Personal Blogs

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/05/it-has-never-got-easier.html

How do we perceive and share knowledge? What matters most in this equation?

Society, the institution, department or the individual educator?

Learning occurs at the interface between individuals, between the teacher and pupil, between pupils and of course between the thinkers, the educators, researchers and academics.

This interface is expressed as an artefact: a lecture, a book, a TV appearance, a podcast, a chapter in a book or a paper – as an expression of a set of ideas. This interface is also a conversation, in a tutorial, at a conference or less formally in passing over a meal, or drink (in the Oxbridge experience at the High Table, in the senior, middle or junior common rooms, in halls and rooms where societies and loose groupings of people meet, as well as in studies and rooms). Recreation of this online as minds meet, discuss and share. Informal or proactive groups or societies coming together. People with people.

On the one hand we like to put the institution above the person, whether in academia or the commercial world we rank and recognise Oxbridge and the Russell Group 'above' other universities while, for example, in Law we put Freshfields, Clifford Chance and Herbert Smith in the top ten of 125 or 500 legal practices.

However, it is an the individual level, at the interface between one person and another, one mind and another, where the learning occurs, where the knowledge is applied and changed, and in various forms written up or written out to cause or record effect.

It is at this interface, where minds meet, where ideas are catalysed and formed.

Towards my own theory of learning ?

Or trying to get my head around Engestrom's Activity Theory that fits the bill for me?

 

Call for design based on educational theory. How can technologies be used to afford specific learning advantages?

1. Contextual
2. Ambient
3. Augmented
4. Distributed
5. Social networked

SHIFT From information to communication From passive to interactive With engagement and from individual learners to socially situative learning

Littlejohn et al (L2455)

1. Digital assets
2. Information objects
3. Learning activities
4. Learning design

Littlejohn, A., Falconer,I and McGill,L. ( ) Characterising effective eLearning resources'. Education

Towards new technical architectures and a service-orientated approach vs. instructivist focus on single leaners accessing content.

Unit of learning (Britain, 2004)

Importance of educational vocabularies. Currier et al (2006) L2476

Currier,S. Campbell, L. Beetham, H. (2006) JISC pedagogical vocabularies report project. Pedagogical vocals.

Laurillard (1993) six types of learning

1. Assimilative
2. Information handling
3. Adaptive
4. Communicative
5. Productive
6. Experiential

(Scaffolding)

The term previously known as 'natural language keyword indexing' = tagging not wiki.

Tasks to learning outcomes.

Subject, level of difficulty, intended learning outcomes, environment.

Content

Cognitive, effective, psycho-motor and able to understand, demo, produce or appraise. Bloom (1956)

Components of learning activity L2509

Context Pedagogy – associative, cognitive, situative.

Tasks Assessment – diagnostic, formative, summative.

Mediating artefacts. (Conole, 2002)

Media components

Interactivities

E–tivities (Implies Web 2.0)

Laurillard (1993) manipulation presentation analysis searching managing communicating visualising supporting evaluating adaptation

Mediating artefacts:

Narratives and case studies – engaging but specific so not reusable; peer dialogue.

Lesson plans Templates and wizards Toolkits Models and patterns e.g. Kolb (1984)

Reuse of mediating artifacts (Littlejohn, 2003)

Little use of generic resources (Beetham, 2004)

I would have found this invalauble commencing any of the Masters in Open and Distance Education Modules.

Gange’s model of instructional design

· Conditions of learning:

· Internal conditions deal with what the learner knows to prior to the instruction.

· External conditions deal with the stimuli that are presented to the learner

FIVE STEPS

FIRST STEP

Kind of outcomes to be achieved

Five types:

1. Verbal Information

2. Intellectual Skills

3. Cognitive Strategies

4. Attitudes

5. Motor Skills

SECOND STEP

Organise appropriate instructional events.

Gagne’s events of instruction:

1. Gaining attention

2. Informing the learner of the objective

3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning

4. Presenting the stimulus material

5. Providing learning guidance

6. Eliciting the performance

7. Providing feedback

8. Assessing the performance

9. Enhancing retention and transfer

Khadjoo. et al (2011:117)

In relation to teaching psychomotor skills:

Gaining attention

· Capture attention and arouse interest

· An abrupt stimulus

· A thought-provoking question

· Visual or sound stimulus (or multimedia)

Informing the learner of the objective

· Set learning objective

· Expectancy and motivation

· Identify, prepare, understand, perform and understand.

Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning

Associating new information with prior knowledge and personal experience and getting the learners to think about what they already know to facilitate the learning process. Khadjoo. et al (2011:117)

· Interactive discussion

· Ask questions, consider findings and confirm evidence.

Presenting the stimulus material

· New content presented

· Meaningful organisation

· Explanation and demonstration

· How to, position, monitor, test …

Khadjoo. et al (2011:118)

Providing learning guidance

· Correct performance

· Additional suggestions

· Use of examples (case studies)

· Graphical representations, mnemonics, add meaning …

Eliciting the performance

· The learner practices the new skill or behaviour.

· Confirmation of understanding

· Repetition to increase retention

Providing feedback

· Individual and immediate feedback and guidance

· Questioned answer

· Feedback from other learners

Assessing the performance

· Demonstration of what they have learned (no additional coaching or hints)

· Additional practice required

Enhancing retention and transfer

· Practice (Before, during and after)

· Spaced reviews

· Transfer of knowledge to new problems

· Practice, rest and repeat

· Consider:

o Objectives

o Setting

o Time

o Available resources

o Institutional constraints

o Content

o Number of learners (their characteristics and preferences)

REFERENCE

Gagne, R, Briggs L, Wager W, eds. (1998) Principles of instructional design. 3^rd edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Khajoii, K, Rostami.K.  How to use Gagne’s model of instructional design in teaching psychomotor skills. Gatroenterology and Hepatology. 4(3) 116-119

I've been wondering what lessons we can learn from the Olympics in relation to learning and success so was lighted to follow the interview with Dave Beresford the Team GB Cycling coach.

These are my notes with links. You can view again on BBC iPlayer and via Google I found the inteview being tweeted by various papers and Alastair Campbell.

I've been enjoying the TV vignettes with Colin Jackson too and the guy who does the slots on sports psychology.

Simplistic tasters that whet the appetite supported by the BBC Website and links that can provide more. Potential OU Support Links to local and regional clubs Prompts and tasters from The OU via Catherine Chambers in Linkedin to view some content on cycling and so perhaps take a sports science module.

Hero worship such as Dianne Lewis and Seb Coe

The legacy not just for sport, but self–evident proof that learning and hard work in sport can deliver, so hard work, application and knowledge can deliver at work and in the home, with your career, ambitions and family.

Interviewed by Garry Linneker on BBC Olympic Sport, David Brailsford of Team GB cycling on Wednesday 8th August spoke of his approach to seeking out the way to get the best performance from someone and how this could be applied to any sport, as well as work whether a lawyer or dentist.

• a philosophy best that a person can be
• the Olympic Park like a sports themed park

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-19182842

http://markgrantlondon.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/5-tips-leaders-can-apply-from-the-success-of-david-brailsford-performance-director-of-british-cycling/

http://www.thegca.co.uk/blog/?p=81

Why does the OU put the novice and expert together in the MAODE?

Although I praise this approach and after two years have been a beneficiary I wonder if the research points to the need for greater flexibility and mixing, more akin to several cohorts of students being able to move around, between their own tutor group, contributing to discussions with the newcomers while also being able to hobnob with the experts?

The learning theory that I am coming to understand does not favour a fixed approach.

It isn't simply a case of playing to the individual, though this is certainly very important as some people will favour being the teacher or the taught, or simply relish periods when they sit at the feet of the expert or stand up in front of newcomers. Rather it is apparent that people learn well within a peer group of like-minds, with people at a similar stage to themselves while having planned opportunities to hear and participate with 'great minds' while also from time to time contributing to the efforts and feeding off the enthusiasms of the 'new minds'.

Nothing is fixed, neither learning vicariously (Cox, 2006), or learning from the periphery to the centre (Seely Brown and Duguid, 1999).

Stage one of my approach to reading these days is to highlight, even share quotes and notes on Twitter as I go through a book.

I then type up my notes and add further thoughts either by cutting and pasting from the aggregates notes in my Twitter feed (eBooks don't allow you to cut and paste) or from handwritten notes I take on cards.

Then I share my notes here, tagged so that I can revisit and others can draw on my notes too or take the hint and read the chapter or book for themselves.

This too is but a stage - next step is to wrap up my developing thoughts, comments and other conversations and put a version of this entry into my external blog my mind bursts.

Sometimes an exchange here or elsewhere develops my thinking further - today I will be sitting down with a senior learning designer, one of five or six in the office of an international e-learning agency to talk learning theory and educational principles.

Chapter 2

Regarding Quality Assurance - there should be no inconsistencies between:

• Curriculum
• Teaching methods
• Learning environment
• Assessment procedures

So align assumptions:

• Learning outcomes
• Suitable assessment

N.B. Each outcome requires a different kind of theoretical perspective and a different pedagogical approach. L757

(Easy to say in theory, not so easy to deliver in practice?)

Three clusters of broad perspectives:

• Associationism
• Behaviourism
• Connectionism

Associationist: gradual building of patterns of associations and skill components. Therefore activity followed by feedback.

Simple tasks prerequisites to more complex.

Gagné (1985 and 1992)

• Instructional task analysis of discrimination, classifications and response sequences.
• Simpler tasks built step by step followed by coordination to the whole structure.

Instructional Systems Design

• Analyse the domain into a hierarchy of small units.
• Sequence the units so that a combination of units is not taught until its component units are grasped individually.
• Design an instructional approach for each unit in the sequence.

Then add:

• Immediate feedback
• Individualization of instruction

Behaviourism: active learning by design. Immediate feedback on success, careful analysis of learning outcomes, alignment of learning objectives.

The Cognitive Perspective

• Attention
• Memory
• Concept Formation

Knowledge acquisition as the outcome of an interaction between new experiences and the structures for understanding that have already been created. Therefore building a framework for learning vs. learning as the strengthening of associations.

Piaget (1970) Constructivist Theory of Knowledge.

‘Conceptual development occurs through intellectual activity rather than by the absorption of information'. L819

Vygotsky (1928:1931) Importance of social interaction.

Interactions – that e-learning teams call ‘interactivities’.

The Situative Perspective

• Learning must be personally meaningful
• Authentic to the social context

(problem-based learning and cognitive apprenticeship). L862

The concept of community practice

Wenger (1998) identify as a learner derived from the community. (Aspires, defines, accredited).

Mayes et al (2001) learning through relating to others. E.g. Master Class

Social-anthropological belonging to the community. L882.

Beliefs, attitudes, common endeavour, also ‘activity systems’ Engestrom 1993

Learning relationships

Identify, participate, individual relations. Dependent on: context, characteristics and strength of relationships in the group (Fowler and Mayes, 1999) L902

What was exotic in 2007 in common place today?

See Appendix 1 L912

Learning as a cycle through stages.

• J F Vernon (2011) H809 assignments and end of module assessment. The concept of riding a thermal of gently rising circles.
• Various references L923.
• Fitts and Posner (1968)
• Remelhart and Norman (1978)
• Kolb (1984)
• Mayes and Fowler (1999)
• Welford (1968)

If ‘as it proceeds from service to expert, the nature of learning changes profoundly and the pedagogy based on one stage will be inappropriate for another’. L923

Fowler and Mayes (1999)

Primary: preventing information

Secondary: active learning and feedback

Tertiary: dialogue and new learning.

REFERENCE

Beetham, H and Sharpe, R. (2007) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and delivering e-learning.

Cole, M and Engestrom, Y (1993) A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition. In G.Salmon (ed.) Distributed cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, New York, CVP.

Cox, R. (2006) Vicarious Learning and Case-based Teaching of Clinical Reasoning Skills (2004–2006) [online], http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ esrcinfocentre/ viewawardpage.aspx?awardnumber=RES-139-25-0127 [(last accessed 10 March 2011).

Gagné, R (1985) The conditions of learning. New York. Holt, Rhinehart and Wilson.

Jonassen, D.H. and Rohrer-Murphy, L (1999) ‘Activity theory as a framework for designing constructivist learning environments’. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47 (1) 61-80

Seely-Brown, J.S and Duguid, P. (1991) ‘Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation’, Organizational Science, 2 (1): 40-57

Learning has to take in the context of work and social factors.

Regarding Web 2.0 it is as commonplace as TV and radio, indeed I'd say it has almost completely replaced TV for some of us – this is not generational or even specific to a cohort, rather some prefer the online environment to the many others on offer. 

In our family the Internet takes precedence over radio, newspapers and magazines. For my personal learning environment PLE I now include the hardware – over the last two years I've gone from clapped out Mac laptop to an iPad: I keep everything online. If I need a laptop or desktop I borrow. My Smarthpone is my 'university in my top pocket' and some. I have a Kindle too for all books, even replacing some I have as hardbacks, while PDFs go to the iPad. 

I will preload the Kindle with ample reading as this will go to the beach while the iPad stays at home (cottage).

I find it remarkable to be in such a valued and valuable role for e-learning. Testing might be a nearly finished or finished e-learning product, but proof reading can start with the initial proposal document and the first plans, or blue prints or wireframes for the course itself. I am therefore being a second pair of eyes to support sales, project management, learning design, build and graphics. I am looking to support, comment on or correct grammar and spelling, but also thinking about how well something communicates, whether it works or not - anything to ease the user experience, while adhering to appropriate style guides of course. Along the way I am having my own usage and abusage of English fixed, so at last I can correct who to whom, while deleting commas, and reducing the use of parentheses to aid clarity of communication.

We hear today, at a distance, in real time, broadcast on Radio, that TXT has overtaken the spoken word on the phone. I email by preference, though will TXT rather than speak usually because I feel I have time to compose my thoughts, can sometimes duplicate the message or a variation of it to several members of the family and then take stock of the responses as they come through – I don't have time for chat. I avoid chat unless it suits me to chew over a topic, go round in circles and indulge the other speaker and me.

So how does this apply to learning? What is best face–to–face or at a distance, synchronous or asynchronous? The answer I understand is all of these, that interaction by whatever means available helps the learning process compared to working alone. You can think it through with a.n.other; you can share doubts and admit that yiu don't 'get' the most trivial things and have it explained or expressed by somoene that at last makes sense.

'Get it from Nellie' is the expression I got from an 85 year old at the weekend, a long retired senior partrner from PriceWaterhouse. He believes in trainees, in the apprentice, the articled clerk, the junior picking it up from the senior. So simple, so obvious, yet where does this occur in education? I've only come across it between partners where one is a couple of years ahead of the other on an MBA programme and can give all kinds of guidance. We don't see A level students helping those at GCSE, or one year group helping another as undergraduates. The system of a qualified PhD as lecturer or supervisor follows this model though. I found it worked a bit a primary school too with 10 and 11 year olds helping out with the youngest. Is there something of the extended family in this? Is there something of a more traditional, manageable community too of elders and others?

Social learning is about sharing, passing on and explaining. It should be less about indoctrination though, to what degree they can in Germany prevent by law any kind of religious upbringing until the young person has a say or thought on the matter is another things – you bring them up as agnostics or atheaists and that is what they'll be.

There's the need therefore to 'get it out' to express your ideas, to state where you are at, to be corrected or believed, vindicated or shot down. Knowledge doesn't simply aggregate like coral, rather it feeds on the vibrancy of responses from others. 

Successfully registered and signed up for H810: accessibility - starting September with a January finish. This will complete my first, extraordinary OU Journey after three years.

Intellectually challenging, rigorous, comprehensive, expansive and life transforming. It took a while but I am now working for a world leader creating e-learning resources for companies - manager training for the most part.

It won't end here. I have my eye on a History MA. I've discussed this with student services. Starting September 2013 in two parts this will take me into the Centenerary of that horror, the 'war to end war' (HGWells) 1914-1918 that I blog about at www.machineguncorps.com

History would have been my first degree decades ago had I not got cold feet and switched to Geography. And an MA in Fine Art (which had been on the cards in 2010 when I elected for the MAODE.

I guess that's the next decad taken care of!

This from B822 Creativity, Innovation and Change which ended in April.

Several reasons why as a technique it is out of the reach if most of us and impractical as a management tool.

a) What good is it 'dreaming up' something at random.

b) That has nothing to do with the course.

I found myself giving a presentation to an eager group in a crowded boardroom. I don't know why.

'and Jonathan is going to give you the criteria'.

And up I step, in a two piece suit with the manner of Montgomery addressing the troops - effusive, informed, consided and persuasive.

It went something like this:

"We human are blessed with an innate ability to float in water, though not necessarily fully clothed, or carrying a backpack and rifle."

Laughter.

"We should encourage swimming for a number of reasons: for the love of it, as a life skill, as a competitive sport and for fitness'.

At which point I am full conscious, which from a dream state meant 'I lost it'.

Why this dream?

I am reading a good deal on the First World War and I am swimming four or more times a week again after a long, slow easing back into the sport over the lt five months. I even got papers through yesterday which I only opened late in the evening before going to bed to say that I had passed the ASA Level 3 module on Sports Psychology (which makes 10// modules down on that 'Front'.

Quality = fitness for purpose

Looks right

Works

Stands up to cost-benefit analysis

This is from a book that came as the box of resources in 2001 when the MAODE was called a MAODL and the term 'e-learning' hadn't come into common usage - we called it 'online learning', or 'web-based learning' and in practice meant 'migrating content to the Web' which as an interactive DVD would typically fail to upload or play thus for a decade web-based learning was a poorer cousin of the bespoke DVD with 3D animations and oodles of specially commissioned video.

If the OU MAODE is the wood, and the trees are clients or individual e-learning projects then working in Quality Assurance for a global company you could say I am like a botanist up the tree with a magnifying glass and a noteback (although in my case that would be an iPad).

All day, every day viewing and reviewing e-tivities, or learning objects, as well as scanning copy, checking layout, thinking about usability and generally as forester or gardener helping to nurture these things through.

It'll be fascinating to do my last MAODE module while in this environment (if I have any energy left at the end if each day/week).