On Personal Learning Networks

I could probably do a better job of solidifying a personal learning network for myself.  This could work for me in two ways - on the teaching side as an adjunct professor, and on the administrative side for my communications position at Penn.  Luckily I have engaged in professional development (trainings, VOLT) to help me with both.  But I seem to struggle with engaging in a learning network beyond designated professional development arrangements.

I have been getting more involved on Twitter so I believe this will be the tool I use the most once VOLT is done.  There is so much rich information on there.  I have been focused on exploring hashtags, but over time I hope to connect with other adjunct professors and higher ed administrators to share knowledge and development.

The chats on Twitter are very intriguing.  As mentioned in the Whitby article (referencing the story of an educator who went from unconnected to connected) there are all sorts of small anxieties that keep me from getting immersed in the activity, such as, "Will people pay attention to what I say?" I think the VOLT program is helping me to put those anxieties to the side and engage.

I think it's wonderful that technology has opened the door for educators of all types to learn from each other.  I look forward to putting this into more practice as I continue my professional career.

The Drawback of Adaptivity; The Speed of Edtech

I have mixed feelings about adaptive learning.  The software I've checked out have nice, game-like feeling to them. I especially liked Dreambox. I can imagine that these applications are, at the very least, enticing to youth due to the interactivity and such.

Yet I take pause when considering the concept of adaptivity. Of course it sounds rosy- the software adapts to your skill level as you go along.  If you're not doing so well in a certain area, it will focus on that so you can get better.  Yet I can imagine that this could actually limit learning for some.  There were many times when I did not get a concept in school, but only when I went ahead to the next concept or the one after did I gain further understanding of the previous concept.  I use this thinking when I teach; I usually have a strong belief of the level I can get each student to, and try to push them toward that level. I consistently make links between current lessons and prior lessons to try to fill any blanks and solidify understanding. I do not necessarily base this on any previous work they've done.  I put more of the pressure on myself to get them where I think they should go, with solid understanding, by keeping them moving while stressing the ongoing connections between everything we learn.

If adaptive learning personalizes the learning according to what your students have done before and how they've performed in the past, I'm not sure if such a thought process could be used.  It seems you could get students to be really solid at everything, but maybe not truly exceptional at certain things, if you use adaptive learning.  Am I off with this?

The NYT and Audrey Watters articles reaffirmed something I've been thinking a lot about lately.  While the data issues themselves are big, what's more troubling is how technology is moving too fast for education.  I don't think this is education's fault; at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to money.  Everyone seems to have the answer to solve all of education's "problems."  And then they create a tool to try to address this. And through that tool, they push forward their platform and agenda.  So all of the adaptive learning platforms are pouncing on the notion that adaptive learning is the way to go.  It could be, but we don't really know!  But companies are flourishing because of the speed at which edtech is moving, which creates a competitive marketplace. Education tries to catch up, creating more problems and more people with their idea of the solution. 

After my years in GSE, and now in VOLT, I almost think we need to just go back to just teacher, students, paper and pencil, and good books (not textbooks haha).

The Online Learning Environment is a Monster

Great posts this week from my cohort colleagues Alli and Michael.  To sum it up: Good teaching is good teaching.  From our readings we are given some recommendations for online teaching and many, if not all, can be applied to the face-to-face classroom.

I think the biggest challenge with online teaching comes from the monster that the online learning environment is.  It's too unpredictable.  Too many factors can affect the quality of the class:

• What kind of computer is everyone using? What is the processor speed?
• What kind of internet connection is everyone on? Are there other computers on their network (which slows the bandwidth)?
• What internet browser is everyone using? Does it need a plug-in?
• What settings on these browsers specifically support the online learning platform that is being used?
• What tools need to be shared, and how does each specific learning platform support the sharing of these tools?
• Is my laptop charged?
• Is there enough light in the room so people can see me on video?
• Is my microphone off?
• Is my microphone on??
• There are technical difficulties. What do we do?

All of this is just a sample of the challenges that the online learning environment brings to the table, and this is even before we talk about the teaching and learning!

So my question is, is it possible for all of these challenges to intersect with our good teaching to provide even better teaching experiences? If we have a student online, and their laptop dies, and then they come back to the course - is there a way to overcome that as a teacher so that the student feels like they haven't missed a beat in regards to the learning experience? We can plan for all of the unpredictability of the online learning environment, but is there a higher level of flexibility and adaptability we should be pursuing so that the "monster" brings out the best in all of us?

Why Not Online Learning for Chores?

I believe that when discussing online learning, we have to look at a bigger picture for the students that is not so dictated by an academic educational lens. For much of my studies regarding online learning, I have been part of a discussion that is looking at how to put material that would have been studied in an academic space (classroom, school) into effective online learning environments. This thinking may actually be holding online learning back.  

By default, online learning has now taken learning out of the physical context and into the digital. This means that if I want to learn something in an organized manner, I do not have to do so inside of a school's classroom.  But this also means that there is potential to learn just about anything, at any time in an organized manner, if someone designs an online learning experience for it. This means that organized learning could be fostered through the lens of all dynamics of life, not just the academic educational dynamic, through online learning. 

Online learning is a tool that has expanded the concept of organized learning itself.  Because of this, if we talk about online learning for our students in regards to their academic education, shouldn't we also discuss how online learning can be used in other aspects of their lives?  Wouldn't this give us a more complete picture of the power of online learning? In higher ed, we could discuss how online learning can be used in residential life, career services, student affairs, and more. In K12, why not talk about how online learning can be applied in parent-child relationships, and neighborhood socialization? (and not just social media).  And why not talk about all these things as their own distinct learning opportunities, that need their own research, but actually complete the role online learning plays in the life of a student?

As I read through this week's reading I couldn't help but think these thoughts.  It would seem that my sentiments lend themselves at least in the realm of connectivism as fleshed out earlier in the course and within Kop's article.  I particularly look at "Connectivists advocate a learning organization whereby there is not a body of knowledge to be transferred from educator to learner and where learning does not take place in a single environment; instead, knowledge is distributed across the Web, and people’s engagement with it constitutes learning" (p. 20).  Here we see that there is reference to the fact that learning does not take place in a single environment, but is instead distributed across the web.  I agree. Where my thoughts intersect with this theory is how I believe that in the real world, there is knowledge distributed everywhere. A student's knowledge is received and interpreted in many different real-world contexts, and those contexts are interconnected only in that student's life (because it's his or her life!).  If these contexts are interconnected, how can we expect that student to fully embrace online learning in one aspect (academic educational content) if they never have to do this for their learning (or what we usually call "growth" and "maturity") in the other aspects?

In reading the article by Mishra and Koehler, I realized that we spend so much time trying to figure out teacher frameworks for online learning, that we miss the opportunity to create general frameworks that would allow anyone, anywhere to further foster the online learning experience for students. So a student would use online learning to learn something about Math as taught and designed by her teacher; but then that student would use online learning to learn more about how to do her chores as taught by her parents. Then she could do an online learning module, put together by the block captain, that allows her to get to know the people that live on her block better.

I'm not advocating that we always spend our time in online learning, but there seems to be so many ways we can use it to expand our learning in all aspects of life. Yet we are so focused on the academic education part of things that we may be limiting what we can truly do with this powerful technological emergence. Because we are in a world now where learning is everywhere, instantaneous, continuous, and on-demand, it has become difficult for me to imagine researching and discussing online learning in education without thinking about the other aspects of a students' life where online learning could also be applied. 

My undergraduate major was Sociology.  I believe this blog post was the Sociologist in me crying out!

Scaffolds & Literacies

The readings this week talked about scaffolding and the literacies of today.  Scaffolding is important when discussing literacy; I remember as a kid how teachers used to walk us through the alphabet letter by letter, and through stories word by word.  Over time, they gave us the space to decipher these letters and these words on our own while still providing support.  Finally, we reached our goal of learning how to read on our own, entering into the world of literacy (this same process applied to our ability to write).

As we enter into this digital age where the application of literacy has expanded beyond pen and paper to include digital tools and such, scaffolding will continue to be important. And although I've always been a proponent for the "single human agent as the scaffold" approach, I recognize through Tabak's article that we have reached an age where scaffolding can - and most likely should - come from a variety of sources to accommodate a variety of learners.  The key is that the scaffolds need to be carefully designed.

Transitioning to the articles specifically talking about literacies...the Leu et al. article frames the skills needed today to successfully navigate the plethora of information and information sources available  as "new literacies." I see where they are coming from, however, much like my cohort colleague Bryan Kurnish, I'm not quite on board with this.  The idea of literacy has not changed, but rather, the avenues of which we have to gain literacy has diversified.

The Thompson article brings up some great points in this regard.  In particular, data interpretation and visualization is probably one of the most important emergences of this digital age.  We've had data visualization throughout the years, but more and more it seems to be reaching the point where this is a part of everyday life.  And through this data visualization, we are able to make educated guesses of what to do next or what approach to take. This is in education and beyond.  So the capability to be literate in the reading, interpretation, synthesis, and analysis of data is increasingly important for everyone and not just researchers.

This  is a reason why I did my video project on Google Analytics. I think it is so important for students today to know how to interpret this type of web analytical data. More than likely they will create a blog or website for school or out of school.  Knowing how to interpret web analytical data will help them to create the most effective websites to truly communicate the message they are trying to send.  

Video of Online Tool: Google Analytics

For our video assignment, I chose to talk about Google Analytics and the benefits of it for students who are creating websites for class.

Module 2: Week 3 - The Problem of Scale and Adaptability

Responding to one of our discussions on Canvas has made me realize a great problem we face in education is scale and adaptability.  Our readings this week, especially Dr. Kafai's, dove into learning perspectives based on the notion that the construction of knowledge is not just a one way street (instructionism). Perspectives that support learning models such as a constructionist approach, a learner-centered classroom, or social learning carefully consider the complex nature of learning and knowledge development.  By all means I am supportive of this. Yet I do also see where the issues come to play.

An instructionist approach is easy to scale, and can easily be adapted for audiences of all types. The lecture given to a 10-person class in Philadelphia can be given to a 100 person class in Los Angeles if needed.  Just stick someone wise in the front of the class, have enough seats (or not) for students, and away we go!

However, a learner-centered classroom has to consider the learners themselves, their experiences, etc. That would seem to get more difficult as the numbers in the classroom goes up.  Constructionism and the idea of constructivism are awesome (and so vital to a lot of what I believe in when discussing the future of learning).  But getting everyone, for example, access to software that facilitates these theories, or Lego blocks, or whatever, and keeping things structured and organized, also seems to be something that would be more difficult as the numbers go up. Finally, although social learning has lent itself to scalability through social media and other digital tools, the Weigle article (p.12) points out several pitfalls of this growth such as the majority dominating the vocal few, and challenges stemming from collaboration. Again, as numbers grow, these problems have to be considered.

But when thinking about straight-up instructionism, a lecturer can talk to hundreds of people, get the lesson out there, and as long as he can be heard through some type of audio system, the deed is done. Did everyone get it? Likely no.  But those in favor of sage-on-the-stage can focus on how at least the knowledge was "put out there" for everyone to obtain.

So I do hope that over the next few years we take all of these marvelous forms of teaching, learning and pedagogical strategies/theories and create best practices for scalability, adaptability, and ultimately, sustainability.  Those are strange words to use when discussing the classroom, but until we figure this out a bit more, the tried and true "sage on the stage" instructionist approach will reign supreme.