Personal Blogs

H809: Activity 9.3 and 9.4: Comparisons

Saturday, 2 Apr 2011, 15:38

Visible to anyone in the world

Activity 9.3: Comparing Reading 10 with Readings 8 and 9 (2 hours)

Factors	Tolmie 2001	Crook & Dymott 2005	Greenhow & Belbas 2007
Key features of the theory	1. Outcomes effected by interplay between technology and context so this effects research 2. difficult to manage context effects through design; need to focus on whole implementation event 3. Context -sensitive approach to evaluation required p.236 4. Socio-cognitive conflict is part of context p.236 5. Context effects will be the norm p.237 6. data should be collected from real contexts p.237 7. context primes learner to notice certain aspects p.240	Learning is mediated, situated and distributed Use of the 5 types of writing as a cognitive framework to allow analysis of the practices involved.	Fundamental unit of study is the activity. All activities are guided by a motive which is held by the subject - human consciousness. Activities can be complex with differing actions towards goals whose outcomes are not identical to the object. Centrality of tools or artefacts in learning: how the tools shape the user as they are appropriated by it.
Defining context	"conditions under which given resources are used" p.237 Gender norms Past history p.238 Pre-existing activity p.239	The social environment of a group of tutors, students etc. who can be connected f2f or via technology	Learning that occurs through the use of information and communications technology (Khan 2005).
Aspects of learning foregrounded	Cooperative learning Collaborative learning	How technology has changed the work environment as students can study in their rooms but stay in contact with their peers	Community and the ways in which social groupings can be designed to advance individual and collective understanding
Pros	Attempts to situate technology in context for analysis	Framework assists more focused analysis of writing process in different contexts	Making it accessible to wider variety of researchers; newcomers as well as for more experienced researchers. Closer analysis of system facilitated by accurate tracking. Formalising the process and producing consistency Clarity and focus
Cons	Subtle cues overlooked by researchers p.240 Range of possible contexts surrounding any resource may be impossible to manage within any single software design p.240 Unable to generalise as the context is always different Not convinced gender differences are that simple. Not all men are the same!	Analysis of writing using ICT seems outdated in that students tend to use widescreens divided for easy viewing and/or multiple screens or devices. Does not analyse students reasons for working the way that they do - just looks at surface process	The overall network is based on constructivism and social interaction and this may lead to the research design excluding behaviourist and cognitivist viewpoints. Coarse grained analysis
Application and uses	Studying group interactions with technology and the effect on learning	Studying individual interactions with different tools	Studying group interactions at macro level and identifying contradictions
Appropriate data collection methods to use	Observation / video recording Log of contact and activity in group work p.238	Logging Diaries Analysis of interactions	Depends on the results required
Appropriate data analyses to use	Qualitative: conversation analysis of different types Quantitative: time spent on activities	Qualitative: conversation analysis of different types	Qualitative generally

In your tutor group forum, discuss how you see the differences between these readings:

I believe that Reading 8 (Tolmie) illustrated a piece of research that concentrated on one aspect of collaborative learning: the effect of context. Examining this as a single concern allowed its analysis in depth although the researchers raise concerns about missing subtle cues. The other two readings used frameworks to examine a broader field and both sets of authors raise concerns about the coarseness of the analysis. Reading 9 (Crook & Dymott) uses a cognitive framework with its emphasis on individual interactions with different tools and Reading 10 (Greenhow & Belbas) uses a constructivist framework with its emphasis on cultural-historical context and how human consciousness effects behaviour. This framework is used to study group interactions.

Activity 9.4: Re-examining your taxonomy of theories (2 hours)

Look back to Activity 7.5, in which you attempted to develop a taxonomy for the theories in the wiki. How do Readings 8, 9 and 10 fit into this taxonomy? Share your reflections in the tutor group forums.

	Meta-learns	Receives	Imitates	Practices	Creates	Explores	Experiments	Debates
Behavioural	*	*	*			*
Cognitive	*			*
Constructivist	*				*	*	*
Activity-based	*		*	*		*
Socially situated	*		*	*	*	*	*	*
Experiential	*			*	*	*	*
Reading 8	*			*		*	*	*
Reading 9	*			*	*
Reading 10	*		*	*	*	*	*	*

I looked at the reports of the collaborative activities used by the three papers and fitted them into the HLM model that I developed for the taxonomy I used for activity 7.5. It surprised me a little to see that it actually worked! Reading 9 came into line with the cognitive approach and the other two were more closely matched with the constructive and socially situated approaches. This could be claimed to be a good result but I am not happy with it. I have been doing some research this week on different learning theories and I have come up with the following:

Main Paradigm	Theories	Analysis Networks
Behaviourism	Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
	Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
	Social Learning theory (Bandura, moving towards Cognitivism)
Cognitivism	Cognitive load theory (Sweller)	Distributed Cognition Crook & Dymott framework for writing analysis
	Cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer)
	Attribution theory (Weiner)
	Elaboration theory (Reigeluth)
Constructivism	Social development theory (Vygotsky)	Actor-network theory Activity theory
	Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger)
	Discovery Learning (Bruner)
	Situated learning (Lave)
Humanism	Experiential learning (Kolb)

I am still feeling my way with all this and not sure I am correct. I would really welcome some input from other people on this before I approach the TMA. My current thoughts are that socially-situated learning and experiential learning are sub-categories of either congitivism or constructivism, depending on how they are approached.

If I am correct, then the taxonomy I devised distinguished well between the main paradigms but is not good for differentiating between the theories.

Permalink Add your comment

Comments

Saturday, 2 Apr 2011, 16:41

by Jonathan Vernon

New comment

Will I ever be good enough to understand even a fraction of this; give me another year. I always enjoy the effort you put in and your willingness to share. I may refer to this but will always do the activity in an effort to make the knowledge stick, then grow.

Saturday, 2 Apr 2011, 20:48

by Lynn Hunt