Better Late Than Never

I've been spending some time organising my digital paraphernalia over this Christmas break and freely admit to missing some of the forum action from the PLENK2010 course. Revisited some of the blogs of some of the participants and stumbled across a video on succeeding in a MOOC by Dave Cormier which also generated some discussion about the entire concept of the PLE/PLN phenomena. I'm not convinced either way at the moment, but there is no doubt that the PLENK course was the best professional development I've experienced in many years - I'm still exploring leads and refining ideas generated through my participation and am loving the journey.

Using PLE/Ns effectively: skills, mindsets, and critical literacies

Apple, Orange Or A Real 'Lemon' ? 

The focus has shifted to the skills needed to ensure success within PLE/Ns. What impact does literacy have on a learner's ability to not only function, but flourish in a digital world ? George Siemens believes that being literate requires technical skills, conceptual mindsets, as well as an attitude of tolerance of complexity and ambiguity.

  
A bit of fun - an online tolerance of ambiguity test. Additionally, an interesting study which explains that 'personality and tolerance of ambiguity' are also referred to as language ego, ego boundaries, or cognitive flexibility (Guiora,1981; Ehrman, 1993)It seems that various studies have shown that learners who can tolerate moderate levels of ambiguity are more likely to persist in language learning.

As I see it, the greatest hindrance to comparing theories is that there is no universally accepted definition of any of them. As with the PLN/PLE debate, it appears to boil down to 'scholarly' opinion. And what is quite unnerving to the student, if 'academics' disagree after studying a theory in great depth, what sense of clarity are the 'others' expected to achieve.
 

Firstly why do so many theories begin with "C" ? If I was going to submit a theory at some stage, I certainly wouldn't give it a title which began with "C". Connectivism, Constructivism, Constructionism, Cognitivism. Perhaps something with "Z" or "X" would make it easier to remember. However I can't think of one which suits so I'll go with the 'C' bandwagon and suggest 'Complexitism'. Humans are too complex to be pigeonholed according to any criteria which has a cognitive functioning component. If its so clear, why so varied ? 

Theories have their place - I enjoy reading about them, however I act according to my intuitive barometer. Their value lies in facilitating discussion and refinement of strategies which is the toolbox of the educator.I don't rally behind the banner of any one exclusively. Our ability as educators to critically evaluate learning theories is limited to a great extent by the degree of 'at the chalkface' experience. I look to my experience over 35 years of teaching and modify my approach according to my analysis of learner needs. I believe there are disadvantages in attaching pedagogical practice to the bandwagon of any one theory. Experience is the most humbling of teachers. If one accepts the concept of 'individual differences' there can be no justification in placing 'all the eggs in one basket'.

The Executive Summary of the 1990 Delphi Report from the American Philosophical Association (Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction) states:

The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair- minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal.

Daunting task for both educators and students ! I expect a highly evolved, well balanced personality would be a good place to start. Hands up all those who have evolved thus far ? My hands shall stay by my side for now !

Evaluating Learning in PLE/Ns

 WHO DOES IT, HOW DO THEY DO IT, AND IS IT WORTH DOING ?

Assessment and learner evaluation presents a probem similar to that which exists between hard and soft systems:
Apparently, hard processes = learning management systems and standardized testing  ans soft systems = no clear way to ascertain the quality or depth of learning. Therefore it doesn't require an extraordinary leap of faith to assume that an effective system of learning would maintain a balance between hard processes, soft processes and technologies which would reflect the needs within a particular context.

My focus therefore is to explore "how do we measure what matters, and, to whom does what we measure matter? 

There's been much discussion about the differences between testing, evaluating and assessing. The terms appear to frequently be used interchangeably. As I understand it, testing applies to assessments which have definitive yes/no answers e.g yes/no and multiple choice tests. Evaluation enters into a greyer area where judgements are made by the evaluator. For example, a teacher may use testing to identify  a students understanding of mathematical processes, however taken into account would be their daily interactions, conditions at the time ongoing assessments

Reading Keith Hamons post generated a new perspective for me.

All statements about any student are provisional. "This is John, an exemplary A student, and this is Mary, a problematic F student" are both provisional, and do not say all that can be said or measured about either John or Mary or about ourselves for measuring and saying such things. That to teach any thing, we must define that thing, but our definitions are always provisional, always subject to change, usually sooner rather than later.

I'd not really thought about it in this way before. I had of course considered the element of subjectivity with respect to many forms of assessment. However, the pigeonholing of a student can have great impact on not only future learning but on life. Many students are hamstrung by low expectations formulated by uninformed educators. While tests can generate a peer comparative 'score' and are situational, the evaluation of attitude and values is completely subjective and can be more reflective of the personality dynamics existing between teacher and student. There  is a real danger of students only living up to what appears to be expected of them.


Additionally:

"Our educational systems are overwhelmingly informed with the myth of the individual. Our testing regimes, grading regimes, pedagogies, epistemologies, and learning theories are all based on the individual, ignoring the role of the network or rhizome, in the creation and management of knowledge"

I have observed that the vocal MOOC contibutors are comfortable pursuing their own leads which supplement the course readings and generate discussion. Consulting the course agenda in order to guide thinking processes has been helpful and to see how the topics relate to one another - a learning destination.

In my field of primary education, diagnostic testing prior to the commencement of a unit represents a gauge of sorts. The comparison of diagnostic and summative assessment results represents a yardstick. Formative assessment is also often included which allows for an ongoing evaluation of both student progress and pedagogical effectiveness. The program is 'supposedly' dynamic, continually revised for maximum productivity.Hmmmm......

With a MOOC, the strengths and weaknesses of the guinea pigs are unknown, and the facilitators are unfamiliar with the learners' normal learning paradigm, so perhaps the best assessor of learning in this case would be the learners themselves. If the MOOC were to re-create a 'traditional' pedagogical stance with facilitator as imparter of knowledge, I would doubt its effectiveness, however this has not been the case and I would suggest that the only form of attempted manipulation appears to have come from a small minority of participants with a personal agenda.

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-teaching-challenge-creating-an-emotional-connection-to-learning-part-1/

September 28, 2010

Rob Kelly offers an interesting perspective in  Online Teaching Challenge: Creating an Emotional Connection to Learning, part 1  He states that learning research indicates that people learn better in the presence of some emotional connection — to either the content or to other people, however he agrees that the creation of this emotional connection is particularly challenging in the online classroom, where most communication is asynchronous and lacks many of the emotional cues of the face-to-face environment.

Rick Van Sant, associate professor of education at Ferris State University agrees that :

“One of the things we know about learning is that learning with emotion is a far deeper experience than learning without emotion,” 

Van Sant uses the site www.ted.org/ in his courses (Technology, Entertainment, Design) This features top presenters talking about a diverse offering of topics. Van Sant believes that technology provides access to a vast array of content which possesses the potential to resonate emotionally with students in this way, however he sees barriers in the delayed response time, not being able to respond in the moment to engaging content. 

He regrets the loss of many teahcable moments
In a typical online learning environment, students react and post to a discussion board or blog and wait for a response. “I think it’s one of the downsides of asynchronous learning. You lose that opportunity for the teachable moment,” Van Sant says. “There are many positive aspects to online learning, such as thoughtful reflection. One of the things I see, the students who do not often volunteer or engage in on-the-fly discussion in a face-to-face classroom will turn around in an online environment and become significant discussants. Not that they’re lazy in the classroom; they just don’t process information on the fly quite like somebody else.”

“The goal isn’t to cater to all eight individual multiple intelligences. It’s about providing, over the range of a course, the opportunity for people to learn and express their learning within their strengths and not always have to operate within their deficits. To do that, you need variety. You need redundancy. You need multiplicity. You need different ways of sharing and knowing. … What happens here is working in a much richer environment. It is a challenge for us to understand that in this rich environment we’ve got to become masters of that domain.” 

Rob Kelly, Online Education, Online Teaching Challenge: Creating an Emotional Connection to Learning, part 2,September 30, 2010

 With online learning being a relatively new medium the jury will be out for some time yet as to the effectiveness of this type of study, particularly in a largely unstructured course such as a MOOC. From what I have read and heard, the main features essential to good practice seem to be: dialogue(both sunchronous and asynchronous); learner commitment; facilitator support and a strong degree of learner autonomy.This autonomy impacts on, and is impacted by, time management, content choices, pace, interface navigation and assessment.
Perhaps all indications lead to rethinking our notion of 'individual' as a discreet individual to the notion of a Janus like personality, two pronged, a mashup of a unique humaneness and a network rhizome !

The Way Forward - PLE or LMS

Is This A Dagger I See Before Me?

I question whether the battle of the acronyms need really be as fierce as it's made out to be. Perhaps a productive method of contrasting the two systems is to look at the deficiencies of each and then offer some possible strategies for circumventing any threats to the learner's acquisition of knowledge. I stumbled upon Graham Attwell's presentation which questions the 'ostrich' reaction of educational institutions to the whole concept of social networking.

Personal Learning Environments

Buzan's comparison of the brain to a Swiss army knife had me thinking "what a wonderful analogy to use for a PLE", however, having read Mohamed Amine Chatti's post I agree that his perception of the PLE as Toolbox and the LMS as Swiss knife is much closer to the truth as I now see it.

Similar to the knife the LMS may be limited and constrained by its structure while the PLE functions unrestrained. The reference to tools and resources is so frequently uttered when referring to PLEs however I'd never linked the image with the concept before.

It has become abundantly clear to me that the crux of the matter is teacher education beginning at the very core - pre service. There is limited value in parrotting back the readings or taking sides in the battle of the acronyms if the horse has already bolted. This happens to be my personal Soapbox. It has been mentioned in many arenas that there exists a certain academic snobbishness displayed towards the PLE. This is most likely generated by a sense of self preservation due to a lack of academic proficiency with many technological tools, and I would further suggest a disinclination for changing the status quo. It wouldn't serve for the masters to appear lacking !

Sarah Cunnane's 'Times Higher Education' article- "Students Let Down By The Academic Luddites" declares that the use of technology in higher education is becoming both political and academic, while the Office of Educational Technology,is calling for "revolutionary transformation rather than evolutionary tinkering" in the field. What concerns me most in the pie charts is the percentage of faculty who had never heard of blogs, LMSs, virtual worlds or plagiarism detection tools.

The article reinforces my belief that the complacency in the education sector stains all levels.

In Jonathan Mott's article Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network he suggests that the very diversity of PLEs and PLNs has limited their implementation on an institutional level, however showcases Brigham Young University's development and deployment of an Open Learning Network (yet another acronym I fear) compromise which Mott believes would embrace:

".....both the efficiencies of the LMS and the affordances of the PLN, rejecting the "tyranny of OR" in favor of the "genius of AND....." 

I came across Jane Hart's post - The Future Of The LMS late in the course and although thought provoking as usual, there seems to be continuing debate and diverse opinions about the validity and future of the LMS. The main bone of contention appears to be the increasing role of social media in learning and the opinion of some 'academics' that informal learning will never compete with formal learning. Intellectual snobbery I would say, and an example of ostrich mentality.

An update on the LMS scenario with Jane Hart's post "Where are you on the LMS adoption curve?" dated November 27, 2010. What I really find absorbing is the comments associated with high value blogs. RSS feeds don't really work for me-the data flows in. I prefer to trowel the few blogs I've shortlisted due to the amount of interaction they engender and rely on serendipity. If I miss out on anything of vital importance I'm sure it will findme via another medium.


#PLENK2010

PLEs - What A Mashup !

'PLE' As I Understand It ( for now)

The squirrel has decided to store the nuts she has gathered, go with her instincts and listen to the inner voice, constructing some illuminations of her own. The urge to blow raspberries at dogs is already waning.

Julie Collareda's Personalised Learning Environments (PLEs) Wiki  documents that there is no 

 "....one size fits all' PLE solution for either student or teacher, if personalised learning is to be enabled. Individuals are now clamouring to design their own personalised space where they can access favourite sites, feeds, bookmarks and other generative tools......"  

The learner develops their own arsenal of tools as their needs are identified and refined and technical proficiency with each tool develops.The degree of learner autonomy within an environment is dependent on whether the personalisation has been engineered by the learner or by an external agent, as in an MLE. 

As learners, we use tools to facilitate the learning process. As far as I can ascertain, the PLE is a real Mashup a mix of people, services, artefacts, digital and non digital resources which foster the construction of knowledge in a learner. A positive PLE, its construction and maintenance is a crucial component of the learning process. Therefore PLEs are environments in which individual learners, or groups of learners represent a trend towards personalised social learning, an alternative to MLEs. 

I loved Jennifer Chesney's creative 'intuitive' interpretation as a PIM (personal intuitive map).It strongly reinforces my belief that we will achieve no ' one size fits all ' solution to the PLE/PLN debate or format, even with respect to the terminology used, because of basic learning preferences or styles. 

 image credit: Bill Browning: http://www.mnispi.org/cartoon/2001/index.htm

Richard Felder’s advice on how to address the spectrum of learning styles should provide food for thought to any educator, any learner for that matter.

At last-found a post today which makes complete sense to me. When reading Steve Wheeler's blog today I experienced so many 'Eureka' moments I thought I maybe able to take out a loan.

".....We propose a hybrid approach. Essentially, we argue that students require structure and scaffolding when they first venture into digital learning environments. No-one is a digital native (yay, the voice of reality), no matter how much the Prensky theory is talked up. Yet the average institutional Managed Learning Environment is by nature dull, uninspiring and difficult to navigate(Amen to that). Web 2.0 tools (Cloud Learning Environment) are more attractive, easier to use and free, but are unprotected and vulnerable (particularly for the K-6 age group who are my students). Further, the content sent to the application ends up becoming the 'property' of the Internet company and is difficult to delete, a target for data mining. Whilst CLEs will not fully address all of the tensions between iMLEs and PLEs, we argue that they provide a tentative bridge to provide the best of both worlds in terms of affordances and interoperability....."

Associate Professor Steve Wheeler, Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth

 

 The diagrams were clear simple and exactly what I'd been envisaging after hours and hours of contemplation. The 'something not quite right' feeling I'd had at the outset of all this PLE/PLN debate was quieted.

Two great graphic organisers as well - this was almost too much !!!! 

 

 

 Clear, succinct, minimal jargon (no headaches) However I'm not sure Tony Buzan would approve of the straight lines !

Thank you Steve

The PLN/PLE differences debate loses impact for me once the PLN is viewed as a component of a healthy professional PLE. Now some prefer to view the PLE as a component of the PLN, however either view just as clearly reinforces the symbiotic connection. 

 

'One size does not fit all' in either approach or medium as far as I'm concerned. None of us learns inside a vaccuum, and the opportunity to function according to a preferred learning style can be a powerful aphrodisiac for the self directed learner. With this 'combination' PLN/PLE model the focus is not moved away from the collective social learners, but provides a balance between individual and collective needs, thereby satisfying both camps.

#PLENK2010