CCK09 Learning Style

I was surprised on the research findings of this Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style may not help students.

In this Learning Style: concepts and evidence

In a new assessment of the available evidence, authors Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork conclude that the learning-styles hypothesis has little, if any, empirical grounding.  A large number of studies have purported to show that different kinds of learners (such as “auditory learners” and “visual learners”) learn best when taught in their preferred modality; but the majority of such studies have not used the type of randomized research designs (e.g., classify learners into categories, then randomly assign the learners to use one of several different learning methods and assess effectiveness of the learning methods with a test given to all participants) that would make their findings credible.

I still think learning style has significant impact on ones learning, despite the assertion that randomized research designs are needed to validate such assertion.

See Learning Styles: Do they Matter  for my views.

Do you agree/disagree with the research findings?  Why?

CCK09 Knowledge Management

In this interview with Dr. Richard McDermott:

Professional practice involves 4 elements:

1. Technical knowledge 2. Analytic knowledge – make sense of a situation (sounds like sense making to me) 3. Personal know how 4. Skill acquired through practice.

Expertise draws on all four.

My questions on Knowledge Management (KM): Should you focus on Knowledge or Management? In most companies, the focus seems to be on the outcome of KM, that is can KM generate more innovation, more business, more market share, more profits and productivity etc. What would you like to achieve with KM? Increase in knowledge capacity amongst individuals & community? Improved Performance in organisation and teams? Increase in customer satisfaction?

CCK09 Professional Networks

Here is the survey report on Professional Networks.

CCK09 Netagogy

Netagogy is the study of netwok and internet-based learning.

The notion is an expansion and interpretation of Connectivism, heutagogy and andragogy.  It is the process of engaging learners with the structure of learning experience in personal, social, international networks, and internet.

Netagogy places emphasis on learning how to learn, with multiple loop learning, personal, social, global and nebulous learning opportunities, a multi-purpose and non-linear complex and emergent process.  A multi-learner interaction coupled with self-directed Netagogy requires that educational and learning initiatives include the innovative and improvement practice of network and internet-based learning and technological skills, as well as learning experience on the multi-faceted perspectives and interpretations on various subject domains in the networks and internet.  These could include Connectivism, Networked Learning, Social Media Learning, PLE/N, Virtual Learning Environment, LMS, Web 2.0, Information and Communication Technology, Mobile Learning and Digital/Online Learning.

This Netagogy helps to develop the capability and capacity of both individuals and networks in personal and social learning with affordances: communicating, engaging, interacting, cooperating and collaborating with others, leading changes necessary for transformational learning under a network and internet based learning ecology.

Further refinements are required on this Netagogy, as these are just my first thoughts.

Your comments are welcomed.

CCK09 The meaning of WISC

There were 4 persons entering a quest for WISDOM.  Their names were WISE, INTELLIGENT, STUPID and CLEVER.

There were 2 parts of the quest, questioning and problem solving.

Questioning

The first quest involved answering 3 questions, and the competitors were expected to provide an INTELLIGENT answer.  The one who could provide the “MOST INTELLIGENT” answer would win the contest.

Adam and Eve from Flickr

Q1. If you were Adam, and Eve gave you an apple and asked you to eat in the EDEN, what would you do?  Would you eat the apple? Why?

WISE: I would not eat the apple. Because eating the apple would lead me to stay away from God. I would sin against God.

INTELLIGENT: I would consult Eve first, then I would eat the apple.  I could become more intelligent by eating the apple.

STUPID: I would eat the apple. I am hungry.

CLEVER: I would not eat the apple, because everyone knows from the Bible that we inherited our mortal sin since eating the apple.

Q2. If you were Adam, and the devil asked you to eat Eve instead of the apple, what would you do?  Would you eat Eve?

WISE: I would not eat Eve.  Because Eve is my wife.  I would rather die than eating her.  It is also an offense to God, not obeying God’s commandment:  Thou Shalt not Kill.

INTELLIGENT: I would consult Eve, my wife first, then I would eat the devil, instead of my wife.

STUPID: I don’t know.  How could I eat Eve, my wife?

CLEVER: This is a tricky question. I would not eat Eve, my wife.  But if you asked me to do so, I would cheat and say may be I would consider, but I would ask the devil: What benefits would I have if I eat her?

Q3. If you were Eve, and the devil asked you to give Adam the apple to eat or offer him your body so you could bear his child, what would you do?

WISE: I would offer him my body instead of giving Adam, my husband the apple.  Because I love him.

INTELLIGENT: I would give Adam, my husband the apple.  Because he won’t survive without food

STUPID: I would offer him my body instead of giving Adam, my husband the apple.  Because I want to eat the apple.

CLEVER: I would give Adam, my husband the apple.  Because he would become more clever.  Then I would give him my body, to bear his child.

After these 3 rounds of questions, who has won the contest in the questions part?  What are your reasons?

I will collect the answers from our readers (if any) and share with you who has won the contest. The WISE, INTELLIGENT, STUPID OR CLEVER.

I will post the “problem solving” quest in a later post.  More to come.

You would surely wonder what WISC mean.   

It means: W_ _ _ _ _, I_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, S _ _ _ _ _, C _ _ _ _ _ . Right.

CCK09 Memes and temes

Frances says in her post on A few thoughts about openness:

“We all have to filter information that bombards us through RSS, email, Twitter, and all the other channels we add to our information sources. The really interesting questions are around why we filter and to whom we listen.” Interesting questions.

Are we all meme machines, duplicating what we have “filtered” with our “imitated”, repurposed, re-mixed, or re-created ideas or genres in a format that suit each of us, and spreading them across in the social web and networks in various ways?

Even our formal education is doing the “same task”, “transferring” and “passing” the literacies, skills, knowledge and experience from one party to another, one generation to another, via one artifact to another, one media to another, and ensuring the “standards” and “social norms” are met, so people are accredited based on competency and capability.

In informal learning, a slightly differently scenario emerged, where social networking seems to become the language and literacy of the 21st century, and social relations are redefined in a social based “informal education and networking system” that is distinct from the school based education system. 

The nuance between social and technological literacy which emerged from social networking and those formal literacies acquired in formal schooling mean that we are moving into a new unknown era – with uncharted water, and with no map to be based upon. 

This might be the result of technological and social “cloning”, only that this is a “genetic” passing outside our body and mind through the networks, the education, the community, where both “good and selfish genes” are turned into “memes” and we become the “temes”. What’s next? A transfiguration of genes, memes and temes into black holes, where all these genes, memes and temes (as a metaphor of light)cannot escape from the black holes.

Does it sound abstract?  Social and semantic web is both complex and complicated, and could be chaotic when people, actors and networks all interacted in the world wide web. 

According to wikipedia:

The Semantic Web is an evolving development of the World Wide Web in which the meaning (semantics) of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to “understand” and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.^[1][2] It derives from World Wide Web Consortium director Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.^[

My observation of the development of the web is that it doesn’t need to follow any particular logic, or any pre-determined direction of development, though the pattern is hidden behind each node and network, and it is self organising in various directions, morphing along the network space and platforms as its nodes visit and reside upon.   It could be sensed based on intuition, but its growth and development are all based on emergence.   No one could predict precisely what the world wide web would become.

These developments are all experienced when we traverse and navigate through the virtual space, such as Second Life, where our imagination has no limits, and the nodes and networks are all in flux.

Where will we be heading towards with our technology based Web 2.0, PLE/N, LMS and social networks?  We might only be able to have a glimpse of the future based on pre-mortem examination of the present context and network systems, due to the complexity nature of changes in information, technology, communication and social systems.

What do you think would be the future of the world wide web?  Would it be the means and media of information filtering, meme and teme?

Innovation and Online Higher Education

In this Management Innovation and Online Higher Education Part 2: Management Innovation “New services are emerging that allow prospective students and their parents to hear from existing and former university students. As more information becomes available, online programs will need to be ready to demonstrate superiority. Those that produce content according to the ‘cottage model’ (described above) will appear amateurish.”  Well said.

Will “superior content” and/or content based online programs be good enough to demonstrate superiority? Would a learner-centred approach towards learning be an alternative way of satisfying the students (and the stakeholders too) needs? What is expected from our learners and society? Would the emphasis be based on the education and learning process? The current Web 2.0 is still not yet integrated into the LMS, and so it becomes a struggle between professors and lecturers in the classroom trying to capture the attention and interests of students, versus students going everywhere like MIT open course ware, Standford University and various university sites and resources, wikis, blogs, Delicious, social networking sites – Youtubes education, etc for the most up-to-date knowledge and information. So, how about the integration of PLN/E with LMS based on learners’ needs and expectations? Would this be the fundamental strategic move that educational institutions could consider? Would this allow for a big leap in both teaching, learning and research that would benefit both educators and learners, and the institutions?

Replacing the old wine skin with a new wine bottle would help in solving the problem, rather than pouring the new wine into the old wine skin, where the new wine would soon leak out. Here the old wine skin and the old wine  is the traditional classroom approach to education and learning and the rigid and static course content, the new wine bottle and the new wine is the heutagogy, social media learning and LMS/Web2.0 with educators, experts and c0-learners as resources and support.

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.

CCK09 Metaphors

Talks James Geary Metaphorically Speaking sounds interesting.

Here are some thoughts:

Metaphor: Creation of patterns

X=Y

Silence are sweet.

Some jobs are jails.

Language is fossil poetry.

I shake things up, therefore I am.

I like to make up metaphors: and you will find lots of them in my posts here.

My favourite metaphors just created are:

1. You are my dream, and I am a dream too!  Because when you visit me, my dream comes true.

2. Love is double edged sword, it cuts on one side, but is blunted when shielded.

3. Blogging is a public discursive discourse, where you could broadcast, share and reflect like an interactive TV.  

4. The business of education is a show legend.  Elvis is a show in the music legend, Einstein is the show in the science legend, and everyone is the show in this network legend.  When it comes to internet, including you, you and you, you are in the show of global legend.

5. Love is the legacy. Trust is the anti-legacy in internet, when spammers are looking for their preys…

What is your favourite metaphor?

Metaphorically speaking, what is love to you?

Learner Centered Blog

Interesting slide show for reflection.