The Ed Techie: Using learning environments as a metaphor for educational change
The central theme of this article is that the online learning environment can be seen as the means by which higher education can explores the challenges and opportunities raised by online and digital society.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
- In examining the current physical space Wesch (2008) asked students what a lecture hall ‘said’ about learning, in essence what were the affordances (Gibson 1979; Norman 1988) of the standard learning environment. They listed the following:
- To learn is to acquire information
- Information is scare and hard to find
- Trust authority for good information
- Authorized information is beyond discussion
- Obey the authority
- Follow along
- User-generated content
- Power of the crowd
- Data on an epic scale
- Architecture of participation
- Network effects
- Openness
These are obviously at odds with what most educators regard as key components in learning, such as dialogue, reflection, critical analysis, etc. They are also at distinct odds with the type of experience students have in the online world they inhabit regularly, particularly the social network, read/write web. These environments are characterised by
- When it was necessary for education to be performed face to face, a number of services were bundled together. When it becomes digital and online, this may no longer be the case, as we have seen in most content industries, such as music and newspapers (education has some similarities with content and also some significant differences). The first round of learning tools replicated the centralised model, but as the tools have become easier to use, and the methods for integrating them simpler, so this centralised approach seems less applicable. Clay Shirky (2008) argues that the ‘cost’ of organising people has collapsed, which makes informal groupings more likely to occur and often more successful:
"By making it easier for groups to self-assemble and for individuals to contribute to group effort without requiring formal management, these tools have radically altered the old limits on the size, sophistication, and scope of unsupervised effort"
Part of the function of universities is to provide this organisation, for example by grouping individuals together to form a student cohort who are interested in the same subject. But as this grouping becomes easier to do online, it becomes less of a valued function of the university - ie you don’t need to go to a university to find like minded people. Education then faces the same challenges regarding the cost of organisation that, say, the Encyclopedia Brittanica faced from wikipedia. Returning to the theme of this paper, Shirky’s argument can also be applied to technology, namely that the ‘cost’ of integrating technology has drastically reduced, meaning it is now feasible for individuals to do this, thus alleviating the need for centrally provided pre-integrated solutions. For example, we could reword the above quote to read:
By making it easier for tools to (self) assemble and for applications to contribute to the environment without requiring integration, these approaches have radically altered the old limits on the size, sophistication, and scope of any individual to create their own environment
Projects such as SocialLearn, illustrate that the conceptualisation of a learning environment goes beyond technical, or even pedagogical considerations. In a digital society it comes to represent the institutional response to changes in the nature of knowledge creation, sharing, and participation, in short to the nature of education itself. Shirky argues that ‘when we change the way we communicate, we change society’, and the new socially based technologies we have today are doing this in fundamental ways. It is only by exploring their potential that universities can remain relevant to the society they are helping to shape.
Gary's Social Media Count | PERSONALIZE MEDIA
Real-time counter that visualizes how much stuff happens online.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
Jokaiselle lapselle kannettava Uruguayssa - HS.fi - Ulkomaat
Uruguay siis ehti ensimmäisenä. Suomalaiset ilmeisesti siis vuorostaan laajakaistayhteyksissä. Olisiko tämä seuraava askel?
- - By Tero Toivanen
Maija Haavisto: Näin käytät Twitteriä (Finn Lectura)
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
Learnlets » Driving formal & informal from the same place
There’s been such a division between formal and informal; the fight for resources, mindspace, and the ability for people to get their mind around making informal concrete. However, I’ve been preparing a presentation from another way of looking at it, and I want to suggest that, at core, both are being driven from the same point: how humans learn.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
- There’s been such a division between formal and informal; the fight for resources, mindspace, and the ability for people to get their mind around making informal concrete. However, I’ve been preparing a presentation from another way of looking at it, and I want to suggest that, at core, both are being driven from the same point: how humans learn.
- Don’t assume self-learning skills, but support both task-oriented behaviors, and the development of self-monitoring, self learning.
- The goal is to remove the artificial divide between formal and informal, and recognize the continuum of developing skills from foundational abilities into new areas, developing learners from novices to experts in both domains, and in learning.
Pedawiki - pedawiki - University of Helsinki Confluence
Helsingin yliopiston Pedawiki on avoin tietopankki johon kerätään ja esitellään tietoa ja kokemuksia siitä, miten tieto- ja viestintätekniikkaa sekä verkkopedagogiikkaa voi soveltaa opettamiseen ja opiskeluun Helsingin yliopistolla.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
Aineiston digitointiohjeet Hämeenlinnan kirjaston editointitilaa varten. Ohjeet soveltuvat myös laajempaan käyttöön. Ja wikimäisesti laajenevat.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
Yhteisöllisen median pilvessä « Kulttuuri- ja ict-poimintoja
E-service business! -seminaari Haaga-Heliassa 21.10.09. Sosiaalinen media matkailualalla.
- - By Eija Kalliala
[Sm]all things considered by r.vuorikari: Impact of ICT use on educational performance
Informal learning's value confirmed: out-of-school ICT use is connected to cognitive educational performance, while in-school ICT use is not.
- - By Tarmo Toikkanen
- Note, in-school use did not yield any significant impact :/ More interestingly, out-of-school use of ICT for learning purposes had a positive correlation (r=0.520, p= 0.00) with cognitive domain of educational performance, which shows good news for informal context of learning.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of Sosiaalinen media opetuksessa group favorite links are here.
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