This is something I haven’t done before - listened to
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- it’s kinda scary.
Lots of ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ to start with, which decrease a little over time, but I reckon I could do with a few public speaking classes nonetheless :)
An absolutely great seminar / conference - fascinating attendees and a great organisation. Couldn’t have enjoyed it more.
Here’s My powerpoint (3.11 MB). You can find some very dodgy quotes and some of my early scratchings about what I was going to say in the notes for each slide.
[...] James Farmer, Melbourne based education designer and social software consultant, gave this presentation at an education.au seminar on transforming learning through ICT in which he talks about the importance of engaging and empowering learners through the development of communities of inqury and incorporated subversion. He compares the potential of contemporary social networking solutions with the limitations of traditional course management systems such as Blackboard. recorded presentation audio (.mp3) [...]
[...] While reading through my news feeds today, I came across this presentation given by James Farmer, Melbourne based education designer and social software consultant, at an education.au seminar on transforming learning through ICT in which he talks about the importance of engaging and empowering learners through the development of communities of inqury (COI) and incorporated subversion. He compares the potential of contemporary social networking solutions with the limitations of traditional course management systems such as Blackboard.recorded presentation audio (.mp3) [...]
Your talk on engaging users reminded me how important making web applications fun is. You may be interested in reading How Game Mechanics Can Make Your App More Fun
Excellent talk, am still listening… and learning. :)
Thanks James, I didn’t even notice the ums and ahs - it was too engaging!
I can see that the education ICT market is vulnerable. I’ve come into teaching after 25 years in industry, the last 14 or so in IT, finishing in corporate IS/IT strategy. I see ICT as having great potential, but worry about some of the risks. For example, ICT that doesn’t support learning, ICT which embeds particular practices, preventing change… I could go on. Your presentation will help me articulate these concerns.
Also, your presentation made me think of a distinction that’s made in industry between knowledge workers and “structured task” workers. These days, both use computers. The difference in the way they use them, though, is like night and day. School students are young knowledge workers, so need to be provided with appropriate tools.
An engaged knowledge worker will be empowered with plenty of IT tools that will be used if they help, not because a process has to be followed. But their activities will also be carried out in a supportive environment, with whiteboards and places for discussions and meetings.
For the first time, I’ve realised that Blackboard-type systems look much more like the kind of thing that’s used by task workers, working away alone at their PC.
Maybe this analogy could be useful?
David
Thanks James. That was really interesting. I’ve sent it on to my colleagues at USyd eLearning (aka WebCT). Should lead to some interesting discussions. :)
I really enjoyed listening to your podcasts …which I blundered upon because I’ve been spending hours and hours working on 3 edublogs. (Thank you!) I took a workshop with the National Writing Project a few weeks ago, and we all began our blogs. I returned to LA to immediately spread the word to about six other teachers. We’re all collaborating and writing like mad.
We’re all dying for school to start. Really.
i liked your podcast because one of my favorite books is called Education is a Subversive Activity. You are in great company. There’s a long line stretching all the way back to Socrates. We won’t dwell on what happened to him. It’s immortality we’re after.
[...] There has been a lot of talk recently online regarding the patent filing by Blackboard, a patent which could create serious hurdles for those in academia who want to use technology to open education rather than close it off, or profit from it. (If you can’t tell I really don’t like closed/corporate education.) You can read about the contrevorsy over at e-literate, Michael Feldstein has done an excellent job of posting about the issue as well as collecting links to other places to look. Also, if you are interested in using technology in the classroom, particularly blogs I highly recommend readings James Farmer’s blog Incorporated Subversion specifically see his presentation both the audio and slides of which can be downloaded. James lays out the problems with the way technology has been used, and points towards better directions. [...]
[...] James Farmer’s presentation ‘What’s Changed’ is very stimulating, if a little unnerving is some ways. It certainly provoked me into reflecting on my way of noodling away with learning technologies. [...]
[...] Great presentation by James Farmer at education.au exploring how eLearning environments (from Computer labs to threaded discussions and MCQ quizzes to VLEs such as Blackboard) are tending to encourage teachers to perpetuate a transmissive model of education and how we might foster engagement and empowerment in teachers and learners instead. He refers to the “Community of Inquiry Model” (Rourke et al 2001) that stresses the importance of social, cognitive and teaching presence in any effective learning encounter. [...]