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SpeEdChange: Toolbelt Theory for Everyone
Ira Socol's "Toolbelt Theory," the idea that we all need tools to help us survive in the the world, and every individual needs a different set of tools. The is a broader idea than just accessibility; it's about giving all learners control of their own tools to find what works best for them.
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How will your students communicate when they leave school? How will they gather information? How will they say what they need to say?
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The thing about toolbelts though, is that no two people ever really need the same one.
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Weblogg-ed » New MacArthur Study: Must Read for Educators
Selected points from a MacArthur study, "Living and Learning with New Media," with points about how technology can help students become more self directed and allow them more control over their own learning
Half an Hour: The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On
Stephen Downes revisits his predictions from 1998 and looks forward to future trends.
The Bamboo Project Blog: Deconstructing the Work Literacy Learning Event
Michele Martin debriefs the experience of teaching the Work Literacy online course via Ning. Several things they did were very successful. Ning was a good platform, even though it's intended as a social networking tool rather than a CMS. Explicitly saying that different levels of participation were acceptable meant that lurkers felt comfortable dipping in and out as legitimate perispheral participants. Was the course a success? It sounds like they all learned from the experience; to me, that means it's a success even if some aspects didn't work as they hoped.
Paper 2: Welcome to the Exploratorium! « Arieliondotcom the LORD-loving Learning Lion
Ideas on changing the role of instructional designer and teacher to a "sharer," focusing on creating the environment where learning connections are made and setting up guideposts to help learners find their own way.
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I believe that the roles of the Instructional Designer and Teacher are changing and must change in the face of the ever-increasing onslaught of information every human being faces today. Those roles must merge into the Sharer, who shows new technologies and connections to information to others while always keeping in mind his/her own role as perpetual student.
To do this, the Sharer must, at least in some respects, plant the environment for others, set up what may grow into connections and give opportunity for emergence in ways even the Sharer may not envision yet, but in a reasonably “safe” environment for exploration.
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The Teacher/Sharer, parents and student collaborate on ensuring that whatever method the student is using is assisting in wayfinding toward those goals. If more connections are made, so much the better. But along the path, like signposts, each of the connections (parents, Teacher/Sharers) and each tool (video, Second Life, writing, drawing, blog, podcast, etc.) used to connect to people will prompt the student for responses (dates, opinions, responses to readings) of the set curriculum, but framed in the context best suited for that student. A record of the waypoints shows how the student connected and which connections seemed to spark the most activity and best learning. If the student misses a certain number of waypoints, the direction of the connections is adjusted until success is achieved.
Teach Web 2.0: CCK08 Power to the People
Looking at power and leadership, especially how power works within networks as opposed to groups or as individuals. Includes a nice list of principles for leadership in networks from Paul Skidmore.
Half an Hour: Response to Fitzpatrick
Stephen Downes, responding to lengthy criticism of connectivism from a learner in the CCK08 class.
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Add Sticky NoteWe argue that learning occurs in networks, and therefore, that the properties of successful networks are also the properties of successful learning environments. We don't 'apply' this in any strict sense - we would never force people to be connectivists. Indeed, within the learning environment, we believe there should be diversity; we believe people should be free to choose their own form of learning.
- Maybe this is part of my problem as I'm trying to figure out the "right way" or "best practices" for applying connectivism to what I do. There isn't a right away--Stephen says here we shouldn't even "'apply' this in any strict sense." - on 2008-09-11
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To me, far more complex - and insightful - forms of reasoning are being created through the interplay among thousands, or millions, of individual content elements. Where each content element may by itself appear to be simple, it is the interconnections between them that creates a much more complex, deep, and rich tapestry of meaning, far more than could be created merely using linguistic devices.
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E-Learning Queen: The Best Way to Learn in an Online Course
Advice for online learners to get the most out of their courses. Includes cognitive, behavioral, and self-regulation strategies. Even though this is geared towards learners, instructional designers can also benefit from thinking about how to teach and model these strategies.
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Working Wikily: The fine lines between content and curriculum and self-directed learning and instruction ....
Beth Kanter on the process of developing curriculum collaboratively with a "swarm" of contributors on a wiki
'Socializing' the CMS
The traditional CMS/LMS is designed for a more instructor-centered course, so the pedagogy of these courses reflects the technology. This article skims the surface of what might be possible if social networking tools, blogs, wikis, and more were used to construct courses and give students more control. What would that do to the pedagogy?
A List Apart: Articles: Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow
One of the founders of Flickr writes about building online community. One of his big points is that if you create too many hard and fast rules, people are less creative and open to conversation. It's better to build community by providing spaces for people to negotiate the guidelines for themselves as much as possible.
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The sculpture demonstrated a fascinating idea: given fewer rules, people actually behaved in more creative, co-operative, and collaborative (or competitive, as the case may be) ways.
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Any time you construct specific rules of engagement, they are instantly open to interpretation and circumvention, and we want our members to negotiate their place with each other, not with The Authority.
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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: The Five Phases of Flattening a Classroom
Vicki Davis explains that classrooms can't jump immediately to being fully connected--you have to take steps to build the community and teach the safe behaviors. In 5 phases, Vicki goes from the "intra-connected classroom" to a classroom with many-to-many connections and student management.
growing changing learning creating: Relying on inner teachers
Looking at changing education and giving learners control of their own learning, letting their "inner teachers" guide them.
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When we assume each student has an inner teacher within their minds, we will stop interfering with the discovery, cultivation and trust building with that inner teacher. The inner teacher will come to the fore of the students learning experiences and and reconfigure how they picture learning occurring. Problems with a particular learning challenge or patterns of learning efforts will get worked out between the student and the inner teacher who already knows what the underlying problems are.
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When immersed in learning from everything that happens, people will appear very fascinating to each other. No two people will be the same and offer so much more to explore as their mysterious nature captivates other learners. The process of getting learned about by others-- will give each a feeling of being understood. A context of mutual respect, insight and acceptance will dramatically reduce the urge to get attention, get even or act out frustrations.
Half an Hour: Free Learning and Control Learning: On the So-Called Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching
Text from Downes' presentation critiquing the Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark article. Downes goes through a number of Kirschner et al's arguments, showing the internal inconsistency, lapses of logic, and lack of evidence. Citations included.
D-Ed Reckoning: Downes responds
Stephen Downes responds to a long review of his presentation criticizing Kirschner et al. This addresses some of the inaccuracies in the review and delves deeper into what a networked theory of learning really means.
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Kirshner argues, very clearly, that non-instructivist methods result in no better learning than direct instruction, and sometimes in *less* learning, because of the 'cognitive overhead' required in self-directed methodologies.
Kirshner's argument on this point is not based on experimental data, but rather, on his theory of cognition. Specifically, he argues that short-term memory has a limited capacity, and that if some of this capacity is not available for new facts (because it is taken up 'selecting scientific principles') then the transfer of information to the student is reduced.
I respond to this argument by showing how Kirshner's theory is false. We do not 'retrieve theories' into short term memory and then 'select' from them. That is not how thinking works; that is not ow scientific thinking works. And therefore, Kirshner's argument, on these grounds, against student-directed learning, fails. -
The best mechanism for demonstrating knowledge is not likely the production of a certain set of facts on demand. Expertise in a discipline on the part of a student is something that is typically *recognized*, not measured, by people who are already experts in the field.
D-Ed Reckoning: Downes on Kirschner
Lengthy response to Downes' presentation summarizing criticisms of the Kirschner et al paper on "minimally guided instruction." There's some inaccuracies in this response, which Downes addresses in his comment. The author doesn't see that instructivist and constructivist teaching methods really differ from each other.
blog of proximal development » Blog Archive » Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers - Teacher as Learner
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Reflection on showing your students that you're still learning while still retaining your role as expert guide. The emphasis here is on giving up the micromanaging control rather than the expertise. Note how he keeps the passion for lifelong learning as part of modeling for the students.
- christyinsdesign on 2007-11-16
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And so, the challenge is that when I try to divest myself of my teacherly voice I need to remember that this process is not about losing the voice of the expert but about losing the voice of the traditional authoritarian teacher who enters the classroom as an official persona armed with a pre-defined set of goals and very specific lesson plans for his students to follow. It is about giving the students the freedom to engage with ideas that they find relevant and interesting, not about dictating every step of their learning process.
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I believe that it is important to lose the authoritarian voice, the controlling voice, but not the voice of an expert who chose to teach because of his passion for the subject. The students need to see that the instructor is someone who lives and breathes whatever it is that they’re studying, that they have in their midst someone who has a wealth of expertise.
Using audio narration in elearning » Making Change
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Great slideshow by Cathy Moore showing some of the potential problems with overusing audio (since it reduces learner control). Cathy provides suggestions for making the most of audio by using it in places where it will be more effective: adding a human touch to scenarios, explaining complex visuals, etc.
- christyinsdesign on 2007-11-13
Free Learning and Control Learning: On the So-Called Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching » SlideShare
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Stephen Downes presentation refuting the Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark article criticizing constructivism. Includes an introduction to connectivism. One of the fundamental flaws in the KS&C article is that it assumes that all inquiry and problem-based learning methods are "minimally guided," but these methods always include scaffolding. KS&C call scaffolding "direct instruction" and don't include that as part of constructivism.
- christyinsdesign on 2007-11-13
Half an Hour: Kirschner, Sweller, Clark (2006) - Summary
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Stephen Downes' deconstruction of a paper critical of constructivism. Further analysis of the paper will come later, but this has a few editorial comments in addition to a summary of the article's points.
- christyinsdesign on 2007-11-12
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