A fews days ago I went to an interesting event promoting a new report published by the Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning here in London. It is called: Tweeting for teachers; how can social media support teacher professional development? I'm going to use it to reflect on the social media and education.
I'm going to give detailed analysis of the parts that interested me to help me reflect and articulate my thinking.
Overall, it's a useful and worthwhile read but it promises more than it delivers. The overall message is noble and it could act as a inspirational call-to-arms for educators to start investigating social media. I saw some of this at the event and I hope the message can reach out there. The recommendations are sounds although a little obvious. There are also some interesting case studies about initiatives I wasn't aware of. There is a deliberate link to teachers' CPD which is good and the review of research is interesting. However, there's a distinct lack of 'how to'. More on this later.
Firstly, the event I attended was well organised and free. Their #tweetingforteachers worked well as they had dedicated people looking after it. I ended up participating quite a lot as things occurred to me. The usefulness of micro-blogging to facilitate communicate in events cannot be disputed. It's a pity they didn't have the stream setup on the screen but there was a fair bit of interaction. It helped that I got a good 3G connection. Interestingly, most delegates didn't participate in this showing how far we have to go.
Next, the title - tweeting for teachers. I don't like this. It's catchy yes but it's a marketing phrase which is misleading as the overall scope of the report is social media. It's true that lots of the examples were about twitter but if the report wants to be about social media in general then it's not an appropriate title. Tweeting for teacher is a great title if you were to extrapolate the bits about twitter and add practical guidance on the processes involved in twitter.
Overall, it's a report that can only scratch the surface of this subject. Social media is a huge, huge area. In a 36 page report it's not going to happen. Also, the contexts with which it can be used a numerous. The case studies consist of 3 people that blog and tweet for their own learning, a local authority blogging facility that worked well, a video competition, #ukedchat and Teachmeet. Of these, #ukedchat and Teachmeet are the most inspirational. They are both established synchronous events which can be engaged in. The others are interesting but they would benefit from guidance on how to act if you're inspired to setup something similar. Also, where are the dynamic image creation and sharing tools, the video creation, use of audio, mindmapping tools, social bookmarking, multimedia posters, social networking/group sites etc. I worry about teachers will read this report and think that the case studies cover everything that's possible.
Finally for this post - categorisation. with some about self-directed learning and personal learning networks and others about sharing, reflective learning and still others about synchronous event, the report is crying out for careful categorisation so that content is made "meaningful to teachers and manageable within the context of teaching practice."(p20 of this report).
This is the massive gap we have in education with learning technologies. We have to make things easier for our teachers and academics. We need to show them how and in their context. Something like http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/ and http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ are more useful in this regard. There is a wealth of policy advice and a wealth of how to use tools advice but it's the middle ground of putting it in our context which is lacking. I believe that largely teachers can do this for themselves but only if we promote and facilitate it.
In my next post, I'll reflect on the key recommendations from this report.
News analysis, features, special reports about emerging technologies and their impact for innovators and business leaders.
Externalisation of pedagogic principles
“The first step in redesign often entailed the externalisation of pedagogic principles which had previously been tacit."
This quote is from report on the PREEL (From Pedagogical Research to Embedded E-learning) project which ran at the Institute of Education a few years ago. It was one of those initiative which tried to help educators with their e-learning design. Interestingly, there were deliberate attempts to link research and practice through the promotion and incorporation of IOE's own e-learning research output. This post and the above quote is about educator knowledge of their own pedagogy, the way they teach.
The quote promotes the tactic of asking educators to verbalise how they are teaching a particular course. In articulating this out loud it helps clarify for themselves how they teach. We are not talking learning theory here just how they do things. For some how a session is structured and taught may have evolved over the years. A particular educator may have a natural default pedagogical stance and the reasons why are not clear even to themselves.
I've talked in the past about how some educators don't have an understanding of their own pedagogy stance or indeed an understanding of pedagogical theory in general. I've speculated that this hinders moves to talk about internet-based communication/collaboration tools in terms of pedagogical affordance. The above tactic is instructive because it suggests that this doesn't really matter as the knowledge is there albeit latent and not externalised. It's your job (as a learning technologist) to bring this out of them. They know how they teach and why they do it. And you don't need to be judgmentally about this, you just need to listen and teach them how, and to what end, they could use what's available. What this also says is that it's not about lack of understanding, it's about lack of time and sometimes about lack of learning design. For the former, an educator doesn't have the time to think about their learning design. They are too busy. For the latter, they can't be bothered. This is rare but there's good and bad in every profession.
This quote is from report on the PREEL (From Pedagogical Research to Embedded E-learning) project which ran at the Institute of Education a few years ago. It was one of those initiative which tried to help educators with their e-learning design. Interestingly, there were deliberate attempts to link research and practice through the promotion and incorporation of IOE's own e-learning research output. This post and the above quote is about educator knowledge of their own pedagogy, the way they teach.
The quote promotes the tactic of asking educators to verbalise how they are teaching a particular course. In articulating this out loud it helps clarify for themselves how they teach. We are not talking learning theory here just how they do things. For some how a session is structured and taught may have evolved over the years. A particular educator may have a natural default pedagogical stance and the reasons why are not clear even to themselves.
I've talked in the past about how some educators don't have an understanding of their own pedagogy stance or indeed an understanding of pedagogical theory in general. I've speculated that this hinders moves to talk about internet-based communication/collaboration tools in terms of pedagogical affordance. The above tactic is instructive because it suggests that this doesn't really matter as the knowledge is there albeit latent and not externalised. It's your job (as a learning technologist) to bring this out of them. They know how they teach and why they do it. And you don't need to be judgmentally about this, you just need to listen and teach them how, and to what end, they could use what's available. What this also says is that it's not about lack of understanding, it's about lack of time and sometimes about lack of learning design. For the former, an educator doesn't have the time to think about their learning design. They are too busy. For the latter, they can't be bothered. This is rare but there's good and bad in every profession.
Asynchronous = Time and space learning
A common topic of conversation amongst educators when discussing learning technologies is the time and space they need to find out about the various tools in the VLE and redesign their courses. It is no secret that in my context of HE time and space is sadly lacking. What they are saying is that they need time and space to learn. Online, many of the standard communication/collaboration tools available to educators are best used asynchronously. Asynchronous learning activities are time and space learning activities. Well designed courses using such tools to scaffold students' learning through a series of activities which give them time for reflection, time for critical thinking, time for articulation and clarification. The communication can, therefore, be more meaningful and of a better quality all round. Within the sessions, within any synchronous learning event, the quality of any dialogue is compromised by the immediacy of the responses. There can be little time for reflection in such an environment. Some cope better than others with this but overall it's just not as good. I should put potentially at the end of this of course as other factor impact on the learning. But, in essence, the potential for critical thinking and deep learning is better within asynchronous learning activities because...
Asynchronous = time and space learning.
Asynchronous = time and space learning.
Wordcloud of my blog
I've updated the word cloud of this blog which you can see in the column on the right. It's interesting to see how things have changed over the last four months from:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3652594/My_blog
to
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4135003/Learning_Tchnology_Learning_blog_-_Tom_Preskett
Although things are largely the same, the biggest word is now learning whereas previously it was tools. There's also evidence of my reflections on activity templates and recent learning design teaching sessions I've been running.
One question I'm asking myself is:
Does this word cloud give a fair reflection of my role as an E-learning Manager?
(for the London Centre for Leadership in Learning (LCLL), Institute of Education (IOE))
The answer is probably not. I reflect on what's interested me from what I've been reading and what's been challenging me and been valuable learning experiences in my job. The mundane stuff doesn't get in there like the setting up of online course areas and the repeated process/navigation demonstrations. E-learning/learning technology jobs are about maintaining and setting up structures and systems and negotiating opportunities and events where you can show that you can offer much more than this. For me, I've done this by setting up sessions on Web 2.0 technologies and online learning design. Showing people how to use a particular VLE tools is the halfway house between the two extremes. It's ostensibly about process but you can shoehorn in pedagogy if you careful about it.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3652594/My_blog
to
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4135003/Learning_Tchnology_Learning_blog_-_Tom_Preskett
Although things are largely the same, the biggest word is now learning whereas previously it was tools. There's also evidence of my reflections on activity templates and recent learning design teaching sessions I've been running.
One question I'm asking myself is:
Does this word cloud give a fair reflection of my role as an E-learning Manager?
(for the London Centre for Leadership in Learning (LCLL), Institute of Education (IOE))
The answer is probably not. I reflect on what's interested me from what I've been reading and what's been challenging me and been valuable learning experiences in my job. The mundane stuff doesn't get in there like the setting up of online course areas and the repeated process/navigation demonstrations. E-learning/learning technology jobs are about maintaining and setting up structures and systems and negotiating opportunities and events where you can show that you can offer much more than this. For me, I've done this by setting up sessions on Web 2.0 technologies and online learning design. Showing people how to use a particular VLE tools is the halfway house between the two extremes. It's ostensibly about process but you can shoehorn in pedagogy if you careful about it.
A VLE is like a gym membership - bought for show and used by a handful
Breaking off from my previous train of thought....
A VLE is like a gym membership - bought for show and only properly used by a handful of hardy souls.
For a few years now the Virtual Learning Environment is a must have for any self-respecting educational institution. For HEs, it's a behemoth of a walled garden where integration with registration and administrative systems takes more time and effort than the teaching and learning integration it's supposed to be about. The use is patchy at best. It's like a gym membership. Both are purchased with the best intentions. There is recognition that change is necessary for proper and fulfilling use. However, this recognition is tacit at best and romantic at worst. Realisation and readily to change the culture of your organisation or the way you live you life is often lacking. When the turmoil of such change comes into view the hard decisions are shied away from and the status quo continues with minor aberrations.
This metaphor just about works, but what's the point of it. It's useful to think about how HE is approaching the use of learning technologies. Where this metaphor is useful is that it highlights how institutions like to play up their use of technology without really understanding or intending to enact the changes necessary to realise what they say is happening or will happen.
A VLE is like a gym membership - bought for show and only properly used by a handful of hardy souls.
For a few years now the Virtual Learning Environment is a must have for any self-respecting educational institution. For HEs, it's a behemoth of a walled garden where integration with registration and administrative systems takes more time and effort than the teaching and learning integration it's supposed to be about. The use is patchy at best. It's like a gym membership. Both are purchased with the best intentions. There is recognition that change is necessary for proper and fulfilling use. However, this recognition is tacit at best and romantic at worst. Realisation and readily to change the culture of your organisation or the way you live you life is often lacking. When the turmoil of such change comes into view the hard decisions are shied away from and the status quo continues with minor aberrations.
This metaphor just about works, but what's the point of it. It's useful to think about how HE is approaching the use of learning technologies. Where this metaphor is useful is that it highlights how institutions like to play up their use of technology without really understanding or intending to enact the changes necessary to realise what they say is happening or will happen.
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