...and my nominations are...

Here are my nominations for the 2009 Edublogger Awards:

For best individual blog I would like to nominate Martin Weller, who on his blog The Ed Techie, has been consistent in his posting and always manages to provide some food for thought. He is @mweller on Twitter.

For me, the most influential blog post of the year contained the video (Movie) of the ALT-C debate on the death of the VLE. Recorded and posted by James Clay onto his blog e-Learning Stuff, the video has been downloaded countless times, and copied/embedded into dozens of other websites and blogs around worldwide. You can find him as @jamesclay on Twitter.

In the best New Blog category I nominate Donna Hay over at The Web 2.0 Optimist for her honest, insightful and thoughtful ideas and comments on Web 2.0 tools and their many applications in school settings. You can follow her on Twitter as @dwsm.

Best Group Blog this year should go to Pontydysgu who under Graham Attwell's leadership have continually provided valuable in-depth commentary and advice on a host of e-learning issues and debates. On Twitter he is @grahamattwell.

My vote for best Resource Sharing blog must go to David Hopkins, whose blog Don't Waste Your Time, has been a constant source of interest, and has me returning time and again. On Twitter he is @hopkinsdavid.

For best individual tweeter, I turn to Alec Couros, whom I have probably RT'd more than anyone else this year. His Tweets are often entertaining, always informative. On Twitter, Alec is @courosa.

For the Lifetime Achievement award, I want to nominate Josie Fraser, who over the years, through her blogposts, twittering and other social media channels, has inspired, challenged and encouraged us all. She is a true innovator, and has in my opinion, over the past few years made a significant contribution to learning technology. For anyone of the few left who are not following her, she is @josiefraser on Twitter.

That's me done. Who are you nominating this year?

Edubloggers 2009

It's that time of the year and the Edublogger Awards are upon us again. Josie Fraser has done a remarkable job over the past few years organising this event. She deserves all of our thanks for the impact and reach it has had over the last few years in encouraging a veritable phalanx of creative and energetic posts on every educational topic imaginable.

I felt very honoured last year to be nominated in two categories - best individual blog and most influential blog post (neither of which I stood a cat's chance in Hell of winning of course...)

This year's awards are being organised by another old friend of mine, Carol Daunt, and feature some new categories, including most influential series of Tweets around a discussion. Voting is open to all and the full list of categories is:

Best individual blog
Best individual tweeter
Best group blog
Best new blog
Best class blog
Best student blog
Best resource sharing blog
Most influential blog post
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
Best teacher blog
Best librarian / library blog
Best educational tech support blog
Best elearning / corporate education blog
Best educational use of audio
Best educational use of video / visual
Best educational wiki
Best educational use of a social networking service
Best educational use of a virtual world
Lifetime achievement

To nominate in any or all categories, simply post on your blog stating who, and linking to both their blog and to the Edublogger Awards site. My nominations will be in my next post, but I already have a fair idea who I would like to see win the Lifetime Achievement award this year. ;-)

True grit

Educational values in a digital age

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

I gave a lecture to the entire 4th year of our Primary B.Ed teacher education programme earlier today, entitled: Educational Values in a Digital Age. Above are the slides that accompanied the lecture. I criticised the worst aspects of formalised schooling where children are taught en masse, and I called for a more learner centred ethos in education. Sure, there is differentiation in schools, but we really don't go far enough, due to lack of time, rigid curriculum and far too few teachers leading to large and often unmanageable classes. But there is an even deeper problem: Teachers are trying to prepare children for work in a world that is constantly changing. I made the point that digital technologies and social media can help to overcome some of the problems teachers face as they get students ready to enter a world of work we can't even begin to imagine yet.

I quoted from Yvonne Robert's book 'Grit: the skills for success and how they are grown', which I picked up after hearing her keynote at Handheld Learning in October. It is a brilliant critique of the current assessment regimes. Roberts argues convincingly that current assessment methods place far too much emphasis on academic qualifications and not enough on self discipline and personal skills. She also points out that teaching literacy, numeracy and science is not enough to prepare children for a world of work which is constantly changing and unpredictable. She calls for more emphasis to be placed on helping students in coping with change, creative thinking and collaborative working.

The 160 students in the group were animated in their discussion of these points, both during and after the lecture. I'm very encouraged by these excellent young people. They are the new revolutionaries - the young, dynamic new teachers that can go into their schools and make a real difference. Let's hope their more experienced colleagues support them and harness their knowledge and enthusiasm.

You've been framed

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theory has long been revered by the education community as a model for describing what happens when we learn in social contexts. Bright young things will know that the ZPD describes the space where, with the help of a knowledgeable other person, they can extend and enhance their learning beyond that which they might achieve on their own. Reading through the recent blog post by Graham Attwell on Vygotsky's theory, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what has been discussed. Graham has a problem with ZPD in that it implies the presence of a teacher or expert. I agree that this is indeed problematic when we view the amount of self-organised learning and user generated content that is proliferating on the Web. It's blatently obvious we don't always need a 'knowledgeable other' to be breathing down our necks as we negotiate meaning and learn for ourselves in informal settings. Lev Vygotsky's ideas were the product of his lifelong immersion in Communist Soviet society, and it's apparent as you read his writings just how influenced he was by the notion of collective action. Perhaps this is one reason why his work was suppressed for so long and only began to emerge as a major theory of learning long after his premature demise.

Enter Jerome S. Bruner, an American academic who repurposed the idea of the ZPD by introducing the concept of scaffolding (often erroneously attributed to Vygotsky). According to Wikipedia, scaffolding is: '...the provision of sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced.' It fades away as the learner becomes more autonomous or expert. If we apply Bruner's ideas we illuminate Vygotsky's model in the digital age. Let's think for a minute: on a building site (the analogy used by Bruner) what is scaffolding used for? It's not used to support the building, because that must ultimately stand on its own. No, scaffolding is there to support the building process - and to support the builders themselves.

Let's now consider that the building represents 'knowledge'. We are constructing this knowledge through a process of exploration, modelling, problem solving and reflecting through interaction with artefacts and social processes. Let's assume the builders represent the learner. The learner uses a number of support mechanisms to achieve the construction of their knowledge. Then the scaffolding is brought down as they move on to the next phase of their learning.

The scaffolding removes the problem of needing a 'knowledgeable other'. It also reconciles ZPD theory with Activity Theory, where social processes and influences assume more importance than social presence. Scaffolding can be any tool or service the learner requires at that time and in that context. It can be a mobile phone or a personal computer. It can be a TV programme or a newspaper, a conversation with a friend or even a chance remark that is overheard. Scaffolding frames the learning process, and supports it, and these are the processes that we see with personal learning environments.

Related posts:

Vygotsky, ZPD, Scaffolding, Connectivism and PLEs (Pat Parslow)
Scaffolding and online synchronous communications (Sarah Horrigan)

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The VLE sucks

The ALT-C 'VLE is dead' symposium attracted a huge audience. It was like the Black Hole of Calcutta in that room, as anyone who was there will tell you. Each of our panel of four presented our cases, some arguing for and some against the demise of the VLE. Funeral notices were issued during the Conference. Heated tirades and hissy fits were traded over the blogosphere for weeks beforehand. The entire event, some cynical commentators would suggest, was hyped more than any other ALT-C presentation. The symposium video has been downloaded and watched by a cast of thousands. Some people actually went as far as to say that the VLE is dead symposium was the centre-piece of ALT-C 2009. Me? I couldn't possibly comment. All I know is that it was so popular that some people wanted us to do it all over again.

So we have now given in to popular demand. On December 16th, at 1pm in a neutral venue (er....the University of Wolverhampton) the panel will go head to head (to head to head) all over again in another heated debate over the future (or lack of future) of the institutional VLE. James Clay will argue that the VLE still has some life left in it. Nick Sharratt will go even farther, suggesting that VLEs are the best thing since sliced bread. Graham Attwell will probably talk the most sense, providing a real alternative - the PLE. I suspect we will again come to no consensus, but don't let that put you off. Variety is the Spice (Girl) of life we never saw - unless it's our chair for the debate - Josie Fraser. This is an open invitation event, and places are limited so book here soon to avoid disappointment.

The only difference is that the Midlands event is entitled 'The VLE is undead' (Official tag for the event is: #VLEundead). Undead hmm? I can actually find myself concurring with this sentiment. Undead signifies a vampirical nature, and institutional VLEs do indeed tend to suck the lifeblood out of institutions, giving little back. This is an important issue folks. The future of education is at stake, and the puncture wounds are everywhere to be seen: Students who are disengaged or bored with homogenous, bland content that sits in the 'Learning Management System'. Disenchanted staff who pay lip service to a lumbering system that very few people really want to use, because either it is too time consuming to use effectively, too difficult to navigate or simply unfit for purpose. The institution suffers too of course, because huge maintenance and upgrade fees and user contract payments have to be forked out each year, from steadily dwindling funds. And of course, just like a vampire, the VLE looms there, really not knowing that it is actually dead. Unfit for purpose.... undead. So I'm changing my mantra. The institutional VLE sucks.

How did we get ourselves into this corporate quagmire? And how do we drag ourselves out? How can we find a more liberating solution to the problems of digital learning? Does lifelong learning need to be as closely managed as it actually is in universities? What is the institution actually trying to protect itself from when it erects these dreadful walled gardens? And where is the University of Wolverhampton? These are the questions we will engage with on December 16th. Bring stakes, holy water and garlic cloves along with you. This is a fight to the undeath. And I am van Helsing....

Related posts

Web 2.0 vs VLEs (Donna Hay)

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The tribal web

This is the final post in the Digital Tribe series, which is abridged from Chapter 6 of the edited volume Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures (2009).

Anthropologists ascribe a variety of definitions to the word 'tribe' and it can be a contentious term. Most are agreed though, that a tribe is a small society that has its own customs and culture and that these define it. This series has explored the notion of digital tribes and clans, and has applied these concepts to those who consistently inhabit virtual spaces. Such digital territories are ideal environments within which new forms of cultural transmission can propogate and sustain themselves. The tribes and clans I have identified, it could be argued, are emerging as a direct result of their sustained interaction with, and through, social technologies.

Attempting to categorise the behaviour of online users into distinct tribal characteristics can be problematic, because behaviour in virtual worlds (and indeed in the real world) is ultimately diverse and often chaotic or inconsistent. When observed in its entirety however, the trails of evidence emerging on the Web can readily support the notion of the virtual clan. Individuals have an inherent need to belong, so groupings will occur naturally in the real world, in families, kinship groups, clans and other social collectives. The evidence for clannish behaviour online is abundant too, as seen in the creation of specific cultural artefacts that identify distinct web user groupings. The tacit gathering around new 'digital totems' to form transient interest groups is another form of evidence (e.g. Ning, MMORPGS, Crowdvine) as is the marking out of territories through the sharing of social bookmarks, the tagging of digital objects and voting for preferences and usability (e.g. Delicious, Digg). Consistent representation of digital identity within specific tools (recall the Facebooker and Flickrite tribal differences) is yet another form of evidence for the existence of virtual clans.

It should also be acknowledged that clans tend to emerge within tribes as cutural definitions and user generation of digital artefacts become more pronounced. There may be one single digital tribe in the broadest sense of its meaning, but an analysis of the virtual world and it multitude of social networking and communication behaviours indicates that there are indeed many subsets of this large digital tribe - they are the virtual clans, and although we shift our allegiances, we may each belong to several.

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En masse, online

This post is a continuation of Wednesday's post entitled: Virtual Clans

Still other virtual clans are emerging from the cultures surrounding online leisure activities such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), strategy games and transnational special interest groups that meet en masse, online. In massively multiplayer online gaming, the ‘clan’ (sometimes referred to as ‘guild’) is the name used to describe a group of individuals who play competitively against other clan groups. One very popular online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, has millions of adherents who compete seriously on a regular basis in guilds with strangers they become very familiar with but never meet face to face. MMORPG clans who engage with war games sometimes name their virtual clans after real or fictitious military divisions or armies. They may further identify themselves as members of their clan by creating uniformly themed avatars (their digital altar egos) to represent themselves within cyberspace. World of Warcraft even introduced digital tabards which could be adjusted electronically to show unique features that identify a particular guild. Members then purchase their own for their avatar to wear, thereby identifying more closely with their virtual kin group.

Furthermore, virtual clans often develop their own closed newsgroups and e-mail listings to keep their geographically distributed members informed. In MMORPGs, clans can identify themselves further by developing their own virtual territories, building businesses, and earning virtual currency (Childress & Brasswell, 2006). They can be fiercely competitive and often take immense pride in their achievements at the expense of rival clans. As virtual clans become larger and more organised they also tend to become more hierarchical, even electing their own leaders – clan chieftains, and developing their own unique ‘tags’ which can be used to visually identify themselves as clan members in text communication.

In Second Life, a 3-D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) which at the time of writing has reached in excess of 8 million subscribers, there is a distinct differential between those SLifers who own land and commodities, and those who are simply ‘visiting’ and making use of these commodities. The traders and the consumers are a reflection of real life, so in effect, in-world experience mirrors our observations of real life. The use of avatars is a departure from real life with many SLifers participating in the practice of gender swapping. Even more strangely, some SLifers employ avatars that represent themselves as animals of all kinds, some common, some exotic. Still others choose to present themselves as fantasy figures, such as characters with Anime cartoon features, or aliens, wizards, pixies or fairies. Yet the clear distinction in Second Life is between the traders and those who purchase. The SLife tribe thus has at least two distinct clans, and it is highly likely that others will emerge as Second Life and other MUVEs become better established.

Tomorrow: The Tribal Web

Reference

Childress, M. D. and Brasswell, R. (2006) Using Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games for Online Learning. Distance Education. 27 (2), 187-196.

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