Studying and the Three Cognitive Revolutions
M-Learning ～ Cybertextual Travelling or a Herald of Post-Modern Education?
Seppo Tella (University of Helsinki)
http://www.seppotella.fi
最終章翻訳課題
□To Finish - or to Start Again
いよいよこのプロジェクトも終盤。
来週から、ディスカッションのはじまり。
途中、m-learningの教授法やインターフェースをもう少し、翻訳し直す必要あり。
最終章にある未来への展望は、インターネットによって確実にグローバルな学びを考えた技術革新や教育システムの発展…その中で真に見つめることとは…
「教育の真理」にほかならないこと。
終わりなき戦い…
Seppo Tella教授の思いが伝わる…
Is m-learning an example of digital culture as defined Jarvinen & Mayra(1999;based on Fomas 1999) as a bunch of customs and habits to communicate?
"Johan Fomas speaks...of the culturalisation of society. He thinks that culture is no longer the top of society nor a thing to be taken for granted; rather, culture can be seen in our everyday lives more and more clearly as cultural products and, on the whole, as aestheticity. Digital culture is therefore not the same thing as the so-called information or knowledge society, and it is not directly subjected to them. Digital culture consists of a bunch of customs and habits to communicate, to be in contact as well as to interpret and are not marginal from the point of view of society, because culture with its practices is 'a central and multifaceted component of human life'".(Jarvinen & Mayra 1999,17;Tella's translation)
One can admit that these customs and habits are not shared or adopted by everybody. On the contrary, they are changeable and modifiable, as customs and habits should be, unless they have already grown into routines or, at the organisational level. into collective habitualisation. Questioning all these calls for an active attitude from all actors and changing them usually implies a conceptual turn in their minds. At the individual level, a conceptual turn usually means annoyance or anger, as one feels compelled to change something in one's own behaviour or position taking. In general, this "cognitive" anger is easily alleviated when the place from time to time, the individual might become a slave to custom and finally remain stuck to the magnetism of the ability to conceptualise things and to give them new meanings, that is, the ability to rename things and phenomena and to reflect on their interrelationships by means of a conceptual analysis.
An environment that is conducive to conceptual turns is sometimes characterised as the knowledge - use perspective (e.g., Huberman 1985). This kind of perspective presupposes that the persons involved construct new knowledge and relate it to their normal environment of action. It is then important to be cognisant of the fact that personal needs are often context-bound and lead to various situational solutions. And because they are context-bound, we will have to be able to tie theoretical knowledge to those practical contexts that help us develop our working and studying environments and this way, perhaps, to sort out in advance problems that might arise.
The title of the article questions whether m-learning is cybertextual traveling or a heraid of post-modern education. M-learning is both, beyond any reasonable doubt. It is travelling in cybertextual space but at the same time it manifests many features of post-modern education. But these answers to the question asked in the title do not suffice: we must ask one more question.
Is there any technology that would have been used for that specific purpose for which it was created? "A fine invention, but for what?", one often asks. This is true in m-learning as well. We are just in the beginning, but the length of the path is difficult estimate and we do not know whether the path we have chosen leads to anywhere.
Why m-learning? Why is it now so fashionable and in vogue? How else could we call this present-day phenomenon? To med, e-learning is already passe, though it still seems to be the herald of very many commercial enterprises and businesses. In the same way, is the eEurope programme of the European Commission up to date or simply la neige d'antan? Without being cynical, one should ask what added value that prefix e or m gives to learning. In 2001, when visiting a London bookshop, I came across a book about e-learning and its potential, but the book was published in the early 1970s and it dealt with tape recorders and overhead projectors! E is clearly ambiguous and out of fashion. How about other letters of the alphabet? Perhaps the next stage is g-learning, some kind of global learning, in role. Then we should perhaps retort that even now only 4% of the world's population access the Internet. How about u-learning, universal learning? Could that be close enough to that ideal of ubiquitous computing that Joseph Weizenbaum spoke of in the 1970s by claiming that we will be in the information society as soon as information technology becomes as invisible as any Bic pen on our desks. UniWear or computer-supported clothing could be and already is a materialisation of this idea. In smart clothes, technology is invisible and yet it protects and helps us in danger. And imagine how uni-learning might appeal to Finnish speakers at least! Universal and, playing with words, even learning when asleep!
Once and for all: different letter prefixes promote selling, they appeal to people and help catch their attention, but strictly speaking they are futile and unnecessary, because, as philosophers have put it, in the end, all unessential features are washed away. So why m-learning, why not simply learning? Why e-learning, when learning would tell it all? We are approaching the heart of the matter when we can afford to wash away unnecessary prefixes and when the construct itself, once again, can be seen: learning and education. In distance education this change has already happened, at least in many thinking people's minds. Why underline that education can happen at a distance or face-to-face or flexi-mode? This should be evident to all without any descriptive prefixes in front of the basic idea of education.
And one we are mature enough to speak of teaching, studying and learning as such, then, ironically, we are bound to come across one more novel "revolutionary" technology or tool that makes its best to catch our eye and mind. It is then if ever that we should remember what Picasso said about computers:"Computers are no use; they can only give us answers."What about mobile technologies? Are they also there just giving us answers? Well, if they are, then is it not up to us to start asking those questions that must also be asked in education, irrespective of tools, applications or technologies?