Philosophy of Education and Theories of IT Reflection

We began class with a lot of talk about theories of education. There are more, but we talked about four main  ones. Those were perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and reconstructionism. They rank from perennialism being the most conservative to reconstructionism being the most liberal. As I listened to their descriptions, I was struck with how I have experienced elements of all four within my public school and college days. It was very interesting because I had only ever thought of them as extremely separate and distinct elements. They can interplay and I just had never thought enough about it to notice that.

As for as my own view, I would have to say that I'm more often to agree with reconstructionism. Not only is that just generally the way my mind works, many of my college learning experiences seem to veer in that direction. None of the views actually make me that uncomfortable as I have had experiences with all of them.  However, perennialism opposes the school as a social mechanism and trade school aspects. Perennialism and essentialism both oppose change unless absolutely necessary. Both of those individual oppositions do bother a bit. It seems that that sort of viewpoint would really hold schools back.

We also had a great discussion in class about what technology is, what media is, and how we compare the two. It was interesting and I really feel like all my previous viewpoints about them were very wrong. Technology being thought of as the application of knowledge to solve problems and make lives easier is a brand-new mindset for me. I am trying to retool my thinking however. Thinking of it as a process and a product is a bit more in line with what I thought, but it goes even a bit deeper. I have tried to look at processes and products as a teacher. I thought of a product being a smartboard and a process perhaps being the Madelyn Hunter Model of lesson planning. I'm a little shaky on whether that is a true statement for the last one however. I am still struggling with it. I also honestly have not thought in depth about what media was at all. Channels for transmitting information is as good a definition as any, though any might be new to me. This is a bit easier to wrap my head around, but is still difficult to think about what exactly that entails. When someone is writing on a whiteboard, what part is the media? The marker? The board? The words? It's a little confusing. It is a very interesting new way to look at things, however.

Philosophy of Education and Theories of IT Readings

I have four readings for this week. The first is titled Learning Theories - An Overview from www.infed.org. This reading primarily dealt with the different ideas about what learning is, how it is achieved, and for what purpose. As a former elementary education student, I am familiar with the different theories and ideas, but it was nice to take a look at them again. I have never been a person to subscribe to just one of those ideas. I admire and agree with the work of many researchers under all of the headings. In my opinion, learning is really some part of all of them, with no one of more importance than another. It is interesting how many people view learning as just an acquisition of facts however. I have always believed in learning as an application as opposed to an acquisition. It was actually the topic of a novel that I attempted to write in 2009.

The second reading is titled Systems Theory: An Overview from  www.panarchy.com. It looks like it's a selection from a book called General System Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy. I will admit that I had some trouble understanding what a lot of this had to do with what we are learning. Generally, what I took away is that we are a complex organism operating under an "open system" and therefore there is no singular theory that can attest for or give answers to every little thing we do and think. We seek challenge, stress, and strife to give our lives meaning, which general theories should not be able to explain. This seems to work a bit in line with my views regarding the previous reading. The many theories about learning are good, but because we are complex, no single theory can account for everything.

The third reading is titled Shannon Model of Communication from www.exploratorium.com. It discusses a communication theory proposed by Claude Shannon about information, particularly transmission of information through telephone, but it can be applied to other areas as well. It is fairly simple and I can see it easily being applied to teaching and learning through technological means.

The fourth and final reading is titled Shannon-Weaver Model from communicationtheory.org. This dealt more with the same communication model. I can definitely see how it relates. I have heard about this model before, but I have not heard it called any given name. It is interesting, but very necessary to think about communication theories when it comes to education and technology.