Back to Learning in the New Millennium 1993 to 2000

LiNM findings summarised here in the form of a short movie
(the project was, remember, at the dawn of the Internet - so apologies for the quality of the very-early-digital-video. But worth watching!

I just read this bit of the dialogue from the movie of findings - it told us so much about where good (rather than kill and drill or deliver and receive) on-line learning was going:

...there were terrific outcomes in terms of, well, parity of esteem is the best way to describe it - we had 8 year old children talking to PhD level scientists, where the 8 year old knew more about badgers than the scientists, and in the debate about badgers it was the 8 year old that was leading the research and leading the debate. Clearly when they were talking about thermo-dynamics, it was the scientists and engineers that knew more, and they grew to respect each others perspectives in a way that I think none of us expected. It became a learning community rather than a learning conduit. Instead of pumping information TO the kids, the kids were part of the "tapestry" that was making learning happen.

But I think the things we'd pick out that were highlights:

• were that children as lecturers are as exciting as children as learners.
• that you really need someone who knows their stuff - the teacher was crucial in this to ask the little catalytic questions that made learning happen fast - a lot of people talkign at a bus-stop will get somewhere, but talking at a bust-stop with somebody orgaosing the debate will get there a lot quicker
• and we thought probably that the third key finding really, and it was an important one for [sponsors] Nortel, was that everybody, even in the corporate sector, is hungry to learn; learning is hungry to learn. Everydoby wants to be part of a learning community. Learning isn't just for kids - it's for all of us.

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these pages last updated: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 10:22 AM