There is something of the scent of danger about my study session tonight. Where I am usually cozily surrounded by my fortress of chunky books and printed-out articles when I sit down to study, tonight my desk is bare except for my laptop.
Stripped of my reams of stationery I feel cold and lost and bare and afraid. Even though I am no luddite, learning this way is an unaccustomed adrenaline-throbbing terror of a thrill. The endless abyss of options gapes at me: while unit notes are sensibly sitting on my screen, they open up into a myriad of fractal possibilities: hyperlinks scattering off into an unseen horizon, mp3s on classes (and every other imaginable soundtrack) thronging for my attention along with the rest of the wondrous wilful wilds of the web.
This is a whole new mode of learning, and it may very well be true that a new generation of ‘digital natives’ will feel extremely comfortable in it. I am not- and educators from previous generations probably feel even more intimidated than I do.
But if learning is to reach new generations, it will have to be in a medium they understand. And interactive e-learning certainly speaks their language.
The only question is… do I?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment