Video for assessment

I have always believed that assessment should be primarily for the benefit of the student, not the teacher. I concede that teachers need to know how their students are progressing, and this is very much a part of the assessment process. However, assessment of learning is not as important as assessment for learning. When it comes to supporting a student's progress, showing them what they can do to improve, or perform better is the key. Formative forms of assessment are therefore more important in the process of learning. As I have previously argued, I believe summative assessment methods are only useful to mark an end to a specific period of learning, a gateway into the next stage of the learning journey (and I'm not convinced we should even be doing this in many cases).

In my teaching I have therefore focused on assessment as a means of scaffolding student progress, and I employ a variety of methods to achieve this end. I don't like end of module assessments much. They are there to confirm the level the student has achieved, but more importantly, they should be used to inform students how they should proceed to achieve higher grades next time. This can be quite a superficial exercise, especially if the student learns nothing from writing the assignment.

One recent assessment method I have used is to get students to make videos. Here's the process: Students are introduced to a new concept, presented with some basic content and guidelines, and asked to go away and research more deeply around their topic. Each student in the group is given a different topic to research. They are then asked to create a video (or other form of presentation) and show it to their classmates. What ensues is an open discussion, with tutor participation, to explore more deeply the topic in question. In parallel to this, the student presenter is challenged to defend their perspective, to think critically about their own views, and to discuss the process they went through to create the video. The latter promotes metacognitive processes, because the student has to reflect upon how they have learnt what they know, and to examine their own thought processes. All the students learn about all the topics through watching the presentations, and asking questions. Student presenters receive feedback on their work from their peers, their tutor, and ultimately when they publish their video on YouTube, from viewers who are beyond their own learning community. This forms a very powerful mix and progression of learning through making, thinking, questioning and interaction.

Below are a small selection of the videos my own second year teacher education students have made this week around the theme of learning theories. In this instance, these videos represent the next level of learning to that described in the process above. They have already blogged about one specific learning theory, and have then combined it with another theory to create their own synthesis of understanding about how theories relate to each other to better explain learning. The videos depict this synthesis in a variety of styles. It goes without saying that your constructive feedback to my students on their work would be very welcome.



A video entitled Applying theory to the classroom by Alice Sheppard and Laura Mayo, incorporating Maslow's theory with the spreading activation memory theory of Collins and Quillian.



This video by Portia Smith presents Gestalt theory and its applications to primary education, with a contrast to structalist theory.


Finally, above is a video by Rebecca Smallshaw which examines the Pygmalion and Golem effects (self fulfilling prophecy theory.

Photo by Popperipop on Wikimedia Commons



Video for assessment by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Globally connected minds

Wouldn't we be foolish if we were faced with huge problems, and couldn't solve them because we were unable to use our collective intelligence. Wouldn't it be tragic if we failed to harness the full potential of the global connectivity we now enjoy? Trying to tackle grand scale problems as individuals is like trying to smash a large boulder with a tendon hammer.

I was talking once with a colleague via Skype when our conversation turned to research. We agreed that in this connected society, where hundreds of millions of people are already online, the future of research will belong to the people. Niche research will probably continue to be conducted by experts and academics, in their so called 'ivory tower' world. That's what they are paid to do. They will no doubt publish their work in a highly rated peer reviewed journal which very few will read, because only a very few will be able to penetrate the pay wall the publisher has erected to 'protect' the research (research which has usually been funded through public taxation). The academics will do this because a) it is the traditional route to being published b) it is expected by their university who will reward them with promotion and c) it will ultimately attract research assessment funding. Those of us who have become disenchanted with closed journals, will publish our work in open access journals which are not so highly rated, but attract many more readers. Many more, especially those outside the academic world, but who are just as passionate about their studies will post their thoughts onto blogs, as videos on YouTube, and on other social media channels, adding to the discourse. Many will attract vast audiences that equate to the populations of medium sized countries. Many will also comment, adding to the research through dialogue and debate, extending the discourse still further.

Increasingly, the effect of the global connected mind will emerge as a social phenomenon. There are representations of this in popular culture. In Star Trek, the Next Generation, the Borg are a powerful, marauding society of nomadic cybernetic organisms - or cyborgs - that assimilate every society they encounter. They do so by absorbing the collective intelligence of each new world into their own vast, already existing hive mind. Resistance is futile, because everyone they encounter is overpowered, and integrated. Although I don't foresee a time when we will ever be invaded by such cyborgs, it serves to illustrate the fact that we are better when we are connected and are working concertedly toward a shared goal.

There is a growing feeling amongst the networked nation that we can do so much more together than we can as isolated individuals. To be a truly globally connected community, we must learn to work together, freely share and exchange our ideas and resources, and ultimately, teach each other about the world around us. We have the tools to do so. It is already beginning to happen.

"We have 3 billion new minds coming on line to work with us to help us solve our grand challenges." - Peter Diamandis (TED Talk)

Photo by Rajasagar



Globally connected minds by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Uniform behaviour?

When psychologist Philip Zimbardo embarked on a new and outlandish social experiment in 1971, he could not possibly have predicted the outcome or repercussions. The Stanford prison experiment was a study that sought to investigate what happened to people when they were imprisoned. 24 student volunteers were randomly assigned as either guards or prisoners. The former were kitted out with guard uniforms and other associated paraphernalia. They were given sunglasses to wear and told you guard the prisoners in a mock prison in the basement of one of the Stanford University buildings. Those assigned as prisoners were 'arrested' and cuffed, and brought in by police cars to the 'prison' where they were placed in the cells.

The student participants adapted quickly to the roles they were assigned, but then they began to exceed the expectations of Zimbardo and his team. Some of the guards began to abuse the prisoners, imposing impossible tasks on them, physically punishing them and putting them under prolonged mental duress. The experiment was brought to a premature halt a few days later by the team when the guards began to overstep the mark, and many of the prisoners began to exhibit psychological trauma.

Several theories emerged or were redeveloped as a result of the experiment. Obedience to authority due to participants being susceptible to suggestion seemed reminiscent of Stanley Milgram's earlier electric shock experiments and his work in social compliance. Situational attribution was also thought to be a contributing factor - the context of the experiment including the environment, costumes and roles were thought to have exerted a stronger influence on participants than their own personal morals (dispositional attribution), and thus people behaved out of character and went far beyond what they considered to be their own limits of behaviour. Even Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance was deemed to be an explanatory theory to explain why the guards behaved so aggressively to their prisoners, even though they realised their actions were unethical. Ultimately, Zimbardo and his colleagues theorised that a form of deindividuation had occurred, where the group exerted greater influence on individuals than their own personal codes of behaviour, causing the guards to lose a sense of their own self awareness. The individual members of the group therefore complied with the views and actions of the majority.



This experiment and other similar ones can contribute strongly toward our understanding of how education is conducted in schools. Several key school phenomena such as obeying rules, synchronisation of behaviour such as lining up, the wearing of uniforms and compliance to authority of teachers can be explained using the above theories. There may also be some useful insight into problems such as bullying and truancy. The excellent video above, created by one of my second year education students, Kate Bartlett, illustrates many of the connections in relation to the Stanford prison experiment.

Photo by theirhistory on Flickr



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

The persistence of distance (learning)

In a formal sense, distance learning has been a familiar concept since at least 1837, when Sir Isaac Pitman began teaching his shorthand system using typed instruction cards mailed through the universal Penny Postal service to his students across England. Students returned the cards containing their answers for marking via the same affordable postal system in what eventually became known as correspondence courses. Some would say formal distance education was established much earlier in the Americas. Arguably, the concept of distance education via correspondence may have its roots in earlier attempts at remote instruction when the Apostle Paul sent out letters (or epistles) via courier to the early Christian church from his prison cell in Rome. Earlier still, were the cave paintings of early man a primitive form of distance education? They were surely an asynchronous form of instruction, a sort of same place - different time learning.

By comparison, in its technology supported multiple formats, contemporary distance education is much more sophisticated. We have come a long way. The illustrious history of teaching students at a distance has embraced each new technology as it appeared, from printed text, through telephone, radio and television, CDs and videos cassettes, to modern day, digital age technologies such as mobile phones, the internet and direct satellite broadcasting. Teaching en masse has emerged as a significant trend because of a lessening need to create co-present learning environments such as classrooms and lecture halls. From the University of South Africa and the British Open University in the sixties to modern mega-universities, virtual universities and even Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), the massification of education at a distance has progressively advanced as technology gives the impetus.

We can look back and take stock. Now it seems, physical separation is no longer such a great barrier to learning, and the tyranny of distance appears to be finally broken. Learning in any mode, in any place and at any time is accessible to anyone with the means to access it. Does this mean that the term 'distance education' has had its day? Does it require a new term to describe what we see and experience when we engage in learning using technology? Certainly these questions have been raised many times in the last few years, and once again featured, this time as a topic of conversation at a recent Twitter based #EDENChat.

#EDENChat is organised by EDEN's Network of Academics and Professionals and is an open chat on Twitter that regularly tackles topical issues in distance education, e-learning and technology supported learning. The topic for the recent chat was the future of distance education, and many educators joined in the global conversation, spanning New Zealand to the Americas. The exchanges of that conversation can be found archived by Storify on the main EDEN website.

Central to this present debate was the preoccupation of humankind to name things in order to understand them better. 'Name it and you tame it', goes the old aphorism. The term distance education was originally employed to describe the transactions that occurred when teacher and their students interacted with each other and with content over geographical space. Whichever way we regard it, distance education in all its forms has always relied on the mediating factor of technology. Might it be that the very act of learning while separated from others by geographical space is being submerged, stifled, lost in the milieu of our technology rich societies? As such, is distance education losing its purchase on our collective consciousness? Time and technology are indeed moving onwards at an ever increasing pace.

The word 'education' may also be an exclusive term, connoting formal affiliation with an academic institution, and thus inappropriate as a description for a lot of learning activity. With the advent of personal learning networks (PLNs) and social media, people everywhere are now able to learn more or less informally without any connection to university or college. There has been a dramatic shift in the last decade. Knowledge is no longer the preserve of the elite organisations, and has been slipping through their fingers for some time. More often than not in today's knowledge economy, your learning is likely to be found and propagated through your PLN. It is now possible to find content on just about any subject under the sun, simply by searching and finding it on the Web. If you are not actively searching for this content, it may be recommended to you by members of your PLN. Much of this content is free and requires little more than time and concerted effort on the part of the learner to master it. Does this mean that the university is obsolete? Far from it. The campus based university, and virtual versions of it are burgeoning as more and more people demand a formal degree level qualification. But many more are learning informally, on a daily basis, as access to the web through personal connected technologies increases. So what are we to make of distance education against the backdrop of this terrain?

The field is now replete with alternative terms that attempt to describe what we do when we learn with technology. Blended learning describes a mix of technology supported and face to face learning. It used to be called 'dual mode' learning, but this term never really caught on. Perhaps this indicates the future of the term 'distance education' which has had significantly longer to embed itself in our collective understanding of what it entails. Other terms have also been introduced: One controversial term - e-Learning - was coined to describe electronic versions of learning, essentially the same thing. m-Learning, or mobile learning focused on the use of personal technologies. Virtual learning and online learning promised similar outcomes - learning in any place and at any time. There was also open learning, a version of education that developed alongside the philosophy of the distance education delivered by many institutions - the provision of quality learning opportunities for anyone regardless of their previous experience or qualifications. The nomenclature of technology supported learning multiplied as the years progressed. And yet the term distance education persisted, living on in the many journals and other scholarly publications that dedicated themselves to furthering its academic scope, in the many organisations including EDEN that emerged toward the end of the last century, and in multiple events around the world that celebrated excellence in its practice.

Several decades ago, we started to discuss other aspects of distance - the temporal separation of teachers and students and how this could be bridged, overcome. The transactional distance, or the psychological gap between teachers' intentions and students' expectations also received its fair share of attention. We began to realise that different technologies afforded different outcomes, depending on how they were deployed. New models of distance education were formulated, many tested out in real conditions with literally hundreds of thousands of students as the participants in the research. The name persisted, but still the questions continued to be voiced: is distance education now anachronistic? Do we still need the term to describe what is now occurring in education with technology? Should we now focus on learning, because distance is no longer a problem?

No doubt the discussion and debate will continue around the future of distance education and the nomenclature that describes it. As long as technology is used to mediate communication between students and their teachers there will always be distance learning. The extent to which it is 'blended' will depend on the extent to which students can actually be co-present with subject experts such as teachers. The term 'distance education' may well be anachronistic in the digital age. However, the practice of learning remotely from the parent organisation will gather pace, and although the name may ultimately fade, the human race will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with learning and communicating using technology. We are gazing into a very exciting future.

Photo by Marina Shemesh on Flickr



The persistence of distance (learning) by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Thinking, language and memory

I've had several conversations with my students in the past few weeks about how Vygotskiian theory informs our understanding of learning. But social constructivist theory, particularly Vygotsky's socio-cultural focus, extends greatly beyond the concept of ZPD - the zone of proximal development - that most people are familar with. While ZPD is an important explanation of how we learn, we limit our understanding if we focus exclusively on this aspect of the theory. Vygotsky also believed that language development was important for higher order thinking.

Recently, while exploring learning and memory with my students, I gave one of my groups the task to think about their earliest memories. The students came up with recollections of their memories in early childhood, usually from when they were two or three years old. This would have been around the time when they were developing language, extending their lexicons. Many of the memories my students reported were not particularly happy - feelings of nausea, getting lost, being scared. Others told of their interaction with various objects and how it made them feel. In short, many of the first memories they reported had emotions attached.

My own earliest recollection was a conversation I had with my grandmother about naming my small army of teddy bears when I was about 3 years old. I had given them all the same name, and remember being quite upset when she told me they each had to have different names. I believe I recalled it because I was able to articulate it and I speculate that perhaps children do not recall events before a certain age because they have insufficient language to describe them. When children interact with tools and objects, how much can they remember of these events, if they have not developed their language sufficiently to describe and therefore consolidate these memories? It seems to me that to express our emotions or relate what has happened to us, we need language. It also seems clear that recalling memories involves thinking. But how much do our memories depend on the development of language?

Vygotsky held some strong opinions about this question and proposed strong connections between language and intelligence. He bemoaned the problems that have arisen when speech and thought have been studied as though they had no influence on each other. The two, he believed, have a 'dialectical unity' and are the 'very essence of complex human behaviour.' In his seminal book Mind and Society, he argues that the development of speech has great importance to thinking when there is interaction with objects and tools. When children discover the relationship between signs and their meaning, something significant happens - higher order processes occur. Whether memory begins to crystallise as language develops is open to debate.

It led me to wondering if this could be applied in education? Teachers need to consider reinforcing memory and recall by encouraging students to develop richer language around their learning. They might use a mix of symbolic multimedia content that incorporates text, images and speech to create and represent ideas and concepts, to promote reflection. This is one reason why I believe blogging is such an important tool to support thinking and learning. Blogging and other creative forms of writing have a rich language capability that can support better memory and recall, particularly if the technology is used as a mind tool to extend language. I welcome any comments on these ideas.

Reference
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp 23-24.

Photo by Anders Sandberg on Flickr



Thinking, language and memory by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Freedom, democracy and education

What is freedom? Many have asked, and there are many answers. Some would define freedom as a human right - to speak, to act or to think as you wish - and see this exemplified in a truly democratic society. Others would be content to see freedom as a state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. Former US president Ronald Reagan once remarked: 'Freedom is never more than one generation away. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on to them to do the same.' In Convergence Culture Henry Jenkins see freedom framed by communication: 'Freedom is fostered when the means of communication are dispersed, decentralised, and easily available, as are printing presses or microcomputers.' Clearly, freedom of speech must be globalised if all are to have a voice, and if we cannot communicate, then how are we to express ourselves?

Education can bring freedom, the capability to break out from the confines of one's mind, to take risks, to ask difficult questions. Most of us have the potential to learn what we want. Sir Ken Robinson remarks that he cannot play the piano. This is not because he is incapable of playing piano, but because he has never learnt how, or taken the time to discover for himself what it is to play. True education can draw people out from within, enabling them to see themselves from a new perspective, as someone who has creativity, and can apply it to achieve just about anything they wish.

Carl Rogers wrote about freedom to learn - where people can acquire an insatiable curiosity for learning that results in them declaring: 'I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me.' For Rogers and other humanist educators, the child is central to the learning process, and must have freedom to decide what is important to them, including how to think and how to communicate those thoughts to others. It also involves learning at a pace and in a mode that suits each individual. Without the agency to make these choices, there can be no real freedom.

Progressive educator John Dewey also placed the onus of freedom at the door of each learner. He argued that there are essentially two components of freedom - access to the means to achieve your dreams, and the ability to choose wisely once you have those means. Regardless of your great aspirations to be a world renowned concert pianist, if you have no access to a piano, you will never realise your dreams. According to this view, freedom is largely in the mind, and can be realised when people are knowledgeable enough to make the right choices with the means they have at their disposal.

References
Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education. New York: MacMillan.
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. p. 11.
Robinson, K. (2011) Out of Our Minds: Learning to be creative. Chichester: Capstone. p. 159.
Rogers, C. R. (1969) Freedom to Learn: A view of what education might become. Columbus, OH: Merrill Publishing. p. 3.

Photo by Freddie Pena on Flickr



Freedom, democracy and education by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Looking ahead

"The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered." 

This quote from Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in 1988 reveals a deep truth that all teachers should apprehend. School is not about teaching subjects, it is about teaching children - and education is not simply about preparing them for a world of work, it is a preparation for life. 

In an uncertain future, where we cannot clearly define the world our students will emerge into a few years from now, it seems sensible that we should not restrict ourselves to teaching them what we know. We should also be teaching them to discover for themselves what we don't yet know. We owe it to them to offer them as many chances as we can to make sense of the future. The challenges for children in the next generation will not resemble the challenges we are met with today. Global environmental stability, overpopulation and food production, economic crises, mass conflict, pandemics, and other even more serious and yet to emerge threats to humankind, will not go away when those currently in leadership are no longer around. It makes sense that schools should work toward equipping children with skills and literacies that will enable them to discover the answers to problems we haven't even begun to anticipate. 

How do we achieve this? It is not an easy proposition. One thing we cannot afford to do is to continue to use 20th century curricula to teach 21st century children. Teaching methods must also change. It seems that we limit children when we push content at them rather than encouraging them to create content for themselves. As Rabindranath Tagore once warned 'Do not limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time' All the children in our primary schools, and the vast majority of those in our secondary schools have no memory of the last century. It is history to them. Their eyes are set to the future, and they are curious to know what part they will play in it. This is their century, and schools should present them with opportunities to learn that they will find relevant and useful in their future. 

Learning through exploration, solving problems and creating things can and should replace the largely passive models of education from last century that tenaciously cling to our present school systems. Learning how to conform, work in a team and to follow instructions is one thing, but knowing how to explore, hypothesise, analyse problems and make decisions based on personal, creative instinct is entirely another. Learning how to invent new things, take risks and try out new ideas, to innovate and break out of the constraints of current ways of thinking will be increasingly expedient. Some would argue that you can't teach these things in school, but you can certainly create environments that are conducive for their learning. 

Another insightful quote from Jean Piaget encapsulates all of the above:

"Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society. But for me, education means making creators... you have to make inventors, creators, not conformists.'  

Photo by Jayel Aheram on Flickr




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

The height of SAMR

In my most recent post I outlined the first part of the SAMR model, which I used as a lens to explore the integration of new technologies into education. The first two levels, substitution and augmentation are often referred to as low levels of technology integration, in as much as they do not substantially impact upon or transform pedagogy. Arguably the third and fourth levels, modification and redefinition are transformational, because they imply the technology can create opportunities for learning that were previously unavailable or inconceivable.

Modification represents a significant functional change in learning, and some technologies can offer this if applied appropriately. Blogging for example, provides students with a potentially very large audience for their writing. Previously, essay writing was for an audience of one - the teacher/assessor. Now the affordances of blogging can gain large audiences who are often willing to comment and feedback on the quality, significance and meaning of the post. The results of a number of research studies suggest that students tend to raise their games, and write more concisely, accurately and circumspectly, researching and editing their blog posts to maximise their work.  

Redefinition is characterised by the use of technologies that radically redefine one or more aspects of learning. To be featured in this category, technology should create learning opportunities that were previously unattainable or even unthinkable. The capabilities of social media to give students their own publishing or broadcasting platform has prompted an exponential rise in user generated content. Learning through making was always an option in the traditional classroom, but learning through making that can be interactive, reiterated, linked and connected to other artefacts, embedded and repurposed, and generally propagated across a variety of media, is a huge step forward for education.

Some find the SAMR model unwieldy or lacking in substance, and there has been criticism of its simplicity and also in regard to its ambiguity. Notwithstanding, I feel SAMR has something to contribute to our understanding of technology integration and I particularly like Amy Burvall's reframing of the SAMR model, which she has illustrated in her inimitable style.

All of this is futile though, if teachers miss the opportunities to situate learning in real contexts. Technology must be appropriately deployed. A key stage in any successful technology integration is to ensure that the affordances of new technologies are exploited by students for authentic learning outcomes and leveraged to be extensions of their natural cognitive and physical capabilities.  

Photo by Jim Cianca on Wikimedia Commons



The height of SAMR by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Here comes the SAMR

In previous posts I articulated some thoughts on how technology can (and should) be integrated into education. In an initial post I argued that technology use is not the same as technology integration. Technology integration results in digital tools being embedded into learning, so that for example maker cultures emerge, or the classroom activities are flipped, supporting more effective pedagogies and improving student learning outcomes. Ultimately, technology should be integrated into education so that learning can be transformed. More recently I wrote that there are several kinds of technology, characterised by levels of manipulation which can offer powerful reflective learning and critical thinking opportunities. In this post I will use a tried and tested model of technology adoption as a theoretical lens to examine some of the most recent, emergent properties of technology integration.

The model known by its acronym SAMR - was first proposed by Ruben Puentedura and represents four increasingly complex layers of engagement. The first layer, Substitution, is characterised by teachers using new technologies in very much the same ways they used older, more familiar technologies. One example is when classrooms began to be equipped with interactive whiteboards (IWBs). In retrospect we know that many teachers had little time to learn how to use these new technologies effectively, so merely used them to write on and to display their slides, as though they were traditional chalk boards or projection screens. This was far from a genuine integration of technology into the learning process, and it led to little or no change in pedagogy, and an inertia that prevented transformation. Possibly, some teachers were also concerned about how to use IWBs effectively, or were anxious about having to learn something new, and so resorted to comfortable and familiar use.

The second level of the SAMR model is Augmentation, where new technologies not only replace older technologies, but in some way begin to alter the pedagogy or methods that are being used. To achieve this, the technology is not only required to have new affordances, these new affordances need to be recognised by teachers and then exploited in authentic contexts to enhance learning. Such an approach could result in deeper engagement of learners, an extension of their learning experience or an enhancement of their physical or cognitive capabilities. One low level example of augmentation would be the use of Google Docs to not only manipulate and save text (a wordprocessor can do this), but also to share a document with others so that collaborative writing is possible, in both synchronous and asynchronous modes (something a standard wordprocessor cannot do).

The third and fourth levels of the SAMR model - Modification and Redifinition - feature in my next blog post.

Photo by Steve Wheeler



Here comes the SAMR by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Trading places

One of the most radical shifts of pedagogy in recent years has been where learners take control of their own learning leading them to create their own content. Previously, the generation of new knowledge was the preserve of the expert, the academic, the teacher. In the last decade, user generated content has quickly become the most common content on the web, and is a digital age hallmark of student centred learning. When learners become producers of knowledge and not just consumers, you can be sure they are learning. And yet this is merely the precursor for greater shift where students assume the role of teacher. The old aphorism 'we learn by teaching' (or in Latin, docendo discimus) holds true when we consider that to teach something, you first need to learn it. Moreover, it cannot learning of a superficial kind, but demands a deeper process where students reflect on the meaning and critically evaluate the significance of what they are to teach. If you are teaching your peers, and your teacher is also in your audience, you really need to know your subject, or you end up looking a little foolish.

Perhaps the most radical shift of all though, is when teachers become learners, and when they take a back seat and even let their students teach them. This is not an easy thing to do for many teachers. It is often ingrained into the teacher mindset that they are there to lead from the front. Some teachers are breaking out from the mould, taking risks and encouraging their students to take the lead. It sometimes requires an act of humility to do this. Admitting that as a teacher, you don't know everything, and that sometimes others, such as your students can teach you something, can be a big step. I'm happy to admit that I learn a lot from my students, and I let them know when they teach me something new. When teachers stand back, relinquish control over 'knowledge' and become co-learners, collaborating with their students, wonderful, powerful learning occurs. It is learning that is not easily forgotten, because the joy of learning together, forging new ideas, and negotiating meaning always makes an impression on the mind. Some of the best learning I have seen in my career in education, has been when I have stepped back out of the way, and let my students discover for themselves.

Photo by Fancy Jantzi on Flickr



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

Digital reflections

My last post was about integrating technologies into education. This post examines some of the categories of technology and the places they might occupy when they are integrated into the learning process. It's important for teachers to consider that integrated technology can provide a doorway to deeper learning, characterised for example in critical analysis and personal reflection. A journal article by Kirk and Pitches (2013) is a useful starting point, because they identify three specific categories of technology that have a place in contemporary learning.

The first category, capture technologies, can be useful when students need to record things or events that they will later be able to reflect upon. This could be a conversation, an image or video, or some other digital artefact. Capture technologies include cameras, recording devices, and other simple to use tools that can record and store content. Most students carry capture technologies around with them in their pockets and bags, embedded in their mobile phones. What's more, they generally know how to use them to complete the task.

At a little higher up in the manipulation spectrum are archive technologies, which can be used to store, organise and document the digital artefacts that have been previously captured. This can be hosted photo and video sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube, or social networking sites such as Facebook, but are equally likely to be curation and aggregation tools such as Scoop.it and Pinterest. The act of making and archiving such artefacts supports learning through doing, encourages students to develop skills such as problem solving, and enables the presentation of this content to peers and experts to elicit constructive feedback.

At the highest level of manipulation are reflection technologies - or digital reflection mechanisms, to use Kirk and Pitches' terminology. These are technologies that enable students to 'look and listen again' to their digital artefacts, a process that encourages them to reflect not only on the learning itself, but also on the process by which they came to that learning. In a cognitive sense, this is 'making sense of learning', affording students with deeper insight or explanation of what they have already learnt. The ultimate reflective tool in this context is blogging, because it performs all of the above and supports reflective forms of learning within its affordances. Blogging can take many forms from purely textual to multi-media, incorporating images, hyperlinks, audio and video. In Kirk and Pitches' terms the reflection mechanism can 'prompt the use of explanation, so that the selection of visual material, the ordering and presentation of it, and any verbal/textual commentary all prompt the process of making sense of what is being looked at.'

So much of education could be enriched and extended when technology is embedded in these ways into the process of learning.

Reference
Kirk, C. and Pitches, J. (2013) Digital reflection: Using digital technologies to enhance and embed creative processes. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22 (2), 213-230.

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

Integrating technology into learning

Using technology in the classroom and integrating technology for learning are two different things. The first is something that any teacher can do without much thinking, but to truly integrate technology into education takes a great deal of imagination, thinking and planning. Embedding technology so that it becomes transparent is clearly an aim to which all educators should aspire. Clearly, many schools and many educators struggle with this, and end up teaching using technology as an afterthought. It shows. There is an obvious difference between playing computer games as a reward for good behaviour, and playing a computer game that illustrates a key principle you want your students to learn. The impact of both experiences can be measured in learning outcomes. The first is merely enjoyable with some possible, serendipitous learning gain, whilst the second leads to deeper learning gain around the principle the students have learnt.

Technology is not a substitute for good teaching. No amount of technology can replace a great lesson that has been delivered in a passionate, inspirational and focused manner. The trick is not to make technology a central focus in the classroom. It should not be glamourised. It should be made mundane. Technology, in whatever form, should become just another part of the learning environment, as useful as a table around which students gather for discussion, or flipchart and pens used to brainstorm ideas for a plenary presentation. As soon as technology becomes a focus, learning is marginalised. True, teachers need to spend some time understanding the impact of technology and how it can be used to enhance or extend learning, and there should be some time invested in digital literacy and skills. Teachers should also think about what problems and issues they see in every day teaching that might be addressed with the addition of a technology. Can children with special educational needs be better engaged with appropriate use of technology? Do students integrate their ideas better if they have a social writing tool at their disposal? Is the personal device of use for searching and curating new ideas and knowledge? How can presentations be enhanced through the use of big screen technology?

The list of questions could go on, but any teacher worth their salt will know that specific challenges arise with each separate group of students and contexts change according to environment, time of day, subject matter and group dynamic. Successful integration of technology into education goes beyond mere use of technology. It involves a strategy that considers pedagogical need, technological affordances and the capabilities of each individual educator.

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