Learning with 'e's

...context is king

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:19:00 +0000

In yesterday's post I made the statement that the internet is better as a creative space than it is as a repository. Let me clarify this statement. Much of pre-social web based content was difficult to edit or change. Web 1.0 - sometimes referred to as the 'sticky web'- was largely controlled by webmasters and corporations, and was used mainly as a broadcast channel to promote ideas and products. The advent of Web 2.0 type participatory tools and services such as social media and social networks, voting and filtering tools and personalised spaces, provided users with the ability to be directly involved in the creation of web content. Media sharing sites such as Flickr, YouTube and a variety of podcasting services offered users the capability to go beyond the repository mentality of earlier web iterations, to host their own TV and radio channels, blogs enabled them to publish their own newspapers. The web had become a place where people could generally create and share their ideas on a global stage.

The concept of digital repository - collections of useful artefacts that are aggregated together online in an accessible form - is a good one, but the idea loses traction if users cannot interact with the content and hold relevant conversations about it. Increasingly, users also want to repurpose and remix content they find, something which the old style repositories did not allow. The introduction of copyright workarounds such as Creative Commons have given web users the capability to use content in new and creative ways, thereby extending the capabilities, reach and scalability of the content beyond the original intentions of its creator.

As I argued yesterday however, content is no longer the driving force of the web, and should not be viewed in isolation. The context within which the content is situated should also be focused upon as an important component of any analysis of web based learning activity. Content can have two completely different meanings (or functions) if seen in two different contexts. Writing about assessment methods on a teacher discussion site would probably be well received, and users would no doubt engage with any ensuing conversations. Posting the same article up on a site frequented by accountants would be stupid. Unless of course the assessment you were talking about was tax assessment.

I was joking yesterday when I tweeted that my post 'Content is a tyrant' had received over 500 hits in just a few hours, and perhaps the reason was because I used a pretty picture. I was of course being ironic, because it's debatable whether the picture is content or context. For me, the images featured in my blogposts are better seen as contextual, in that they frame the content and provide additional meaning. Photographs are indeed content, but in this setting, they serve as signposts and illustrations to situate the content. We also need to be aware that the value of such content, any content, is subjective and can be interpreted any way the reader wishes.

More to follow on these thoughts in a future post...

Image from Fotopedia (can you see what it is yet?)

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

Content is a tyrant...

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:24:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next time: .... Context is king

Image from Fotopedia

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

Library 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:13:00 +0000

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.

Everyone's a critic

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Everyone's a critic, they say.

Until it comes to academic writing, that is. Many students fail to realise their full potential when it comes to essay writing, usually because they can't seem to find their way out of the descriptive cul-de-sac they make for themselves. If they could only find it within themselves to write critically, they would earn higher grades. So why do some find critical writing such a problem?

Firstly, knowing your field of study is an important factor in academic writing, and some students simply don't trawl deeply enough. If you know one theory, but are unaware that it has been challenged by another theory, you only have half the story, and you then find yourself on the periphery of the discourse. Knowing the weaknesses of a particular theory will only come from gaining an insight into how that theory came about, and understanding how it can be applied in particular contexts. So to be able to write critically, you need to have read around your subject - you need to have seen the 'big picture'.

Knowledge of your field is not enough though. Critical thinking is crucial to the process. You can think without writing, but you cannot write without thinking. It follows that critical writing comes from critical thinking. If you can't think critically, you won't be able to write critically. Students need to learn to think in a particular mode to be able to do this. One of the top tips I can give to anyone who wishes to write critically, is first to think critically about what they are reading, and learn to ask questions of the text. It is a kind of conversation the reader has with the author. Best questions to ask are questions such as 'how does this writer justify what s/he is saying?' or 'What support does this writer have for their ideas?' You may like to dig deeper and find out how their evidence was obtained. Were the data they used obtained from a particular sample, and were they biased, or contrived in some way? Is the writer being totally objective, or is there some hidden agenda in there?

Academic writing has the capability to generate a great deal of angst. For example, students often get hung up on whether they should be using the personal pronoun in their essays and projects. My view is that there is nothing wrong with it, provided the writer is not expressing their own unsupported opinion. Writing 'I reflected upon this experience and subsequently adjusted my professional practice...' is justifiable, but simply writing 'I believe that ....' is not enough.

In his blog post 5 ways to develop critical thinking in ICT, Terry Freedman offers some great advice on how teachers can probe understanding by repeatedly asking 'why?', or 'how do you know that?' If students can do this during the process of writing up their assignments, many of their descriptive, lack lustre passages could be transformed into dynamic critical, reflective and analytic pieces of writing. One aspect of marking assignments I find particularly unpalatable is when students churn out the same old, bland writing which merely represents what has been covered in the module, and not what they have learnt and critically applied to their practice.

Another pet hate I have is disjointed essay writing. Some students seem to think that they will impress the marker if they pepper their writing with copious direct quotations from the set readin lists. All they end up achieving is a series of unconnected quotations with no particular thread of reasoning running through them. Better by far is the art of paraphrasing key points from published authors and then applying these to support an argument that you are developing. Even better still is the ability to counterpoise these paraphrased elements to form a finely balanced discussion that shows you have thought deeply about all perspectives associated with your argument, and can logically organise them. Whichever way you examine essay writing though, it all tends to comes back to the ability to think critically.

Probably the best form of critical thinking emerges from dialogue within the community of practice. Carr and Kemmis (1997) highlighted the importance of dialectical thinking. Based on Hegel's realist philosophies, Carr and Kemmis propose that the tensions between opposing perspectives, where opponents take the stance of 'thesis' and 'antithesis', usually result in some kind of 'synthesis' of ideas. Although this can often be a compromise between the two opposing perspectives, more often than not, it is also a merging of the strengths of both arguments to form an even stronger, newer thesis. Development of such world views are the basis of all critical learning, and require the student to be open to new ideas, and open to being challenged in their own beliefs, values and thought processes.

Reference
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1997) Being Critical: Education, knowledge and action research. London: Falmer Press.

Image by Enrique Sanabria

Everyone's a critic by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

On Aer

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:12:00 +0000

I spent two great days in Ireland this weekend, and would like to thank my hosts at the Computer Education Society of Ireland for inviting me. It's a beautiful country, the culture is rich and the people are all so friendly. Ahead of my keynote speech at the CESI 2012 conference in Portlaiose, I managed to do an interview for Dublin City FM 103.2. The programme Inside Education, presented by Seán Delaney, is a regular radio and podcast Irish perspective on news and stories from the world of education. We sat outside in the early spring sunshine of Portlaiose and discussed blogging, social media, the state of education, ideal schools of the future, innovation and technology, and a whole host of related topics.

I emphasised the importance of blogging as a means of teacher professional development and best uses of technology in education (social media, interactive whiteboards, VLEs, videoconferencing, iPads), and we discussed choice and adoption of new technologies in education. It was a wide ranging interview in which we also explored the use of Twitter as a rich communication backchannel and social networking media, discussed personal learning networks and communities of practice, and talked at length about the idea of classrooms without walls, BYOD and open educational resources. We also touched on youth culture, txt speak and digital literacies. The most important thing, I emphasised, is for teachers to consider the pedagogy, the potential learning gain and the student experience before they decide on the purchase of any technology.

Seán was a very good interviewer because he listened to what I had to say and then followed up my statements with useful questions that delved deeper into my ideas. The programme was broadcast on Sunday evening, and the podcast featuring the first part of the interview can be found here. The interview lasts approximately 20 minutes - listen carefully and you can actually hear the crows in the background! - do have a listen.

Image source

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

The Commons touch

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:24:00 +0000

Many people assume that because the web is open, any and all content is open for copying and reuse. It is not. Use some content and you could well be breaking copyright law. Many sites host copyrighted material, and many people are confused about what they can reuse or copy. My advice is this - assume that all content is copyrighted unless otherwise indicated.In the last few years, the introduction of Creative Commons licensing has ensured that a lot of web based content is now open for reuse, repurposing and even commercial use. The Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig is one of the prime movers behind this initiative. Essentially, Creative Commons has established a set of licences that enables content creators to waive their right to receive any royalties or other payment for their work. Many are sharing their content for free, in the hope that if others find it useful, they will feel free to take it and use it. Creative Commons is a significant part of the Copyleft movement, which seeks to use aspects of international copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work for free, as long as it is attributed to the creator. Any subsequent reiterations of the work must also be made available under identical conditions. In keeping with similar open access agreements, Copyleft promotes four freedoms:

Freedom 0 – the freedom to use the work,
Freedom 1 – the freedom to study the work,
Freedom 2 – the freedom to copy and share the work with others,
Freedom 3 – the freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works.

Finding free for use images on the web is now fairly easy. Normal search will unearth lots of images. But these are not necessarily free images. Many will have copyright restrictions. To find the free stuff go to Google and click on the cog icon at the top right of the screen. Select the Advanced Search option. Next, scroll down the screen until you find the drop down box labelled 'usage rights'. You will be presented with four options:

Free to use or share
Free to use or share, even commercially
Free to use, share or modify
Free to use, share or modify, even commercially

Whatever option you choose, you will be presented with a reduced collection of images that still meet the requirements of the search, but under the conditions of that specific licence. Now you have a collection of images you can use under the agreements of Creative Commons. Use them for free under these agreements and you are complying with international copyright law. Don't forget the attribute the source!

So why would people wish to give away their content for nothing? I have previously written about my own personal and professional reasons for doing so in 'Giving it all away', but just for the record, I will summarise:

Giving away your content for free under a CC licence ensures that anyone who is interested in your work does not have to pay for it or worry about whether they are licenced under copyright law to use your content. In today's economic uncertain climate, it makes sense to be equitable and to give content away that others have a need to see and can make good use of. It also means that users will do some of your dissemination for you. Your ideas will be spread farther if you give them away for free, than they necessarily will if you ask people to pay a copyright fee or royalty. If you allow repurposing of your content, the rewards can be even greater. Some of my slideshows have been translated into other languages. Having your content translated into Spanish for example, opens up a huge new audience not only in Spain, but also most of the continent of South America. Many are now licensing their work under CC because they know it makes sense. Much of the content on Wikipedia for example is licensed under Wikimedia Commons - a version of CC. So look out for Creative Commons licensing - it's going to be very big news indeed for all web users in the near future.

Image source

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

Learning pathways

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:54:00 +0000

I recently heard a story about the building of a new university campus. Unusually, the architect hadn't designed any pedestrian paths into his plan. When asked why there were no pathways between the buildings, he replied cryptically that he was waiting to see what happened. Soon, over a period of time, as students and staff walked between the buildings, they made their own tracks or 'desire lines' through the grass. Once these tracks had become established as the most natural and preferred routes, the architect ordered the builders in to pave over the tracks. 'Better they create their own pathways', he said, 'than for me build them, and then for them not be used'. Instead of imposing his own ideas onto the community, the architect had crowd sourced his design.

How often do we impose pathways upon students which do not meet their needs, or fit their expectations? How many times have we invested in technology, environments and curricula that is simply a waste of time and resources? The institutional learning platform - the VLE - is a classic case of decisions made about learning without consulting the learner. How can we reach a place in education where students find their own level and make their own pathways through learning?

Deleuze and Guattari's 1980 publication A Thousand Plateaus might offer us some clues. It was hailed by some as a masterpiece of post-modernist 'nomadic' writing. Others criticised it for its dense, pseudo-scientific prose. Whichever way you view this book however, it was notable for introducing rhizome theory as a metaphor for knowledge representation. According to Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomes are unlike any other kind of root system, having no beginning and no end. Rhizomes don't follow the rules of normal root systems, because they resist organisational structure and chronology, 'favouring a nomadic system of growth and propagation.' In plain English, the authors are attempting to describe the way ideas spread out naturally to occupy spaces like water finding its level. The rhizome is not linear, but planar they argue - and therefore can spread out in any and all directions, connecting with other systems as it goes. The same might be said about the way communities form, create their preferred ways of communication and decide their priorities.

Rhizome theory is also a useful framework for understanding self-determined learning - the heutagogy described by Hase and Kenyon. Hase and Kenyon contextualise heutagogy with reference to complexity theory, and suggest a number of characteristics including 'recognition of the emergent nature of learning' and 'the need for a living curriculum'. The self-determined pathway to learning is fast becoming familiar to learners in the digital age, and is also the antithesis to the formal, structured learning found in traditional education.

Dave Cormier - one of the foremost contributors to rhizomatic learning theory - takes this concept deeper into digital territory by equating rhizomatic learning to 'community as curriculum'. The advent of social media, mobile communications and digital media facilitate large, unbounded personal learning networks that mimic the characteristics of rhizomes. If we accept that there is a need for a living curriculum, it would be logical to also accept that a self-determined community generates and negotiates its own knowledge, thereby forming the basis of what its members learn. Rhizomatic learning is also premised on an extension of community as curriculum, where: 'knowledge can only be negotiated, and the contextual, collaborative learning experience shared by constructivist and connectivist pedagogies is a social as well as a personal knowledge-creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises'.

Students can, and do, create their own personalised learning pathways. There is also evidence that learning communities informally decide their own priorities, often observed in the emerging folksonomies that result when digital content is organised, shared and curated. These processes often occur in spite of the strictures and rules imposed upon students by the institution. Most are the result of informal learning, achieved outside and beyond the walls of the traditional education environment. Self-determined learning pathways are crucial for individual learners as well as learning communities and they are by their very nature beyond the control of universities and schools. Schools and universities cannot (and should not attempt to) harness these processes, but they can facilitate them. Just like the architect, institutions can refrain from imposing structures and pre-determined tools, wait to see what their students prefer and then provide them with the best possible conditions to support self-determined learning.

Image by justpeace

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

Never mind the quality

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

While waiting for my flight home from Cyprus last week, I did an impromptu interview for some colleagues from Pakistan in the departure lounge. They quizzed me about my views on quality in education, and recorded my responses on video. They intend to share the video online once all the airport public address announcements have been edited out. In the meantime, here's the essence of the interview:

My view on quality in primary education is that it cannot solely be measured through standardised testing or other performance related metrics. These are used by governments as measures of whole school compliance to policies rather than as measures of how individual children are learning. Standardised testing is a device to control schools and systems. It has never been about learning. The quality of personal learning gain can only be measured through authentic forms of assessment, and the more individualised these are, the better. I suggest ipsative assessment which involves measuring a student's learning against their own previous achievements. This is a much fairer method, and has the potential to inspire learners rather than show them how big a failure they are. The Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) schemes already practiced in some UK schools are exploiting this potential, and it's a more equitable method of assessment than the old norm or criterion referenced forms that are still being used by many schools throughout the world.

How do we ensure quality learning in education? The best way I know how to do this is to provide space for children to express themselves creatively. Children need to be given licence to ask questions, no matter how ridiculous or bizarre they are, to explore outrageous possibilities, to exercise their imagination and to create something they can be proud of. The lack of expressive subjects such as art and music in the English Baccalaureate (EBAC) subjects is a travesty, and should be redressed as quickly as possible.

Children also need to be given space to make mistakes without any condemnation. Alvin Toffler once declared: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Too often 'success' culture has been so deeply ingrained within the fabric of school life, that there is no room for failure from which we can learn.

If children are able to control what they learn and create things, their interest will grow, and if they are interested in the subject they will learn. They don't always have to be happy or comfortable for quality learning to occur. Sometimes discomfort, dissatisfaction or a lack of closure will spur them on to achieve even more in learning. Children need to be given tools to help them to learn, and then they need to be left alone to use the tools in the best ways they can find toward deeper learning. Better still, allow them to use the tools they are already familiar with.

Standardised curricula are bad news for schools. More trust needs to be invested in young people to be responsible for their own choices. Too often when teachers are pressured, they tend to revert to methods they are most familiar with. Often, these methods bear no resemblence to the needs of contemporary society, because it has moved on from the time they were themselves in school. Often we forget that teaching today is about the children, not the teachers. It's not our learning, it's theirs, because as the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore once warned: 'Do not limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in a different time'.

Image source

Never mind the quality by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Bear pit pedagogy

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:39:00 +0000

In our digital literacy teacher training programme at Plymouth University we create environments that encourage critical thinking. My colleague Peter Yeomans (AKA @ethinking on Twitter) says we create the 'bear pits' for our students. In other words, we enable digital and physical learning spaces in which they can freely explore ideas, argue with each other (and us) over concepts and theories and in so doing, develop their reasoning and thinking skills.

In order to develop key critical thinking skills, learners need to be able to argue effectively. They need to be aware that there are alternative perspectives and they need to be able to defend a position from attack. They must also investigate theories critically, because if they simply accept a theory as 'truth', they may be leading their entire classroom down a blind alley. Too much bad theory has crept into the classroom in recent years, as I have previously commented, and we want to ensure that our trainee teachers are aware of flaws, counter-arguments and alternatives to all theories. That's why we encourage our students to critically engage with course material, and then to extend their knowledge by creating their own additional content around it.

We encourage them to develop their own Personal/Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) so they can lock into and exploit the vast communities of practice that already exist out there in the rapidly expanding Blogosphere and Twitterverse. They are quite adept at using the tools at their disposal to create these connections, but first they need to be convinced. Once they realise the benefits of blogging or tweeting, and can see how much they learn as a result of engaging with remote peers, they engage with it enthusiastically. When students are given projects to complete, blogs, videos, podcasts, they are expected to organise their ideas, form their argument and present them in seminar or digital format - and then they must defend them. You see, when students are required to present something they have learnt to an audience, they need to know it well before they can present it convincingly. It's not the easiest route for learning, but it invariably turns out to be deep learning. The bear pit approach is more akin to dropping them in the deep end, and it can be a little uncomfortable at times.

One final point: We also give students the license to challenge us, and sometimes, if we feel it necessary, tutors may even debate each other in front of the students. Academics don't (and can't) always agree on everything, so why not model critical discussion for the benefit of the students? I would be interested to hear from other teacher educators about what approaches you use and whether you see any value in what we are doing with our bear pits.

Image source

Bear pit pedagogy by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Damascus Road

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:46:00 +0000

Researching Social Media in Education: What can we learn?

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My keynote presentation yesterday to the Cyprus International Conference on Educational Research had a mixed reception. Some delegates agreed with the points I made, others were more sceptical. It's interesting when you present what are considered radical ideas to a rather conservative audience and see the reactions around the room. It's like watching the surf hitting the rocks outside the window of my beach hotel room. An unstoppable force against an immovable object, and all that.

The majority of the delegates present were from from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. When asked, around 75% admitted that they had no involvement whatsoever with any of the social media or networking tools I was talking about. I had to pause at this point to rub my eyes. How can you expect to understand what your students are doing if you don't yourself engage with these tools? was my challenge. I think some were quite appalled when I suggested that even if they ban mobile devices and social networks in their classrooms (which many are doing), the students will still continue to use them, probably under the tables. There were some worried glances when I suggested that the reason students are using mobile devices and social media in the classroom might be to check out how accurate and truthful the lecturer's statements are. This kind of challenge to authority may not be palatable for many conservative academics, but its a plain fact - it happens all the time, and it will grow in its intensity and reach. My message was - get over it - it isn't going away.

I also caused a few ripples on the normally placid pond of academic publishing by showing some recent figures on how successfully the major publishers are exploiting our good will in offering our work to them for free. I called for an end to the enormous profiteering that is currently perpetrated by some publishers, and pointed out that often, public money has funded the research that ends up behind a paywall. That was the main reason, I declared, that I resigned from my job as Co-editor of a major Taylor and Francis journal late last year. I could not, in good conscience, continue to help the publishers to line their pockets off the back of free labour, and publicly funded research that ended up behind a pay wall, read by very few people who had the means to pay for it.

I cited figures from two of my own papers, both published around the same time (in the slideset above) which showed the unacceptable editorial/review lead in times for many closed journals in comparison to open online journals. Paper based journals suffer from editorial back logs and there is little they can do to alleviate this problem. Some have established online 'early' publishing systems that host accepted papers prior to full publication, but they remain behind the paywalls. The most stunning comparison I offered was between the citations metrics of my two papers. The closed journal paper had received 19 citations against 511 for the open journal publication in the same time period. This alone, I argued, shows that open journals have the edge over closed journals, with many, many more people reading the free to view articles. If we want widespread dissemination of our findings, we need to look to the open journals, with their vast readerships.

During the question time, objections were voiced. I expected it. One delegate claimed that the review processes for open journals were not as rigorous. Well, that's just your perception, I countered, and it's a very challengable statement. I pointed out that in some open journals, review processes are even more rigorous - my open access journal article for example, was reviewed by three separate reviewers. The fact that they were unblinded (they knew our author names and we knew their names) and that the reviews and our responses were posted up online alongside the paper openly, created a higher quality, and more transparent review than the traditional closed, double blinded reviews could ever hope to achieve. Well, I did my best, and hopefully, some delegates will have a Damascus Road experience before they submit their next journal article. Perhaps some will think twice about banning mobile devices and social media in their classrooms in the future - and hope against hopes - some may even take the plunge and subscribe to a social network or two. We live in hope.

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

A dangerous game

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:23:00 +0000

There's a dangerous game they play in Cyprus. It's called Meze, and it's far more brutal than the Spanish Tapas equivalent. The game goes like this: There are two teams: the eating team and the waiter team. The waiter team tries to beat the eating team into submission by delivering a constant supply of small dishes, containing far more food than they are ever likely to need in a full calendar month. It begins innocuously, with a few plates of pitta bread, humus and tzatziki. The eating team is lulled into a false sense of security. This is nice, they think, we can do this. Then more dishes begin to arrive at an alarming rate.

As the eating team finishes one dish, it is removed and three more replace it. The goal of the waiter team is to fill the table up so completely with food that there is no room left, and the eating team has no choice but to eat their way out to safety. But the game is a fix. No matter how much the eating team consume, there are always more dishes arriving. Kebabs, eggplants, grilled cheese, prawns, skewered meat, fried octopus - you name it, it all arrives far too quickly. There is a sadistic streak in the waiter team. Even when the eating team has had enough, the waiting team continue to deliver knockout blows, placing even more food directly on to their plates. Eventually, and inevitably, the eating team are writhing in extreme agony on the floor clutching their stomachs and yelling 'Enough! We surrender!' The end of the game is signalled by the waving of a white napkin, and then you can observe the smug grins on the faces of the waiter team, who look at each other and nod knowingly. Yes, we have defeated yet another group of tourists with our clever food manoeuvres. Our job is done.

This got me thinking that many of the world's education systems are a little like the eating game of Meze. We pile the students plates high with content. Content of every kind is presented to be consumed, and the poor students don't stand a chance. Many are overwhelmed by the amount of content they need to learn, and the pace at which they have to learn it. Even while they are struggling their way through an overburdened 'just in case' curriculum, still more content continues to arrive at an alarming pace. Some learners cry out for mercy, but they are still compelled to consume the content, because later, they are required to regurgitate it in an examination to obtain their grades. The examinations bear no resemblance to that which will be required of them in the real world. No wonder so many wish to leave the table early. What can teachers do to obviate this problem? Some are making a difference, reinterpreting the curriculum they are given by enabling activities and creating resources that facilitate student centred learning. Learning at one's own pace, and in a manner that suits the individual will overcome some of the problems of overload, but more needs to be done. Things are changing, but they are changing slowly, too slowly for many people's tastes. It's a dangerous game we are playing in education. Isn't it about time we stopped?

Image source

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

My mouse is dead

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:34:00 +0000

No, we haven't had a pet bereavement ... and there is no tiny rodent laying legs up in its little cage (although ... there's a thought. My daughter's pet mouse sometimes keeps us awake at night with its irritating noises....). No, I'm referring to that wonderful old computer peripheral device that was first introduced in the last century. The mouse has served its purpose, and has been a faithful servant for all those using computers. But the fact is, the mouse is going the way of 5.25 inch disk drives (remember those?), CRT screens and dot matrix printers. Many of us wondered what we would do when the floppy disk drive was phased out. But how many of us miss it now? Same goes for the bulky visual display units and the clunky, noisy printers.

The computer mouse is old technology, and for a growing number of users has recently been superceded by touch screen devices (and the soon to be widely used non-touch devices). The only time I ever use a mouse now is when I am at my desk at the university, and am compelled to use a desktop computer. Most of the time I'm out and about using my iPod Touch, iPhone and a touch-pad laptop. Personally I haven't needed computer rodentia for several years. My mouse is dead. It is an ex-mouse. It has gone to join the squeaky choir of rodents in the sky.

I'm wondering how many other people are also of the same opinion. I have often watched young children trying hard to control a mouse, particularly when their hands are small and they can't quite grip it correctly. I have also watched children with fine motor control problems struggling to use them. Perhaps it's about time the more intuitive touch screen interfaces were introduced widely in schools. Hand-eye co-ordination is also required to control a computer from a mouse. Most of us can do it easily, but it's not everyone's experience. I have watched some older people struggle to get the mouse pointer in the correct position to execute a click. For older people with motor control difficulties or reduced visual accuity, the more intuitive touch screen, voice activation and gesture control may also be a clear advantage over mouse driven computers.

I think the mouse has had its day. The cat can have it. Now it's time for the next generation of intuitive interfaces. What do you think?

Image by Nik Hewitt

My mouse is dead by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tim flies

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Tomorrow I head off to Nicosia to keynote the Cyprus International Conference on Educational Research. The event, hosted by the Middle East University (North Cyprus campus), will feature four keynote speakers and presentations of papers, workshops, posters, seminars and virtual presentations on a wide range of pedagogical research themes. In total, it looks as though there are over 400 presentations accepted into the three day programme.

The conference aims to "bring together educational scientists, administrators, counsellors, education experts, teachers, graduate students and civil society organizations and representatives together, to share and to discuss theoretical and practical knowledge in a scientific environment".

The three other keynote speakers are Janet Parker (Open University, UK) who will speak on the topic of 'Encouraging Early Career Researchers to become Expert Published Writers', Lejf Moos (NTNU Trondheim, Norway) whose theme is 'European Educational Research Today', and local academic Mehmet Çağlar (Near East University, Cyprus).

My own keynote will cover the proposition that social media, mobile technologies and the Web are together changing the way we perceive knowledge, learning and education. I'm going to propose that we are witnessing a radical shift in the way knowledge is represented, consumed, created and shared, and that as a result, we need to reappraise the way we conduct research and disseminate our findings. I'm going to talk about adopting open access journal publishing as the best way forward for widespread and effective publication of research, and I'm going to champion open scholarship. Let's see how that will be received.

I'm going to blog again about the conference once I'm there and it's in full swing. Cyprus is a wonderful country to visit any time of the year, but doubly so at the moment, with the inclement weather here in the UK assailing the senses. The island's temperate Mediterranean climate will be very welcome, and the Cyprus culture and history are rich. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

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

Five tools for global educators

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:48:00 +0000

Recently I have been considering the changing role of teachers who are adopting technology to extend the walls of the classroom. These are a new breed of teachers who do not necessarily accept that the classroom is contained within four walls. In effect, through the use of social media and telecommunication technologies, these teachers are becoming global educators. I consider myself a global educator and have tried to articulate my ideas on why this is a different role to traditional teaching. We are connected educators, linked in to a number of powerful global communities of practice, and we have access to resources, dialogue and audiences we would not enjoy in a traditional learning and teaching role. But what tools do we use to enable us to connect with these communities, resources, audiences around the globe? Here are my top five tools:

Webinar: There are a number of ways to teach and present live from beyond the classroom. I regularly present live (synchronous) webinars or web seminars, and other teaching sessions from my home office, or from a hotel room, and conceivably just about anywhere else there is connectivity to the internet. I have presented from Australia to the USA (strange timezone differences there) and from Europe to the USA, and even, in such events as the Reform Symposium, presented to a worldwide audience of educators. Webinar tools include Elluminate (now known as Blackboard Collaborate), WebEx and Adobe Connect all of which have similar screen topographies and perform similar functions, but all have an associated cost. All of the above tools support live audio (you should use a headset to maintain quality) and video communication (a webcam or internal camera on a laptop is needed for this), slideshow presentation tools and text communication. Webinars could also be conducted on Skype which is currently free, but quality may be more variable using this tool.

Blog: Blogging is arguably one of the most powerful tools for global education. I have already written a great deal about the power of blogging, so I won't elaborate too much here. What I will say is that by following a few simple guidelines, teachers can write and present content in accessible formats, and can incorporate images (pictures, diagrams), videos, audio and hyperlinks, all of which can help students to investigate a topic in greater detail if they wish. The comments boxes below each post support dialogue, and the tagging feature on most blogs enables easier search for content.

Twitter: This social networking tool is deceptively simple, but deeply sophisticated and versatile due to its inherent filtering facilities. It is also an excellent connecting tool - retweets are not repetition, they are amplification of content. The power of Twitter lies not only in its simplicity, but also in its accessibility. Whether used as a backchannel to amplify an event, or as a closed channel to converse between small groups, Twitter has an appeal that enables a great deal more expression that one would expect from a 140 character limit. Hyperlinks and other media links can be shared, and with the addition of a URL shortener, can also make more space for a few annotations. Used in conjunction with the other tools showcased on this page, it is indeed a very powerful tool for the global educator.

Video: Social media tools such as YouTube are maturing into sophisticated tools that enable all kinds of visual media sharing. Over 24 hours of video footage is uploaded to the YouTube servers every minute. Most of it can be disregarded, but some content found on YouTube is gold dust for teachers. It is now possible to create your own personal channel on the service, simply by clicking a few buttons. There is an editing facility available that allows teachers to select specific sequences of video and create new versions for showing to students. The comments box at the foot of each video clip enables dialogue between presenter and students. It's asynchronous, but can still be a highly effective way of sending quality content to distributed student groups.

Slideshare: If you have a Powerpoint presentation or a document and you want to share it with a wider audience, then Slideshare is probably your first port of call. Several of my recent presentations have gone viral simply because the tool is easy to access and is being used by large numbers of people every day. You can see at a glance how many views your slideshow has received, how many favourites, downloads, embeds, and most importantly, you can respond to comments to create dialogue with your remote students.

These are just a few of the vast array of tools that are currently available to the global educator, and they are my preferences. I am sure others will have different preferences or recommendations to make. Please feel free to share your expertise and ideas below in the comments box.

Image source

Five tools for global educators by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Human 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:49:00 +0000

Post human. Such a strange concept, and one that many people struggle to understand. At its simplest, being post-human is a state closely aligned to the cyborg, or cybernetic-organism - part human, part machine. In other words, the post-human condition emerges when humankind and technology merge to the point where they become a part of each other. We can understand cyborgs - and for many, the idea of a half-man, half-machine evokes deep seated fears about how far technology can go. Donna Haraway (2004) makes a point of singling out Rachel - a replicant character in the sci-fi movie Bladerunner - as 'the image of a cyborg culture's fear, love, and confusion.' We have seen many other popular culture examples of the cyborg, from the six-million dollar man to Robocop - and each is endowed with superhuman strength, or enhanced senses. We recognise them because they are on their own, isolated, lost in a world of otherwise normality, unnatural, freaks of non-nature.

No-one really knows exactly if or when a post-human phase emerged, it is all theory and supposition. But we can trace the history of prosthetics and reflect on the incorporation of various kinds of technology into the human body. Replacement limbs may not strictly be accepted as a merging of technology and humanity, unless they are robotic limbs. Heart pacemakers, valves and other forms of technology implant or merger might be. Computer scientist and philosopher Andy Clark, in his 2003 book Natural Born Cyborgs, argues that humankind has an innate need to interface with technology: 'What the human brain is best at is learning to be a team player in a problem-solving field populated by an incredible variety of nonbiological props, scaffoldings, instruments and resources' (p 26). Essentially, when wetware (biological entity) meets hardware, the software can be interoperable. Clark sees the merging of mind and machine to be unstoppable and inevitable. He believes it's not a matter of if, but when. Some would argue that the transient phase leading to post-humanism is the non-invasive but just as powerful welding together of human and computer, as seen in the addictive video game playing of geeks, or the smartphone ultra-dependency of our current youth generation.

So are we now on the verge of a new phase in human development? Are we at the cusp of the incorporation of technology into the human body because we have such a desire to enhance our senses, increase our physical and mental performance, or otherwise extend the capabilities of what is considered to be 'natural'? Are we about to embark on a post-human phase in human development? Some would affirm this, citing several notable 'real examples' of cyborgs in recent years. Meet Kevin Warwick, a professor at the University of Reading, probably the world's first true cyborg. Professor Warwick is interested in how technology can enhance human senses and improve performance. In the foreword to his book I Cyborg, he writes: 'Humans have limited capabilities. Humans sense the world in a restricted way, vision being the best of the senses. Humans understand the world in only 3 dimensions and communicate in a very slow, serial fashion called speech. But can this be improved on? Can we apply technology to the upgrading of humans?' In essence, Warwick is asking: Can we become Human 2.0?

In a famous experiment in 1998 Warwick had a chip transponder surgically implanted into his arm. A computer was then able to track Warwick as he moved around the university campus, and allowed him to open doors, turn on lights, and operate computers without touching them. Other phases of the experiment involved more advanced transponder implants that monitored Warwick's internal condition, such as his emotional responses, stress levels and even thoughts. The speculation was that if others also had similar transponders implanted, people might then be able to communicate their thoughts and emotions to each other via computer mediation.

More recently, Tanya Vlach made headlines with her plans for a new prosthetic eye. She has a dream to transform herself into an 'enhanced human being' after being involved in a serious car accident in which she lost her left eye. She is now planning to have an 'eye-cam' - installed inside her prosthetic eye, complete with zoom control, infra-red and ultra-violet capabilities and the facility for face recognition. The eye-cam would interface with a custom made app, housed in a standard smartphone. She is currently waiting for technology to catch up with her vision, and one day soon, hopes to be able to hard wire the eye-cam directly to the vision centre in her brain, and in so doing become a truly enhanced human being - a cyborg - a post human. Scary, fascinating, challenging stuff - the cyborg becomes the iBorg.

Computer scientist Jaron Lanier's keynote speech at Learning Technologies in London recently served to illustrate several of the dangers and caveats of the post-human condition. Jaron Lanier vehemently rejects Ray Kurzweil's vision of a future where computers can exceed the capabilities of humans. 'You have to be somebody before you can share yourself', he warns. He suggests that we already have expanded memories (search engines of the web) and remote ears and eyes (mobile phones and webcams). Lanier sees no techno-eutopia in the future, but warns instead that we are in danger of dystopia. Indeed, he advised the makers of the movie Minority Report on what might be expected from a technology dominated future in which people were manipulated like chess pieces. The data mining capabilities of the social networks alone can enslave us by owning our purchasing habits, internet search preferences and all other personal data he suggests. He sees Facebook and other social networks undermining and devaluing friendships. The technology should work for us, not us for the technology. Lanier is a contentious, thoughtful character. In just a few minutes of conversation with him in the speaker's lounge, my impression was that he opposes anything that involves a 'hive mind'. 'Why are you wearing a Creative Commons badge?' he asked me as we gazed out over West London. I explained that I believe in giving all my content away for free and that to me, that is the essence of the future of learning. 'I'm going to speak against that today', he warned. It's clear that generally, Jaron Lanier holds a somewhat more pessimistic view of our possible cyborg future.

In the final analysis though, it is mind amplification that is the ultimate goal for humankind's future enhancement. The ability to distribute knowledge beyond the confines of the human brain, and the capability to extend the mind through and across networks does not demand or require any co-joining of human and computer. We have already achieved much of this through mind tools such as social media, which according to Karen Stephenson enable us to store our knowledge with our friends. Do we really need a post-human future? iThink not.

Top image by Elif Ayiter

References

Clark, A. (2003) Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Haraway, D. J. (2004) A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s. New York: Routledge.

Lanier, J. (2010) You are not a Gadget. London: Penguin.

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

Digital learning futures

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:50:00 +0000

Digital Learning Futures

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As I write this blog post, the above slideshow has received almost 18,000 views in just 48 hours since it was posted up onto Slideshare. These slides accompanied my presentation during the Learning Technologies conference and exhibition held at London's Olympia on 25-26 January. I was pleasantly surprised by the huge turnout to hear me speak, and grateful to Don Taylor and his team for inviting me to speak at this excellent event.

During my talk, I discussed a number of possible scenarios that might result when wholesale adoption of digital technologies occurs in education and training. I touched on personal learning networks, mobile technologies, games and gamification, the use of social media in learning, the role of user generated content, the phenomenon of ubiquitous connection, and technological convergence. The latter in particular is a trend that is allowing us to use web-enabled television, dual view screens, and in the near future will enable a merging between e-mail and social media. I also discussed pedagogical issues such as deep and surface learning, creative thinking and the transformation of knowledge consumption. As a nod to the possible futures we might see, I discussed the development of semantic web technologies (Web 3.0 and Web x.0), touch screen tablets, non-touch technologies and smart objects, as well as the potential of Open Educational Resources, open learning and open scholarship to support a global democratisation of learning.

I'm immensely gratified to think that so many more people outside the auditorium at Learning Technologies are now downloading and viewing these ideas. My audience has been extended beyond the walls of the event to a global classroom through the amazing power of social media. Here's to all the possible futures of learning!

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

Back to the future

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:01:00 +0000

I was lucky to witness firsthand some of the earliest attempts at educational computing in the UK. In 1976 we set up a project called Investigations into Teaching with Microprocessors as an Aid (ITMA). I was in the technical team that built some of the first personal computers from kit form, which we then deployed among our student teachers to explore how these new tools might possibly be used in teaching and learning. Educational computing was still very much in its infancy, and there was a lot of interest in whether they could or would actually change learning.

Later, in 1981 I changed jobs to work in a nurse training school in the National Health Service where the only computers were very large ones that were used for management and administration. They were kept behind locked doors, and only a few select individuals ever got to enter the room.

Around 1981, Acorn and the BBC joined forces to produce one of the first affordable educational computers. It was called rather obviously, the BBC Microcomputer. Various versions were released over the decade including the 'B', the 'Master' and the 'Archimedes'. Each had to be supplemented by an external 5.5 inch floppy hard drive and a metal cube screen Microvitec monitor. The entire set was cream coloured, and could be further supplemented by a plinth which housed the whole ensemble. My nursing school, with my encouragement, purchased a dozen or so, and then it was my job to deploy them in meaningful contexts to promote learning. I placed one in the corridor outside my office, and wrote a small programme which printed out on a dot matrix printer information about every single transaction that took place each day. When a student nurse accessed a programme, the printed record showed me the name of the programme, when it was activated, how long the student remained on the programme, and even what score they achieved in the tests on the software. I discovered that the programmes, simple as they were, had the effect of drawing students to engage with learning on a mostly informal basis, anytime they were passing my office on the way to the training rooms, library and coffee area. They were in effect, one of the first technology supported self-directed study methods ever used in nurse education.

I deployed a second BBC computer alongside the first, and the use increased. Very soon I procured a small room in which we positioned an entire suite of BBC computers. I began writing programmes in conjunction with the nurse tutors, and in no time at all we were selling the Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) packages to other nursing schools all across the country. The software was written in 'BBC Basic' (Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and were indeed basic, mainly consisting of text, questions and tests, and remedial loops with a score presented at the end. In the mid 80s, this was fairly leading edge, and seemed to align comfortably with the teaching ethos of the time, which in nurse education was essentially a behaviouristic 'drill and practice' approach. Today, the programmes would seem primitive, inappropriate and probably very very boring. In the mid 80s, they attracted students like bees to a flower garden. They queued to used the computers. One programme I wrote was a remix of the Basically Eliza programme, which mimicked a therapist by matching inputted questions with a small data base of responses. My programme had a twist. Instead of merely trying to converse with the student nurses, the programme threw insults back at them too, taking the conversation to an entirely new and hilarious level. It became the most popular programme in the suite, especially for our mental health nurses.

It was with a wonderful feeling of nostalgia that I walked into the National Museum of Computing dome at Learning without Frontiers and saw the array of BBC computers on display. They were even accompanied by the BBC Acorn User Guide with it's glossy coloured cover and spiral binder. The sight took me back over three decades to the time I wrestled with how to deploy new and untried technology in authentic learning contexts. I remember the excitement I experienced when I unpacked the BBCs for the first time, and connected and switched them on, to see what they were capable of. We have come a long way since those early pioneering days, but the same questions still remain. How can we embed new technology effectively? What can we do with this new technology that we couldn't do before? How will this new technology effect and affect pedagogy? Even then, 30 years ago, I believed fervently that computers would radically transform education and training, and I still hold that hope. Education has indeed changed, and continues to evolve as technology drives change. Radical change though, will only come when teachers everywhere see the potential and power of technology to extend, enhance and enrich learning for all.

Back to the Future by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Positive deviance and the IPD

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:05:00 +0000

We all know that organisations and institutions impose barriers to innovation. The larger they are, the more rules they tend to generate. This is because by nature large organisations are conservative and there is a perceived need to protect the status quo and maintain order. But this isn't always good news for creativity and innovation. James Clay once called such enforcing agencies 'Innovation Prevention Departments', and claimed that every institution has one. I think he's right. Trying to innovate in such circumstances, especially when there is an IPD saying 'that's against the rules', 'it can't be done' or 'it's too expensive' can be hard going, but innovation is never impossible. I was interviewed at the Learning Technologies conference, about my views on innovation, organisational constraints and positive deviance. The interview was actually recorded downstairs in the Learning without Frontiers dome zone, which explains the theatrical lighting. Above is the video of the interview in full (duration 90 seconds).

Interview by Martin Couzins

Positive deviance and the IPD by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Border crossings

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:23:00 +0000

As ever, the Learning without Frontiers conference and festival was a rallying point for those who are at the forefront of innovation in education. All sectors were represented, and with the Learning and Development professionals conference in tandem on the floor above, the joint event showed real attempts to embrace all education and training practices. A few of the invited speakers were shared across both events, giving presentations to two separate audiences in two different venues within the Olympia complex. Hosting the two major events in tandem for the first time was an experiment that was simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating. It was exhilarating because so many members of the extended UK learning community were together in one place for the first time, but frustrating because those of us who habituate both events were well and truly torn between what to attend. Both events are enjoyable and memorable, not least because of the enthusiasm, passion and openness of the people who attend.

Upstairs in the Learning Technologies event, over 500 delegates listened to presentations from the likes of Edward de Bono, Donald Clark, Joanne Jacobs, Nigel Paine, and myself as well as shared speakers Stephen Heppell, Jaron Lanier and Ray Kurzweil. Generally the same message was dominant in both events, namely that learning is undergoing a makeover, but that it needs to go more than skin deep. Indeed there were signs that things are changing, slowly but surely. I noticed a concerted effort this year for example, that 'downstairs' in the main conference exhibition area, efforts were being made to percolate some of the innovative practices talked about 'upstairs' into the free public vendor area. The LT Exchange stand hosted a number of live interviews with a variety of presenters amidst a relaxed environment, complete with a catering facility. Questions of the hour were pinned to the wall for open discussion with the presenters. This at least brought the cut and thrust of the live presentations downstairs for greater exposure and wider discussion outside the main conference. Videos of the keynotes were played out regularly to the downstairs delegates too, giving them a flavour of the proceedings in the main conference auditorium. Such features at least partially addressed the conceptual divide I wrote about in Upstairs Downstairs about last year's event.

Both events featured presentations with flare, but in my opinion it was within the Learning without Frontiers event that innovation was at its most evident. As ever, the LWF team were trying to push boundaries with a programme of quick fire main hall presentations and a fast moving programme of peripheral events. In yesterday's post I featured the iconic inflatable dome village, which was a tangible counterpoint to the more staid, traditional conference exhibition just across the landing.

The event focused on learning 'without frontiers', but conferences impose barriers by their very nature. The sentinels at the gate dividing the two exhibitions represented the organisational border point, and one passport (either conference badge would do) was scanned repeatedly as people passed from one 'country' into another. I was left wondering why the border crossing was necessary. Was it there to separate the two tribes - corporate and public sector? It created a log jam when several people wished to cross between the two exhibition zones simultaneously, and the bar-code scanners were working overtime.

For me, the border between the two events also signified a metaphorical divide between the conservative and the radical. In just a few paces, one was able to move from a traditional conference stand exhibiting corporate training packages and organisational planning tools to inflatable domes with interactive robotic displays or Lego building playzones. It reminded me of a backwards in time journey from the world of work and business to school. Significantly, good learning is required in both those spheres of activity, and the methods employs to deliver these opportunities can be vastly different. That was a part of the appeal of the marriage between the two events. The question running through my mind throughout the entire joint event though, was whether there will be a movement of business and industry learning and development towards the game based, interactive and exciting methods beginning to emerge in the compulsory education sector. And how far will public sector education be able to move in new directions without the funding available to most private sector initiatives?

We were reminded once more that the schools sector is itself far from perfect. Speakers such as Stephen 'remove your shoes' Heppell and Francis Gilbert eloquently challenged the tired old school formula with clarion calls for better learner engagement, student centred approaches and innovative technology applications in radical new learning environments. Others spoke repeatedly about the 'purpose of education', putting excitement back in to learning, and breaking the old paradigms. Ellen MacArthur inspired us all as she related her personal journey. Ray Kurzweil blinded us with computer science, whilst Michael Brooks urged us to be mavericks and to push the boundaries of possibilities to make the change. It was all heady stuff, but how much of the idealism and fervour of this event can and will be taken back and actually allowed to be embedded in everyday practice? We shall see, but I suspect that as always, it will be the lone rangers who forge ahead with their leading edge practices, and it will be a long time before most institutions change their ways. But it was another restart, a boost to our collective esteem, a charging of the batteries .... and we can all hope that it won't be long before the border crossing disappears.

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

Welcome to the pleasure domes

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:26:00 +0000

The dome village created by Graham Brown-Martin and his Learning without Frontiers team - at Olympia in London this week - seems to have been a great hit for many delegates. Edgy, futuristic and a visual spectacle in all their underlit splendour, the domes hosted debates, panels, presentations, demonstrations and a chance to get hands on lego, Nintendo games, retro computers, robots and a whole host of other interesting goodies. The two salons, 'Foucault' and 'Bourdieu' (after the famous French comedy mime duo) hosted a rolling programme of presentations throughout the two days of the conference/festival, and at times seemed to be bursting at the seams. (OK, I'm joking about Foucault and Bourdieu - I know they weren't a duo). Whether the move from the East End to Olynpia is a success will be debated for some time to come, but just about everyone I spoke to agreed that the conceptualisation of the domes was inspired. For me, the National History of Computing Museum dome was a draw, with its display of working BBC B, Master and Archimedes computers, complete with their external floppy disk drives and chunky Microvitec monitors. I was struck with a sense of nostalgia (and duly took two paracetamol) because computers of their ilk were the ones I cut my programmer's teeth on all those years ago in the early 1980s. The entire space for LWF12 was utilised in a creative way, with the main auditorium hedged on three sides by the dome village.

The invited speaker line-up was stellar, including video presentations from Noam Chomsky and Sir Ken Robinson, and live presentations for the likes of Mitch Resnick, Jaron Lanier, Conrad Wolfram, Ellen McArthur, Charles Leadbeater, Keri Facer, Stephen Heppell and Ray Kurzweil. Politicians from both sides of the house (specifically Lord Jim Knight and Culture secretary Ed Vaisey) also put in an appearance on the main stage - but sadly not together. Unfortunately, the close proximity of the arena stage to the open balcony made for a lot of noise problems, as just below was one of the largest learning technology exhibitions since BETT. The constant background drone of conversations rising from below was a little distracting, as was the sharp odour emitting from the freshly painted false walls of the arena, but most people seemed to successfully tune their senses out to concentrate on the presentations.

But it was around and inside the domes that much of the conversations, connections and creativity took place. The domes were a stark contrast to the adjacent conventional exhibition and speaker spaces in the Learning Technologies and Skills Conference, which ran concurrently on both days, a couple of floors above. I will discuss the issues surrounding the juxtapositioning of two of Europe's largest learning conferences in a future post, but for now, it is worth saying that the co-presence of the two events under a single roof brought benefits and limitations in equal measure. The domes were a triumph, the LWF programme was inspirational and GBM and his team have once again has delivered a superbly crafted, memorable, and inspirational event and a clear reference point for revolutionary and disruptive learning futures.

I will write more reports on Learning without Frontiers and also Learning Technologies in future blog posts.

Welcome to the pleasure domes by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dead philosopher society

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Remember the Dead Poets Society? It was a movie starring Robin Williams as a maverick teacher who causes ructions at an ultra-conservative American prep school when he uses his unauthodox methods to engage and inspire his students. It was a heart warming movie, and if you could get past Williams' emetic impersonations, it had a strong message for educators everywhere: dare to take a few risks. The fact that one of William's young charges commits suicide in the film is a bit of a dampener, but there is some interesting underlying philosophy in the screen play. Hmmm... philosophy...

Are you interested in philosophy and have a Twitter account? If the answer to those questions is 'yes', it so happens that Twitter has its own Dead Philosophers Society. Yes, there are famous philosophers on Twitter - alive and tweeting. The accounts are all fake, obviously, but if you want a daily dose of philosophy to make you think, ponder life or something to quote to irritate your friends, colleagues or family, your favourite sage is probably out there somewhere, just waiting for you to follow them. Many of the accounts simply tweet unadulterated quotes from published works or well trodden aphorisms from their late authors, but one or two may engage in dialogue with their followers. Here are a few of Twitter's philosopher accounts I have stumbled across (and occasionally retweeted) in the past few days. Explore for yourself ... and follow whom you will:

Mikhail Bakhtin
Roland Barthes
Pierre Bourdieu (in French)
Gilles Deleuze
Jacques Derrida
Paulo Freire
Ivan Illich
Jacques Lacan
Friedrich Nietzsche
Claude Levi-Strauss
Susan Sontag
Ludwig Wittgenstein

If you know of any other dead philosophers who are still alive and tweeting, and want to recommend them, please add their links in the comments box below.

Image source

Dead philosopher society by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Me or the community?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:26:00 +0000

I started off a discussion this morning on Twitter which had been fermenting for several days since I spoke at Brighton University earlier this week. We were discussing the differences and similarities between Facebook and Twitter. Specifically, we were interested in discussing what each was best for, and whether people found one better than the other for teaching, learning, discussion or socialising. I was wondering whether Twitter was actually more community oriented and outward looking than Facebook, which to me often seems to be more closed down and inward looking. To start, I asked: Facebook is all about 'me'. Twitter is all about community. Discuss.

Will Dayamport made a profound statement right at the start of the discussion when he tweeted: no social platform is a community. they are only vehicles for building a community. This is of course true, in the sense that platforms are tools that facilitate, but are they as neutral as we think? What about affordances of each tool? What do they suggest to us and how do we respond? Next, Frances Bell suggested that all social media have channels and services that host multiple behaviours, so simple dichotomies don't work. While these contributions were helpful, they reach the core of what I was interested in. I was trying to get to the root of the issue, which is whether people see Facebook as a more closed down and private space than Twitter, which I consider to be much more open. Jeffrey Keefer made another valuable comment when he pointed out that although social media platforms facilitate and support, they don't do the work for us. Social media are great tools for building online communities, but how do we use them, and is one tool better than another for a particular purpose?

Because Twitter is open, and you are not required to be 'friends' or have membership of a group to interact with others, I was really asking whether Twitter has the capacity to be more open and community oriented than Facebook. To me, Facebook seems very closed and compartmentalised, and is therefore potentially useful for protected discussions (for example where young people or vulnerable groups need to chat in a walled garden environment) but Twitter opens up chat for all, regardless of their status or relationship with others. Yes, I know that Facebook can be used as an open forum too, as can most social media platforms, but our expectations may militate against this. Is Twitter therefore the best social media tool for open, democratic discourse? Others contributed to this discussion, especially around the notion of digital identity, including Anita Devi who asked whether the 'me' can really exist in a Facebook vacuum. Anne Olsen argued that Twitter is more focused on learning and sharing with a likeminded community. In Facebook, she said, 'friends' don't always share the same interests, so it is more likely to be about 'me' than it is the community. Susan Bannister saw little difference between the two platforms in her own use, revealing that for her (and probably for many other users) although Facebook used to be about family and friends, and Twitter was more focused on work, now the boundaries have become blurred. Nic Laycock agreed, pointing out how complex relationships have become since the inception of social media. Others have managed to maintain their boundaries between the two platforms. Linda Kirkman for example, finds Facebook good to keep in touch with people she knows in real life, and used Twitter mainly for ongoing professional development and support for her post-graduate studies.

What do other people use the tools for? One of my own students Hannah Shelton said that for her Twitter is for sharing thoughts that interest others and help them to build their PLN, whilst Facebook is still about socialising. Malcolm Clarke sees Twitter as an open place of catharsis - somewhere to go where 'you can get it off your chest', whilst Lenandlar Singh suspects that we have come to expect Facebook to be a more private, closed environment. Another of my students, Megan Douglas made an interesting distinction based on what people see the two platforms doing for them personally. She tweeted: Facebook is personal 'what's on your mind?' yet Twitter 'what's happening?' and argued that Twitter brings people with similar interests together. This is after all, what a community is about. People who have shared interests, common purposes and the ability to share their ideas in conversation become the community. I'm still convinced that Facebook is more inward looking, and is more about personal connections, while Twitter is more focused on community, and wider connections, sharing and learning. My colleague Peter Yeomans has some marked views about Twitter and Facebook. Twitter he says, is a bear pit - a speaker's corner where you talk to the world and hope someone listens, whilst Facebook is where you seek approbation from those who like you. Facebook is self-indulgent, he says, but Twitter is altruistic. What do you think?

This is an interesting, wide ranging discussion I hope will continue. Please join in by adding your comments below if you have any.

Image source

Me or the community? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Thinking on your feet

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:35:00 +0000

A woman takes her pet chihuahua with her to Africa on a safari holiday. One day the chihuahua wanders away and gets lost in the bush, and nearly runs right into a huge, hungry looking lion. The chihuahua realises he's in trouble, but, noticing some fresh bones on the ground, he settles down to chew on them, with his back to the big cat. As the lion sneaks up behind, the chihuahua smacks his lips and exclaims loudly, "Wow, that was a delicious lion. I wonder if there are any more around here?" The lion stops mid-stride, and slinks away into the trees. "Phew," says the lion, "that was close - that evil little dog nearly had me."

A monkey nearby sees everything and thinks he'll win a favour by putting the stupid lion straight. The chihuahua sees the monkey go after the lion, and guesses he might be up to no good. When the lion hears the monkey's story he feels angry at being made a fool, and offers the monkey a ride back to see him exact his revenge. The little dog sees them approaching and fears the worst. Thinking quickly, the dog turns his back, pretends not to notice them, and when the pair are within earshot says aloud, "Now where did that monkey get to? I sent him out ages ago to bring me another lion..."

Thinking on your feet means being able to solve problems as they arise. It is one of the key skills of the 21st century, and it's based on previous experiences, the ability to handle unpredictable events and creative thinking. It is the ability to recognise changing conditions and respond appropriately to them. It is the ability to recognise an opportunity and exploit it to your advantage when the time is right. It is also the very reason that Kodak, one of the giants in the photographic industry of the last century, is now in financial difficulty. The company, a pioneer in photography, used to own an unassailable share of the world market, but Kodak failed to adapt to the digital age as quickly as its competitors, and it is now paying the price. It didn't move with the times, and its leadership team didn't learn to think on their feet. Being able to adapt quickly to changing conditions is the stuff entrepreneurs are made of, and this is how young people need to be equipped when they emerge into the world of work. But how can schools, colleges and universities help students to learn these skills?

The recent Head Teacher Update (January 2012), features an article written by Graham Brown-Martin entitled 'What the future holds'. In it, he outlines some of the current limitations of school and critiques the failure of schools to respond quickly enough to the rapid changes currently taking place in society. He demonstrates how video games are the defining art of the 21st Century, but we clearly have to temper this view with the fact that we are only in the second decade of the Century, and with the rapid changes taking place, we can expect other art forms to emerge and even dominate in short periods. For the time being however, Graham is right - the video games industry is now grossing more worldwide than the publishing, music and movies industries combined, and is a defining feature not only of youth culture, but all western culture, because games are incredibly engaging. Graham makes a memorable statement when he declares that when we play games we rapidly solve abstract problems in real time. He points out that game playing often involves continual assessment by peers, and many games rely on teamwork and collaboration. These skills, he argues, are exactly the skills young people require in today's ever shifting world of work. Stanford University professor Elizabeth Corcoran takes a different stance, suggesting that gamification (the art of using games to engage and inspire learning... 'is creating an expectation among people that real-life interactions follow simple mechanics, and some disillusionment when they do not'.

Yet despite such objections, games based learning in all its guises is one of the most powerful methods currently available to engage young people in learning, and facilitate the learning of transferable skills that they will need to help them to think on their feet.

Thinking on your feet by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

10Q: Cathy N. Davidson

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:52:00 +0000

Cathy N. Davidson first flashed on to my radar last year when the Times Higher Education news magazine invited me to review her new book Now You See It. When I read the summary, I remembered that Cathy had been the prime mover in one of the first large scale iPod education projects at Duke University several years before. Then it all clicked. I have to say I enjoyed her book immensely and learnt a lot from reading it. I got paid to do the review and it felt a little like theft, because I would have gladly have paid to read the book for myself. You can read my review here, and I'm delighted to say that since it was published, I have been in touch with Cathy and have enjoyed some interesting conversations with her. She is truly one of the world's visionaries when it comes to rethinking learning, and as one would expect, she is controversial too. Her books, and other projects she has engaged with over the years have all received brickbats as well as bouquets. But that is the nature of innovation. It disrupts, and it discomforts. In today's article, Cathy responds to my 10Q interview questions:

Who are you? I am a lifelong innovator and a lifelong college professor - and if you think those two things are contradictory, you may be right! I've spent my life doing unconventional work, both in the academy and in communities and the workplace, pushing for educational reform. I'm lucky that my home institution, Duke University, has rewarded me for being an iconoclast. For eight years (1998-2006) I was essentially the R and D person for the university, Duke's first full-time Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies (the first anywhere in the US in fact), charged with innovation across all eight schools of the university, and with the delicious mandate to "break things and make things." We made national news with our iPod experiment where we gave students iPods the year they came out and challenged them to come up with educational uses. Steve Jobs was no fool and he got a lot of free R and D out of Duke, where we held the first ever academic "podcasting" (the quotation marks were on the poster) conference. More than that, we created a paradigm shift, since students, not faculty, led the innovation. That's the byword of the kind of educator I strive to be, committed to learning (Kindergarten through the retirement home) that's motivated, engaged, inspired and inspiring.

What and/or who inspires you? So many things inspire me but if I could name one it would be the Open Web. The World Wide Web is not a technology--it is a mode of interaction and communication that potentially empowers any of us to contribute to one another's knowledge and well-being. It is the potential for participation, worldwide, with consequences that are real and palpable, that inspires me. It's not just Wikipedia (although that's inspiring enough) but the whole world of Do-It-Yourself possibilities that are really "Do-It-Together." Of course there are down sides, too, but you asked what "inspires" me, and that's it, the potential of collective change and participation. I like to remind people of historian Robert Darnton's idea that there have really been only four "technologies" in human history that have changed the very terms of how we communicate as a species: writing (4000 BCE Mesopotamia), movable type (10th C China and 15th C Europe with Gutenberg), steam-powered presses/mass printing (late 18th C), and the Internet (commercially available since April 1993 with the release of the Mosaic 1.0 browser). We need to take that in. We are now seeing the first generation to come of age during humanity's fourth great information age. That is inspiring.

Why did you choose to be an educator? Well, it's the last thing anyone would have predicted. I was one of those students who excelled in certain things (mostly certain areas of math and writing), and was pretty abysmal in everything else. I was also in trouble. A lot. At his recent 85th birthday party, my father did a pretty funny stand-up act rehashing all the times I'd been kicked out of school, from kindergarten (really!) to middle school and then four times in high school. It was a set-up because he'd organized the family to create a little plaque for me, honoring my confirmation by the Senate after being nominated by President Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities. ("Our favorite family delinquent" or some such thing). Okay, so there is your answer: I've spent my entire life fighting the standard educational system and just turned that into a profession in the end, one that I've been very fortunate to flourish in. Interestingly, I'm often at gatherings of educational innovators where it turns out we were all in trouble more than once as students--and, as adults, still tend to think we were right.

What did you learn from your iPod experiment at Duke University? It was a bit devious, that was its real charm. We only gave the shiny new Duke-branded iPods "free" to first year students. The second, third, and fourth year students were furious at us. Of course we knew they would be. So we challenged them. We said if they came up with new learning uses for what was in 2003 a "music-listening device," and if they could convince a prof to change a syllabus to include this new learning application in the course, then we would give a free iPod to the professor and every student in that class. Within one semester, we gave away more iPods to students who had come up with these learning applications than we had, without strings, to the first years. That's success! We didn't just come up with R and D for the late Mr. Jobs but we changed the terms of the conversation, acknowledging that the new generation had new technical skills but that their professors had much to offer in thinking not just about technology but about use, IP, safety, security, and on and on. We flipped the learning rules in an important way.

Sadly, we've heard from Apple that the experiment convinced them not to lead their marketing with the idea that a new release of a product was for formal education. They saw that we were creamed in the press and in the other media for this experiment when we announced it - and then there was silence when it was a big success. One Apple executive recently said to me, "You may notice we now talk about life, home, and inspiration - not education in our ads. That was a billion dollar insight, how unfairly Duke was treated, how afraid people, including the media, are of educational innovation." Now, I've heard the next Apple release will be taking on formal education. If that is true, I’d like to think we were the front-runners of that change. Maybe society is finally ready, almost a decade later.

What does brain science contribute to our understanding of how we learn? The pundits are pushing the myth of mono-tasking, and the idea that somehow this era's Internet and mobile technologies violate the otherwise straight, narrow, linear, focused ways we operate in the world. They argue that multitasking is making us inefficient, distracted, shallow, lonely, incapable of reading long or deep works, unable to memorize anything any more. That’s just bad neuroscience, not supported by research that isn't front-loaded to support those conclusions. You look at the research design of 95% of the monotasking research and it is fraught, loaded, unhistorical, selective, and just plain prejudiced. Blaming technology for human distraction isn't anything new. Socrates, after all, said similar things about the invention of the writing (the Greek alphabet and the diacritical mark), and it was all downhill from there.

On the other hand, we have hundreds, even thousands of years, of Eastern traditions devoted to attention and mindfulness. In those traditions, meditation takes place in a quiet room, supposedly isolated from all distracting influence. Instead of mindfulness, the world intrudes. That is what lifelong Buddhist practice is about, and neuroscience supports the Eastern idea that the mind is intrinsically (not extrinsically) susceptible to distraction. The work of Morcom and Fletcher at Cambridge and Raichle at Washington University suggest that 80% of the brain's energy is spent talking to itself, that there is no "baseline" of attention from which the world distracts us.

On the positive side, we know is that the brain learns by unlearning: when we are disrupted, when we make a mistake, we build on that. Habits are efficient, but they also get us into a lot of trouble since we can no longer see what is habitual. I believe in calculated, creative disruption as the single most important ingredient in learning. That’s how you write code, of course. You don’t memorize. You work on it until it works and, when it doesn’t, you figure out what does work.

You had a lot of criticism and praise about your recent book Now You See It. What's the fuss about? I would have been disappointed if no one was angry about the book because it would have meant I wasn’t pushing hard enough for change. (Yes, there’s a pattern here!) One point of the title “Now You See It” is about the phenomenon of attention blindness (in the jargon, “inattentional blindness”) that I discuss as neurobiology and as metaphor: the more you focus in one direction, the more you miss everywhere else. I advocate Learning 3.0, what I call “collaboration by difference,” where we learn best not from experts but by those who offer radically different points of view, including opposite forms of expertise (training, culture, age, experiences, all of the above).

The other point of Now You See It as a title is it strives for a major paradigm shift. If Frederick Winslow Taylor stamped the whole 20th century with “scientific labor management” that, I argue, was turned by the educational-industrial complex into “scientific learning management” that trained an Industrial Age way of learning and working, I wrote Now You See It for a similar transformation in the ways we measure, collaborate, learn, work, and, indeed, live. If you are aiming that high - for a reversal of a century’s worth of deciding what counts, what is valued, how you count, and who decides what counts - not everyone will love you. That said, I am so fortunate: I have given 41 invited lectures since September 7, all of them by institutions that are seeking to transform their methods for “humanity’s fourth great information age.” I can’t begin to accept all the invitations I receive. It is so gratifying and, yes, inspiring to know that many institutions are already moving in this direction. It’s not just me but a worldwide movement towards rethinking education for the 21st century. I see that in the HASTAC Scholars, the graduate and undergraduate students who are part of the nonprofit I co-founded, HASTAC, that is dedicated, as we say, to “learning the future together.”

You asked earlier what inspires me. This is what inspires me: all these millions of people around the world whose lives have changed since April 1993 and who now want to change the institutions of work and learning for this new way we all communicate and interact.

What interesting projects or research are you currently working on? Now You See It is a big book with an even bigger vision of how we need to transform not just education but also the workplace and the way we view our lives, from infancy to old age. I now want to do a series of small, focused Now You Do It books that are more activist in nature, that have url’s to lots of ordinary people who “see it” and are doing remarkable things to make a new interconnected vision happen. So I’ve been talking to a graphic novelist about a comics version, maybe even a YA version, intended for students, college and high school. I’m also interested in a book specifically for K-12 teachers and for parents explaining and giving possible, diverse blueprints for my idea that the “3 R’s” (reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic) were right for the 19th century schoolroom that was training people for the industrial workplace - but now we need to add a fourth R (pRogramming or algorithm ...you choose the ‘R’ word!). I’m convinced that if five year olds learned programming along with fundamental digital literacies, responsibilities, and possibilities that they would fight to keep the Web open. They would see themselves as contributors, not just consumers. And the Industrial Age division of the “two cultures” (with human and social sciences and the arts on one side of the equation and science and technology on the other) would be shown to be as nonsensical as, in everyday life, it is. The Web is a technology of life. But if we let others program it, if we aren’t participating and contributing, then we are being technologized. As Douglas Rushkoff says, “program or be programmed.”

Finally, it really bothers me that so many open Web tech gatherings I attend are almost entirely white, middle-class guys. You can’t have a truly diverse, open technology created by a homogenous group of creators. If everyone learned programming, you’d be learning a think-as-you-do method, a social method, a technology that was also about multimedia representation (the arts), and that would have profound social implications for a diverse future, with developers thinking of ways to reach an audience that was more diverse in every way.

If you could go back in time and do one thing differently, what would you change? I actually don’t like the idea of going “back in time and doing differently.” I want to go forward in time and do it differently! This year, for example, I’m learning how to draw again. I thought at one point in life that I wanted to be an artist but hadn’t drawn anything since college art classes. I love it. I’ve also taken an online writing course to see how those actually work. And want to take a TechCrunch coding course online since I definitely need a refresher course.

What changes in education would you like to see? Get rid of the tyranny of standardized testing. It was invented in 1914, to be as fast and efficient as the assembly line that turned out Model Ts, to deal with a teacher shortage in World War I. It never was meant to be for more than, to quote Frederick Kelly who created the test, to test “lower order thinking” for the masses. It’s the tail wagging the learning dog. Thank goodness for Finland and for a totally different model of thinking about learning that, ironically, turns out to test #1 in the world according to the OECD, even though their Dewey-esque learn-then-do system, with its emphasis on equality not excellence, bans standardized testing in classrooms. I see Pasi Sahlberg as a fellow traveler and recommend his Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?

What's the most important advice you can give to educators? Focus on inspiring learning, not on test scores. Listen to your students. Don’t worry about expensive technology—worry about thinking about the way kids live and work today and how students, at any age, can be prepared for a world where, according to one study, 65% of 15-year-olds will end up in careers not invented yet, and will change careers (not jobs but careers) 4-6 times in the course of their lives. Teach for disruption. And teach disruptively. That’s the key.

Image courtesy of Cathy N. Davidson

10Q: Cathy Davidson by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Pelecon flies again

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Wheeler) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:18:00 +0000

We have enjoyed 6 successful e-learning conferences in Plymouth over the past decade. In recent years, the Plymouth e-Learning Conference (or PeLC) has grown from a small local one day teacher conference, into a large, international 3 day event which showcases the very best and latest in digital pedagogies. Over the years, we have welcomed a galaxy of world class keynote speakers, such as Stephen Molyneaux, Gilly Salmon, Josie Fraser, Stephen Heppell, Sherry Terrell, David White, John Davitt, Graham Attwell, Mike Blamires, Jane Seale and Mark Stiles.

Other who have presented papers and workshops at the event over the years have included James Clay, Miles Berry, Shirley Williams, Pat Parslow, Helen Keegan, Malinka Ivanova, Neil Witt, Carmen Holotescu, Mike Phillips, Doug Dickinson, Craig Taylor, Matt Lingard, Lyndsay Jordan, Bex Lewis, Andy Ramsden, Dan Roberts, Thomas Fischer, Doug Belshaw, Catherine Cronin, Richard Hall, Sharon Flynn, Mark Childs, Fiona Concannon, Thomas Kretschmer and far too many others to list here on this blog. We have also welcomed many student presenters over the years, and showcased our own Plymouth University robotic football team and vision immersion theatre. Most delegates who have attended will tell you that Pelecon is an exciting and inspiring conference at many levels.

The 2012 Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference (yes we replaced 'electronic' for 'enhanced' last year to reflect the shift in emphasis from tools to pedagogies) is number 7 in the series, and has been rebranded with a new logo and new website. This year's lineup of invited speakers is bigger than ever, as you can see from the picture above. Our four keynotes are Jane Hart, Alec Couros, Keri Facer and Simon Finch, and for the first time this year we also have 3 spotlight speakers in Leigh Graves Wolf, David Mitchell and Helen Keegan. Once again we are planning an evening Teachmeet, Student Voice Showcase and other shows that run parallel with the conference. One of our new ideas is to have a 'Failure Confessional' where we talk about what went wrong, and all learn from our mistakes. We also take over exclusive occupancy of the famous Glassblowing House restaurant on Plymouth's historic Barbican seafront for our social event on the second night of the conference. Many people have said that Pelecon is one of the friendliest conferences of its type, and this year's event will be no exception. With its idyllic setting 'twixt moorland and sea, wonderful weather (we have excellent connections) and the famous Devon cream tea (calorie free), what better place could you spend your time between 18-20 April this year? Full cost for the entire three day event is just £200. We hope to see you at Pelecon this year!

Visit the Pelecon website for further details.

Fishing boat image by Jose Luis Garcia

The Pelecon flies again by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.