Mimi Ito left me deep impression since last year when Yue (one of our TA, who took this course last year) showed me a presentation video from her. I like her not only because her intrinsic charm and intelligence, but also her optimistic viewpoint of young generations using new technology. She believes that young people always tend to learn from peers and this positive peer influence can be enhanced through online interaction. While many educators and parents are worrying and even trying to prevent kids from online sociality, Mini’s viewpoint becomes even more avant-garde, and meanwhile encouraging.
It was a great pleasure to attend Mimi’s presentation at IU. This time she stressed three issues relating to young people’s online learning: “Knowledge: flows vs. stocks”, “Learning: peer based vs. top down”, and “Assessment: learner driven vs. institution driven”.
Among these three issues, I agree most on her proposition that educators and schools should propel the flow of knowledge, instead of stock knowledge as private property. While we complain young people idling away online, we should ask ourselves whether we have prepared engaging learning resources for them to explore. Just as MIT opens its course resources to public, our whole society should take responsibility to build and maintain a healthy online environment which offers rich learning opportunities and resources to young people.
I have less agreement on Mimi’s the other two propositions. For the more appropriate mode of online learning of teenagers, although I admit the effectiveness of team work, group discussion, and other types of peer-based learning in motivating young learners and contributing to their achievement, I don’t think this effectiveness can be ensured without appropriate guidance and supervision from teachers and parents. Young people lack of experiences in project management, dealing with interpersonal relationships and troubleshooting. They become interested in things quickly, but also lose interests quickly. In addition, most of the examples that Mimi provided about teenagers online learning are about creating media productions and creative writings, the most fun part of learning. However, there are other abilities young people need to develop, such as logical and mathematical skills. Therefore, teachers and parents should use online resources to stimulate young people to explore what they haven’t built interests or feel difficult, while to keep enthusiasm in what they love to do till achieving productive learning outcomes.
My opinion on the assessment of young people online learning is similar to how I look at their online learning. I agree that the assessment metrics should be created based on young learners’ actual abilities and performance levels, and that peer evaluation is important for young people to reflect on their previous works and being more motivated to do better jobs. However, I don’t think peer assessment can be always accurate and effective. So, for appropriate assessment of young people online learning achievement, I also advocate of the intervention, or say facilitation, from grown-ups. At least, some ground rules about peer assessment should be set up for young people to take as references.
I also went to Mimi Ito's talk and really found what she had to say very interesting. I sometimes wonder when I listen to people who are prominent in the field of online learning speak whether they are saying that the future of education does not involve the kinds of assessments we are used to today, or that different assessments will need to be created. I often suspect that many online learning advocates might secretly (or not secretly) believe that traditional testing ought to go the way of the dinosaurs. It often seems that in articles and talks, any reference to traditional testing and assessment is done almost as an afterthought or as a reply to the inevitable reply from an educator in the audience who just has to ask, "How will we test them on it? How do we know they're really learning it?" Personally, I feel that life is the biggest test we can have - if we take online courses and don't retain what we learn, we will be tested at work. If we don't know what we need to know, we can sink or swim. Kind of like how it is now in the workplace ... so, I'm not sure if my attitude is a popular one or not, but I'm all for embracing online learning and letting life and the workplace test our success.
回复删除Very well-written, Mengyuan. I think Mimi Ito is one of the proponents of a new way of teaching and learning - participatory learning. I think this form of learning is inevitable in the increasingly connected world, with wide penetration of social media and mobile technology. I think grounded research would inform us about how to go about such forms of learning. Ethnography is probably the best way to study this. I look forward to more of such emerging research. Mimi Ito is one of the early adopters of innovation (Roger's diffusion of innovation theory). Let's hope we do not take too long to catch up!
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