Fig. 1 A mashup between Freevector and a Wordle
I like a Wordle for the fun of them. Feels lazy to put words into a digital box and give it a shake. Anyone can have a go. This one is edited notes on the Tindall-Ford paper and a paragraph from the Wikipedia entry on Maria Montessori.
Same info, a different shake of the Wordle digital box.
Fig.2. Montessori and Tindall-Ford put through the Wordle tombola of word cloud generation.
If only a 6,000 word assignment could be written by assembling all your evidence, research and notes, putting in the criteria for this four parter, then hitting a button
This is the Wordle version
I wonder if by doing Wordles of our work it would be possible to differentiate between a lower and a higher grade assignment on the basis of the size (and therefore frequency) of certain words?
P.S.
Discussing mobile learning with my 13 and 15 year old I told them about loading all course books onto an iPad (becoming common place in Schools across North America); they both said it would be too distracting as you'd want to chat or play games.
I said what about an e-Reader, and they said that was boring, what was wrong with a real book
To cap it all my 15 year old has gone retro, both in her dress sence (her version of hippie or punk depending on her frame of mind), and insists on using a throw-away film camera or a functiong 1970s Polaroid camera.
The motivation has to be the content, not how it is delivered, and the end result in terms of grades, the university and career of their choice etc: I like the analogy of mobile content being like 'Chicken Tikka': whatever the means of delivery the expectation is that it is still Chicken Tikka.
'Whicever mode of delivery I choose, the meal I eat will still be Chicken Tikaa'. Luckin et al. (2005:122)
REFERENCE
Luckin,R., Brewster,D., du Boulay, P., Corbay, S. (2005) in Mobile Learning. A handbook for educators and trainers. Edited by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme and John Traxler.
Think about your own learning – the resources and tools you use, where and when it takes place.
Early mornings from 4.00am, weekends, mornings only 'til 10.00 or so.
Occasionally some reading in the evening.
But vicariously too, in a conversation, or going for walk, say looking at pebbles and shell washed up on the shore, or the layers of deposits in a chalk cliff.
What is your experience of being a learner?
If I'm not learning something new or building on my knowledge I am bored. I'm staggered I survived formal learning, I found the Oxford approach tedious, skipped all lectures, and relied instead on libraries and Blackwells which could between them supply every book or journal I wanted.
I failed to get far with a correspondence course on writing.
I learn best with a mixture of doing, reading/workshops and further application. I can be inspired or frustrated by my peer group. They can be a vital part of the mix, a course I did across Europe having the most refreshing mix of people.
What tools and resources do you use?
I'm slowly getting it all down to the iPad for its speed to the web, then grabbing and pasting into websites that I use as folders, eportfolios, writer's journal as well as open blogs. I also chuck things into my email folders to collate, aggregate or check through later.
What are your views on different technologies?
I make the time to try most things and will become temporarily hooked. Currently fixated on Linkedin, Wordpress blogs and Stumbleupon.
Likely to read most content as an eBook putting notes into iWriter. This is in stark contrast to printing everything off a year ago then filing it.
Forever grabbing screenshots or taking pics that go from Picasa to Picasa Web and then into blogs.
Can you think of examples where technology has made a significant difference to the way you learn?
When I started the MAODE I fell back on methods I had used during A' levels snd quickly filled several files.
A year on and I hold the iPad in my right hand and manage a kind of touchtyping with the other. I try not to rely on harddrives and memory sticks instead putting it online, increasingly as private or password protected entries in a number of blogs hat act as themes or categories.
I would worry about learning away from The OU and finding the VLE not up to scratch or being cut-off from fellow students.
Can you think of counter examples where you had a bad experience of a particular technology?
I hate Outlook and Excel.
I both instances I feel the nerd has taken over, that my mothball of a mnd is being shoe-horned into a match-box. Worse, My unregimented, freefalling, excitable mind is being containerised, my best thoughts quaterised. It disables some minds and enables the petty. These are to me like walking in crocodiles to the school dining hall; they are overly prescriptive.
I am starting to hate Word 2011 in favour of an iPad App, iWriter which is less like trying to write while dressed as a Morris Dancer and playing the Great Whurlitzer.
Interested in the potential of computers I joined an undergraduate group in 1983 but found having to learn programming was akin to sticking stamps onto envelopes with my toes.
I used interactive DVDs successfully to learn AdobePhotoshop, FilemakerPro and Dreamweaver.
Simply a voice talking through the screen shots then getting you to do the same. The next best thing to having someone sit at your side and be your guide.
All self-paced, vital as I might prefer to do 20 intensive hours in one shot rather than nibbling at it.
What did this do to your motivation for learning?
There must be intrinsic motivation.
How did you deal with the situation?
Giving up. Which I know now was unnecessary. Thinking my mind isn't suited to a thing instead of tackling it.
Support is vital.
Some formal training, then support at your shoulder. Time to figure it out. Understanding as you get it wrong. Those expert at these things can be unsympathetic to new comers, assuming their knowledge, rather that helping or nuturing.
Had the motivation been there could I have found my own way into the technology I do wonder.
I love the intuitive, where the learning is self-directed and incremental. Anything that needs an instruction manual or behaves like the off-side rule will put me off.
I love the Sony flip. IT just does video. Like Google 'just does search'.
Excessive bells and whistles should be offered as Apps to add later rather than being offered up front.
Visualing metaphors I use to explain learning online:
It is like the letter a ...
Akin to my ever changing Personal Learning Environment mindmap:
Each might emphasise different aspects of the process: –
Ways of expressing yourself
What artifacts (tools, resources, etc.) are being used?
Where and when things are happening
And is visualised in many ways, Engestrom (2007) Mycorrhizae thinks in term of fungi.
My own take is a lichen:
The language you use carries with it connotations and hidden assumptions. You need to make things as clear and as explicit as possible to develop shared meaning and understanding to avoid confusion. Conole (2011:404) Indeed. Conole in one sentence manages several metaphors:
· Different lenses
· Digital landscape
· Navigate through this space
So we've go camera lenses/how the eye sees, we have a landscape that has a physical presence, where a digital one does not and then we have an image of a Tall Ship on an ocean passing through this landscape (or at least I do). You might see a GPS device, a map and compass on a the Yorkshire Fells. Language creates images in our minds eye. The danger of a metaphor is when it creates parameters or absolutes.
I find it problematic that descpite the tools around us we are obliged to communicate with words. We could use images, we can use live audio, but we are yet to construct and respond to these activites with a piece to webcam.
Conole and Oliver mention four levels of description:
1. Flat vocabulary
2. More complex vocabulary
3. Classification schemas or models
4. Metaphors
Which is the most persuasive? The most effective and memorable?
This set of words is used to describe cloudworks. Only the last stands out as pertinent to Web 2.0 and the kinds of apt terms for e-learning 2011.
Metaphors are indeed 'powerful ways of meaning making'. (Conole. 2011.406)
Ref: Metaphors we live by. Lakoff and Johnson (1980)
Over the last 18 months I have returned repeatedly to the importance and value of metaphors, drawing on neuroscience and literature. There are 28 entries in which metaphor is discussed. This is perhaps the most insightful as it draws on an article in the New Scientist.
Morgan’s Metaphors discussed by Conole, White and Oliver (2007)
1. Machines
2. Brains
3. Organisms
4. Cultures
5. Political systems
Whatever works for you, but importantly, what you can use that is comprehended by others.
Presenting on Social Media over the last few weeks I have repeatedly used images of the Solar System to develop ideas of gravity and magnitude, spheres of influence and impacts. It is one way to try and make sense of it. The other one I use is the water-cycle, but as that can turn into an A' Level geography class.
Some futher thoughts from Conole
‘These and other tools are beginning to enable us to embed more meaning in the objects and connections within the digital space. The tools can also be used to navigate through the digital space, providing particular narrative paths of meaning to address different goals or interests.’ (Conole, 2011:409)
‘The approach needs to shift to harnessing the networked aspects of new technologies, so that individuals foster their own set of meaningful connections to support their practice, whether this be teachers and seeking connections to support them in developing and delivering their teaching, or learners in search of connections to support and evidence of their learning. (Conole. 2011:410)
‘Those not engaging with technologies or without access are getting left further and further behind. We need to be mindful that the egalitarian, liberal view of new technologies is a myth; power and dynamics remain, niches develop and evolve. Applications of metaphorical notions of ecology, culture and politics can help us better understand and deal with these complexities. (Conole. 2011:410)
How do we describe and make sense of digital environments?
It is complex and multifaceted
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