One of Alan’s key focuses is that knowledge based learning is no longer necessary since there is so much access to information now. Instead, what is important is an understanding of how to navigate through that information to find what you need, and assignments that adhere to these skills. November, however, insists that effective research is something that most people lack, and therefore says a teacher’s role as more essential than every; especially “in the age of the internet,” competence in this area is a skill that is important (2014). To make his point, he gives an example of one class’s assignment and how it could be improved. He decided that rather than just teach about the “Iranian Hostage Crisis,” a teacher could require their students to research the topic and provide sources from different perspectives, in this case from Iranian sources; but first teachers would need to help them find out methods to do so, such as using “google operators” to gain easy access to Iranian sources (November, 2014). The teacher would be the guiding factor, not vessel of knowledge, and students would learn to use the tool of search engines thoroughly, not on a basic level as most people do. November’s ultimate goal is that education is connected globally, but first teaching and assignments would need a shift from tasks that can easily be answered by the internet, to ones in which internet literacy is learned and leads to completion of the task (2014).
I find this analysis to speak to my field of history highly. Most questions of history can be learned from a simple google search, but as November points out, you can easily require effective research of various perspective. Even from my experiences in college, I found most students do not know how to effectively research academic or scholarly sources, and I am no wizard at this myself. The video really spoke to me in that it promotes student-centered learning, and answered to real world skills. As it implies, we should focus on teaching students to ask “interesting questions,” not answer fact based questions (November, 2014).
References:
November, A. (2014, May 5). Who Owns the Learning? Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/NOAIxIBeT90