Are we human or are we dancers
Is Brandon Flowers and KILLERS thinking of eLearning, when he sings this song? Nah! too much to expect. But, listening to this song yesterday for the nth time got me thinking.
So I downloaded the lyrics and tried to look at them this time through the learning eyes. Are we creating eLearning content which is meant for human learning, or are we creating instructional content which is meant to disseminate instructions and hope to provoke expected actions? Maybe we need to “cut the chord” of control and allow a lot of constructivism to take place.
Are we focussed on tactical performance support instead of building on the cognitive infrastructure of learning ? Will our learners sing “
my signs are vital, my hands are cold, And I’m on my knees looking for the answer ” whenever they faced with a problem with a twist? Or, do we expect application of PSS in real life will lead to internalization of learning?
I do see some elements of constructivism and cognitivism in instrcutional design, but most of the content that we encounter today unfortunately does reinformces what Jones, Li, and Merrill [1990] said : “Instruction, in large measure, communicates accepted meaning. The
developer of instruction explicitly desires that the learner adopt themeaning intended by the developer, and not reach a separate and personal
interpretation of that meaning. . . . [M]ost instruction . . . concerns
transferring, as effectively and efficiently as possible, determined
interpretations.”
[1] Jones M.K., Li Z., Merill M.D. Domain Knowledge representation of Instructional Analysis, Educational technology, October 1990, 30(10).
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