And the lights are flickering on…
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
Something happened to me this week. I was lucky enough to go with a crack team of fellow educators to visit some standout schools in Victoria.
I thought I ‘got’ Transformational Learning before then. I can see now I didn’t. I thought I knew that through innovative use of ICT that I was doing what I needed to do and that I was automatically doing what I needed to do.
I wasn’t.
What I learnt this week was something interesting. I learnt that:
- ICT supports eLearning
- eLearning supports Transformational Learning
- Transformational Learning requires then eLearning and the Curriculum
Graphically, maybe it goes like this:
As the HOD of the ICT Faculty – it was easy to say that ICT = eLearning = Transformational Learning. It doesn’t. It requires additional features. It requires the Curriculum, the Ways of Working, and the Literacy/Numeracy skills to get the job done. Most of all, it requires the Learner to be in the middle of all of this.
I have learnt that Transformational Learning is about the Student/Learner being at the centre of this Teaching and Learning process. The role of ‘Teaching’ in this T&L process is still important, but drops into the background as the Learner begins to own, engage and understand their own Learning.
Why does it need to be done differently? From looking at education as purely a business model, our clients aren’t happy. Our clients have changed from assuming they will be force-fed, to questioning everything (including authority). Our clients have changed from being groomed to one specific career option, to having many (see Shift Happens/Did You Know?).
What I need to do now, is to gather formal data, formal research to be able to make a sales pitch to the school. I think I have made the sales pitch to myself (I can’t stop thinking about the whole thing since I got back on Thursday night).
An important person I bounce ideas off, and help me get the job done, is Kate Wallace – she has had an awakening too – on Friday afternoon we started building a mindmap of understandings and that we don’t need to develop a Vision for eLearning, but a Vision for Learning – the eLearning part of it is only a fraction.
I’ve embedded this MindMap of what we have done so far, and will continue to update it.
People that need acknowledging for helping rewire my understanding:
- Kate Wallace
- Bob Rogers
- Paul O’Neill
- Joe Perkins
- John Lockhart
- The rest of the crack team I went with on the Victorian Trip (from Sunshine Beach SHS, Varsity College, Holland Park SHS and Laidley SHS)
I’m also now I have written down my ideas, that I can stop thinking about it for a day or two and enjoy the weekend. I am going to try to unpack what I have written down in the MindMap. Some points that resonate:
- Transformational Learning requires a rebirth of what is being done – not a repackaging.
- eLearning demands an ‘e’. The ICT provides the e. A lack of ICT does not result in no transformation however.
