Media & Technology Group
Notes on Chintan Shivir @ IISER, Pune. 25-26 March 2023
1. Definition of Technology: Technology is seen in the broader context, not only as electronic/information/digital form. From this perspective, the present gadgets/instruments are present in the classroom just as other technologies (for example, similar to a blackboard).
2. Social construction of technology: by this we mean technology should be shaped and driven by society, and not the other way round. Participation of all the players in the educational framework in the development of artistic, user-driven materials and the tools that make the creation of such relevant artefacts, including digital tools, should be treated as a key enabler.
3. Technology and teachers: the teacher’s role will be fundamentally changed, not removed, in a technology oriented classroom. Some of the classical and cherished ideas about learning, and the learning process, will have to be reimagined.
4. Reimagining learning: technology should not recreate what was done, and the way things were done, before the technology (presently known and future technologies) became accessible.
5. Agency and empowerment of learners: technology should empower children to become producers of knowledge, not merely consumers of knowledge.
6. Access principle: last mile connectivity must be created and established in an accessible manner, as an enabler of a right, and we should strive for that. We should prepare our pedagogies for a future when this is achieved.
7. Affirmative action on using Open Educational Resources and Free and Open Source Software in the educational context. This is particularly important from the perspective of encouraging young minds to adopt attitudes and disciplines of being producers and contributors of knowledge and knowledge spaces, and not be treated as consumers of content created via a hierarchical and potentially alien, commercial, and centralised provider system.
The video of the Plenary session is unlisted on youtube… but can be accessed with this link…
Thank you @john for sharing the segment of video so fast. looking forward.
Also I would encourage all my friends on #adazmaidan to take a look at a film on education. Click here to watch
The video recording of the full session on Media and Technology has been uploaded here, and the post to which this and the post notifying the upload of the session video are replies, are the summary bullet points.
We encourage everyone to kindly take the time to listen to the presentation, in which the points were described to the fullest extent in the first 8-10 minutes, and also to the rest of the 20 minutes, where a vigorous discussion, through requests for clarification and challenges to the points made, took place in the form of Q&A.
This will be made duly available in text form as continuing posts in this thread. The floor is also open to queries and discussions on points that may not have been raised during the live session itself, and points that may occur to readers of this thread that can add more value.