This article blew me away when I read it this morning. It seems that John Seeely Brown, a consultant and former chief scientist at Palo Alto Research Center, talked about the future of learning at a recent MIT conference. He had some interesting things to say.
Seely Brown argued that education is going through a large-scale transformation toward a more participatory form of learning… Rather than treat pedagogy as the transfer of knowledge from teachers who are experts to students who are receptacles, educators should consider more hands-on and informal types of learning. These methods are closer to an apprenticeship, a farther-reaching, more multilayered approach than traditional formal education, he said.
And there’s more.
In particular, he praised situations where students who are passionate about specific topics study in groups and participate in online communities… The evolution of the Internet can facilitate this approach, he said. Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs, make information sharing and content creation easier.
But my money quote concerns what he calls
“passion-based learning” that focuses on getting students more engaged with topic experts.
Hat tip for passing on the article – Ma Ding.
Ken
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi.
This appear in today´s edition of “El Pais”, one of the most important newspapers of Spain.
“”Los podcasts juegan un papel cada vez más importante en la enseñanza de idiomas”. Ken Carroll no tiene dudas. Este catedrático de inglés afincado en Shanghai desde mediados de los noventa apostó por estas nuevas escuelas digitales de idiomas y decidió invertir sus más de 20 años de experiencia en enseñar chino mandarín a través de podcasts. En poco más de un año, http://www.chinesepod.com ha lanzado más de tres millones de clases. Hoy es uno de los sitios de podcasts más populares de la red, con unas 20.000 descargas al día, y posiblemente la academia de chino más frecuentada del mundo. Ofrece conversaciones gratis y programas personalizados con tutorías y seguimiento por correo electrónico a partir de 5 euros. “Son muy prácticas, se pueden escuchar en cualquier momento y, sobre todo, son más baratos. En un sistema de comunicación, el medio constituye el mensaje. El podcast es un nuevo tipo de medio al que corresponde otro mensaje o método, que se está forjando ahora. Serán el futuro de los idiomas”, concluye entusiasta”
The rest of the article can be found here
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/Todos/idiomas/bolsillo/elpepusoc/20061202elpepisoc_12/Tes
Un abrazo para todo el equipo de chinesepod.com desde España
Enrique,
Thank you very much for that. I did the interview some time ago and I’d forgotten all about it.
And thanks for the abrazo from sunny Spain. We appreciate it.
Ken Carroll
The Passion – I think that even if I didn’t listen to the podcasts, I would still value the lesson comments both for their informational content as well as for gaining from others the psychic energy needed to continue the long march forward. In fact, it’s become my habit to read some of the comments before selecting which lesson to listen to next and then to return to the comments at a later time to correlate my understanding with those of others. This isn’t an option that you have with traditional teaching methods or even with most online Chinese language learning sites.
Delta,
I think this is exactly the kind of information sharing that Seely Brown is referring to. It adds context top the lesson before you hear it, which is good because its cognitive and it allows you to decide if it is a topic you wish to pursue. In this sense it’s like Youtube – the number of comments is often very informative as to whether or not it is something you wish to view. I think the comments on the lessons also have the merit of adding vocabulary or learning insights.
Ken carroll
I ran into this learning styles test that the big brain might find interesting. It might help people better identify their learning styles. Take this with a grain of salt.
http://www.open2.net/home/view?entityID=4238&jsp=themed_learning%2Fexpanding_viewer&entityName=object
Passion looks like this:
(warning: contains the f word)
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/11/two_simple_word.html