anything.
The second is "a bounded and structured environment that allows for
unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those
boundaries."
Thomas and
Seely Brown adopt the metaphor of cultivation to describe the process and the
relationships among the learner and the teacher, much as Franklin talks about
growth and its unpredictability.
Which meme will be chosen?
Both Meme X
and Meme Y are imbedded in technology.
Decision-makers may get enthused about Meme Y and the promise it seems
to hold. But can the politicians and the
bureaucrats accept the ambiguity that is implied in a system based on
imagination and exploration?
Accountants' forms of accountability dominate
in education decision-making, today. IBM
promises specific results that can be measured and a sound bite to say
everything is fine or an unmet measureable outcome is all the fault of the
teachers. Education publisher, Pearson,
promises textbooks, scripts and data systems that produce results by being
teacher-proof.
Will
children--and their teachers--be allowed the space for cultivation and growth
rather than compliance with a corporate plan ?
References:
Franklin, U.
(1990). The Real World of Technology.
Toronto: CBC Enterprises.
IBM. (2011).
"The Future of Learning:
Executive Insights."
Produced by IBM Global Education.
Thomas, D.
and Seely Brown, J. (2011). A new
culture of learning: Cultivating the
Imagination for a World of Constant Change.
