Finally back on track Week 25

Finally getting back on track - here are some notes etc... from Week 25.


Week 26 is time for the last TMA.


The main idea from week 25, is the interplay between the virtual and 'real' worlds and the effect this has on education.


Here goes my answers....

1.) The communities described a set in the abstract and not the 'real' world, so although they are a useful thinking tool, relating them to actual use can be tricky or impossible due to the barriers present.

2.) Open Source is very much social production and is one of the great things about the web they way in which networks for almost anything have sprung up on almost any subject since now location is not an issue. Having just bought a new car, I am now usign a forum dedicated to the specific type of car I have bought to gather additional information, discus, share ideas etc... before this would never have been possible apart from a few yearly 'meets'

3.) Mycorrhizar to me equal networked lives, and today's society is very networked, and it is through the networks that new ideas / uprising's sharing etc... can happen so quickly and spead like.... 'wildfire' These metaphors like befoer act as a useful thinking excersie to allow you to think about how things are set-up arranged and used. The issue is the translation to the 'real' world.....

Still playing catch up - Wk 23

Make notes on some of the key terms you use on a regular basis to describe your use of technology


Easiest to communicate as a list:
Online presence
Online Identity
Digital footprint
Being connected
Online network/society/structure
selection/curation/sifting
online communities
When describing the acquiring of a broad set of skills/experiences (which I could easily apply to technology tools rather than creative skills) I use this description a lot;
The more experiences and techniques (tools) you develop widens your vocabulary - a wider vocabulary enables you to express and communicate to/with others more successfully.
(From a fellow OU H800 Student)


My reply

Still playing catch up at the moment, but Jo I think your list is very much where my thinking is, and very much what I was about to write. Interestingly I find lists like these much easier to navigate and manage than complex 'visual' diagrams which to me feel very complex.
The only additional word I use when discussing technology is social 'media' as I feel that things like Twitter, Facebook, et al all work best when links are made to other media i.e. pictures, video, audio etc.....

New pedagogy schemas

Having read through this, I really am in two minds about it all.
One the one hand, I think it is really useful to have such a resource to review pedagogies and what they cover within new technologies. This could prove to be very useful when designing new courses and a useful prompt for designers of ideas/methods they may not have thoughts of using before.
However, I am always a little uneasy about anything like this, as all it is, is an adaptation of what you may call traditional feature of teaching & learning, and it may lead to designers thinking and spending too much time and energy focussed on the technologies used rather than thinking about how this may look in the actual classroom or virtual classroom i.e. how the students & teacher/tutor will interact with it. I would rather design the basic principles of learning, and then design the best/most appropriate technology for that particular task, rather than starting with 'we must use xyz' to teach 'abc'...... but perhaps that's just my view point.... ?

Mycorrhizae and wild fires


Here goes my answers....
1.) The communities described a set in the abstract and not the 'real' world, so although they are a useful thinking tool, relating them to actual use can be tricky or impossible due to the barriers present.

2.) Open Source is very much social production and is one of the great things about the web they way in which networks for almost anything have sprung up on almost any subject since now location is not an issue. Having just bought a new car, I am now usign a forum dedicated to the specific type of car I have bought to gather additional information, discus, share ideas etc... before this would never have been possible apart from a few yearly 'meets'

3.) Mycorrhizar to me equal networked lives, and today's society is very networked, and it is through the networks that new ideas / uprising's sharing etc... can happen so quickly and spead like.... 'wildfire' These metaphors like befoer act as a useful thinking excersie to allow you to think about how things are set-up arranged and used. The issue is the translation to the 'real' world.....

Catching up.....

After a hectic few weeks at work, and then a short holiday to Romania (to see a rally!), I am now having to play catch up. So here will be a number of pieces from weeks 21/22, 23 & 24. They will not necessary be in a real sense of order, more in the order I have attempted them, so it will 'jump around' a bit....

Design for learning

a) Learning is the mental process in which we increase our understanding, and this may occur due to many learning spaces i.e formal teaching or informal situations outside of school/teaching etc.... Teaching is the 'art' and 'science' of how to create a situation in a learning environment where students are able to learn. I am 50/50 on whether it is an art or a science, and I'm a ex. science teacher ! There is a real 'art' to teaching..... Beethan & Sharpe are of the view that pedagogy should be the term used to cover by teaching and learning, as they are ultimately inter-linked.
b) I think it is for two reasons it put the emphasis on to the design part of the process, and it also acknowledges the fact that teaching is a not a definative process which can be totally planned for as both students and the learning environment are open to dramatic change which can affect the students ability to learn (which at one school i work was very closely linked to the phases of the moon !)

Learning architectures

This takes me back to my degree days, about the design for learning we did quite a bit of work on this.
1. The four dimensions are: participation/reflection, designed/emergent, local/global, identification/negotiability.

2. I think that although they appear at first to be quite different, when you drill down you can see in the detail that they do cover much of the same ground. However I felt that Goodyear's account, was more focused on the design process and the learner has a less prominent position within it.

3, The table page 240 of the article sums this up well, and gives the designer key things to be designing for, and could also be used as a review tool when checking learning designs.

I like this model, and although it doesn't really match my current practice, as the training I do is running the same course again and again but to different groups.

However when I was teaching science full time, and working as a science adviser, this would be very true for my practice. However I would change the position of assessment. As i feel the mode/method of assessment shoul be much more fundamental in the design process of the tasks.

Broader perspectives

I did a bit of digging around and found this :-

http://www.infonomics-society.org/IJCDSE/Investigating%20the%20Possibility%20of%20Using%20Mobile%20Phones%20for%20Science%20Teaching%20and%20Learning_Is%20it%20a%20Viable%20Option%20for%20Sri%20Lanka.pdf

Which made for interesting reading, although some of it felt familiar, have we used this or something similar before Dave ? Anyway it shows the potential for improving the teaching of Science in Sri Lanka through the use of mobile phone technology. Its quite different to the other papers as its much more concerned with the reality of making it happen rather than a top line strategy document. I did try to find a strategy document for the UK for Science, but with the DfE being so louth to giving out any sort of guidence at the moment I couldn't find much useful. I do kow of documents, but they are quite old from the previous administration, but they are too dated to be of strategic value now.
The horizon reports were very interested and it was clear that the rise of mobile computing which they predicted in 2010 had come true. Their other predictions like ereaders etc  are I fel mobile learning really, but they did come true. Their long term vision of gesture learning, i think still has some way to go although the games market did move that way.