Comments on: The Release Day

By: David Delgado

David Delgado — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 05:50:35 +0000

There’s no problem with Elgg and the classic training. You can just keep on using your current courses and workshops on Moodle, adding “e-learning 2.0” capabilities to your students and free social learning allowing them to use Elgg.

You can even use Elgg in a centralized way: just use communities for that: the community blog is the forum, the community files are the contents,… you have lots of Elgg plugins to add more features, such as wikis and so on.

What’s the problem? Are you afraid of your students? ;-)

By: Chris Lehmann

Chris Lehmann — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:22:17 +0000

I don’t think so… I still love this thing we call school. SLA is pretty close to what I’d want to create.

By: dan

dan — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:10:44 +0000

So can I ask you, if your professional obligations were no object, that is, if you had the freedom to choose your pedagogical framework, would you tend towards this Free School / Unschool / Homeschool thing?

By: Chris Lehmann

Chris Lehmann — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:55:37 +0000

Funny thing is that while that article is exactly right about Elgg’s strengths, those are the same strengths that make it not a great tool for a school that *is* built around classes and courses and such.

I think, if you want to build an organic system of integrated learners who have the freedom to build communities around common goals and interests, Elgg is a really powerful tool. However, that’s not what schools are right now. There’s a larger argument as to whether or not that’s what schools should be, but that’s not your school (nor is it SLA), so I’d argue it’s not the tool for you.

Elgg has a very particular pedagogical framework that makes it perfect for a Free School / Unschool / Homeschool kind of environment, and maybe it’ll be the way we all teach and learn in something called school now, but I found that it didn’t do what I needed it to do as a school administrator.

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:47:37 +0000

To the rest, this is the link that WordPress chopped up. To David, thanks. [edited to change the commenter's name from Graham Wegner to Dan Meyer.Â Don't ask.]

By: David Delgado

David Delgado — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:33:40 +0000

Sorry, Dan, it seems like WordPress broke the link when I pasted it… you can get it back from the post I talked you before. I added it as a resource. I hope this can help you.

By: David Delgado

David Delgado — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:24:48 +0000

http://edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2005/11/21/ELGG-vs.-Moodle—defusing-a-false-dichotomy

By: David Delgado

David Delgado — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:19:30 +0000

Dan, I think you are pretty smart, and do know way too much more than what you think. The only thing you have to teach your faculty is to take care of their students, and listen and not only teach, but learn from them.

No matter what technology you use. Make them comfortable and confident. You are a good person. Take it easy and keep on doing your good work. I am really glad to meet you. :-)

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:55:36 +0000

Dan,
Don’t give up. You are on the right track. Remeber, as I just learned the other day, “the journey of a thousand miles, starts with the first step”

Start small, introduce something that they all can master, gain their confidence, let them gain confidence. Work with your “new tech toy” for the rest of the year. Then at the beginning of next year, after it’s calmed down, reinforce what they learned last year, handout, training whatever, and then introduce something new. Add water and stir, let bake for 3-4 months and start over. It is a slow process I know but in the end it is worthwile.

Keep on trucking,
Brian

By: dan

dan — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 02:48:47 +0000

I really appreciate all the commentary here. I find myself lacking my usual desire to give, take, and mix it up with y’all in the comments, though, simply because I’m depressed as hell about the low correspondence between enthusiasm and lucidity on this whole tech-in-education issue. All your comments excepted.

My day o’ research ended kinda ugly, I guess. Kinda alienatingly, I guess. It’s left me feeling like this: if I, an open-minded kid with a pretty good facility for current tech, can’t process all the jargon and insider terminology that is in abundance Out There, then what hope does the mainstream have? What hope do I have of explaining it to my faculty?