Digital Learnscapes

It's that time of the year again where we are planning for the Pelecon - the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference - that we hold each year in April at Plymouth University. Pelecon 2012 was probably our best conference yet. Many have said that Pelecon events inspire and energise delegates and challenge perspectives on education, learning and development, and the role of technology. Others have said that Pelecon is one of the best forums for informal debate on the learning technology conference circuit. The Pelecon conference is for teachers and learning professionals in all sectors of education and training, and attracts delegates from all over the world. Pelecon 2012 was the seventh conference, and featured invited speakers including Alec Couros (Canada), Leigh Graves Wolf (USA), Helen Keegan, Simon Finch, Keri Facer, David Mitchell and Jane Hart. Pelecon 2013 will maintain the pace and dynamism of this year's event, and already several well known keynotes have been announced. Go to this link to keep up to date as we make further keynote speaker announcements over the next two weeks. The call for papers for Pelecon 13: Digital Learnscapes is now live, and is summarised below:

We live in a period of change and uncertainty. Many are bewildered by these changes and find it difficult to keep up, particularly in the education and training sectors. The ability to anticipate and prepare for change is the mark of innovative educators, as is the skill of harnessing new and emerging tools to promote good learning.

At Pelecon 13 we want to provide learning professionals with opportunities to explore, discover and discuss new approaches, new technologies and new ideas to enhance, enrich and extend their own professional practice. There will be particular emphasis this year on simulations and games, personal learning tools, new pedagogies and practices, learner and teacher voice, and digital literacies.

The deadline for submission of workshop, paper and demonstration proposals is January 25, 2013 and you can submit your abstracts here. We invite submissions from primary, secondary and tertiary education, as well as from learning and development and other training sectors. Just to whet your appetite and pique four interest, below is a teaser video made by our very own maestro Dr Jason Truscott. We hope to see you at the Pelecon in April!




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

Theories for the digital age: Postmodern perspectives

Postmodernist views of society can be appropriated as lenses to analyse the personalised use of digital technology. Consumers of Web based content tend to search randomly and nomadically, due to the multi-layered, multi-directional nature of hyperlinked media and this aligns neatly with some post modern theory. The writings of Deleuze and Guattari (1980), for example, feature the nomadic thought processes that characterise contemporary perceptions, and portray the chaos of modern life. They employ the botanic metaphor of rhizomatic root systems to describe multiple, chaotic non-hierarchical interpretations of knowledge. Rhizomes resist chronology and organisational structures, thereby more accurately representing the unstructured but purposeful manner in which many people now use the Web.

Significantly, because rhizomes are open ended, the importance of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome explanation is not invested in individual components, but rather in the direction of motion the entire organism can adopt at any given time. This is reminiscent of the participatory Web, which consists not so much of the insights and offerings of individuals, but rather of what Surowiecki (2009) has termed ‘the wisdom of the crowds’ – the seemingly random folksonomic directions chosen by entire communites of users as having meaning and importance. The community decides what is important to learn, so in effect, the community becomes the curriculum (Cormier, 2008).

According to Cormier (2008) a rhizomatic interpretation of education is useful because it embraces the ever changing nature of knowledge, is open ended, and is not driven by specific curricula whilst learning is ‘constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process.’  This form of negotiated meaning more clearly represents the knowledge acquisition processes that occur within the transient discussion threads and ephemeral collaborative spaces on the World Wide Web.

The colonisation of knowledge spaces by communities is self sustaining, and in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms, we see individuals assuming the roles of nomads, maintaining a constant state of becoming and transformation. Again, this is reminiscent of the random searching, scanning and jumping around content through hyperlinking that learners participate in when they traverse the digital landscape. In effect, students participate as flâneurs, acting as individual agents, investigators and explorers of their own personal digital terrains. Their seemingly aimless behaviour belies their essentially purposeful wandering, as learners interrogate their environment in attempts to make sense of it, understand it, participate in it, and ultimately portray it (Baudelaire, 1964). 

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

References

Baudelaire, C. (1964) The Painter of Modern Life, New York, NY: Da Capo Press. (Originally published in Le Figaro, in 1863).

Cormier, D. (2008) Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum. 

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum.

Surowiecki, J. (2009) The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few. London: Abacus. 

Photo by Steve Wheeler

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

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. 

Image source

[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.

Lost in the crowd?

In his 2004 book 'Distraction', author Mark Curtis argued that our sense of self - or personal identity - can become confused or challenged when we habitually use digital technology. He made several interesting points about the blurring of boundaries between public and private (think of webcams and Facebook status updates for example) and that technology tends to distract us from 'who we are'. There has been some debate over whether or not people should combine their personal and business social media identities.

Curtis argues from the position that identity is malleable, rather than fixed, and that we learn from a very early age that we can be someone else through role playing, imagination or masquerade. Our immersion in media, he argues, provides us with a myriad of alternative role models we can adopt or adapt. By the same token, social media also give us endless opportunities to engage with others, including sports stars, entertainers, politicians and other celebrities. The Curtis position is that other people's lives are more glamorous than our own, and therefore we wish we could be them to escape from the mundane, if only for a while. All very well, but I'm not convinced that this argument is applicable to everyone. Does wishing to be someone else mean that you actually adopt their identity? I think not.

Curtis also seems to be implying that people are often unwilling or at least unconscious participants in the digital obfuscation of their identities. Again, this is a far from convincing argument, but even if it were true, would it really so much of a bad thing that we are able to engage in multiple online identity performance? What dangers might there be? Also, do we really find ourselves forced into performing multiple identities against our will?

Those who follow this blog or my Twitter accounts (yes, plural) will know that I am very willing to experiment with multiple identities, because I am fascinated by the possibilities and intrigued by the psychology behind personal use of social media. However, I engage with this through choice, and I feel fully in control of what is broadcast/published.

Immersion in environments such as virtual social worlds (Curtis uses Habbo Hotel as his example) are also argued to be a means where the boundaries of identity can be blurred. He makes a useful point that in such environments you don't necessarily know the people you are interacting with, because they often hide behind pseudonyms and always represent themselves as avatars. This does not necessarily mean though, that your identity is being changed or that you are 'losing control' of who you are. It may mean though that you open yourself up to identity theft or manipulation of your public facing image by others. Curtis also makes a useful point that managing multiple identities can demand a lot of effort and therefore becomes a distraction. I have discovered the effects of this personally, because I maintain six Twitter accounts. I therefore need to be very careful especially when using Tweetdeck that I check carefully which account I'm using before I hit the send button. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Reference
Curtis, M. (2004) Distraction: Being Human in the Digital Age. London: Futuretext.

Image source


Lost in the crowd? 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.

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.

Library 2.0

What does the future hold for our university libraries? Are they obsolete or are they essential? The library has long been seen by many as a very traditional, conservative institution, and is often portrayed as a place where rows upon rows of antiquated book shelves slowly gather dust. Yet a visit to the university library today will reveal a substantial investment in technology to streamline research and provide users with a more seamless and rewarding experience.

Just how are libraries adapting to the digital age and all it brings? In the past they have been a pivotal part of university life. They are not simply a repository of books and learning resources, although many may see them as just that. If all libraries did was store and loan out books, their doors would have closed years ago. The digital age would have put paid to them. In an era where digital media holds sway, and where online stores such as Amazon announce they are now selling more Kindle and e-versions of books than paper versions, what will be the future for the university library? What changes are they making that bring them into the digital age, and enable them to compete with current advances in technology?

Firstly, libraries offer specialised search services which go beyond the simple searches you can perform on Google or other search engines. Publications such as Kelly et al's Library 2.0 indicate the trends away from traditional repository approaches to a more distributed range of digital services for staff and students, with particular emphasis on the tools students are already familiar with - Web 2.0 social media.

Secondly, as Ian Clarke (2010) suggests in his Guardian article, we still need libraries because they inform users about best practice in the use of search tools and the promotion of better digital literacies. Clarke also shows how libraries can bridge the digital divide, arguing: "Libraries are a bridge between the information-rich and the information-poor. They need reinforcing, not dismantling. We need to continue to provide a highly skilled service that is able to meet the needs of the general public." He warns though, that libraries must continue to innovate and keep pace with the changes fomented by digital media, because without the services they offer, we would run the risk of living in an ill-informed society. It's not difficult to see that this perspective is influenced by the rise in informal learning, but those who are engaged in formal education also rely on centralised library services.

The College Online website provides an excellent list of reasons why librarians are not obselete that includes arguments about the changing roles of librarians, but in essence focuses on practicalities. One reason offered is that not everything is on the Internet.  Whilst this is still a reasonable argument to make at present, we can speculate that this may not always be the case. How long will it take to digitise everything so that it becomes available online? The advent of Google Books, Amazon's Look Inside feature and other similar services offer potential readers a preview of the insides of books and other artefacts. Although the entire book may only be readable on purchase, it may not be long before the open access movement gains enough ground to facilitate the digitisation of everything - for free. Some authors and publishers will resist the open movement, but if they do, they are likely to find themselves marginalised from the literary world and on the periphery of the global reading experience. The digitisation of difficult to find materials is sensible and sustainable. Readers can now access a great many historical maps, genealogical records or rare volumes without leaving their armchairs. But there is still a great deal to achieve in the grand plan to digitise everything, and there are those who are opposed to the very idea.

More convincing is the argument that library attendance isn't falling, it's just migrating to virtual attendance. By this, the writer is arguing that more users are deciding to access library services online, and with more university libraries digitising their content and services, this seems to be a rising trend. If so, what becomes of the physical library space in the future? This is a question each library must answer in its own way, because each library is different. Will some for example, begin to repurpose their spaces to provide different services? Will some create culturally and socially rich environments which will attract users back into the physical space? Or will they instead downscale their physical footprint to enable the funding of other digital services that require less groundspace?

In a future blogpost, I will report back on the librarians' perspective on these and other related questions. I will also present a keynote speech at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals of Scotland (CILIPS) conference in Dundee on June 11 - where I will elaborate on this discussion.

References

Clarke, I. (2010) Why we still need libraries in the digital age. The Guardian, 13 July. Available online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/13/internet-age-still-need-libraries (Accessed 2 March, 2012)

Kelly, B., Bevan, P., Akerman, R., Alcock, J. and Fraser, J., (2009) Library 2.0: balancing the risks and benefits to maximise the dividends. Program Electronic Library and Information Systems, 43 (3), 311-327. Available online at: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/15260/ (Accessed 2 March, 2012)

Picture by Steve Wheeler (Victoria State Library, Melbourne, Australia)


Library 2.0 by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Conversation as curriculum

In my last blog post Content as curriculum? I lamented the current state of formal education and pointed to linear, content laden and outmoded curricula as a contributing factor. The post provoked a number of comments, some supportive, some antagonistic to my position, and one who perhaps played the man rather than the ball. Both sides fought their corners well, each arguing from a stance on the fundamental nature of teaching and learning, and the specific role that school plays in education. Some comments pointed out that resources, teacher styles, assessment methods and time were important factors in determining the relevance and efficacy of curricula in schools. But (and here I will continue to be provocative) I feel that some are missing the point completely. The point I am making is that content based delivery of the curriculum, and its traditional compartmentalisation of subjects constrain the understanding of students, and fail to prepare them for a dynamic world of work and life that is constantly changing. Today we have a vast array of technology at our fingertips, and - although I admit this is seldom enough to make informed decisions and knowledgeable actions on its own - combined with the appropriate skills and literacies, individuals will have the ability to apply creative solutions to problems they may encounter on a daily basis. My approach to any reformation of school curriculum would be to bias it toward procedural (knowing how) knowledge that can be applied in pragmatic ways to constantly changing conditions.

In his 1996 book Curriculum as Conversation, Arthur Applebee argued that much of the school curriculum of the time was based upon 'false premises and reflect a fundamental misconception of the nature of knowing. They strip knowledge of the contexts that give it meaning and vitality, and lead to an education that stresses knowledge-out-of-context rather than knowledge-in-action. In such a system students are taught about the traditions of the past, and not how to enter into and participate in those of the present and the future.' (p. 3) It is clear that in the 15 years since the book was published, little has changed. I have asked this question before, but I will ask it again. Are we preparing students for the past, or for the future?

In order to prepare students for the future, we need to understand that contexts are changing rapidly but much curriculum content does not, and can thus quickly become obsolete. We can therefore no longer afford to rely solely on content, and need to present more situated learning opportunities. Situated approaches to learning involve an emphasis on context, not just on content, and the best way to experience appropriate contexts is to do it for real. Carl Young (2004) relates the story of a language teacher who used pure conversation as the basis for all her teaching. Although this sounds like a no-brainer - an obvious method for language, which has conversation at its heart - it is actually quite profound. I believe similar dialogic approaches can and should be applied to the teaching of all subjects across the curriculum. My former colleague Alan Bleakley (2009) takes this a step further, arguing that much of education is sadly still based on power differentials between teacher and student, and calls for a more horizontal, democratised form of education where students have equal say in the process. Bleakley echoes the earlier work of Paulo Freire (1970) who pointed out that: "Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students." Bleakley goes on to elaborate that 'democracy in education requires interplay between the individual and the collective through authentic dialogue - as the reconstructionists suggest, constructing curriculum as an extended and complicated conversation.' (p. 300). To achieve this requires teachers to assume a role as learners, while students are allowed to become teachers, to facilitate the free and open dialogue that will constitute conversation as curriculum. Freire again: "Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible."

It seems clear to me that to encourage open and frank dialogue in a formal learning environment, the power differential between teacher and student must be removed. When teachers wish to promote democratic learning, students are given license to challenge and encouraged to discuss, debate, argue. Passive consumption of delivered knowledge is replaced by full engagement with the subject matter through conversation. The conversation around the topic becomes the new curriculum, enabling each student to act as an open minded, independent thinker who can defend his or her position without resorting to dogmatic assertions based on partial understanding or incomplete knowledge. The best teachers encourage all students to participate and value all contributions, incorporating as many as possible into an extended conversation around the topic.

In the digital age, conversation as curriculum can be extended beyond the classroom through the use of social media and other communication technologies. Conversation for learning across a number of platforms suggests that two or more discussions can occur simultaneously. It may be impossible to change the curriculum we are tasked to deliver. However, teachers who appreciate the merits of conversation in a truly Socratic mode will redesign lessons to incorporate learning activities to reflect it.

References

Applebee, A. N. (1996) Curriculum as conversation: Transforming traditions of teaching and learning. London: University of Chicago Press.
Bleakley, A. (2009) Editorial: Curriculum as conversation. Advances in Health Science Education, 14 (3), 297-301.
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative
Young, C. A. (2004) Conversation as curriculum: Learning to teach English in rural America. The English Journal, 93 (6), 82.

Image by Simon Phipps


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

A convenient untruth

What do you think is the teacher's worst enemy? Some would say lack of time. Others would say unsupportive leadership, or the dreaded government inspection. Rigid curriculum, lack of resources and bad student behaviour may also be high on the list for many educators. For me, the worst enemy is bad theory. Bad theory, when accepted without challenge, can lead to bad practice. It's insidious, because bad theory that is accepted as fact without a full understanding of its implications, results in bad teaching, and ultimately, learners will suffer.

One of the biggest myths known to teacherdom is learning styles. Time and time again, the belief that students can be placed into specific categories such as activist or theorist, or that they are predominantly inclined toward one modal category of learning (e.g. visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) is inserted into professional conversations as if the theories are fact. And time and again, such beliefs are the justification for placing students into a specific style of learning so that a class can be 'managed' more effectively. Such categorisation of students is an absolute nonsense and the practice of doing so should be challenged strongly. It is lazy pedagogy, and the only reason I see that such beliefs persist, is that it is a convenient untruth which allows some teachers to stay within their comfort zones.

In an excellent expose on learning styles, Riener and Willingham (2010) argue this:

"...learning-styles theory has succeeded in becoming “common knowledge.” Its widespread acceptance serves as an unfortunately compelling reason to believe it. This is accompanied by a well-known cognitive phenomenon called the confirmation bias. When evaluating our own beliefs, we tend to seek out information that confirms our beliefs and ignore contrary information, even when we encounter it repeatedly. When we see someone who professes to be a visual learner excel at geography and an auditory learner excel at music, we do not seek out the information which would disprove our interpretation of these events (can the auditory learner learn geography through hearing it? Can the visual learner become better at music by seeing it?)"

Clearly one of the problems that emerges when teachers administer a learning styles inventory or questionnaire to their students is that the result tends to become a 'self fulfilling prophecy' (See Rosethal and Jacobson, for more on this phenomenon). One of the most notorious (and vacuous) inventories is Honey and Mumford's LSI, which in essence is nothing more than a repurposing of David Kolb's earlier experiential learning cycle model. Another is Neil Fleming's VAK model (Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic) which is basically a reworking of 'tell me I forget, show me I remember, involve me I understand'. Such learning styles theories are based on little more than anecdotal observations, and are akin to folk medicine. But the student doesn't know this, and simply trusts the teacher's judgement. The student then sees the results of the questionnaire which informs them that they are for instance predominantly a 'reflector' or that they are an 'auditory learner'. They then actively seek to maximise their 'learning style' by engaging in reflective activities, or visually rich media. This all progresses to the detriment of the other learning modes, which become deficient and atrophied. Result - the learner fails to gain a holistic learning experience, and misses out on the many rich opportunities to expand and develop their other sensory or cognitive skills. Worse still, as Barbara Prashnig explains:

"....it remains a fact that every human being has a learning style which can consist of contradictory components, often leading to inner confusion and uneasiness. Style mismatches between teaching and learning, physical learning environments not conducive to information intake and unmet physical needs during the learning process can lead to frustration, stress, learning problems, underachievement, low self esteem, discipline problems among younger students, and dropoutism in high schools."

Do we really need to label people and brand them in this way? Riener and Willingham again:

"...learning-styles theory is sometimes offered as a reason to include digital media in the classroom. While including multimedia may be a good idea in general (variety in modes of presentation can hold students' attention and interest, for example), it is not necessary to tailor your media to different learning styles. We shouldn't congratulate ourselves for showing a video to engage the visual learners or offering podcasts to the auditory learners. Rather, we should realize that the value of the video or audio will be determined by how it suits the content that we are asking students to learn and the background knowledge, interests, and abilities that they bring to it. Instead of asking whether we engaged the right sense (or learning mode), we should be asking, what did students think about while they were in class?"

The final nail in the coffin on learning styles comes from a report by Frank Coffield and his colleagues (2004) who reported that not only was the concept of learning styles so ill defined as to be virtually useless in pedagogical terms, the instruments used to 'determine' student learning styles were flawed. They failed to measure accurately what they were purported to measure (validity construct) and they failed to measure learning styles consistently over time (reliability construct). Probably the only reason some teachers (and many training organisations) hang on to the idea of testing learning styles is that it is convenient to do so, and that to ditch the idea altogether would leave them having to work harder with students.

We can conclude that in the selection of digital media (and any other learning resource) teachers should not be dictated to by the fallacy of learning styles, nor should they attempt to measure what turns out to be a moving feast of approaches to learning that are actually dependent more on changing context than they ever will be on any deep-seated human propensity. Would it not be better to simply acknowledge that all learners are different, and that all can benefit from a range of varied experiences that ultimately leads to enriched personal experiences? It may mean more work, but it would certainly be a lot fairer.

References
Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., and Ecclestone, K. (2004) Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: A systematic and critical review. Learning and Skills Research Centre.
Riener, C. and Willingham, D. (2010) The Myth of Learning Styles. Change Magazine, Sept-Oct.
Rosenthal, R. and Jacobson, L. (1992) Pygmalion in the Classroom, New York, NY: Irvington.


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A convenient untruth by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Manifesto

If you have a few moments to spare over the next few weeks, you could check out the Manifesto for Media Education site, where educators and media specialists from around the world are being invited to post their thoughts and ideas on best practice, learning philosophy and the future of education, all around the context of media. Here are Pete Fraser and John Wardle, the minds behind the Manifesto project:

"This project is an attempt to develop a shared understanding, some shared reasons, for media education. We hope it will stimulate discussion within course teams and with students. We imagine it will lead to conversations about how we teach and what specific things we teach, but those are secondary questions. We believe we may uncover many reasons but it seems better to have articulated many as opposed to none and as Postman says ‘A definition is the starting point of a dispute, not the settlement’.

"On this website you will find a variety of writers’ summations of their reasoning for media education. These will be context specific and at times may feel at odds with one another. However we hope that by the end of the process we will have a better, more sustaining understanding of the purpose of what we do and that we will be able to draw on this understanding to keep us on track in the classroom and in defending and advocating our subject in the future."

With contributors such as Stephen Heppell, Henry Jenkins, David Buckingham and Natalie Fenton, it's a thought provoking set of readings which should get you reaching for your laptop to respond.

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In your dreams

Children have an incredible sense of imagination, and it only takes a small amount of encouragement to turn this into creative outcomes in the classroom. Technology can have an important role to play in this creative process if it is applied appropriately. One of the most powerful approaches I have seen in recent years involves the use of interactive narratives. From the time of the early book based 'choose your own adventure' stories such as the classic Cave of Time by Edward Packard, the ability to plough your own furrow through seemingly endless possibilities is a captivating idea, not least because it mirrors real life decision making. Turning the pages to find your next scene was part of the process, but with new digital media, the task has become easier and quicker. What place could such tools have in the classroom?

While visiting the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art on the South Bank in Brisbane a few weeks ago, I was impressed by the installation artists exhibiting at the venue. One in particular caught my attention. It is entitled 'You were in my dream', was created by Isobel Knowles and Vanessa Sowerwine and consists of a box with a face shaped hole in it. You place your face in the hole, and a video camera captures a live feed of your features. It then incorporates your face into a wonderfully created stop motion animation which is located in a fantasy dream world. The idea behind the installation is that by using a mouse, you choose what your character will do next, and in doing so, you see your character transformed into a variety of fantasy characters, some ideal, some distopic. I was transformed slowly into a rabbit and then had to run for my life through a forest, with a ravenous wolf chasing. No matter how dangerous or dystopic a setting your character finds themselves in though, they always wake up from 'the dream'.

I can see such approaches being very valuable in the classroom for a lot of reasons. If similar setups were available at a reasonable price, lessons could be enlivened and children challenged in new directions, as they learnt decision making, problem solving and the consequences of their actions. It goes beyond role playing, taking on the nuances of identity construction and the complexity of moving through endlessly changing terrain. To quote from John Hedberg and Barry Harper: “....by enabling learners to be co-constructors of narratives, narrative-centered learning environments can promote the deep, connection-building, meaning-making activities that define constructivist learning.”

If you want a definition of Modern Art, there is one on the wall of the gallery: Modern Art is art that is created within the time period it represents. Such digitally mediated interactive narratives certainly capture the need for today's students to see how they fit into the world and interact with it - changing and being changed by their environments.

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In your dreams by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Personal Learning Resources

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are made up of more than web tools. People and non-digital resources are also important components. My Personal Learning Network is essentially the people I connect with in order to learn what I need when I need it. Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools are simply the means through which I do it. But as I have tried to articulate in earlier blogposts, my PLE is more than people and tools. The picture to the left shows some of the books I have collected together within my Personal Learning Resources (PLRs) and demonstrates that I don't rely completely on digital media to learn within my information society. They are a sample of the text books I have chosen to study because they are the ones that inform me the best within my own community of interest.

It is said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at the books they have on their shelves. Well, an examination of this picture will reveal that I'm fascinated by e-learning and digital media in all forms and I'm also interested in social interaction and various dimensions of human culture. The Skin of Culture by De Kerckhove is over 15 years old, but is a seminal text that argues technology is how humankind defines itself. Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold, is another seminal text, focusing on how groups of people connect and collaborate through the use of mobile technology. More recent books focus on social media and collaboration, including Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, Seth Godin's Tribes and The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Each in their own way are defining volumes of the social media age. Tapscott and Williams' Wikinomics, first published in 2007, shows how mass collaboration through Web 2.0 has changed forever the way we create knowledge and do business. Other books, such as David Crystal's Txting and Mediated by Thomas De Zengotita, provide incredibly useful contexts about how mobile devices and media shape the world around us and create the digital terrain within which we work and learn.

I could go on, but in each case, I highly recommend each and every one of the books you see on my bookshelf. They make up an important part of my PLE and have given me inspiration and provided clarity to my thinking.

NB: Yep, I know a couple of my own books have crept in there too, but what self-respecting academics do not have their own books on their shelves? Besides, Connected Minds is a compendium of great essays from other people in my PLN - I was merely the editor, so it doesn't really count. Now it's your turn....What text books do you keep on your shelf?

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

Paper cuts

Paper is a wonderful thing. We have enjoyed it in its various forms for centuries, and its history can be traced back to the papyrus of ancient Egypt. When Johannes Gutenburg came along with his wonderful 13th century invention, society was gifted mass produced text based communication, and suddenly, everyone needed to learn to read. Printed text quickly became the first medium of mass-communication. Paper and printing have certainly contributed a great deal to the world of education and learning. Now, living in 2010, time has moved on, but I'm left wondering if some people's minds aren't still mouldering back in the last century. I enter my office space this morning, and I am greeted with a mountain of assignments, half a tree's worth of wood, pulped down to make paper that contains the printed thoughts of my students. They are all bound neatly, labelled, and sit there waiting my attention. I am now expected to plough through this pile of paper in my office (the assignments are too numerous and too heavy for me to trog home with me) and eventually come down on some judgement as to the individual worth of each assignment. I have to write on the assignments with a pencil or pen to try to give feedback to each student.

Last year, I delivered a module for some of my first year teacher students, in which not a single sheet of paper changed hands in any direction. It was the first time I had done it. There were no paper handouts. They were all in digital format. All the transactions were conducted online through wiki, e-mail and blogs, and there were no paper based submissions either. All the assignments for that module were submitted online using our in-house submission system SCHOLAR. It worked reasonably well for a pilot, although there were some problems with unfamiliarity on both sides. The advantages were clear to see. Students didn't need to travel into the university to submit their assignments (many live quite some distance away from the central campus). I was able to see at a glance who had sumitted and who hadn't. I could check very easily for plagiarised work, and ultimately, it benefitted the students because I could colour code my remarks and attach them to their work so they had clear and instant feedback on how well they had done and what they needed to do to improve their work for future submissions. Everyone was happy.

Unfortunately there are colleagues who don't like the system, or are reluctant to use it. I see fellow academics struggling about with boxes full of stapled tomes which they intend to give their students as handouts. Full forests of paper disappear into the classrooms and lecture halls, where they are doled out dutifully to hordes of students, who generally glance at them, leaf through them if they are curious, and then in most cases - they file them under 'B' for bin. Some are inventive and use the shredded handouts to line the cages of their pet hamsters. There's another part to the equation: Some external examiners insist even now, on paper assignments. Are they dinosaurs? That's what they are used to, and that's what they require. Perhaps when selecting future external examiners, a demonstrable lack of aversion to new technoology could be one of the selection criteria.

I say, save the forests and let's go digital. Resources are easier to transport, easier to store and retrieve, and they can be shared more readily. Hernias will be eliminated and repetitive strain injuries reduced. I know there are objections from those who find it difficult to read digital text, or who like the idea that they can have something in their hands to write on, highlight, and file away. But we live in 2010, and technology can do as much for us now as Gutenburg's Press did for people back in 1450. Please, please, let's try to drag our education systems screaming into the 21st Century. Paper has its place. But there is so much more we can do to make our own lives and the lives of our students better if we migrate over to digital media.

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Paper cuts by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Networked noughties 2000-2002

The last 10 years will be known as the networked decade. At the risk of sounding Churchillian : "Never before have people been able to communicate so quickly, and never before has so much information been available to so many people". Sure, previous years saw the telephone, CB radio, television, the Web and e-mail, but this decade was the one when social networking came of age, and where unprecendented access to vast storehouses of knowledge became common place for millions across the globe.

The speed at which these technologies have become a part of our every day experience is quite astonishing and it is exemplified in the noughties. In this short series of blogposts, I want to look back over the years 2000-2009, to map the key moments when the digital decade changed our lives.

Once the frenzy of the Millennium celebrations had died down (Millennium - is this now a derelict term?) we began to see signs of what the future would hold. We didn't need to wait too long. July 2000 saw the launch of one of the first social networking sites: Friends Reunited. The basic premise of the site was to reconnect people who for some reason had lost contact with each other. The promise of 'reunion of old friends' became the basis for much of what was to follow. Within a year Friends Reunited had grown to over a million users, establishing that connecting and sharing online were going to become a very popular pastime.

The 'hive minds' concept was realised with the launch of Wikipedia in January 2001. Just about everything that can be said has already been said about Wikipedia. But for better or worse, Wikipedia is here to stay, has broken a lot of new ground about what is meant by 'knowledge' and has opened up the doors for a sea-change in open, collaborative knowledge building.

Other significant events in 2001 included the launch in July of Sky+, prompting a shift in our perceptions of what digital television could bring, and Interactive TV became a reality for many when it was made widely available in November of the same year. The ability to stop, start and replay live action, and to interact from a handset with TV was an exciting concept. Apple gave birth to the iPod in the US, bringing handheld technologies to the masses, and 3G mobile phone services were available for the first time in the UK in time for Christmas, opening up an entire new vista of telephony.

In 2002 there was failure and success for digital TV. May saw the closure of the fledgling ITV digital service, which had only been established (as a rebirth of ON Digital) in July 2001. But UK TV viewers rubbed their hands in anticipation when Freeview became available in October.

Our viewing habits were changing, and information communication technologies were beginning to take a more prominent place within the home, office and classroom. The first 3 years of the new decade were only a prelude though - these developments merely laid the foundation for the digital maelstrom that was to follow. This series continues tomorrow with a review of the years 2003-2005.

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