Manufactured education

In 1980, sociologist Alvin Toffler described a third wave of civilisation, the first two 'waves' of the agricultural, and the industrial civilisations would be swept aside by a greater, technological wave. Describing the disruptive and transformational impact of this technological wave, Toffler wrote:


"The emergent civilisation writes a new code of behaviour for us and carries us beyond standardisation, synchronisation and centralisation, beyond the concentration of energy, money and power. The new civilisation, as it challenges the old, will topple bureaucracies, reduce the role of the nation state, and give rise to semi-autonomous economies in a post imperialist world" (Toffler, 1980, p 24). 


This prescient view of the future of society has largely been realised. Toffler envisioned a world in which centralised power was dissipated, and where control was firmly in the hands of each individual. It is clear that technological developments have radically transformed the structure of society over the last few decades. As it accelerates further, and pervades more deeply into our world, technology will continue to disrupt our way of life. The advent of the World Wide Web has changed forever the way we communicate, share ideas, buy and sell, are entertained, and conduct our relationships. But technology has reached farther into our society still. The use of mobile telephones and social media has also promulgated democratic change and political upheaval in recent years. Social media played a vital role in Barack Obama's election success, and was instrumental in overthrowing governments in a number of countries during the Arab Spring. Technology can liberate ideas, amplify content and reach far into previously information poor regions of the world. The issues of standardisation, synchronisation and centralisation Toffler identified - the bastions of previous industrial age processes - are indeed being challenged as individuals within society carve their own niches in business, entertainment, government, the media and personalised learning. Very early on in the short history of the Internet, sites such as Napster began to erode the power structures enjoyed by the elite music industry giants. Similar events occurred in the film and photography industries. Nic Negroponte's prediction that atoms would be transformed into bits was realised when music and book sales flipped from CDs and paper based to downloads and e-books. Even the long lived postal delivery service has seen declining popularity as a result of the increased accessibility of e-mail and social networking services. 


And yet standardisation, synchonisation and centralisation stubbornly persist in a few notable enclaves. Perhaps the most notorious resistance to the technological wave comes from the state education systems. Synchronisation of behaviour was required in the industrial age. Industrial processes such as ship building, mining and manufacturing required workers to arrive at the gates together, work beside each other in teams and operate in specialised compartments to get the job done. It was little wonder that the schools tasked to train these workforces emulated these practices by requiring children to turn up to the gates at the same time, work together in rows, supervised by a teacher (representing the foreman), and be delivered curriculum subjects that were compartmentalised with little or no explicit linkage. Sound familiar? Well, this scenario will be as familiar to those who went to school in the 1950s and those who attend school today. Little has changed, even though, ironically, the world of production and manufacturing has gone through radical change and is now but a vestige of its former self. Technology may be in the schools, but little has changed in terms of the pedagogy practiced in many. The factory model of education persists, because in the mind of its proponents, it is still the most efficient, cost effective way to train the workforce of the future. And yet, according to critics such as Sir Ken Robinson, this is not the way forward. In e recent speech, Robinson intoned: 


"We still educate children by batches. We put them through the system by age group. Why do we do that? Why is there an assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is their date of manufacture?" The entire video can be viewed here.     


Michael Shaw, editor of TESPro, suggests that a new form of teaching - vertical teaching - can be an improvement on the failing state school factory model of batch processing by age. He does caution however, that extreme versions of the 'stage not age' education approach can result in "16 year olds being sent to university and infants sitting GCSEs." He doesn't elaborate on why he thinks that would be such a bad idea though. Shaw argues that schools continue to teach children in year groups simply because it is practical. Yet batch processing children by age leads to the inevitable issues of differentiation such as having to maintain ability sets within year groups. It also leads to demotivation, stress and a number of other negative outcomes. Whichever arguments we subscribe to, it is clear that children deserve to be educated according to their abilities, not according to their age. As it stands, the factory model of education little to provide for the needs of society, and it certainly fails to provide personalised learning for the children in our care.


Image by Freefoto


References


Negroponte, N. (1995) Being Digital. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Toffler, A. (1980) The Third Wave. London: Pan Books. 


Manufactured education by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

The industrialisation of learning

The industrial model of education that has such a strong grip on schools has been critiqued by a number of high profile commentators, from Ivan Illich (1970) and Paulo Freire (1970) through to contemporary commentators such as Stephen Heppell and Sir Ken Robinson. Indeed, Robinson's 2006 TED talk video goes as far as to say that current schooling is stifling innovation and creativity, and squandering talent. The video has been viewed over 11 million times, which shows that the message clearly resonates. Robinson argues that children are educated out of creativity. He warns that if we are not prepared to take risks and get it wrong occasionally, we will never come up with anything original. The education system, he complains, is predicated on academic ability to the detriment of art and creativity. Watch this entertaining and challenging video to grasp the full value and impact of Sir Ken's message.

Alvin Toffler (1980) describes a number of features that maintain the status quo in society, including synchronisation of behaviour, standardisation of content and maximisation of resources. Robinson talks of 'batch processing by age', another erroneous strategy schools still employ for convenience rather than for the wellbeing of individual children. It is a mass production of education, or as Noah Kennedy once put it 'The industrialisation of intelligence.' A closer look at school systems reveals that these features remain central to the management of education. These were ideal features to prepare children for a future of work in industrial settings. But time has moved on and schools have not. We now work in fluid situations were more often than not, there is no 'job for life' and portfolio careers are dominant.  

The future of work is more uncertain now than it has ever been. We are preparing children for a world that we cannot yet clearly describe. It makes sense for schools to reappraise their mode of operation and decide what to change to engage children with learning in new ways, to develop them into independent learners, agile thinkers, creative and innovative in all they do. Only then can we be assured that we have done our very best for them.

NB: In my next few posts, I'm going to critically explore several of the school strategies Toffler and Robinson have identified, and offer some alternative approaches to promote independent learning and creativity.

Image by Steve Wheeler

References

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin.

Illich, I. (1970) Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars Publishers.

Kennedy, N. (1989) The Industrialisation of Intelligence. London: Unwin.

Robinson, K. (2006) Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity. TED Talk Video available online at http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html (Accessed 29 June 2012).

Toffler, A. (1980) The Third Wave. London: Pan Books.

The industrialisation of learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Stuck in the past?

What changes has technology made in schools? In 1970, sociologist Alvin Toffler predicted: 'Within thirty years, the educational systems of the United States, and several Western European countries as well, will have broken decisively with the mass production pedagogy of the past, and will have advanced into an era of educational diversity based on the liberating power of the new machines.' (Toffler, 1970, p 251) By new machines, Toffler was clearly referring to computers and their associated tool sets. By mass pedagogy, he referred to the factory production model of education that schools have been caught in for over a century. More than four decades after Toffler's book was published, there is conflicting evidence that technology has actually delivered any significant change to the pedagogy practiced in school classrooms. The answer to the question for many schools, is that technology brings very little change to the way teachers educate. The mass production pedagogy model stubbornly persists, and personalised learning seems far from the reach of many young people.

Technology (in the form of mobile telephones) has changed the way we communicate with each other, and social networking services such as Facebook have made similar advances in the way we relate to our friends and family. Broadcast media are ubiquitous, with television in every living room, on our hand held devices, even on large screens in the public areas of major cities around the world. Our leisure, economy and social lives have been transformed by the impact of the World Wide Web, and arguably, we are a lot better of because of it. In fact advances in interactive, personalised technologies are so prominent that hardly a day goes by without some new innovation being trumpeted by the media. So why has technology wrought so few changes in the school classroom? Why was Toffler's prediction so far off the mark, when many of his other, contemporary predictions were clearly realised?

One reason there has been little change in schools is that many continue to operate on a factory production system that belongs in last century's industrial age, and new technology is not permitted to disrupt it. Schools continue to jealously protect a conservatism that resides in few similarly large-scale institutions. Even when new technologies are introduced into classrooms, they are often used in a similar manner to the older technologies they replace. Disruption of old practices is unwelcome in school. A classic example of this is the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). Over the last few years IWBs have been installed into many classrooms in the UK with little impact. Teachers continued to use IWBs as though they were standard dry-wipe or chalk boards - as presentational tools or slide projection screens. 

The pedagogical opportunities the new tools afforded (such as interactive touch surfaces on which children could experiment, create and manipulate images and text) were largely ignored because a) teachers were concerned about damage or b) disruption or c) lack of knowledge and fear of exposure to new ideas. Often the failure to adopt new practices arising from new technology provision can be blamed on a lack of good leadership. Sometimes it can be the result of lack of knowledge, but more often than not, teachers fail to develop new pedagogies due to a lack of time or resources to be able to do so. This is where good leadership intervention could benefit the entire school. One of the greatest barriers to innovative practice in schools arises from the ban many place on the use of mobile phones in their classrooms. Place this in the context of local education authorities concertedly blocking social media services due to 'safety' concerns, and there is little wonder that schools struggle to capitalise on the technological benefits being enjoyed by the rest of society. It is an abysmal situation.

And yet there are pockets of inspiration and innovation in the schools sectors. What kind of new pedagogies are emerging as a result of technology provision in classrooms? Firstly, we are seeing children being encouraged to improve their writing and reading through the use of social media such as blogs and wikis. They are being encouraged to communicate more effectively through podcasts, videos and on social networking sites. A great deal of creativity is being unleashed through the use of image sharing sites, touch screen tools and new dimensions to learning are being realised through game playing. Mobile learning takes the experience of discovery outside the classroom into the community the children will eventually work within. IWBs, when used effectively can enhance and enrich the entire learning encounter, with students as actively involved in knowledge production as their teachers. None of this has been achieved without some self-sacrifice by educators, some visionary leadership, and a large amount of disruption. If these three elements are present, innovative pedagogical practices will begin to spread, and we will see a realisation of Toffler's prediction. If not, we will be stuck with the mass production pedagogy of the past.

Reference
Toffler, A. (1970) Future Shock. London: Pan Books.

Image by David Wright

Stuck in the past? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Blogging as literacy

The advent of the social web has given people everywhere a virtually limitless new territory to discover and explore. Many millions of people worldwide are enjoying sustained connections with their peers, family, colleagues and friends which they would never otherwise have experienced. Content too is being prodigiously generated, remixed, organised and shared on an unprecedented scale. Current figures suggest for example, that between 40 to 60 hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube every minute. Facebook is already the world's largest photo repository, and with almost 850 million accounts and over 100 billion connections, has to be one of the most influential communications devices ever created to bring people together.

My view is that in the social media universe, blogging is potentially the most powerful tool. Time and again, blogging is proving its worth in education and training, with countless learners discovering that sharing their ideas, sharing content and discussion ideas worldwide has a whole range of benefits. Blogging requires a particular set of literacies to ensure that its potential is realised. Dughall McCormick argues that in online learning environments, learners need to develop literacies that are similar to those required for letter writing or giving an explanation. I concur with these views, but would add that digital literacies are not simply extensions of more traditional literacies. They are new and agile forms of learning, because the environments are new, and constantly changing.

For me, one of the new digital literacies bloggers need is the ability to encapsulate ideas succinctly and in a form that is accessible and engaging. Another literacy is the ability to be able to devise posts that draw an audience and provoke responses. One of the most powerful aspects of blogging is its social dimension which includes open discussion. Still another is the skill of managing those responses and replying in a way that promotes further discussion and sustains the discourse. Knowledge about tagging, RSS feeds, trackback and other blogging features will enhance the presence of the blogger online.

I have previously written about some of the literary and visual devices that can be used to draw a blog readership. These include images and video that evoke or underline a message; catchy and memorable titles for blog posts; and useful/relevant hyperlinks that enable readers to drill down further into the topic if they so desire. Blogging encompasses an entire new range of literacies, and as learners get to grips with it, we can expect to see some new and powerful pedagogical practices emerging.

Image by Ed Yourdon


Blogging as literacy by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Bloom reheated

In an age of digital media, where learners create, remix and share their own content, an overhaul of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy was long overdue. Yesterday I posted a critique of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy and argued that it is outmoded in the digital age. Unfortunately, Lorin Anderson's revised model (2001 in conjunction with Krathwohl) of the taxonomy is not as great an improvement on the original model as its adherents might claim. Supposedly upgraded to take into consideration new ways of learning using digital tools, the revised model remains firmly rooted in the old behaviourist paradigm, and is just as reliant on the production of observable (and therefore) measurable behaviour as the original model. This is not surprising, because Anderson is one of Bloom's former students, and Bloom was steeped in the behaviourist tradition. However, one useful feature of Anderson's model is that it slides the focus away from declarative knowledge (knowing that) toward procedural knowledge (knowing how), and this is useful in constructionist learning contexts (learning by making - See for example the work of Seymour Papert). If students learn facts, but have no understanding of how or why these facts can be applied, or how they can be constructed into some useful form, learning is two-dimensional.

One of the gravest errors in Anderson's revised model is that it's still a taxonomy. It is flawed at that. Anderson's new categorisation simply moves the old categories around a little. He places 'Creating' at the apex of the pyramid, with 'Evaluating' beneath it. Overbaugh and Schultz (2005) suggest that in Anderson's model, Bloom's Synthesis is replaced by 'Creating', and that Bloom's 'Evaluation' and 'Synthesis' therefore trade places. This raises a question - should we really expect learners to create something and then not bother to evaluate it? So why the swap? The problem lies in the sequence. Ultimately, synthesis and evaluation, along with all the other levels of cognitive achievement cannot be represented as a single linear process. Let's suppose instead that learning processes are chaotic and iterative in nature, and that we learn through a continual flux of categories, combined in increasingly complex ways. We might acquire better knowledge while we are in the process of applying and evaluating, for example. This leads to the conclusion that the classification of 'levels' of attainment is misrepresented in both Bloom's and Anderson's models. Tim Brook makes the point that the sequence of learning categories is problematic and suggests a matrix instead. But this still fails to address the problem that Bloom's taxonomy segregates and compartmentalises activities, when often we learn across and through combinations of learning modes.

Neither Bloom's nor Anderson's models take new, fluid methods of learning into consideration. Emerging theories such as connectivism, heutagogy and paragogy are more representative of digital age learning, and for many, the future of learning through and with digital tools will rely heavily upon such explanatory frameworks. We need to find ways to nurture the agile, flexible, critical and creative learners we desperately need in our communities today. Neither Bloom's nor Anderson's taxonomies can achieve this. Patching up an old model and rehashing it just won't do. As John Lennon once put it: 'You can't reheat a soufflé.'

Anderson's Revision Model image source

References

Anderson, L.W., and D. Krathwohl (Eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing: a Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Longman, New York.

Overbaugh, R. C. and Schultz, L. (2005) Bloom's Taxonomy. Available online at:  http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm (Accessed 21 June, 2012)

Bloom's taxonomy rehashed by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Bloom and bust

Bloom's Taxonomy has been hailed as a template for best practice in course design. It has been a part of the bedrock of teacher education courses for over half a century, and is a model just about every learning professional is aware of, and has used at some point in their teaching career. Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy is probably the best known and most used, and is organised into six levels of learning rising from simple to complex. These are often represented as a pyramid with the most complex category at the apex. Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues identified three distinct domains of learning, namely the Cognitive (thinking - knowing, reasoning), Affective (feeling - emotions, attitudes) and Psychomotor (doing - physical skills, practice) domains. Both the Cognitive domain and Affective domain were published as edited volumes, in 1956 and 1964 respectively. In the past, the usefulness of the model was widely acknowledged, particularly in the construction of lesson plans.

Veronica Alexander talks about how the taxonomy has been successfully used as a template for learning programmes. She writes:

"A well-written educational objective (or learning objective) is a single, specific, measurable description of what the learner will be taught and is expected to master. The learner can only be measured if they can demonstrate a behavior that provides evidence of their knowledge or skill. One learning experience can be composed of one or more objectives. Objectives can also be nested where a Terminal Learning Objective (TLO) is a high-level summary of the demonstrable knowledge or skill and one or more Enabling Learning Objectives (ELO) are sub-skills which support each TLO. Bloom’s taxonomy provides a method for learning designers to plan, organize and scale the complexity of the content in a way that supports learner performance".

And yet Bloom's taxonomy raised some serious issues. How relevant is it in the digital age? Should we still be organising learning experiences as a gradient of 'terminal learning objectives' in an age where learning is changing, and where personal technologies and social media are increasingly significant? Learning is changing, because the boundaries between discrete learning activities are blurring. Assessment methods are changing too. Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy represents a very rigid method of control over learning behaviour, and offered structure for teachers in the last century. But just how desirable is it in today's classrooms? Exactly how much control do teachers need to exert over students' learning today? What about freedom to learn, and what about individual creativity? Where do they fit into the grand scheme of 21st Century learning? If you subscribe to the belief that students are blank slates (tabulas rasa) on which knowledge can be inscribed by experts, then Bloom's taxonomy is for you. If on the other hand, you believe that all learners have the ability to be creative, critical and independent, then you will start looking elsewhere for guidance on how to provide engaging learning experiences. Bloom and his colleagues identified three domains - knowledge, attitudes and skills - but omitted some important additional components - intuition and creativity. Was this because they are difficult to 'measure' objectively?

These are not the only problems. Criticism of Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy has been widespread, but at the outset, I want to argue that it is often a mistake to try to represent complex ideas in the form of simplistic diagrams. I'm not sure whether Bloom and his colleagues ever wished to see their work represented as a pyramid, but that's how it now appears in many popular interpretations, and it was originally presented as a progressive linear sequence. Portraying the 6 levels of attainment in this manner only serves to reinforce the prescriptive, sequential and reductionist nature of Bloom's Cognitive taxonomy. Secondly, there is doubt over the validity and reliability of Bloom's taxonomy (see for example Brenda Sugrue's critique). Way back in 1974, Ormell criticised Bloom for failing to acknowledge 'imaginative understanding' - essential creativity in learning.

Bloom's taxonomy has been criticised for its simplistic view of a very complex human activity. Post modernist criticism points to its neat and ordered classification of learning modes and argues that the human mind is far to complex to be represented in such a prescribed manner. Another post-modern critique is that many of the terms used in the taxonomy are artificially constructed as ideology to 'conceal the messy side of learning' (Spencer, 2008). Probably the most important criticism of Bloom though, and the most relevant in an age of social media, is that the taxonomy tends to focus on individual learning activities. Technology has changed that. Today social learning is increasingly prevalent. Collaboration, shared online spaces, discussion, co-construction of content and negotiation of meaning are all evident in the 21st Century classroom. Bloom's taxonomy has little to offer here, because it was devised in an era of instruction in which drill and practice were common and where behaviorism was the dominant ideology.

Ultimately, Bloom's Taxonomy was used as a tool to aid curriculum design. However, it is nonsense to expect teachers to continue to write verb laden 'instructional objectives' to describe behaviour for each and every one of the six cognitive levels that they are subsequently required to 'measure'. At best, applying the taxonomy to assessment reduces learning to a series of fairly meaningless behavioural links, and at worst, it does nothing to support or encourage the intuitive and creative instincts of every child in the class. Shelly Wright also expresses disquiet, suggesting that in the pyramid model, it appears that to reach a peak of creativity, learners need to traverse all the inferior stages of learning first. This is also clearly untrue in many real life experiences. Shelly suggests flipping, or inverting the pyramid so that creating (or making) becomes the first stage in the learning process. I'm not convinced that this significantly improves the taxonomy. It simply creates yet another linear, artificial representation of complex learning processes.

Tomorrow: Part 2: Bloom reheated

References
Bloom, B. S. and Krathwohl, D. R. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: Longmans.
Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S. and Masia, B. B. (1964) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Company.
Ormell, C. P. (1974) Bloom's Taxonomy and the Objectives of Education, Educational Research, 17, 1.
Spencer, J. T. (2008) Bloom's Taxonomy: Criticisms. Teacher Commons. Available online at: http://teachercommons.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/bloom-taxonomy-criticisms.html (Accessed 22 June, 2012)

Bloom's Taxonomy image source


Bloom and bust by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Recycling Kolb

Most learning professionals have heard of David A. Kolb. His experiential learning model (1984) is just one part of his grander theory on learning, and is often cited as a model that encapsulates the entire learning journey. Kolb's model was categorised by Mayes and deFreitas (2004) as an individual constructivist theory, in that it features a number of components that reflect solo learning activities. This is in direct contrast to the more familiar social constructivist theories of Vygotsky, Bruner et al, which rely on co-construction and negotiation of meaning. It owes more to Piaget's 'scientific' or cognitive constructivist camp. Kolb's model frames individual exploration of the world, and can be seen in a number of activities such as problem based learning, inquiry based learning and experiential learning. Although none of these preclude a social element of learning such as collaboration or group discussion, individual constructivism tends to rely on the ability of the learner to be an autonomous and independent self-learner.

The experiential model Kolb proposed reveals a particular flow of activity that is represented in the image below. It flows clockwise and is both iterative and cyclical. It is representative of the kind of activities one sees in the old style e-learning package designs still used in many companies to impart basic health and safety or customer care training. One of the criticisms of Kolb's model is that it is fairly prescriptive, and from it derives the four learning styles he identified; diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating. A number of derivative learning styles models 'borrowed' from this model (for example Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles model). It continues to feature strongly in many corporate training/learning and development (L and D) design and delivery strategies because it focuses largely on competence and performance, traits most businesses value and require their employees to acquire and develop. And yet, although L and D departments are also embracing social learning, many still continue to refer to Kolb's model as an important model of learning. This is questionable. One view is that the experiential learning model is increasingly irrelevant in an age where social media, and social learning are increasingly prevalent. It is worth revisiting Kolb's model to explore its criticisms and weaknesses.

A major criticism of Kolb's experiential learning cycle is that any or all of the four phases he identifies could occur simultaneously (Jeffs and Smith, 1999). Another is that the model does not sufficiently acknowledge the power of reflection on learning (Boud et al, 1985). Probably the most important criticism of the cycle is that depending on the learner, and/or the activities they are engaged in, some stages of the process can be bypassed, or repeated several times in any sequence. Way back in 1933 John Dewey remarked that reflective learning processes are highly complex and as Smith (2001) has argued, representing this complexity in such neat and precise units is simplistic and clearly problematic. There is little to stop the process being reversed or sequenced in entirely different ways, depending on learner motivation, individual differences, subject being studied and a new component Kolb probably had no reason to consider at the time - the digital tools being employed to support those learning activities.

Besides there being very little (or mostly weak) empirical evidence to support Kolb's model (and all of its derivatives), I also argue that in a digital age, it is now increasingly obsolete. It served its purpose in the 'instructional design' period of e-learning development where 'stand alone' Computer Aided Training (CBT) content was king, but we have moved on.  Social learning processes are showing greater promise than isolated learning, and we now have the tools to capitalise on the human instinct to learn collaboratively and to create, remix and share our own content. Kolb's model is anachronistic, belonging to another time. It is time to develop new models to explain the processes that occur when people learn using socially rich interactive digital media.

Image by Fotopedia
Experiential Learning Model Graphic source  

References

Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (eds.) (1985) Reflection. Turning experience into learning, London: Kogan Page.
Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think, New York: Heath.
Jeffs, M. and Smith, T. (1999) Learning from Experience. Available online at: http://www.infed.org/foundations/f-explrn.htm (Accessed 20 June, 2012).
Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall.
Mayes, T. and deFreitas, S. (2004) Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models. Stage 2 of the e-learning models desk study. Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/modelsdeskstudy.aspx (Accessed 20 June, 2012).
Smith, M. K. (2001) David A. Kolb on Experiential Learning. Available online at: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm (Accessed 20 June, 2012).


Recycling Kolb by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

You can't ban the blog

One Scottish local authority has tonight been left with egg all over its face. Argyll and Bute's attempts to censor a 9 year old blogging about her school dinners backfired spectacularly when they were forced to very publicly retract their original decision. The gagging order was imposed on Martha Payne, a primary school girl who attends Lochgilphead Primary School, because she took pictures of her school dinners and then rated them out of 10 on her blog. Although Martha was writing the blog to raise money for charity, and was glowing with praise about some of her dinners, the council decided that not all publicity was good publicity and instructed her head teacher to order her not to take any more photographs of her lunches. The Argyll and Bute council officials thought that newspaper coverage of the 9 year old's blog was causing catering staff to fear for their jobs. But the council backed down due to pressure from the public, ith support from celebrity TV chefs Nick Nairn and Jamie Oliver on Twitter and over the traditional media. The council admitted its mistake and through gritted teeth, a spokesman gave several TV and radio interviews to clarify their position.

Needless to say, the adverse publicity attracted by the council over their reactionary initial decision has reflected positively on Martha's blog, NeverSeconds, which is now receiving thousands of views and dozens of comments each hour. The blog has already amassed over 3 million hits.

The wider issue here is that free speech has many forms, and even children are able to speak out. Primary children such as Martha Payne are able to voice their opinions and gain huge audiences for their writing over the web. They are armed with cameras and mobile phones and they know exactly how to use them. Anyone who underestimates the power of blogging and other forms of social media therefore does so at their peril. And as Argyll and Bute council discovered the hard way yesterday, it is foolish to try to stop children from expressing their ideas publicly. Their decision blew up in their faces, and their only comfort is that Martha's blog has grown in the light of their inadvertent publicity of her work, and is earning even more money for her chosen charity. Go Martha!

Image by Freefoto


You can't ban the blog by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Dialogue, debate and destinations

I don't have the time or the inclination to calculate how many miles I have travelled in the last week, but it involved three car journeys, 11 train rides, numerous taxi trips and one flight. I managed to keynote four conferences in six days, respectively eLearning 2.0 at Brunel University, London; the CILIPS annual conference at the Apex Hotel in Dundee; the Solstice Conference at Edge Hill University, and finally the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton University. I spent much of my time gazing out at the countryside going by from the windows of trains, but during the times my feet were on firm ground I did also manage to have some decent and productive conversations with old friends and new, and fielded questions from delegates during my presentations at all four events.

Some notable discussions took place, some of which I can briefly summarise here on this blog. I took issue for example with a statement by Rosemary Goring (Literary Editor and columnist for The Herald) who keynoted the CILIPS conference on Monday. She suggested that Libraries should conserve their traditional roles and that any change that took place should be 'geological'. Goring was essentially arguing that libraries should not be dictated to by technological changes, but in doing so she missed a fundamental point. Libraries must change, because the needs and perceptions of users is changing. In my own keynote speech the following morning, speaking to an audience of around 200 library and information professionals, I argued that libraries need to become more flexible and agile (and indeed many already are), to respond to new learning practices, and an increased interest in knowledge and research. Co-incidentally, in their packs, each delegate received a copy of Panlibus Magazine, containing an article written by me entitled 'Moving away from books'. I remarked that before they burnt me at the stake for heresy, there should in fact have been a question mark at the end of the title. The jury is still out on the future of paper based content, but for the record I see no immediate demise of the book. The question is: do you like reading or do you like books? (acknowledgement to James Clay for this question). If you like reading, then any avenue of enquiry (kindle readers, e-books, online search, even audio) remains open, whereas if you insist on reading only from books, then your scope is increasingly limited. I cited the fact that for the first time this year, Amazon is reporting selling more e-book downloads than it is paper based books. This and other technology driven changes demand that libraries move quickly to adapt to new trends and remain agile to maintain relevance in a digital age.

Other noteworthy debates took part at Solstice and the Digital Literacy conferences during the week. I was challenged by delegates at Solstice to elaborate on the legal and ethical issues of Creative Commons and other Copyleft approaches. Creative Commons, I explained, is a means of circumventing Internet Copyright constraints. It seems perverse in today's adverse economic climate, said Brian Lamb, to hoard knowledge in any form. I added to this that in a time when knowledge is needed more than ever, why do we allow edubusinesses and greedy publishers to commoditise knowledge and publicly funded research? I advocate giving content away for free, by publishing it (as with this blog post) under a Creative Commons licence that allows anyone to take any or all of the content for reuse, as long as they attribute the source and re-licence it under the same conditions (share and share alike). Many academics, I argued, feel uneasy about giving content away for free, preferring to perpetuate the old ivory tower mentality. But give away we must, if we are to reach audiences that extend beyond our own little academic fraternities. Gone are the days when we can rest on our laurels by publishing our research to a small and select group of elite scientists. The general public also need to know about advances in science, medicine, technology and education, and the best way to do this is to publish openly. I gave another challenge to those present to boycott closed journals, and publish in open access journals. I was not calling for publishers to give away journal content for free, but simply to reduce their prices to reasonable rates so that the average student can afford access. The ethics of this are clear - publicly funded research has been paid for out of taxes. It should therefore be made freely available to those who have paid their taxes.

Finally, a note about the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton (pictured). With Salford University's Cristina Costa, I presented an 'unkeynote' - a kind of plenary workshop - and we had a whale of a time disrupting the proceedings and causing a great deal of mess and chaos. Yet out of the chaos came some order, from social tagging, online collaboration, critical thinking and intelligent searching activities, we led toward round table discussions, delegates explored the spectrum of new literacies that are emerging as a result of the introduction of new technologies into formal learning contexts. After several quick-fire 10 minute presentations, the second unkeynote, presented by Doug Belshaw and Sue Beckingham dwelt on essential elements of digital literacies, and was drawn largely from Doug's recent doctoral thesis. Doug helped us to think about digital literacies in a sort of periodic table of 8 'c's - their slideshow is here. As each table came to grips with the Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confidence, Creative, Critical and Civic aspects of using technology to learn, we were then asked to choose two and develop a learning activity around them. The result was a lot of great ideas that could be incorporated into learning activities in any education sector. Doug and Sue concluded an excellent presentation with the quote from Johnson (2008) who said 'functional internet literacy is not the ability to use a set of technical tools; rather, it is the ability to use a set of cognitive tools'.

I thank all of my hosts in London, Dundee, Ormskirk and Southampton for making me feel so at home. The Storify record of the event by Ivan Mendelez and the Flickr image collection by Farnoosh Behraman have captured some of the dynamics and atmosphere of the conference.

Images by Farnoosh Berahman


Dialogue, debate and destinations by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Letting go of the past

As a man was walking past some elephants in a circus, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these large animals were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds. Yet they stayed were they were.

He asked the trainer why the animals didn't try to escape. “Well,” the trainer explained, “when they were very young and much smaller we used the same size rope to tie them and, at that size, it was enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

Sometimes it can be difficult to let go of the past. But often, it's the only way we see any progress. Not only do we need to learn, we sometimes need to unlearn and relearn. That could mean breaking down a long established belief or perception. For me it meant overcoming the fear and embarrassment that I had experienced in primary school when I was laughed at for asking a seemingly 'stupid' question. It took me years to gain the confidence to speak in public and overcome the thought that may be I was the only one in the room who didn't understand what was being said. I asked a question once during a conference plenary, and afterwards several delegates came up to me and said 'thanks for asking that question, I didn't understand either, but was too scared to ask'.

We are all in the same boat it seems. Letting go of previous bad experiences and trying again with a 'clean sheet' is a way of unlearning. It is freedom to learn from failures and previous shortcomings so we can do it better next time. What do you do in your classroom to give learners a fresh chance to let go of the past?

Image by Fotopedia

Letting go of the past by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Everyone's a critic (again)

I recently blogged about the hidden audience effect, and cited Westfields Junior School's S'cool Internet Radio and David Mitchell's Quadblogging projects as examples of how students can become better engaged with learning when they perform their work for an audience. Social media and the internet have largely been responsible for this change. Before social media, the school play or the end of term concert was a good way to allow children to perform to an audience, as was the art display and the school sports day. But not every child excels at art, or is good at music or sport. What about those who are good mathematicians, or the scientists or linguists? Prior to social media, how did they perform their skills for an audience? Social media now provides a way. A recent blogpost by Katherine McKnight listed 12 ways technology has changed learning, and includes 'expanding audiences' near the top of the list:

Students' sense of audience is completely different. When I was in high school in the 1980's, the audience was the teacher. When I started teaching high school in 1988, the audience was the teacher and peers.  In the 21st century, it's the WORLD. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other online platforms changed our notion of audience.

I think the statement requires some unpacking. Yes, social media is changing our concept of audience, because the tools we use are naturally participatory. Students blog their ideas and in doing so, they perform to a potential worldwide audience. They receive feedback from their peers in the form of comments, and gain a sense of pride in their work. When they record themselves on camera, they can release it as a YouTube video and gain feedback from their peers. It can be very motivational: watching a growing number of views, comments, shares and favourites can be a huge incentive for students. But there are also risks. The danger of playing to this gallery is the exposure to a potentially harsh and unforgiving environment. YouTube is particularly notorious for trolling (individuals who patrol social media sites to make mischief) and can be a breeding ground for unneccesarily harsh, or deliberately hurtful comments. Receiving such responses, no matter how ill informed or illiterate they often may be, can seriously damage the delicate self esteem of vulnerable young learners.

Teachers should therefore promote the use of YouTube as a performance channel with due consideration to such a risks. The same safeguards should apply to blogging, where teachers are advised to act as moderators of the comments that are received, filtering each one before allowing it to be posted on the blog for students to read. There is also the danger of cyberbullying from within the peer group, and such malicious activities also need to be obviated by the appropriate management of social media tools in formal learning settings. A fine line needs to be drawn between deliberately destructive behaviour, and critial review of a learner's work. Whilst the former knocks down, the latter can build up, challenging the student to refine their skills and learn more about their subject.

Arguably, the benefits outweigh the risks, and performing your learning online using social media is a game changer. Never before have students enjoyed the opportunity to shine on such a global stage. The audience has indeed expanded, and where once a student was writing their assignment to be read by an audience of one (the teacher or examiner), now there is potential to demonstrate new learning through a huge range of globally accessible media.

Assessment should no longer be confined to the written tests or essays that were so prevalent in the last century, but might be extended to podcasts, blogs, wikis, videos, image collections and combinations of these in other media. What teachers now need to avoid is replicating old practices within new media. The opportunities to create new ways of assessment are there to be exploited. The only real limitation is imagination.

Image source


Everyone's a critic by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Feet keep walking

Someone made the ironic remark on my Facebook page that I travel a lot to speak about how information travels in 'bits and digital form'. I retorted that, yes, it is a little ironic, but certainly not surprising, because people are naturally social beings. Our social nature ensures that we are more at ease in face to face contexts, and that technology mediation of communication will always be second best. That's why so much research has been invested in studying how people respond to digitally mediated forms of interaction. I was personally involved in some of the early large scale studies into how students and their teachers adapt to communication through audio, video and internet based tools. Unequivocally, those involved said that although technology is a great way of keeping in contact, personal connection in co-present environments is always more desirable. Learning technology has taken me all around the world to teach, speak and research, and I see no respite in the travelling as my schedule shows. It's conference season, and this coming month I'm travelling the length and breadth of the nation to give keynotes in four conferences and hosting two invited workshops.

I start on Friday 8 June with a keynote speech on Day 2 of the eLearning 2.0 conference, hosted by Brunel University, in West London. My presentation is entitled Learning in a Digital Age: The myth and the reality, and will feature several debates on issues such as learning styles, digital natives and immigrants theory and other pedagogical themes.

On Sunday I fly up to Edinburgh and then onwards to Dundee where to keynote on Day 2 of the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS) Conference at the Apex City Quay Hotel. My keynote speech for CILIPS is called 'Learning in a Digital World' and will feature some of my recent work on 'Library 2.0' and 'Libraries without walls', featured on this blog.

On Tuesday afternoon I travel down to Ormskirk, near Liverpool  in time for the Solstice Conference on Wednesday 13 June, hosted by Edgehill University. I will be giving the opening keynote on Day 1 and speaking on the topic of 'Digital Pedagogy: The Future is Open'. I'm speaking about open source, open content, open educational resources and open scholarship.

My final event of the week will be at Southampton University, on Thursday 14 June, where I have been invited to present an unkeynote with Salford University's Cristina Costa at the Digital Literacies Conference. Cris and I are old friends, and because the conference focuses on digital literacies, we will be asking our audience to explore a number of contexts around literacies in a digital age.

The month of June draws to an end with two workshops at the E2BN Conference at the Robinson Centre in Wyboston. I will be talking about how social media and personalised learning can be brought together to provide dynamic new learning environments for all students.

The travel will be tiring, but I hope to meet a lot of old friends and new contacts, and I'm sure I will learn a lot. If you are at any of the above events, please come and say hello.

Image by Steve Wheeler


Feet keep walking by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.