{"id":1143,"date":"2015-09-11T22:53:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T22:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2015-09-12T01:37:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T01:37:46","slug":"george-siemens-and-the-evolution-of-ed-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/george-siemens-and-the-evolution-of-ed-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"George Siemens and the Evolution of Ed Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"English:<\/a>

English: Homo habilis KNMR 1813 discovered at Koobi Fora (replica) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

George Siemens<\/a> wrote a very thoughtful post on his current thinking about education technology called “Adios Ed Tech. Hola something else.<\/a>” \u00a0Siemens has been very important in shaping my own thought on education technology and online learning. His work has not just shaped my thinking but how I work. The 2008 MOOC “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” was a seminal turning point in the field of education. I think my career has paralleled his in many ways: I too have been involved in education technology since the late 90s. I worked on online writing labs, MOOs, MUDs, early online tutor training sites, etc. on up to my work today. All the while I think I would also share his motivation when he writes:<\/p>\n

Most of my career has involved using technology to help people get better access to learning resources and materials, to better connect with each other, to better access formal education, and to improve their teaching practices and pedagogies.<\/em><\/p>\n

That is why I do what I do – to provide increased access for others to education. It is a simple mission. I think that is the most important thing that I can do – it is why I am also involved in open eduction, open education resources, and open textbooks.<\/p>\n

George’s “Adios” seems to come from a pessimism about the current state of education technology which he feels “is not becoming more human; it is making the human a technology. Instead of improving teaching and learning, today\u2019s technology re-writes teaching and learning to function according to a very narrow spectrum of single, de-contextualized skills.” I don’t see this happening in technology – I see this in the implementation of technology. He gives examples of bad implementations when he writes about Udacity:<\/p>\n

So much of learning involves decision making, developing meta-cognitive skills, exploring, finding passion, taking peripheral paths. Automation treats the person as an object to which things are done. There is no reason to think, no reason to go through the valuable confusion process of learning, no need to be a human. Simply consume. Simply consume. Click and be knowledgeable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I appreciate his frustration with this kind of “education” – Udacity and xMOOCs have set online education back 20 years. It is difficult to watch all of this money and effort go into projects that we who have been involved in ed tech for so long know will fail. I think the claims and hype are the disturbing part. We need to evolve past that hype and the promise of education automation and industrialization which has been the bane of education for the last 150 years.<\/p>\n

Technology can do a lot of things. Some of those things are nonsensical or harmful. Some of those things are very useful. Technology can improve education and make it more human only to the extent that it facilitates our humanity. If technology is being used to create community, enable communication and engagement with one another, then it helps education. These are the kinds of connections that I found meaningful about Connectivism. And interestingly enough, communication and engagement are not on George’s framework list:<\/p>\n