John Seeley Brown at IU

A sunny spring day welcomed John Seely Brown to the Indiana University campus. According to weather.com, storms were on their way, but the gray skies stayed away. While TB and I didn't have to navigate wet conditions to get to the talk, I'm not sure it was worth the two hours I set aside for it.

First, the room may have been ideal for a luncheon, but it was not adequate for a talk with a large attendance. After a number of people congregated along the fringes of the room, someone got the bright idea to bring in extra chairs. This still did not accommodate everyone. Fortunately, TB got a chair, but I had to stand for most of the talk.

John Seely Brown may be considered an educational "rock star," but he isn't a very inspirational speaker. He spent most of the time talking to the group of males sitting in chairs near the podium. (The women in the group obviously were not worthy enough of his words of wisdom.) There were also times when he was hard to hear, turned away from the group, gave rambling responses to questions, and mumbled unintelligible comments. One of Brown's main points was that educators should move away from the "sage on the stage" approach to teaching. Ironically, however, Brown lectured to the group for more than an hour. Stated another way, he was the "sage on the stage" he was arguing against.

In general, Brown's talk was tired and seemed somewhat out-of-date. Most of his talking points were presented in the article "Minds on Fire" he co-wrote in early 2008 with Richard Adler. If you have the opportunity to attend a presentation given by Brown, it might be time better spent to simply read the Minds article. Another "old" idea was the concept of play and fun in learning. Brown presented play (or as he calls it, homo ludens) as if it was new and revolutionary. He has obviously missed the wealth of information that is presented in much of the literature.

Other ideas mentioned in Brown's presentation:

• It's not a digital gap but a participation gap. (Hmmm...wonder what the individuals without computer and internet access would say about this? But, when you think about it, you can't participate if you don't have access. Referring to the digital gap by another name doesn't make it magically go away.)
• Play as an epiphany - Free your mind and the learning will come.
• Tinkering is the key to mastering a world in flux. (Much of the literature on women and computers suggest that males are typically tinkerers and females are not. If tinkering is the key, and females don't tinker, is the assumption that they won't master this world in flux? That's not a very optimistic statement. Shouldn't we be working toward learning environments that are friendly to all students, not just those who are male?)
• Pushing toward the acquisition of 21st century learning skills is wrong. Instead, according to Brown, educators should be working toward creating a 21st century disposition in our students. What is a 21st century disposition, you might ask? Brown defines it as just being open to the idea of learning from others.

Many individuals in the audience appeared to be wowed by Brown's presentation. Maybe I've read too much at this point in my doctoral career, but none of the concepts Brown mentioned seemed new or particularly revolutionary to me. Guess I'm not cut out to be a groupie, at least not for this rock star.

Locomotor Play

I'm reading a fascinating book by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson on animal behavior and autism. In the section on animals and play, the authors examine locomotor play, which includes running, leaping, and chasing. They mention goats as an animal that performs this type of action frequently. Part of the discussion involves children and video games (see p. 120). Many individuals and scholars think video games are bad for children. Eugene Provenzo, an education professor at the University of Miami, is an example of one of the more outspoken critics about the use of video games by children. He strongly believes that educators need to exercise great caution when incorporating games into the curriculum (e.g., Provenzo, 1991, 1992). Grandin is of the same mindset but for a different reason. She suggests that locomotor play is an important part of brain development. She points to the work of Piaget who also emphasized the importance of movement to learning.

Researchers know that locomotor play is important for the development of coordination skills. But what about it's impact on learning? If children are substituting video games for locomotor play, are they sacrificing learning as well as coordination?

The Bermuda Triangle?

A commentary in the October 17, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education by John Seely Brown explores the formation of an educational triangle based on three components: technology, passion, and learning. Similar thoughts are addressed (and fleshed out in greater detail) in Brown's article that he co-authored with Richard Adler, "Minds on Fire," as well as the forward to the recently released Opening Up Education. Because there isn't anything new in the CHE commentary, I initially did a quick skim of it and put it aside. However, it continues to pop up wherever I turn, so I thought I should spend a bit more time with it.

After introducing the notion that the Web 2.0 blurs the lines between producers and consumers, Brown discusses the difference between "learning about" and "learning to be." Stated another way, Brown contends that how we learn is more important that what we learn. He goes on to suggest that an important, and often overlooked, part of learning to be involves immersion. Initially, Brown claims that immersion occurs through interactions with others. We develop new ideas, we discuss them with others, questions arise, points are challenged, ideas are reconstructed, etc. He then moves on to suggest that simulations are the way to create an immersive situation. What happened to interacting with others? Wouldn't it be possible to have the type of immersion Brown begins with simply by interacting with colleagues around a water cooler or during a lunch break? Immersion could be created via different ways; simulations are merely one way to use technology to construct these interactions.

Another point, one which is also mentioned in the "Minds on Fire" article, is related to developing a Learning 2.0 mindset. Brown refers to a statement made by John King at the University of Michigan. King states that each year, 40,000 students are enrolled on his campus. But, because these enrolled students bring with them their social networks through Facebook, MySpace, IM, etc., the figure is actually around 250,000. Seriously? Do administrators really think that students are talking about academics with their social network? It's possible, but highly unlikely.

Before dipping into the passion of learning, Brown returns to learning about something versus learning to be a practitioner. While I like to learn by doing, I also appreciate having some background knowledge - a base or a foundation to build upon. Launching into the practitioner side of learning before learning about also brings to mind arguments made by Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) who claim that students who engage in unguided learning may lack the proper schema needed to investigate new information. More about this piece by Kirschner and his colleagues can be found here.

And finally, Brown argues that the Web enables people to identify their passion(s) and join niche communities, which facilitates learning. I agree that feeling passionate about a topic does make the learning process easier. However, I don't think this is new to the Web. Individuals have been passionate about learning topics of interest and finding individuals who share that interest prior to the Web. While the Web makes it easier and may bring together geographically disperse individuals, passion is not a new concept.

Just to recap...the thoughts presented by Brown in this commentary are not new - they are recycled from an article and a book forward - and concepts that being passionate about a topic and becoming immersed in it through interactions with others is not a novel notion either. Many individuals, and scholars too, get caught up in the "sexiness" of technology, where the focus is on racing to adopt the latest gadget rather than critically evaluating its potential and effectiveness. As a result, the primary goal of promoting and improving learning gets lost in the mix.