Designing a New Learning Environment
Channel: Paul Kim
Date: 18/09/2012

Learning Technology Design & Sustainability

For more info, please visit http://venture-lab.org/education/

I have traveled to extremely underserved communities around the world. 
I wanted to learn more about what might help an education model to work in 
communities of low SES with numerous challenges.
From refugee camp schools to rural village schools and from urban slum shelter schools to indigenous tribal schools, I have visited quite a few places called schools around the world.  Some of them weren't really schools and some of them had passionate volunteers planting seeds of hope and empowerment.
For successful schools, there were great teachers regardless of 
how difficult the environment and condition may be.
Many students in such environments are burdened with daily challenges 
in and out of homes and classrooms.
If I find successful students out of such challenged communities, 
I often found students demonstrating more non-cognitive traits than cognitive traits.
Non-cognitive traits often have to do with self-regulatory behaviors or 
setting and working towards clear future goals.
I saw self-determination or iron-will, making a substantial impact 
on their academic achievements and lives.
Therefore, motivating students and planting seeds of hope and empowerment have become one of my utmost important interests.

Also, with help of local NGOs and international foundations, 
I was able to implement various types of technology tools for 
students in underserved communities.
By doing so, I learned that technology can increase access and efficiency 
and also enhance pedagogy and student interactions in a learning environment.
What I also found was that benefits from technology can substantially compensate for 
numerous shortcomings in challenged communities. 
For those students who wanted to make a difference in themselves, 
technology played as a powerful tool.
That's one of the reasons why I am more interested in helping students of
communities in need with technology to overcome challenges. 
With technology becoming more powerful and more affordable, 
I see more opportunities in education.

However, I adopt technology discriminately. Technology needs to be well designed 
and contextualized to be effective. 
It is often not a piece of hardware that might make a difference in education. 
It's the complete model that integrates technology and pedagogy. 
How to implement is also as important as how it is designed or developed.
How to contextualize it to be effective and sustaining your education model 
is the bulk of the discussion in this class.

I met with many school-age children, teachers, parents, stakeholders, and 
ministers of education, science, and technology from various countries 
to discuss education challenges. 

I also met with educational researchers and professors from around the world.
Obviously, many people are interested in technology, but I am more interested in 
generating learnable moments.

Many people are interested in distributing hardware, but I am more interested 
in designing and sharing pedagogies that can effectively take advantage of technology of today. 

We also need another piece in the education technology puzzle.
We need someone to inspire students with wisdom. 
If that someone is equipped with the knowledge of pedagogy and technology of today, 
that someone is called a teacher of the 21st century.

Many people want to come up with education technology solutions that sell, 
but I am more interested in effective education technology solutions that sustain.
Many people have learned what ADDIE model was
to come up with an instructional program or technology.
but I am more interested in discussing ADDIES model.

ADDIE model is one of terms students learn in an instructional design 101 class. 
ADDIES model is something students would learn in my class. 
I wonder why people, yet do not talk much about sustainability issues in learning technology discussions.

It will be a shame if we learned how to design and implement all the innovation, 
but if we could not make it stick.

This class is actually a simulation of ADDIES with a
strong emphasis on designing for sustainability.

Unless we examine and understand education at an ecosystematic level, designing, 
implementing, and sustaining a solution is virtually impossible. 
To me, there is no universal solution that fits all scenarios and contexts. 
Therefore, conducting a thorough needs analysis is crucial before start designing a solution. 

We must be able to describe an educational scenario after conducting 
a thorough needs analysis. 
In fact, one of assignments in this course is to describe a 
challenging educational scenario you are interested in.
In order to help you with such assignments, I will talk about 
ecosystematic views of education and where to start to design 
a sustainable education technology solution later in this course.