Achieving the power of modern technologies when applied to education requires the appropriation of suitable learning strategies than bring together the effectiveness in learning as well as a proper usage of the role of technology.
Just applying technologies alone doesn’t guarantee successful learning results same as using revolutionary learning strategies. They’re both good, especially if they are combined but there’s an important factor that has to be kept in mind when you think of using ICT to boost learning processes: Learner’s autonomy.
Learner’s autonomy is a culturing process that might take some time before it’s developed in functional terms. Here in Colombia most of us grew up in a cultural environment where acquisition of information and knowledge came one way from teacher to students and in most of the cases it was forced.
Of course, there are exceptions for example in cases where people felt impelled to learning things that were their real interest, mostly motivated by personal choices or genetic conditions. We’ve seen people who like music just because or perhaps because they come from families with musicians, and they develop their potentials even if they are not allowed access to specialized education. They find their way to learning against all the odds. Some of them manufacture their own first instruments and start learning. They teach themselves when they don’t have teachers.
Autonomy is a value that has to be developed in our average students. The question is how to do it. It’s not only a matter of giving our students assignments but also helping them to learn how to organize their time, how to use efficiently the search engines and web 2.0 tools, how to prepare their own learning environment and other meta cognitive strategies on the basis of a step by step process.
By Carlos Hernando Ortiz