30 Years in Edtech
There are many quotable sections in D'Arcy's retrospective on his career in education technology. A few in particular jumped out at me:
Context matters more in education than we initially assumed. A perfect learning object for one instructor might need significant adaptation for another. We learned that reusability often comes at the cost of effectiveness. And the term “Learning Object” became so genericized that it became meaningless.
The promise of having reusable content libraries, even between teachers at the same school, is compelling. But I'm often modifying or adjusting whatever I find, whether it's in the shared Google Drive folder with my colleagues or on the Internet. As they say, all politics are local, so is all teaching. I'm modifying - year over year - the materials I use with students. There is no one-size-fits-all collection of stuff to use with teaching.
But the real story was more complex. [Learning Management Systems] tend to shape pedagogy in subtle ways. Their design implies a certain model of teaching and learning - one based largely on content delivery and assessment.
I had the great fortune of learning to teach from a wonderful mentor who took advantage of early digital learning tools to make it more accessible for students. My first position also encouraged us to develop strategies for using wikis and blogs. I felt frustrated by the push to move into an LMS for coursework because I already had systems and strategies in place for those kinds of interactions.
In the next paragraph, D'Arcy concedes, "That said, LMSs solved real problems. They made online teaching accessible to many more faculty." This is on point because the burden of online teaching tools, at the time, was heavily skewed toward the non-technical teacher. I was comfortable trying new things and figuring systems out. Others either aren't comfortable or don't have the mental energy to do that prep work, which is also fine. Years ago, I felt like the LMS could be used as a stepping stone into other tools that do some things better. And that's a good thing.
If you're in education, go take time to read this.
Published: 2025-01-24 | Category: Links | Tags: edtech, d'arcy norman, retrospective
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