Transcript for Half serious introduction to a WEB 2 course

Hello, I'm Andreas Formiconi, my background was in physics and

during the first 20 years I have been doing research in the field of tomographic reconstruction in nuclear medicine

then, I found myself teaching computer literacy in many curricula of the Medical School and in some other contexts

and now I'm taking care of an experimental course on WEB 2 at the Italian Congress of Nuclear Medicine that will be held in Firenze in March 2009

Rather then a course we are proposing a path throughout the WEB 2.0 territory

starting now, in September, and ending at the congress in March 2009

All the instructions are in Internet (http://infomedfi.pbwiki.com/aimn09) this is just a short presentation to let you know the facilitator

and to suggest you the mood of this new way of teaching and learning

First of all we have to specify that we are living in the so called "exponential times"

The amount of unique new technical information is doubling every couple of years

Performances of computers and networks per unit of cost grow in a similar way

Students who had just started a four year technical degree or college will find that

half of what they learned in their first year of study would be obsolete by their third year of school

All this means that we are facing a huge educational problem

Ops!

Let us describe the mood .. we could talk in an academic fashion recalling

the last learning theories such as constructivism and connectivism but

in such a short time the use of some kind of images or metaphores will be more effective

Just a couple of points

I'm going to use a bucolic metaphor .. the metaphor of the shepherd

every breeder knows that in a herd free to graze

animals are much healthier and produce better with respect to one breeded

in a stall where the breeder must determine all the aspects of their life

so you see how animals have a choice of food in the pasture

and they are perfectly capable to choose what is more appropriate for them

they feel well that way because they "are made to behave like that"

despite the long lasting domestication

The shepherd's role is not about determining all aspects of animals life

it's about taking animals in a context where they can eat autonomously

Last learning theories assume that humans "are made to learn"

and criticize the 19th century classroom centric model with the teacher pouring knowledge into learners minds

this model appears to be very inadequate for our exponential times

a new vision of the educator's role is emerging: that of "facilitator" instead of teacher

the facilitator's role it's about taking students in a context where they can learn autonomously

thus, the learner is able to learn autonomously in the context provided by the facilitator

as the animal is able to feed autonomously

a behaviour developed through a very long evolution process

even the learning attitude of humans developed through a long evolution process

whereas the classroom centric model, applied at mass level, is very recent, being born in the 19th century

a large part of the astonishing human cultural evolution took place before the 19th century

This was the first point and you will focus it further by participating to the course

Now to the second point. This is an ecosystem, a beautiful ecosystem

we are in a wood there are our goats that are feeding freely

the physical ecosystem that is so important to us, to our lives

however, there is a second ecosystem, that of ideas and knowledge in Internet

be careful, this is not in contrast with books

it's not about setting old methods against new ones

books are fundamental to us and probably they will be so in the future

but certainly, human knowledge is completely available in the Internet, if not yet very soon

and there you can connect with all pieces of knowledge and with all peers with similar interests

Well, one may still think that expensive technologies are required to connect

no, I can sit in this wood preparing lectures and connecting with my 500-700 students per year

using this small computer without hard disk, weighting a couple of pounds, 300€, 100€ the modem

next year it will cost the half, later on probably almost nothing, being even more powerful

to be connected is no more a question of complicated technologies or costs

Concluding, we can state that what we believe to be in the future is available now

probably, what we need is a kind of mind switch to realize it and take advantage of new possibilities

There is nothing else left to say but to wish you good luck if you like to participate

in that case, we will meet on March 21, 2009 at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Firenze