Siemen's Metaphor Refelection

I believe a teacher in the digital classroom must be able to act in all of these metaphors and perhaps others not described as well. Each is appropriate either at different times in a curricular unit of for different stages of learning or abilities of a variety of learners. Please take into account I am speaking from my experiences teaching grades 4-8. Some of the views I take may be very different from secondary or higher education teachers.

Reading Fisher’s original work I think network administrator (perhaps it comes from a technical bias) does not adequately fit the role he describes. There is a much greater depth in his description of how a teacher guides a student to becoming a discriminating reader of blogs, and other online information sources than the metaphor “network administrator” might bring to mind.

Bonk, when drawing the concierge metaphor in his blog, was speaking about online teachers, not classroom teachers. He does draw the metaphor to classroom teachers but not in any detailed fashion. He does suggest that the graduate programs at Indiana University, where he is a professor, have too many stipulations – which courses to take, etc. He propounds that there should be no or as few as possible requirements. I certainly don’t want to be operated on by a physician so trained, defended by a lawyer so trained, etc. He goes onto say “Life, and hence learning” is a journey, not a set of checkboxes, prescriptions, and requirements.” Certainly life is a journey and learning certainly can be a life long journey. But training for a profession whether truck driver, plumber, doctor, teacher, nurse, etc. does have set knowledge and skill requirements. I thing the metaphor, while appropriate for certain situations, lacks any real depth, as does Dr. Bonk’s notion that education not have set learning goals or requirements.

I don’t really connect with the master artist/curator metaphor perhaps because I’ve never met either, but I have been to a number of museums. I have seen, as I am sure many others in the world have, the work they created, procured and/or maintained but have never seen them in museums speaking about their collection. Everyone has had and met teachers. Everyone has at some point in their life spoken with teachers.

I think the metaphor of a “maestro” conductor might work for me (Can you sense my ego growing!). This is person may be skilled on several instruments. The maestro knows the piece of music the symphony will be performing intimately. Her or his skill is getting each musician, taking into account individual strengths and weaknesses as well as what their instrument can contribute, to perform that piece to the best of their collective and individual best. Within the set structure of the score the maestro will also provide room for individual creativity to make this particular performance of the piece unique from all others. This metaphor I think gives a better picture of the many roles a teacher plays in a classroom, digital or otherwise.

Even though I took the time to draw a metaphor, in my heart there is no need. Each limits the way one thinks of the role, teacher. And how many metaphors do we need? Perhaps we could just accept that being a teacher is an ever evolving, and incredibly complex and challenging role to play.

Bonk, C. (2007). USA today leads to tomorrowTeachers as online concierges and can facebook pioneer save face? Retrieved on June 9, 2009, from http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/

Fisher, C. (n.d.) Teacher as network administrator. Retrieved June 9, 2009, from http://remoteaccess.typepad.com.com/remote_access/files/teacher_as_network_admin.pdf