Education and Agincourt

A set of slides by Sara Robbins has been widely linked in the web in recent days (. It draws an analogy between the battle of Agincourt and 21st century teaching. At Agincourt an old fashioned army of mounted knights met a new technology of massed longbows, and found itself bloodily obsolete. In 2009, the argument goes, 'old fashioned' models of knowledge creation are coming into conflict with new models drawn from the collaborative, open source, web driven world. A similar sticky ending is forecast.

Her argument is easy to critique and dismiss - simplistic, partisan and all that - but that doesn't make it wrong.

The web revolution is radically changing the way knowledge is created, spread (and destroyed), as the print revolution did before it. This isn't the same old change, not a "It wasn't like this in my day - the kids these days" kind of perpetual revolution. This is different. Industrialisation, the advent of mass tertiary education, globalisation - none of these changed the core knowledge business of the University like the web revolution will. It could be the end of us, as David Wiley suggests, but Universities are surprisingly agile beasts. I wouldn't bet on it either way.

But after the tea leaf reading of possible futures, her prescription is a good one. She suggests that all of us, luddite or technophile, need to think critically about the tools we use and whether they are the right ones, or simply the ones we used last year. Are those 30 year old acetates really the best introduction to your subject? Why exactly, are you making students contribute to an online discussion forum or listen to you on twitter? The right teaching tool is the one that helps people learn the most. That's not necessarily the one you used last time, or the new, new thing you want to try out so you can look cool and up to date with your peers.

Technology is tool use - everything from chalk to second life are learning technologies. If are pragmatic and adaptable about new tools and techniques for learning, then we can weather the storm technical, social and economic change and remain a useful institution. While half the French army died at Agincourt, half of them didn't. They ran away and had a bit of a think about it, and, as Stephen Downes on OLDaily reminds us, their children came back, 38 years later. With cannon...