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Some brief thoughts about Real-time tools in education

2010, May 30 - 10:24 — PatParslow

In a few days time I will be going to a #140Conf meetup in London http://www.meetup.com/140conf-London/calendar/13391290/ addressing the question:

"Constructing Education - Do we have a real time responsibility to future generations - NOW?"

  This is just a very brief introduction to my thinking on the subject:

  Many things we say in real-time, mediated by the Internet, remain for posterity.  Not only what we say, but those things our learners say too; each snippet of conversation having the potential to last indefinitely, each one contributing to our Digital Identity.  Some students are not happy with sharing their (lack of) knowledge, even amongst their own immediate peer group - and while we may consider the scaffolding available through engaging with a worldwide network of experts and informed amateurs to be largely beneficial, this is, in some cases, no comfort to the learner.  Learning happens, chiefly, when out of one's comfort zone, but some people find the glare of public scrutiny to be a step too far outside of theirs.  Even operating in walled gardens, such as an institutional VLE, I find some students are not willing to ask questions for fear of their contributions being echoed in public forums.  

 There is evidence that people maintain interest in a subject better when they communicate with others who are interested in it.  From the teacher/lecturer's point of view, I would argue the vast majority of learning takes place away from the classroom, and not necessarily connected with textbooks.  Reflection on a topic, which needs the learner to be motivated and engaged, seems to me the greatest source of deep learning.  Lectures and textbooks provide stimulus, but the learner needs to consider the facts and experiences they have acquired in a non-real-time way (although, obviously, it is still a real-time event for them!).  The huge benefit of encouraging learners to engage with real-time conversations with others via tools such as Twitter is that it helps maintain their level of interest.  It also provides them with other viewpoints, and exercises their critical appraisal skills, but I think the key is the community spirit.  We need to remove the fear, and to do that, I suspect, means we need to change cultural behaviours so that any contribution is welcomed.

(cross posted on LinkSphere)

 

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2010, June 3 - 17:06 — PatParslow

report on #140conf London

 The #140conf meetup generated a lot of interesting and lively discussion.  Organised by Bernie Mitchell, with Terry Freedman, Graham Jones, Bob Pinkett and myself on the panel, the debate covered the built environment, ICT, psychology, people, policy, teaching, education... and more.

I rather approved of the order in which we 'said our piece'.  Bob Pinkett talked about ICT (and how it has been rather left out of the agenda) and a bit about the built environment.  Graham Jones talked about the fact that the C in ICT should make us all realise that these technologies are primarily about communication between people (well, at least until the semantic web starts doing something a bit more useful ;-)), and Terry Freedman talked about education.  That is a terribly short synopsis, but it stuck in my mind because the built (and information) environment impacts on the individual's psychology, which in turn has an impact on their learning.  Of course, actually, it doesn't matter which way round you put them, there is still a chain of cause and effect which can be seen.

I talked a bit about our responsibility to make sure that people using the internet and Web2.0 tools recognise the potential long term impacts on their Digital Identity, and thus their employability.  I rather have to do that, because the This Is Me project makes me think about it all the time.  I also briefly mentioned the impacts of DI on building a Personal Learning Network (with regard to technologically mediated PLNs, of course).

There were advocates of bottom-up reform of the education system (I normally number myself amongst them), as well as those of us who said there is a need for a radical change in policy.  I really think we need both - individuals doing the EduPunk 'thing', using and abusing technologies to provide the best education they can for their learners; but also changes to policy to encourage education to be about learning how to learn, thinking about thinking, finding the meaning of meaning.  And it needs to emphasise the benefits of social, collaborative learning - we all need to get over the fear of saying "I don't understand that", and ask people to explain it to us.  That doesn't just help us - most people learn something when they have to explain a concept to someone who is struggling with it.

Plans are afoot to try to influence policy makers as a result of the meet up.  Obviously a social media love in (which this really wasn't) is not a one size fits all solution to our education problems.   And if you don't think we have problems with our education system, consider that recent estimates say up to 7 million UK workers have literacy or numeracy problems - that is ~1 in 4 of the workforce.  Although self-directed learning, PLNs and social, collaborative learning may not be the best way to tackle that issue, it is a way of empowering those with the most basic skills to better themselves at a minimal cost to the state - a factor, which, sadly, is rather important at the moment.