Archive for July 20th, 2008

New Media and Education


My colleagues and I have begun to conduct fairly open-ended experiments with various social networking platforms.  Personally speaking it’s been a very rewarding experience, because among other things the research dynamic has been much different when approaching emerging technology as a group as opposed to an individual (which I have largely done in the past).  It’s that much easier to evaluate the social elements and discursive potential that way.

Not surprisingly, as a result several of us have also begun to engage in more in depth discussions on the relevance and/or place of new media (a.k.a. social software, web 2.0, etcetera) to education.  With each of us coming from a slightly different perspective on the topic, we’ve had some very lively and insightful conversations.

The thread I’ve gotten the most out of began as a series of questions my colleague posed regarding how to approach emerging technology from our standpoint as a central unit, as well as what place it serves.  Ultimately I think all who participated came out feeling energised about the possibilities.

Personally I have a tremendous interest in exploring the discussion further, and would like to expand the topic to include other participants.  It seems to me this is a very relevant and contemporary topic in education that deserves adequate attention.

As such I’d like to quote my response in its entirety, along with the questions to which I’m responding (listed in bold).  If you have thoughts or opinions on this please post a comment.

First off I think this Educause paper would be quite relevant here:

Web 2.0, Personal Learning Environments, and the Future of Learning Management Systems

Please note: you need an account to download it.

Now on to the response.

The question is do we or don’t we promote, support, use web 2? How can we not?

To be sacriligeous for a moment, I don’t think the issue of support should come into the conversation for quite some time. We’re dealing with a brand new realm of onine learning in many regards, and to a large degree this will require a formulating a brand new approach not to just support, but the whole notion of instruction, teaching, and the fundamental role of the educator.

I think there are tremendous opportunities in the distributed and highly personalised technologies that characterise new media, but we need to figure out what these opportunities are first. I think that’s got to be the first port of call; to start asking questions like:

  • How can we capitalise on these technologies?
  • What can they enable learners to do that they couldn’t do before?
  • How can we facilitate their learning experiences while ensuring our mandates are accounted for?
  • What opportunities for educators exist that didn’t exist before?

Basically to look at the potential and the opportunities, and really think blue sky at first; and only then start coming back to earth to consider what the requirements would/will be to make this happen.

If we didn’t what would happen?

I think to a fair degree the usage we’re seeing of Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg. A quick search for the UNSW network indicates there are 14,000 people in the network. Given Facebook requires an @unsw email address to join uni-specific networks, it would seem that these account holders are all from UNSW.

To me this is a sure sign that students (and staff as well) have begun to engage with one another on distributed sites. Importantly much of this activity is happening unbeknownst to us - as if there is a shadow learning system developing just under our noses that we’re not a part of. So you might argue that learners have begun to embrace this new paradigm and are marching ahead without the rest of us.

If this is the case, and we don’t start to incorporate new media in the classrooms this trend is likely to continue and the divide betwee old and new paradigms will continue - if not worsen.

If we’re going to engage with new students, surely we need to start approaching the notion of learning and engagement in a way that’s familiar to them.

if we did what would happen?

I think it goes without saying that if we did start to promote, use and support web 2.0 it would be met with fierce resistance from certain segments of the academic populus - particularly the traditionalists.

Almost certainly there will be instructors/educators who flat out refuse to use these technologies and continue to do things the way they always have. There’s nothing we can do about that - but having said that I think there is a place for that sort of instruction. After all, surely not all students will prefer to learn in the new paradigm, and will like the traditionalistic lecture formats?

Should we promote them as part of a students PLE (personal learning environment). Is PLE even a valid concept? If not as part of a PLE then are they simply social tools? Do they have valid relevance to educational outcomes? What will the average academic make out of all of this? Are they ready? Maybe they are already using them?

I think broaching the whole notion of the PLE is going to require substantial cultural change, because as I said it requires a fundamental shift in perception on the role of the learner, the instructor, and the institution. Realistically I don’t think the dust has settled on the whole idea of the PLE yet, but I personally see tremendous value in it for certain segments of the population. Namely learners that prefer self-directed learning and exploration.

Having said that I don’t think that all students fit into this category though, which is where the challenge lay - both logistically and culturally.

Even if academics are open to the idea of the PLE, the opportunities will need to continue to exist for those learners who prefer more traditional instruction. So how do you find the common ground? That, I think, is why so much cultural change and discussion will be required.

RE: Educational outcomes. This is a universal issue I think, and not isolated to new media. Ultimately the technical frameworks are just programs without adequate consideration to how they’ll be implemented. We’ve seen this with Vista too. If instructors don’t place any consideration on how the tech can facilitate learning it won’t amount to much and you won’t see much of any learning taking place, nor educational outcomes achieved.

As to the question of whether they’re just tools, at the end of the day blogs, wikis (etc) will empower educators and learners far more than previous technologies did because control of the environments is in their hands. So even if no cultural change occurred I think there would - to a degree - still be value in increasing awareness on the technical side of things.

What would a course look like that relied solely on such tools?

Certainly courses like this exist, and I’m constantly on the lookout for how they “organise” (I use the term loosely) and address distributed systems. George Siemens and Stephen Downes’ connectivism course will be a valuable example of this I think, because that’s exactly what they’ll be doing.

Can they be integrated with the central LMS or used in conjunction with it or is the LMS simply dated?

Speaking frankly for a moment, I’m really not fond of the LMS and have an intense aversion to the idea of the “management of learning.” Then again I’m on the bleeding edge of all this stuff and consider personal freedom to explore, discover, and set my own learning goals to be of the utmost importance.

That said, I think the LMS still has a place in education - because it almost certainly still appeals to certain learners. Not everybody is as educationally anarchic and fiercly independant as I am, and it would be just as unfair to force a PLE on them as it would be to force the LMS on a self-directed learner.

To a large degree I think the role of the LMS is destined to change in the new paradigm. As the educause article suggests, the notion of a fully distributed system can be a bit dangerous - particularly when it’s based on environments that are outside the uni network and don’t have the same vested interests in preservation of student data as we do.

Additionally, not everyone is fully across the tech as much as we are - so having a portal through which learners can natigate to the various environments and which locally stores their content would be incredibly valuable. I think the LMS (or something like eLIMS) could offer that sort of functionality.

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Back to School



Back to school
Originally uploaded by Avolore

I haven’t been in school in ten years (almost to the day in fact - I graduated from uni in June 1998), and a whole lot has happened since then - personally, professionally, and indeed to learning and education as we know it.

In 1998 I was in a completely different space, both figuratively, educationally, and geographically. I studied economics at California State University, Fullerton, and lived in in a tiny studio apartment in Long Beach across the street from the VA Hospital. At my uni in those days online learning was not something I ever ran across. In fact I recall my amazement the one and only time an instructor announced they had made their lecture materials available online. “What a gimmick” I thought - and promptly never visited the site. (Perhaps not coincidentally I don’t recall doing very well in the course.)

Now I live in another country 10,000 kilometres away, in a village surrounded by a national park; I research educational and emerging technology at the University of New South Wales and spend virtually every waking moment interacting with technology. A whole lot of change, growth, personal and professional development have taken place since then; however one thing has remained unchanged, and that’s my thirst for learning - and if anything, this has intensified, not diminished.

I’ve definitely grown to thrive in a world of self-directed learning (much of what I do today is in fact a direct result of inquisitive exploration and self-directed investigation); however I’ve also looked for the opportunity to sink my teeth into something (slightly) more formalised. Recently I’ve run across two very unique and fascinating courses - Connectivism and Connective Knowledge out of the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba, and Facilitating Online Communities out of Otago Polytechnic.

From their respective sites:

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge - will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.”

Facilitating Online Communities

This course has been developed by staff in the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic and is designed to help both formal and informal learners access and interpret models, research and professional dialog in the facilitation of online communities. After completing this course people should be confident in facilitating online and/or be able to critique and offer advice to other people in the facilitation of online communities.”

In keeping with the theme of cultural or generational change, both courses are fully online, open for informal participants and cover the use of emerging technologies. Interestingly, their perspectives on the use of emerging technology to support learning and teaching are quite different (one highly theoretical, one much more practical), so I’m anticipating some very valuable contrasts and equally thought-provoking conversations. From personal, academic, and career perspectives, I’m really looking forward to what lay ahead.

As far as what this means here, both courses contain writing elements and I will be using this blog to present my thoughts/assignments. It will be fascinating to participate in an online course as a learner for a change - not just from the standpoint of the main learning experience, but also in the opportunity to observe how the course is facilitated (or perhaps unfacilitated as the case may be), how the technologies are actually used, and what the results are (both positive and otherwise). Overall I’m expecting to walk away with some very valuable insight. So you can expect a much different vein of discussion here up through December - and hopefully after that as well.

Sunday, July 20th, 2008