The micro and macro approaches of ICTs in Education and Dadamac April 25, 2010
I agree completely that we need to bridge these two. I am particularly interested in the issues around "A simple example is whether the abundance of (digital) information will reinforce informal education and render formal education out-dated and useless in the end."
I write from the viewpoint of someone from outside academia, but with an extensive and varied practical background in education (and training) and the use of ICT, especially the Internet. I welcome your analysis as I have been struggling to express some related ideas from the perspective of my own experiences of non-formal Internet-enabled learning with people who are mainly (but not exclusively) based in UK and Africa. (I am also greatly influenced by earlier work as a primary school teacher and also with pre-school children.)
In joining in discussions about ICTs in education I had not thought to frame my thinking in terms of micro and macro approaches - although I knew that what I wanted to explore related to the wider questions of systemic change. I have also found it hard to connect with formal academia to enter into the debate. I think this may be related to your comment "..amongst macros I have mainly found younger people, tech-savvy or simply geek, and often not coming from Pedagogy but Sociology, Communication Science, Economics, Information Science ..." I guess that in trying to connect with academia I should be looking for pedagogy, but find that I am making (informal) connections with academics in fields like Development, ICT4D, Computer Science, and Informatics.
I have been struggling to explain things through anecdotes and tending to frame my observations in terms of a comparison of formal and non-formal learning. For example http://dadamac.posterous.com/p2p-research-fwd-call-for-papers-on-networked
By formal learning I mean learning that is accredited by established institutions, and largely, but not exclusively, curriculum driven. The kind of learning where ICT is an add-on to a system that was functioning before the Internet.
By non-formal I mean the information-sharing, user-driven, kind of learning that involves people from widely different situations (usually by not necessarily from various countries). This non-formal learning could not have happened before the Internet.
I believe that, regarding the macro debate, it would be good if bridges could be built between academia and the kind of non-formal Internet enabled communities of learning that I know (even if we are very small we may have some experiences that are relevant). At present it is almost impossible to do build bridges "from my side" because academia expects input in academic ways (i.e. academic papers and peer reviews) and that assumes and requires knowledge of "the academic literature" which non-academics do not have. http://dadamac.posterous.com/academic-papers-and-articles-from-practitione
I am delighted to have discovered your blog, and look forward to exploring areas of overlapping interest.
Pamela McLean