Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age: Digital Narrative Learning and Navigating Through
The Threat of Zombie Education
By: Sarah MK Ko, November 24th, 2010
Introduction to Blog #3 and the Zombie Education
A vital part of teaching is to understand the information we search and use for various purposes. That blogged, education begins with online readings, at the very least, as not to keep local education at the state of stagnant innovation, or in what I refer to, more or less, as The Zombie Education.
In a nutshell, the Zombie Education Theory posits that if students don't take advantages of Qwiki or similar digital tools or platforms, as well as, working beyond it, then, it is doomed to be in a Zombie State. Zombie Education Theory entails the following components,classroom innovation by practice innovation, redesinging the value chain of education ,while mitigating the risks of Zombie bureacracy. We, as educators, ought to keep learning tools vibrant, to be less risk-averse, and also not just conform to what everyone else is doing, just for the sake of the unanimity. We must strive to be nimble and dynamically diffuse the best of commercial and R&D technology which are student-centered for learning. Within the realm of teacher education, we cannot overlook better teaching methods.
Zombie educators are confined as either later adopters or those sitting ducks at the expense of wearing nameplates to appease to obsolete technology, or no innovation whatsoever, due to laziness, bureaucracy, the Zombie’s veil of ignorance,and the darkness ensuing theZombie’s dormant and languid sleep.
Introduction to Qwiki
Without further adieu, one digital platform, which I consider pivotal as a breakthrough at the cusp of Web 2.0’s maturity and advent of applicable Semantic Web, is nothing short of Qwiki, or what I coin a “quick awakening.” Qwiki, I believe, is not the perfect classroom tool of instruction; however, it does surpass the current way of the Zombie Educators in Montréal, Québec and in other parts of the world.
What is Qwiki?
What is Qwiki? Qwiki is the next generation of Wikipedia. Wikis are 2.0 web applications that are user-generated, but now, Qwiki mines those wikis and the sea of websites. Qwiki, then brings out the definition from Wikis by turning it into concise multimedia clips in the form of animated video, à lanarrative exploiting facts and a picture slide-shows with associated graphs, charts, images, history and timeline, to enhance one's “information experience” online through watching and listening.So, this would be a natural benchmark for processing and strategically assembling the information to better fit the overall learning curves of each online visitor—thanks to its creators, Louis Monier and Doug Imbruce. The Qwiki platform, or sometimes informally known as the “talking search engine,” may forever transform our experience interacting with the internet, while we grapple and learn as educators ourselves to gauge this emerging quality of information.
Qwiki Success/Social Recognition
The overwhelming public reaction to this successor can only incite more hoopla: in last September, Qwiki won the TechCrunch Disrupt Competition in San Francisco.Currently, Qwiki works on any device through its APIs.
Benefits of Qwiki
What are the benefits of Qwiki for Québec students? Qwiki presents definitions or explanations in English. Because Qwiki provides the flow of information within its context featuring short multimedia clips, students who lack English-speaking intructors will find this as an extremely resourseful tool. Teachers can potentially augment the lesson plan with other segments surrounding the topic with ease. Also, the Qwiki is a great primer for learning when there is information over-load, yet in a manner that retains the unabridged flow of information through the a host of clips. At any point, the students may interact in a discussion setting to reflect on such presentations. Librarians, too, face an information over-load—so, can they too, support students?Once again, the Qwikis I believe are great "stepping stones" at the libraries.
In the future, Qwiki can compete with language learning softwares such as RosettaStone, which in turn, through competition of such offerings, can afford greater room with private solutions to its intended recipients, whose lion’s shareare individual learners, if not through the schools and the government.
Limits of Qwiki
Although Qwiki brings information together in a matter of seconds to help you absorb the information through the experience, it has many limitations, which are: Qwiki fails to explain the context or definition in easier steps for younger children; it packages the media and visuals, without learning about the users' preferences (or through the individual’s progress in accumulated knowledge and his or her speed of processing it); people cannot respond interactively to the Qwiki moderator, thus, users can only passively search; and Qwiki is just a great starting point for any work to be conducted. Qwiki should be accompanied as a search tool, after a student works with a dictionary, thesaurus or a real encyclopedia (ie., Britannica ) and can be reinforced with classroom discussions.
However, too much emphasis on Qwiki and "quick learning" through dependence on such platforms can deter students from building actual research skills. It is beneficial for students to acquire information on their own through that “sea of information,” while becoming capable of working through that overload and filtering what is important.
Equally important, learners cannot dismiss tools, such as Qwiki, but also use them to empower their owns ways of researching.
Implications from the Use of Qwiki
One may wonder then, if this new digitally, powered technology or a “moderator,” such as a robot can be substitute for real classroom teachers. Can computers, or robots, ever replace teachers? My response to this hypothetical question is that even though Qwiki does come with a coherent and human-like voice, it is essentially embodying the basic fundamentals of "artificial intelligence," which could lead expert programs to think as humans do. For now, applications of it simply can bolster teachers who often deal with information overload and have to sort and sift through it to prepare meaningful discussions—even during times of tight schedules.
Qwiki as it stands today also poses risks, irrevocably on both sides. I stated that practice innovation, is required—to a point, but unabated—to move facilities for governing the state of education from the status quo. However, on the other side, Qwiki arguably can possess risks if everyone uses it without considering the other results that might prove to be worthwhile if a search on information was conducted by other means. Hence, if Qwiki is used mindlessly the way Zombies do, then the innovation itself presents a double-standard.
Teachers, nevertheless, will need to be at the forefront of integrating technology to better cater the learning experiences, while seeing to it any improvements technology can bring to the live discussions altogether.
From the outset, more students in universities are now making use of clickers (and pointers) to allow the electronic platforms to record their statistics, and pass it to the Professor who monitors class performance in aggregate, while promulgating the responses as the class presentations progress onward. We are not far away from having technology converge with that of the Qwiki platform. I foresee that Qwiki can, in the near future, very well may complement in-classroom clicking, to simultaneously monitor and lead video presentations which can be instantaneously produced in real-time cadence with group responses. The university setting as a whole can be developed in this way as a means to implement the classroom innovation, in order to prevent the university from entering the Zombie state.
Since Qwiki's power is "machine-driven," it has a potential to filter the information from online university lectures (November 5th article in the NYT) and have it delivered into shorter clips. Once again, as a caveat, for online learning, its dilemma is that it is an alternative to expanding the size of the classroom by having administrators embrace the idea, however the quality of the medium can only go so far. Adminstrators and students, who are part of this new wave of electronic learning platforms, seem to embrace everything online or made comfortable for our lives via technology. Although we cannot overlook the possibilites of which technology can bring, we cannot also contribute to the Zombie Education by following what’s in the double standard. We commit to a Zombie state if we use online education simply because we believe that efficiency and comfort (online teaching without class size limits) may outweigh the costs (of a regular, smaller class per teacher). We cannot compromise the value of learning simply when the method itself may reduce the quality that the experience can afford. Therefore, we must, as stated in my self-acclaimed Zombie Education Theory, redesign the value chain of education to preserve the utmost quality of education to the learners.
The Last Word: To Sofalize, or not to Sofalize as Zombies do?
I wonder how often teachers and students “sofalize” in the classroom, without knowing it. Sofalizing is a word to explain this new trend: how one can communicate with friends from a laptop or smartphone, while lounging on a sofa; in a school setting, students can use hand-held devices and laptops to carry away their conversations, and often directly with their teachers, if need be. Now that students and teachers have the access toQwiki on their PCs, they can sofalize once more.
Why not, with a penchant for being Zombie-like again, if carried away? The school needs to be creative, yet be mindful of not becoming another lounge, or a digital playground, no matter the proper restraints.Within safe confines, though, Qwiki does have the potential of reshaping our intended goals in education, as it is also changing the realm of when, how and where students and teachers can learn interactively—together. Students learn where it is most comfortable for them: the home for learning, aka, classroom, sits behind the monitor screen!
We as educators often delight in having technology guide us in our ways to better teach our youth, yet we cannot over-indulge in it to the point that students are afraid of learning actively as participants in a live setting. Do students who—use technology as if it were a Zombie state—rather prefer to learn indoors, independently and alone? Which parent, tax payer, or student facing hefty tuition bills, wish to see the institutes that we cherish would resort to this cost-effective manner? Zombie education and its shortcomings are therefore present in every new technology.
How more fitting when the present day brain-child of Jimmy Wales, its non-profit founder, can no longer improve the wiki experience, exacerbated by shortcomings in funding it.
According to Qwiki, it “is the world’s first information experience, powered by a technology that transforms static information into interactive stories.” Another direct quote, this time from Qwiki's headline is, "Qwiki will power many products via a platform that turns information into an experience."
Qwiki does keep a Blog that is packed with insights:
http://blog.Qwiki.com
http://blog.Qwiki.com/2010/10/21welcome-to-Qwiki/
In a matter of seconds, Qwiki will without requiring people to contribute to the instantaneous production of facts and slideshows will gather them for the user.
Formerly, founder of AltaVista search engine, which gained popularity prior to Yahoo! and Google.
Users cannot “talk” to search engine by orally requesting a search. The search engine rather “talks” aloud the search findings and pertinent results.
Qwiki, at this event demonstrated the information experience through an iPhone and later, on the iPad. The future of Qwiki is clearly heading in the direction of making its service available to similar interactive learning tools.
The student who has no background information who wishes to learn about Oslo can obtain quality information in a concise manner compared to making reference to a dictionary, an atlas, or an encylopedia. For other fine details, if the students were to research on the religious culture of the people living in Oslo, then there would be a good chance that searching online may be as difficult without the aid of a Qwiki reference. I am not sure how much students will be lost in the sea of information when inefficient searches are conducted.
The use of Rosetta Stone presented as case studies in education sector:
http://www.rosettastone.com/schools/what-people-say/case-studies
So both are important tools. The teacher should sedulously ponder the implications on the sole dependence of Qwiki-esque platforms, and also use it efficiently only to the point that the tool doesn't become harmful to be detrimental to the student's growth in processing information.
Otherwise, if classrooms are not significantly integrated with benefits of technology, then the self-imposed constraints befall to thrive in the Zombie Education. Hence, what Qwiki brings education is unfettered with innovation.
Moving forward withclassroom innovation,as Professors gear their lecture halls with hand-held devices, which are used by students in universities, technology in that incidence will hopefully increase class participation in “real time.”
The direction of education blossoming with these kinds of technological developments is correlated with a growing number of educators, such as professors, encouraging the use of hand-held devices (as it was exemplified in Chicago universities) and ways to explore their diligence in quality teaching. Hand-held devices are able to provide the entire class with real-time poll and survey of their own responses—which obviously enhances participation (while those reserved with other opinions can feel free to join the statistics without fear of rejection). Qwiki can add to this layer of real-time, aggregated feedback by producing videos to make the experience more meaningful (and probably later, to be catered to statistics in those moments).
Online courses are more prevalent and readily accepted by top universities. A Floridian University goes as far as to providing lectures in real-time video, without requiring students to ever set foot in class (convenient for students; for halls with limited seating) as podcasts: http://www.nfytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/05college.html?src=me&ref=general
The readers on New York Times have commented most of their disdain at online lectures, November, 5th 2010:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/05college.html
“26% of web users prefer online chats to time with friends” article on Sofalizing:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=3247891
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