Personal Blogs

'If you're not lost and confused in a MOOC you are probably doing something wrong'. Martin Weller (18:45 25th March 2013)

A terrific webinar hosted by Martin Weller with George Seimens speaking. Link to the recorded event and my notes to follow.

I took away some key reasons why OER has a future:

1) Hype between terrifying and absurd.

2) State reduction in funding will see a private sector rise.

3) Increase in rest of world's desire for HE OER

4) Certificates growing.

5) The Gap

6) Accelerating time to completion

7) Credit and recognition for students who go to the trouble to gain the competencies.

8) Granular learning competencies and the gradual learning and badging to stitch together competencies.

‘MOOCs indicate that we are seeing a complexification of wishes and needs’ - so we need a multispectrum view of what universities do in society. George Seimens, (18:51 25th March 2013).

KEY

Green = Activated

Amber = Engaged

Red = Blocked

What concerns me is the belief that theories of learning, which academics have identified in eduation in the last 90 years, are either key drivers or infleuncers in the design of learning. Surely these are all observations after the event. Like trying to analyse a standup comedy routine using a set of plans and parameters - 'Good Morning, Vietnam' comes to mind. As, I suppose would 'Dead Poets Society' to bring in Robin Williams again. Was the Khan Academy a product of such analysis? No? An investment banker wanted to help his nephews out with their Math so he recorded some videos. Actually, I jsut realised my wife is doing this for a friend's daughter who is learning French - creating bespoke French language pieces for her to practice on. I can't even think what either of them are - behaviourist or social-constructive and experiential. I'm afraid, given what the academic 'gurus of e-learning' keep coming up with they are probably the least intuitive or inventive because their hands and minds are tied by this kind of thing. Just my opinion.

If I want to develop a platform or school that uses e-learning I'll go find myself a 'Robin Williams' kind of educator - someone has a natural flair for it, who engender a following, who most importantly delivers extraordinary results.

Looking back at school I know that what motivated me was two fold - my own long term goal and the quality of an inspired and informed teacher who had tutoring, moderating and teaching in their blood.

There's a reason why research and teaching don't mix. I've asked some academics about this and they have told me that they haven't gone into the commercial sector, nor do they teach ... 'because they hate people'.

Where in these theories is the person?

This relationship, the rapport that can form between tutor and student is what is lacking and it is why, in my opinion, the lifes of the Oxbridge Tutorial, that one to one, or one to two or three hour long session once a week is far, far, far from dead.

Neuroscience is going to blow this allow out of the water.

Already the shift is very much in favour of genetics and the way our unique brains are formed as we develop as a foetus. It is nature, not nuture, so frankly, we can have anything thrown at us in terms of life experience and how we learn and how we respond will remain individual. This is the perspective of my father in law whose secondary education was the being in the Polish resistance during the Second World War, his first university a prisoner of war camp. He had England or the US as choices having decided not to return to Poland. And found himself learning English in Gateshead. The story continues ... so what kind of learning was occuring in the POW camp?

He bartered lessons in German for lessons in English.

Social-situated in extremis.

Not that it can be injected into a class, and even less so in online learning, but 'fear' doesn't half help turn a short term memory into one that will stick. Playing Devil's Advocate, can 'e-learning' only ever be 'cotton wool' the safest, tamest learning you will ever recieve? Try reading an essay out in a tutor group - there's fear! Try getting up in a hall of 300 people to make your point in a debating chamber - terrying. An odd conclusion to reach at the end of this reflection on the exercise - but where is the 'fear'?

And I mean the right kind of fear, not the threat of the cane or other such punishment, but the fear of letting you down, or your side down, or of humiliation ... against the public reward if you get something right?

Pinned down in a collapsed cellar in Warsaw my father in law believed he would die. He was the only one alive. Everyone else had been flattened. By some chance he had been standing under a beam that had partially protected him. He made promises he'd keep if he lived. He was found. A smash to the head.

Does learning have more impact when there is something at stake?

Try introducing this element into an e-learning module.

The impossible hypothesis - people learn better and make decisions with firmer convictions, where their life is at stake?

Then again we turn to neuroscience and will conclude that some will, some won't, that the response of the individual to a shared experience means that you get as many different outcomes as there are people.

Institutions think that grades divide students - that's only the tiniest fraction of what makes each person in that class different. If the student isn't suitably self aware to know how to play to their strengths and managed their weaknesses then the observant tutor and others who are part of the institution should be doing this on their behalf - as parents, friends and siblings might do. Even with medical intervention.

The 'Flipped classroom' for me is finding ways to work with the individual who happens to be in a class that is probably already sorted by age and culture, if not also social class and gender.

And therefore already inappropriate.

Maybe the classroom has had its time. A short-lived interlude in human development over the last 70,000 years.

Activity 7.3: Reading the first part of the paper (2 hours)

Read the first part of the Conole et al. paper through to the end of section 1, ‘Introduction’ (pp. 17–21).

As you read the paper note the different purposes the authors envisage for their model. Then consider and make notes on the following questions:

• Who do the authors see as the main audience for this paper?
• What is the main aim of the paper?

Try to fit the readings met so far in the module into Table 1 of the Conole et al. paper.

The main audience of the paper would appear to be fellow academics of tertiary education and postgraduate students of the same with a particular interest in e–learning. This might include PGCE students, teachers and educators, learning designers and e–learning designers. The main aim, purpose or outcome of the paper is to provide insights and practical skills, to isolate and match theories and application so putting theory into practice and allocating theories to design decisions and choice indicating implications, objectives and choices. Models help to Visualise and clarify.

The dichotomy suggested as existing between reflection and non-reflection is a false one.

We reflect on everything we do in our subconcious whether we like it or not otherwise we'd be dead. This is what is going on when REM is observed in our sleep - our brains are going through stuff, mixing it up with and across some 15 parts of the neuronal network and slowly turning a short term thought into a long term memory. Or some such, I'm neither a neuroscientist nor a psychlologist.

By stating non-reflection the authors may be suggesting this is a conscious decision not to do a formal exercise of reflecting. We can't, as I said, turn our brains off.

The 3D model doesn't work for me while the 2D do.

Three years of reading Conole and I still find some of her visual conceptions hard to comprehend, bucking the trend or coming from a conceptualisation of the world that I don't get - or reinvention where it isn't necessary. I recall the triangle of Vygotsky and Activity Theory by Engestrom transmogrified into a diamond.

There is a good reason for a copywriter and art director to sit together in the creative department of an advertising agency - one words, the other visuale. It is rare for a person to be good at both.

1) Hiltz and Meinke (1998) Virtual Classroom in a traditional setting. Behaviourist/Cognitive leaning towards constructive where content can be viewed and reviewed at leisure. Experiential in 'suck it and see' what happens from the research point of view.

2) Wegerif and Mercer (1997) Computing to analyse large amounts of text. Socially–situated and Activity Theory / Experiential.

3) Laurillard (1994) A conference presentation where others listen and observe - both the presenter and the slides they show. Behaviourist. Didactic. 'Telling' in a lecture.

4) Oliver et al (2007) A chapter in a book. Written for academics and students to read.Behaviourist. Didactic. Read our wise words as an absolute. Constructively formed via a peer–reviewed paper. Two authors collabirating.

5) Rouen and Eliahu (2000) is a conference presentation too, financed by the Centre for Education. Behaviourist. Didactic. 'Telling' in a lecture. Constructed between the authors.

Why are we insightful? What is going on in the brain when we have a flash of insight?

Horizon on the Brain looks at:

• Insight
• Divergent thinking
• Improvisation
• Unusual and unexpected experiences
• Schema violation

Based on this I'm going to take up something mindless to do between the gaps - doing the dishes surely counts?

Reading does not?

Watching TV does not?

• Walking the dog
• Falling asleep in the bath
• Pruning bushes
• Mow the lawn

When and where do people have moments of creativity?

The neuroscience of electromangentic and fMRI scans.

Human advancement is dependent on creativity.

You will hear from:

• Prof Jonathan Schooler
• Dr Mark Beeman
• Dr Charles Limb
• Dr Simone Ritter
• Dr Jon Kounios
• Dr Rex Young

You will hear about:

• The neural correlate of creativity
• The anterior superior antilial giros
• Look for unexpected experiences Scehema violation
• Breaking cognitive pedants

Breaking any routine – switching steps Change your routines Well trodden neural pathways are abandoned.

• Mind wandering helps the creative process Engaging in a non–demanding task
• Don't just do nothing, do something undemanding instead ...

If you're stumped, take a break e.g. walk, shower, gardening ... walk the dog.

• Down regulate your frontal lobes.
• Some people are hypofrontal. Losing your inhibitions when you improvise.
• Releasing your mental handcuffs.
• Science to explain.

Towards a theory of creativity.

REFERENCE 

Why are we insightful? What is going on in the brain when we have a flash of insight?

Horizon on the Brain

• Insight
• Divergent thinking
• Improvisation

The penny just dropped ... what's all this fretting about process for? Have we all forgotten the purpose of research???? Not to get the process right, but to get answers to problems, to find better ways, to understand and share what is going on so that we can act, or not act on it?

I'm doing the H817open MOOC so my head is spilling out in various directions trying to define what 'open' is all about. It isn't even the democratisation of education and knowledge either, it is the Tim Berners-Lee rather than the Google approach to knowledge - give it away for free, it is 'communismization' - which is a word, however horrible it sounds, I just looked it up.

This moves me onto dwelling on Creative Commons.

From E-Learning V

Fig.1. This IMHO is what learning has become in the 21st century - and how it got there

There's more going on here than you may realise!

From E-Learning V

Fig.2. Traditional top down learning

Two triangles, one above the other and linked with a downward arrow suggests traditional top down learning ... or simply knowledge transfer from someone who knows something to someone who does not.

From E-Learning V

Fig. 3 By someone's side

Two triangles, one facing the other, may represent a shift towards collaborative or horizontal learning in a formal setting, though for me it represents the learning you do away from the institution - with friends, with family 'on the same level' as it were.

From E-Learning V

Fig. 4. Participatory and situated, networked learning on the periphery

From E-Learning V

Fig.5 The thinking starts with Vigotsky and his research into behaviourist learning

It then progressed to the study and analysis of learning in communities

From E-Learning V

Fig. 6. Activity Theory as conceived of and developed by Yrjo Engeström. 

From E-Learning V

Fig.7 The interplay between two entities or communities coming together to solve a problem and thus producing something unique to them both (object 3) - a fresh idea.

From E-Learning V

Fig.8. Activity Theory re-connected - breaking out

Though developed over some thirty years the structure of 'Activity Theory' as a model is breaking down because of the quality, speed and way in which we now connect overrides barriers and invades silos making communication more direct and immediate.

From E-Learning V

 Fig. 9 Activity Theory in a connected world

Everyone and everything is just a click away.

From E-Learning V

Fig.10 Visualizing the maelström of original ideas generated by people sharing their thoughts and ideas as they form

The maelström of new ideas where people and groups collide and interact. Historically this had been in grounded 'communities of practice', whether a London coffee shop or the senior common room of a prestigious university, the lab, the studio, the rehearsal room ... today some gatherings online are frequent, enabled by the Internet and no less vibrant as like-minds and joiners contribute to the generation of new ideas. 

This, drawing on Engestrom via Vygotsky, might be a more academic expression of Open Learning. Here a host of systems, expressed in model form, interpose their drive to achieve certain objectives into the common whole. That mess in the middle is the creation of the collective powers and inputs of individuals, groups, departments or institutions. The Open bit are the connections between any node in one system, and any other node from any othe one of the systems ... which blows apart the actions within a single system, making them more open, though not random. 

From E-Learning V

Fig. 11 It's going on inside your head.

fMRI scans reveal the complex way in which ideas form and memories are recalled and mixed-up, challenged and re-imagined. We are our very own 'community of practice' of conflicting and shared viewpoints. 

From E-Learning V

Fig.11. Perceiving brain activity as the interplay between distinct, interacting zones

From E-Learning V

Fig. 12 Ideas enter your system, your brain and are given a fresh spin

From E-Learning V

Fig.13 Ideas coalesce until you reach a point of understanding. The penny doesn't so much as 'drop' as to form.

Where would we be without one of these. 98 billion neurons. A uniquely connected mass of opportunity and potential. This is where, of course, memories are formed and thoughts had. Increasingly we are able to share ideas and thoughts as we have them, typically through the tips of our fingers by sharing our thinking online, especially where it comes to the attention of like-minds, and troubled-minds - anyone in fact or strongly agrees or strongly disagrees enough to contribute by adding their thinking and revealing their presence.

Read the first part of the paper (to the end of page 4).

Note the kinds of changes that the authors describe, and consider the extent to which these apply to your own practices and research interests.

Are there changes that the authors have not considered?

• The transition to tablets, extensive and preferred use of Smartphone, hot desking in the home, in the home of friends at school so keeping everything online, but also sharing /exposing identities, a 21st openness and frankness in relation to gender, sexuality, individuality, beliefs, bullying, privilege and disadvantage. In my planned context if 'leakage' of content is highly likely then a randomized controlled trial is porbably undoable.

• The history of informal learning and categories from home, games, clubs, apprenticeship with a social anthropological slant. Is it so different to the way people have always learnt in social groupings, the difference being that if you don’t have someone at your shoulder, you have them at your fingertips and in your head? Take for example the Boy Scout movement of 100 years ago. Even the ‘invention’ of games like football and rugby as a result of informal game-play. What can be learnt from looking at the take up of technologies, or new attitudes to learning in the past?

• Is a tutorial an informal setting? Socrates in a discussion is preferable to Socrates as a TED lecture? The lessons from the 'Oxbridge Tutorial' of two/three to the workshop-like tutorials of 12+ at the Open University.

• Is an extracurricular society a self-learn and informal setting?

• Amateur dramatics (youth theatre), and youth orchestras, teens forming bands, sailing and swimming clubs all show young people learning together, picking up where adults leave off - or taking over as it suits the person rather than the age or cohort - as occurs online. Having something to talk about in the first place encourages its discussion.

• Virtual worlds are not everyone’s cup of tea, or everyone’s opportunity (Eynon, 2012) 13% excluded, 4% of the remaining choosing NOT to use the Internet.

• Counter impact of interloper by having participants briefed to undertake research.

• Are the ways so new? As the Internet is a mirror to human behaviours online, the behaviours are the same though more akin to living in a close-knit community. ‘With brass knobs on’ - people can be rigidly themselves, alter egos, or even a different gender, age or cultural identity. (Kelly, 2011)

My own experience, very dismissive of, even reluctant to bring the classroom into any of these domains, indeed, it is anathema. However, during the Olympics, not surprisingly a few swimmers would say what they’d seen or followed in relation to their stroke or development as competitive athletes - mostly, ‘its not for me!’. A young adult art student, whilst he won’t adhere to his asthma medications, uses the sensation of being breathless in his art.

Observing online activities akin to similar in a boarding school setting - life skills learnt, but rarely to do with class work, my life and team skills, personal identity, coping mechanisms, learning from each other, forming opinions etc Eastbourne College, Mowden Hall School. In contrast to home life football practice, amateur theatre group, dance and so on …

The drivers that see a person transition from child to adult, and the sophistication of the brain makes these impacts of no less or more influence than anything that has occurred for previous generations, indeed, I’d contend that two World Wars, for those caught up in them would have had significantly more effect that anything the Internet can throw at an adolescent.

REFERENCE

Eynon, R (2009) Mapping the digital divide in Britain: implications for learning and education.

Kelly, D (Forthcoming 2011) 'Karaoke’s Coming Home:  Japan’s Empty Orchestras in the United Kingdom', Leisure Studies 30.

This apparently.

Fig. 1 New Scientist 9 February 2013 Mind Maths by Colin Barras

Activity 6.1: Audiences podcast (2 hours)

Not that I'm inclined to put letters after my name except on some official notice, but does this make me:

J F Vernon M.ODE

J F Vernon M.ode

J F Vernon M.ED.

J F Vernon Ed.M

or simply

J F Vernon MAD

or 'Mode in the OU'

I think I'll have it tattoed on my backside as it has hardened over the last three years. Or a large 'O' and and large 'U' on the back of each hand.

Just wondering.

This from a paper from Rebecca Eynon a Professor of Education and the Oxford Internet Institute (Eynon, 2009:277)

Her book 'Teenagers and Technology' is a valuable read too.

So what do you think? Do we expect too much, too quickly from technology? Look at the horseless carriage, it still can't drive you home - well, not in England anyway. Over a hundred years ago you could stumble into you tub trap after a few too many pints of ale and your dobbin would take you home. I suppose the equivalent today would be to have a private secretary to do all this typing stuff for you?

Pizzas burning, must dash.

REFERENCE

Eynon, R (2009) Mapping the digital divide in Britain: implications for learning and education. Rebecca Eynon