I recently completed MOOC on Coursera through Duke University that was spearheaded by Cathy Davidson called "The Future of (Mostly) Higher Education." Reflecting back on the experience - I am conflicted about MOOC's as a learning platform - like everything else they have pros and cons. They are messy and often difficult to wade through - especially if you have a few thousand course-mates from all walks of life, education backgrounds and different skill sets with the language the course is being given in. This is also what makes them incredibly interesting!!
The future of higher ed is wide open - technology offering new ways of establishing connections and delivering information. Although face to face learning and guiding students through feedback may still be in many minds (including mine) the most effective way of delivering educational content - it may very well be a luxury in the future for some. As we continue to defund public education and the cost of obtaining a private education continue to rise - it is difficult to see clearly where this leads us - but it does not seem to bode well.
I recommend HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, Technology and Collaboratory) to anyone
who is interested in these topics. Educator, parent or citizen - there are a myriad of things there to ponder and be informed about. This is THE place (in my opinion) where the dialogue is taking place about learning and technology - where ideas are being shared and debated. If you are an educator, this is not the time (as you likely know by now unless you have been teaching under a rock) to run from re-tooling your skill set and deciding which of the new technologies work best for you and your students. There are so many options -- and they change and morph so quickly -- that it is great to have a place to turn to to educate yourself about them and discuss their use with others.
The Wordle visualization at the top of this post was created with the first 15 hours of answers to "Who's Your Favorite Teacher and Why" which was one of the forum prompts for the aforementioned course. There were HUNDREDS of responses, and comments on those responses -- and comments on those comments. They were written and spoken. The responses were thoughtful and for the most part heartfelt. Encouragement, compassion, ability to maintain interest, facilitating learning, challenging, guiding, fairness were words used over and over again. Certainly as I thought of my own response - those were the things that I thought of.
It has been a great gift throughout my life to have known and studied with many exceptional teachers - both formally and informally. Still, I knew immediately who I would write about when I read the question. Barbara Cervenka was my first art teacher in high school. So much of the foundation of how I think, my studio practice and my outlook on the world have been shaped by knowing and working with her. Not only is she an exceptional artist. She is an exceptional human being. Below is an image from her series of galaxy paintings. She writes;
"[these paintings..] are based on photographs brought by the Hubble Space Telescope. We are the first generation to see these images, to be able to look back so far in time and space. The universe revealed to us is beautiful - light storms exploding billions of years ago, millions of galaxies, the birth of stars. These star maps show us nearly unbelievable depths of time and space, yet they coexist with the minute daily miracles of earth - the opening of flowers, the symmetry of plants, the perfect geometry of skeleton and shell, the fragile monuments hand-built on earth. In the dark mirrors of these paintings we too are reflected. I painted these pieces as a meditation, a contemporary form of "illumination" and a celebration of the light that has come to us these days as a gift"
Most recently she has mounted a nationally touring exhibit, Bandits and Heroes / Poets and Saints, through her work with an organization that she founded with her friend and colleague, Mame Jackson: ConVida. The exhibit began in Detroit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and is currently in Chicago at the DuSable Museum of African American History until August 17 of this year. If you are in the Chicago area --- you should take a look.
