Interactive Presentations: How Much Chaos Can You Stand?
Below is an article from TechLearning.com:
November 15, 2008
Groupthink for Good
Kevin Hogan
from Tech&Learning
The future classroom as seen at Techforum
To be honest, the initial reaction I had to the crowd assembled at Tech&Learning’s Techforum keynote event last month in Palisades, NY, was annoyance. How rude was it for so many to be typing on laptops or glancing at handhelds while edtech guru David Warlick was on stage speaking?
But in fact, Warlick encouraged it. He directed people to his own and other Web sites as the lecture was also broadcast over the Web. At the same time, audience members “back channeled”— that is, chatted online about the action in the room via Twitter and instant messaging. How meta! At times, even Warlick was hunched over his own laptop, opening a new application or checking his buddy list.
It was a eureka moment of sorts for me—so this is what the classroom of the future will look like. Not one lecturer spouting by rote to mute recipients, but true interactive learning—groupthink in a positive sense—with the presenter, or, teacher, acting as the maestro; teachers and students alike swimming in a mixed media sea of information, pulling out relevant bits, debating over the merits, and assessing their progress as they go. Some more beauty with this process: the amassed results of the event are stored for your review and critique. Go to our Techforum page and join in. Watch the archived Webstream, read through the assorted discussion, and access the other resources yourself. Then add your own thought by emailing me or post your thoughts to our Forums page.
Now think to yourself: wouldn’t it be nice to run a classroom this way?
Now, I’ve been to a number of Warlick’s presentations an have even met him a few times, both when I was a classroom teacher and as a district Tech Coordinator. How nice it was to have contact with someone who would become such a national guru on the subject of edtech. The article above is a realistic description of one of Warlick’s presentations. Not only is he not phased by the amount of activity that occurs in the audience while he is speaking, he encourages it from the very beginning.
One of my first experiences with a wiki involved Warlick opening his presentation by directing us to a website, creating an account and taking notes on the workshop wiki. What this created was a number of pages with unique perspectives about what was occurring in the seminar. This, in his opinion, was part of a critical conversation, or story, about the learning that was taking place. I must say, my eyes were truly opened to what could happen inside the classroom – a shift from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side” – the facilitator of learning. In a world where we are bombarded with information, the constructivist nature of learning is showing its head in formal education. This has already happened on the web, considering the rise of “Web 2.0.”
Imagine the implications at the classroom level – the organized chaos, the instant learner interaction and engagement, the quantum leap from knowledge to evaluation in the time it takes to deliver a presentation. By the time one is finished presenting, the audience has taken in the information, analyzed it, formed an opinion and defended that opinion among a group of fellow learners. While this may be a powerful leap forward in the learning transaction, for some it may seem like a step backward in the area of classroom management.
How much chaos can you take? As a young teacher, this was a tough question for me and as an instructional technologist, this is a question that I must ask of teachers. While the picture of the teacher in front of the class with students intently hanging on every word may seem like an administrator’s dream and the path to a great evaluation, I dare to say if a principal walked into the classroom of the future, this is not what he’d see. I believe that the classroom presentations of tomorrow may look a bit more like a Warlick seminar – teacher in front, using a variety of media to hammer home a point, students on laptops, cell phones or handhelds immediately interacting with the content of the presentation – arguing its validity and impact on their prior knowledge, extending the new information with comments and suggestions, and determining how the new information may be used for a project or activity. While we still have a long way to go here in 27J, this article and approach have some very interesting implications for the future of our classroom presentations.
I’m both exhilarated and terrified by this prospect. I love the free-form nature of it, and the reduction of the ’sage on the stage’, but I’m not so sure I like the idea that ‘truth’ is discovered by committee. How do you keep it from being a contest for who can out-shout the others best?
[Reply]
November 18, 2008
Thanks for reading (wasn’t sure if anyone was out there)! I’m not sure that it’s necessarily “truth by committee.” I think it is more of a call for a more constructivist approach that closely mirrors the participatory culture outside of our classrooms. Constructivist learning occurs when learners actively create their own knowledge by trying to make sense out of material that is presented to them through building mental models, metaphors or arguments for example. New technologies allow our students to collaboratively interact with information and collectively make sense of new information.
I do hear what you are saying about those who can “out-shout” the others, but I think that all teachers actively try to create a culture of safety and learning in their classrooms. While I know that this is an ideal, I do believe that through careful classroom managment, deliberate instructional planning and engaging assessment activities, teachers can come very close to achieving it. We, as adults, with all of our well-formed opinions are able to collectively construct meaning when presented with a problem or challenging content (most of the time). I think that our students be afforded the same opportunity as they progress in their learning.
[Reply]
November 18, 2008
I’m sure you’re right about the teacher as facilitator rather than domineering font of all knowledge, but I’m also afraid that the simple construction of meaning can be swayed by the actions of a persistent few (c.f. wikipedia)
[Reply]
November 18, 2008
Which, I think you’re suggesting (as am I), is where the teacher would step in to help curb misconceptions. I definitely agree with you on that one. I guess the real point of this post is that even lecture/presentation can be interactive and productive (not just from the presenter perspective, but also among those who are “listening”).
[Reply]
November 18, 2008