Role of Teachers in an Online Environment

 

    The TED talk by Sugata Mitra was really inspiring, but I was left with a lot of questions about the overall effectiveness of his studies, and how they would translate to an American classroom today.  Granted, his points about why education was what it was during the days of the British Empire, and why that model is obsolete today, are convincing.  He also makes valid points when he discusses the jobs of today, and what they might be like in the future.  We definitely need to adapt our models of education to prepare young people for a future that will be more interconnected and technology based than ever before.  We also need to make sure our students have knowledgable guides to help them as they utilize this technology in responsible and productive ways.  This is one role that teachers are slowly moving into in these more modern technology based classroom environments.

    While Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall studies seem to show some impressive outcomes, I feel that there are aspects of it I would need to know more about to be fully comfortable with his described results.  In his descriptions of dropping off computers in rural villages he says that students were browsing, playing games, and also learning a great deal about DNA sequencing in English, a language that was not their native tongue.  This is impressive regardless of the problems I have with his description of what they learned.  I noticed during his talk that Sugata Mitra did not mention anything about whether the children of these rural villages had total internet access, or if the large amounts of information on the computers were just internal files.  This could also be the case with some of the games they were playing.  Were there any guardrails to keep the students on only certain games and DNA sequencing files?  Having complete internet access in a rural Indian village in 2010-2013 would be a challenge.  I feel that his study produces great results regardless, but I would be less skeptical if he explained all of the parameters in which his study was conducted.  

    It is my belief that students need limited guidance by teachers while navigating an online environment in a school setting.  Sometimes this can simply involve checking in on progress, words of encouragement, or even direct guidance to help students navigate a step of a process that may be taking place in class.  There are many rabbit holes that we can go down and easily become distracted with on the internet (even the teachers).  I am guilty of this all the time.  The number of web sites in the world has grown exponentially in recent years, and there is plenty potential for distraction from educational goals.  I 

discovered (especially during distance learning) that students may need very little guidance, and some may need more at times.  I believe that using an online environment in class works best when a teacher sets the stage of the learning by introducing what is trying to be achieved through the activity, allowing the students to navigate the space to discover information and make their own conclusions with the teacher acting as a resource to help guide them when necessary.  I believe in giving them the freedom to discover answers to the questions they seek for an activity, find information to support their answers, and hopefully enjoy what they are doing as they learn.  However, I do think a teacher has a responsibility to guide when necessary, and also monitor for internet safety in the school setting.  Whether intentional or inadvertent, there will be students off task and potentially in unsafe internet spaces at times.  A teacher can help guide them back to the task at hand when this happens.  At times in my school, teachers use Go Guardian, and can see when students are utilizing the internet for things other than the task at hand, and it is useful to help get them back on the task at hand.  I am by no means anti-internet or pessimistic about using online environments for learning.  I simply think there are too many unknowns about the studies in the the TED talk, and have personal experience in trying to maintain on task behaviors in the classroom while doing online tasks.  The students are usually great working on these tasks, and love doing them, but I definitely see the role of the teacher in these activities as being minimal at times, but also very important overall.