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Jonathan Turner

Week 11 Activity 20

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-          The rhizomatic learning theory seems to share the sense of learning residing outside of knowledge that connectivism has.

-          Cormier talks about community as curriculum which seems to echo communities of practice.

-          He states “there doesn’t need to be an outside source of knowledge”. This is interesting and challenging, we certainly haven’t adopted this maxim on this course! I also wonder to what extent this is truly possible,  for example if I was engaged in a discussion with a group about how we learn and I offered my opinions, these would be influenced by my own beliefs rooted in the work of constructivism and the work of Paolo Freire, so to what extent would ‘my’ ideas be moy own and not a product of outside knowledge?

-          He couches rhizomatic learning as networked learning in an organic untidy way. Certainly this untidiness  appeals at an emotional level, after all who describes their leaning as tidy?

-          To the question of imagining Rhizomatic learning, yes I can imagine it given the right context and learners. BUT I would say that Rhizomatic learning is fundamentally democratic and  a product of a democratic learning environment. Here in the Middle East this would not be possible,  students do not work in this type of environment and lack the skills needed to do so. Here especially in the Gulf region change is a dangerous word.

-          He also talks about making the curriculm as you do along. In English language learning many of us have been advocating this for years (notably Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings in their DOGM theory), but we know that currently the institutional world of education is not ready for this, it is in fact as Siemens suggests about power and control.

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Jonathan Turner

Week 11 Activity 19

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 16 Apr 2014, 09:33

Week 11 Activity 19

 I have decided to implement this activity in connection with an introduction to teaching skills that I am developing. The course is for content specialists (IT, business and engineering for example) to learn more about classroom pedagogy in a higher education context, and will include:

 

  1. Learner training
  2. Assessment
  3. Lesson planning
  4. Classroom management
   
  • Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
    • The course will include a discussion forum that covers trainees at national level. The forum will ask trainees to debate a number of different viewpoints for each topic, and will include trainees own reflection of their experience as learners and teachers (if they have any).
  • Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources.
    • The course will use the Delicious bookmarking tool for trainees to build a bank of information sources which can be ranked and commented on by the group. These sources can be tagged according to topic area and sub-area to increase connectivity between nodes.
  • Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
    • The course will use a series of Wikis to store information on a given topic, these Wikis will be used as guidelines for classroom practice and will not be used for example as a pre-cursor to assessment.
  • Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
    • Trainees produce a blog in which they are to record and reflect on the learning process, i.e. how they have learnt and will contain links to resources as well as recording how these were found and evaluated.
  • Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
    • course will include trainees setting up and maintain a group that reflects their professional interest and context within the course community This group will use social media such as Facebook or Linked-in.
    • Trainees will join existing professional interest social media groups that reflect their own professional interests. Their engagement with these groups will be reflected in their own course assessment.
  • Ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill.
    • Trainees will form cross-disciplinary teams that will be tasked to produce cross-disciplinary thematic projects for their students to produce. So for example the theme is “the environment’ and the teams will produce work based on the environment for engineering, business and IT. It should be noted that teams will have to work on specialties that do not reflect their own content areas.
  • Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
    • Trainees will subscribe the RSS feeds pertinent to their content areas and pedagogy related. They will summarize the findings from these RSSS feeds on a weekly basis in their blog post
  • Decision making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
    • Trainees will research historical documentation relate to pedagogy (for example work connected to behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism). The findings will be presented in relation to current learning artifacts (such as micro-blogging sites like Twitter) and an evaluation will be offered as  a group presentation with reflections on individuals blogs

 

 

 

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Jonathan Turner

Week 10 Activity 13

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DS106

-          Seems to emphasize community as evidenced by the about ds106 video

-          Is part of a ‘real university’

-          There is no ‘teacher’

-          Calls itself the ds106 ‘experience’ (as opposed to course)

-          By the end of  exploring the site I had bookmarked the page because I’d like to do the course! (first time that’s happened)

-          The course itself is techie course. This seems rather typical of MOOCS, I haven’t seen so many for more traditional subjects. It’s like the technology is best used to teach itself…

-          The course seems to require quite a lot of interaction with technology

-          And being critical about the genre, so part techie part arty farty

-          Uses very academic language to describe itself and then uses new literacies (short films) which are the opposite of academic

-          Students can nominate each other’s’ work as ‘inspiring’.

-          I do notice than in the student testimony video they are all young and nearly exclusively white and middle class (seeming)

-          They have a Twitter site and a radio station

-          I looked at the written assignments and most of them hadn’t been completed by anybody or at best 4 or 5 people out of a couple of hundred visits. I also noticed that the assignments seem to have been posted by users/students and I didn’t really get how many of them were related to the course? There seemed to be no quality control, shouldn’t there be something where the crowd can like assignments or they are taken off or something?

-          I then went to the video assignments and found the same low uptake, which was surprising given that the course was all about digital literacies.

-          Seems to be loads of bells and whistles like the radio station but doesn’t seem to to be that much meat on the bones?

-          Students all get their own website, makes me wonder if it taps into peoples egos a fair bit?

-          When they rolled it out they had 75 real students then 225 who joined from outside the course.

-          Seems to be a connectivist underpinning Jim groom talks about nodes and networks a lot.

-          Martha Burtis shows an assignment that has 125 completions, I wonder how many more there are like that? They do produce some more impressive stats though, forum posts running into the thousands and the like.

-          She also talks about other course designers being able to use the assignment bank for their own ends.  Interesting but potentially more time consuming than creating your own assignments I think?

-          As you go through the site it seems to feel less like a cool and more like a place for like-minded people to come together and create stuff they obviously enjoy. Which is great, but the traditionalist in me says that does not a course make!

-          An interesting feature is the way that course members added new features to the course. Like the student who added the course radio station, which was then integrated into the course itself.

-          The last post I could find for the course was a year ago, I wonder if it’s still going?

 

 

FutureLearn

-          Inmediately you see a diffierence in look, DS106 looks more DI, messy  and ‘cool’, FL looks more ‘corporate’

-          FL is a course agrregator and has partnerships with a variety UK universities, DS106 is based in one university in the US and aggregates content but NOT courses.

-          FL is private but owned by the OU

-          In DS106 all the promo stuff is participant produced. In FL it’s produced by ‘professionals’

-          I guess because of the nature of FL it’s more about fixed content produced by professionals rather than the DS106 course which is co-produced.

-          You have to sign up to do a course.

-          You have personal navigation that tracks what you do.

-          It uses this navigation to help control learning, so you have ‘to do’ lists and then ‘completed’, so there is a lot of structure there and it’s more linear. I guess this approach would suit some learners more than DS106…

-          Still has the social element though with comments and discussion threads, although notice the comments about ‘being respectful’ goes without saying surely, but the ‘corporateness’ of the site makes it necessary.

-          Assessment is much more fixed than DS106. If I was an employer in some ways I would prefer to see a Ss who have done a FL course, especially the ones who have purchased the certificate of completion, as it proves their commitment.

-          Seems to be that universities include select courses on the site, rather than a stick everything on their MIT approach.  This definitely gives it a feel of something that has been thought through carefully, and seems to be a way for the participating universities to display their wares.

-          Again in a similar way to DS106 there seems to be a quite deliberate connectivist/constructivist approach to learning, although in the case of FL I suspect it is more explicitly thought through (to the point they provide links to their theoretical frameworks).

-          DS106 has a dip-in-and-out approach, whereas FL is all about charting progress and knowing where you are going. I would say that the world is a better place for having both of these approaches!

 

   

 

   
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Jonathan Turner

Week 10 Activity 12

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I work in the UAE for a government university. Education in the UAE is a massive priority for UAE nationals and there is no interest at government level for the other 80% of the population who are non-nationals. Some nationals study alongside non-nationals in private institutions but this is not the case for the majority.

bearing these conditions in mind I would like to consider a MOOC that appealed to nationals and non-nationals alike, that would have the following advantages:

- it would allow national students (who are low level, usually unmotivated and academically poor), to study in the same group as highly motivated non-nationals (especially those from developing countries)

- it would allow non-nationals in the UAE access to education

I would include the following design features:

- course content specific to the UAE

- the option to take the course as part of college credit (this would be paid for by the government for national students)

 

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Jonathan Turner

Week 9 Activity 11

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Friday, 11 Apr 2014, 07:06

The advantages and disadvantages of BIG VS LITTLE OER

Before discussing Weller’s ideas on this I will outline my own thoughts, based on my gut feeling and experience as an educator. I will do things this way so as to compare where I am with the ‘expert’ in the field rather than this being a note taking and regurgitating exercise.

My thoughts

-          My gut reaction is that bottom up has to be good for creativity and academic freedom.

-          It also allows us to become creators as teachers rather than consumers of what the experts feed us.

-          I know a lot of educators who don’t really know their onions and the thought of anybody who wants to producing materials means there is a lot of scope for poor work.

Weller says

-          He uses the long tail metaphor and this certainly seems valid, we can have a large number of specific courses that suit niche markets. This is particularly relevant to my field of language teaching where the dominant paradigm is for mass published materials to be consumed by a worldwide audience with little consideration for their particular needs.

-          Little OER uses public platforms like You Tube which are low cost and available to everyone. I guess by extension they are less elitist because of this as well? Weller also describes the “likelihood of serendipitous encounters with university content” that using platforms like You Tube provides.

-          He also points out that in little OER shareable content like Twitter streams can become educational content, as opposed to more formal ‘traditional’ types of content.

-          He also talks about the agility of this type of approach quoting what Jonathan Zittrain (2008) refers to as ‘generativity’.

-          Also interestingly he says that content production does have to be explicit, but can be a “by-product of normal operations”. By this he means that teachers can work on their course content, making presentations, or can be recording of tutorials they give anyway, or twitter feeds of whatever.

-          These small chunks of content can also be more easily incorporated into other courses unlike the institutional MIT type approach where the content is much more rigid and extensive. What I would question about this is the time it would take to cherry pick from different sources and whether this would lead in a somewhat disjointed feel, so for example a 5 unit course where every unit had a different design because it used elements from different OER sources.

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Jonathan Turner

Week 8 activity 8

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Saturday, 29 Mar 2014, 09:14

I enjoyed searching for resources for my course on online teaching, although I wasn't completely successful. There were quite a few broken links and at other times it was difficult to find stuff that I wanted. I found the Open Learn site particularly frustrating as I know they have lots of stuff on elearning but I couldn't find what I wanted.

I wouldn't say the resources I found changed what I wanted to teach, but I did find the level of formality and academic level changed quite a bit between resources, meaning i was a bit concerned that the 'voices' would have a been a bit disjointed. one exception was the resource I found on the vocabulary of discussion forums, which made me consider the importance of teaching the vocabulary connected to this topic.

Still overall I think that the volume of resources was encouraging and i will definitely use these databases the next time I design a course.

 

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Jonathan Turner

Week 8 activity 7

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Thursday, 27 Mar 2014, 07:03

Establishing a framework for OER

This rather catch all term relates to a number of issues. These include legal and trust issues, design, diffusion and sustainability.

Perhaps the reason that commentators do not describe ‘a framework’ for OER is that there is no single solution, or perhaps that as an emerging paradigm it is premature to talk about frameworks. But without a framework it seems that more solid and fleshed out models for OER cannot be developed. And we should also bear in mind that a framework is just that, and not a finished structure, so there is still leeway for individual differences within this wider context.

I will divide the framework into three sections, legality/trust, design and diffusion/sustainability.

McGill et al (2013) describe legality and trust in terms of ‘licensing and trust’ and argue that without these ‘policies and practice’ could not be develop to support staff to be able to ultimately create and manage OER.  Whilst legality is a large part of this, so is trust amongst staff and learners. There is resistance amongst staff according to MsGill et al (2013) who contend that staff see the current OER model as working against their own interests within the current HE paradigm, which as the authors point out is a tight knot community.  Amongst learners, according to the OER research hub hypothesis G see trust as a major factor when selecting an OER.

Design refers to the way the learning takes place within the OER and indeed how that learning is accessed and shared amongst learners, designers and teachers within the stakeholder groups. Issues include, does the OER use features of social networking to harness social learning? Does it have sufficient course notes? (OER Research Hub hypothesis H). How does the creation of OERs affect the process of content creation and ultimately the institutional culture of those institutions engaged in producing materials? And indeed not only at institutional level but within the wider disciplinary community? McGill et al (2013).

Diffusion/sustainability is perhaps the widest issue. It begins at a fundamental level, who has access to OERs? What are the languages of OERs and how accessible are they to non-native speakers of English? How accessible are OERs to people from developing countries, can they can be used without a permanent internet connection? And how accessible are OER’s for disabled users? And for those who access OERs from the developed world English speaking world, so they have  well-developed digital literacy skills, or in fact would we see OERs being accessed by ‘usual suspects’ i.e. learners with high digital literacy and an existing high level of ‘traditional’ education? And whilst rich western universities continue to produce OER through centralized funding, how much longer can this be maintained without some way of monetizing content? How can other stakeholders get in on the game and begin to design OER courses if they do have access to funding? And doesn’t this mean that OER is Open as long as you are from the right ‘club’? And if you are not then you are destined to consumer rather than share and produce?

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Jonathan Turner

Week 7 Activity 2

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:39

I did representations for the Seeley brown article and the Wiley talk. I drew them on paper because I find it helps me to internalise the information more and because using a computer is more time-consuming and ultimately less fun for me.

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Jonathan Turner

Week 7 task 1

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:40

in this post we are supposed to talk about are experiences with Open Learning Resources...

 

Well I have used loads of open resources to learn but I'm not sure if that's the same Open Learning Resources like the OU....I'm a You Tube user for learning Arabic as I've mentioned elsewhere and I have used TED.com for my own edification smile

 

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Jonathan Turner

New blog post

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:40

                                                How long used for educational purposes

Technology

by my organisation

by me

Cloud computing

Some years not sure

2 years

Mobile/cell phone

Informally again some years

More like BYOD for the last few years

Open content

no

Just investigating this semester

Tablet computing

iPads were introduced to all Ss 2 years ago

The same

Game-based learning

no

no

Learning analytics

no

no

New scholarship

no

no

Semantic applications

no

no

Augmented reality

no

no

Collective intelligence

No

no

Smart objects

no

no

Telepresence

At least 5 years

3 years (largely unsuccessfully with a couple of notable exceptions)  

 

 

 

   

 

   

I would like to investigate the following three technologies more:

 

   

-          Open content – Open content would allow my organization to use its size to our advantage (there are 4000 faculty members) whilst giving us as faculty more incentive to produce higher quality courses that would be used outside of our organization when levels of existing Ss engagement are often low. At the moment we often spent long hours designing courses that are only used a couple of times and then dropped.

 

-          Collective intelligence – There is a tradition of collective intelligence in the Gulf, I have noticed that my Ss are enthusiastic members of group work ad conflicts rarely arise. I also believe that our currently low standards would be improved if Ss felt that there contributions were part of a wider body of work.

 

 

-          Telepresence – although this activity asks us to talk about technologies we haven’t yet used, our use of telepresence has been so poor in my experience as to be negligible. Currently I teach in remote locations and across campuses in synchronous environments using expensive telepresence equipment.  What has not happened has been a considered pedagogy that takes into account the challenges and opportunities presented by distance, rather we teach the Ss in front of us and the Ss in pother campuses ‘keep up’ as best they can.

 

 

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Jonathan Turner

Week 3 Summary of learning theories

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:40

 

Behaviourism

Cognitivism

Constructivism

 

 

Strengths

 

-          It is scientifically observable.

-          It can be easily understood.

-          Operant conditioning does not explain language learning as stated here, BUT it does explain the useful acquisition of untested chunks of language.

-          It can be reproduced by a simple computer programme.

 

  •  

-          The learner is active in the learning process.

-          Emphasises the learner and the external environment.

-          Motivation = learning to a large degree.

-          Learning is more effective when it is ‘applied’ so it’s learning by doing.

-          Incorporates scaffolding between new and previously learned material and so there is a sense that well-designed incremental learning units will lead to learning.

 

 

-          Learners are co-creators of their own learning in a more democratic paradigm which also has implications for understanding elearning.

-          The Zone of Proximal Development focuses on learner improvement and capacity.

-          Schemes can be     reproduced in a supremely flexible elearning environment.

-          It is a widely held an understood paradigm giving it wider resonance an applicability.

-          It is concerned with “innovative and creative minds”

-          We understand what we construct ourselves more effectively.

-          Learning is measured by learner outputs rather than tests and so is more real world.

Limitations

 

-          Much of the experimentation was done on animals.

-          It does not explain the social aspects of learning.

-          It also ignores reflection, motivation, and cognitive load.

-          In language learning for example computer based (audiolingual learning) gives only very limited gains in learning.

-          It was not created with technology in mind, and doesn’t consider what technology brings principally the externalization of memory.

-          Relies on scaffolded learning which doesn’t always happen with elearning, where learner initiated learning and informal learning often take place.

-          Doesn’t address the centrality of co-construction of knowledge in elearning., which of course is central to Web 2.0.

-          Comes from a psychological and sociological rather than an educational standpoint.

-          Poor application of the principles can result in disorganized teaching.

-          There are multiple and differing versions of constructivism making its application more complex.

-          Significant teacher training is required for effective application.

-          A constructivist approach may require learner training as well.

How do they assist the understanding of elearning?

-          Much of the learning in Web 1.0 is behaviorist.

-          We can use behaviorism as a way to measure elearning, i.e. is it behaviorist on one end of the cline (such as early versions of MOOCS) or connectivist at the other end (such as newer MIT MOOCS).

-          Positive reinforcement could come in the form of an end-of-course certificate or badges.

-          Could work in a carefully designed unit approach to learning.

-          Old and new concepts can be linked and scaffolded effectively in an elearning context.

-          Emphasizes the social nature of learning as does Web2.0

-          Constructivist learning can take place without the ‘obvious’ presence of a teacher, making it work in an elearning paradigm.

-          Elearning is more difficult to measure in a traditional testing environment and so the outputs that measure learning in constructivism are evidence of learning.

-          There are as many learning opportunities as there are environments which are limitless in an elearning context.

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Jonathan Turner

Week 3 Activity 11

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:41

Summary of Connectivism.

  • Existing descriptions of learning were developed before the impact of technology and they are used to design online learning environments.
  • One major impact is the life of knowledge, this used to be slow (often over decades) now it is short, and knowledge develops quickly. So much so that knowledge is obsolete soon after it has become relevant.  This has had the following impacts
    • People switch careers a lot.
    • Learning happens all over the place, not just in formal settings.
    • Learning is lifelong.
    • Technology is rewiring our brains.
    • Knowledge management means we need to explain the link between individual and organizational learning.
    • Much of previous learning theory can now be handled by technology (doesn’t specify which).
    • We now need to know where to find the knowledge.
    • Driscoll’s (2000) theory can be connected to previous learning theory in terms of the idea of “learning as a lasting changed state (emotional, mental, physiological (i.e. skills)) brought about as a result of experiences and interactions with content or other people.”
    • His theory debates “valid sources of knowledge”, “content of knowledge” and “three epistemological traditions in relation to learning: Objectivism, Pragmatism, and Interpretivism”.
    • All learning theories address how we learn. He then goes on to describe how this happens in the three major theories, behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism.
    • The limitations of these three
      • They all say that learning happens in the brain, but what about technologies that now learns for us, i.e. Outside the person.
      • They also fail to address learning in an organization
      • They are not concerned with describing what is worth knowing, which is something we have to be able to do with the internet.
      • We also now do stuff outside of our own knowledge base, so “The ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns is a valuable skill.”
      • It’s no longer enough to tinker with existing theories, we need a new one.
      • He then posits questions that need to be considered when thinking about a new theory
        • How is learning changed when learning is no longer linear?
        • When information storage and retrieval is now done by technology, how does that impact learning theory?
        • How to stay in current in a “rapidly evolving information ecology”
        • What does learning theory say about when “performance is needed in the absence of complete understanding?”
        • “What is the impact of networks and complexity theories on learning?”
        • “What is the impact of chaos as a complex pattern recognition process on learning?”
        • With more connections between fields, “how are systems and ecology theories perceived in light of learning tasks?”
        • Taken in the light of technology and connection as part of learning “we derive competence from forming connections”
        • Chaos is the new reality and in this paradigm “the learner's challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden” (but aren’t)
        • Because of the ‘butterfly effect’ we have to be able to adjust to changing conditions, “The ability to recognize and adjust to pattern shifts is a key learning task”.
        • There is more importance given to self-organisation in the learning process and the need to “create useful information patterns”.
        • Everything is networked and as a result you effect something in the network it has a ripple effect.
        • "the likelihood that a concept of learning will be linked depends on how well it is currently linked".
        • Explains the notions of weak ties.
        • Next we get to a definition of connectivism "Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories".
        • "Learning can reside outside of ourselves, is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing".
        • the principles of connectivism are:
          • learning and knowledge are found in lots of opinions
          • learning is a process of connecting nodes.
          • learning can rest in machines.
          • being able to know more is more important than what you know.
          • connections need to be nurtured so you can learn more.
          • ability to see connections is crucial
          • being current is the aim of all " connectivist learning activities".
          • "Decision-making is itself a learning process".
        • Connectivism addresses learning in organisations because it talks about being able to connect the right people with the right knowledge (in databases).
        • "In a knowledge economy, the flow of information is the equivalent of the oil pipe in an industrial economy".
        • talks about the importance of understanding social network hubs in understanding learning models in a digital age.
        • Connectvism starts with the individual who feeds into the network who feeds back to the individual. The success of the individual depends on the success of the network.  "The cycle of knowledge network".
        • John Seeley Brown "connections created with unusual nodes supports and intensifies existing large effort activities".

 

 

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Jonathan Turner

Week 2 Activity 6 Innovation in my context

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 17 Mar 2014, 09:41

Innovation in your context Activity 6

 

On the basis of your own experience:

◦Do you sense that your innovations (as supporters of learning) have been valued, encouraged, supported?

◦What evidence do you have to support your view?

After the last course I completed H808 which focused on eportfolios. After completing the course I rolled out an eportfolio project for my college. The eportfolio project was a college strategic priority from up above so I was expecting support, in fact this was kind of why I jumped on the chance to put into action what I’d learned in H808.

I did get institutional support from the college director, in fact I was given time release to train other teachers in eportfolio use and then later on students. I also got support from the Ed Tech department and with my input on pedagogy and their technical know-how we made an iTunes course on how to set up the eportfolios in question.      

BUT there was a disconnect between espoused institutional support and on the ground results:

  • Many colleagues saw the initiative as a flavor-of-the-month deal and never tried to implement beyond the exigencies of the project
  • It was my first experience rolling out this type of project and it was flawed
  • Ss failed to see value in the eportfolios, especially given that one of the central tenants of eportfolios, reflection, is absent from their own learning cultures

So the upshot is that at an institutional level the eportfolio roll was seen as a success, we produced a product (an eportfolio course) and Ss set up portfolios, I was able to present the project to colleagues around the country and my own professional profile was raised, BUT there seemed to be a lack of deep level engagement that has left me dissatisfied with the project.

From the perspective of your context:

◦How widespread is innovation in your organisation?

My institution thrives on innovation. We are constantly changing at a rate unimaginable in most other contexts.  Here in the UAE everything has to be bigger, better and shinier than before and education is no different. But like the famous desert mirage most of the innovation seem to disappear when you get up close to them. We are big on bells and whistles and spend millions on them, but the underlying Cartesian knowledge transmission model of education is still king. Of course this is a rather cynical view and over time there may be evidence of change to better reflect my institution’s motto of “Learning by Doing”, but the way that innovation is introduced and then dropped only to be replaced by the latest thing often seems to the effect of pedagogy being overlooked because we are all so busy learning the APP of the month!

◦Are there policies or statements that relate to innovation? If yes, how are they implemented?

Innovation is reflected in a number of ways:

First an institution wide prize and the most prestigious of its kind, the Nikai Award for innovation.

Next the institution has combined innovation with research and has produced institutional guidelines for its strategy. This 22 page document talks about research AND innovation and how it should be approached across the institution.  

Innovation appears on the first page of the institutions flagship Strategic Plan - “Innovation, research and science and technology will form the pillars of a knowledge-based, highly productive and competitive economy”

The institution has 6 “primary strategic directions” and number 5 is “Encourage innovative initiatives” in the direction itself innovation is mentioned twice “Elevate attention to innovation, creativity, and technology transfer” and “Become the hub for innovative activities within local communities”.

However what’s not clear is how these strategies are implemented. J

◦What implications, if any, does this have for your attitude towards innovation?

I already know that my employer loves innovation, but I also know that innovations usually don’t last so I see it is a chance to come up with and implement short term projects for the experience and then get ready to move onto the next initiative as it arises. I often acquire funding or at least managerial support for this, but I’m not always convinced of the long term effect on students' learning.

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Jonathan Turner

Week 2 Activity 5

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 5 Feb 2014, 05:30

Openness reflection

1.How would you judge OpenLearn in terms of your definition of innovation?

This question supposes that I have a definition of innovation, which I’m not sure I do. I would say that it depends less on my definition and more on context, so Open Learn may be innovative for some, but for others, simple access to a word processor could be considered an innovation.

Although not a response to the above question as such, it strikes me that the current period in which we find ourselves with OERs  is similar to other periods of the internet when openness and innovation thrived (in Web 1.0 and 2.0) before ultimately becoming subsumed (at least in large part), to the Facebook and Googles. I.e. it is a matter of time before the commercialization of OERs comes  to the fore. Still here’s one occasion when I hope I’m wrong, and let’s be honest it wouldn’t be the first time J.

I think it is helpful to think about innovation in terms of metaphor and the juxtaposition of the transmission model VS let’s say Wenger’s Communities of Practice certainly suggests innovation,  but there is the caveat of how much the reality of learning tallies with this vision, i.e, the course talsk the talk, but does it walk the walk? And if we have grown up in a transmission model of learning are we as students ready to rip up the old accepted hierarchies?

 

2.How open did you find OpenLearn?

I’m not sure if I have a clear idea of what ‘open’ means yet. Also I’m already familiar with the look and feel of the OU site, so it would seem that my view is already skewed towards a favourable viewpoint. I would say that the OU interface is clear and easy to use and the site navigation seems clear. I would question the international flavor of the site, i.e. Non-native speakers might find some of the rhetorical flourishes typical of   (e.g. “Can you make it through our pain quiz unscathed? “) British English in this context a challenge, and this may hinder their use.

3.How does OpenLearn challenge conventional assumptions about paying for higher education modules?

The main issue is highlighted in the paper, i.e. “the requirements for formal accreditation of learning”. I would never for example study this course unless I got the piece of paper, the amount of investment involved (time investment) would be prohibitive enough alone, but there are few of us who study at this level unless we hope to see some tangible career benefits, and as we all know, that means bits of paper.

I do however study other stuff ‘for fun’ for example I’m studying Arabic at the moment and there is no way I would pay for an Arabic course (at least not a lot), because I don’t expect a return on my investment, i.e. it’s not going to enhance my career prospects. In addition I’m able to access a wealth of resources on the internet for free, so again why pay? My wife is also studying a language for fun (Italian), but when she realized she could take a course in the OU as part of her undergraduate degree she went from using free internet resources and a cheap class, to paying over 1000 pounds because it would contribute to her degree and so be ‘real’.

 

I looked at Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative at a beginner’s Arabic course.

Again I’m struggling a little with the definition of innovation; I mean the innovation here seems to be that the course material is free rather than the delivery mode. This may be because I’m not locating the social aspects of the course. I chose to look at the Arabic course and I could find the content but not any discussion threads. Of this doesn’t mean they don’t have them, it just means I can’t easily find them.

It is interesting that the site separates content for students and teachers, i.e. it encourages teachers from other institutions to use the site for teaching purposes. It is also interesting to note that the site has more of interest than the OU site for the more casual student or at least for me, and I found myself getting sidetracked looking at the Arabic course and not doing this activity!

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H817 Week 00 Part 3

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Monday, 3 Feb 2014, 06:27

How blogs are helping with the ‘publication of research’…

It would seem that blogs help in the following ways. First, we need to understand that blogging is a publication in itself as Weller (2011) mentions. This means that the act of blogging is also an act of publication. But in contrast to other forms of publication Blogs have the ability to garner opinion and spark debate and comment about what is being published, something that was much more onerous in traditional print publishing. Kirkup’s (2010) reference to different types of Blogs may be a result of personal preferences held by academics or by the filed in which they are working. The way that a quantitative social science study would be blogged about could be very different  to how a case study psychology paper might be presented for example. In terms of personal preferences, some academics may encourage comments while others would discourage debate about their work. In the same way some academic will maintain a highly technical academic discourse in their posts, while others will choose a more informal, less technical spoken type register. Conole’s (2010) reference to a lack of professional guidance seems indicative of much of the new academic discourses emerging in new media types, and over time I’m sure more accepted procedures will emerge.

 

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H817 Week 00 part 2

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Tuesday, 28 Jan 2014, 10:13

My thoughts on Gibbs Cycle of Reflection....

 

Think about how the Gibbs Cycle of Reflection could be useful when writing the reflective parts of your TMAs, as outlined in the Assignment Guide.

There are clear benefits to conducting reflection and as a language teacher and teacher trainer reflection has part of my bed and butter for 20 years of professional practice.

Gibbs cycle is one of a number of reflection cycles and what they have in common is that each phase feeds into the next and ultimately starts again. The most familiar model is probably action research which includes reflection in its DNA as well.

This particular cycle is a good one in that it is easy to follow and implement and is described using non-technical vocabulary. Not everyone will be comfortable with such a prescriptive approach to reflection, but as someone with a lot of balls to keep in the air at any one time I’m happy to be prescribed to J so I will follow the cycle in my learning journal (my blog posts) and I’m sure that the entries will provide a rich resource that will help me through the TMAs.

Just so I don’t forget the cycle is:

  • Description – What happened?
  • Feeling – What were you thinking and feeling at the time?
  • What was good and bad about the experience?
  • Analysis – What sense can be made of the situation?
  • Conclusion – What else could have been done?
  • Action plan – What needs to be done next time?

 

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H817 - Week 00

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Tuesday, 28 Jan 2014, 10:14

This is my first entry for the new course and I will start by positng my getting to know you blurb and photo. My laptop has died and I'm using a borrowed machine, so I will keep my posts and such like here as well as it's a safe place to keep stuff smile

 

so on with the introductions...

Hi,

 

My name is Jon and I’m faculty at a tertiary level institution in the UAE. I’ve been teaching English and Spanish these last few semesters to Emirati students. I also teach on the Cambridge CELTA and Delta programmes, which are teacher training programmes, but I’ve taken this semester off to complete this module. Online and distance education is gaining more currency in the UAE and I’ve already managed to incorporate some of what I have learnt on previous OU modules in my professional context.

This is my final module on the MA and programme and most of what I want to achieve is to get the MA smile I have an MSc in TESOL so this MA has been more about professional development, but it has still been hard work smile I also hope to be able to apply what I learn on this module in a very practical context, hopefully as part of teacher training project I’m working on.

Outside work I have a young family so there is not a lot for time for me, but I love traveling, reading, cooking all the usual suspects , and I ‘m watching Shameless from season 1 when the kids have gone to bed

 

 

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A comparison between competences and excellence...

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:48
More competences http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id494_quest_for_competence.pdf Quoting National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) Teachers should " influence students positively, to inspire students and to enable students to achieve specific learning outcomes as defined by the institution and/or the subject area". Compare to From process facilitator role Ensure active participation of all learners. Encourage and motivate students. Create a student-centered environment. From content facilitator role Construct appropriate learning tasks Structure content available to learners (provide scaffolding, signposting; weaving materials) Notice how the Goodyear et Al. Paper is much more detailed than the Hilier, probably because it is a list of competences which is all about breaking tasks down into discrete points as well as being more concrete  see "influence" vs "ensure" or "inspire" vs "structure" for example. The first works well as a statement of intent but the second is a now this  is what you actually have to do... However both papers discuss similar domains, such as what Goodyear et al. Call the content facilitator domain, compare ." innovation in the design and delivery of learning activities; • ability to organise course materials and present them effectively and imaginatively" from the NTFS with "Point to relevant learning resources • Construct appropriate learning tasks" from Goodyear et al. Interestingly  as well the NTFS quote is from a section describing "excellence" whereas the Goodyear paper is from a competence which seems to denote something essential rather than desirable! Later in the Hilier paper she goes on to describe a report by Hilier and Vielba that implies competences in that it emphasises what the teacher can do, although she doesn't break it down into explicitly discrete tasks... "the absence of certain characteristics, particularly those identified in the policy models of quality, could lead to poor quality, but their presence did not suggest excellence" she then describes then how we must somehow describe the positives (read competences) The reports complement each other, although one talks ablution excellence and one about competence they are like the Italian and the Spaniard who meet and discover that although their languages seem different at first they have in common to be mutually intelligible.
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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:48

Competences for online teaching, Unit 4 Part 1

 

A first reaction is great, this is just what we need! A list of competences feeds nicely into a portfolio we could even list the competences and then evidence of how we have achieved each one (or not).

 

I would like to comment on the BANA (British, Australian and North American) bias of so much of what we studied, take the following

 

"We explore online teaching by reporting on a two-day workshop with practitioners and researchers from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean."

There is an implicit assumption that first both sides of the Atlantic means the UK (possibly other Western European countries) and the US and Canada. Second the implication is that this is a good thing! It would seem more appropriate to say that it represents a partial view of practitioners from Europe and the US or some such... I don't say is to be PC, I say it because of my 18 years' experience in education, 12 of them have been outside the regions implied here and there is a lot going on too!

 

The article then goes not to look at three perspective on measuring what teachers do, a competence based, a humanistic and a cognivitist, before settling on a competence based. This a a relief because first competences are readily understandable and indeed applicable, whereas the other paradigms are more problematic because they are more complex. Second because I have experience of developing competences for teacher in English language teaching, so I'm on familiar territory!

 

http://csalt.lancs.ac.uk/Goodyear/cot/details.htm

The article then give us the following link to look at what specific competences have been developed, I'm going to take a look at this and think about incorporating it into my own portfolio and perhaps using it in my role as PD coordinator in my institution...

The article then goes not to describe the six main task areas for online teachers, which I prefer to think of as domains...

 

The Process Facilitator

The Adviser-Counselor

The Assessor

 The Researcher

The Content Facilitator

The Technologist

The Designer

The Manager-Administrator

 

I'm a bit fuzzy on the differences between process and content facilitation, but the rest of them are pretty clear, I found myself rating myself in each area and I could see even from the very brief explanations offered where I would like to improve...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:49

I want to comment on Stefani's paper, which despite the typos seemed the most coherent comment on the whys and hows of eportfolios we have come across so far...

First off she makes an explicit connection between a PDP (Personal Development Planning) and CPD (Continuing Professional Development). So the former is  when students keep a portfolio of the stuff their studying and the latter is when a professional (like a teacher) keeps a portfolio to show what an ace they are at their job and how they keep up-to-date with current practice.

Now I've mentioned before that I'm what's called PD (Professional Development) coordinator at our college, so I originally had more interest in the CPD, BUT our Chancellor Sheikh Nahyan said in a keynote address to our annual conference that all students should have a PDP by the end of the college careers, so now it seems I have even more reason to get on board the portfolios...

So Stefani goes to say that in order for college wide PDP to happen, we need to "model good practice". So the nub of it is we should get teachers to produce their CPDs before we ask students to produce PDPs, which is what I'm currently trying to make happen at our place...

Stefani offers some additional insights, such as what constitutes a CPD (courses and conferences, professional interactions, networking, consulting experts etc) and then draws parrallels between this and PDP.

She also talks about the role of a portfolio as a tool for reflection and even a way to measure 'teaching excellence' an issue in our colleges as well. We find that many teachers, especially those from a "content" background (business, health etc) don't have much background in teaching, with many of them coming from industry, so anything that can encourage good pedagogic practice could be just what the doctor ordered...

She goes onto describe how this excellence might be measured, or at least the domains for consideration, and again this seems to be very concrete applicable advice...

A final point to mention is she uses her own university's LMS, so with me using BlackBoard Learn as my portfolio I'm in good company smile

 

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More on my eportfolio journey

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:47

So the eportfolio continues, here's the link although I'm not sure if this can be seen or not? Maybe somebody could enlighten me?

 

I have been working on creating a general portfolio, which I have broken down into different areas of my professional life, so my work as an ESL teacher, an elearning progessional, a teacher trainer a researcher and Spanish teacher and an area for hobbies.

It's looking pretty organised and I would love to continue it, it seems so much more powerful than a CV. I have put quite a few photos there as well and somehow they seem to tell a profesional story all on thier own which is surprising, so when I say on my CV I worked in Central Africa for 3 years, it's not the same as a picture of me outside a porter cabin in my oil worker shirt surounded by all my students...

T

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Thursday, 4 Oct 2012, 11:21

 

This is my Mind Map using a Png image

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Taking the plunge

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Wednesday, 2 Jan 2013, 06:49

So, I've taken the eportfolio plunge and as often seems to happen with new stuff, I've had an epiphany...after some initial resistance I started playing with the portfolio option on BBLearn and after putting some word documents, pictures, videos and other artifacts.

And I am addicted to it! It seems transformational the way that it allows you to see just how much stuff you have done...

 

You get so wrapped up in work that you never see the wood for the trees and I've decided I work too hard...

 

Now I have to figure out how to make it public, so I may end up trying to make one in Dropbox or something I can share....

 

Then I'm going to try and get others on board, both fellow staff (I'm our college PD coordinator), and students... finally I have something to blog about apart from the H808 assignments...

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H807-12B - Case studies of elearning Innovation WEEK 2 ACTIVITY

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Edited by Jonathan Turner, Saturday, 11 Feb 2012, 10:07

Introduction - I have decided to choose one example from each of the stated purposes on the JISC site, i.e. assessment, portfolios, technology enhanced learning environments and learning resources and activities.

1. E-assessment - University of Glamorgan mixed

Interesting - one of the purported aims was to improve Ss engagement with learning, an ambitious aim for an asessement tool given that they usually have the opposite effect???

Main focus - Giving feedback to Ss on their progress, I wonder does this mean this is software to give the feedback or do we still need teacher intervention?

Most clunky phrase - "impacts of their personal development" (gimme a break!)

Let's get to the nub - turns out that after quite a bit of ambitious description it's a test bank!!! Multiple choice blah blah blah. The FEEDBACK is 

"a score for the test, a summary of the questions asked and the student answers to those questions and an explanation of the correct answers"

Conclusion - it will save the teacher some marking and the explanation of the answer would be useful, but essentially on the surface I don't see anything fundamentally innovative in the architecture of the learning process.

2. E-portfolio - Sheffield Hallam University smile

Interesting - as a "personal development planner" it potentially addresses an interesting area, i.e. why we are learning something.

Main focus - It's an e-portfolio where you stick in all your work individually and as a group and get feedback on it from the tutor.

Most clunky phrase -  "engaging incoming students with the learning context". Do they really mean context? Don't they just mean learning???

Let's get to the nub - it's like a paper portfolio but with the advantages of being in a much easier and richer formatt to manipulate especially for those of us who are organizationally challenged

Conclusion - It seems to use the technology advantageously, but I don't see how the technological aspect is as yet part of the pedagogy of the design.

3. Technology enhanced learning environment - University of Glasgow big grin

Interesting - Although it used something as grandiose sounding as a VLE (Moodle), the aims were in fact modest and did not smack of the hubris that such projects can suffer from

Main focus - to deliver course material to Ss, improve communication and reduce photocopying

Most clunky phrase -  Clunk free!

Let's get to the nub - It says what it is and is what is says!

Conclusion - this type of modest and doable aim, seems to be a the kind of project that will have a longer shelf life than many of the projects, maybe this is because I have studies with moodle and know that it works fine...

4. Learning resources and activities - Swansea Universitybig grin

Interesting - It uses podcasts for archaeology Ss to look at sites and listen to expert commentary. This is contrasted with the traditional route of looking at black and white photos. It seems that again we have an example of technology informing pedagogy and not just providing another way of saying what we can say using traditional means.

Main focus - As stated this is a bank of podcasts for Ss to be able to look at Greek ruins

Most clunky phrase - "project has a focus on student-centred learning, encouraging a collaborative experience by using Podcasting with undergraduate (BA) and postgraduate (taught MA) students" HHmmm, student centred, tick, collaborative learning, tick!!

Let's get to the nub - This looks like a pretty cool way of looking and learning about ruins without having to go to Greece

Conclusion - I guess this project will be time consuming and costly, but if the designers are confident that no new delivery method will come along in the next couple of years which make this technolgy redundant then this could be a good long term learning tool

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Week 16 comments

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Great I just spent 30 minutes coming up with a finely crafted blog post and it just disappeared into the ether! Maybe somebody is trying to tell me something about blogging!!!!

 

I can't go back and re-live that whole speil again but I'll do an abridged version.

The Kerawalla et al article  backed up a lot of our comments about blogging not being for everyone and people struggling with seeing the point of it.

It also reccommended that asking students to blog be somehow connected withe pedagogy of a given course, but doesn't really say how that would work...

 

While I'm on the topic of examples....

Have you ever noticed the way that 'expert' speakers often fail to give concrete examples of their theories? It makes we wonder about the old addage, 'those that can't teach', which I would ammend to 'those that can't teach become experts'

Of course my tongue is in my cheek but I do think that presenters could enhance what they do by giving CONCRETE examples. So an example of this would be Boud's lecture that we looked in Week 16 Activity 2. Lots of interesting ideas and a very convincing argument for making assessment part of life long learning, but did he give ONE concrete example of how this principle has been put into practice? He did not... 

 

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