The Current State of Online Learning: the Pregnancy Analogy

Take 2:

Have you ever been pregnant? Didn’t it seem as though nearly every other woman of childbearing age was pregnant too? Amazing.

Ever enrolled in a MOOC? Everyone with an interest in education (students and teachers alike) seems to be doing one. In fact, everyone's online, isn't that the way all education, at every level is heading?

My coursera experience has taken me down a path where I was starting to think that anything face to face or slightly blended was just so 20^th century and that I’d better pick up the pace before I was left behind, even though I already teach a fully online graduate course!  

My EDCmooc conversations were beginning to consolidate those thoughts, with every day, new links on twitter about pedagogy, classrooms of the future that are already here, ink and paper now obsolete…..

The first article which really started me thinking I was behind the eight ball with connectivism was  “Learning technology through three generations of technology enhanced distance education pedagogy”, a great read on the evolution of distance education pedagogy. One line in particular, which I have quoted several times since reading, mainly in response to those who are overwhelmed with the accelerating pace of life in general and fear for things that may be lost to technology:

From  1928: “Students today depend upon store-bought ink. They don’t know how to make their own. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write. This is a sad commentary on modern education.”

I wonder for how long that particular educator continued to insist on ink making lessons in their classes?

The next twitter link to impact on my worried mind was “12 YouTube Videos Every Online Educator Should View”, specifically, an animation titled “The Voice of the Active Learner”. I was starting to feel that things had moved ahead much further than I had been aware of. Time to panic?

By the very nature of my post graduate course, most students are adult, ranging from mid 20’s upwards. Perhaps being digital immigrants, they set the pace and now we’re in trouble, becoming dinosaurial before our eyes?????

Then our facebook discussions with Eric on the use of iPads in education made me think about iPad classrooms and bring your own device, which will be happening in 2013 for my 9yo son. And next to thinking very hard about my own experience and that of my offspring. I've helped fundraise for the school to provide funky coloured iMacs in the classroom at a ratio of 1 for every 4 students in 2000, then change to PCs as soon as the Macs became obsolete. I've seen netbooks provided in the Digital Education Revolution Scheme of 2008 not only diminish the online experience for secondary students, but now 4 years on, become ewaste. The next great thing is but a fleeting experience in the 21^st century.

As for my own children: they range from digital native (my 9yo who has advanced skills with powerpoint, publisher, word, photo editing, image editing, edmodo…OK, minecraft, and well everything really) to digital refugee (my 23 yo honours student daughter who has steered away from social media and still attends face to face lectures in preference to just learning from the downloaded versions) with everything in between. None of them use digital cameras, all still shoot on film and process their own. But are far from Luddite.

So their verdict?

My youngest watched the animated video with me and remarked that he would still prefer a pen and paper because it feels more real, and that edmodo is fine as long as the teacher only makes them use it occasionally. He thought the vision did not represent his reality. The 23 yo, well of course she is a major beneficiary of online education tools and technology, but she really can’t see any benefit in it over the analogue world. Nice to be able to pick and choose, although I’d like to see her sequencing genomes without pyrosequencing…..

And all on the iPad? Well one only has to look at the stats on any of your blogsites to see where the views come from. And it sure looks like Windows is still the dominant point of entry for this blog, with only 2% of views on iPads, maybe because we are “mature”, but what the heck, I own a tablet…

So what is really happening? Sure, we live in an age of accelerating technological advancement where space time compression is an unavoidable reality. I’m really into reading about the singularity, and can’t wait till the trans-humanists start uploading their consciousness onto their iPad25s. Who needs a body. 

But until then, the future for online education is a certainty, although whether it will play out any more predictably than it has in the past is unlikely. Who knows what will happen with MOOCs. My guess is as good as the next. Perhaps they will head to the digital black hole where napster and myspace ended up or morph into another form like iTunes or Facebook.

In the meantime, I’m applying my Pregnancy Principle to online education. Despite being totally immersed in the cutting edge online education experience myself, I just have to remember that it's not a pressing reality for everyone...yet!!