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| Shibboleths
and the Techniques of Technological Idolatries by Alan Altany |
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| Shibboleths
and the Techniques of Technological Idolatries by Alan Altany |
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The Old vs. The New I find my own level of enjoyment has increased and my enthusiasm deepened, by mentoring the collaborative process for learners. And I think there is a direct connection with the creative incorporation of educational technologies into classroom courses, online mentoring, and interactive TV learning, of which collaborative writing is a valuable part, and my receiving the outstanding faculty award at my university. This use of the technologies has helped me no longer want to be a teacher who teaches, but to be a mentor or guide (v. an academic guru) who is also the director of resources for learners, allowing them to develop their own interpretations and analyses, not just to memorize mine. Some learners insist they like only individual work where they are fully responsible and do not have to rely upon others. I understand that, but living itself, with very rare exceptions, is a daily collaborative experience. If living is such, should not learning, a major aspect of living, be also? Yes, some students want the old model and want me to simply answer their questions as if I were helping them by giving them answers. But I am not doing them a favor if I do - it would be robbing them of the struggle, sometimes collaborative, to search, reflect, investigate resources, consult with peers, be confused, persevere and express. The technology is not the focus in the use of educational technologies in collaborative work. That would be idolatry. It must have been said now for generations that after higher education, one enters the "real world." I would prefer that my learners/students live in a real world now. Collaborative writing projects, formal and informal, are one way to live in "real time" now.In this context, I find myself gradually fading away from center stage, the spotlight is dimmed and I become less the star of the show. The learners have come to know that they can help themselves into the questions, answers, and new questions without expecting me to churn out tidy modules of what they need to know. The better the collaborative writing procedures and actual writings, the better can be the individual writings, if for no other reason that one is re-minded that no one is really a Cartesian bubble, that the ancients recognized that without collaboration both survival and life's story became tenuous. We are more than our technologies and techniques. Collaborative writing re-minds students that we are individuals-in-concert where the music needs all the players for its greatest and resounding sound (bytes).
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