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The connectedness of ideas by learning online – towards a new theory of learning
From E-Learning V |
Fig.1. This IMHO is what learning has become in the 21st century – and how it got there
There’s more going on here than you may realise!
From E-Learning V |
Fig.2. Traditional top down learning
Two triangles, one above the other and linked with a down arrow suggests traditional top down learning … or simply knowledge transfer from someone who knows something to someone who does not.
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 3 By someone’s side
Two triangles, one facing the other, may represent a shift towards collaborative or horizontal learning in a formal setting, though for me it represents the learning you do away from the institution – with friends, with family ‘on the same level’ as it were.
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 4. Participatory and situated, networked learning on the periphery
From E-Learning V |
Fig.5 The thinking starts with Vygotsky and his research into behaviorist learning
It then progressed to the study and analysis of learning in communities
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 6. Activity Theory as conceived of and developed by Yrjo Engeström.
From E-Learning V |
Fig.7 The interplay between two entities or communities coming together to solve a problem and thus producing something unique to them both (object 3) – a fresh idea.
From E-Learning V |
Fig.8. Activity Theory re-connected – breaking out
Though developed over some thirty years the structure of ‘Activity Theory’ as a model is breaking down because of the quality, speed and way in which we now connect overrides barriers and invades silos making communication more direct and immediate.
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 9 Activity Theory in a connected world
Everyone and everything is just a click away.
From E-Learning V |
Fig.10 Visualizing the maelström of original ideas generated by people sharing their thoughts and ideas as they form
The maelström of new ideas where people and groups collide and interact. Historically this had been in grounded ‘communities of practice’, whether a London coffee shop or the senior common room of a prestigious university, the lab, the studio, the rehearsal room … today some gatherings online are frequent, enabled by the Internet and no less vibrant as like-minds and joiners contribute to the generation of new ideas.
This, drawing on Engestrom via Vygotsky, might be a more academic expression of Open Learning. Here a host of systems, expressed in model form, interpose their drive to achieve certain objectives into the common whole. That mess in the middle is the creation of the collective powers and inputs of individuals, groups, departments or institutions. The Open bit are the connections between any node in one system, and any other node from any other one of the systems … which blows apart the actions within a single system, making them more open, though not random.
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 11 It’s going on inside your head.
fMRI scans reveal the complex way in which ideas form and memories are recalled and mixed-up, challenged and re-imagined. We are our very own ‘community of practice’ of conflicting and shared viewpoints.
From E-Learning V |
Fig.11. Perceiving brain activity as the interplay between distinct, interacting zones
From E-Learning V |
Fig. 12 Ideas enter your system, your brain and are given a fresh spin
From E-Learning V |
Fig.13 Ideas coalesce until you reach a point of understanding. The penny doesn’t so much as ‘drop’ as to form.
Where would we be without one of these. 98 billion neurons. A uniquely connected mass of opportunity and potential. This is where, of course, memories are formed and thoughts had. Increasingly we are able to share ideas and thoughts as we have them, typically through the tips of our fingers by sharing our thinking online, especially where it comes to the attention of like-minds, and troubled-minds – anyone in fact or strongly agrees or strongly disagrees enough to contribute by adding their thinking and revealing their presence.
Social Learning
This is a key concept of this theory is we learn through the observation of others. A theory that evolved from behaviourism though now has many concepts from the cognitivist camp included. It has been re-named by some to social-cognitive learning.
There are three variables to the social learning theory; environment, person and behaviour which influence each other.
Close relation to Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory and Lave’s Situated Learning Theory.
Advertisements and TV commercials are good examples of social learning.
Useful website http://www.texascollaborative.org/Learning_Theory.htm and http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/index.html
Exploring students’ understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education
Fig.1. Why Blog?
If anything has been written on blogging I want to read it. On 27th September 1999 I posted to my first blog – it was on blogging and new media. We’re now in the phase of transition that took the printed book after the Gutenberg Press some 400 years. The clunky blog of 1999 barely compares the variety and scope of what we still call a blog today.
This rightly questions when and where blogging should be an endeavour to use with students.
Exploring students’ understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education (2007) Kerawalla, Minocha, Conole, Kirkup, Schencks and Sclater.
Based on this research blogging is very clearly NOT of interest to the majority of students, NOR is it likely to be of value to them for collaborative learning. There may be value in blogging for your own sake – aggregating content in one place.
(Research on using blogging with students of Public Relations gives a far more favourable response … I would suspect that this would apply to courses on journalism and creative writing i.e. use the medium that is appropriate for those on specific courses).
This is a study of OU students.
A more promising, and appropriate study I am looking at concerns PR students who a) need to develop their writing skills b) need to understand what blogging is all about.
The greatest value I have got from this self-inflicted exercise is to deconstruct the research that was undertaken should I wish to undertake research of this ilk myself. Can I fault the research?
What do you think?
Problem | Does blogging support student in their learning or not? Are educators perceptions of the positive uses of blogging for learning borne out by the perceptions of and uses of blogging by students? |
Questions | QQ Designed to ascertain their level of experience of blogs and to gather their opinions about how blogs (and other tools) could support their learning.
The research questions we sought to answer were as follows: 1) What degree of blogging experience do students have? |
Setting | Online students at the OU Survey of 795 student and course designers |
Authors | ‘Enthusiastic’ OU IETT Academics |
Previous research | O’Reilly 2005, Sade 2007, Weller 2007 – literature search, previous research … |
Concepts/theories | |
Methods | Qualitative – explorative/iterative rather than set
All questions required students to select their response by clicking on a radio button, (e.g. ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or Likert scales such as ‘not at all’, ‘slightly’, ‘in-between/no opinion’, fairly’, or ‘very much’). (Kerawalla et al. p. 6. 2007) + an open question for expanded thoughts. Interviews with course designers – Interview questions were designed to address the following areas: the rationale for introducing blogs, whether blog content would be assessed, whether blogging was compulsory, uptake levels and whether there were any plans to evaluate the success of blogging activities. – extract, collate and compare. Quantitative Analysis – The survey generated both quantitative and qualitative data. SPSS Analysis |
Findings |
i.e. Not everything they’re cracked up to be. Krause (2004) reports haphazard contributions to blogs by his students, minimal communication between them, and found that posts demonstrated poor quality reflection upon the course materials. Williams and Jacobs (2004) introduced blogs to MBA students and although he reports overall success, he encountered problems with poor compliance as, for example 33% of the students thought they had nothing valuable to say in their blog. Homik and Melis (2006) report only minimal compliance to meet assessment requirements and that students stopped blogging at the end of their course. Other issues include:
It appears that the ideals of educators can be difficult to implement in practice. (Kerawalla et al. p. 5. 2007) |
Paradigms | A cultural psychological approach to our research that proposes that learning is a social activity that is situated and mediated by tools that fundamentally shape the nature of that activity (e.g. Cole, 1996, Wertsch, 1991 and Vygotsky, 1979). |
Limitations | Expectations about sharing, enthusiasm for the genre …definition of blog (see e-portfolio and wiki), journalism …. hard to define (Boyd, 2006).
They mean different things to different people. Uses to collate resources (portfolio) (Huann, John and Yuen, 2005) , share materials and opinions .. (Williams and Jacobs, 2004). |
Implications | Guidelines, informs design |
- 53.3% of students had read a blog
- only 8% of students had their own blog
- 17.3% had commented on other people’s blogs
- 23% of students thought that the commenting feature on blogs is ‘slightly’ or ‘not at all’ useful,
- 42% had ‘no opinion’
- 35% thought that commenting is ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ useful.
- only 18% said that they thought blogs would be ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ useful.
- of those who blog only 205 of these thought blogs would be ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ useful.
Students were asked ‘how much would you like to use a blog provided by the OU as part of your studies?’
35% ‘not at all’
13% said ‘slightly’
34% had ‘no opinion’,
12% said ‘fairly’
6% responded ‘very much’
Students were asked ‘how much would you like to use a blog provided by the OU for personal use?’.
52.6% said ‘not at all’
8.7% said ‘slightly’
28.3% had ‘no opinion’
8% said ‘fairly’
2.7% responded ‘very much’.
Chi-square analyses
Examination of the observed and expected frequencies for this data suggests that in both cases, there is a relationship between not seeing a role for blogs and not wanting greater use of conferencing.
Supporting findings that when given a choice between classroom based learning or e-learning those who have a choice are equally satisfied by what they get.
All of the positive responses refer to the students’ own (potential) study blog. (Kerawalla et al. p. 7 2007) Others use their blog as a repository. Few saw the benefits of linking or using a blog to for reflection and developing ideas.
Responses to the question ‘would you like a blog provided by the OU to support your studies?’ reveal that there is a profound lack of enthusiasm (from 82% of the sample) for blogging as part of courses.
Later this year, we plan to explore PhD blogs. This variety and combination of methods will enable us to gather different perspectives and to triangulate our findings. (Kerawalla et al. p. 7 2007)
REFERENCE
Cole, M. (1996) Cultural Psychology. Camb. Mass: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press.
Kerawalla, Lucinda; Minocha, Shailey; Conole, Grainne; Kirkup, Gill; Schencks, Mat and Sclater, Niall (2007). Exploring students’ understanding of how blogs and blogging can support distance learning in Higher Education. In: ALT-C 2007: Beyond Control: Association of Learning Technologies Conference, 4-6 September 2007, Nottingham, UK.
Vygotsky, (1979) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole M, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberman (eds and trans). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J (1991) A sociocultural approach to socially shared cognition. In L.Resnick, J. Levine and S. Teasley (eds), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, Washington: American Psychological Association.
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- Let the journey begin… (chelseachavira.wordpress.com)
- One More Look @ Introversion: Digital Literacy and the Quiet Child (solve4why.wordpress.com)
- 8 Reasons Should Blog About Your Postgraduate Life (postgrad.com)
- Getting More Out of Student Blogging | Sue Waters Blog (suewaters.com)
- To Blog or Not To Blog? (careersandplacements.wordpress.com)
- What Inspires me to Blog? (prefs.zemanta.com)
- What Are the Dos and Don’ts of Blogging? (bizsugar.com)
- What Kind of Blogger Are You? 7 Different Blogger Types Explained. (zemanta.com)
- I hate blogs (stumblegrumble.wordpress.com)
Education as nuture
Fig. 1. Education as nurture – the graduates of the School of Communications Arts, 1988)
As Vygotsky put it:
‘The gardener affects the germination of his flowers by increasing the temperature, regulating the moisture, varying the relative position of neighboring plants, and selecting and mixing soils and fertilizer, i.e. once again, indirectly, by making appropriate changed in the environment. Thus it is that the teacher educates the student by varying the environment’. Vygotsky 1926 (Kindle location 1129)
And further on he says:
‘The basic rule is that before imparting new knowledge to the child and before fostering a new reaction in him, we must be sure to prepare the ground for it i.e. arouse the appropriate interest. For an analogy, just think how we loosen the soil before planting seeds’. (Kindle location 1755)
The way we learn hasn’t changed in a generation, not in centuries or even millenia – natural selection doesn’t work like that, we are still hunter gatherers on the plains of Eastern Africa. Our imagination, our struggle in adversity, has brought us a long way though. The tools we use to learn have changed more so in the last decade than at any other time in several centuries – eBooks are replacing print and our classroom has virtual walls and may comprise several thousand minds … and can be as intimate as you and a leading academic you stumble upon.
If a place of learning is a garden and a classroom a raised bed, then perhaps the way we should look at connected Web 2.0 learners is more akin to rows of strawberries.
Fig. 2. Self-organisation and interconnection in a bed of strawberry plants
Related articles
- Here’s how to improve retention in e-learning – scaffolding, mentors, interaction and community (mymindbursts.com)
- How to weed your garden – Weeding Guide (abellandscaping.wordpress.com)
- Lev Vygotsky: Pioneer of Psychology (learnpsychology.wordpress.com)
- A beginner’s guide to starting a veg garden (telegraph.co.uk)
We forget, it’s only natural – what can we do about it?
Fig.1. The Forgetting Curve. Ebbinghaus (1885)
‘The psychological conclusion demands a distribution of repetitions such that some of them should be produced at a later time, separated from the first repetition by a pause’. (Vygotsky, 1926)
More recently, in the last ten years in fact, Dr B Price Kerfoot of Harvard Medical School (2006) created a platform called SpacedEd (now Qstream) that uses multichoice questions, typically and most successfully with first year medical students, where sets of questions are randomised then sent out as text or email to tackle, I suppose, what Ebbinghaus (1885) identified with his ‘Forgetting Curve’. An evidence based paper on the effectiveness of ‘spaced learning’ showed how there was better retention three months, six months and a year down the line.
REFERENCE
Ebbinghaus, H (1885) Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology.
Kerfoot, B, P (2006) SPACED EDUCATION. Interactive Spaced-Education to Teach the Physical Examination: A randomized Controlled Trial.
Vygotsky, L (1926) Educational Psychology
FURTHER LINKS
Related articles
- Harvard Business Review: When Trying to Remember Something Don’t Forget to Consider Your Forgetting Curve (economicpolicyjournal.com)
- Pioneers of Psychology: Lev Vygotsky (psychology.about.com)
- What is a mind burst? (mymindbursts.com)
- Here’s how to improve retention in e-learning – scaffolding, mentors, interaction and community (mymindbursts.com)
- Strangers To Ourselves (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
- Overcoming the “Forgetting Curve”: How to Improve Passwords (securityskeptic.typepad.com)
Reflection on keeping an e-learning blog for 1,000 days
Fig. 1. The Open University’s Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE).
Expressed as a Wordle. A personal collection of key influencers based on those tagged in this blog. Includes my own reading and indulgences.
On Friday, at midday, my ou student blog reached a significant milestone.
I’ve been at it for 33 months. I’ve blogged the best part of FIVE modules now – most of which required or invited some use of the blog platform (or another). It required little encouragement – I used to keep a diary and have found since 1999 that in their digital form they are an extraordinarily versatile way to gather, consider, share and develop ideas.
Modules
- H807 – Innovations in e-Learning
- H808 – Technology Enhanced Learning: Practices and debate
- H800 – The e-Learning Professional
- B822 – Creativity, Innovation & Change
- H810 – Accessibility online learning: supporting disabled students
The investment in time, on average, an hour a day in addition to – though sometimes instead of coursework over 1000+ days.
(This excludes 8 months I spent on the Masters in Open and Distance Learning in 2001)
To mark this event, and as I need to go through this online diary, this e-journal, this ‘web-log’ (as they were also once momentarily called) ahead of some exciting meetings coming up next week I thought a simple task might be to click through the tags to identify who have been the key influencers in my reading and thinking over the last two and a half years.
Fig.2. Another way of looking at it. Betham, Conole and Weller are key MOADE authors from the Open University. John Seely Brown is a vital undercurrent, Engestrom one of several enthusiasms like Vygostky. While Gagne, second hand hardback, needs to be on your desk for frequent reference.
What I thought would take an hour has taken nearly 40 hours.
Clicking on a tag opens a corner of my head, the notes take me back to that day, that week, that assignment or task. It also takes me back to the discussions, resources and papers. And when I find an error the proof-reader in me has to fix. Aptly, as we approach November 5th, and living in Lewes where there are marches and fireworks from late October for a couple of weeks peaking of course all evening on the 5th, my head feels as if someone has accidentally set light to a box of assorted fireworks.
Just as well. Meetings these days are like a viva voce with eager ears and probing questions – they want the content of my mind and whatever else I bring to the subject after thirty years in corporate training and communications.
Fig. 3. Wordle allows you to say how many words you want to include in the mix. To create weight I had to repeat the names I consider most important twice, three or four times in the list. I also removed first names as these would scattered into the mix independently like peppercorns in a pan of vegetable stock.
The Task
- List all authors who have been part of my learning and thinking over the last couple of years.
- Include authors that my antennae have picked up that are relevant to my interest in learning, design, the moving image and the english language.
- Visualise this and draw some conclusions
Fig.4. This even makes the key protagonists look like an advertising agency Gagne, Beetham, Conole and Weller.
The Outcome
I can never finish. Take this morning. I stumble upon my notes on three case studies on the use of e-portfolios from H807 which I covered from February 2010-September 2010. To begin with I feel compelled to correct the referencing in order to understand the value, pertinence and good manners (let alone the legal duty) to cite things correctly. (Even though this post was locked – a ‘private’ dump of grabs and my thoughts).
Then I add an image or two.
These days I feel a post requires a visual expression of its contents to open and benefits from whatever other diagrams, charts or images you can conjure from your mind or a Google Search – ‘the word’ + images creative commons – is how I play it.
Fig. 5. From David Oglivy’s book ‘Ogilvy on advertising’ – a simple suggestion – a striking image, a pertinent headline and always caption the picture. Then write your body copy.
A background in advertising has something to do with this and the influence of David Ogilvy.
I spend over two hours on the first of three case studies in just one single post. At the time I rubbished e-portfolios. The notes and references are there. Tapped back in I can now make something of it. A second time round the terms, the ideas – even some of the authors are familiar. It makes for an easier and relevant read. What is more, it is current and pertinent. A blog can be a portfolio – indeed this is what I’d recommend.
From time to time I will have to emerge from this tramp through the jungle of my MAODE mind.
Not least to work, to sleep, to cook and play.
Fig. 6. In a word
Along the way this behaviour, these actions, me being me, has found me working at the Open University for a year, and then at Lumesse a global corporate e-learning company. In the last month two international organisations have had me in, in the last week four more have been in touch online including interest from Australia, France and North America. Next week a magical triad may occur when I broker a collaboration between two of them with me holding their respective hands to initiate a project. There could be no better validation for the quality, depth, impact and life-changing consequences of seeing this OU degree through.
On verra (we will see)
USEFUL LINKS
REFERENCE
Gagne, R.N. (1965) Conditions of Learning : Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Lest we forget – memory games and other tactics to aid knowledge retention
Fig.1. Ebbinghaus (1885) The Forgetting Curve
‘The psychological conclusion demands a distribution of repetitions such that some of them should be produced at a later time, separated from the first repetition by a pause’. (Vygotsky, 1926)
More recently, in the last ten years in fact, Dr B Price Kerfoot of Harvard Medical School (2006) created a platform called SpacedEd that uses multichoice questions, typically and most successfully with first year medical students, where sets of questions are randomised then sent out as text or email to tackle, I suppose, what Ebbinghaus (1885) identified with his ‘Forgetting Curve’.
An evidence based paper on the effectiveness of ‘spaced learning’ showed how there was better retention three months, six months and a year down the line.
REFERENCE
Ebbinghaus, H (1885) Memory: A contribution to experimental phsychology.
Kerfoot, B, P (2006) SPACED EDUCATION. Interactive Spaced-Education to Teach the Physical Examination: A randomized Controlled Trial.
Vygotsky, L (1926) Educational Psychology