ETJ 009: September Newsletter - Video Storytelling Pedagogy & Personalized Immersion

Video Storytelling Pedagogy for All & Personalized Immersion in the Finnish Education Ecosystem

September started out with another customized course in collaboration with VisitEDUfinn on Productive Adoption of ICT in Education for a teacher group from Portugal. While observing how most teachers and directors received in Finland the last few months from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ecuador and Mexico being well accustomed by now to the general use of smartphones for educational purposes, the level of pedagogical productivity with the devices' actual potential is really only being understood when allowed a proper opportunity to immerse oneself in a learner-centered and project-based experience or similar, where the teacher is encouraged to forget about always being the know-it-all content provider and to stop being afraid of showing their humanity in front of the students, and in so doing contributing to cultivating a new generation of leaders.

The entire knowledge race, be it about content or technology, becomes irrelevant, when the teacher decisively takes on a facilitative, inspiring and guiding role, and lets the students become the content creators and little by little take charge of their own learning, and, eventually, even their own evaluation process. A fantastic methodology utilized in the background with all the groups these last few months, in combination with any digital tools used from beginning to final project presentations, was around Video Storytelling Pedagogy with the smartphone.

A soul-crushingly powerful message had stayed resonating with me since my summer interview with Pioneer Professor Jari Multisilta to the extent that I'll soon launch a dedicated course on the mentioned methodology alone. Jari's comments in the first episode of the Pori Power Podcast series are summarized below and edited for the subsequent newly released clips.

”I’ve been following how the young people use the social media nowadays and what we once thought that will be great tool for learning, like the technology, has turned out to be poison for some kids. So they, there are people, who live only maybe for the social media and they get so many bad things out of social media. I feel sad to see how technology in many places nowadays is used. There was great hope that bringing technology to the schools would motivate kids to work for the school issues, and nowadays there is lot of discussion going on that maybe kids should leave the mobile phones out of the classroom so that it won’t distract them for the learning.”

”I think it’s not the best solution to make law-based restrictions or limitations. I think we should learn to use the technology responsibly. While I was at the University of Helsinki, it was called Cicero Learning Network and part of that network was also the brain scientists and I think that nowadays we need even more the brain scientists to help education people to take control over technology, over technological-based tools. I think we gave the tools, but we didn’t teach teachers enough to teach how to use those tools. We realized that kids don't know how to use the tools in pedagogical and meaningful ways, but somehow we didn't get our voice big enough. We didn't have enough resources to teach teachers how to use technology in a responsible way."

This lack of teaching teachers, educators and decision makers overall HOW to use technology in a responsible way, and actually starting with WHY use digital tools in the first place, has reached incredibly devastating levels of malpractice, uneducated restrictions or over idolization of the power of technology.

I started this year talking about The Power of Pedagogy in a Digital World, in my attempt to shed light on what actually has to be understood in order to benefit positively from the power of technology, irrespectively of which tools are being used. Actual learning has nothing to do with the technology per se. Even a pen and paper can be used in destructive ways.

As my friend and on a practical level highly knowledgable teacher and true forerunner in Spain, Manel Rives , posted the other day:

I find it incredible that at this point the variable "teaching-learning methodology" is not even being considered. That is, has no one studied the differences between using paper with an active learning methodology and passive use? And the same in digital? Seriously?

Beyond promoting pedagogical tools that are directly useful for children in a digital world, I'm dedicated more than ever to helping teachers become empowered on a digital-pedagogical level to continue serving in the best way they can in their still crucial profession. Starting collaborations with Instituto Escalae - an entity that enhances teachers' competences for true knowledge transfer to the classroom - we've seen that personalized immersion experiences in the best of the Finnish Education Ecosystem, even for short express visits of only 2-3 days, have brought lots of value to the visiting educators.

A few lessons learnt were beautifully just summarized by Jordi Vilaseca Brugueras , President and long-time Pedagogical Director of the JOVIAT Foundation in Barcelona, providing one of the best Vocational Education and Training offerings in Europe. (I needed a translator for this one.)

With his friend and colleague from Mexico, Angie Malpica , Director of the impressive University Center Dr. Emilio Cárdenas, the Express Immersion included educational experiences from Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Turku. Details of their learnings as well as incredible teachings will hopefully be shared and reflected on in upcoming podcast episodes, as there is much to learn from these true heroes.

Monique from Liceo Campo Verde in Quito enjoyed an even more personalized visit, while sharing her great efforts pushing for local innovation as a pioneer educator in Ecuador.

For more information on Instituto Escalae , please visit their website or send a note to yours truly.

Closing this newsletter, two additional powerful messages from two leading authorities in Finland stand out from the podcast episodes published in September. First, Harri Ketamo 's message on science-based products vs non-science-based products for education, especially related to games.

"Starting from the science based or non-science based, I think there are really much, really good training that is not science based, but there is a need. And then there is also really bad science based. But when we turn something based on purely 'we believe that gaming teach you something' and then there are super stupid games, where you can, well you have to do a lot of stuff and then you can learn maybe something, and then you can once again do more stuff around the learning context. There is also a saying that 'educational games are bad education and bad gaming', so you don’t have to take this black and white…… I like hands-on measuring and the impact, and I mean true impact, not just impact because of beliefs or ideology.”

Please follow the link below for the full conversation with Harry.

Last and Greatest, from a Global Giant perspective, Peter Vesterbacka summarizes probably better than anyone how to fix the upside-down-pyramid problem with our lack of young people in Finland.

We need more people. That's very clear. We have an aging population. We're the Japan of Europe, so we need to fix that and we are. And this is what the Finest Future project [is doing], teaching the young people the Finnish and Swedish language and then offering in return free education, free high school, free university, so learn the language and then we will give you the best education on the planet, tuition free... It's like the pyramid upside down and basically we need to fix that so the pyramid doesn't topple and fall... Basically, we just need to keep hammering the message true and explaining why this is important, why it's the most important thing for building this finest future for Finland and for the region... Young people are the future. Old people die. It's biology.

”We are very focused on making sure we have the highest talent density anywhere on the planet, not just in games. When I was working at Rovio Entertainment , we had 47 different nationalities.... ... I think that that is very typical for the games and tech industries, and right now we have 5000 people in games and we need 1500 every year and most of those people are you know not here in Finland or in the FinEst Bay Area yet, so we need to find them and we need to bring them here. Same thing in tech industry, we have a shortage of 13 000 people every year. So next 10 years we need to hire and bring to Finland 130 000 people just for tech. And the same is true if you look across all our industries. We need a lot of talent and we want to make sure that we have the highest talent density anywhere on the planet.”

Please enjoy the full conversation with Peter following the link below.

Finally, the review of my first field research adventure faced The Reality of the Field in the Colombian slums, now published under Stories on the EdTech Journeys Substack.

We were taken there on motorbikes. It was too dangerous to walk. The excitement peaked immediately upon entering the neighborhood El Retiro, the retreat, a perfectly fitting name for an extremely retreated area. Already at the first street corner, the first stares met us from the eyes of local youth gangs, who didn't seem to have anything good at all in mind. The cold chills that flowed through our bodies were only soothed by the knowledge that our drivers knew the area and knew what they were doing. They had once been on the dark side as well, ruling the streets with their gangs.

Eduardo Sanchez was a former gang member, now in charge of a larger initiative that distributed breakfasts to poor schools in Charco Azul, an area notorious for being one of the most violent ones in Aguablanca. Principal Esperanza had put us in touch with each other with the belief that he would be able to help us guide our field researchers, which turned out to be us. Esperanza had helped us with the first conversation, but we would have to handle the meeting ourselves.

EdTech Journeys and the “Hasta la educación finlandesa y más allá” Podcast is preparing for a Tour in Spain and beyond. For information on how to Join or Sponsor the Tour, please connect here ( Joni AlWindi ) or email [email protected] .

Published by Joni AlWindi

The EdTech Journeys Newsletter?is a monthly compilation of events, columns, podcasts and stories highlighted at the EdTech Journeys platform .