Module 1: EDUC 7105

PROMPT: Critique Siemens’s “metaphors of educators.” Which of these metaphors best describes the role you believe an instructor should take in a digital classroom or workplace? Is there a better metaphor to reflect your view of the role of instructors?

I completely embrace two of Siemen’s (2008) metaphors of educators: Educator as concierge and educator as curator. The role of creating learning experiences and direction the learner to explore and use new resources are key roles of the online educator. Given the highly visual nature of online learning environments, the metaphor of curator has a lot of potential. In the art world – the curator creates the presentation in a manner to attract and engage the viewer, a similar talent is necessary in the online course environment.


I have some reservations about his metaphor of educator as network administrator (Siemen, 2008). While I agree that a major role of educating is forming connections or relational propositions among concepts, I have reservations about the label network administrator – because it likens the human brain to an object. The human brain is a type of highly complex network, but unlike mechanical networks with prescribed connections, each human brain is unique and has its own system of information storage and retrieval which is determined and influenced by the situational context and developmental stage of the person.


The one part of Siemen’s (2008) metaphors that I disagree with is the educator as master artist. There is literature supporting that the “master” is often not the best teacher. A master is clearly an expert but often their expertise is so internally driven, that they are unable to explain or describe to others how they know what they know. Therefore I believe the master artist can be a role model or a source of inspiration/motivation, but I am not certain they can “see the pieces apart from the whole, to guide the development of expertise in others.

In my current position I have presented workshop to faculty new to the online teaching roles.  A model I have used looks are the educators roles as:  pedagogical, managerial, social and technical (Berge, 1995).  Here is the link to the article: http://www.emoderators.com/moderators/teach_online.html

A number of years ago I created a workshop entitled “preceptor as connoisseur”, I think that metaphor also fit the online educator. A connoisseur a person with expertise, who appreciates, judges and shares and just like the wine or gastronomic connoisseur the educational connoisseur is an expert in their discipline and takes others (learners or tasters) on a journey to developing individual expertise.


References: 

Berge, Z.L. (1995). Facilitating Computer Conferencing: Recommendations From the Field. Educational Technology. 35(1) 22-30.

Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. Paper presented to ITFORUM. Retrieved from http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf