MLP

Adapted from http://npdl.global/

In the sometimes fraught discussions around MLP, there remains a fear. I have heard teachers furtively discussing concerns around screen time, the lack of socialisation, or its reverse - the overabundance of socialisation. I have sat through turbid whole school professional development around Digital Citizenship in a sea of tired, disaffected faces. The acclaimed scientist Conrad Gessner was possibly one of the first to address issues about digital environments. His awareness of how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind, is now a commonly repeated concern.1 Gessner was deeply concerned about the latest technology, as many teachers are today. For Gessner, this technology was the book. Not that I feel we should necessarily discount these concerns, but when it comes to Modern Learning Pedagogies, following Gessner's advice is probably not the best step.

When I started teaching I was brimming with confidence. Confidence is key in the classroom, a fine line between confidence and arrogance in the presentation towards a class full of twelve year olds goes along way as, subconsciously maybe,  you try and mirror them. I was infused with excitement of the wero ahead, I had a six week practicum of experience and a desire to enact change. So over the course of my first two years of teaching, I removed the bars from the windows in my classroom- a classy subtraction that really added to the MLE environment; covered some the windows, so as to improve the dramatic throw of the projector; removed half of the desks in the classroom and brought in these jellybean chairs that were good for collaborative practice; gone was the teacher desk, in its place were learning walls, blogs, google classrooms. A panoply of "best practice" and digital landscapes. 

I don't look back ruefully at these first experiments with my teaching practice, and with some I am envious of my ambition. But currently I am much more conservative, aiming not to alienate the students from their ideas about their education and aiming for collaboration, not cooption.  

This article passes a critical eye at Modern Learning Pedagogies, not an overtly skeptical one because I feel that teaching and learning are probably subject to changes in this developing future age of learning and I feel teachers need to be, if not on the cutting edge, certainly not as concerned as Gessner was.