Collective Learning - My Learning #change11

Wow!

Second post in one day!

At last I have found time to participate in the MOOC ~ Change11.  Where to start?  To be honest, my brain hurts!  My initial response is to shut down the computer and go get a gin and tonic rather than blog a poorly drafted narrative of my learning experience.  However, I ask my students to take the time to reflect upon their learning because of the value it offers in making meaning, so feel I should practice what I preach.

I had an initial goal for this MOOC to understand the tools required for this type of learning.  I'm fast realising that, although I know very little about the tools, the technology is probably the least of my concerns.  I seem to be on a journey of discovery in understanding about how we might best learn  in a digital context and whether or not we need new skills in order to do so.  I think that the skills required are more than just those of technological confidence and expertise.

I started today with Allison Littlejohn's presentation on connected knowledge and collective learning.  Interesting slides and use of Banksy's graffiti to support the themes discussed.  The topic addressed how we might respond to the increasingly complex problems that we face in the world by harnessing knowledge which is becoming increasingly distributed.  My understanding is that the process by which we may do this is through 'charting'.  I found that this concept linked to my growing awareness of PLEs (personal learning environments) and wondered if charting would be a useful term to describe the process we need to engage with to effectively navigate our unique PLE which can include so many different artifacts and tools and people.  I also thought it was an interesting model of learning that could be explicitly applied to workplace learning and would help to moderate across issues of agency and structure and expansive and restrictive learning environments. 

However, off I went after the presentation.  Exploring her citations.  Firstly John Seely Brown.  Well what can I say?  Started with Minds on Fire and then in typical digital fashion became immersed in his world.  His bio; his videos; further papers.  Inspirational! Fascinated by the concept of learning to be and becoming and how this might be one of the requirements of Heutagogy - a term I blogged about the other day!

Then I start to think about Chris Anderson's long tail stuff because JSB referred to this in an educational context.

Then back to Allison and another citation, this time from Valjataga & Fiedler 2009 about the greater responsibility of students now on selecting, using and managing knowledge.

Then, in this cognitive swirl, the constant background murmur of participation.  JSB talks about how group work is so significant in successful learning.  Allison also discusses participation and here I am, on my own in this miasma.  I'll go participate.  So - I find a blog listed on the Change11 newsletter from opendistanceteachingandlearning; Paul Prinslo.  Very considered and insightful response - throws a whole fresh light on the matter.  Issues of power in all these relationships and participation.  Of course, to participate requires ..... what?  If collective learning requires participation how can this be supported in ways in which we would recognise and value in universities?  In my organisation colleagues can get really sniffy about Wikipedia.  So, way to go!

As I don't feel I could provide a response to Paul that would give his blog enough credit I refrain from making contact.  Opportunity missed perhaps?

Think I'll follow Paul on Twitter, if I can find him.
Think I'll follow JSB
Maybe Allison

For now, time for the gin and tonic haha!

Apple, Education and Me!

Today I woke up to the death of Steve Jobs and finding myself feeling sad wanted to explore my relationship to a man I have never met and know so little about.

It is sad that he was only 56 and sad that the world that I inhabit now is without his particular genius.  Sad, but equalising, to realise that no amount of wealth can stop the march of terminal illness.

My history with Apple started quite a few years ago.  In 1983 I was working for a small Apple dealership in Great Portland Street in central London.  The company wrote software as well as selling Apple computers.  It was hidden in a street with lots of fashion houses with windows on the ground floor and my desk was tucked away in one of the upper floors of a nondescript building.  On my desk would either be an Apple 3; Apple 2; or Apple 2e - anyone remember these?  

I was in charge of the training team and remember clearly the day when I realised that the desk top computer was going to take over office life.  At that time, many offices had dedicated machines for different types of work, i.e. the word processor.  In fact, I had previously worked with an organisation that handled recruitment and training for word processor staff.  We had a huge room filled with all the then well known names: Wang; Philips; IBM Display writer; AES Plus; to name a few. It was, at the time, part of an office revolution. However, sitting at my desk and putting in disks to change the operation on my desk top computer, i.e. Apple writer or Word Star for typing and Visicalc for spread sheets I realised the economic and practical implications of having one machine to do everything.  Mind you, doing tasks like mail merge were not so straightforward and you really needed a fair amount of MS DOS in order to get the desktop computer to be as flexible as you needed.  What a long time ago!

Not long after this I decided to start a family and took a career break in what might have been the worst time (technologically speaking) for my career.  When I returned, a few years later my skills were redundant and all anybody was talking about was Windows.  It's been a long time since then and now, and what I perceive to be my return to Apple, thanks to Steve Jobs.

I am no techie, so am arguably part of the majority of the world.  So what happened? 

My mobile phone is what happened.  Specifically - my Apple iPhone which I got last March - prompted by a student of mine who was so enthusiastic and wanted to show me how she was using it for her study.  The scales fell from my eyes during her tutorial with me. Prior to this I was one of the old folk!  As long as my mobile phone could make phone calls and send a text - that was ample technology thank you.  My husband would drag me to the mobile phone shops at times of upgrade and quite frankly - it all left me cold.  Since my iPhone, this has all changed; I now have the world in the palm of my hand and I am absolutely inspired by the wonder of the technology and the implications that it has for education.  I now yearn for an iPad and covet the ones that my students bring in to their classes.  I fear I may turn into an iPad Gollum!

I know that there are interesting tensions between Apple's closed-locked systems and Google's open ones that have implications for how education develops, but today my respect, admiration and appreciation go out to the late but great Steve Jobs.     Thank you, you will be dearly missed.

Heutagogy - the art of self determined and directed learning #change11

I have discovered the term heutagogy!  Introduced in 2000 by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon,  whilst at Southern Cross University in Australia, it is the art of self determined learning.   Hase & Kenyon 2000

Whilst of interest to me as a learning facilitator for adults, it has struck me as being most useful in helping to comprehend the type of learning which is required for a MOOC #change11. 

The term needs to be understood in relation to pedagogy which is the art of educating/leading children; and andragogy, the term defined by Malcolm Knowles to signify how adults learn differently to children.  Whilst I have found the term andragogy useful for perceiving adult learners as self directed,  the term heutagogy, which harnesses the implications of complexity theory to learning, has helped me to consider how learning might occur when the teacher or educator simply provides the resources and the learner negotiates their own learning journey.  Most learning environments now require the skills to navigate a way through the information explosion that is defining the 21st century and a Massive Online Open Course is a perfect example.

When I consider my experience to date on this MOOC I would argue that the most challenging aspect is the need to develop the learning skills required when responding to a complex learning environment or system.  However, I am not sure what those skills are yet.  I thought initially that it was the technology that I needed to get to grips with but I think it's deeper than this.  It's at the meta-cognition level.  Perhaps the fee paying students have a supportive and structured relationship with the tutors/facilitators which guides and scaffolds their experience?  That would make sense and clearly identify the potentially zero value of content against the high value of guided interaction as we move towards different models of higher education.  However, it also causes me to reflect upon what it was I set out to learn from the MOOC in the first place.  I now realise why the first week of orientation encouraged all participants to set learning goals.    I wanted to experience a MOOC (I'm doing this) but what exactly did I want to learn?  I fear that, in reflection,  I have little idea!  Perhaps, retrospectively, I might learn what skills are required for heutagogy to occur. However, is it possible for me to do this on my own?

Interestingly,  Natalie Canning of the Open University suggests that to develop heutagogy, a self directed learning environment needs to be created before a student can discover their own strategies for learning.  A tutor needs to recognise their role in moving the learners from engaging with pedagogy by building confidence; to cultivating andragogy by supporting shared meaning and understanding; and realising heutagogy by facilitating a desire to investigate their own learning (Canning, 2010).  This understanding resonates with my experience of teaching.  Unfortunately, the pedagogic default perception of most students is at odds with andragogy and possibly doubly so with heutagogy.  So what might a self directed learning environment look like, and is a MOOC an example of one?

The MOOC certainly provides the learner with the opportunity to determine what and how learning should take place, however, with the removal of the educator and the ever expanding learning environments that we are faced with, is it possible that much learning opportunity is lost?  Equally, what do I expect or want for free? There seems to be a space between open content and optimal learning and maybe the art of heutagogy, more explicitly defined may provide a metaphorical tool kit for bridging that gap.

Canning, N. (2010) "Playing with heutagogy:exploring strategies to empower mature learners in higher education" Journal of Further & Higher Education Vol 34, No.1, February, pp 59-71