ADTED 531 Unit 2 - Reflections

This week our reading assignment was to read Chapter 3 from Delivering Digitally (Inglis, Ling, & Joosten, 2002). There were a few key ideas that struck me in this material, which I think are worth exploring further here:

The chapter starts out by explaining the "traditional" Transmission Model of Education: "What a teacher transmits is information. When learners receive that information they construct knowledge from it." This, to me, accurately describes the first two most pivotal goals which any educational curriculum, traditional or digital, must address--

• How does the teacher transmit the information?
• How does the teacher help students construct knowledge from the information?
  

We know that in traditional education curricula, the teacher uses various classroom media to transmit the information to students, then has the student complete exercises or similar to try and construct knowledge from the information. In digital education curricula, it's the same story -- the teacher uses some kind of media to transmit the information to students. Then, the digital education teacher would have the student engage in some sort of assignment, discussion board, web 2.0 tool exploration, etc. to try and construct knowledge from the information. Pretty much the same story as the traditional classroom, just delivered via slightly different means. Both types of curricula successfully accomplish goal #1 and goal #2. But, then what?

Today's learner must go one step beyond simply constructing theoretical knowledge and becoming an "expert" in this knowledge. Today's learner must then join their theoretical knowledge with their tacit (experiential) knowledge about the subject. They must learn to apply the knowledge they've gained and USE it towards functioning and practicing in the real world. This is pivotal education goal #3:

• How does the teacher help students convert theoretical knowledge to tacit knowledge?
  

In the traditional classroom, how is this accomplished? Quite frankly, I don't think it is accomplished at all. This is the #1 complaint of employers, about today's newly-minted college grads: They don't know how to do anything! They have all this theoretical knowledge, but have never used it in the real world and therefor have no experiential, tacit knowledge that would enable them to perform a job. They have never joined their theoretical knowledge to action.

Chapter 3 in Delivering Digitally goes on to describe the advent of distance education, and how it was formulated to suit a particular need in the education industry. However, I don't think the chapter really hits on the most important point about distance education: It's perfectly suited to accomplish goal #3, which is to help students convert theoretical knowledge into tacit knowledge.

Distance education is uniquely suited to build interaction into its materials. By the very nature of many of the tools commonly used in distance education (discussion threads, chats, etc), distance education evokes hands-on participation from students, most of whom are already field practitioners and have a great deal of experiential knowledge stowed away. In this participation and interaction within the distance education classroom, tacit knowledge is built within the individual who is forced to think about how the knowledge theory they're learning applies to real life. And, tacit knowledge is also shared between practitioners, which serves to further bolster the educational value of the course.

"Even when the technology is serving to transmit information, the information being transmitted is structured in particular ways to achieve educational purposes. It is the way the information is structured that is of greatest importance here, not the speed or accuracy with which the information is carried from point to point." I think the point here is that it doesn't matter which technology is being used in the distance education classroom, or how fast/cool/new that technology is. The point is that it is used to foster the joining of theoretical knowledge and tacit knowledge in the students, which is where traditional education lacks and digital education shines.