Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Good Learning Theory Articulated

Good Learning Theory Articulated

Published by Wesley Fryer in digitalstorytelling, literacy on January 21st, 2006

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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..

1 Comment »

http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity Chris Lehmann

I loved that post too, although there is something to think about with it… as fantastic a vision of learning as Kathy paints, it is still very centered around getting students to learn from us… rather than learning on their own.