Steve+Heuristic+2

** Hidden assumptions structure educational values, changing the assumptions demands changing the values. ** Educational theorist all the way back to John Dewey (Wikipedia, nd) have talked about the hidden curriculum in schools; as the outcomes or by-products of schooling, particularly those states which are learned but not openly intended. Schools do more than teach, they inculcate students to a social class, a political viewpoint and a collection of cultural values. One such value is that placed on the possession of knowledge. Students from upper class social groups were enculturated to value knowledge, to pursue academic subjects (with the idea of future tertiary studies) and to thrive in the performance culture of demonstrating possession of that knowledge, as reflected in external assessment (e.g. the Higher School certificate). Working class students were channeled into ‘technical’ and applied subjects (viz. the new VET subjects), were not given the expectation of further studies, and learned that scholarliness was ‘nerdy’ and not to be admired. Possession of knowledge was seen as the key to social progression, and so proof of that possession, as demonstrated in examination results, was metaphorically, the ‘keys to the kingdom’.
 * Heuristic 2 **

What would transpire, however, if the ontological status of knowledge changed? What if knowledge was cheap and ubiquitous, rather than ‘the keys to the kingdom’? How would the educational system need to change? Changes in the nature of knowledge and its ‘availability’ may fuel changes in the nature of learning, and in the hidden curriculum. Berge (2005) considers that we are transitioning from an industrial age to a communication age, however, this change is not yet reflected in our schools. The hidden curriculum of schools still reflects the requirements of the assembly line: mass education, reduced student course choice, timetables and compulsory attendance and divisions of labour. There is a growing tension between a society in transformation due to technological changes, and an education system born in an earlier age, and resisting change.

The current heuristic was inspired by Tan & McWilliam (2008), who, reflecting on this tension, described a ‘divide’ in popular teenage culture between ‘digital kids’ and ‘diligent students’. Traditional educational (the hidden curriculum previously mentioned) values a performance ethic, so that ‘diligent students’ are expected to achieve high levels of performance in traditional academic tasks such as external exams, that justifies them earning the ‘keys to the kingdom’. However, the web has changed the nature of knowledge, just as did the invention of the printing press. Knowledge has become ubiquitous and ‘cheap’, available everywhere. Educational establishments are slowly responding to this new milieu, and promoting the use of Web 2.0 technologies. ‘Digital kids’ are the new inhabitants of this changed milieu, and successful adoption of this milieu demands a different set of aptitudes.

Tan & McWilliam (2008) extracted some dimensions from a student survey concerning their utilization of a web based student media centre. The first was // learning disposition – //the academic goals students wish to achieve. This dimension was polarized into // learning goals – // a desire to develop new skills, master new tasks or understand new things – versus // performance goals – //focusing on winning positive judgement of your competence and avoiding negative ones. Diligent students focused on performance goals, digital kids focused on learning goals. Further, a performance orientation meant that students tended to give up if they couldn’t complete tasks. Alternatively, a learning goal focus meant that students could tolerate error without self blame. This aptitude was styled as // cognitive playfulness – //a predisposition towards curiosity, inventiveness and the desire to play with new ideas and innovations.

Tan & McWilliam (2008) found that // Learning Disposition // and // Cognitive Playfulness // accounted for around 25% of the variance in predicting successful utilization and uptake of Web 2.0 digital resources. Even more predictive was // Perceived Ease of Use //and // Perceived Usefulness. //However, for the point at issue, success in utilizing the new technologies demand aptitudes more inline with digital natives rather than diligent students.

Schuck et al. (2010) characterizes the difference between // formal education // and // informal education // roles and how they relate to young peoples engagement with Web 2.0 technology. Web use, social networking, blogging, wikis, social bookmarking, SMSing and other new communication technologies are ‘de riguer’ for young people; they use this technology as if born into it. Educationalists lust after this level of engagement, and mistakenly, identified the technology as the enabling factor (c.f. Heuristic 1). Students have taken this technology to further their informal education (the social networking and communication with peers), but this does not mean that they will enthusiastically adopt the technology to pursue their formal education (academic and school based studies leading to formal qualifications). The use of this technology in informal education allows adolescents a high level of group interactivity, self-publishing, creativity, self-expression and peer group ‘norming’. Adolescents are extremely engaged by these communication modes; I have observed students in a covered outdoor playground area, all busily and feverishly texting on their phones with no verbal interaction. A chance remark by one student – “You don’t really mean that” – revealed that they were actually texting each other. Even though they were in physical proximity to each other, they still preferred to communicate by SMS.

 However, this level of engagement does not automatically transfer to formal education, as witnessed by the slow uptake of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom (Schuck et al., 2010). As an example from my own teaching experience, I had lengthy conversations with my Year 12 students about the need for revision for the HSC and how this was hard to maintain. We agreed to try using a wiki as a revision tool: I provided syllabus stubs and each student provided a summary of that piece of work, along with a worked example. The idea was that students would then edit, revise, simplify and elaborate these postings, and collaboratively evolve a revision document. It seemed like a great application of Web 2.0 technology to formal educational needs.

However, reality begged to differ. The students really disliked using the wiki. When we talked about it, one of the major problems was that they didn’t want to trust to other students to complete work, they didn’t want to rely on others. The ‘diligent student’ ethic meant that they were quite competitive, and saw their success as modified by the success of others. The other problem they uniformly talked about was that if they get on the net, they are ‘irresistibly drawn to Facebook’ i.e. they find it easy to be distracted by social networking sites. This heuristic may be premature, but it does appear that a revolution is taking place in the way knowledge is disseminated. This change in the underlying knowledge economy may lead to radical changes in the hidden curriculum of schools; we may witness a shift from performance outcomes to learning outcomes. Until these hidden values affect the traditional structures of education, such as summative assessment that overly values the regurgitation of knowledge, there may be barriers to the full adoption and successful utilization of Web 2.0 technologies.