Personal Blogs

Reflections on engaging with online content in the Open Design Studio in H817

No, I wasn’t thanking Bill. I don’t know a Bill anyway.

That was what I typed, in a frenzied moment when, during our ODS team’s latest Google Hangout, I at last understood what tasks I had to do by the next one. I had meant to type “OK Brill”.

Our online team meetings, whether via Elluminate or Google Hangouts (broadband connection allowing) keep me sane and connected to both the activity and the task team.

I’m disheartened by the fact that I’ve not enjoyed the majority of this learning block, not least because it’s the part of the module that attracted me most to it in the first place. Some practical experience at playing around with design tools was what I really wanted; something that gave me some practical confidence as opposed to isolated academic knowledge. As yet, it has not come to pass.

It’s only now that I feel even slightly motivated to try and reflect on the actual activities, in the attempt to extract some learning from this process.

There’s been insufficient scaffolding for me to engage purposefully in this learning block. From the beginning, elements of it were fragmented across different online environments, several of which were new to me and took much time (weeks really) to get comfortable with. Herein lies one similarity with the MOOC experience.

From my point of view, an improvement here would have been a clearer overview of the whole task, with some imagery of what it would look like over the course of the weeks to completion. From here, there could have been step-off points into the other areas. No doubt some learners on the course will feel the detail on the H817 weekly pages and forums were sufficient for this. They categorically were not sufficient for me.

Bizarrely, that which looked to be the most practical learning block, that which sought to integrated theory and practice, has not done so for me. I would even go so far as to say that I have picked up little of either. I just haven’t had the opportunity to ‘play around’ with the tools, which is what I wanted to do. I’ve lost that motivation to do so as well. It’s no longer enjoyable. The moment I click into the ODS site, I’m put off. It’s not easy to shrug these feelings off.

The online team meetings at least enable me to learn from my peers. Although I am doing this from their blogs, I seem strangely unable to do this from the ODS site activity materials. By that I mean, when something is packaged up in the templates we’ve been offered, I lose the ability to interact with the material. It’s featureless, untextured, and uninteresting as a result. When we talk about it during our meetings the life comes back into it. It is almost as if I am unable to learn from them if I can’t experience activity alongside my fellow team members. Is the nature of legitimate peripheral participation inhibited by our lack of ‘real’ contact? Although I was able to engage and learn from virtual communities of practice (the online forums, my fellow learners blogs, the Twitter H817 MOOC community), there was more thinking and less ‘doing’. Perhaps something here is more task based?

What is it that I find so difficult about engaging with these materials in the ODS site and on the Google+ community? I want to understand this, because it is going to have implications for how I engage in projects in an online collaborative community. My ability to learn from others seems diminished by both the volume of activity, the rush, and grappling with the medium, but basically, I ain’t learning coz it ain’t fun!

Post in response to H817 MOOC activity 20: Rhizomatic Learning

Dave Cormier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJIWyiLyBpQ

Key features of Rhizomatic Learning

1.    The best learning teaches you to deal with uncertainty

2.    The community is the curriculum

3.    Rhizomes offer a model for learning an uncertainty

4.    Complex decision-making (probe, sense, respond)

5.    Need to make students responsible for their own learning (and that of others)

Was I convinced by the approach?

The messiness and organic nature of the process was appealing – something I recognize from participating it the MOOC, and operating across a number of arenas in my Personal Learning Network (PLN).

What I like about the slidedeck (Cormier) is that is explicitly links types of learning to decision-making, which I feel is underplayed elsewhere in the field of learning. I see rhizomatic learning as useful, if not an ideal way of supporting learning that addresses ‘complex’ problems and decision-making (as shown in the matrix below).

This most accurately represents the working-learning environment for children’s centre leaders, that I came across in my MA research project, and rhizomatic learning is a good representation of the way in which those individuals responded to the environment – by making use of and extending their PLNs; exploring them with a specific, contextualized, learning agenda. Interesting, those most comfortable in their roles, articulated the existence of their own PLN (though not by that name) in their research responses, and their active pursuit of learning through it, whereas those less experienced individuals the learning through their PLNs seemed more incidental and unconscious.

Can this approach be implemented?

Accepting the above point, I can see the potential for supporting rhizomatic learning as a productive model where the context is supporting ‘complex’ decision-making, and not in environments which call for ‘complicated’ or ‘simple’ decision-making. I can, however, see that it might be potentially useful in environments of ‘chaotic’ decision-making, though there may need to be some re-working, perhaps a slimming down of linkages or arenas in the PLN to those most responsive (and trusted), so that they can be drawn upon within the time constraints that characterize chaotic decision-making. 

Within the field I work in, complex family work (particularly when working with holistic, family-focused models, such as Family Intervention Projects), requires complex decision-making of the kind conceived in this model. Where in the past, there has been an emphasis on ‘complicated’ decision-making, where individual professionals with specific specialisms, such as mental health, substance misuse, domestic violence, not to mention the specialisms in either adult or children as individuals, the current trend is toward a more holistic and family-focused model with the need for trade-offs to be made between the value of certain interventions targeting different family members. Whereas the previous model required ‘experts’ to see through ‘good practice’ interventions, the new model requires unique and personalized support pathways to be constructed among groups of professionals from different specialisms, working collaboratively.

There has been some effort to introduce supporting infrastructure for this work (such as the Common Assessment Framework and Team around the Family meetings, to work across the children’s workforce for instance), but workforce development, notably, has not adopted a collaborative approach to knowledge and strategy construction. My instinct is that although examples of good practice exist, it has evolved organically.

How might a Rhizomatic approach differ?

Compared to a lot of commercial training on offer for the workforce I’ve described, the learning would need to utilize the existing relationships and networks that exist. Therefore, I think supporting Communities of Practice as groups, both directly and indirectly, is the way forward. Direct support would involve wrapping around a learning infrastructure to the existing work-based infrastructure of clusters and professional supervision. In addition, I think for many groups, a wayfinding and facilitating role would probably be needed to support the development of critical digital literacy skills and the socialization process. Indirect support would involve enabling access to or signposting relevant Open Educational Resources.

What issues would arise from implementing it?

Expectations. This is the biggest issue for me. When people purchase commercial training, there is often the expectation that they will get something defined for their money, and support is something they are used to having quantified (7 hours of directed study for instance). Equally, they are used to

having defined learning outcomes and success criteria, often supported by accreditation of some sort, and associated collateral such as a certificate. While it might be wise to produce some physical product to accompany the experience of participation, so as to meet an existing expectation, it remains the case that the absence of clearly measurable learning outcomes (related to the acquisition of subject knowledge) is a conceptual leap for some participants and some purchasers of training.