Många IKT-entusiaster ha de senaste 20 åren försökt bevisa att datorer är viktiga redskap för framtidens lärande och forskningen har slagit knut på sig för att beskriva vinsterna. Under tiden har den viktigaste utvecklingen pågått bortom all form av planering och kontroll. Nu är det dags att sluta ställa meningslösa frågor om mål och metoder.

Jag hittar bloggen Elearnspace och en lista på frågor som inte längre är relevanta:

1. Is online learning more or less effective than learning in a classroom? Who cares. That question is irrelevant. Society answered the need to use technology through its broad adoption of the web/internet/online medium.

2. Does technology use vary by age? Nonsensical. It would only matter if people couldn’t learn new skills. They can. They do. And most software is easier to use today than it was ten years ago. Motivation, not age, is key.

3. How do learning styles influence learning online? I had a spike in blood pressure this last week when my 14 year old son came home from school and informed me he was a visual learner, but couldn’t learn audibly. They still use destructive classification structures like learning styles in schools? Educators too readily fall for an attractive model that can be easily implemented.

4. What role do blogs or microblogging [insert tool in question] play classroom or online learning? Any role you want. Answers to questions like this don’t exist in advance of exploration.

5. How can educators implement [whatever tool] into their teaching? Simple: do it. With technology, every teacher is a researcher. Find your own answers, don’t appropriate from other contexts.

6. Is connectivism a learning theory? Again, who cares. There is more evidence to support a connectivist view of learning than exists for other theories: nuerology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy support the “connectedness” aspects of knowledge and learning. Similarly, innovations, new ideas, and complex problem solving are driven by surfacing (and fostering desired) connections.

Det känns behagligt att på bästa tonårsvis kunna utbrista i ett befriat:

– Vem bryr sig!

Eller som ett känt skoföretag skulle sagt:

– Just do it!