Student and tutor Student and student Student and content
Should the tutor not also be engaged with the content?
If not they are a facilitator, not a tutor, not a thinker, equally able to challenge the content as the student must.
My interest is in a tutor who questions the script, not all do. I've had a tutor read the script as if it were Latin, locked in history and imovable.
It is, we are, living in highly fluid times.
Sage on the Stage or Guide on the side?
I don't like the idea that somehow technology is diminishing the value of the educator by implying that they have gone from, and may be demoted to a 'sage on the stage'.
The best teacher never did pontificate, their position on the stage may have been as a result of their expertise, surely in Higher Education, if not early.
But for the transference of knowledge to the 'unknowing' student to occur they'd have to be all kinds of things to all kinds of people; sometimes a sage on the stage, often a guide on the side. Bill Furniss who coaches Rebecca Adlington and other swimmers is literally the 'guide on the side;' this doesn' t means he doesn't know hus subject.
Is a conductor a guide or sage?
What ICT allows is for individuals in the learning process to identify themselves by their role, so that the sage this morning csn be your guide in the evening.
In any case, who says the role of guide is any less sacrosanct?
I find increasingly, the more that I use them, that Stumbleupon and Zite are my guide on the side.
What I crave therefore is a conversation with the sages on the stages.
Come forth Martin Weller, Grainne Conole snd Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, ket's be hearing from you Chris Pegler and Mary Thorpe, you too Denise Kirkpatrick.
(see comments in Linkedin forum)
H800 WK15 Activity 1
Read Haythornthwaite (2008), ‘Ubiquitous Transformations’: Proceedings of the Networked Learning Conference, Halkidiki, 2008.
QQ1 What evidence is there of this shift towards taking responsibility for learning by the learners themselves?
There will be those who come to learning online who are used to being in control online, so they won't feel like a pupil entering a classroom, a student in a lecture hall or tutorial, a stranger in a strange land. Rather they will feel it is their domain, at best a shared domain, more like a visit to the leisure centre than to an elitist insitution where those in it have progressed as a result of proving their elite status.
‘Internet-based trends that emphasize contribution, conversation, participation, and community exercise a significant impact on learning.’ Haythornthwaite 2008:598
‘Participatory action has now spread to many aspects of daily life, often brought together under the label Web 2.0’. (O’Reilly, 2005). In (Haythornthwaite 2008:598)
It still matters for credibility of the qualification, evidence that you’ve done the work, evidence that you’ve picked the brains of and had your brain picked over by subject matter experts of a reputable established. It matters for the sake of guidance, perhaps the metaphor of railway tracks less appropriate given the freedoms afforded by the mobile internet, but even a kite-surfer has had to take instruction, purchase the right kit, maintain it, then seek and take advice from those wiser and more experienced.
I like the idea of the Learner Leader and picking up on the thinking of Cox on ‘participator learning’ and from John Seely-Brown learning ‘learning from the periphery’.
Where appropriate, participants come to shared definition of meanings through collaborative, conversational interaction.
Such emergent learning practices reinforce ideas from:
· collaborative learning theories (Bruffee, 1993; Koschmann, 1996; Miyake, 2007; Haythornthwaite, Bruce, Andrews, Kazmer, Montague, Preston, 2007),
· model what others have described as the learning behaviour of experts (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996).
In (Haythornthwaite 2008:601)
QQ2 Is Haythornthwaite’s account an idealised version of learner behaviour in your view?
‘These new media lay the foundation for radical transformations in who learns from whom, where, under what circumstances, and for what and whose purpose. In short, they indicate a transformation to ubiquitous learning – a continuous anytime, anywhere, anyone contribution and retrieval of learning materials on and through the Internet and its technologies, communities, niches and social spaces’. (Haythornthwaite 2008:598)
The reality is that we human beings have far more important, pressing and natural urges and desires that incline us towards those around us, and from communities with whom we find we have the greatest affinities. As young adults our intentions and outlooks may shift, but this would occur anyway, the internet offering, to use as 60s view of television, a ‘window on the world’.
This statement denies that learning takes place outside the classroom or away from formal texts. It has always been the case that substantially more learning goes on in the home, at play, from family and friends. All we’ve discovered, like the devices that many of us now carry around, is that we are always turned on.
‘E-learning’ signifies a transformation in learning rather than a transition from off- to on-line (Andrews & Haythornthwaite, 2007).
As Haythornthwaite indicates here, the technologies are not exclusive.
And as Wellman (2002) suggests the contexts in which transformation occurs are diverse, with each one having a different stance. Transformations that do not fit easily with utopian visions accompany distributed practices, including outsourcing, offshoring, disintermediation, and networked individualism (Wellman, 2001), each of which entails a general redistribution of processes and responsibilities to individuals.
The Pew Internet project (Horrigan, 2006) reports that 71% of the adult population surveyed turn to the Internet for science information because of its convenience, and only 13% because they feel it is more accurate.
Where’re not talking about the adult population, we’re talking about specific cohorts of students who could just as well be in primary, secondary, tertiary or postgraduate education. Whilst in the adult population who go online 1% actively blog, in the undergraduate student population this rises to 34%.
The dominance of Google is waning; increasingly people using mobile devices (smartphones or tablets) use Apps to aggregate content. The choices are becoming more personalised and informed.
But as with many other utopian predictions about how the open nature of the Net will create arenas that transcend foibles of the physical world; our faults have followed us to cyberspace. (Levy, 2004, np). In (Haythornthwaite 2008:601)
QQ3 In the light of your own responses and experience, does this ‘new paradigm’ indicate the redundancy of the practitioner?
Or, on the contrary, does it indicate the need for a practitioner with in-depth knowledge of how new technologies can be harnessed and with the time to provide facilitation and support to students as they take on these new responsibilities?
Making the time to interact with students online (and off) and having this planned into the curriculum is important. More tutors are needed, not fewer as expectations rise about the degree of engagement with others. Tutors or teaching assistant, event students (not just PhD), ought to be paid to be online as a hollow forum, or tutor group that isn’t active delivers the poorer experience. My analogy is to think of it as opening a chain or restaurants; why do some work and other’s fail? The ingredients and the menu is the same, but the context (location and personalities) differ. Getting the mix right and having the flexibility and fluidity and will to alter things as it evolves is vital, but often lacking. Certainly the idea that students would pay a handsome fee and then self-educate has largely been dispelled. The shift is livelier and less formal, more akin to a summer school, or camp, with everyone potentially present. There are academics, particularly in higher education, who seem to lack any desire to teach, preferring to inform at arm’s length from the product of their research. Perhaps it is more than this, it is like meeting in Liverpool Street Station amidst the cacophony of everyone else’s online lives, then taking a group to a museum then a show while the individuals in the group try to work, try to enjoy a holiday, have their kids, dog and mother along for the trip, and are engrossed in a novel, game or TV show. The potential is to be distracted, or engaged, or to juggle between the two.
The answer is in the hubbub of the tutorial, or seminar, the forced taking of sides in a debate, or informed discussions in a forum. The arguments and scholarship is still there, it is simply loose of the shackles of print and that technologies 500 year dominance of education, which is fast ending. Haythornthwaite suggests something has changed; it has, we’re returning to a model that is pre-print, vibrant, engaged, and live and that plays to broader human attributes and skills.
As Haythornthwaite (2008:599) goes on to say, ‘New social skills, or perhaps older ones now transformed online, become essential for a workable online future’.
Such knowledge bases resemble more the already familiar communities of practice (Wenger, 1988) and educational disciplines that an open encyclopaedia.
REFERENCE
Brown, J.S. (2002) The Social Life of Information
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).
Haythornthwaite, C., Bruce, B. C., Andrews, R., Kazmer, M. M., Montague, R. & Preston, C. (2007). New theories and models of and for online learning. First Monday, 12(8). http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/haythorn/index.html
Horrigan, J. B. (2006). The Internet as a resource for news and information about science. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Retrieved July 5, 2007 from: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Exploratorium_Science.pdf.
Levy, S. (Oct. 4, 2004). Memo to bloggers: Heal thyselves. Newsweek. Retrieved May 17, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6098633/site/newsweek.
Wellman, B. (2001). The rise of networked individualism, In. L. Keeble (Ed.), Community Networks Online (pp. 17-42). London: Taylor & Francis.
What would Edison make of the last decade? (Or my grandfather to come to think of it)
My knowledge (though not my understanding) of the technological advances of the last 150 years are informed by Stephen Lax
Reflecting on how I blog and its value to a student I note here how, believing I may need to go back and read Wenger from last week I search here and find not only have I done the reading, but I have commented on Wenger in previous weeks and modules.
This immediately bolsters my confidence, like entering a room that I thought was full of strangers when in fact there are many faces I have met before.
What is more, knowing that I can trigger my earlier thinking, even pick up the stage in understanding that I was at, is a form of adaptation.
I wonder if this practice might help from the other direction too, reminding someone of the nuances of their understanding and how it has been informed and developed.
Read Jones and Asensio (2001), ‘Experiences of assessment: using phenomenography for evaluation’.
As you read, consider the following questions:
It depends as much on how assessment is carried out, as to the design of the learning. If a tighly prescriptive, tick-box response is required to prove that the student can read, draw common interpretations and put it down in a standard, structured way then there should not be room for interpretation, perspective, point of view or originality.
This isn't maths, there is always going to be more than one responce.
I find in this paper of far greater interest the points regarding interpretation of others' intentions in order to be able to work together.
Enemies can meet in a debating chamber because they know the rules and the desired outcome; they may give very different responses in a written assessment.
If this is the case then I assume that the materials being discussed here are for an undergraduate programme.
Course structure can invite students to fulfil all manner of tasks by offering points towards assessment scores. In my experience this has been a completely futile endeavour if my contribution then widely misses the mark as interpretted by a system that requires you to line up 1000 match sticks in a particular way.
(Research by the way shows that if you make a task optional no one does it; why offer it then?)
I celebrate the idea that 'students' experiences vary in what may be unpredictable ways from the course designers' intentions. (Jones & Asensio, 2001)
I've worked all my carrier where originality and creativity are applauded. 'Creativity is mistakes,' so if a student gets the wrong end the stick in their response I'd be keen to have built in to the marking the flexibility to accommodate this.
So, is it a problem?
That depends on the desired outcomes, the seriousness of going slightly or a long way off the intended target and whether the intention is to get a stock answer from each student, or constant variety.
1st November 1999
The proposal I'm putting together on a web content creation best practice as a distance learning site necessitates that I take a step back to understand the medium better.
I've currently got my head buried in "Creative Content for the Web," by Marc Millon.
Most of the notes are elsewhere, but I wanted to pick this quotation out here.
"Writing that is undertaken simply for the writer's own satisfaction is often self-indulgent and rarely successful."
(Like telling people about the dream you had.A decade on I should be writing my own book).
This is what most diary writers are guilty of.
I dedicated my first diary to my Mother; I started writing this when I was 13.
(It reveals very little, it was one of the Five Year jobs. Maybe it prepared me for Twitter; I reckon there was room for 200 words. Often I seem to consider it noteworthy that I had a bath and fed the guinea-pigs. With my first girlfriend it gets more interesting and charts this all the way to marriage, children and beyond - so beyond indeed that they are both teenagers. I stopped writng about their antics when they made it into secondary schol. In any cad, they're online and leaving their own snale-trails.)
There are entries I wrote in the early 1990's addressed to my fiance; the rest of it suffers from not having anyone other than me in mind, and my goal wa simply to say enough to record events, places and people. This works, it will usually bring back vivid recollections.
A writer's journal would have value had anything come of it.
Writing on topic, say e-learning or social media, a niche non-fiction writer, is proving more enduring.
As a professional communicator who constantly tells himself and clients to understand then address the audience, am I not guilty of farting in the wind too? (I wrote in 1999).
(I put this question to myself having been keeping by then an on online diary for all of two months. 12 years on the value of this content is how it is catergorised and tagged, the greater professionsal value coming from periods of professional devlopment. I had to shift how and what I wrote though from the secret diary confessional, to accounts where people's names are disguised and of course no professional confidentiality breached.)
Earlier today I thought these entries should be addressed to Darlingest and I, ten years and twenty years hence, when we'll derive greatest pleasure from remembering how we were coping with Zozo and TBT.
(This true. I'm migrating some 60 to 100 entries on parenthood to www.mrsdaddy.wordpress.com.)
More from "Creative Content for the Web".
I learn that there are over 1 million homepages. (Remember, this is from an online diary entry of November 1999).
The author asks why and imagines the reason, “like Everest, because it is there. Because, quite simply it has become possible to do so".
The medium itself has become an extension of our very selves and we have been changed in the process. Indeed, we probably need look no further for the raison d’être of the rise of the Homepage than the fundamental human desire to leave a mark, somewhere, anywhere, to be noticed, indeed to be an individual, not in this age of alienation, a faceless number, an employee, a nobody”.
(Were these early diaries like sticking your hand up or carving your name? They became a soapbox and much more as we found a readership, and more importantly like-minds with whom to share.)
The author goes on to talk about diaries, what now (a few months later) we call online journals. He imagines there could be thousands. There are!
"Web Litter" is an interesting concept.
I find myself engrossed in the App, Zite
I understand too how and why Apps are making Google redundant.
Why search when what you are looking for is served up to you?
Having selected a few categories what is offered I find engaging, stimulating, relevant and quotable.
I have my aggregated stories on e-Learning and social media, of course, but also the arts and writing, science and technology.
Such a tool drawing on the contents of The OU Library 'Education' section would be even more precise. A sort of electronic serendipity, instead of browsing the aisles the articles are offered up to be to suit my predilection.
The only issue is when do I stop to think, to write and share instead of hitting the IN, Twitter or Facebook buttons?
Follow me on Twitter jj27vv, or in Linkedin where all the best stuff is shared.
Do the same.
My key spheres of influence of e-learning, social media, education, literature and the arts, and business.
For this exercise I fond myself dipping into other tutor groups. On reflection, after a highly disruptive week all I needed to have done was pick through the course reading, in chronological order, made notes, expressed my thoughts, then answer the questions. Using the notes of others is not a fix; you must still engage with the content and make it your own.
The challenge of designing for learning.
QQ1
QQ2 How does Wenger’s account differ from the account given by Goodyear as the indirect nature of design and summarised in Figure 1?
Goodyear is saying that design can only accommodate so much as a learner will always bring with them their own interpretations to the design therefore learning and design are separate entities.Wenger is saying that learning design embrace far more, that it less prescriptive and more engaging than imagined. (From Joanne Pratt)
Space and Place - can be linked to - Designed and Emergent Organisation and Community - can be linked to - Identification and Negotiability Tasks and Activity - can be linked to - Participation and Reification Local and Global seem to sit outside of Goodyear. (From Daniella)
How do you think that a designer can support ‘the work of engagement, imagination and alignment’?
A designer can only do so much with the software they are given. However knowing that software inside out; its limitations, its benefits will help with how a designer enables the above. (From Joanne Pratt)
By paying attention to the Figure 10.3. (From Daniella)
From Jonathan
Q1 As above
Q2 'Each of these dimensions involves distinct – but interrelated – trade – offs and challenges: they present their own opportunities and obstacles and their own resources and constraints. A given design entails choices, inventions, and solutions along each dimension'. (Wenger 1998:236)
Q3 In Wenger's words:
It is a tool that can guide a design by outlining:
1) the general questions, choices, and trade-offs to address – these define the dimensions of a design “space”
2) the general shape of what needs to be achieved – the basic components and facilities to provide
i.e. there is ampple scope for variety and imagination, as with the architectural design analogy he uses. Which applies equally as an analogy for how people (students) behave once inside the designed 'building'.
'The benefit of such a multiplicity of related but distinct dimensions is that it opens up the space of design by decoupling the issues involved'. (Wenger, 1998:236)
'The challenge of design, then, is to support the work of engagement, imagination, and
alignment'. (Wenger, 1998:236)
FURTHER NOTES
Etienne Wenger is probably most recognised for his work promoting the idea of communities of practice. The idea of a community of practice has been applied to groups who interact to achieve a common purpose or enterprise and share a common repertoire. (From course notes)
Between formal and informal learning design styles
Highly prescriptive vs call up the information you need as you go along. So defined instructions vs figuring it out for themselves. Perhaps using tools to guide and inform. We were given the simplest of tasks, teaching students how to cross a busy road in safety.
I made a point about any group requiring leadership or a champion.
I made a point on Randy Pausch whose 3D lecture series included mixing up student groups who then had to vote on each other's levels of collaboration in the group.
There was a discussion on informal peer assessment that I didn't entirely follow, certainly my notes are somewhat cryptic. Hopefully the session was recorded so I can listen back.
It is the unexpected insights in a synchronous session that prove valuable, especially the asides in the break-out room.
Assemble the books and papers you plan to refer to ahead of writing.
This is a new one to me. I prefer to write what I want and deal with the referencing after rather than fitting the assignment to the books and papers.
Perhaps a combination of the two is required.
The learning plan you produce may not be followed closely given the myriad of ways people respond. Many are drawn in by the assessment but not all.
Can such divergent styles be accommodated?
As the Elluminate discussion progressed, four students, one tutor moderator, I did a doodle.
Having shared the idea I then corrected it.
From Wenger (1998:233)
'There is an inherent uncertainty between design and its realization in practice, since practice is not the result of design but rather a response to it'.
Phenomonology explains why people may still be adrift of the desired response.
The notes reads 'design as well as we can ... 'the students share the outcome. We set the learning, that is then displaced to or set in the context of each learner. We might have a learning objective, but students can and diverge from this'. (A good thing if you want diversity and originality)
As a learning designer you have to anticipate a variety of behaviours and plan for not too many being wildly divergent. This can be achieved by understanding the students.
Anything and everything else would require an extraordinary detailed and qualified profile of the person.
This personalisation cannot be the one to one Oxbridge tutorial in which rapport between student and pofessor may develop and be sustained over years. Understandably The OU will not behave like Tescos and gather at every touch point your behaviour and respond accordingly. Though it would be advantageous to the individual if they did.
The technology steps in, but even call-centre staff have learnt or been taught the obvious: there is a client/customer relationship going on here and guess who matters most?
Any barriers that exist between formal and informal learning have long collapsed.
Do you want to publisize this?
Tools such as Zite and StumbleUpon stretch your learning into students and academics in competing institutions.
Others with who you interact are key, not least the tutor to whom you have been assigned.
Out of habit I picked up the 5.00pm BBC News.
Having been online since 5.00am then in the garden from 12.00 I expected something fresh, instead, five hours later I got less than what I was following at 5.00am and having picked up conversations elsewhere I found the stance and the responses being offered as immediately redundant, old news, already discussed.
This is a personal tipping point of view, courtesy of various platforms such as Zite and StumbleUpon I am ahead of their curve, worse, I feel as if I am reading the same news points as the BBC, so no longer need them as a filter of what 'they' think I should be told or informed about.
I have enjoyed the comfort of the 5.00pm BBC news for decades, but know now it/they from my point of view are, if I am on holiday and able to follow my own track, redundant.
Stumbleupon, Zite, Read It Later.
Three iPad Apps and I feel myself being drawn closer to the people and content that defines and makes me.
Sharing for further discussion on Linkedin, some to the wind on Twitter and occasionally irritating or intriguing family and freinds on Facebook.
I would like to be studying an applied MAODE.
This should be a joint collaboration between the Institute of Educational Technology and the Open University Business and Law School.
applied is the operative word.
Not a Masters in Open and Distance Education, but an aMAODE.
18 months ago I signed up to the MAODE (I might have done an MA in Fine Art ... for which I was qualified. Where would I be now?)
Never mind
My mother, tutored by Quentin Bell at Durham University in the 1950s, had me teaching fine art somewhere. (Our family for the last four generations seem not to generate progeny until they are at least in their third decade)
Maybe, e-Art?
I may pick this up next and become a e-learning verions of David McAndless.
Information is beautiful
Go Google.
24 months ago several friends signed up to an e-learning course with Sussex University. They are now constructing e-learning, I am not.
Why?
The difference, dare I suggest, is did I want to be a mechanic, or the engineer?
It is only learning, not e-learning, but o-learning.
Only Learning.
P.S. It ain't rocket science. As Martin Weller shows in his VLE book.
What we as potential practioners of online learnning is a dip in the training pool. As a Swimming Coach, and former competitive swimmer, what strikes me is that I am yet to stick my toes in the water.
Frankly, my concern, is that if I come up with another commercial e-learning project for an ECA it will like the other one be rubbished because the markers are looking for an academic paper, not a viable e-learning project.
This is where the tectonic plates of theory and practice meet. Is anyone on the MAODE doing it to become an academic?
 |
| From Drop Box |
(Note to self a month later ... it is applied. In every module, particularly H807 'Innovations in E-Learning' we are constantly pressed to put e-learning in an applied context with which we are familiar)
This from Mary Thorpe (2009)
If face-to-face is the answer, how do you replicate the combination of informal and formal discourse opportunities that characterise the face-to-face campus. (Crook and Light, 2002)
The answer is in social networks such as Linkedin being alerted every time someone in your circle updates, or adds friends or writes something, though different, there is at least an inclining of this meeting serendipitously around the water-cooler, or passing in the corridor. Also the random offering up of 'people you might know', even if they haven't instigated it.
This is beyond face-to-face, but designed to replicate the chance encounter that makes up human intersctions.
In Diaryland (1999) a similar trait is offered as within a set number of 75 friends you always know who has updated i.e. who is active and therefore around and more inclined to engage. All that matters is this sense of sharing the same space. It matters therefore that you are present often enough to be someone in this environment and that the affordances of the platform alert others to your presence.
The debate over the differences between face-to-face are dry
Why hybrid?
What community?
As the two worlds are now so familiar to many people, this is like saying, what is the difference between the Rugby Club and the Bridge Club.
There is no other difference. The means of engagement are ultimately the same, between one person and another. Like everything as you become familiar with these platforms, and as your friends are online too, you accept their presence or otherwise as if you have bumped into them walking the dog or a conference.
This isn't revolution, it is barely even evolution, it is us being people with a bunch of different tools as we crafty humans have done for millenia.
'Technologies, such as social networking, can be used to construct personal learning environments designed by the learner precisely in relation to their interests and goals across a range of practice boundaries.(Anderson and Dron 2007)
Better still you start to allow tools like Stumbleupon and Zite to do this for you, by feeding in a specific, tailored profile you can get these aggregators to draw down who you are and feed back intelligence.
The day we don't trust it we drop these tools like a hot-potato and go somewhere else.
They CANNOT afford to get it wrong.
I signed up in error to MY LIFE, I say this because I only wanted to trial it on a monthly basis. The moment I was on the phone was the moment I was reimbursed, which actually is a sound thing.
This expression, this test of 'trust' might be enough to take me back (except that I feel the entire idea was mine in 2001).
'Technology self-evidently involves tools, understood as both the physical resources and practical skills required to make use of them, but to focus primarily on the tool or the virtual space would be to make a categorical error, mistaking a component part for the system as a whole (Jones and Eshault, 2004)
We still use pen and paper, we still talk to each other face to face, we may even share how we are getting on with our parents over Sunday Lunch.
This isn't replacement technology, it is hyper complementary technology, it is as convenient as having a hanky on which to blow your nose, no more. You pull out your smartphone to share a thought. Or in my case at 3.10am I get up, doodle an idea for a video production and then stick up a discussion question to a number of Linkedin groups.
Serendipity
Thinking of my late grandfather's garage with all its tools, the context would be the mix and combination of tools, some complimentary, some one offs, and the space (once he'd rolled the car out of the garage). Most importantly it would include him, both actively engaged in a task and from my point of view, someone who was always keen to pass on skills and insights.
Issues regarding identity -practice/familiarity
Trust and authenticity (checking/verification) 'Students may not take up the opportunities offered, or may do so to little good effect.' (Thorpe, 2008:122) 'Asynchronous conferencing for example has fostered both utopic and dystopic views of its potential (Haythornthwaite 2006)
The importance of the beginning of the course the same as in face-to-face, you only have one chance to make a good first impression.
'That particular aspect of getting everybody involved right at the very beginning really sets the scene for the rest of the course.' (Thorpe 2008:123)
Tutor as host.
A good start is forgiving. A poor start is far harder to retrieve. The problem institutionally is if your are overwhelmed by students. Are there enough tutors? Are there even intermediaries to step in? 'The design in effect performs a mix of compulsion and engineered interaction that combines formality with informality.' (Crook and Light, 2002)
Too much of either is a killer. Overly familiar and talking about pets and holidays in the middle of a forum puts your off. So do course materials on the rare occasion with The OU when it is if your are interrupting the conversation between a couple of professors who have developed their own private language that only means something to each other. (This isn't far from the truth). 'The potential for expansive learning' (Tuoni-Grohn and Engestrom, 2003)
We all want our heads cracked open like a part-boiled egg. 'This is learning that crosses the boundaries of different activity systems, expanding involvement with others and developing both individual and collective learning'. (Cole and Engestrom 1993)
I call it Pixie dust over Object 3.
Object 3 must be the moment Dyson and his team come up with the airstream device. Innovation, inspiration and originality is there in front of us, like Macbeth's dagger, tantilizingly before our hands.
So talk to Lady Macbeth and your colleagues, let it out, share your thoughts, make the dagger real, You may find it's more of a tickling stick.
'A context has to be reconstructed and participation invited through the use of activities, structured formats and textural genres operating at various levels.' (Thorpe, 2008:130)
I no longer think this is the case. We aren't creating false or mimicking landscapes or environments online, rather we know what these environments are and behave accordingly.
This comes with experience, it IS NOT, and has NEVER BEEN GENERATIONAL.
I am not the only forty something who despite my children being infront of a computer before they could walk have vastly more experience of the internet and computers than they do. I challenge them to keep up or catch up, indeed, I am quick to run after them if I think they are discovering something I too have not tried.
Ask me for evidence, research by educational institutions in the UK, US and Australia, that debunk Generation X and Digital Natives as utter TOSH.
Engestrom (2007) emphasizes the importance of learning across multiple activity systems where knowledge is being developed across many sites, from the formal academic context through practioner-focused websites and fora to the workplace.
Technologies, such as social networking, can be used to construct personal learning environments designed by the learner precisely in relation to their interests and goals across a range of practice boundaries (Anderson and Dron 2007)
True.
But like an allotment you might start as an idea, the worth comes from putting in some time and effort.
A hybrid mix of community and network. (Thorp, 2008:129)
Yes, like weeds in the allotment and a few cacti on a tray of sand in the shed.
Enneagram Test Results type score summary
Fives are basically on some level estranged from the rest of the world, consequently, their mind is usually their best friend.
They like to analyze things and make sense of them (that is their anchor), this makes them great inventors and philosophers. The immense inner world of fives can cause them to lose touch or interest in reality.
Sevens are optimistic thrill seekers that see life as an adventure.
They are always thinking of new possibilies and adventures. This constant zest for life is often just escapism. Once things lose there fun they are no longer interested, so many projects go unfinished. Essentially, they avoid the difficulties of life because they fear being overwhelmed by them.
Fours are all about being unique and creating their own distinct culture.
They experience the highs and lows of life more intensely than other types. This makes them great creative forces (artists, writers, filmmakers). Fours often feel like misplaced children, and they long for a sense of real family.
Ones are idealistic perfectionists.
They are rooted in morals and ethics. They live with an overbearing internal critic that never rests. They can be very judgemental and don't understand how most people can be such slackers. Other people don't understand why they are so uptight.
Threes derive self worth from success in the external world.
They are highly skilled at adapting themselves in whatever way necessary to achieve success.
This external success driven image often comes at a price of having a personal identity and they may lose site of who they really are.
Twos are defined by their empathy of other people.
They are uniquely gifted at tuning in on the feelings of others. This makes them great networkers. They feed on their connection to others, love of friends and family. However being too caught up with other people can drain them, and cause them to lose track of their own personal well being.
Sixes are defined by anxiety.
They are gifted in their ability to see the dark and light sides of life (and of people and situations around them). This insight into possible outcomes makes them useful planners. However since they are never sure what will prevail they are always on edge and cling to predictable structures/systems for peace of mind.
Eights are natural leaders.
They are straight forward, direct, large personalities, that are unlikely to back down to adversity. They have a talent for motivating others. They have a strong sense of justice and are often protectors of the weak. However, they also have short fuses and can become domineering tyrants.
Nines are open minded optimists.
They are able to see everyones point of view, and have a natural desire for making peace. Consequently, they are effective mediators. They often live by the 'go along to get along' creed. However their openess to other people can cause them to lose site of themselves and their own happiness. Traditionally, the personality type you score highest on is considered your Enneagram type, so you are a:
(In truth, you are a combination of all the personality types so examine all your scores.)
And there is a difference between WHO you are and HOW you behave, especially if you behaviour has been modified by NINE years of boarding prep and public school, a virtually all male university college (Balliol College, Oxford in the 1980s).
And Cognitive Behavioural Therapy that I have used to undo and reknit who I am and want to be.
What can you share?
I come from a family where the person who goes to work is not the person at home, where lives are distinct.
Or were meant to be.
This is addictive.
And if I ask I'll be told it has nothing to do with the content, either the volume, voice, or frequency/consistency of updating -1,000 page views a day is the current rate.
This may be to do with specific alerts to one or two folk who may be searching through for specific content.
What you get, for example, if you search VLE, will be a narrarive that runs from my incomprehension, to this current entry.
Searching Prensky shows me go from adulation, through doubt, to my current desire to ridicule his every pronouncemnt as sensationlism.
Even search Weller and you'll find this niave newcomer picking holes in academics who quote themselves and use words like 'enculturation' (weller) and 'massification' (conole).
My goal had been to achieve 100,000 page views by the time I finished the MAODE thinking I was near the end. Actually I have another two modules to go.
Do I therefore make 250,000 page views the goal?
Meanwhile outside the walled garden of The OU despite my best efforts 70 page views is/was exceptional, with 10 page views more typical.
I find myself advising anyone who wants to blog, despite the attractions of Wordpress, Livejournal, Blogger, Edublog and Diaryland, that you will find a niche audience here and ultimately find your feet.
Using a blog for reflective practice, laudable, is another matter. I was just about to reflect on the H800 story so far. In particular no longer having the time or energy, despite the inclination to read everything..
I am three weeks behind on loading content to any blog these are insights from external and internal workshops, two last week, two this, plus a long weekend in Brussels interiewing MBA students.
I get anxious if I don't expel this stuff and share it somewhere online.
I'm programmed this way, keeping a diary since 1975 and a blog since 1999. It is a daily thing, like prayers, meditation or a shower.
What others pick up as I off-load is anyone's guess; there is a theme to it though - LEARNING ONLINE.
Try Stumbleupon, also Zite which I have set up as my personal copy taster (content aggregator).
Meanwhile on the third reading I am starting to see the two case studies and understand what was going on in the Mary Thorpe chapter (2009) I am used to seeing communications like this better expressed and communicated with animations, movies, the author talking it through. Randy Pausch in his TED 'last lecture' says how he causes a stir by getting a single colour photo above the abstract of a paperhe wrote on 3d technology. The academic community must move on from paper and thinking like we did on paper; paper is over. Enter my head insted. Dee what I think. Know if my opinions are credible, you can followmy every thought with few smart searches.
When, oh when will the dry academic paper be replaced by something equally scholarly, but far more easily read, shared and understood?
A load of photos would be a good start. A podcast from the author in place of the abstract. Video clips. Comments. Links that never die. Content and references that up date themselves.
2009 research from the IET (Richardson) shows that where students have a choice between working online or off, that they are equally satisfied with the outcome. This says to me the debate over face to face and online is over. It had might as well be on whether you have a seminar indoors or out, or whether you have sherry with your tutorial or not.
Differences are reduced as we become familiar with the technology and what to expect from it. We must accept that those amongst us are at different stages of this familiarity process.
The NCSL experience might be familiar to many of us. In H807 I was part of a tutor sub-group that generated 109 responses over 14 days between six of us. This, with participants in Hong Kong, Germany and various parts of the UK would have been impossible face to face. The conversations, and responsibilities for the ; were picked up around the clock. I don't see this as a hybrid of face2face, but rather a disctint entity in its own write born from a different seed, as it were. The hybridisation occurs as online and offline activities cross-fertilise, like augmented reality.
When something works I'll go back and use it repeatedly. I find the way in which I seek out, exploit, share and develop ideas to do with E-Learning and Social Media is fluid. I run with new tools as I find them, the three latest: stumbleupon, Allmyfavourites and Zite, which do the same kind of thing, helping to reduce the overwhelming amount of information being generated and sent my way to stuff that may be of value and interest me.
I've aslo may a tentative start in Social Networking Site Xing, using Google Translation to help with my rudimentary German.
Created using iPad APP 'MindCreator'.
The right metaphor is used in context.
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| From Learning Technologies 2011 |
By understanding your audience you come to understand what metaphors will have resonance.
By working in the communications industry, by reading a good deal, looking at even more, you develop a sense of what is cliche.
Whilst cliches work, indeed repetition of expressions that work make sense, in many contexts the cliche fails to make an impression, for example, thinking of a multinational like players in an orchestra.
I like, from a design point of view, the idea of 'Swim Lanes' because as a swim coach I understand the relationship between the coach/coaching team and the athlete.
The sense of personal development makes sense, as do the motivations and effort. The trick for me is to translate this into programmes of study.
This image has more power to my mind than a pool with water in it, the lane ropes out and Bill Furniss blowing a whistle at Rebeccar Adlington.
We will get bored of the sports cliche these next 12 months.
All we are doing here is trying to get others inside our head, or better still, to create something extra corporeal, like the 'Object 3' in Engestrom's learning systems.
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
H800 wk23 a Activity 2
Stepping over the edge
'A key characteristic of these new technologies is "learning by doing" - users need to be immersed in and "play with" the affordances that these new digital environments offer, and hence over time get a sense of how they can change practice.' Conole (2011:403)
Whilst I may highlight and annotate, doing do on paper isn't the easiest way to share; using a screen reader is worse because I find myself not enjoying having the obvious affordances, such as cut and paste, disabled.
I have an iPad to learn from it and to share what I discover.
It is both the angle and the devil on my shoulder.
Does it super-size my mind?
It thrills and engages it, indulges and expands, but also risks loosing me in its labarynthine tangles.
Saved for now by a To Do list that I refresh and follow.
But then I find an idea from Conole (see above) that is key.
The internet is a trip to the sea, it is somewhere to play and discover.
We may require Lifeguards and laneropes but it remains largelly an environment that can only be understood through engagement.
You will get you face wet,you may get bitten by a crab.
To share this thinking I must go online, and cannot help myself. For the last three months I click through Linkedin, reading and responding.
For the next three it may be Stumbleupon, which through tricks and traits I find increasingly insightful, feeding me like a favourite aunt or uncle , the weirdness of the www.
Serendipity would be a better word for it.
I am rewarded by 25 minutes of browsing with 'new finds' that becomes stuff that I recommend which in turn obliges me to update my profile, might I even say 'brand tag' the finds as 'mymindbursts'. (I need two days off to take stock and write up some ten ore more blog entries.
Draft I know will do, from my experience as a diarist, just enough to trigger a more expansive and reflecive entry)".
To remind myself:
Monday 11th
Livestream on Social Media Metrics from IET. Five presenters. All to write up from my notes and screengrabs, cushioned or suffocated by the 'official' word and slides that have since gone up.
Tuesday 12th
Picklejar Social Media for HE in which Tracy Payle shares insights from a number of Universites and through activities tips my thinking upside down and shakes it out onto the conference room table. I come away enlightened and as I had wanted, more confident if mot emboldened.
Thursday 20th
Faculty discussion on VLE and my experiences of The OU VLE to date. I take a look at the poster in the Post Room and discover a 'common room' I had been unaware of.
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