Freinet and social media

When I wrote Blogging with Freire, I was speculating on what that great Brazilian educator and theorist might have made of educational blogging - a concept he never knew, because he died before the Internet and social media came in to common use. Another great theorist who did much to reform the education system around the globe, is the lesser known French educator Celestin Freinet. He died in 1966, when we were only just beginning to realise that computers could be more than mere calculating machines. If he had seen them, what might Freinet have made of digital technology, and what would he have said about social media in education? He certainly believed in using technology to enhance learning. He purchased and ran his own printing press. Search around and you won't find much about Freinet in English - what there is about him on the Web is mainly in French. What you do discover about him is that he cared deeply about holistic approaches to education and believed that the school system of his time was broken. Here are five of his then radical methods placed into the context of social media:

1) The Pedagogy or Work. Learners should be encouraged to learn through making products and providing services. This can be easily set up and conducted using Web 2.0 tools. What better way to encourage students to engage in learning any topic, than to get them to make something that represents the topics they are learning? Even better than that, how about facilitating their engagement in the commercial world? What would happen if students were encouraged to create services and products and then sell them? Several schools already do this of course. One or two keep small farms that yield produce which can be sold at market. Others support their students to develop apps or other digital stuff which can be sold online through established retailers. Students could find out about how e-commerce works by selling on E-Bay or Amazon. Social media make this process a great deal easier, but teachers of younger students should ensure that their safety is protected.

2) Enquiry Based Learning Method. Learning by asking questions is not only fun, it's effective. But we can't always get every answer right at the first attempt. Learners need to learn in a psychologically safe environment where they have permission to fail, and to learn from that failure. One of the most familiar environments for students is in game based learning. Video games, especially those that are social, and where they get to work and play within a team or guild, teach them a great number of transferable skills such as problem solving, team work, dexterity, creative thinking, negotiation of meaning, patience and persistence. Enquiry based learning too, can be incorporated into this kind of scenario, with many games posing problems and challenges for users to overcome. Students need to understand and answer the questions before they can gain more points, or proceed to the next level of the game. This is learning by stealth.

3) Co-operative Learning Method. Learners can co-operate not only in the production processes (1) and games playing (2) outline above, they can also co-operate, or even collaborate on team based creation of blogs, wikis, or video production. All of these can be created by the team, and then posted up online for a audience to appreciate, evaluate and discuss. As has been shown repeatedly in long running projects such as Quadblogging and the 100 Word Challenge, giving students an audience for their work encourages them to hone their writing skills, develop and improve their presentation skills and gain an appreciation of performing their learning for an audience. The benefits of blogging are wide ranging, and when it is developed into co-operative projects it can have a great motivational power.

4) The Natural Method. Students learn best when they are naturally interested in the topic, and this increases in success level when learning takes place in authentic and realistic contexts. Facebook and other social networking tools are great for connecting people, and most students already have an account and can use it effectively to do this. How about extending this to networking with students in other parts of the world? This would be an extension of the pen pal method used many years ago, where schools paired students with those in other schools. They then wrote to each other regularly, and learnt all about each other's cultures, backgrounds and traditions. Using social networking tools to promote e-pals could potentially spread worldwide, with students in different countries discovering about foreign lands, cultures, languages, geography, history, music and sports. See e-Pals Global for one example of how this works in schools around the world.

5) Democratic Method. Students learn about fairness, celebrating diversity, choice, friendship, relationships and a whole host of other human experiences and challenges through an appreciation of their entire community. They can take responsibility for their own choices and actions and understand how they fit into their community (local and global) through connecting with others using social media tools. Using voting tools such as Digg and organising tools such as Diigo and Delicious can aid this process, as can the like and +1 buttons of Facebook and Google Plus. Getting them to make decisions democratically enables them to understand that their opinion counts, but it must always be considered in the wider context of the community.

Photo by the Gates Foundation


Freinet and social media by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I want to be an astronaut

I remember my meeting with my careers advice teacher, during my final year at school. It was 1972, in the heady days of the final lunar landings, where space exploration was top news and we were all very excited by it. Space travel and moon landings had caught the imagination of every kid. The conversation with my 'careers master' went something like this:

"Right Wheeler, what do you want to do when you leave school next year?"
"I want to be an astronaut Sir"
A moment's silence, a slight pause while the career teacher's spectacles glinted. He adjusted his tie, then... "Don't be silly sonny, being an astronaut isn't a real job."
"It's what I want to be Sir. I want to explore."
"Well, I'm afraid that's just impossible. You have to be an American to be an astronaut."
"Or a Russian Sir, they're called cosmonauts in Russia, Sir."
"Well, clearly you're neither, so think again. What are you good at?" (He's a careers adviser at the school. He should know this. He should have done his homework on me).
"I'm good at Art, Sir."
"What else are you good at?"
"Music. Not a lot else."
"OK... not academic... so you'll be an artist or a musician then. Good luck with that. Time's up Wheeler, I have a lot of other students to see." He indicated toward the door. I walked out.

And that, as they say, was the end of that. I left the office none the wiser, and still yearned to be an astronaut, or get involved in some other kind of exploration. From my time studying geography and history, I had learnt about the explorers of old, including my heroes David Livingstone, Mungo Park (who always sounded to me like a municipal recreation area) and Robert Falcon Scott, whose mission to reach the South Pole ended in heroic failure. Astronauts to me, were the last great explorers - launching into the deep unknown, exploring the final frontier - space. I wanted to boldly go where no-one had been before. To be the first. Captain Kirk and Mr Spock had a lot to answer for.

Funnily enough, that is exactly what I think I have become. An explorer. I eventually, through a long and convoluted set of career pathways, went from being a graphic designer and photographer, through technical work with videos and computers, to being a psychologist, part-time musician, a lecturer in education, and eventually a researcher. As a researcher, I am an ultimate explorer, discovering and investigating areas that are previously unknown. I experiment with social media and mobile technologies, trying to fit them into new areas and contexts to see what happens. In a strange and round about way, I have fulfilled my schoolboy dreams to become an astronaut.

Careers advice has changed greatly since my time in school. It had to really, because as it stood it was neither use nor ornament. Listening to Bob Athwal this morning made me realise just how far careers advice has really developed. Bob is Director of Leicester University's Careers Service, and keynoted the E-ATP Conference in Malta. Bob echoed many of my own earlier keynote points - education has to change because industry and the job market is changing, much of our education and training is still stuck in the last century, and organisations need to wake up to the fact that an entirely new generation of employees is on the threshold. These are the digital generation, who have been immersed in technology, and although they may not be fully educated in its use, they are none-the-less expectant that universities and organisations will embed these tools into their experience.

He asked whether such organisations are actually geared up to fulfill the expectations of graduates. Bob argued that for undergraduate students 'the first year is the new third year.' Students who fail to commit and engage with learning in their first year should now expect not to do so well. Bob showed that starting in their first year, students need a develop a whole range of skills and competencies to make themselves marketable in the workplace, including critical self awareness, the ability to be flexible and agile, and to be able to think creatively. Universities needed to help promote and foster these at an early stage he said. Bob also argued that in today's economy, where new kinds of jobs are being created constantly, a good degree is not enough to make graduates attractive to employers. Now they also need a good portfolio of extra-curricular activities, previous experience and a personal brand, often achieved through the maintenance of a personal digital presence that has good reputation. The implications for this in the context of digital literacies is clear.

When asked whether students are being put off by the raised university tuition fees Bob had an interesting answer. They viewed paying university tuition fees, he suggested, like they view purchasing a mobile phone contract. If they desire it, they will pay for it. The times are certainly changing, but whether universities, organisations and industry are changing quickly enough to keep pace with these dramatic changes, remains to be seen.

Photo by NASA via Wikimedia Commons


I want to be an astronaut by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mind technology

Can technology help us to think more clearly?

We find ourselves increasingly immersed in our digital worlds, surrounded by devices and tools, our minds constantly impacted by streams of new information. It's often difficult to keep up, and one could easily feel swamped by the relentless flow. This a similar experience for hundreds of millions of other individuals around the world.

Personally, I don't find it that onerous. That constant flow of information can be daunting, but I have learnt to dip in and out, as though it were a stream flowing by. I am constantly learning new things, discovering new people, being challenged to think in new ways using this stream of information. That wouldn't have happened, at least not as extensively, if I did not have access to my digital tools. The tools I use are a kind of mind technology, a means of extending my cognitive capabilities, enhancing my thinking, memory and recall.

Some might say that I am over-reliant upon technology. I'm perfectly relaxed about that. I don't see myself as a cyborg - one of Andy Clarke's cybernetic organisms enhanced by - and fully dependent upon, technology. Nor do I view my habituated use of technology as detrimental, as dark and fearful as the high priests of doom such as Nicholas Carr would have us believe. This is my choice, certainly not something that is being imposed upon me against my will.  I know I can think more clearly when I use certain deliberately selected tools, while others enable me to recall things I could not otherwise remember. I'm able to organise my content effectively using other specific tools. Still others enable me to perform mundane and repetitive tasks while freeing me up to concentrate on the more important things that demand my attention during the day. If I were to suddenly lose these tools it would not stop me from doing what I wish to do. It would take me a lot longer though, and I would have to divert more cognitive energy away from the core stuff.

My mind technology is embodied in and across a vast biological network of individuals - the connected minds that I call my personal learning network (PLN). They are numerous, and I know many of them personally. Others are familiar to me from repeated online contact. Many more are less familiar still, but each has a role to play and knowledge to pass on. Extended beyond my own PLN, this living network and the tools at its disposal encapsulates all of the knowledge that humankind has accumulated, knowledge that it is constantly being updated, revised, extended. It provides access for all to these vast resources through a bewildering array of device choices, a spectrum of possibilities. The people, devices, connections and knowledge constitute the world wide web - a digital sea upon which float the aspirations of this and future generations.

As recently as the mid 1990s, the World Wide Web did not exist, at least not in as ubiquitous and accessible a form as it does now. It was only at the turn of this century that we began to understand what was going to be possible with social networking on the Web. It was only at the start of this new millennium that we began to harness the power of new cognitive technologies - the smart mobile phones, touch screen technologies and convergent devices that now make up the familiar terrain, the day-to-day objects we so rely on for our work, commerce, entertainment and relationship maintenance.

These tools are indeed cognitive technologies - mind tools that help us to learn new things, to seek out new ideas and new concepts, to boldly take us - who knows where? They not only provide us with all the information, knowledge and learning we will ever need, they actually shape our minds in new ways too. Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan wasn't the only one to notice the effect media have on thinking. Where McLuhan saw the movie as a medium that transports us from linear (story telling) toward configuration (of speed, space and time), he also believed that it is the attributes of the medium, rather than its content that shapes our expectations. McLuhan never lived to see the Web, but if he had, he would no doubt have seen the extension of hyperlinked affordances toward non-linearity and beyond.

This poses a further question: Have the multi-dimensional possibilities of the Web forged a generation of non-linear thinkers, or has the Web simply been fashioned in such a way that it reflects the natural evolution of our collective human minds? Such a conveniently synergetic relationship between mind and tool certainly makes it difficult to detect the join between functionality and perception. Mind technology it certainly is, and richly social too. We would be poorer without it. With it, we can be enslaved or we can be liberated. Whichever direction we choose, there will be hundreds of millions of others to keep us company.

As a wise man recently said: "If you think the Web is simply a place to look up information, you are sadly mistaken".

Photo by Erik Drost


Mind technology by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Blogging as conversation

"A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I might simply have used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me.

But this was a limited view.

I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation.

Ultimately, blogging is discursive, promoting discussions and arguments. In that sense, it is like no other form of writing before it. Granted, published texts in the past have provoked debate, fighting, and even in some cases, full blown revolutions. But blogging is different, because it is immediate. You don't need to wait for your publisher to run the presses, or for the postman to deliver your first edition. You don't have to wait for your proofs to be accepted, and you don't need to respond to reviewer comments or amend your text in any way. You simply need to click that Publish button, and then wait for the responses. Depending on the size and reach of your personal learning network, and the level of contentiousness your blog contains, your readership will react. Practice writing, and you will develop your own blogging voice you can use to put across your points clearly and convincingly.

Inevitably, if your post is controversial, compelling or raises new and previously unconsidered points, there will be disagreements and arguments over points that have been raised, and responses that have been made in the comments boxes. Discussion should be polite and all contributors should respect the views of others.  And yet that is the entire point of the conversation of blogging because, as Michel de Montaigne once declared "There is no conversation more boring than when everyone agrees." How is anyone to learn anything from anyone else, if we all agree on every single point? The fact that people argue and don't agree over points means that each has to defend his or her own perspective, whilst thinking more deeply about that which is opposed to their perspective.

Probably the best and most meaningful metric a blog can give you, is the number of comments you receive. Forget how many hits you get every day, or how many pingbacks you receive. When people take time to comment on your blog post, you know they have taken time to read, think and act on what you have said. If you choose to respond to their comments, the conversations starts. Many comments will be simple affirmations of your views, and some will simply ask questions to clarify what you have written. These are very welcome. A few comments may be abusive, off subject or destructive - often from sad, unhappy people who are trolling for a reaction from you. Don't respond - you can usually delete these if you are moderating your blog site (I advise bloggers to do just that - moderating enables you to filter out trolling comments and also eliminate spam messages). The comments you should really look out for are those that disagree with you, argue an alternative viewpoint, or challenge you to justify what you have written. Take for example the indignant and inflammatory comments on my Sugata Mitra - Charlatan or Genius? post. Not that edifying, but I allowed them to show that not everyone can argue their point without losing their composure and insulting someone with name calling. When that occurs, the argument is already lost. Other comments can be less emotive but just as challenging, provoking others to wade in and give a piece of their minds. Often this kind of dialogue can be quite productive in terms of personal learning, and as an added bonus, as you and others engage, you are together helping to educate your entire community of practice.

Over the years I have been blogging, I have enjoyed some great arguments and conversations with readers in the space. I'm grateful to all those who take time to read these posts, and I welcome continued dialogue with all those who are willing to engage with me. Thank you all.

Photo by Martin le Roy


Blogging as conversation by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

5 technologies to promote creative learning

Teachers are constantly searching for new ways to promote good learning. If those ideas can also encourage creative thinking, they are even more welcome in the classroom. Technology can provide some of those creative solutions. Here are just five ideas for using technology to support learning, while promoting creative thinking, and I'm sure that with a little thought you will be able to adapt them to your own subject area.

1) Senses: In this picture the five traditional human senses are depicted. But there are actually more than five human senses, and teachers can challenge children to learn about some of the others (there are at least 10 more including proprioception - the kinaesthetic sense of where your body is in space, equilibrioception - the sense of balance and motion, nociception - or the experience of pain, thermoception - sensing heat, and so on). Ask your students to create icons or images representing these newly discovered senses. They could use cameras, graphics software, a combination of these, or some other tools to create and capture their illustrations. They could make their final presentation into a poster. [NB: This is useful in science, especially biology, but could be adapted for other subjects where there are lists or categories involved. To complete this task students must first understand and appreciate what the non-traditional senses are and how they are used, and then use their creativity to depict them accurately.]

2) Wiki'd Writing: Ask your students (in small groups or on their own) to either edit an existing Wikipedia page, or create a new one on a topic not yet covered. The latter option is more advanced and problematic, because many of the commonly known topics are already well covered on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia pages appeal for additional content, verification or editing which could provide students with some clues as to how to proceed. [NB: This could be applied to just about any subject in the curriculum. To complete this task successfully, students will need some in depth knowledge of the topic they are covering - this will require considerable reading, research and investigation.]

3) Commons Touch: Ask students to submit two or three good quality images to Wikimedia Commons. Many people visit the site to find images of high quality that are copyright free. Students can also track how many times their images are used by other people over the course of an academic year. [NB: Again, this should be easily adaptable to any curriculum subject. Students will need to know how to compose and capture good images, and also will need to be aware of the gaps in the image repository on Wikimedia Commons. They will also need a fair appreciation of how Creative Commons licensing works.]

4) Making Twistory: Get students to follow, and interact with, historical figures on Twitter. What kind of questions should they ask? How might they get the historical figures to respond to the questions? There are many characters to choose from such as William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Benjamin Franklin or King Henry VIII. If you would like to have a go tweeting as a historical character yourself, here's a link showing you how to be a historical figure on Twitter. [NB: Great for the study of history, but could be adapted to English language and literature (authors), science or technology (scientists and inventors), geography (explorers), and foreign languages (tweets in those languages - see also Lingua Tweeta). Students will need to search for and verify celebrity or historical figure Twitter accounts, and then frame the questions they wish to ask them.]

5) Video Mashups: Ask students to find 3 unrelated YouTube videos. Using the built in YouTube Editor, ask them to select sections and mash them up, mixing elements to create a totally new message. How is the message different to those of the three component videos used? What does the message mean now, and how does the sequence of moving images and/or narrative support that message (form)? Who is the mash up video aimed at (audience and purpose)? [NB: Ideal for English Language or Media teaching, but could be adaptable to other subject areas. Your students will need to know about purpose, audience and form, will learn how to compare and contrast, and will also need to learn how to use the YouTube editing tools.]

I bet you can come up with some more!

Photo by Niki Dugan


5 technologies to promote creative learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction

At the recent ALT-C Conference in Nottingham (which I couldn't attend) a very good question was asked  by Renee Filius on Twitter: How can we enable true two-way interaction between lecturers and students that is not too time consuming?  This is a perennial question, one that often exercises the minds of many higher education lecturers. It's vitally important that lecturers and their students maintain dialogue throughout the academic year, but often it doesn't happen, or is sporadic, due mainly to the great time pressures lecturers (and students) are under throughout the year. Compounding this is the large size of student cohorts - how can one lecturer individually address the needs of 300 students? If you don't have the space or time for face-to-face meetings, what can you do? Does technology provide any realistic, sustainable solutions?

Here's a few ideas for you to consider:

1) Lecturers can make sure they maintain dialogue with their students through participation in social media sites. But be careful. It's not as simple as 'going where your students are'. That never worked in the student bar and it won't work on Facebook. In both cases I wait until I'm asked before joining students. The last thing they want is their lecturer hanging around like Dad at a disco when they want to talk frankly and openly about their courses, assessment results or what they got up to in the small hours of the night. Student groups tend to set up their own Facebook groups anyway, without any prompting from their teachers. When I'm invited in to a Facebook group or Google Hangout, I tend to lurk until asked a direct question. Then I wade in, give my advice or opinion and join in with the conversation.

2) One popular social media site - Twitter - is a different proposition entirely. It's more public, more succinct (messages are limited to 140 characters in length) and more appropriate for brief conversations between students and their tutors. Interactions can be managed around a specific hashtag related to the course, or can be private between the tutor and students using the Direct Message (DM) option. Hyperinks and other media can be sent as tweets. I have managed many meaningful conversations with students about their work through this method, both during lessons and also post-lecture, but it's clearly not for everyone.

3) Your Managed Learning Environment (or VLE) - in whatever flavour your organisation has chosen - is a walled garden that allows conversations to be protected from outside eyes. However, bear in mind that most VLEs have online discussion threads that all of the group can see and read. Use your discretion about whether your intervention, coaching and other contributions should be publicly available or should be confidential between you and a specific student. Openly discussed topics on a VLE can escalate into valuable, wider discursive events depending on how many students decide to contribute, and how long the conversation is sustained.

4) Set up (or get your students to set up) a group blog (or wiki) which only you and your student group can see and contribute toward. Encourage everyone to let the group know how they are getting on with their studies, project work, placement experiences, and so on. Often, students solve each other's problems long before lecturers can respond. I have used these to great effect with smaller groups to enable them to document and share their progress during project work. As above, use your discretion and professional judgement as to whether you discuss student issues in this kind of semi-open forum, or take them to a one-to-one personal and/or completely confidential level.

5) Mobile phone Texting is always a useful option, but not everyone wants their mobile number to be accessible by academic staff. Decide with your students whether any of them want to choose this option - on the proviso that you are also willing to be reached at odd hours on your own mobile phone. Some lecturers have a second, dedicated mobile phone (or one that is owned by the organisation) that can be used for the purpose of student - teacher interaction. Texting is ideal for sending a quick message, but it's usualy advisable to then move on to another platform to continue a more protracted interaction.

6) Using Skype or another videoconference tool enables tutors and students to interact in a visual mode. Some research suggests that seeing the person at the 'other end' of the conversation improves interaction. The claim is that seeing the other person's expressions, coupled with their body language, vocal tone and posture makes it easier to understand social cues and ascertain meaning. Some are put off by these affordances, and prefer a simple telephone or Twitter conversation instead, so choose wisely with student preferences in mind. Take care with Skype however, as unlike all of the above methods, there will be no record of what has been said, agreed or highlighted, unless you contrive to record it.

7) Finally, if all else fails, resort to e-mail. It's not something many students like to use when they are chatting informally, but most get the idea that e-mail is a formal communication tool. Bear in mind if any students do e-mail you direct with a request for help, a question or a comment, it is best practice to answer as quickly and as comprehensively as you can. They may be relying on your advice to complete an assignment before a deadline, and your rapid considered response will be appreciated.

I'm certain there must be other methods out there that lecturers use to support greater interaction with their students. If you know of any, or have had experiences (good or bad) you would like to share, please do so in the comments box below.

Photo from Search Engine People Blog

7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Can we teach digital literacies?

There is a disconnect between teaching and learning. Not everything that is taught in school is learnt. And not everything that is learnt in school is actually taught. Many of the things we know as adults may have been propagated in school, but it is only through experience that we actually consolidate that knowledge, usually in later life, post-schooling. A lot is also forgotten (and therefore arguably, never learnt) from our school years. We are at the mercy of the curriculum of our time, and also the whims of the teaching staff who were in charge of our education. In my experience, some teachers were excellent, some were mediocre, and some frankly, should never have become teachers in the first place. Governments continually tinker with curricula, and tend to interfere in school systems, dictating what should be included and excluded from lessons. Public money funds the systems, so they feel it is their right (as democratically elected representatives of the public) to manage the education of the population. They don't always get it right, and in the final analysis, it is often left to the teacher in the classroom to interpret exactly what is contained in each lesson, and how it is to be delivered.

In a blog post entitled 'Digital literacies and the bottom line' Steve Philp questions whether digital literacies should be taught as a part of the school curriculum. The term 'digital literacies' is a relatively recent addition to our vocabulary. It is essentially the skill set that enables us to become digital citizens. (For a deeper explanation of the concept, please read What Digital Literacies?)  Let me respond to Steve's blog post by stating that I don't think that digital literacies can be taught - at least not in formal settings. I believe they can only be learnt informally, mainly due to the fact that many of them are personal, relating directly to a particular student's presence, identity and activities online. That however, does not preclude teachers from supporting the acquisition of digital literacies. Let me explain further:

Learning 'how to' (or procedural knowledge), is often implicit in the learning of a concept (the factual or declarative knowledge is the other part of the equation). But often it is not, and if it is not explicated, the students fails to apprehend the full nuances of the concept.  Digital literacies are largely procedural in nature, but have some declarative components: the learner is able to avoid copyright issues, can protect their digital identity and present their ideas across a number of diverse digital platforms, or create content that does not compromise their integrity or physical safety are just a few examples.

We cannot assume that all students will arrive in class with a fully developed set of digital literacies at their disposal. If we did, we would probably be adherents of the largely discredited Digital Natives theory. Nor can we assume that exposure to computer technology, mobile devices and social media enables them to acquire these literacies through some mysterious form of osmosis. Steve Philps claims that many of his contemporaries are highly digitally literate, holding key jobs in hi-tech industries. He says they did not learn these literacies formally at school. Perhaps not, but I bet they had ample opportunity to make mistakes later on, when they were out in the big bad world and exposed to the risks of online working. How many of them made mistakes they later regretted? How many of those mistakes could have been avoided, if the school providing them with opportunities to take those risks in a safe environment? I think schools definitely have a role to play, but it may not be direct teaching of certain things, because not everything that is learnt can be taught.

So what can schools do?

Asking students what if? questions and giving them time to find answers, within a psychologically safe environment is one method teachers can adopt. Students can construct their own personal meanings from a common question and then show and tell how they will manage their online presence. Showing examples of dangerous or risky practice and the potential consequences is another means teachers have at their disposal. This could be used as a starter activity to support the first method. Encouraging students to discuss the dangers and rewards of communicating and sharing in digital environments is also a powerful method - consolidating their learning. But look out. I don't think any of this can strictly be called 'teaching', but is more akin to facilitating and supporting.

What we can hopefully agree on is that in today's increasingly complex and connected world, everyone of us needs to maintain a sense of what is safe and what is dangerous practice. To get the best out of digital tools, each of us needs to know the boundaries and each of us needs to assimilate the culture of digital citizenship. That is why I argue that we cannot teach digital literacies, nor can we risk students learning them for themselves. There has to be a middle ground. What teachers can do I believe, is create conducive environments in which the acquisition and practice of digital literacies can be scaffolded. That way, we are preparing the next generation of digital citizens with opportunities to acquire literacies that enable them to interpret and successfully negotiate the complex, connected world they already inhabit.

Photo by Gennadiy Ratushenko


Can we teach digital literacies? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New wine, new wineskins

"... no man putteth new wine into old wineskins; else the new wine will burst the wineskins, and be spilled, and the wineskins shall perish. But new wine must be put into new wineskins; and both are preserved. " (Luke 5:37-38)

The above passage relates to Jesus Christ and his teaching to his disciples. It's a quote that is often misquoted (used for example as "old wine into new bottles"), and is applied metaphorically within a wide range of contexts. As you will see, it's important to use 'wineskin' rather than 'bottle', to appreciate the full meaning of the quote. The meaning of the parable has been applied as a popular metaphor to show how volatile it can be at the nexus of old and new cultures or ideas. Alvin Toffler illustrates this phenomenon quite eruditely in his book Future Shock, warning that where old and new cultures clash, there will be disorientation, confusion, stress, disruption ... and there will also be winners and losers.

Today we are facing this challenge in education, across all the sectors of learning and teaching. In fact we have been facing this challenge for some time. Putting new wine into old bottles means that new practices do not sit well with old practices. New methods cannot be fully explained or justified by old theories. New approaches often break the boundaries and rules of old paradigms.

The rapid influx of new technologies into formal learning environments has created a large amount of disruption to old practices, and it has created a fair amount of stress for those practitioners who have become comfortable with old practices. There are winners and losers. Some teachers thrive, others merely survive, and some fall by the wayside. Change is never an easy thing to manage, and is never fully welcomed by any profession. And yet change is exactly what we face each and every day, especially if we are educators.

Let's deconstruct the meaning behind the parable of the new wine in old wineskins. 2000 years ago, at the time of Jesus and the disciples, wine was stored in skins - bladders that were usually fashioned from goat skin or sheep skin, to hold the liquid. Often the wine would ferment inside the skins, forcing them to expand to their limit, and eventually causing them to become brittle. Once used, the wineskins had to be discarded, otherwise the new wine would ferment, expanding them further, and causing them to burst. It was false economy not to buy new wineskins to store the new wine in. Wine was spoilt and money lost when the rubric was ignored. The power of the parable resides in the nature of the wineskin. Replacing wineskin with 'bottle' would therefore make the analogy meaningless.

The parallels between the wineskin parable and the state of the current state education system are clear to me. My interpretation is this: new societal needs require new methods of teaching; new methods of teaching need new theories - theories for the information age. For example, if new technology is used in the same way as old technology, the pedagogy 'wineskin' is likely to break. When interactive whiteboards were introduced into classrooms a decade or so ago, many teachers used them poorly, often in the same way they had used the non-interactive dry wipe whiteboards. This was usually down to ignorance due to lack of training. The old practices continued, negating the potential of the new technologies, with the result that teaching did not improve. Teachers failed to capitalise on the affordances and potential of the 'new wine' technology, because they were still limiting their practice and their imagination to the 'old wineskins' mind set of the past. Similarly, now that mobile phones are owned by just about every student in the school, it seems that the old wineskin of 'banning phones in class' needs to be discarded, and a new wineskin of 'let's see how we can harness the potential of smartphones in learning' needs to be applied. I could go on, giving other examples of how the old paradigm needs to be discarded in favour of new pedagogies and theories, but time and space prevent me.

We should know this though: The current generation of learners brings a new set of expectations that are largely unfulfilled because of the old models of teaching that still exist in schools, colleges and universities. Rigid delivery methods and siloed curricula do little to support the development of the Knowmad Society. There is evidence to suggest that learners appearing in our classes are learning in different ways to those in previous generations. And yet state-funded education has not advanced sufficiently to support these new ways. The new wine is still being contained in the old wineskins. Society also has new priorities that were unknown even a decade ago. These have arrived with such rapidity that they have caught the conservative, slow-to-change state education system off guard and ill-prepared to meet them. The old wineskins are leaking at the seams, and are about to burst. We are now preparing students for a world of work that doesn't yet exist. It follows that new theories must be applied to explain and underpin the new practices that need to emerge to meet the new expectations. We need new wineskins for new wine if we are going to save education. We need a new vision in our schools, colleges and universities to preserve what is good and great about education - a 'wineskin' that will cope with the vast, sweeping and fermenting changes that are about to engulf us.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


New wine, new wineskins by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Standing alone

While driving through the forests of Northern Romania several years ago, I came across a large swathe of trees that had died. I asked my guide what the problem was, and was told it was the result of acid rain. Pollutants from local factories had risen into the atmosphere, distilled in the rain clouds and had then descended onto the forests as a corrosive agent, destroying and damaging large tracts of foliage. In such a beautifully lush forest, the dead trees looked rather unsightly, and served as a reminder of the destruction we have brought to our environment through unchecked fossil-fuelled large-scale industrial processing. And yet, in amongst the large scale destruction, surprisingly, the occasional green tree stood, somehow defiant and resilient against the acid rain. Years later, thinking back on how incongruous this seemed to me at the time, I can now see how the acid rain trees story can be applied as a potent metaphor. You see, in even the most strident incidences of widespread oppression, disaster or destruction, there will often be elements of society that will resist, and there will be some who remain untouched. Life goes on. Some survive, against all odds. Some even grow stronger. Such a metaphor can be applied to just about any situation where there is strife, and where people are struggling to survive against seemingly irrepressible odds.

One powerful example of this is Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl who lived in Pakistan's Northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and who stood up against the Taliban militants who controlled the region. When the Taliban decreed that girls were to be banned from receiving an education, and started to destroy schools in the area, she began to write a blog about life under the regime.  She also protested strongly against their archaic laws on Facebook and other social media. She wrote her blog for the BBC under a pseudonym, but unfortunately, the Taliban soon discovered her identity. In October 2012, as the teenager was returning home, Taliban gunmen attempted to assassinate her, shooting her in the head and neck.  She was airlifted to hospital, and although in a critical condition and unconscious for a period of time, she survived the surgery and after also receiving specialist treatment in a British hospital, recovered from her injuries. The Taliban were unrepentant, reiterating their plan to murder her (and members of her family), considering her a clear threat to their regime.

Many others, especially young people might, understandably, have abandoned their crusade at that point, intimidated by the threats from the Taliban gunmen. But Malala did not yield. She had the courage and conviction to stand her ground, and now campaigns openly and vigorously for free education for all. She is an inspiration to millions around the world, has addressed the United Nations Assembly, and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. She has now established the Malala Fund for Girls' Education, and a biographical film about her life is currently in production. Malala's courageous stand has already made a huge impact on education around the world. Schools have been re-established in many places where they were once closed, and world leaders have caught her vision to campaign for free education for all, regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity. Malala is truly a tree standing alone in the midst of destruction, resilient and unyielding. At her young age, she is an agent for change, surviving and succeeding against all the odds.

One of Malala's most memorable quotes to date is: 'books will defeat terrorism'. I hope she inspires you as much as she has inspired me.

'Standing up for what you believe in, sometimes means standing alone'

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Standing alone by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital assignments: How shall we grade them?

A couple of years ago, I took the decision to encourage students to submit their assignments in forms other than the traditional, paper based essay. It was about time. Should we persist in assessing students in modes of communication they may never use in the real world? I therefore decided to give them different opportunities to express their learning. Many of the modules I teach at my university deal with alternative methods of learning and teaching, and focus a great deal on new and emerging technologies. It was therefore both opportune and appropriate that I should lock assessment into the mode of learning and the subject matter. That year, one or two students from the group were courageous enough to accept my challenge, and submitted their assignments in the form of blogs. Most played safe and kept to the familiar pathway by submitting standard essays, which was not a problem. Last year, several more students submitted their assignments in blog format, and one or two created videos as their assignments. I believe it's a trend that will grow in pace. Over the next few academic years I predict that submitting assignments in alternative digital formats will become the norm. Then they won't be 'alternative' any more.

Clearly, there are several questions to contemplate here.

The first question is how do you grade these assignments, if they are not presented in traditional essay mode? On this issue, you need to agree with students prior to submission over what the assessment criteria are, and exactly for what the marks are going to be awarded. These criteria must be equalised across all the possible submission formats. How for example, have you agreed an equivalency for wordcount in a video? How should a blog be structured and sequenced, when there may be several non-linear posts contained within it? Would a hyperlink in a blog be equivalent to a reference in an essay? It may be prudent to present your students with model assignments in blog, video, wiki and other non-traditional formats so they can see what they need to be aiming at. Modelling best practice is a very powerful approach and if applied appropriately can offer cognitive apprenticeship to learners.

The second question is how can you ensure that students put the equivalent cognitive effort into say, a video, as they would into a 4000 word assignment? Can a 5 minute video contain the same level and quality of academic discussion as a 2000 word essay? Or is it an easier option? Firstly, you need yourself to be aware of what is possible within the formats and technologies that students will use. How difficult is it for example, to put a voice-over track or a music track onto a video, or overlay captions? If you don't know what the issues are, and the effort involved, you may be fooled into thinking students have worked hard (or not hard enough) to achieve the end product. Secondly, over a course of several months, it may be a good strategy to require students to create assignments in several formats, so they gain an insight into what each can afford, and acquire skills in presenting their academic ideas and arguments in several formats.

Whatever you decide to do, it will be imperative that you ensure all assessment criteria are applied equally across all assignments, no matter what wrapper they are presented in. I'm quite clear with my students. Good structure, good grammar and readability (or watchability), critical analysis and evaluation, good data application and presentation, clear arguments and acknowledgement of sources - must all be evidenced in the assignment I give to my students, in no matter what format it is presented.

There are further, procedural and administrative issues that each institution will need to deal with. What if support services cannot (or will not) accommodate the submission of non-paper assignments? What if your external examiner is unwilling to accept blogs, wikis or videos as legitimate academic evidence of learning? For the first issue, it all depends on how your admin system is set up. Usually a few words or friendly discussion with the relevant manager will be enough to adjust systems to enable admin staff to process non-linear and/or non-paper based assignments. For the second issue - I would advise that you to change your external examiner.

I'm certain this is not complete. Please feel free to add your own ideas and advice in the comments box below.

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Digital assignments: How shall we grade them? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learners as producers

For the longest time teachers and lecturers have held the monopoly on the production of academic content. They create lesson plans, produce resources, devise marking schemes and search around for activities and games they can repurpose to use in teaching sessions. Although the production of content has been the preserve of the teacher and the academic since the formalisation of education, increasingly, we also see learners creating their own content. They have the tools, they own the technology, and they have the confidence to use them, not only informally, but increasingly in formal learning contexts. Many are prolific and proficient in producing blogs, podcasts, videos and photos for sharing on the web. They can do it all using the simple smartphone in their pocket. This user generated content trend is apparent not only in universities and colleges but also in the compulsory education sectors.

What are the implications of this trend? There are many of course, but in this post I want to draw your attention to just 5 key areas which I believe educators need to pay attention to.

Firstly, the traditional role of teachers is changing. Teachers won't be redundant in the new technology rich learning economy, but they will need to adapt as conditions change, becoming guides and mentors rather than instructors. As teachers switch from directors to co-producers, from pedagogues to co-learners, they begin to realise the power of peer production, and the deeper engagement students can achieve when they research and learn for themselves. This shift was going to happen anyway, even before learners started to create their own content. Teacher roles have been moving from didactic to facilitative roles ever since constructivist theories started to enter into teacher training curricula.

Secondly, as partly as a result of the first trend, learners are becoming more central to the learning process. Where once students were seen as the passive recipients, and end products of schooling, now they are an integral part of the learning process and play an active role in their own education. Students are assuming greater responsibility for their own learning, and in so doing, are gaining greater insights into the process of learning by creating their own content around their studies. Personalised learning and the student experience are central components in the mission statements of many leading universities worldwide. Student centred learning is clearly where education providers recognise they should locate themselves. Teachers now need to wake up to the fact that they don't teach subjects, they teach people.

Thirdly, content can become more engaging because students invest their own time, energy and vision into creating it. That gives them personal ownership of their learning. They place their own individual stamp on the content they create, and then share it within their personal learning environment and across their peer network. Thereby, in gaining an audience for their content, they are spurred on further to develop, refine and perfect not only their content, but indirectly and probably unwittingly, their understanding of the knowledge that content contains. There is little that is more motivating than gaining an audience that appreciates your knowledge and skills. Social media tools such as blogs and video sharing sites facilitate this process, but on a global scale.

Fourthly, students are becoming evaluators as well as producers of learning content. Because they produce content, they also consume content, and this puts them in an ideal position to assess the quality, relevance and provenance of the content they encounter. Also, many learners find out how to produce their content to an acceptable standard by evaluating other people's content, and although useful guidance can come from experts such as teachers and lecturers, increasingly, auto-didacticism is taking a central place in the student experience.

Finally, the context in which the content is produced is assuming more importance. The importance of the situatedness of learning at all levels cannot be overemphasised. Some of the strongest experiences and lessons we learn are rooted in authentic contexts, cultures and activities. In work-based learning this is particularly vital, as it enables workers to embed themselves within their culture of their work and learn more deeply about the social, political, technical and economic contexts that are specific to their employment.

Some readers may argue that this is an idealistic position to adopt regarding self learning and user generated content. My response would be - look around you and see what is happening inside and outside the classroom. Learners are more resilient and able than many teachers give them credit for. They have unprecedented access to a large array of new technologies. They connect and communicate in ways previous generations could only imagine. Most importantly, creating, repurposing, organising and sharing content are a way of life for this generation. They are identified and maintain their identities through their social media and are very familiar with the terrain. Schools, colleges and universities that support the ethos of student generated content will find themselves tapping directly into the rich motherlode of creativity and innovation this generation of learners offers.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Learners as producers by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.