Course Description
Theory and practice of teaching and learning with the Internet. Focus on instructional applications of the Internet, for all levels from K-12 as well as adult, post-secondary and training settings. Current research will be examined and monitored for its relevance to this fast-changing field.
Course Philosophy
This course is designed as a systematic analysis of internet pedagogy. Based on the starting point that the noun is pedagogy, while internet is the adjective, the course
begins with an analysis of those words. Pedagogy is “the method and practice of teaching, esp. as an academic subject.” (Oxford English Dictionary). Pedagogy is the study of what and how we teach, the art and science of teaching. The adjective internet focuses on a kind of teaching… teaching through, with or via the internet.
Learning is assumed in this equation to be a natural result of teaching. The explicit focus is on teaching and not learning, simply because the audience of this course is teachers and more broadly, educators. A course titled Internet Learning would have different implications. Likewise, the term pedagogy is used here reasonably synonymously with education.
There is another similar and relevant term that needs to be introduced at this time: critical pedagogy. The term critical pedagogy comes from Paolo Freire. Freire argues that education…pedagogy…must challenge the political status quo. Ira Shors further describes critical pedagogy as
Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse. (Empowering Education, 1992, 129).
It should be clear that a critical pedagogy approach to the internet would seem to logically fall into the domain of this course. Perhaps this course might be called critical internet pedagogy.
Mark Stefik suggests four metaphors that characterize the internet. Each has potential for pedagogy, although they also exist outside the field of pedagogy. These metaphors are useful organizing guides for this course. Stefik’s metaphors are: digital library (The Keeper of Knowledge), electronic mail (Communicator), electronic marketplace (Trader), and digital world (Adventurer).
On the other hand, the course is open to inquire and suggest both new and alternative metaphors that help to identify the domain of internet pedagogy. Perhaps, for example the internet as teacher needs to be drawn out from the initial four metaphors. Alternatively, Lev Manovich writes: “I see the internet as a communal apartment of the Stalin era: no privacy, everybody spies on everybody else. Always present are lines for common areas such as the toilet or the kitchen. “ (The Language of New Media, p. x.)
This course positions the internet first and foremost within the history of communications technologies, that began with Gutenberg’s printing press, proceeded through 19th century technological developments of the photograph, telephone, telegraph, and 20th century cinema, radio and television. These communications technologies have also had a profound effect on education, though that has not been their raison d’etre. If these technologies have been developed to help us communicate more effectively and efficiently, and if education is also about communicating to the learner, then clearly and inevitably, these technologies have potential educational, pedagogical and classroom implication.
From a different direction, the internet is positioned within the developments of the computer. The internet can be seen as an extension of the development of the mainframe, towards the introduction of the personal computer. As the computer changed from a stand alone to a networked device, the functions of the computer changed as well, moving from a mere storage and calculating device to a communications device. It is interesting to remember that the term computer carries with it the original historical baggage of a tool for mathematical computing. The functions and uses of the computer have clearly outstripped the original name. If there is something that the computer does least, it is to compute! The computer was not meant to be a thinker!
Finally a third direction challenges the two directions posited above. The internet requires a concerted study within the domain of literacy. Internet literacy implies that we need to teach members of society to function within an internet society. Once again, there is a historical precedent. Film literacy was all the rage in the 1930s, and Edgar Dale argued that motion pictures and cinema were representative of the culture of the era. It was imperative, Dale and his colleagues argued that schools teach students to be literate in the medium of the day. Beginning in the 1950s and 60s, television literacy became a significant trend. Len Masterman in England became a leading proponent of such studies, while in Canada, the province of Ontario took the lead in developing a significant program of media literacy.
Putting these three major foci together we have three possible directions for a study of internet pedagogy. The educational technology focus puts pedagogy and education at the centre and asks “What does the teacher need to know about the internet to enhance his or her teaching?”
The computer focus puts an emphasis on the technical dimensions such as website production, html language, and the many technical concerns.
The literacy focus puts an emphasis on social and cultural dimensions of the computer as a force in society to be reckoned with.
This course focuses on the first and third. The guiding principles for this course are
1. The internet is ubiquitous. It cannot be ignored.
2. The internet has significant potential for teaching and learning.
3. The internet may change the way we learn.
4. The internet is a social and cultural phenomenon that needs careful and systematic analysis.
5. The educational study of the internet should concentrate on those applications that have a low learning curve, and that essentially involve no cost or low cost. This is a significant guiding principle, since it is easy to begin a course by sending students off to purchase, for example, Dreamweaver or learning to become sophisticated in html. These are important concerns, but not within the purview of the average teacher. The teacher is not expected to be a technician, but a teacher.
In summary, the study of educational technology is a vast domain with real potential for you as a teacher, as a learner and as a member of society. On-line learning takes the learner into an uncharted cyberspace culture. This course will explore the broad sweep of internet pedagogy as a significant and relevant component of contemporary education.
Note: this course comes from the University of Manitoba. See click here
