eLearners

My apologies for coming late to this topic. It is one in which I am very interested and I appreciated the articles and videos. Some I had read/seen previously and it was helpful to review them as the topic is coming more to the forefront in discussions with teachers. It seems to me there is a wide range of eLearners from the current K-12 students who have been the most immersed in technology (Prensky’s Natives) through the 20-40 year olds who run the gamut from immigrants to natives, to those above 40 and we certainly are all immigrants. And that is a challenge.

I have tried to picture myself as a teenager with the kind of access and connectivity current students in our area at least have been surrounded with almost since birth. The main difference seems to me instant access to everything! Now we can text friends constantly, call anyone from anywhere (almost) anytime, get information on the nearest restaurant, get tickets and show times, get a map to anywhere, look up info on anyone, read books/articles/get news/follow blogs instantly! Instant access, instant gratification, instant solutions. So how do students develop the focus and self-discipline to learn to play an instrument, learn a craft, conquer a task that doesn’t come easily, develop the skills needed to pursue golf, or racing, or ballet? The shallowness and ease of ‘instant’ could be a significant barrier to learning for younger students. It takes effort to engage in analysis, reflection, production of new thinking – how do we assure students acquire those skills? Perhaps that has always been a challenge in education but is simply exacerbated by the technology now.

The barriers for the current students are not the technology, unless they do not have access of course. It is the difficulty the current education structure and many educators have in integrating the technology to make the experience of current students as engaging and relevant as it needs to be for them to learn. Absolutely it is NOT EASY! Few areas in the country have as much as we have and without the tools obviously integration is impossible. But for those with the tools, the change and work required are significant. My experience is limited to this area but I can say absolutely that it is change which is the biggest barrier. Most teachers do not seem to like change at all and will resist as firmly as possible, even when change is in the best interest of their students. Despite pay, training, ‘free’ technology, provided curriculum including on-line technology integration, encouragement, in-person support – well you name it and we have tried it - it is a constant struggle to move many teachers forward in our endeavor to improve the learning environment and positively impact student learning through technology.

For those of us more mature eLearners the barriers do not seem to be lack of thinking skills, ability to focus, etc. It is the often confusing and ever-increasing basic technology skills that are critical to the ability to function with technology. I have listed below some of the more critical barriers I encounter in working with teachers and other adult eLearners. These barriers seem much less onerous to eliminate than changing pedagogy in the classroom but that has not been my experience :

• Fear/distress: as educators we know that feeling fear seriously impacts how much a student is able to learn. Assuring teachers that they truly cannot break the computer/board or whatever and that if it does break we can fix it for them it helpful but it comes back to the person developing the basics for themselves so they are no longer afraid.

• Lack of understanding of how the electronic world is organized: my overall classification for this is ‘where’s your stuff’ when I am working with teachers. Attending to the basics of how a teacher’s electronic world at school is organized is truly critical.

• On-line navigation: as educators we learn definitions and create acronyms constantly when it comes to our curriculum. If a person/teacher is to learn on-line there are definitions and acronyms that must be familiar to avoid confusion and getting lost.

• Basic troubleshooting: there are a few basic coping skills that any computer user should acquire. Unfortunately my experience is, I think, pretty universal. If I am fixing something and ask the user if they want to know what is going on so they can do it themselves the next time, the answer is usually ‘no, I don’t care, please just fix it.’ Understandable in the press of time and too much work, but not truly helpful long-term for the user.

For at least the last 20 years technology has been present in education and resisted in education. Early on certainly no one knew if there would be a positive impact on student learning from the technology, but that is no longer in question if the technology is integrated appropriately. Hopefully the next 20 years will reverse that resistance and education will embrace the technology in which our students are immersed to provide the educational environment that will meet those students’ educational needs.