#LearningIs memorable

In this new series of posts I'm investigating learning. Each post will start with '#LearningIs...'

We never stop learning, but all learning must be memorable. Learning involves using our senses to make meaning from our environment. Once we see, hear, or otherwise sense something we have an interest in, we will begin to pay attention. Much of this information can be lost if we don't encode it in some way, that is, make sense of it in a way that is memorable to us. This can be achieved through mnemonics, rhyme, method of loci, rehearsal, using post-its, personal technologies or any idiosyncratic method we devise to make learning more memorable. The best teachers know intuitively how to make learning memorable for their students.

Our senses are constantly being bombarded with images, sounds, sensory experiences, and we couldn't possibly remember it all. This is where the working memory (WM) comes to our help, and it has many tricks. It allows us conscious thought and deliberate actions. Everything you have ever learnt has passed through WM on its way to your long-term memory (LTM), and has been actively coded so that you can recall it later when you need it. According to constructivist psychologists, we construct schemas which are episodic memories that relate to each other, enabling us to perform specific tasks or activities. These mental representations of our world allow us to also organise and internalise new information in LTM.

We never stop doing this, although when schemas are established and very well rehearsed, it can be difficult to add new information. Ever walked into another place and then 'forgot' why you're there?You don't know what you were trying to find because the routine is old and familiar and you are therefore not particularly paying attention. Or, interference has occurred which has pushed the first thought out of WM and you're now thinking of something entirely unrelated. Because of this 'action slip', you may have to go back to where you first had the thought, so you can reactivate the schema that caused you to move in the first place!

Memory and recall thus play vital roles in how we learn, But the simple learn / code / repeat process is only the start of very complex cognitive processes. We continually build our repertoire of knowledge and skills by making connections between experiences, ideas, events and objects, and much of this is governed by pattern recognition. At the very highest levels of learning, we have the capability to think about thinking - metacognition - which enables self-awareness. Through our actions, the consequences of those actions, and our reflections on our lives, we develop our affective memories, otherwise known as attitudes and beliefs. Again, this is a lifelong process, which involves plenty of social interaction and synthesis of diverse concepts.

I could go on, talking about all of the discoveries about how memory works and how we recall or forget information, but I won't. I'll leave it for another time. That's if I don't forget...

Photo courtesy of Pexels

NB: This post touches on a selected range of cognitive theories. Other perspectives are also available.


#LearningIs memorable by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#LearningIs ...

I just watched a video of teachers at Geelong College responding to the question What is Learning? (the video is below - take a look).

From this, the many definitions and perspectives that were offered made me think that each could be elaborated on, supported with pedagogical theory and opened up for further discussion.

It's a question of deep interest to me, and probably all other educators around the globe. I previously wrote on the subjects of the meaning of pedagogy and the meaning of education, and attempted to address the question 'what is learning?' I have also written extensively on the many ways we learn using technology. But what do we really mean by 'learning' and are there any universal constants?

With thanks to Aussie educator Aaron Davis for sharing the link on Twitter, I'm planning to write a series of posts about learning called '#LearningIs....' If you have any '#LearningIs...' statements, post them in the comments box below, and I'll get cracking!


 What is Learning? from CLRI on Vimeo.

Image by Jessica Duensing on Flickr


#Learning is ... by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#EDENchat Growing minds

When we learn we grow. We grow intellectually, but we also make actual, physical connections in our brains which count as physical growth. Such growth can be chaotic and seemingly void of structure at time, especially in the digital age where there are multiple pathways and a bewildering number of choices we can make as to what we learn, how (and with what tools) we learn it, and at what pace we learn. Don't worry though, there's a theory for everything, including chaotic forms of learning.

Post modern theories of society are often difficult to comprehend, largely due to the dense and at times inscrutable style in which post-modernist theorists write. Anyone who has tried to wade through Foucault or Derrida would attest to this. However, one post-modernist theory, proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, has become the basis for an emerging and comprehensible theory of learning for the digital age - rhizomatic learning. The reason rhizomatic learning is comprehensible is because firstly it is based upon the creeping root metaphor, and secondly, it has been adequately developed and explained by Canadian academic Dave Cormier in reasonably simple terms:

A rhizomatic plant has no center and no defined boundary; rather, it is made up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading on its own, bounded only by the limits of its habitat (Cormier 2008). In the rhizomatic view, knowledge can only be negotiated, and the contextual, collaborative learning experience shared by constructivist and connectivist pedagogies is a social as well as a personal knowledge-creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises. The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.

He describes today's learners as individuals who are nomadic. It is true that they spend their time wandering across digital terrains and discovering for themselves, but Cormier also argues that

Nomads have the ability to learn rhizomatically, to ‘self-reproduce’, to grow and change ideas as they explore new contexts. They are not looking for ‘the accepted way’, they are not looking to receive instructions, but rather to create.

In his questioning of the role of teachers, Cormier writes:

I refuse to accept that my role as a teacher is to take the knowledge in my head and put it in someone else’s. That would make for a pretty limited world. Why then do we teach? Are we passing on social mores? I want my students to know more than me at the end of my course. I want them to make connections I would never make. I want them to be prepared to change. I think having a set curriculum of things people are supposed to know encourages passivity. I don’t want that. We should not be preparing people for factories. I teach to try and organize people’s learning journeys… to create a context for them to learn in.

Many teachers would agree with these sentiments, but it can be a radical step up from conventional forms of education for others. How can this approach be implemented? Tonight's #EDENchat discusses these and related issues around the theory of rhizomatic learning. What tools and technologies do students need to be able to learn in this way? How do teachers engineer such learning opportunities? What role does the personal learning network play in this kind of learning? What challenges does it present to traditional forms of education and where is it heading?

Join us on Twitter tonight at 20.00 GMT for an hour of chat and sharing.

Photo by Jef Safi on Flickr

#EDENchat Growing minds by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learning comes first

Learning should always come first, but what fools we would be if we denied that technology has the potential to make a tangible difference in education! There are numerous examples of technology reshaping educational practices and creating new opportunities for the sharing of knowledge.

Not only are MOOCs and other open, online learning opportunities challenging more established business models, they are also causing many of us to re-evaluate the way we teach, and to reconsider the very nature of knowledge, intellectual property, copyright, assessment and collaboration. In fact, most of the old, familiar educational landscape is under scrutiny.

Flipped classrooms exploit the power of technology to take some forms of learning away from the traditional classroom. It's not just about 'learning by watching videos' (although this is a common activity in flipped learning), but can incorporate any number of tools and technologies to prepare students for the more discursive learning opportunities that can be created in classrooms where experts are present to guide discussion. Mobile tools such as smart phones and tablets can extend the learning experience beyond the classroom too - where students can create, repurpose, remix and share their own content, and learn from the responses of their peers, teachers and community of practice.

The list goes on, but the bottom line is that the learning experience can be transformed in all sectors of education if we pay attention to what each technology can afford.

Does technology take learning beyond the normal experience of classroom education? Can it elevate learning to a new level or offer new dimensions that were previously impossible? Does it add any value to learners' experiences? Does technology lead to creative solutions to problems? Can it inspire learners to go the extra mile in their education? If the answer is yes to any or all of these questions, then technology should be incorporated into learning design. In this way, teachers can ensure that learning always comes first, and that technology supports the process.

Photo by JISC


Learning comes first by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learners are now prosumers

Previously on this blog I wrote about how learners are increasingly creating content and new knowledge as they learn. They can share this content using a growing range of social media tools, and can enjoy dialogue with others which they can learn from. The idea of learner as producer is gathering traction in all sectors of education and training, from primary schools (see for example Quadblogging or the 100 Word Challenge) through to workplace learning. The video below is one recorded at Learning Technologies 2016 in London, where I expand on the concept above and also discuss technology integration and the use of social media. A final version of this 3 minute interview will appear, along with others from notable learning and development experts on an App for businesses that is being developed by Unicorn Training.



Video courtesy of Unicorn Training


Learners are now prosumers by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: Social media

Previous posts in this series tracked the development of educational technology over 40 years. I first started working in the field of educational technology in January 1976, at a time when technology was used more for teaching than it was for learning. That is, the technologies that dominated educational technology in the 1970s were technologies that were primarily teacher controlled and oriented toward instruction.

Around the turn of the century we all began to be aware of a surge in the use of the Web for creating content. By 2006 several social networking sites were enjoying surges in popularity, including MySpace, Bebo and of course, Facebook. 2006 was also the year Twitter was launched. Other tools such as wikis, blogs and podcasts also began to be used in education, at first tentatively, and then as embedded features in various programmes of study.

A key attraction of these technologies is that they are inherently participatory. Social media lend themselves naturally to support learning through discussions, collaboration and sharing. They also have the capacity to support personal learning. They are vital components of the web, and social media are important for education - because learning is essentially social and personal.

My initial interest in researching the social web stemmed from some early work my colleagues and I did around wikis and blogs in medical education in 2005-2006. I then began also to experiment with wikis as alternatives to Learning Management Systems in teacher education around 2006-2008. What fascinated me the most about the use of wikis in education was that content was never complete, but was always a work in progress. We enjoyed great success, with many students learning through creating, sharing and editing content online, a collateral effect of which was better writing outcomes.

Several research papers followed including The Good, the Bad and the Wiki, and also a number of research papers presented at international conference. I also conducted research into the use of blogs in a number of educational contexts, which also yielded several publications. Ultimately, learning through social media tools is now embedded within my professional practice, with students creating their own content before, during, and as a direct consequence, of teaching sessions. A vibrant user generated content culture has existed in my own institution for several years, and this is strengthened with each successive student cohort. Not only do they share their blogs and videos, students also connect with experts and fellow students beyond the walls of the university and in so doing, they participate directly in the education discourse. Social media is one of the most versatile, and very personal technologies available to teachers. We are only just beginning to understand the power and potential it has to enhance and extend learning.

Photo by Tomas Castelazo on Wikimedia Commons

Previous posts in this series:
First Days 1976-1980
The Moving Image 1976-1986
Computers 1980-1990
Networks 1986-1995
Telematics 1996-2003
Games based learning 1986-present


#40years of educational technology: Social media by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: Games

The 20th Century was the century of the moving image. From cinema, through to television, the experience of media was defined by an amalgamation of sound and vision. This combination was not only the mainstay for entertainment and commerce, it also became the technological touchstone for many courses and programmes of study.

Audio visual conveyed rich information and represented knowledge in a manner that engaged the senses. It was developed into an art form, and obviously survives today in many new and emerging forms.

Toward the end of the last century, the Web began to emerge as the convergent point for media. By the end of the first decade of this new century, participatory elements of the Web had consolidated their hold, and the social technologies - social media, social games, social networks - were gaining momentum.

Sadly, much of education has been slow to exploit the potential of social technologies, and in particular has not grasped the huge potential of social games. Games based learning (GBL) has yet to gain a strong foothold in formal education spaces, but there are already some signs of success. The 21st Century is the ludic century. It is the century, according to Zimmerman (source) where playfulness and gaming will define the era. Games literacy will become increasingly important, because the games based experience is modular and non-linear, participatory and customisable - reflecting much of our experiences in the digital era.

Many of the best selling video games have been appropriated for classroom learning, including Guitar Hero (used to teach a number of curriculum subjects, not just music), Sim City (Maths), World of Warcraft (Literature) and Grand Theft Auto (remarkably, used to teach citizenship). The most cited example is Minecraft, which has been used successfully in both primary and secondary education in many countries. It's true that 'games alone will not make schools more efficient, replace teachers or serve as an educational resource that can reach an infinite number of students' (source) but they can, coupled with good pedagogy, create exciting, creative and informative environments for good learning.

In one of my previous posts on Games Based Learning I wrote: 'Games, whether digital or analogue, have the capability to motivate learners, challenge them to improve their dexterity, problem solving and reasoning skills, encourage teamwork and collaboration - especially social games such as World of Warcraft or Call of Duty - and performance is under constant peer review. These match some of the key skills required to succeed in the world of work where digital technology is prevalent.' (source).

It is clear that just about any video game can be appropriated to enhance education, and if the pedagogy is appropriate, exciting, creative and dynamic learning experiences can result.

Previous posts in the #40years series:
First Days 1976-1980
The Moving Image 1976-1986
Computers 1980-1990
Networks 1986-1995
Telematics 1996-2003

Photo by Belinda Hankins Miller on Wikimedia Commons


#40years of educational technology: Games by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: Telematics

In my final year of teacher training in the early 90s, I was required to write a dissertation. This was a 10,000 word research report on a subject related to my professional development as a teacher. Because of my work in educational technology at the nursing college, I naturally chose to study something that I was familiar with, but with an aspect that would present me with a challenge.

I had no idea just how much a challenge it would prove to be but the focus of my study - satellite broadcasting - was at the time an exciting, emerging field of expertise, and one that involved the use of some very expensive hardware. In fact, satellite technology is arguably the most expensive technology humankind has ever invented. The discipline this fell into was telematics - a name derived from the combination of telecommunication and informatics.

My dissertation involved me researching the history of satellite broadcasting, its (at the time limited) pedagogical applications, and the running of an experiment in which I actually broadcast a live television programme via satellite to my colleagues at nurse education centres across a large geographical area.

The added bonus was that during the one hour live broadcast, my colleagues were able to phone into the studio to ask questions of my guests. It was quite an undertaking and involved a vast amount of planning, including research, analysis of needs, booking of guests, scripting, liaising with the studio and satellite uplink teams, and of course the most nerve-racking part, practising my presenting and interviewing skills under the lights in front of the cameras. There were also a number of technical preparations, including the installation of satellite antennae at all the receiving sites (done by technicians), booking satellite time, technical testing of equipment at the receiving sites (televisions, connections, microphones, telephones) and organising the graphics and visuals I would need.

A week before the broadcast we lost the satellite. The satellite we planned to use, Olympus, suddenly malfunctioned, and began slowly drifting out of its geosynchronous orbit and off into space. Co-incidentally, the Gulf War started. We were now left to decide what to do to salvage my research project. The solution was to use cable to simulate 'broadcasting' of the live sound and images from the studio. It worked. The result was that I managed to gather a number of completed questionnaires from participants to analyse, and eventually wrote up a successful dissertation on satellite broadcasting for education.

This ultimately led to me securing a post managing a £5 million technology research project called RATIO in the South West of England, which was my first job at Plymouth University.  My knowledge of distance education, open learning and telematics technologies was just the skill set the project was looking for. The project commenced in 1996 and within two years my team had established 43 learning centres across the rural areas of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset to support small businesses and individual learners. In the centres we installed a number of networked computers, provided internet access, video conferencing, and of course, digital satellite TV reception equipment (at the time the antennae were one metre dishes known as V-SATs - Very Small Aperture Terminals).

At the height of the project we were broadcasting around 4-6 hours of live TV each week, and I personally wrote, produced and presented a programme known as The Training Hour which was broadcast twice each week. This was at a time when businesses were just beginning to wake up to the benefits of the Web, and the skills that were required to establish a presence on the Internet. We had the ability to share screens with remote learners, and work together with them on their computers, across any geographical distance. RATIO was in the vanguard of telematic projects in the 1990s and early 2000s which established the use of Web based content delivery (now known as online learning), video conferencing, application sharing and other remote tutoring methods that advanced distance education into the truly digital age.

Photo by Adamantios on Wikimedia Commons


I#40years of educational technology: Telematics by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: Networks

In comparative terms, the transition from stand-alone to networked technologies was fairly rapid. The shift happened in the mid 1990s and it certainly took many by surprise. We had all become comfortable with the affordances of personal computers, especially content provisionality where editing content was easy and you could save your work to return to later. Before networked computers, we transferred media and content to other systems using disks, and we printed out our work for physical mailing to recipients. In the 80s, the graphics capability of our personal computers was limited, but we had a choice between the IBM style PCs and the Apple computers. The latter had more user friendly interfaces and were easier to use, but we had no access to them where I worked, because generally, they were more expensive.

During my time working at the nurse training college, we had a centralised system called a mini-computer, which was locked away in a secure room, and from which several connections to dumb terminals was maintained. The terminals were essentially screens and keyboards that were dependent on the central mini computer for all their processing power. The shared databases and other software all resided on the hard disks of the mini.

Suddenly, around the early 1990s, we began to hear about something called the World Wide Web. We were not sure what it looked like, or how we would use it. The Web promised to connect everyone, everywhere. Some were sceptical and argued that we were doing fine with the stand alone computers. Others asked how much it would cost. They couldn't see a purpose for connecting computers together, beyond the ability to input data into a central store in a system such as the mini computer. When you are too close to a problem, it is often difficult to stand back and see the wider applications. For many it was impossible to see it being used for anything more than admin, and as an application for education, it was out of the question.

And yet, in a short space of time, our computers were all networked, and we began to use something called Pegasus - an e-mail system, and Netscape Navigator, a tool that allowed us to browse the Internet. Both were simplistic tools compared to the technology we can now access, but their introduction changed forever the way we worked, taught and learned. It would take several years though, before we stopped asking colleagues to come over to our computer screens to 'look at this!' Networked systems would herald the start of a new era of learning, and there would be many new initiatives and projects, some of which I was privileged to be directly involved in....

Photo by Grant Hutchinson on Flickr


I#40years of educational technology: Networks by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: Computers

BBC B Computers with Microvitec monitors

Here are five of the most important things I have learnt from my 40 years working in educational technology:

1. Technology doesn't improve teaching. If you are a poor teacher, no amount of technology will turn you into a good one. 
2. If you are a good teacher, you can teach well in any context, either with or without technology. 
3. If you want to make an impact, use technology appropriately in a way that enhances, extends and enriches the learning experience.
4. If you put technology into the hands of learners, they will discover things you could never have taught them on your own.
5. You can't simply drop technology into education. Technology needs relevant pedagogical actions to be wholly effective.

It's clear to me, watching the development of technology from my early days in the 1970s, it has developed from a set of tools that were designed to support the teacher, to a range of tools that enable everyone to learn. Personal technologies in particular are designed to fit an individual's needs and preferences. Smart phones, tablet computers and e-readers can all be adjusted and changed to meet the requirements of their principal user. I firmly believe that the gradual shift from teacher centred education to personalised, learner led education has evolved in parallel to the development of new technologies. Pedagogy and technology are in a symbiotic relationship, and I have been privileged to witness its development first hand over the last 40 years. 

Back in 1976, when I first began work as an educational technologist, technology was limited in functionality. We were still several years away from the digital age, and devices such as personal computers, the Web, social media and handheld devices were still in the future. However, we made use of the technology of the time, and as we did so, we pushed the boundaries. 

Graphics and printing
Because I had trained as a graphic designer, I was asked to do design work which included type setting. All of my illustrations were hand drawn, usually in black ink with Rotring art pens, using manual techniques to separate out colours, which all had to be printed separately in individual runs. A four colour print would involve four passes through the offset litho printer we ran in an adjacent room to my workshop. If precision lettering was required, which was often, I would break out the sheets of Letraset, and painstakingly transfer letters onto paper in preparation for printing. Dry transfer lettering took a lot of precision and a great deal of patience, and of course was very time consuming. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours of my life I devoted to Letraset artwork. It was amazing how quickly I adapted to using Desk Top Publishing (DTP) software when it became available in the 1980s. Probably the best piece of software at the time was Aldus Pagemaker, which could be used to layout graphics and font styles, but this wasn't available until 1986. When I had access to DTP it saved an incredible amount of time, and boosted my creative output.

Computers
In the 1970s, computers were gradually being reduced in size, but the first personal computer I built was quite large, about the size of a small suitcase. It came complete with cables and a small green screen (monochorme) monitor which perched on top. This first built-from-kit device had a memory of 128k and was state of the art. We used it, along with several others to demonstrate some of the first uses of computers in education in the UK. We established the ITMA project - Investigations into Teaching with Microprocessors as an Aid and took the computers into local schools. From this project came several more initiatives which helped us all to learn what we could use computers for in their rudimentary stage of development.

Computer Assisted Learning (CAL)
I left the teacher training college in June 1981 to take up a new post at the school of nursing. It was a new post where I had to establish and then develop an educational technology department that served several nurse training sites, mostly inside hospitals. Once I had developed the classroom technology, upgraded the video facilities, and introduced a video editing suite (VHS), I began to look around and take notice of the wider developments. Around 1986, the BBC had introduced a device called the Acorn computer, which was a small plastic device complete with keyboard. An external disk drive and monitor had to be purchased separately, but the BBC computer was specifically designed for educational purposes. I needed to know more about using computers for education. I next joined the network of users of microcomputers in nurse education (NUMINE) which had members across the country, and eventually became a member of the British Computer Society's Nursing Specialist Group.

I learnt a lot from meeting with these groups and tried out some new ideas, including learning how to program. Over time I developed several educational software packages during this time which were distributed across the country, and just about every nurse in the UK at the time, learnt at least some of their theory and practice through my CAL software. I placed a BBC Acorn computer outside my office with some learning software on it, and connected up a dot matrix printer, which logged each time a student used a program, their scores and how long they took to complete it.

At the end of that first week I checked the print outs and was amazed. More students had used the computer than I could have expected, so another computer soon joined it. Users multiplied as the word got around. Soon I had enough evidence to justify the purchase of an entire suite of computers, and a room was designated as the computer learning suite. It was always packed with students who wanted to use a computer to learn. We had placed learning into the hands of the students, who could now learn at their own pace, choose the topics they wished to research, and assess their own learning. They had never experienced this before. The queues to use the computer suite lengthened. We had gained some great momentum, and networked computers and the Web were just around the corner.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


#40years of educational technology: Computers by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of educational technology: The moving image

When I first started working in educational technology 40 years ago, the discipline was very new and none of us really knew where we were headed with it, but it was advancing rapidly. You could say we were pioneers in the field of technology supported learning. There certainly weren't many of us around. The technology we used was fairly simple, and we were still years away from networked computers, personal technologies and the Web. Generally, the technologies were also teacher controlled, which reflected the dominant philosophy of the time, where most education was didactic in nature. To give you a flavour of 1976, here are some of the moving image technologies I worked with:

Video
Video was a relatively new thing for us all in the 1970s. I remember taking delivery of a 'portable video camera', which came complete with its own battery belt and separate video recorder. The recorder was worn across the shoulder in a large bag, and could record up to 30 minutes of black and white footage on a reel-to-reel tape. The tape had to be manually threaded around the recording head of the machine, and the entire ensemble was considerably weighty. Along with the instruction manual, we should have been issued with free health insurance against hernias. It wasn't until late in the 1970s that we took delivery of our first video cassette recorders, which were designed by Philips and came in 1500 format. These video cassettes were easier to use, but again were limited to 30 minutes. Importantly, they recorded in colour! Later, Betamax and VHS formats became available and recording capacity soon went up to 4 hours! We had a Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) studio attached to our Media unit where we would record students doing micro teaching - 10 or 20 minute lessons which could later be played back for critique and analysis by their tutors.

Television
Television had been generally available since the 1950s, and as broadcasting proliferated, so it developed into various genres, one of which was educational broadcasting. The Open University was one of the first education institutions to exploit the power of TV, starting in the early 1970s with its late night broadcasts on the BBC. I remember the excitement of watching television in primary school in 1966, but I can't remember anything I learnt from it. Perhaps the pedagogy for educational TV had yet to be developed.

At the teacher training college, we had a special licence to record educational TV programmes, and we built up a large library of videos which could be loaned out by students and staff. Each tape had to be labelled, categorised and stored systematically, and to keep tabs on all these, we had a card filing system. If a lecturer wished to show a video, we would be required to wheel a TV into the lecture room and video cassette recorder (VCR) and set up and test it before the students arrived. Sometimes a videotape would jam and unwind inside the VCR, and we would be required to move in swiftly to disentangle and hopefully salvage the tape before too much damage was done.

Film
I would hire in 16mm film reels to show students, and we used Bell and Howell projectors, threading them by hand through the projection gate. I hired out films from several distribution companies, and the reels would arrive in metal or plastic cases. If the film was a feature film for showing to the film society, I would need to transfer all of the reels of film onto one giant reel, removing the leaders and tails and joining the film together with a special glue, so it could be shown in one continuous run. Once the film had been shown, it had to be rewound, and then disassembled, the leaders and tails rejoined, and then the entire set of reels would be mailed back by courier to the film distributor. Later we purchased a system for the college's main auditorium where we could switch between two large projectors, which eliminated all of the cutting and gluing, and endless hand crank winding of film reels.

Next time: The computer age

Photo by Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office on Fickr


#40years of educational technology: The moving image by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#40years of Educational Technology: First days

I've just celebrated 40 years working in educational technology. I remember arriving on a chilly, grey morning in January 1976 outside a large teacher training college on the edge of Plymouth. As I gazed up at the concrete and glass of the buildings, I wondered exactly what I was getting myself into. I had trained as a photographer and graphic designer over the previous two years and I knew that this would be part of the job. But for most of my new job I was going to be working with something called educational technology.

40 years later, I can look back and marvel and how many changes I have witnessed. Change, it's been said, is now exponential. But I can honestly say that during 40 years working in educational technology, there has always been change, and I have often had to run to keep up with it. Perhaps that's why I'm always tired, but never bored. But let me paint a picture for you of my life back in 1976. The first Star Wars movie was still a year away, and showing at the local cinema was David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. We listened to Abba, 10cc and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, which would spend several weeks at number one in the UK charts. Labour's James Callaghan was Prime Minister, and Gerald Ford was in the White House. Maggie Thatcher was still 3 years away from her first term of office in Downing Street, and on television the kids watched Tiswas and Swap Shop. Educational technology was in its infancy, and was linear and analogue, bulky, heavy to move around and predominantly teacher controlled.

Classroom technology
Most of the classroom technology in 1976 was didactic, teacher led. Generally, teachers were the holders of knowledge and students were the recipients. The technology was used to reinforce this philosophy. My technical team would supply projectors for slides (Kodak Carousels), 16mm film (see the image above) and filmstrip, occasionally accompanied by an audio cassette player, where you changed the slides each time a tone sounded on the sound track. We had a special hand device which could insert the slide changes into the sound track while we were recording it, and later these were developed so we could synchronise and change slides on the Kodak Carousel projector automatically. Overhead projectors also dominated the classroom, and staff often asked our team to create colourful transparencies they could project onto screens. It became an art to create OHP (OverHead Projector) transparencies with multiple acetate layers to illustrate science principles, or animation images to show flow diagrams and machines. Dry wipe whiteboards weren't in evidence. We still used chalkboards in the classrooms. There was also a strange projection device called an epidiascope - where you could place solid objects on the glass plate and it would project an image of them onto the screen.

In the midst of all these early educational technologies, I was responsible for training the student teachers how to use tools effectively in the classroom. I had a workshop space with most of the above technologies laid out in their separate areas. I developed a set of self-directed study resources that students could come in and read, and then practice hands on. I would be on hand if they got into difficulty and thus began my first foray into teaching.

Tomorrow: The moving image

Photo by Carbon Arc on Flickr


#40years of educational technology: First days by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I'm blogging this

As you might expect, I encourage my students to blog regularly to support their learning. I have written extensively on the benefits of academic blogging, but perhaps the two most important positive outcomes are personal reflection and public dialogue. The former is self explanatory, allowing students to crystallise their thinking and articulate themselves in a concrete form. The latter is more complex and less predictable, but essentially enables them - through the sharing of their work on a publicly open platform - to engage with others who are beyond the walls of the classroom.

Publishing a blog is often an invaluable experience for students, because it exposes them to ideas they may previously have left unconsidered, and prompts them to defend their work in public dialogue. It also ensures that they are more circumspect about what they actually publish online. Some of my current group of education students are particularly active in blogging. Some have already seen the opportunity to repurpose posts as parts of their assignments, while others see how they can be used later as revision materials. These are just a few of the many reasons why blogging can be a powerful method of learning.

So I would like to present a selection of my students' recent work below, under the heading of learning theories and pedagogy, with the question 'What is Learning?' Please feel free to comment directly on their blogs if you feel you can encourage them, add anything to their understanding, or challenge them in some way!

Emily Brannigan What is Learning? 

Jody Day: What is Learning? @DayJody7

Frances Dingle: Blackboard to Blog @FrancesDingle

Chloe Dwelly: Lunchboxes and Crayons @DwellyChloe

Charlotte Faber: Educating Charlotte @MissCFaber
Tom Langley: Learning with TEA @tomlangelyED

Edward Larter: ICT for You @Edd4Edu

Georgia McEnery: Primarily Georgia @primarilyg

Jessica Rood: Little Miss Blogservation @RoodJessica

Claire Sims: Learning with Miss Sims @Cl4ireSims
Aaron Worth: What is Learning? 

Photo by Anna Hirsch on Flickr

I'm blogging this by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A friend of a friend

Facebook has recently claimed that it has reduced the degrees of separation between people. This claim is based on its analysis of the personal data it has collated from its 1.6 billion subscribers. If you are a subscriber to Facebook (and there aren't many people around that I know who aren't), then your data is included in this massive calculation exercise.

The original idea of six degrees of separation has been with us for some time but was popularised by the American psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s (remember him also from the electric shock experiments?) through his small world experiment. It was proposed that every person is no more than 6 social connections (or degrees of separation) away from anyone else on the planet. If you choose any random person, the theory goes, then they will be a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (or perhaps less) with them. Back in 2012, I predicted that the era of social media would reduce that degrees of separation. Earlier, in 2009 I suggested that it might even be reduced to one or two degrees of separation. Now Facebook has demonstrated that amongst its users at least, that statistic has been reduced to an average of around 3.5 - but bear in mind this applies only to its subscribers.

What this means for our society has yet to be revealed and time will tell whether our increased connections to each other will be a benefit or a danger. As Mark Zuckerberg has said 'When people connect, powerful things happen and lives are changed.' That's probably true in many cases, but whether those powerful things that happen change lives for the better or for the worse, depends on with whom you decide to connect.

Photo by Richard Giles on Flickr


A friend of a friend by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Wearing out our welcome

David Kelly addressing Learning Technology delegates

I launched a new module for my first year students today called 'Digital Reputation and Digital Literacies'. Here's the blurb:

Module Overview
This module explores living and learning in the digital age, with a particular focus on digital reputation, e-safety and digital literacies. All students will be expected to undertake projects and directed study to explore a range of digital environments, and gain an understanding of the threats and opportunities these might present to them, their students and their organisation.

Module Aims

To experience and reflect upon personal use of social media and networking tools

To investigate some of the key theories and influences on the development and emergence of digital cultures

To develop and consolidate personal digital literacies and digital reputation management

To understand key threats and risks of using web based technologies in education

It resonates with a session I chaired at yesterday's Learning Technologies Conference at Olympia in London, featuring the e-Learning Guild's Executive Director David Kelly. The title of Kelly's presentation was 'A look ahead: The now and the next of learning and technology' featured a quick fire examination of the new and emerging technologies we are getting to grips with, or which will soon be in the workplace. His talk is summarised on his blog.

What chimed with digital reputation and literacies from Kelly's presentation was his various stories about wearable technologies. We have already learnt that there are new and emerging social mores and conventions that we need to adopt. For example, texting in upper case letters is deemed to be SHOUTING. David Kelly's early adoption of various wearable technologies led him to learn the hard way about some of the issues that arise when new technology collides with established social and cultural expectations.

He told the story of how wearing Google Glass became so natural that he often forgot he was wearing it. Then, one day at a baseball match, he visited the men's toilet, but forgot he was wearing the camera device on his head. It wasn't until he noticed the strange, hostile looks from the other men using the toilet that he suddenly realised he had broken an important, unwritten social protocol. He beat a hasty and apologetic retreat. 

On another occasion, while wearing his Apple Watch, and in conversation with his wife, she gradually became more irritated with him and eventually asked him 'do you need to be somewhere else?' At that point he realised that he had been regularly glancing at his watch as social media messages came through. In ordinary circumstances, glancing at your watch conveys a pointed social meaning - that you are bored with the conversation and would rather be somewhere else.

In his engaging and thought provoking session David Kelly caused all of us to think more seriously about our personal technology and how we use it. Issues of responsibility, privacy and social cues were raised. There are new affordances that create contexts and behaviour we may not have anticipated. Inadvertent messages are sent that can be easily misconstrued, and intentions are conveyed that are not intended. It seems we still have a lot to learn about the adoption of new technologies, particularly those we wear.

Photo by Steve Wheeler at Learning Technologies 2016

Wearing out our welcome by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

PD in your PJs with #EDENchat

When I was elected as chair of the Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP) in 2014, I wondered what I might do to make my mark. NAP is the membership wing of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) which is a prestigious, global co-operative of education professionals, representing all sectors and aspects of technology enhanced learning. Because the membership is so eclectic and wide ranging, I wondered just how I and my team of NAP steering group members would be able to represent all their interests.

And then it dawned on me. The answer was staring me right in the face. I would establish a new Twitter chat, where everyone, members and non-members of EDEN could come together periodically and virtually, to discuss the burning issues of the day. Twitter has been, for me and countless other professionals, a powerful form of informal professional development, where you can learn from each other, share ideas and collaborate across distance. It is easily accessible, populated with thousands of people who share a common interest with you, and many of these are willing to freely share their ideas, expertise and resources with you. It can also be PD in your PJs - professional development at any time, even if you’re in bed! Twitter was therefore an ideal medium for the membership to use to communicate their ideas and debate topics of interest.

And so, after some initial discussion, we decided on the name #EDENchat (we needed a short, unique hash tag and it does what it says on the can), and began to plan our first series of Twitter chats. On Twitter, our chats are moderated by a NAP steering group member and are always exactly one hour in duration. Every chat is archived using the social media tool Storify, so that anyone can revisit the discussion at any time on the EDEN website here. Those who do so will discover a treasure trove of ideas, comments and dialogues that focus on the themes of the chats, and often a shared link to additional relevant resources or media. It really is informal learning at its best, and as an added bonus, people who participate often discover other like minded individuals they would never have encountered otherwise. It's simple to connect to each other with a click to 'follow' so you can continue to share each others' timelines.

We are now in our third series of #EDENchats, which commenced this January. In previous series, we have covered subjects ranging from personal learning environments, open education, the future of distance learning, and mobile learning. Our sessions on new and emerging learning environments, e-assessment, MOOCs, critical thinking and open scholarship were particularly popular, drawing participants from all over Europe and also farther afield. The discussions are always lively and though provoking and take the form of prompting questions that are posed by a moderator. We have also conducted special edition #EDENchat sessions to coincide with Distance Learning week (in conjunction with the USDLA) and live from the EDEN summer conference in Barcelona. Upcoming chats are already planned and can be seen on this schedule.

Any EDEN member can propose a topic for discussion by emailing me, and suggesting some questions, usually around 6-7 in a sequence. We look forward to welcoming you as a participant in the forthcoming #EDENchats!

Unattributed image modified by Amy Burvall

Footnote: President of EDEN Antonio Teixeira's commentary on this post can be viewed here.


PD in your PJs with #EDENchat by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.