Are new learning technologies making us better educators?



It is week 4 now of Semester 1 of 2018 at USP and I am behind on everything related to learning and teaching, including my own learning in ED403.  Why? A major contributing factor has been the failure of the technologies of the learning environments that I work and learn in.  Or perhaps more appropriately, it has been that the structural resources needed to make the technologies work have not been working (connection, servers, equipment).  I have been scrambling in my classes to communicate with my students since the two major ways of communicating with students in online courses are moodle and e-mail and both have been disrupted regularly. 

What I have been impressed by is the persistence of students despite the challenges in contributing their discussions, submitting their assignments, and engaging with the course material.  They have been problem-solving to continue their work.  And perhaps this is an unintended benefit of technology enable learning and how it is changing the way we learn:  perhaps all the technological issues as well as the challenge of learning new technological tools are equipping students with problem-solving and troubleshooting skills?  Perhaps it is also pushing teachers/educators to change their practices in terms of how to design assessment timelines?  Perhaps it is making us pay more attention to student context than we did when we could just meet in face-to-face classrooms and not be forced to experience the 'same' problems as our students in 'time-management'?  After all, I could also make sure I show up to my class as a lecturer before (and not acknowledge the privileges that allow me to do so) and be frustrated with students not being at lectures/tutorials.  But now, when the technology makes it impossible for me to show up too, for the same reasons that students can't....Or when I struggle with learning a whole new tool, it makes me understand better the steps the students will be going through--not only with the new tool (but also the material)...This is perhaps another mechanism by which technology is changing higher education and the power-dynamics between educator and learner?

It just makes me wonder--are teachers/educators working with technology enabled learning environment becoming more empathetic and compassionate educators?  Especially if they are learning new tools, struggling with it and and sharing the structural contexts that make these difficult?  Could this perhaps have a positive effect on higher education learning?  After all, as we saw in the material in #ED402, student success requires working with and understanding student context--perhaps technology enabled learning is making it easier/forcing us (as educators) to do so? 





Comments

  1. shikha26 February 2018 at 18:11

    Enjoyed your through provoking post. In response to your point on "technology enabled learning environment encouraging instructors to become more empathetic and compassionate", I would say perhaps each time you become a learner regardless of the learning environment (f2f, blended, online, print), some of us become more empathetic and compassionate. And that I would think is because when you experience what students experience, for example in this case both you and your students are facing technology disruptions, you relate to the situation perhaps much better. However, I believe teachers do need to be compassionate and empathetic (in moderation of course), recalling Thaman's paper where she talks about importance of 'ofa' (compassion) in a culturally diverse region as PICs.'

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