Three things

There are three things we need to know about learning for this generation. The first is that learning needs to be personalised. As I argued in a previous post, learning must be differentiated, because one size does not fit all, and standardised curricula and testing are not fit for purpose in the 21st Century. Personal learning is unique to each learner. The tools and devices students choose, and the pathways they decide to take are in many ways beginning to challenge the synchronised and homogenised approaches we still practice in schools, universities and organisations.

Secondly, learning needs to be social. Much of what we learn comes from contact and communication with others. Increasingly, such contact and communication is mediated through technology, and social media tools are ideal for this purpose. The celebrated Russian psychologist Lev Vygotskii proposed the idea of learning being extended when children are mentored by a knowledgeable other person. His Zone of Proximal Development theory has been central to our understanding of how we learn in social contexts. Yet in recent years, with the proliferation and equalisation of knowledge and the strengthening of social connections through digital media, new theories such as connectivism and paragogy have emerged to challenge the central place of ZPD in contemporary pedagogical theory. We need to ask whether we now need knowledgeable others such as subject experts to help us extend our learning when we have all knowledge at our fingertips. Now many learners are exploiting the power of social media to build and engage with equals in personal learning networks.

Thirdly, learning needs to be globalised. As we develop personal expertise, and begin to practice it in applied contexts, we need to connect with global communities. Students who share their content online can reach a worldwide audience who can act as a peer network to provide constructive feedback. Teachers can crowd-source their ideas and share their content in professional forums and global learning collectives, or harness the power of social media to access thought leaders in their particular field of expertise. Scholars who are not connected into the global community are increasingly isolated and will in time be left behind as the world of education advances ever onward.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


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Theories for the digital age: Connectivism

Learning in the industrialised world can now be contextualised within a largely technological landscape, where the use of digital media is assuming increasing importance.  Much of this learning is informal, (Commentators such as Cofer (2000), Cross (2006) and Dobbs (2000) place the proportion of informal learning at around 70%) and is also generally location independent.

The present technology rich learning environment is characterised by a sustained use of digital media, their integration into formal contexts, and a shift toward personalisation of learning. These facets of modern life in combination have led educators to question the validity of pre-digital age learning theories. In recent years a variety of new explanatory theories have been generated that can be applied as lenses to critically view, analyse and problematise new and emerging forms of learning. 

One highly visible theory is Connectivism (Siemens, 2004). Connectivism has been lauded as a ‘learning theory for the digital age’, and as such seeks to describe how students who use personalised, online and collaborative tools learn in different ways to previous generations of students. The essence of Siemens’ argument is that today, learning is lifelong, largely informal, and that previous human-led pedagogical roles and processes can be off-loaded onto technology. Siemens also criticises the three dominant learning theories, namely behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism, suggesting that they all locate learning inside the learner. His counterargument is that through the use of networked technologies, learning can now be distributed outside the learner, within personal learning communities and across social networks.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of Connectivist theory is the premise that declarative knowledge is now supplemented or even supplanted by knowing where knowledge can be found. In a nutshell, connectivism argues that digital media have caused knowledge to be more distributed than ever, and it is now more important for students to know where to find knowledge they require, than it is for them to internalise it. This places the onus firmly upon each student to develop their own personalised learning tools, environments, learning networks and communities within which they can ‘store their knowledge’ (Siemens, 2004). In McLuhan’s view, as we embrace technology, ‘our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us’ (McLuhan, 1964, p. 4). Clearly our social and cultural worlds are influenced by new technology, but are there also biological implications?

References

Cross, J. (2006) Informal Learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire innovation and performance. London: John Wiley and Sons. 

Cofer, D. (2000) Informal Workplace Learning. Practice Application Brief No. 10, U.S. Department of Education: Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education.

Dobbs, K. (2000) Simple Moments of Learning. Training, 35 (1), 52-58.

McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media. London: McGraw Hill.
Siemens, G. (2004) Connectivism: A LearningTheory for the Digital Age. eLearnspace. 

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[This is an excerpt from a forthcoming publication entitled: Personal Technologies in Education: Issues, Theories and Debates]


Theories for the digital age: Connectivism by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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.

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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.

Content is a tyrant...

Never before has gaining access to information been so easy. The imminent arrival of widespread 4G broadband and LTE (Long Term Evolution) will usher in wider availability to information and push even more data to our mobile devices over the same amount of radio spectrum. At least that is the plan. Better coverage and faster download/upload speeds would ensure that just about everyone who is connected would have even greater access to online content and services anytime, anywhere. But in adopting these communication advances, are we also opening the door for a deluge of content? Are we not already swamped by a tsunami of content?

In 1996 Microsoft's Bill Gates claimed that 'content is king'. Those who are hot on history will recall that it was around this time that the internet first started to enter the collective consciousness. The mid-1990s was an interesting time. Microsoft dominated the computer software market, and Google wasn't yet conceived (Brin and Page didn't launch Google until September 1998). In 1996, most pre-Google online searching was done using Yahoo! (a company founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994) and I remember using Pegasus e-mail, and browsing the web using Netscape Navigator. Mobile telephones were a lot larger than they are today, and quite expensive to buy and use. When people talked about ‘smart phones’ they were referring to the design and appearance of the device, not its capability. Looking back on that embryonic period of telecommunication, and considering the sophisticated tools and services we now have at our disposal, and can use without a second thought, does the statement made about content by Bill Gates still stand?

The reasoning behind the Gates statement is that content is what drives the web. So for example, if a blog constantly publishes good content, the theory is that people will keep coming back to read more. The medium itself is not as important as the content it holds.

The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan had a somewhat different take on media. His famous statement, in pre-internet times, was that 'the medium is the message' (or indeed the massage). Put simply, McLuhan was more interested in the characteristics of the medium that conveyed the content to the user. In 1996 Richard E. Clark, argued that media and technologies were 'mere vehicles' that delivered content to users in much the same way that delivery vans brought goods. His argument was that all media and technologies are neutral, and that the user imposes their own interpretations upon them. His view was that media do not influence learning any more than the delivery van influences diet. While Clark held the view that media do not influence learning, Robert Kozma countered by arguing that specific media do possess certain characteristics that suit particular types of learning activity. Kozma made the statement: 'If we move from "Do media influence learning?" to "In what ways can we use the capabilities of media to influence learning for particular students, tasks, and situations?" we will both advance the development of our field and contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning.'

In essence, Kozma and McLuhan both believed that context (i.e. the tools, the media), were at least as important as the content they delivered, whilst Clark agreed with Gates that the content was king. Increasingly, in today's digital age, many of us are following Clark’s perspective, focusing on content, without paying much attention to the tools we use to make sense of it. In some ways, this is a natural progression, because tools and technologies are becoming more transparent and easy to use without too much thought. Yet in focusing on the content, as McLuhan warned, we may miss the entire message. Highly digitally literate individuals are able to communicate effectively across several platforms without loss of power or nuance. This is known as 'transliteracy', a sophisticated grasp of the affordances of the media and technologies that is becoming the passport to success for today's digital learner and scholar. Transliteracy goes beyond content, and exploits the power and potential of many different tools and services, giving the user an edge over content, enabling them to connect, communicate, consume, create and collaborate more effectively.

Access to information is one thing. But information should not be confused with knowledge. Knowledge comes about through learning and through the diligent application of information. Anyone who is interested in learning will also be interested in cognition and its relationship to knowledge. A popular recent theory is that cognition does not exclusively occur inside the head, but is also increasingly reliant on tools and other people. This theory represents a distributed form of cognition that is highly resonant in the age of ubiquitous and personal connections. David Jonassen talked about using computers and the internet as 'mind tools' - extensions of our cognitive ability and mental space which have the potential to advance personal learning beyond the constraints of normal boundaries and spaces. This mind tool effect can be observed today in large social networks and across distributed communities of practice, and might be explained through connectivist theory which holds that we now store our knowledge more with our friends than we do in any physical repository.

Yet connecting into a community of practice can work as a double edged sword. Although membership of an online network of interest (or community of practice) brings many benefits and rewards, it also has the potential to swamp individuals with content, because every active community member is generating, sharing and recommending content. The larger the community network, the more content is likely to be made available. This experience has been likened to taking a drink from a fire hydrant. Enter any term into a search engine and you are likely to receive back millions of hits. The veritable tsunami of content that assails us can make us feel as though we are drowning in a sea of information. Content has become a tyrant, and although there are many tools to help us moderate and filter this content, not everyone knows how to use them effectively.

One final thought: The internet is better as a creative space than it is as a repository. This is due in no small part to the gradual evolution of so called Web 2.0 tools and services, the majority of which are richly social and participatory in nature. The capability of social networks to connect people with similar interests from across the globe also promotes the need to create, organise, share and consume content within appropriate contexts. As a society, and within our communities of practice, we need to be able to discern the good content from the bad content.

Next time: .... Context is king

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

Running a MOOC

Over at the University of Brighton, Peps McCrea is currently blogging about MOOCs (Massively Online Open Courses) and is speculating how they might influence the future of Higher Education. Having taken part in a MOOC run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens a couple of years ago (as a speaker not a student), I can say that it was a very enjoyable experience. I was grilled by Stephen for a sustained period of time about my ideas on Personal Learning Environments, and in true gladiator style, I enjoyed the cut and thrust of my live, widely distributed debate.

I have also presented recently at one of Steve Hargardon's live Elluminate global webinars, and have to say that the experience was very similar to the MOOC. You present your ideas, including slides and audio connection, live to a massive group of participants that span the globe, and then you discuss those ideas for a while. I know that there is more to a MOOC than participating in live webinars. MOOCs also host online discussion, solo and group activities and other learning activities designed to promote critical discourse, reflective actions and discursive learning.

Everyone who participates enjoys the experience, and everyone goes away with more questions than they arrived with. That's learning. That's connectivism too, according to Siemens and Downes. And connectivism is one of the major underpinning theories of the MOOC. It's not so much what you know that matters anymore, but who you can connect to and learn from that is the key principle of learning in a digital age.

That is both the strength and the weakness of the MOOC. You see, you can connect to anyone, anywhere, at any time to learn from each other. But you can also miss those connections, if certain people decline to join in. MOOCs are also at their most successful when there is a critical mass of participants. So what if you gave a party and no-one came? A sparsely populated MOOC is just .... well..... an OOC, isn't it? There is also a debate about whether connectivism is actually a bona fide theory - it has attracted its fair share of critics. Peps is asking whether MOOCs will take off in the UK. Well, in one sense they already have because many people from the UK have already taken part in previous MOOCs. If it comes down to the location of the MOOC, there is none - the MOOC is location agnostic. I actually presented my MOOC talk from a classroom in the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland. If the question relates to whether British academics and specialists will begin to write, organise and deliver MOOCs, that's another question entirely. Here are some more questions: Is there actually a need for more MOOCs? How much preparation work goes into setting one up? Will individuals in the UK step in to set up and deliver their own MOOCs, or is this going to be the preserve of academic institutions? The question of open, free of cost participation in a MOOC is a given. But what about those who wish to receive some tangible form of accreditation at the end of the programme? Who provides that?

Good luck to anyone who decides to set up and deliver a MOOC this side of the Atlantic. And as to the future of the MOOC? I suppose we shall just have to wait and see...

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In theory...

Intuitive teachers generally have a reasonable understanding of the processes of learning and how humans acquire knowledge and skills. Any teacher training course worth its salt has a significant element of learning theory within its programme. Teachers who seek excellence should aspire to understanding how learning experiences can be optimised to promote good learning outcomes. There are many who are expert in learning and teaching though, who have scant appreciation that in technology mediated learning environments, things can be very different. A lot of teachers do have a working knowledge of how electronic media can be used to support learning, but how many know when to use them and how to optimise their effects?

There are many established theories and models we could use to explain learning and a few specialised theories about how learning can be enhanced and extended through electronic media. But many are theories that were relevant to education in the last century. Time has moved us on. We need to go further than a mere exploration of established learning theories if we want to gain a better understanding of learning within various e-learning contexts. We need to get our hands dirty at the interface of e-learning to begin to understand some of the complexities. In online learning modes for example, some of the rules of traditional learning no longer apply, or are changed or extended. Some new phenomena will be encountered, which can cause teachers to throw their hands up in confusion, force them to modify their expectations and opinions of how students learn within electronic environments, or cause students to behave in ways that would not be possible or even acceptable in traditional settings. George Siemens and Stephen Downes present us with connectivism - in their own words, a 'theory for the digital age'. It's not what you know, Siemens argues, but who you know that's important. Others like Scott Wilson say that Personal Learning Environments are a counter proposition to the institutional content management system (VLE), while still others are theorising about what PLEs can possibly look like (me included). Then there are those such as Marc Prensky, Dave White and Mark Bullen who lock horns and argue whether today's learners are respectively, digital natives and immigrants, residents and visitors, or none of the above. I could go on.... there's a lot of new theory about and we need all of it.

My own teaching experience has led me to theorise why certain things happen. I have seen several things happen that are departures from traditional learning behaviours. Students who previously collaborated willingly on a single piece of work for example, may decide to be more protective of their ideas and work when it's placed in a shared online space such as a wiki. Some students lose all their inhibitions when they post content onto Facebook or Myspace. People who are quite vocal in traditional classroom situations may suddenly have a crisis of confidence in an online setting. Drop-out rates for distance education programmes are as high as 50% in some universities. And yet the literature suggests that there are no significant differences between traditional and online forms of learning. e-Pedagogy is not an easy field to understand, but it is on the increase, and we need new theories to help us understand.

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