Tuesday, April 01, 2008

What might Dewey say about education 2.0?

I have finished taking notes from Dewey's little classic, Experience and education. Here is what I would imagine John Dewey contributing to the education 2.0 conversation.

  1. It should base its legitimacy on its own strengths, not the weaknesses of the incumbent system.
  2. It should properly assess its own weaknesses and underlying principles.
  3. It should avoid 'Either-Or' thinking in favour of imaginative and ingenious solutions that acknowledge the benefits of the incumbent.
  4. It should avoid a pure focus on the future, instead seeking to build upon the past in such a way that it represents the dynamic present.
  5. It should examine its own organisation and structure; the opposite of too much organisation is not having none at all.
  6. It should be evaluated in terms of how well it generates authentic experience.
  7. It should be applied in such a way that the teacher is able to bring their experience to bear.
  8. Any expression of 'freedom' in education should be well defined; is it meant for each discrete moment, or is it a general theme? Freedom in education is best a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
  9. Students always learn far more than the thing they are particularly studying. What are the implicit lessons from an education 2.0 experience?

I think that Dewey would be an enthusiastic yet cautious adopter of education 2.0; he would be very suspicious about claims that education 2.0 could revolutionise and 'solve' all of education's problems, as he is of all 'Either-Or' situations. He would also see in it rich opportunities for social expression and collaboration. Still, I imagine that his end question would ultimately be, "What does this add to a purposeful education?"

Plenty to consider here in terms of education 2.0 advocacy... and some different fodder for edubloggers (Illich and Friere, everyone?)

1 comments:

Bill Kerr said...

I think you are modelling a good approach to learning theory here. One problem with web2.0 is that it increases the trivial writing to reflective reading ratio.

Points 4 and 9 struck a chord with me, pointing out the need to integrate new ideas and tools into a broader framework.