Low-tech Learning: the Other Kind of Education

In many ways, the college education has become a highly mediated experience: text books and professors tell students what to study, how to work most efficiently, what is important in their field, and how to gather and approach information. Even moving away from the instructional model where the professor is up front at the white board or screen, with all student eyes focused on the "sage on the stage," discussion tends to be carefully directed and moderated, keeping learning on track towards very specific goals outlined in syllabus and text book.

A second form of mediation occurs in the use of technology - sophisticated devices bring data and experience into the hands of all students, almost effortlessly: with the entering of a few search terms, with a few clicks on the keyboard, we all "see" the results of colonization or deforestation, the art of pre-Columbian civilizations, bird migrations shaped by light pollution. Great stuff! Our new iPads connect to the shared screen, allowing every student to see the same image at the same time, directing all attention to the same point being made.



Well, perhaps not all attention - the flip side of all this connectivity is perhaps that some of us have checked out to pursue our own dreams.








In the upcoming study away course "Seeing What's There: Bear Island," we propose an alternative: allowing students to take charge of their own learning experience. We provide the (fairly unmediated) environment (sand, sky, water), and students consider this environment from their individual, non-technology-enhanced, perspectives. We begin with basic survival: in self-devised groups, students have to plan, gather, and deploy their supplies, set up camp, feed themselves. (We may recommend googling how to get the camping stove going. In advance.) In situ, students are free to implement their individual study away proposals - the project work, laid out and approved in a written format in advance, has commenced before the study away and will be completed upon return, but here, at the center, work can be done without distractions. Obviously, there is no completely unmediated experience at a state park in North Carolina, but I think we may come fairly close.


"Students paint better outside," observes Alyssa Reiser Prince - let's see what they can create when the painting session is not defined by the daily class schedule but by daylight and dusk.

It's an experiment. It is possible that our little troop will stand, disoriented and forlorn, looking out over the vast Atlantic Ocean (or the first few miles of it), unable to put to productive use the time and space provided. Wedded to the beach as a space reserved for bikinis and frolic, they may keep to their tents in the April chills, longing for their phones. In any case, it is a tiny slice of the educational experience Coker provides - if it fails, not much is lost. The initial investment is small. But perhaps, the outing affords all of us a new perspective, an opportunity to consider how and what we learn, and an appreciation of the unmediated learning space.