CCK09 Future of Education

In this Future of Education: Is it Possible to De-School Society? George highlights the importance of school, and the reality that most parents have to face: one can’t take their children to work, as the parents are working with institutions.

According to George Siemens                                , you and I are so used to living our lives in such kind of “social installments” that we do not even realize how everything we experience is compartmentalized. Parents go to work and kids go to school because they are supposed to. NOT because this is the best option they have.

Sure, smart parents can  homeschool their children. Parents do have this option (at least in some countries), but it does not mean this is an easy decision to make.

He cites examples from his own experience: that his daughter could spend time and enjoy in networking last year, whilst he could only spend time in the beach whilst he was young.

I think schooling is still important in kid’s formative learning stages of life, where scaffolding of learning and zone of  proximal development is critical to future success in education and learning.  It would be more enriching if the learning at school is both relevant to life and fun to the child, so he/she could enjoy learning  whilst at school. 

However, the reality is that in the senior years of year 9-12, and/or post secondary - college and higher education, there are expectations from the institutions and potential employers on what would be required in terms of competency and capability at work or in the profession.  Are educators responsible for such education and training for their future work?  This is surely the case when it comes to vocational education and training, where pragmatism is vital to the development of competency- learning by doing, with the “construction” of underpinning skills and knowledge by the learner.

So learning could be fun in social networking after “school”, but not necessarily at school, as such networking hasn’t been integrated into a formal education system as yet.  Whether the incorporation of Web 2.0 tools could be integrated with the school system would also depend on the curriculum, learning context, unit content and how the units delivery are being facilitated or taught by the teachers, lecturers or professors. 

So rhetoric and reality is different when it comes to personal learning.

Would future education still be based on schools?  Yes, I think it is still a trend, and would even be more “schooling” in the years to come.  Why? School is where rules and regulations are “learnt”, and where the social behaviours are normed.  Our emphasis is still on collaboration, collective wisdom with team working in society, and organisation performance are based on “networks,  groups and teams”, not only individuals.   Would that be what industry and institutions are looking for from the individuals? 

Would that be what a civil and social education mean?  More research based on reason rather than emotion on our future education may help. See my other posts on future and higher education.

Learner Centered Blog

Interesting slide show for reflection.

CCK09 What is the desired outcome of Connectivism?

Hi Kerry,

Thanks for your response. “What is the desired outcome of Connectivism?” Great question! 

I think each of us has our own answer, especially when it comes to informal learning.  What are your passions?  What interests you most?  What makes you feel more confident, more competent, and more rewarding when learning in the network(s)?  Could Connectivism help you in fulfilling your goals?

Most of us have been involved in our formal education for decades, and at times after graduation,  we often found the skills that we have acquired are often not be good enough in tackling the challenges at work or in our daily life, especially at this time of great changes.   So this new era of informal learning could stimulate us to be more connected to the networks,  through our PLE/N or the Virtual Learning Environment, and the tools and media, that would help us to learn more effectively and efficiently as an individual or as a network, through sensemaking, wayfinding, skills building, and mutual sharing.  

We could harvest our fruits of learning through such navigation, recognising of patterns of “knowledge” and thus develop a diverse area of interests that fulfill our curiosity to learn, and learning to be “a life long learner”- as part of our vision.  We could also engage more deeply with the weak ties in this network, and broaden our perspectives as we reflect personally and together in the network in an open, autonomous manner. 

We could also be inspired by each other’s enthusiasm in networking, to become our leaders of the future, to solve problems both individually and in the network, to support each other with the use of tools and media, and to be more connected in this world of networks.  This will also help us in adding value to ourselves, our network(s), community and the social capital.  A win-win to all.

CCK09 Education and learning

In this Where have all the people gone  in CCK09 Moodle forum, Ulop says:

“It doesn’t matter if people leave the course, and go off and study on their own. That would be their option, and the connections will re-form and the networks will form elsewhere, if the ‘course’ is not serving the needs of the people. Otherwise, are we forcing people to take and remain in the course?”

Would this be of great interests from an educational authority or administration point of view?  What are the roles of educators and learners in a course? What happens if the course is not serving the needs of the people in an education institution?  What happens if the network is not serving the people it is supposed to serve?  Yes, people have a choice.  We can’t force people to remain in a course.  So, what are we going to do?

What should we do as an educator?  How could we improve our support to our learners? How could we ensure the course is run more effectively and efficiently (on a learning and cost basis)?  How could we achieve the institution goals and individual goals?  These are the sort of questions typically asked by educational leaders and educators. 

In a corporate world of education, there are intense competition between different education providers, so which is more important for surviving or thriving?  Teaching? Learning? Education? or Customers (learners) first?

CCK09 Where have all the people gone in CCK09

In this Where have all the people gone  in CCK09 Moodle forum

Ulop says “That said, there is no troll in CCK09 and people have left the forums. For what reason(s), this time?”  I would like to know too!

People have left the forums for various reasons.  Some participants (especially new to CCK09) have already indicated the reasons at the start (introduction): they felt overwhelmed with information, and have since then moved to other media such as cck2009 Ning.  But was that the only reason?   And why didn’t they join back to the forum?

Some (especially the new CCK09 participants) might have expected the instructors (George and Stephen) to facilitate or moderate the forum discussion, as in a typical on-line course.  However, they might have noticed that George and Stephen would more likely meet them in the Elluminate session instead.  Others might have used other media such as twitters, facebook, their own blogs, their own PLE/N to interact, learn and reflect, rather than using the forum.  Many might still like to lurk though. 

Does this fall into a similar pattern to CCK08?  May be in a much smaller scale in the forum, but their involvement or interaction may be spreaded all over with a much wider arrays of networks, media and tools.

This time, a lot of past CCK08 participants rejoining CCK09 might have already experienced “enough” forum discussion, and so they would like to consider other “new” or emergent personalised learning network or media.  This leaves a few CCK08 participants remaining active in the forum.  Roy, Frances, Ailsa, Ulop, Ken, Dolores, Geoff, Roel, Mary, Nicola, Edgar together with other CCK09 (new?) participants – Gus, Luz, Leila, Maijann, Dean, James and Roland, and some others.

Another possible reason is that: Connectivism is about new and emergent learning, not just (online) teaching.  A lot of educators might be expecting to learn “how to teach or moderate” or the teaching or net pedagogy in an online course using forum or virtual learning Environment (i.e. using Moodle etc.).  However, as Stephen (and George) has mentioned in the past forum, connectivism is a theory about learning at this digital age, and so the emphasis is on learning.  For some of the educators/learners who might have used to instructivism, constructivism or social constructivism as a teaching/learning theory or pedagogy, they might have expected a similar approach to be adopted under connectivism in online teaching/learning.  What are their reactions?  Are they convinced of the connectivist approach?  Does connectivism as a learning theory resonate with their teaching practice? 

Are these educators/learners joining the course for their own reasons which we have all assumed?  That they would join the forum to discuss, to interact, to teach or to learn?  Or they would set up their PLN/E?  Or they would just like to lurk? 

In summary, it all comes back to the choice of learning amongst participants (with learners and some educators).  And whether they would resonate with the theory of Connectivism as espoused by Stephen and George.

Again this leaves us with more questions.

1. If you are coming from CCK08, what would you expect from CCK09?  What are your needs?  How are your needs fulfilled? Are these needs fulfilled in the forum?  What sort of “new and emergent concepts, knowledge, connections” would you expect from the forum?

2. If you are new to CCK09, what would you expect from CCK09?  What are your needs?  How are your needs fulfilled? Are these needs fulfilled in the forum?  What sort of “new and emergent concepts, knowledge, connections” would you expect from the forum?

Do the concepts and theory of Connectivism resonate with you?  Why/Why not?

May be the research question is: Why would you like to join/not join the forum?

CCK09 Is the future a race between education and catastrophe?

In the words of H.G. Wells: The future is a race: A race between education and catastrophe 

We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For is a full-length feature film on education which was inspired and guided by Oscar-winning producer Lord Puttnam. The film is supported by various sponsors including independent education foundation, Edge. The film follows the experiences of five Swindon-based teenagers. What unfolds during the course of the film is a very inconvenient truth about education. It concludes that, while there are signs of spring, a transformation of the education system is vital if the UK is to continue to compete effectively in an era of globalization the world has changed enormously but our education system has not kept pace. We need to recognise that there are many paths to success for young people and provide the right support and opportunities for them to develop their individual talents.

Globalization has exploded the Information Age. Yet our education system isn’t preparing our children for how to compete in the Global Economy. America is a nation in crisis. Did you know how little media attention this very real crisis receives?

Instead of teaching information that’s quickly obsolete, teaching students how to take standardized IQ tests and achievement tests, labeling our children with learning disabilities and prescribing ADHD, ADD and Dyslexia medications, we should be celebrating and building the brainpower of each individual child.

Back to school is a nightmare for many parents – watching their child fall further behind – when we can identify learning weaknesses and FIX learning problems at the brain level. Brain fitness is the #1 competitive edge in the 21st century and our children’s brainpower is America’s future.

This new brain development science is both effective and affordable. Join the Learn To Learn Revolution – a Parents Revolution today. http://www.LearnToLearn.com

Comments?

CCK09 Virtual Facilitation in Networks – a Rhetoric or Reality?

Wonderful post on Effective Virtual Facilitation by Ryan. I suppose these 5 stages are best practice of “teacher-centred structured session” and to some extent what has to be mastered by a competent online teacher or facilitator.  This is obviously one of the most welcomed approach from both educational authority and learners as the learning outcomes are well defined, and could likely be achieved. 

Here is the model presented by Gilly Salmon, Professor of E-Learning and Learning Technologies

Running E-tivities 5 Stages:

Stage 1. Access and motivation

Stage 2: Online Socialisation

Stage 3 Information exchange

Stage 4 Knowledge construction

Stage 5 Development

Ryan concludes with:

Evolving e-learning in the workplace

Using Salmon’s 5-stage model of e-moderation as a framework, SMEs can transform from sage on the stage to guide on the side.

And isn’t that what adult learning is all about?

What happens in our virtual world of networks?  How far could we be able to achieve all these?

Have you considered the connectivist approach where the stages are structured a bit differently?  With the complexity of learning and a manic society with “busy” learners who have to commit themselves to their personal and family needs at various times, not every learner is ready for the learning or available in those sessions (especially due to the difference in the time zones, for learners from different parts of the world), and so such planned stages would be difficult to be “implemented” without consideration of chaos, complexity and disorder that are inherent in a complex learning ecology. 

Ideal and reality has become a separate one especially in the online environment or ecology.  Would too much emphasis on learning outcomes be viewed as too pragmatic in nature?  We all want different learning outcomes, based on our needs, and our various stages of learning development, and this really requires a flexible curriculum rather than a set one, if we want to succeed in nurturing ourselves and our learners in this changing learning ecology.  One size doesn’t suit all!

At the end, facilitation is still a great strategy in “teaching”, only in that some learners prefer to self organise or direct their learning, with networks and technology as mediators, rather than being “facilitated”.   This is most often cited as PLN/E.

Here are the extracts from the interesting discussion in Moodle on Where have all the people gone?

Roy says: There are a variety of design and management options, but there is actually no such thing as a non-designed, non-managed network.

So the options are:

Mode 0. Build it and leave

And hope they ‘come’. If it forks (as in OS software) into multiple split networks, OK. If the nodes and networks cross-connect, OK. If not, also OK. Also known as ‘the network is the network is the network’ approach(apologies to roses).

Mode 1. Backchannel aggregator

The current structure of CCK09 has a backchannnel aggregator, (Stephen) who does a link-threading thing (much like the way early computers processed cards in card readers?). Very innovative way, for instance, of threading blogs back into the weave of forums and other media – see:

“The proportion of respondents in CCK08 who used blogs primarily or exclusively was unusually high for an online course, particularly one that emphasised openness and learner autonomy. In CCK08 the instructors encouraged, created and supported what was in effect an aggregated network of blogs” (Forums and Blogs … in cck08 paper – in General Forums)

Mode 2. Threading and Weaving

More conventional facilitating or moderating, which can be combined with option 1. This typically probes, asks further questions, draws out emergent lines of inquiry.

Mode 3. Complexity facilitating

This is a more explicitly complex approach to facilitating or moderating, and generally does a lot of complexity-facilitating stuff. (See:

“Openness and connectivity per se need to be tempered by constraints and moderation, to prevent the paradoxes of autonomy, scale, transparency/trust and openness from becoming contradictions. It is possible to do this within a framework of complexity, but there are a number of requirements that must be in place. These include: 1) light touch ‘probing’ and ‘steering’ and, where necessary, firm intervention, both as early as possible in the course; 2) setting out not what should happen (as in traditional learning outcomes) but rather setting the boundaries of what should not happen …”

(See: Ideals and Reality of participating in MOOC paper – In General Forums for more details).

Mode 4. Revert to Classroom/ Conference Delivery mode

This is a variant on mode 0, in the network/s are cut free to do what they do, and the designers revert to an online version of classroom/conference mode, with the delivery of set pieces.  

Mode 5. Open Conference /unconference mode

This is a variant on mode 4, taking into account the innovations in ‘un-conferences’.  It does, ironically, require a lot more design, time and energy, as I found out in setting up the Visitors and Residents conference, which was great, but which slipped back from what might have been a Mode 5 event into something much more like Mode 4.

Wow Roy, a great summary.  I could see Mode 4 still a popular one in most online versions of classroom/conferences.   May be people still like it.  What is the role of the “teacher” in such online classroom/conference mode? Facilitator? Teacher? Broadcaster? Curator?As we move towards maturing in networked learning, would mode 5 be a preferred mode?  Or would mode 3 or 4 still be the preferred mode?Which mode appeals to you most?

Roy responds: John, thanks. There will always be a role for a teacher, although the role surely changes with context. I think the point is that you learn by doing, and you learn by formulating your own views, perspectives, trying them out, and getting feedback.  There are brilliant mode 4 teachers, but they are few and far between.  At Oxford, lecturers are required to give one (!) public lecture per term (or year, I forget which), which means lecturing is something special.  If they want to disseminate information, they dont have to do it through a lecture. The trick is to find ways to interact with your learners, in a peer group, in which the teacher is one of the peers (albeit better informed, generally), and to get them to interact with each other, and to monitor that interaction. It is quite possible (see the video on physics teaching, linked elsewhere in the forums) to get students to respond to ideas even in a large class, and in the physics video, students had to come to a mini-consensus on issues during class (in groups of three).  Very few of us can sustain an interesting monologue for long.Interaction requires planning, design, and thinking on your feet, as I’m sure you already know.  So the ‘classroom’ (virtual or material) is not the issue, the issue is how you design it so that it’s a wonderful range of affordances for interaction – as in the multi-platform approach to MOOCs, with, hopefully, an affordance for everyone. My own preference is for mode 3, and if I’m stuck in a classroom, I just have to work that much harder to achieve it.

 Is virtual facilitation a rhetoric or reality? 

What is your preferred Net Pedagogy?

CCK09 Emotions and collaboration in networks

Here is a wonderful discussion on Help with Some Clarifications please  posted by Ailsa

@ Ailsa Here is my view on learning principles. We are humans, not “non-human”, so I would like to see more than just firing of neurons, in the connections, but the establishment of human relationship in networks, in the history of learning. At the end, I like to learn with humans, though often technology is part of that mediation (is it part of ANT??). Agents, actors mean differently to different people. At the other end of the network, it is more than a node, it has feelings, “it” is breathing air and taking water (knowledge), and it lives..and is engaging, interacting. That makes human more than just human, beyond behaviorism.

I remember that when I conducted my last class with my learners, especially in my early years of teaching, I always have an emotional response. We have once upon met here together as a learning group or network, and our identities are inscribed in the history of learning. Ten years later, we might still be able to remember each other, as once upon we have been with the same network and learn together.

Would networks be forever? Like diamonds are forever, when it comes to collaboration in the networks.

Roy: Replicator, host, and everyone of us will become history, but the learning and relationship stay forever in networks.

Diamonds are the girls best friends (from Fickr)

CCK09 Emergence and Growth of Knowledge

This Emergence and Growth of Knowledge and Diversity in Hierarchically Complex Organised Systems: Genesis of a theoretical framework sounds intereting.

 

 

CCK09 Neuroscience Research

This Neuroscience research goes deeper into the brain

Conduct basic research on such questions as how the brain builds and loses memory, and how the visual system develops.

The Plastic Brain: UAB Neuroscientists Stretch the Boundaries of the Mind

UAB scientists on the cutting edge of neuroscience discuss their mind-bending research.

NextWorld - Neuro Genesis

Would you like to be able to learn a new language like you could when you were a child?  It will be possible in the future, but you might forget who your spouse is.