I don’t know that this has really changed schools all that much, maybe because we still think in the same binarised ways that are so dominated by competitive impulses and hierarchised positionalities. I think it is kind of interesting that while there was meant to be this radical change, schools began to fill up teachers time with bureaucracy etc. so that they had less time to plot the revolution. Maybe too much conspiracy here… I wonder if continuing to look for external inputs that will ‘prime the pump’ of change in schools is only going to offer more false gods and it is to the internal that we have to look – those arts of existence that Foucault wrote about and explained so teasingly. Of course this is said completely aware that this is most likely offering another false god. Perhaps the best advice for change is to forget about the world and change one life at a time.

Greg

THANK YOU ROB! MY 2c IN REPLY…

I have to admit it was only tonight I read your work http://web.me.com/rob_abbey/Crafting_ICT/Welcome.html for the first time and I am hooked.

The depth of your thought is the major draw and reading it I feel I am in a good company. It speaks to my deeper and more pensive side than perhaps the one shown in the blog (Human). My own blog is there as a kind of shopfront to tease and invite but I sort of don’t want to burden my readers with some of the ‘heavier’ stuff of educational philosophy that often brews in my crazy head. But I do feel I can share some of this ‘crazy stuff’ with you…

It is interesting to read that you are a reader of J. Ellul. While I certainly don’t share many of his ideas, particularly when grounding them in religion, I do think he is an interesting character for his call for circumspection in technological advances. Our position (yours and mine and in many ways Ellul’s…) of ‘putting people first’ is a sort of guiding principle I have learned to appreciate more and more as I work with people and ICT. As I state in my latest post, I do like ICT as a vehicle, a Trojan horse of change … BUT ! The change I am after is ontological and not epistemological (yes, the anarchist would love me for that one

I am frankly tired of the bloody travelling gurus (most of them at least) spruking the bells and whistles of Web 2.0 and how it’s going to change education. “(New) learning’ is turning us into ‘learning junkies’ but only in a sense of being able to access, retrieve, mange and work with information that turns into knowledge by way of our beliefs and existing schemes of understanding. So, the key epistemological question on learning ‘what is knowledge?’ is conveniently answered: “We learn like bloody Olympians – higher, faster, stronger.” The accompanying ‘whoooaaa’ effect is growing louder because as learning goes, some kids are starting to do pretty amazing things and good on them and their teachers (’Betchaboy’ Betcher springs to mind, he’s doing some good stuff).

But schools are so much more than romanticised “places of learning”. Schools are positioned primarily as places of learning but they primarily order the kids while kids order themselves (Foucault would have a lot to say here, governmentality is alive and kicking) into (typecast, yes) social roles. I may be called cynical but I do have my eyes and mind open when at school. The ontological questions like “what is a ’school’?”, “what is a teacher?”, “what is a ’student’?” never get asked because we are too busy chasing the edu-psych notions of ‘learning’. But speaking of learning, at school we also learn the answer these (onotological) questions while never really stopping to consider (we are so busy with chasing a million tails). The system orders us not to ask these questions, often by the sheer volume of information we need to process, deal with etc merely to keep our jobs.

ICT (well, clever use of it really) has the chance to begin the process of beginning to ask these question. But only a chance. And the (un)funny thing is that the potential of ICT for such political subversion if you like of the existing system will be undermined by its sheer pace and width of expansion we are witnessing. People will be again too busy learning “new and essential things to keep pace with educational reforms and (hey!) ‘revolutions’ (you know the speak…) so they will not be able to stop, reflect and ask (geez, Ellul would love me here again

I haven’t read Marcuse’ article you refer to yet (I will, very soon) but I suspect the gist of it as flagged by you: “go and play but don’t rock the boat” – extension “if we find bits of your play handy to control you better we’ll have a bit of that too”.

I might try to articulate this in a blogpost some time but it needs to brew some more in my head until I spit it out in a more coherent form. Probably with some catchy video, hehe

Until then – thank you my friend for dropping by and sharing an insight or two. You are welcome any time !

Regards

Tomaz

PS Yes, Obama is perhaps a signpost of the possibility! You and Darcy get my vote

Love your questions and focus they provoke. I do worry about these kids as they leave an environment that moves them towards growth and life when they move back into the ridgid social typecasting that so many of them experience outside school.

Thnak you
Rob – roadster5555:twitter

I need to ramble here and say that Obama’s victory had as much to do with citizens’ perception of him being a product of the zeitgeist (and a ‘with it’ candidate) as his actual use of the online tools for his campaign. He talked the talk and walked the walk of a ‘modern’ (seems like the wrong word but you get what I mean) person but still employed much of the rhetoric of all candidates in all American presidential campaigns.

The school system has to do something similiar. We need to get ‘with it’ but not look for silver bullets. It is essential not to throw the cliche out with the bathwater in our quest to modernise – but update we must.

fellow beer meister

Profound ….. deep ….. brain achingly grouse stuff.

I’m so over the “new learning” hype promised by web2.0. Much of it is so questionable.

Cods I say until Australia has aligned change agents, dare I say governments with goolies (and brains) who actually just “get it” and then get on with being fair dinkum about providing the requisite resources. Not as we currently have, some tokenistic polli babble called the “Education Revolution” or similar crapola.

Yes my stuggle streeters always love connecting with their wider community, feeling empowered and actually having their say heard by others, and thats before we even introduce ICT, let alone “two oh”. Much of what good teachers do remains in tact and maybe, just maybe, when we can have access to the wider world their voices will be amplified.