World wide learning - a Possibility or not?

"How can you teach someone about the world when you are isolating them from the world?" – Matt Whalan

What a relevant question this is! I certainly grew up in a world where we as learners were very much isolated from the world and when you think about all that is out there to learn and to pique your interest, that can make you fall in love with a subject and truly engage with it and LEARN, what a shame that we were denied that privilege.

 We as embarking educators have an obligation to ask ourselves if there is any reason to deny our future learners of such a privilege. This might not be such an easy task, there are many factors that come into play and that have to be kept in mind, but we cannot be responsible for yet another generation isolated from the world. Hamilton says disagreeably that   "...both teachers and students are confined by their defined roles, limited to be either bankers making knowledge deposits or empty bank vaults passively receiving those deposits." This truly cannot still be the accepted form of education and we as educators should try our best to not be confined by the defined roles. Hamilton quotes Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed in his article where Freire says that “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction”. What he means by that statement is that we should redefine ourselves as teachers who can also be students and allow our students to also be teachers. We all have something to bring to the table and also to take away from the table. I feel that this will allow for true engagement and for learning to take place. When you watch a video such as “The Independent Project” and see what children are capable of when you give them authority to choose what they study and do the research and experiments by themselves, you can only shake your head in amazement and awe. These students have found a new passion for learning by simply finding ways of making work interesting and fun. We as educators can and should learn from these learners.

Is technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning the way forward for our learners? There certainly is a possibility of it becoming a reality. The question is should it? Hamilton poses a few concerns regarding technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning, one of which is the difficulty of communicating with peers who do not speak the same language than you.  The other problem is that people have different forms of access, meaning not only “material access, but also functional access (the ability to use), experiential access (the ability to use in a personal context), and also critical access (the ability to choose to use)” Hamilton. These are just two problems discussed, I am sure there are many more. There is certainly a lot of attributes as well, but at the moment this might not yet be able to become a reality. We as educators should therefore find a way to facilitate technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning in a way that get our learners interested and engaged, and also to help them distinguish between what is important and factual and what is not.  It might not be realistic for learners use only technology-mediated self-directed/distance learning, but it sure can help.