Teacher or educator?

Everyone is a teacher. We all have the ability to help others to learn. This is exactly what Vygotsky had in mind when he proposed his famous Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory. Children (and adults too) can learn more broadly, deeply and extensively if they have a knowledgeable person by their side, than they can on their own. In our society, we often think of that knowledgeable other person as a professional educator, a tutor, lecturer or classroom teacher. But it need not be. Not everyone is cut out to be a professional educator, but anyone can teach and most of us do exactly that, just about every day. The artistry of a good educator though is to continually engage students in learning, to inspire them to persist in their studies and to transfer their own personal passion to that student's learning. The art of education is to draw out the very best from learners, to encourage them to excel at what interests them, and to instill this within them so they continue to do so for the rest of their time on this planet. The very, very best teachers can do all these things, and usually instinctively.

We learn in a multitude of ways, some within formal settings, others less formally. How did you learn to tie your shoelaces? Most people would remember a friend, or a parent showing them how it was done. Then it was practice, practice, practice, until you could do it without thinking. Your first language was acquired naturally before you ever went to school. You learnt informally, listening to your family members speak and then engaging with them as you built your vocabulary. One of the great, unchanging roles of a parent is to be an informal teacher of their children, and older siblings also take a hand. Children today learn a lot of social rules and mores through informal play, long before they ever see a school playground.

If there is any difference at all between formal and informal learning, it is where that learning is heading. What is the study for? In formal learning contexts, learning is usually aimed toward obtaining some kind of qualification, an accreditation of a skill or knowledge. In informal contexts, it's simply about living. Going to school or college can be a real effort, day in, day out. Formalised learning can be a chore, but it need not be. This is where the skilled teacher can make learning engaging and fun, and motivate students to arrive each day anticipating something special. It takes passion, dedication, drive, tenacity and self-belief to become a professional educator. That's the difference between education and teaching, and it is why, although there are 7 billion teachers in the world, only a very few ever go on to become skilled educators.

Image by Momento Mori

This post was first published on August 1, 2011.

Seven billion teachers by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Three golden moments in time

There are moments in time that shape who you are and who you become. They say that your school years are the best years of your lives, but for many people, school was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. In past blog posts I have related bad experiences of school and have questioned the relevance of current school practices to real world needs. Education is not the same as school. Sometimes schooling can get in the way of learning, but on this occasion I want to remember three golden moments that were instrumental in making me who I am today.

In July, 1969, I was 12 years old and living in the remote Shetland Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. I recall waking up very early in the morning, sneaking downstairs, and watching the live television coverage of the first moon landing. I remember watching the very grainy black and white images of the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin as they took their first tentative steps on the lunar surface, and thinking how incredible it was that man was actually on the moon. It was the spirit of adventure and discovery that really fueled my imagination and from then on I made models, collected artefacts and avidly studied space exploration. It was the first time in my life that I focused my attention and energy into learning a body of knowledge.

In 1972, during my time living in Beek, near Maastricht, Holland, I went on a school trip to Eindhoven, for a visit to the Evoluon - the Philips electronic giant's building constructed in the shape of a flying saucer. The Evoluon (now a major conference venue) was a science and technology museum with a difference. There were live demonstrations of scientific principles and new technologies. Here was where I first saw video conferencing, and robotic technology. This visit turned me on to thinking about the future and the role technology was going to play in all our lives. This moment was a turning point for me in terms of the awareness I suddenly had about what technology could do to transform our experiences, our relationships, our lives.

In 1973 while I was in my final year at AFCENT International School, in Brussum, Holland, I faced a bit of a dilemma. At the time, the curriculum was very gender biased. Girls were not allowed to take more than one science subject, but could study both art and music. Boys could do as many science subjects as they wished, but were only allowed to choose either music or art. I wanted to do both, but was limited to art, which was my strongest subject. So I began to subvert the rules. I spoke to the American music teacher, Larry Domingue, who was a liberal, progressive teacher. I asked him if he minded whether I could sit in the back of his lessons as an extra student. He smiled, and said I would be very welcome. I missed a whole year of PE - Physical Education - to do this, and was marked absent on every single occasion. The teachers knew what was going on, but because of my passion for music, turned a blind eye. I found that I could sometimes bend and subvert the rules and I learnt to create my own personalised pathway through my final year in school, something that has stood me in good stead throughout my professional life.    

These three golden moments in time have instilled within me a spirit of discovery, a sense of wonder, and the agency to make my own way in life, even if it means breaking the rules occasionally. What are your golden moments in time?


This was post first published on August 22, 2011



Image by NASA


Three golden moments by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

iPads in schools

My colleagues and good friends Martin Ebner and Sandra Schon have released a new e-book in their Open Access 'books on demand' series. This one, written by Sabrina Huber, focuses on iPads in Schools is available as a free download and is in English. It will be of interest to anyone involved in the application of learning technology, particularly in schools, but also in colleges and universities. Here is a brief summary:

"The current media landscape is changing and growing at a fast pace which is increasingly affecting the school sector. Numerous schools all over the world have already focused on the value added to lessons by tablet computers, such as Apple’s iPad. A myriad of learning applications and ways to transfer subject matters are provided on and through such devices. However, at the present time, there is little experience with respect to the didactically reasonable inclusion of tablets in schools. Therefore, the motivation of this book, which is based on a diploma thesis, is to provide a general overview of the didactical integration of tablets, in this case, Apple’s iPad. Within a field experiment educational apps are being tested and evaluated according to the Austrian curriculum for foreign languages as well as iOS Human Interface Guidelines that focus on user interface and user experience."



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

Education funnels and webs of learning

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the personalisation of education. The sticking point is that most education is publicly funded, the state has a major stake in how it's conducted, and therefore dictates what should be taught in schools. Because of lack of space, time and resources (you will always have this problem when the state intervenes) there is little latitude for personalised approaches and creativity is stifled. Every child gets the same content, and every child is tested in the same, standardised way. The result: children become disenfranchised and demotivated, teachers are exhausted and demoralised, schools are positioned unfairly in league tables, and governments measure success not through human achievement or creativity, but through cold, hard statistics. This is universal education, and if one size does not fit all ... tough. Shame no-one has told the powers that be that universal education is unachievable.

Ivan Illich railed against this mindset way back in 1970 in his anarchical, visionary critique of the school system. In Deschooling Society, Illich called for personal learning through informal learning networks, and rejected the funnelling approach of mass, unidirectional, instructivist education systems. More recently, powerful modern day visionaries such as Stephen Heppell and Sir Ken Robinson are saying the same thing. They ask how we can sustain a factory model of education 'production', where children are 'batch processed' according to their age groups. It's obvious to any teacher or parent that children develop at different rates, and all have different talents and interests. I suppose we have Jean Piaget and his fellow 'stage theory' psychologists to thank for that kind of constrained thinking.

In their current configuration, says Robinson, most schools kill creativity. The picture above was taken in 1909. If those students could jump into a time machine and be transported a century or so forward to 2011, what would they be amazed by? Jumbo jets, motorways? Satellites and HD television? The internet, medical science? Mobile phones and credit cards? They wouldn't recognise any of those. One thing they would almost certainly recognise though, would be the school classroom. It has been largely bypassed by the last century of progress, because institutions are very hard to change.

Heppell points out that creativity could be encouraged and personal learning achieved through the use of handheld technologies such as mobile phones. When they use these tools, he says, children are in their element. When they walk into the classroom, they are told to switch off all devices, and in doing so, the school switches off the child too. Gaming consoles could also be used to personalise learning, engaging children in playful learning, something which Heppell strongly advocates. But ultimately, teachers have a vast array of personal learning resources at their disposal thanks to the social web. Students must choose their own personal tools - if they have tools imposed upon them there is little scope for personalisation. Schools are now beginning to incorporate some social media into their lessons and even allowing children to use mobile and handheld technologies during lessons. It's starting, but it's slow progress. If students are shown a range of tools and then allowed to choose which ones they would like to use, if they are allowed to create their own personal webs and choose their own connections, we might begin to see some very personal learning taking place in our schools.


This post was first published on August 8, 2011.


No more funnels by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Embrace the medium

One of the perennial problems teachers face, especially in early years education, is trying to get children to write. The main problem is that children are expected to write in a vacuum, for an audience of one (the teacher). There is often very little incentive in this exercise for kids, who would probably rather be doing other things with their time like playing on their Nintendo. But several schools are beginning to address this 'won't write' problem by making it entertaining and productive through the use of social media. In an article entitled Could blogging be the key to raising a generation of great writers? Liz Dwyer argues for creating audiences online for children to write for:

'"I don't like to write." That's the refrain teachers have heard for a generation when they ask students why they're struggling to complete a short, three-paragraph essay. Thankfully, more and more educators are using two things kids love, technology and social media, to change that. By encouraging students to write on their own blogs, savvy teachers are helping kids take their writing out of the classroom vacuum, and cultivate a broader audience.'

Liz is right of course. Children raise their game when they know they are being watched, so why should it be any different with writing? David Mitchell, Acting Head Teacher at Bolton's Heathfield Primary School is a great advocate of blogging as a means to develop children's writing skills. He reveals that some children are proactive in setting up their own blogs when they realise they can write for a large audience and actually receive feedback. Many of the children at Heathfield have become avid bloggers, and the results of this are clear for all to see. According to David, some children within the school have raised their literacy attainment scores by two full levels. Blogging is gaining ground, and it's not that hard to set up for a group of children in your own school. Some teachers reading this might ask the question: What about internet safety and child protection? Well, I could answer here and now, but I won't. Instead, I'll let Liz Dwyer answer:

'Concerns about online privacy have historically made teachers wary of allowing students to blog, but the rise of platforms built specifically for students has made blogging safer for kids of all ages. Plus, in our networked 21st century world, more teachers are already taking precautions by talking about internet safety, telling kids not to reveal their home addresses or engage in online bullying. Let's hope more teachers embrace the medium and let their students get some real-world writing experience.'


This post as first published on August 4, 2011.

Image by WallMic


Getting the bloggers to write by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

There has been discussion recently about whether or not blog comments should be moderated. Some maintain an 'open for all' policy, and allow any comments to be posted on their blog. They do so for a number of reasons. Some wish to make posting comments as easy as possible, and want their blog to be as welcoming as it can be. Others do not have the time to moderate all the comments that are posted to their site. It's a very democratic approach.

Several years ago, I took the decision to moderate comments on my own blog, not because I'm undemocratic, but because there are two kinds of comment I will not allow to be published. The first kind are comments that come from people who will be politely referred to as 'trolls'. Trolls post hateful, destructive, off-topic and inflammatory comments, because they enjoy provoking emotional responses and upsetting others. You can imagine how heart breaking that kind of comment could be for children who are blogging. In the UK, under the Communications Act of 2003 it is an offence to send messages that are of grossly offensive, obscene, indecent or menacing character. Two recent court cases have resulted in internet trolls being successfully prosecuted and sentenced to prison. For whatever reasons these individuals post such comments, I don't want that kind of content on my blog, so I usually screen for them, and delete them if I receive them. I dealt with one of my own personal trolls several years ago by openly writing about them here in Dear eLearning 101.

The second reason I moderate my blog comments is due to the increase in spam comments that are coming through, sometimes several each day. This blog currently has an average of 125,000 visitors each month, so the spam messages can be frequent. You can easily recognise most spam messages because they are sychophantic and painfully complimentary, sometimes very bland, and often written in appallingly bad English. They always contain at least one hyperlink. The example (above) is a fairly clear cut case of some sad person desperately trying to get people to click on their links. Who knows what the links contain? They could take you to dodgy sites or open you up for a virus attack.

I don't want these comments on my blog for a number of reasons. I don't want my readers exposed to dangerous links that may infect their computers with a virus or subject them to hacking. Secondly, I only want relevant and useful comments to appear on my blog. Anyone who wishes to comment constructively on my blog is very welcome to do so, but I won't accept spurious or irrelevant contributions. Finally, look at the example below - probably one of the most subtle spam comments I have received recently. Note that there are two hyperlinks, almost invisible in the post. Can you spot them?

Now you know why I screen all the comments submitted to this blog. I want to promote great discussions here, but to do so, I occasionally have to sort the wheat from the chaff. Do you moderate your blog comments, and if so why?



Sorting the wheat from the chaff by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Reading the World

Two years ago I started sharing my thoughts about digital literacies. I wrote a series of blog posts arguing that multiple literacies are needed to make sense of the digital media we use. More recently, people have been asking me what I think is the difference between a literacy and a skill. It's a question that often turns up in plenary discussions at conferences. Let me try to address this question:

Skill is a dexterity or ability that comes from your knowledge and aptitude, and manifests itself in being able to do something well. Writing is a skill, but it is also a literacy. In fact it constitutes a set of literacies. Literacy goes beyond skill. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) argued for the 'embeddedness' of literacy within wider social practices. Their reasoning is that the act of writing involves more than the reproduction of a sequence of letters, words, sentences and paragraphs. Words in isolation mean very little - it is the context within which they are located that invests meaning. My recent post on blogging as literacy hopefully illustrates this logic. Literacy is therefore more than a skill. It is the capability to be able to interpret meaning within context. I often give the example of learning to drive to explain this concept.

When I learnt to drive in England, I learned all the basic skills needed to be a (reasonably) safe motorist, and thus to earn my driving licence. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre is still emblazoned upon my memory. Stopping at traffic lights, knowing what the colours of the lights mean, and reading the road signs, are all essentials of driving. But many of the skills I learnt are peculiarly British. Driving on the left hand side of the road is only common in a few countries around the world. When I found myself driving my family around France for our holiday a few years ago, I realised that my driving skills were not enough to be fully proficient. I was driving on the other side of the road for a start. We had to drive counterclockwise around roundabouts, and trying the interpret some of the road signs was taxing to say the least. It was also confusing to note that drivers there kept their indicators on whilst overtaking other vehicles - something we don't do in the UK. It took a week of driving around France before I began to feel comfortable. I had by then begun to developing some of the literacies - the cultural and social awareness of the new country I was staying in - and was starting to appreciate some of the nuances and social mores of driving in France. The same thing happened to me when I drove for the first time in America. There you find very few roundabouts, but you do encounter many four way road junctions. Here the unwritten rules are quite interesting, and I had to discover for myself what sequence people are expected to follow to drive across the junction when there are no traffic signals. Lankshear and Knobel cite the work of Freire (1972) who claimed that literacy was not only reading the word, but also reading the world. Authentic learning comes through immersion within the culture. This clearly resonates with the explanations above.

Digital literacies are characterised through the appropriate interpretation and use of digital media and technology. Literacies of this kind are acquired as the learner engages with the culture, mediated through the tools. You learn through social engagement online for example, that typing words in UPPERCASE represents shouting. It's a part of the social etiquette (or 'netiquette') of using social media, e-mail and texting tools. Many of these literacies are learnt serendipitously - through encountering problems and solving them while using digital tools. The question we should now ask is, should we be teaching these literacies more formally in schools, colleges and universities, and if so, how will we go about it?


References
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2006) New Literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University Press.

Image by Freefoto


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

Reciprocity failure

I once trained as a photographer. We learnt a lot of practical skills, such as how to light a subject in studio conditions, and we learnt about exposure rates and shutter speeds. Because I trained in the pre-digital era, we spent a lot of time in the darkroom, fiddling blindly with developer containers and stumbling around fumbling for the light switch. We also learnt a lot of technical and theoretical content. One of the more important things I learnt was the theory of reciprocity. Essentially, there is a balance between shutter speed and aperture (the iris of the lens). Simplified, it meant that the lower you set the shutter speed, the narrower the aperture had to be and vice versa. We learnt that aperture values needed to match shutter speeds, otherwise the resulting image would be poor. Failure to take account of this would result in reciprocity failure, and this was particularly evident in low light situations. Today's digital cameras are generally automatic. You point and click, and you have your photograph.

Today, few people understand or care about the old photographic theories, because with contemporary technology, few apply. But nothing you learn is ever wasted. I wrote in my previous blog post about reciprocity learning, where I discussed the sharing culture emerging through social media. I suggested that Personal Learning Networks would not be able to function if people failed to share their ideas and content freely. But we can take this a step further. At present in the UK we have a silo system of education and training. Children learn in primary and then secondary school, leaving at around 16 years old to enter vocational education (Further education) or they stay on for another two years (in either secondary school or further education) to gain additional qualifications that will gain them entry into Higher Education. When they gain their degree or vocational qualification they generally seek employment. Once in their chosen career, they will receive on the job training, and the Learning and Development (L and D) department will ensure that they are equipped to do their jobs.

Do L and D departments and companies talk to the schools? Occasionally, but not that often. Are schools aware of the needs of the business sector? Sometimes, but not as much as they should be. There should clearly be a relationship between what is taught in schools and what is taught in L and D, but how many can actually understand the links? It's obvious to me that a kind of reciprocity failure has occurred. There is a mismatch between what schools teach and what businesses want. This is because there is still little or no communication between schools and businesses. This needs to change. Schools and businesses need much more dialogue. Businesses need to be working with the schools, and children need to gain more understanding of the world of work while they are still in school. Sure, we see a limited amount of work placement (usually one week) for students when they are 15 years old. But is this enough to help them to understand what it will be like when they eventually work full time? What are our schools missing? Do businesses understand what goes on in schools to prepare children for a world of work? We need to break down the silos and establish some seamless progression from school, through training, to the workplace. This can only be achieved through better dialogue. Innovative practices are evident in schools and in the corporate sector. These need to be shared by both. At the moment, this isn't happening, which means we are still stumbling around in the dark.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


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

Reciprocity learning

I watched this morning's PLE conference (#pleconf) unkeynote by Grainne Conole and Ricardo Torres Kompen, which was streamed live from Aveiro, in Portugal. In it, they represented a number of perspectives on personal learning environments, including a discussion on the differential between institutionally managed Virtual Learning Environments (or VLEs) and the free tools that learners are now using on the web. Particularly emphasised was the power and capability of the personal learning network (or PLN) which can not only save you time when you are looking for the answer, but can also lock you into a huge network of like-minded individuals, from where you can 'distribute your knowledge'. We are indeed 'distributed beings', said Grainne, perhaps invoking the work of Mark Curtis.

There was much food for thought, but the conversation that struck me the most, was between them and one of the delegates in the hall, Ilona Buchem (aka @mediendidaktik). Grainne and Ricardo had crowdsourced much of their presentation, through a series of video clips, blogs and tweets. Reflecting this willingness to participate, Ilona suggested that much of the power of the PLN is owed to the willingness of participants to share their knowledge with each other freely. The old adage 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours' has never been so well applied as it is to does to the PLN. This kind of reciprocity occurs because people are willing to share, and in so doing, are free to then gain access to the sharing of the other members of their community. It's a kind of membership fee of the largest community on the planet - the network of networks that many millions of people are making use of to connect to each other, to ideas, knowledge and experiences beyond their own immediate physical sphere.

The psychologist Leon Festinger developed social comparison theory - a theory that attempted to explain how people relate to each other psychologically. He suggested that we compare ourselves to others often subconsciously, and then attempt to improve our own positions and gain more accurate self evaluation. It is very much rooted in the traditions of symbolic interactionism (see for example the work of Charles Cooley or George Herbert Mead). Social comparison, in Festinger's terms, is not considered to be a form of competition, but more likely will be to elicit a feeling of belonging within our chosen community. It goes farther. Most would agree that the act of self-disclosure at the start of a relationship can garner a similar response from others. Self disclosure reveals something personal or subjective about yourself. If I remark that I come from Plymouth in South West of England (personal information), the person I am conversing with is more likely to reciprocate by telling me where they are from, or may even remark on their interest in England, or Plymouth, some allied topic such as Sir Francis Drake or the Mayflower. It breaks the ice to self disclose.

In the same way, reciprocity learning relies on the willingness of both parties to give freely. I have written before about the merits of giving your stuff away for free. You never fail to be rewarded. We are, in Mark Zuckerberg's terms, living within a gift ecology - where without freely offered knowledge, and a little give and take, we would all be much poorer.

Image by Chris Ishikawa (NB: Chris made his cute animal image free for use under a CC licence, so his photo gains a wider audience on this blog. Other photographers chose not to offer their cute animal photos in the same way, so they miss out on you appreciating their artistry. Just saying....)


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

My Personal Learning Network

I was asked by Grainne Conole to record a short video on my views about Personal Learning Networks, VLEs vs PLEs and other related topics, as a contribution toward her unkeynote with Ricardo Torres Kompen for the PLE conference in Aviero, Portugal this week. Well, here it is, as a short 3 minute video on YouTube:




My Personal Learning Network by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

We're better connected

I recently presented at a conference with my Plymouth University colleagues Peter Yeomans and Oliver Quinlan. We had planned to present a version of this paper at the annual EDEN Conference held in June in Portugal, but for one reason or another, none of us were able to make it. This is probably the first time we have presented as a team, and I hope it is the first of many future conference appearances together. The result can be found as a 20 minute YouTube video - Connected: Supporting Student Blogging and Communities of Learning - complete with audio track and slides below:



Pete, Oliver and I spoke about the work we have been doing with undergraduate teacher students in Plymouth, using a variety of social media, including blogging and Twitter to support and encourage critical and reflective learning. The important concept we wanted to talk about was communities of learning, and how students can use social media tools to participate in them. Peter talked about the power of social media to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) and also discussed the ways students manage their online presence. Oliver presented some case studies of how students have successfully harnessed the power of social media tools to gain a foothold in the teaching profession and promote learning. The final section of the presentation, which I presented, dealt with some of the pedagogical theory and implications. I talked about connectivism, paragogy, heutagogy and other emerging theories that seek to explain how we learn in new digitally rich environments. We hope you enjoy listening to the presentation and following the slides. We look forward to reading any comments you may have on the presentation.


We're better connected by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

What is learning?

I was in a meeting with a prospective PhD candidate today and the conversation inevitably led to learning. He pointed out that in his lterature reviews he had uncovered a bewildering number of different, and often opposing learning theories. He was clearly impressed if not a little phased by the huge array of concepts and ideas that theorists had developed to try to explain what it means when we learn something. My response was that this was to be expected, because asking someone how they learn is similar to asking them what their favourite food is. But learning theories are variable in their significance, scope and validity. Some of the more revered theories such as social constructivism and cognitivism seem to enjoy a longevity which is evidenced in a large number of existing educational practices, including course design, learning activities, resource development, assessment and design of learning spaces. Yet in the digital age, it is probably in the area of tools selection and application that learning theories are at their most potent. Consider why the iPad and other touch screen tablet computers are becoming so popular in schools. Is this down solely to the intuitive nature of the tablet design, or do teachers see other more tacit pedagogical uses that are supported by the affordances of the tablet?

Our conceptions of learning are as individualised as our fingerprints. During a conference in Barcelona last week, I was asked what I did to make learning fun for my students. I responded by saying that I didn't always make learning fun, because sometimes learning needs to be painful. This response was met by frowns and smiles in equal distribution. Over 70 years ago, John Dewey argued that the 'educative process' consisted of 'severe discipline' to aid intellectual and moral development (Dewey, 1938). We may not be able to agree on a single definition of learning (a good thing) but we can probably all agree that learning can be as painful as it can be enjoyable, depending on the context.

A number of new 'theories' and emerging in the digital age, as people attempt to provide explanations for what is happening with learning. Some argue that learning is changing as a direct result of technology. Learners are indeed consuming, creating, organising and sharing a lot more content than they ever previously did. The exponential rise in user generated content on social media sites bears testament to this, and when these kind of activities spill over into the formal learning domain, previously well established learning theories are challenged. We now see the emergence of a number of new theories that attempt to explain learning in the 21st Century. These include heutagogy, paragogy, connectivism and rhizomatic learning. One of the characteristics of learning through digital media is the ability to crowd source content, ideas and artefacts, and to promote and participate in global discussions. That's why I want to ask the questions: What is learning? Does it differ from learning prior to the advent of global communications technology? Does learning now require new explanatory frameworks? Your comments on this blog are welcomed and discussion encouraged.

Reference

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and education. New York: Kappa Delta Pi.

Image source


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

Push on the door

A man checked into a hotel for the first time in his life, and went up to his room.

Five minutes later he called the reception desk and said: "You've given me a room with no exit. How do I leave?"

The desk clerk said, "Sir, that's absurd. Have you looked for the door?"

The man said, "Well, there's one door that leads to the bathroom. There's a second door that goes into the closet. And there's a door I haven't tried, but it has a 'do not disturb' sign on it."

Often we make it very difficult for ourselves. Sometimes the answer is staring us in the face, and we can't see it due to all the complexities we impose upon our lives. Just like the man in the hotel room, if we are unfamiliar with the context, we can easily overlook the obvious. While using the Smartboard during one of my teaching sessions at university this year, I was trying to erase part of the work on the screen. I was struggling, trying to erase each word as if I had an old dry wipe board in front of me. I was making the classic mistake of trying to use new technology as I would use old technology. It took one of my students to point out to me that circling the appropriate text with the wiper and then tapping in the middle was a great short cut. It seems obvious to me now, but at the time I didn't know.

The same thing happened to a lot of people last week when I tweeted that in PowerPoint's presentation mode tapping the B key blacks out the screen, and tapping the W key makes the screen go white. There are many technology shortcuts similar to these, but most of us don't know about them. More often than not it takes a friend or colleague - or more likely, a student - to point out a better way to solve a problem. That's the great thing about social media - it connects us to all kinds of useful expertise and great ideas. But for social media to change our behaviour, we have to be open, and amenable to correction. Life is an adventure, and one in which we need to be willing to take a few risks. We have to swallow our pride now and then, and admit that we don't know it all. Once in a while, we need to try all the doors... and we especially need to push on the door that says 'Do not disturb'.

Image by Steve Wheeler

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

Learning in a Digital Age: The myth and the reality

I recently gave a keynote at the eLearning 2.0 conference held at Brunel University, in West London. The presentation was a reworked version of one I gave earlier in the year in Tallinn, Estonia. In Learning in a Digital Age: The Myth and the Reality, I present a number of widespread beliefs about elearning, and challenge the provenance, reasoning and application of these theories. Learning styles, digital natives and immigrants theory, and the arguments that you cannot personalise learning in large organisations; or that SMS txting is dumbing down language; are all scrutinised and challenged. Brunel University did an excellent job of recording my voice and the slides, and synchonising them, probably using Camtasia or a similar tool. Here it is in full, for those who want to follow the arguments and discussion that ensued.



Learning in a Digital Age: The myth and the reality by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.