The Graham Family of Schools are dedicated to helping students become life long, self-directed learners who are knowledgeable about the communities that they inhabit, and are becoming connected to them. We hope to share with others what we do and how we do it. Here's a start on the ways that we think about technology and its relationship to the teaching and learning that we do at our schools -- The Graham School, The Charles School at Ohio Dominican University, and the new Graham Expeditionary Middle School
Definitions and Perspectives
· Education should facilitate student learning -- The raison d’etre of education–is helping learners learn; that is, helping students achieve their educational goals and meet their needs, including some they may not know they have. There is certainly a political economy surrounding learning and schooling, but fundamentally we want to focus on how students can enhance their own learning.
· The critical components of learning include students, teachers, resources and context.
· Contexts both constrain and facilitate learning.
· Connected learning is the preferred term to describe the dynamics of technology-mediated learning.
Contextual Issues of Digital Media and Learning
· The interdependence of technology, markets and policies of communication media define their own unique spatial and temporal biases.
· Digital media have characteristics that distinguish them from other media resources and connecting devices for students and faculty including: interactivity, immediacy, multi-media and hypertext, organizational culture and values, and digitalization.
· The trajectory of change in digital media is on an exponential development curve.
· There is tension in transforming higher education between the needs for both efficiency and creativity.
· Successful learning in information rich contexts requires successful collaboration.
· Ownership of intellectual property is a major challenge for connected learning.
Learners, Content, Teaching and Pedagogy
· The information society can be characterized as a context of information abundance. Most educational institutions are based on assumptions of information scarcity.
· Problem-based learning, constructivism, and educational reform all suggest that the connections between and among faculty, students and resources, require a different approach than the one that has been traditionally practiced by educational institutions.
