e-learning 2.0

I have been following a number of the stories about wikipedia and the idea that some people seem to have that we should get all of out information vetted by “experts” before we read it. This is clearly not workable for a variety of reasons, not least that even “experts” get it wrong.

Some of us here at Worcester are trying to empower students to make their own decisions about what data is appropriate to use and to help them develop criteria and skills to judge the worth of information for themselves. Others still have an idea of a fixed hierarchy of “information value” usually expressed as “peer reviewed journals books and then the rest”.

I have colleagues who will give assignment instructions which warn against using the Internet as a source of information, this is particularly galling for me as I teach web design and for my students the Internet is a source of excellent information.

I have known tutors who will not allow students to post their own links to information, they insist that the student sends the information to them so that it can be vetted before it is published (or not). Not only does this present a bottleneck it strongly discourages students from posting material and of course it removes any possibility of the students learning from an open debate about the worth of the material. In my experience it is difficult enough to get students to contribute material and ideas without putting additional obstacles in their way.

I have had a similar experience recently with posting a comment on a blog, when I found that it did not appear but went off to the administrator for vetting. My first response was to never comment again but on reflection I contacted the administrator and explained my attitude to the situation to them and they changed the settings to allow open comment.

While I am on the subject of student autonomy I was listening to the Go Digital blog from the BBC World Service about the 100 dollar laptop and some excellent points from a guy from Nottingham University about how the students needed to be empowered to use it for learning and how this needs to be built into the system. They then went back to the studio “expert” who seemed to miss the point entirely and talked about how a VLE could be used for lesson plans. It worries me that such “experts” might be listened to and the whole project may not fulfill its potential as a consequence of this.