Good Learning Theory Articulated

21st January 2006

posted in digitalstorytelling, literacy |

Kathy Sierra, author of the Creating Passionate Users blog, hit a home run in my book with her post “Crash course in learning theory” from January 3, 2006. From her textual and graphic explication of constructivist learning theory to her encouragement for teachers and students to embrace digital storytelling, her insights are on target.

Most of her post is aimed at informing people about the learning theory they should embrace as they blog for a global audience, but the comments are applicable for other contexts as well. I agree with her final summary:

If you teach it, they will come.

I would revise the statement, however, to read: “If you teach it well, they will come.” As John Dewey observed many years ago, the educational process is inherently a moral and subjective affair. We have all had experiences with poor teaching and learning environments. What we need are not just more teachers (or bloggers), but good teachers (and bloggers) who share ideas of high quality and challenge us to further reflect and act as a result. This is Kathy’s point also, in her blog post. I think adding the word “well” to her final statement reinforces this important distinction.

I think I’ll be using this post as required reading for my students next term in our class on Digital Storytelling.

Thanks Kathy! And thanks to Josh Thomas and Will Richardson for alerting me to this post.

On this day..

Podcast219: Powerful Tools, Powerful Possibilities - 2008
Reflections on Dr. King's Dream - 2008
Using Google Notebook, Google Reader, and Firefox - 2007
Rules for the Revolution (podcasting that is!) - 2007
Architecting School 2.0 - 2007
John Seely Brown on rethinking schools - 2007
Engagement, school fun, and passionless teachers - 2007
Steve Jobs and photo remixing - 2006
Review of "A Whole New Mind" - 2006

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2006 at 4:36 pm and is filed under digitalstorytelling, literacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.