Virtual Worlds: Learning and Teaching in a Digital Age

Well, Bob Simpson (Durham University) seems to think so in an article in the latest Times Higher Education from 22 May 08.  (“In an age of memory sticks, precious little knowledge adheres”). Let’s get my own opinion out of the way right from the start: I believe that the author looks at things from a somewhat skewed angle.

It smells to me a little like outrage before the advent of printing in an oral society: “does the printing press cause our rich heritage to vanish by young people failing to memorise our stories?” Indeed, there’s reference to Hunters and Gatherers who needed to store the information & knowledge (the debate between the two is for another day …) in their heads. But surely, in an age of exponential data (let’s call it data to remain as neutral as possible, or perhaps facts? Information? For ‘knowledge’ does require the human mind for processing – or doesn’t it? ooops, I didn’t mean to get into that debate) with the necessity to make connections between the vast amount of data and find the nodes that lead to the next level of realisation, it is impossible to rely on small, chosen and ‘digested’ amounts of information.

In short, we are creating experts in retrieval, collection and filing who can live happily in the knowledge that facts, information and techniques that once would have required a rather more challenging existential engagement can sit on a server or hard disk to be accessed at any time.

But do we? The author’s examples are certainly compelling (one student who did not feel it necessary to spellcheck, because he couldhave pressed the spellcheck button; another who believes that being in possession of the photocopy i.e. the information, was enough to warrant a “yes” in response to “did you read it”) and yet I am asking myself first and foremost: is it the fault of the technology (ICT, printing press, papyrus) or is it the lack of insight into how students should be guided to use it?

I certainly would not want to fingerpoint (as the author so beautifully worded the usual path of blame) but if we don’t tailor the activities towards learning and processing of information instead of ‘processing’ the information in an external processing unit, then why should students err from the path of least resistance and believe their ICT skills might be synonymous with their learning/studying skills?

ICT is not what hinders deep learning. Its mis-use of it is.

Why not have students take the ‘processed’ date and process it to create and reach the new level of realisation AKA learning? Yes, I know, this is the hard bit, but hasn’t it always been?

Still, I very much thank the author for writing this article, because it got me to think and is this not the greatest gift an author can give to a reader and vice versa? Thanks, Bob Simpson, you certainly took me above and beyond storing the article on a data processor. Let’s end with a last and final quote:

Are we not encouraging a climate in which information, ownership and control is repeatedly mistaken for action and engagement? Instead of creating conditions in which time is factored in to acquiring knowledge that is appropriately “deep”, are we not prone to sending students skittering off across vast, flat plains of information? Might the curiously ambivalent state of unconsummated intentionality be a reasonable response for students faced with the latest ICT developments? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, we would do well to think carefully about how we go about building into our learning and teaching strategies strong reminders that the internalisation of memory is a capacity that we neglect at our peril and one that we may have to protect and preserve.

With this, I wholeheartedly agree, because the author gives us a heads-up and a push for a step forward.