Recycling learning

"...making good use of the things that they find, things that the everyday folk leave behind..."

Yep, that's a blast from the past for those who grew up watching the children's programme The Wombles on television. Essentially, the Wombles were furry creatures who lived on Wimbledon Common and tidied up all the litter left behind by the 'everyday folk'. Not only did they tidy up, they also recycled the objects they found, into something useful. We could do with a few Wombles down our street, I can tell you.  

How does this fit into education? I hear you asking.... well, read on. 

A useful concept to aid the understanding of current web based learning practices is Bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1996). Art students will recognise it as the technique of creating an image from a variety of materials that just happen to be available. In architecture, bricolage can refer to the seemingly chaotic proximity of buildings from various periods and styles. For Levi-Strauss, bricolage described any spontaneous action, espcially those that are steeped in personal meaning. The principal meaning of bricolage however, evokes a 'do it yourself'ethos, where each individual creates personal meaning through seemingly haphazard actions that draw together disparate objects to form new wholes.

In the UK punk movement of the late 1970s, chains, safety pins and dog collars were all appropriated as fashion items, eventually assuming additional meaning as statements of personal identity. In the context of learning, bricolage is a useful analytical lens. It was applied by Seymour Papert (1993) to explain a particular style of problem solving. He suggests that bricoleurs reject traditional, systematic analyses of problem spaces in favour of play, risk taking and testing out.  Younger users of technology tend to rely less on formal instruction or user manuals when they encounter new tools. Instead, they launch into an exploration of the device, to see what it can do. They learn to use it by testing it out, and also observing their peers. These sentiments are echoed by Shelly Turkle (1995) who argues that those working in digital spaces, such as programmers, often work in a bricoleur style, working through a 'step-by-step growth and re-evaluation process', regularly spending time standing back from their work to reflect.

Many of the above traits are desirable, transferable skills for 21st Century working, and can be witnessed in the daily activities of learning on the Web. As students develop their ideas, they create content, often drawn together through a variety of search and research methods that can be disparate and seemingly unconnected. Learners draw on a wide range of content, not only from the web, but also from other media and non-media sources as they construct personal meaning. Their personal learning environments (PLEs) tend to be a bricolage of free tools, handheld devices and a personal network of friends, family and peers. Haphazard their learning might appear, but over a period of time, the various sources of their content crystalise together into accessible, meaningful and personalised learning.

In essence, today's digital learners are finding content, recycling and repurposing it, organising and sharing it. They are creating their own spaces, developing and using their own tools and apps, and generally 'making good use of the things they find'. In so doing, I believe that this current generation of learners are developing into one of the most innovative, literate and knowledgeable generations this planet has ever seen.

References
Levi-Strauss, C. (1996) The Savage Mind. London: Orion Publishing Group
Papert, S. (1993)  Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (1995) Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Touchstone.

Photo by David Radcliffe


Recycling learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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.

Interactions of the fourth kind

Interaction. For many teachers, it has become the keystone of contemporary education. Many studies into the importance of interaction in education have been conducted. We all have different definitions of what interaction involves, but most of us agree - it's an important component of learning. According to theorist Michael G. Moore, there are three types of interaction. In an editorial piece in the American Journal of Distance Education in 1989 Moore outlined his three levels. The first, learner-teacher, is the most likely kind of interaction to be found in traditional classroom settings, but with the age of social media and other forms of digitally mediated communication, interaction can now be just as rich an experience when conducted at a distance.

The second type of interaction, according to Moore, is the learner-learner kind. Generally, this kind of interaction can be seen in the informal conversations that take place outside the classroom, in the common room, at the pub, waiting for the bus home. And yet, in formal learning settings,  learner-learner interaction can be used as a valuable pedagogical technique to encourage free thinking, deeper engagement with the topic, debate and discursive activities, collaborative learning and much more.

Moore's third kind of interaction is learner-content. This is probably the least formal of the interactions in terms of its place in the classroom. Although some learner-content interaction can be observed, with the momentum now toward more discussion, project work and collaborative learning within the classroom, student-content interaction is more likely to occur outside the classroom, at home, at work, on journeys. 

In 1994, Hillman, Willis and Gunawardena suggested a fourth kind of interaction - student-interface. In the digital age, this is the first point of contact between students and all other kinds of interaction. Students now interact more or less continually with their peers, their tutors. The article called for "design strategies that facilitate students' acquisition of the skills needed to participate effectively in the electronic classroom". Hillman et al hit the nail on the head 18 years ago, as new computer systems emerged. Even more than ever, in the age of new handheld devices, wearable computing and natural gesture technology, we need even more effort put into understanding how learners interact with their tools and technologies.

How for example, might students learn differently using touch surfaces such as the iPad, when compared to non-touch devices such as the X-Box 360 Kinect? There is discussion about the advantages of game playing using haptic perception (sense of resistance and tactile feedback) devices such as the Nintendo Wii handset over powerful gestural but non-touch controlled interfaces. What about the several human senses that are brought into play when such tools are used? What can we learn about ourselves and our environments when proprioception (the relative position of our limbs and body in relation to each other) and equilibrioception (the sense of body movement, balance and acceleration) are called into use? For a long time we have focused on the main senses (audio and visual, and to a lesser extent kinaesthetic) at the expense of the many other human senses, but with new technologies increasingly available for learning, it is now time to study the effects of the fourth kind of interaction in greater detail.

Image by Alvaro Canivell

References

Hillman, D.C.A., Willis, D.J. and Gunawardena, C. N. (1994) Learner interface interaction in distance education: An extension of contemporary models and strategies for practitioners. The American Journal of Distance Education, 8 (2), 30-42.

Moore, M. G. (1989) Editorial: Three types of interaction. The American Journal of Distance Education, 3 (2), 1-6.


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

What the flip?

Everywhere I look I'm seeing 'Flip teaching' or 'Flipped classroom'. There's a lot of hype about this 'flipping' idea and it's getting me flipping irritated. What does flipping actually involve? Does anyone know, or is the term being misused or misrepresented? Even Aaron Sams, a highly visible proponent of the flipped movement admits that the term is ambiguous. This morning, the May issue of Wired Magazine landed on my doormat, and what did I see inside? An article entitled 'University just flipped'. Well, dip me in mayonnaise. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but when you get down to the fundamentals, isn't flipping the classroom a load of old hat? Haven't we been doing it for years?

What 'flipping the classroom' boils down to it seems, is the creation of online content including videos that offsets the need for students to physically attend class. There are several vaunted examples of this. The Khan Academy videos have been hailed as a departure from 'boring old lectures', and I suppose the same could be said for the TED series of videos. Don't get me wrong, video has its place in education. I enjoy watching videos and I am often inspired by great speakers, and some of the video talks from Khan and TED are truly inspirational. But by any stretch of the imagination, just watching a video cannot be seen as a viable substitute for good learning, and should not be used to replace campus based education just for the sake of it. I used to jump all over lecturers who, when they had nothing better to speak about, decided to 'put on a video.' It made no sense then to simply cop out and fill time by showing a video, when a well considered discussion session on a thorny topic was much better at getting the synapses sparking.

Another objection to the flipped classroom is the digital divide. What happens to all those students who cannot afford or access the technology they need to participate in this kind of learning? And what about students who suffer from visual impairment? Have these been considered in the flipped classroom equation?

Do we seriously think that we can replace teaching with a video? Shouldn't we instead be concentrating on replacing bad lecturers? Far too often institutions buy into the latest shiny idea without enough thought about what the implications are for the student. With increased student tuition fees looming, more and more students are going to demand better quality tuition, more engaging lectures and richer learning experiences. If they don't get them, we can expect to see litigation, institutional black listing and plenty of students voting with their feet. Asking them to stay at home, watch a video and then do an assignment based on their own independent study isn't going to cut it.

According to the Wired magazine article, 'flipped teaching is essentially a type of tutoring. The difference is that new digital tools enable teachers to coach large classes: one-on-one tutoring, scaled by the web.' Oh yeah? Sounds like the old style distance education to me. What is not explained in Wired, is how on earth a tutor can conduct one-on-one tutorials (using any conceivable web tool yet created) to provide quality support for upwards of 160,000 students (this is the figure cited as the number of students enrolled on the 2011 Stanford University AI course run by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun).

More important for discussion than economies of scale, is the quality of learning experienced by the learners in this so called 'flipped' learning environment. The most fundamental criticism of the flipped classroom model (argues the Innovative Educator website), is that it is based on the old instructional model of education - which we all know is no longer appropriate nor relevant in this digital age. All we are doing, under the guise of new technology is perpetuating previous errors on a grand scale.

Wired does report that to cope with such a massive programme as the Stanford course, online assignments were 'auto-graded'. This prompts serious questions about what exactly students are learning, and at what level of depth they are learning it. Exactly what is the added value of the 'Flipped Classroom' besides the fact that students don't need to leave their home town? It's quite telling that when 160,000 students enrolled on the Stanford programme, Thrun and Norvig decided to set up their own for-profit online college, which they called Udacity. It figures. There is obviously big bucks in the idea. No wonder they are so enthusiastic about the flipped classroom.

So besides making lots of money out of the idea, and having an article about you featuring in Wired magazine, what is the flipped classroom good for? What are we actually achieving by flipping the classroom? If it is, as Seth Godin suggests, to avoid the turgid ramblings of out of date professors, then I welcome the change. If on the other hand, all we are doing is giving distance education another name, then what is the point?

One very useful piece of information in the Wired article is the mention of the British Open University and their work around using online learning platforms such as Moodle to support their distance learners. Bearing in mind that these thousands of learners already exist, and it is expedient that they receive high quality resources and support from their remote tutors whilst studying at home and/or at work. Niall Sclater who is Director of Online Learning at the OU, is quoted as saying that students should be able to do an entire degree on an Android phone or iPhone (other brands are available). Niall is correct, but the OU has been supporting distance learners for a lot longer than Khan or Udacity, and it knows how to do it effectively. One of the first things anyone who contemplates offering technology supported learning needs to consider is that delivering resources to remote learners is only half the equation. You also need to support them. A lot.

I want to propose an alternative form of flipped classroom. If we are in the business of turning things on their heads, let's do it properly. Sending students off to watch a video doesn't cut it. To my mind, flipping the classroom is a lot less complicated than it is portrayed. We don't need to use hi-tech solutions to help us flip the classroom. If we want higher quality learning experiences, we simply flip traditional roles. Flipping learning for me means teachers becoming learners and students becoming teachers. I have already elaborated on this in a previous blog post. If teachers assume the role of a learner, and accept that they are not the fonts of all knowledge, but are there to facilitate learning instead of instructing, positive change in education would happen. Similarly, if we ask students to become teachers, and we encourage them to independently create their own content, share and present their work - either in the classroom, or on the web - we place them in a position where they must take responsibility to learn and develop their understanding of their subject. This is active, participatory learning. Students can aspire to become specialists in their chosen field, because in order to be able to teach, you first need to become intimate with your subject. We learn by teaching. Now that's flipping good.

Image by Sneebly


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

Digital footprints

Increasingly, as we ask our learners to engage with social media as a part of their study, we are also asking them to leave a trace of themselves on the Web. Whether it is writing a blog, posting a video on YouTube, working collaboratively on a wiki, or simply bookmarking a site on Diigo or Delicious, students are leaving their digital footprints - evidence of their presence - all over the internet. And there may be ethical issues attached. Digital footprints are persistent, with artefacts and traces remaining visible and searchable for many years. Should we therefore be more careful about what we ask students to do and where we ask them to go on the Web?

These questions were addressed by Dr Jenny Waycott, of the University of Melbourne, who was our final speaker today at the Inaugural Technology for Learning and Teaching Forum. Jenny talked not only of the benefits and potential of social media to enhance learning, but also gave a critical review of some of the issues and challenges. She asked her audience to consider not only the opportunities that are presented to transform learning, but also to think about how we might minimise the risks associated with learning while using the social web. She argued that although social media can change the way students communicate and share their work, there are hidden dangers and controversies we need to be ready to counter.

Dr Waycott told the story of one student who was also developing a fledgling music career. The student was careful that her digital footprint as a musician (which was already well established) was not contaminated by her presence on the web as a university student. She took great pains to separate out her two identities, and made sure that those who knew her as a student did not confuse her other online persona as a musician. The ethical implications of this for university staff are less than clear, but the student's wishes to keep her two digital identities separate need to be respected and treated with care.

Other students, she told us, were worried about copying on the web. Not plagiarism, she added, but other students copying their work and then claiming credit for it at the author's expense. What if another student learnt something new from the writer's work and then gained a higher grade than the originator of the ideas? What would be the ethical implications of this? She counselled that asking students to co-create or share their work on a wiki or other online social space could have detrimental effects on intellectual property if the guidelines are not clear. The jury is still out on these questions. What are your views?

Image by Wesley Fryer (remixed)


Digital footprints by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Food for thought

Gather round everyone, it's Day 2 of the ALT-C 2011 Conference in Leeds. I'm meeting lots of folk today and doing a number of interviews, while trying to fit in as many of the paper and panel sessions as possible without keeling over. Sadly, my laptop Keith and I are on our own now. My faithful iPod Iggy passed away last night, and is now in a much better place (at the bottom of my case).


Yesterday was also a busy day, with plenty of food for thought, including two (yes two) sessions featuring the ubiquitous Richard Hall. The first session was a panel presentation where Frances Bell, Josie Fraser, Helen Keegan (both wearing bright red dresses), and Richard (sadly not in a red dress but wearing instead the obligatory learning technologist check shirt) held forth on the paradox of openness, covering issues of authenticity, misappropriation and identity in digital environments. It was cut and thrust all the way, and the packed room responded with questions, comments and ... er, more questions about what we should really be doing and saying online.


The second session was an interesting rehash of the infamous VLE is Dead symposium we conducted a couple of years ago at ALT-C 2009 in Manchester. This time, Richard and his colleagues discussed whether the VLE should be rebirthed. Again, as is usually the case when institutional tools are discussed, the audience was polarised and a healthy discussion ensued. It was all food for thought indeed.


Food for thought by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Hasta la (MS) Vista Baby

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to ditch textbooks in favour of Internet resources and other digital materials in Californian schools is a bold one, but it's hardly original. I'm a fan of Arnie as both an actor and politician, but I suspect on this occasion he is more interested in saving money than he is in raising the quality of learning on the US West Coast. True, digital material is easier to update and children do tend to have a natural affinity with gadgets and gizmos, notwithstanding all the rhetoric over Prensky's digital natives theory.

However, the cynical amongst us will point to California's state deficit of more than 24 billion dollars as the real inspiration behind Arnie's decision. But his decision may, and probably will, pay dividends of another kind in the future, providing he can drag the teachers along with him on his scheme. It will need to be more than just 'Hasta la (Microsoft) Vista, baby' for Arnie and his team, though. The use of digital media, and particularly social media such as Facebook and Twitter, must surely be the way forward to transform education in all sectors. But it should not be at the detriment of other forms of established, successful learning through more traditional methods. Books still have a place in pedagogy and probably always will have.

My research for the statewide project to wire the schools of South Dakota 7 years ago showed that digital technologies sit comfortably side by side with traditional media. We also found that learning is not transformed simply by the deployment of technology, but by its creative use to enhance learning opportunities and create new experiences. And only then, if the teachers will buy into it.

So Mr Terminator, whatever your motives, do forge ahead with your reforms, but please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Relevant links:

Anthea Lipsett: Education by ebook branded a cheapskate scheme
Terry Freedman: Some pros and cons of online textbooks

Image source

Taking shape

The new book is taking shape and I have been working on it all week since I returned from the Emerald Isle. Glad I wasn't flying back in yesterday's storms though - no barf bag is large enough.... etc.

The book is now entitled 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures' and was accepted for publication late last year by Information Age Publishers in the gool ol' USA. It will (probably) feature 17-20 chapters, if all the authors who have been invited actually submit their chapters, but it's a bit like herding cats at the moment. Most have coughed up, but there are still one or two dragging their feet, and another couple who have had disasterous injuries, illnesses etc and haven't been able to complete their drafts on time. Some of the featured chapters include work by the likes of Steven Furnell (Cybercrime), Palitha Edirisingha (Podcasting), Hugh Miller and Jill Arnold (Digital identities) and Graham Attwell (Personal Learning Environments). All the chapters follow the theme of digital cultures and emerging practices in online learning. One of my own chapters examines the notion of Digital tribes and virtual clans, and explores how technologies are changing the profile of society.

Oh, and the introduction is by Howard Rheingold. It's been a pleasure to work with these very respected academics, but I'm looking forward to putting this book to bed soon, so that everyone can enjoy what I hope will turn out to be a thought provoking and challenging volume.

Bad Korma

First time I got my grubby little paws on a compact cassette tape was back in the steam driven days of my early teen years - the tape was the album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles and it opened up a whole new world for me. I spent countless hours mixing down my favourite tracks onto cassette so that I could walk, skate or otherwise transport myself around with music as a constant companion (shouldn't be admitting to this as a fully paid of member of PRS). Now it seems all those days will soon be no more. The advent of digital (CD, DVD, Mini Disk, MP3, and all that) has finally put paid to the halcyon days of the compact tape cassette, just like it did to the VHS tape and vinyl disks. For lo, Currys, one of the major UK electrical suppliers announced today that cassette tapes will no longer be sold in its shops (BBC News Online).

Linear technologies they say, are dead. I know that CDs are ideal for track finding, mixing, mashing, multi-media storage and a shed load of other things, but vinyl disks always have that extra 'ambience' (I still have at least 400 LPs in my cupboard at home). The word 'analogue' is fast becoming a derogatory term thanks to Marc Prensky (gotta love the guy), but vinyl is making a comeback for DJs and other music afficionados. I have an iPod and a CD player at home, but I'm not getting rid of my vinyl or my cassettes - and I'm not going to shop at Currys anymore. Instead, I'm off to the local Tandoori for a Korma...