Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

Here is part 2 of my series on new pedagogies and the training of teachers and trainers. Each day this week I am reporting on a number of ‘high lighted issues; from a report I am in the progress of writing. Today’s highlighted issues come from the section on ‘pedagogic theories and the use of technologies for learning and their implications.’

Highlighted issues

Definitions of competence

Definitions of learning and competence are central to the development and implementation of new pedagogies of the use of technology for learning. Yet despite broad debates around definitions and understanding in the research community and in different countries, in vocational education and training the UK has tended to adopt a more restricted definition, albeit one rooted in cultural traditions of vocational education in the UK. How can we promote a wider debate around these issues and especially an understanding of their implications for pedagogy and practice?

How can we support teachers in exploring new pedagogic approaches?

New pedagogic approaches are merging as new technologies are used in different ways for learning, for instance through the use of Web 2.0 and social software. Yet the adoption of new pedagogic approaches and indeed their emergence requires space and time for experimentation. How can we ensure that teachers have the spaces and time for such experimentation and how can we ensure the results of that experimentation are disseminated to a wider audience?

The research, policy, practice gap

There would appear, at different levels, to be some considerable gaps between policy, research and practice, especially in the use of new pedagogic approaches to using technology for teaching and learning. The answer is not probably a linear process of dissemination but rather encouraging a closer dialogue between different actors within the system. How can such dialogue be organised and sustained?

Changing roles of teachers and trainers

There is considerable evidence that the use of new technologies and particularly new pedagogic approaches to the use of technologies of teaching and learning are leading to new roles for teachers. How can those new roles be reflected in Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development and how can the organisation and management of institutions evolve to reflect such changing roles?

Bringing Initial Teacher Training and Continuing  Professional Development in line with espoused pedagogies

If we are introducing new pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning, it would appear apposite that these pedagogies are reflected int he practice of training teachers. This may suggest the need for greater flexibility in Initial Teacher Training curriculum. More importantly, it also implies that the trainers of teachers themselves have to adopt new pedagogic approaches. How can this process be facilitated?

I am writing a report on new pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for teaching and learning. In particular I am looking at three key issues:

The report is divided into a number of different sections. And at the end of each section I am attempting to identify a series of ‘highlighted issues’ requiring more attention, thinking or action. I will publish the entire report when it is finished. But in a short series of posts this week, I will publish the highlighted issues in the hope of gaining feedback from the wider community.

The first section deals with how young people (and teachers) are using technology for teaching and learning. It also looks at new and extended definitions of digital literacy.

Here are the issues I have identified as coming out of that section:

Should learners or schools determine the adoption of particular technologies for teaching and learning?

There has been concern expressed that educational institutions are failing to meet the expectations and practices of learners in their use of technology for teaching and learning. Equally, some research has pointed to the requirement to use technologies and forms of communication and expression that may lay outside learners’ everyday practice and experience. To what extent should educational practice change to adopt to the expectations and practice of learners in terms of technology? And to what extent is it appropriate for educational institutions to recommend or make compulsory the use of particular technologies.

The changing contexts of learning and the social context of literacies.

Research evidence suggests that computers and mobile devices are being used for information seeking, communication and knowledge acquisition in different domains and contexts, including in the home, in the community and in work. How should educational institutions react to these different contexts for learning and how can informal learning and learning outside the institution be linked to educational programmes and courses?

Learners’ experience

Instead of a digital divide based on generation, research suggests a far more complex picture, with wide variations in skills, interest and practice in the uses of technology even by younger people. Access to technology and to Internet connectivity would also appear to remain a critical issue. How can educational institutions and teachers manage these different levels of expectation and experience and at the same time ensure a minimum level of digital literacy for all learners.

Managing myths

The continuing dissemination of myths and moral panics around the adoption and use of practice around new technologies is disturbing? How can we ensure teachers (and teacher trainers and managers) have access to timely and accurate research around these issues?

Digital literacies for teachers

Research is leading to wider ideas of digital literacy. How can we ensure that teachers themselves are digitally literate and that Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development is based on these ideas, rather than the older and more restricted digital skills agenda?

The debate over open learning is still going on through various fora such as the Open Educational Resources discussion currently being hosted by UNESCO and the #PLENK2010 MOOC. And in many ways, it is not technology which is driving the discussion but a more fundamental question about how to provide wider access to learning and access to wider groups of learners.

One post which caught my eye is The ‘Open Mode’ – A Step Toward Completely Online by Tom Prescott (it is interesting to note that even in the days of Twitter;s ascendency blog posts continue to provide the most thoughtful exchanges).

Talking about the trend away from purely online distance learning courses towards blended learning, Tom says:

It’s wrong because most of the time the educators and the students don’t really want to use technology. They’ll do a bit for the administration, but for learning, no way. It’s a face-to-face course. Why tamper with it. I am of the opinion that this is misguided, but it’s not a battle worth fighting (for now). Fighting this resentment is unnecessary.

I think Tom is mixing up a whole series of things here. Firstly the move towards Blended Learning was driven by pedagogy and not by a retreat from Technology Enhanced Learning. And that move towards Blended Learning has led to a period of pedagogic innovation, albeit based on the adoption of social software and social networking for learning. By focusing on the pedagogy of using technology, increasing numbers of teachers have adopted technology as part of their every day practices in tecahing and learning. This is reflected in changes in teachers’ dispositions towards using technology. I would also challenge the idea that students are opposed to technology for learning. Students are opposed to the use of technology which fails to enhance their learning experience, just precisely to the use of technology for managing, rather than learning.

But the major impact of technologies and especially of mobile devices, is to move learning outside the institutional culture and practice, into new contexts. Of course this provides a challenge to existing institutional cultures and to the existing cultures of tecahing and learning practice. And some teachers will be wary of such a challenge. But its is the potentials of using technology for informal learning, for networked and self structured  learning (as in PLENK2010) and for workbased learning which can open up learning (or put another way, develop Open Learning).

I remain unconvinced that traditional online courses (as in Open and Distance Learning) have challenged that learning in context. Instead they have tended to reproduce existing pedagogic and cultural forms of learning, at a distance. Thus I think we need to see more diversified and contextual applications of technology to learning, rather than a focus on any particular organisational or institutional format.

Biorę udział w MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), czyli po polsku … hmm … jest już jakiś odpowiednik? Nie? No to powiedzmy “Masowy Otwarty Online Kurs” (MOOK). Może tak zostać?

MOOK w którym uczestniczę nazywa się “Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge 2010”, czyli w skrócie PLENK2010. Tematem są więc osobiste środowiska uczenia się. Inicjatorami są Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Dave Cormier i Rita Kop.  PLENK2010 zaczął sie 12 września i kończy się 14 listopada. Dołączyć do kursu może każdy w każdej chwili, bo kurs jest w tym sensie “otwarty”. PLENK2010 przebiega częsciowo w Moodle, częściowo na blogach in innych siedliskach informacji w sieci społecznej, takich jak Twitter. Sesje “na żywo” odbywają sie w Elluminate, są nagrywane i dostępne dla wszystkich (zobacz listę nagrań w Moodle).

Jest to kurs na wielką skalę, jeżeli chodzi o:

Liczbę uczestników, już pierwszeg dnia przystąpiło do kusu 1200 uczestników, a w poprzednim MOOK w 2009 było ich ok. 2000.

Zbiór zasobów, którego liczbę naprawdę trudno jest ogarnąć. Są zasoby w Moodle (m.in. różne fora dyskusyjne, np. ), na blogach moderatorów i na blogach uczestników, są zasoby na Twitterze i są nagrania w Elluminate. Pierwszego dnia kursu było już okołó 140 wpisów na blogach!

Idea MOOK’a oparta jest na konektywistycznej teorii uczenia się, która definiuje uczenie się jako proces tworzenia połączeń pomiędzy różnymi elementami, odkrywaniem wzorów w chaosie wszechświata (Siemens, 2005). Siemens uważa, że w dobie cyfrowej pożądane są “nowe umiejętności umożliwiające rozumienie znaczenia, znajdowania drogi, czy też formowania spójnej wizji danej dziedziny. Ważne, aby uczący się na tym etapie potrafili funkcjonować w sytuacji rozproszonej i niepełnej informacji, działać w zespołach, wchodzić w interakcję z różnymi kulturami, przekonaniami i światopoglądami” (EduNews, 2009).

Taką właśnie rozroszoną i niepełną sytuację stwarza MOOK. Potrzeba trochę czasu i wysiłku, żeby móc zrozumieć MOOK w jego całej złożoności. Nie wystarzy z reguły pierwszy “rzut oka”. Na szczęście w znalezieniu wzoru/myśli przewodniej pomaga wizualizacja struktury kursu w Moodle oraz agregacja niezliczonych zasobów dokonywana codziennie przez Stephena Downesa w cyfrowym dzienniku “The Daily”, który jest skrupulatnie dokumentowany w archiwum. The Daily można prenumerować przez RSS-feed i e-maila.

Wraz z kursem przeprowadzane są badania dotyczące uczenia się w MOOK’u, m.in. na temat agregacji informacji, sposobów pracy z zasobami, typów interakcji między uczestnikami. Uczestnicy kursu są więc jednoczesnie uczestnikami badań. A ja jestem bardzo ciekawa, jakie bedą ich wyniki …

I’m always a bit nervous about commenting on someone commenting on someone…but was interested in Steve Wheeler’s blogspot post reporting on a keynote he attended in Brisbane yesterday. Speaker was Sir John Daniel asking whether initiatives aimed at trying to provide computers for children in emerging nations to offer escape routes from the poverty trap actually work.I quote Steve’s post

Well, yes and no, was Sir John’s answer. No, in the case of Nick Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, which was aimed at an ambitious 150 million, only 1 million have actually been distributed. Yes, in the case of ‘Slum Dog Professor’ Sugata Mitra’s hole in the wall project.

So far, so good. I’m agreeing with him. But found his arguments less than convincing.

The difference between the them, said Sir John, lay in the concept and theory behind the two projects. OLPC was premised on the theory of constructivism, where the child, as a solo explorer, could use his laptop to learn independently. Mitra’s project on the other hand, discovered that children actually learn best (and even teach themselves) when they are in small groups. Minimally invasive education has been shown to be better than direct instruction for promoting intellectual maturity. Thus, said Sir John, social connectivism trumps constructivism for third world child learning.

Hmmm! This raises so many questions.

Firstly, the intention of OLPC was certainly that individual children would have their own laptop which they could use alone, at home. But it was also something they could use in school in the presence of other pupils (if they attended school) and could help bridge the home-school, formal-informal divide. Importantly, it was envisaged that other family members would, by association, access information initially using the child as a conduit. So the computer becomes a catalyst for family learning. I am also interested in this idea of the OLPC child being a ‘solo learner’ operating ‘independently’.  I thought that one of the biggest benefit to the child was that it could provided access to other learners, social networks, communities etc etc. I agree that most kids learn best in groups but surely these groups can be on-line groups as well as physical groups?

“Minimally invasive is better….” is also something I have problems with. Yes – maybe – sometimes. I have spent a lifetime in teacher training talking about ‘appropriate or inappropriate’ methods and technologies stressing that every learning situation is unique and what is appropriate in one context may not be in another. As a generalisation, I can see where he is coming from but I would be a lot more cautious.

I agree that OLPC has not been the global success we were all hoping for but there were many contributory factors to do with the technology, the costing models, the distribution, the support etc etc which collectively may have been more significant barriers than the pedagogic model. I think I’m saying that we are not comparing like with like here. OLPC and the Hole in the Wall were so totally different in conception and execution.

Finally, I am genuinely confused by social connectivism being presented in opposition to constructivism. Is Social Connectivism now a distinct pedagogy that has fallen bellow my radar? Or, for that matter is Constructivism a pedagogy? Constructivism is a theory of knowledge not a specific pedagogy – Constructionism is the educational theory proposed by Papert using Piaget’s constructivist ideas.

(And while we are on the subject, we also need to make a distinction between Cognitive Constructivism (Piaget, Dewey etc) and Social Constructivism (Vygotsky, Bruner etc)

Research support for constructivist teaching techniques is very divided – one of the major criticisms being that it is deterministic and reduces the individual to a product of his social environment (a very similar criticism to that  often made about Behaviourism, funnily enough)

Notwithstanding all that lot, many researchers (e.g Bruning, Eggan etc) argued that knowledge must initially be constructed in a social context before it can be appropriated by individuals and Vygotsky’s basic premise was that meanings and understandings grow out of social encounters. This rather supposes that ‘social connectivity’ is part of Constructivism not something to be set in opposition to it.

Anyway, thanks for that Steve. If I have misreported the original speaker (almost certainly) I unreservedly apologise but your blogpost and Sir John Daniels ideas certainly made me think and stimulated much late night, beer-fuelled discussion and argument here in the Pontydysgu office.  Diolch yn fawr iawn!

I attended the Elluminate session at #PLENK2010 this evening with a presentation by Martin Weller speaking about Research, Technology and Networks. It was heartening to see almost 100 participants log and participate in a very lively text discussion, even if fewer were willing to use the audio.
I think Martin is overly pessimistic about how social networking and social software is being used in research. Of course there are still barriers to be overcome, particularly the insistence by many institutions on traditional forms of scholarship and research as the basis for future career progression and for funding. And in a comment related to the Open University’s Social Learn, a project he previously led, he showed how business goals can impact against openness in research processes and innovation in products.
However, I am seeing a marked move twoards openess, collaboration and sharing in a number of the projects and networks in which I participate. Access to video conferences has facilitated more collaborative approaches to project reviews and to managing research tasks. Twitter, blogs and other social network applications have allowed us to share work in progress outside immediate project partnerships. And once more, social networks are allowing us to discover new colleagues and friends, outside our narrower institutional or project communities.
I am also convinced that the use of Cloud applications is going to have a major impact on the way we work. In Pontydysgu we have moved to Google Docs in the last month. And without consciously thinking about it, we are able to work together on research documents and even better to comment on each others work and ideas as a work in progress. This would never have happened through emailing drafts between colleagues.
Jen Hughes is working on ideas around Evaluation 2.0. This is also based on the idea of openness and the involvement of wider communities in evaluation processes. We hope to open out an evaluation in progress to all of you int he next week or so see what happens!

For a report that I am working on, I have been asked to assess the impact of new technologies on teaching and learning in the vocational education sector in the UK.

One major problem in judging the impact of new technologies on teaching and learning and on pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning is the need for metrics for judging such impact. it is relatively simple to survey the number of computers in a school, or the speed of an internet connection. It is also not impossible to count how many teachers are using a particular piece of technology. It is far harder to judge pedagogic change. One tool which could prove useful in this respect is the iCurriculum Framework (Barajas et al, 2004), developed by the European project of the same name.The framework was intended as a tool that can be used by educators to record the effects of their learners activities. It is based on seeing pedagogic and curricula activities along three dimensions – an Operational Curriculum, an Integrating Curriculum and a Transformational curriculum. It is possible to approach pedagogies for using technologies for learning for the same subject and for the same intended outcomes on any one of those three dimensions.

• Operational Curriculum is learning to use the tools and technology effectively. Knowing how to word-process, how to edit a picture, enter data and make simple queries of an information system, save and load files and so on.
• Integrating Curriculum is where the uses of technology are applied to current curricula and organisation of teaching and learning. This might be using an online library of visual material, using a virtual learning environment to deliver a course or part of a course. The nature of the subject and institution of learning is essentially the same, but technology is used for efficiency, motivation and effectiveness.
• Transformational Curriculum is based on the notion that what we might know, and how, and when we come to know it is changed by the existence of the technologies we use and therefore the curriculum and organisation of teaching and learning needs to change to reflect this. (p

In terms of general approaches suggested by research literature, most Further Education colleges in the UK are still approaching pedagogy and curriculum design from the standpoint of an operational curriculum, and although there are some examples of an integrating curriculum, there is little evidence of using technology for transformation.

Reference:

Barajas, M., Heinemann, L., Higueras, E., Kikis-Papakadis, K., Logofatu, B., Owen, M. et al. (2004). Guidelines for Emergent Competences at Schools, http://promitheas.iacm.forth.gr/i-curriculum/outputs.html

I moaned on twitter this evening about the intrusive advertising now showing on Slideshare. Fairly obviously, Slideshare are trying to persuade people to sign up for the recently introduced Premium Accounts. The end of free is in sight with many social software providers turning to premium account models in an attempt to monetize services (or at least pay for bandwidth). And of course this was bound to happen. Whilst in the initial days of Web 2.0, service providers could make money on advertising by poaching advertising budgets from print publications, there has to be a point where advertising money runs out, especially in a recessions.

But this provides a big challenge for using technology for teaching and learning. the last two years has been a period of great innovation, with an increasing focus on pedagogy, rather than technology per se. That in turn has been facilitated by teachers (and learners) being able to themselves choose what applications to use, free from institutional diktat be it by managers, accountants or systems administrators. whilst the cost of premium accounts is generally low (although interestingly not for high bandwidth applications such as video streaming), teachers and learners are going to be forced to decide which of the many available services they wish to subscribe to. And most teachers do not have access to a budget for applications. So does power return to the managers? Will we be forced back to the Learning Management Systems and Virtual Learning Platforms so beloved of systems admins.

In a series of tweets Scott Wilson suggested “we need a new post-web-2.0 strategy” and that “open source and the open web are going to be at the heart of it, and new partnerships with IT departments.” He pointed out that “IT departments are under pressure to cut costs and outsource services; this is a key leverage point and educational technologists may be able to help.”

Scott Leslie joined in the discussion, suggesting that my original tweet fearing a move from the free use of social software by teachers to managerial and IT administrator control “is a false dichotomy that confuses ‘Agency’ with ‘Autonomy’ – there’s a role for system-wide/inst….” He suggested “provisioned systems to replace the “free” ones, but done in ways that maximize learner/teacher agency and choice.” And as an example of such a strategy Carlos Santos proposed the SAPO Campus model. Scott Wilson agreed with Scott Leslie saying “also work on ensuring centrally managed platforms are extensible and flexible for adding new edu tools and apps (even sharepoint!).”

An interesting discussion and one that urgently needs to be taken forward. I wonder if this could be continued as part of the #PLENK2010 course?

I have written several posts on the potential of linked data for learning. One of the problems though, is that most of the discussions around linked data are very techy and for educationalists can be difficult to understand. Very welcome, therefore is a new briefing paper entitled ‘The Semantic Web, Linked and Open Data‘, (PDF download) written by Sheila Campbell and Lorna MacNeill and published by Cetis. Lorna says on her blog: “This briefing paper provides a high level overview of key concepts relating to the Semantic Web, semantic technologies, linked and open data; along with references to relevant examples and standards. The briefing is intended to provide a starting point for those within the teaching and learning community who may have come across the concept of semantic technologies and the Semantic Web but who do not regard themselves as experts and wish to learn more.” The paper is very good in making the techy stuff accessible to a non techy audience and has some very useful examples.

The paper explains the background to linked data.

To make the Semantic Web or Web of Data a reality, it is necessary to have a large volume of data available on the Web in a standard, reachable and manageable format. In addition the relationships among data also need to be made available. This collection of interrelated data on the Web can also be referred to as Linked Data. Linked Data lies at the heart of the Semantic Web: large scale integration of, and reasoning on, data on the Web.”
W3C, http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data

There is currently considerable ambiguity as to the exact nature of Linked Data. The debate primarily centres around whether Linked Data must adhere to the four principles outlined in Tim Berners-Lee’s “Linked Data Design Issues”, and in particular whether use of RDF and SPARQL is mandatory. Some argue that RDF is integral to Linked Data, others suggest that while it may be desirable, use of RDF is optional rather than mandatory.

Some reserve the capitalised term Linked Data for data that is based on RDF and SPARQL, preferring lower case “linked data”, or “linkable data”, for data that uses other technologies. There is currently no definitive practice.

The paper goes on to quote the the recent JISC publication entitled “Linked Data Horizon Scan”  by Paul Miller:

Whilst the exact wording of these statements has changed slightly since first expressed in 2006, and there remains
some doubt as to the strength of the requirement for specific standards, the acronyms mask a simple yet powerful set
of behaviours;

• Name objects and resources, unambiguously;
• Make use of the structure of the web;
• Make it easy to discover information about the named object or resource;
• If you know about related objects or resources, link to them too.

There is much to gain in embracing the philosophy behind these rules, separately to adopting the standards and specifications required to realise their full potential.

Storytelling Part 1: Change of Storytelling from ith storytelling on Vimeo.

I found this video on Jim Groom’s website set up to support a course on storytelling. Jim says “Here is a fascinating and quick seven minute video that features interviews with a variety of scholars, theorists, activists, and participants in the changing nature of storytelling. How do they frame social media and participatory culture in this equation?”

It is particularly good to see that Jim has put the whole course up on an open WordPress blog. There’s lots of explore there – Open Learning at its best!