Passive Learning

Just read an interesting blog post Kicking Powerpoint to the Curb. In it, there is this statement:

“Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students…Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive."

There is a tension here between what we perceive your average young person is used to and motivated to use, i.e. Web 2.0/social media and this statement. Passive learning is how things are done in the didactic world and it's actually less effort day-to-day for the students to experience this. For me, this is the main problem with lecture and didactic teaching. You can get away with not listening and therefore not learning. This is easy path and many look for it. With Web 2.0, it's the ethos that I am attracted to more than anything else - the collaboration and active participation in the process. Forcing someone to do this forces them to pay attention. So, although your average students is used to using Web 2.0/social media they are not accustomed to the active learning that it's use in education would entail. This isn't an argument for not pursuing this route. On the contrary, forcing them to active learn is a vital step forward for education.

Higher education actually has a tougher job because it probably isn't the case at the moment that your average student is so clued up on Web 2.0 as the younger generation. This is particular true in my case where the demographic is often a higher age group.

EdTechRoundUp30 - Learning Points

I recently discovered the EdTechRoundUp podcast. I'm trying to make a conscious effort to introduce podcasts of this kind into my learning. I'm often too tired to read when commuting and listening to a podcast while resting my eyes could work well - now that I have my iphone (hooray).

I've only listened to one and it was good quality. The only issue I have when I listen to a discussion like this is that it can be frustrated when the point you would make doesn't get made. Anyway, here is my learning.

"Teachers think VLEs are clunky" was centrepoint of a fairly long discussion. I think the clunkiness perception comes from the glimpses your average educator has had of social software where drag and drop is common and intuitive is the norm. Broadly, I agree that the perception is there and also that this perception is correct. In 2009, they do feel clunky. But what does this really mean? The dictionary definition is:

1. clumsy or awkward
2. not stylish or attractive

It's difficult to know much of the clumsiness when compared to Web 2.0 tools or whether they are intrinsically clumsy or awkward. What is definitely true is that with a social networking site, like facebook or ning, there is less to learn and the usability is better. When it comes to attractiveness, I think a certain amount of this comes from social software looking more up to date. There is a fashion factor just as clothes go in and out of fashion. Overall, web 2.0 is all about the user getting involves easily. The usability has to be good for any tool to be viable. Just thinking about what it takes to upload and publish a file on moodle and I can think at least two points where it should be made easier.

But surely the answer is to make them less clunky! Well this is easier said than done as the clunkiness seems intrinsic to how they are built. There are two reasons for this:

1. Any tool (like a moodle quiz or a blackboard blog) has to have the same look and feel as the rest of the system. So whereas independent Web 2.0 survey or blog tool can concentrate on making it the best in terms of usability and attractiveness. Within a VLE, you are limited to the template of the bigger picture. A bigger picture which is much more difficult to change and is much slower to change. This is why a blackboard blog looks archaic compared to blogger.
2. Any online tool in education has the question of security to consider. Security protecting the children from the outside world; security protecting the outside world from the children; security protecting the privacy of the class; security protecting the intellectual property rights of the educator; data protection! This security add layers of clunkiness that other websites don't have to the same extent. This is one of the tensions education has with web 2.0. At its heart, web 2.0 is about openness. VLEs first and foremost are designed to protect (almost obsessively). This is why where VLEs have adopted a web 2.0 tool into its system it often doesn't feel quite right. So whatever tool we use, clunkiness is unavoidable to a certain extent as securities are put in place. Maybe we should try and bring this spirit of openness more into education! That's another can of worms.
   

The discussion went down the line of using other tools instead, e.g. facebook. Well yes, as long as we understand that usability is just one of the reasons for this. Overall, it should be done in the knowledge and understanding of what social networking has to offer over and above your average VLE. By the way, I would favour Ning over facebook as facebook for learning can bring up tricky issues. Something they discuss on this podcast and it's worth a listen.

I have slight concerns about using a social networking site as the house within which what currently happens on a VLE occurs. This is because, for most, the VLE is a file repository and an assignment dropbox. However, I would favour the shift because the social aspect of a Ning, for example, are so intuitive and attractive that it would encourage educators to explore their use in a more recpetive frame of mind.

Faculty resistance to using IT tools in active learning instructional strategies

I've been reading through a behemoth of a discussion on the Ning network - Innovate-Ideagora called Addressing the problem of faculty resistance to using IT tools in active learning instructional strategies. There is so much of interest that I had to read it all. I wanted to record my main learning points here because I am positive there are many. The problem is that, as with any discussion, the discourse jumps around a lot and it's difficult to absorb properly as you move through the debate. However, I'm going to try and record the main issues here. When reading debates of this kindsd common issues crop up:

• Challenging the notion of the "lecture"
• Didactic vs collaborative pedagogies (in this discussion active learning is the key phrase)
• Higher education research priorities
• Assessment - and it's driving force dictating the teaching
• Process learning now becoming more important than fact-based learning

Interesting side issues here including the nature of blended learning and issues of cheating which was linked to the nature of assessment. Below are some additional thoughts.

A lot of the debate pitted the lecture against active learning strategies exemplified in the TEAL initiutive from the physics dept. of MIT. So the heart of the issue is the realisation that the most important thing we are doing is promote active learning through learning technologies - not just learning technologies. It's important that we understand that.

The discussion explored how a lot of learning technology use involved augmenting the lecture experience, reinforcing it in a way that didn't promote active learning - a reinforcement that added to the cost of the learning experience. Steve Eskow was prominent in challenging the notion of the lecture as all powerful and advocating alternatives to the face-to-face. I happen to agree with this. For most (nearly all) the traditional didactic lecture is so much the right way to educate that it isn't even worth debating. Currently, learning technologies have to fit in around these face-to-face events which are a pegs to hand our education onto. It's a fit that can work but often doesn't. However, this approach makes things more difficult than they need to be. Of course, face-to-face has value. But start off thinking of all your tools on an equal footing not with one on a higher plane.

The discussion described the performance involved in giving a lecture. I have a hunch that this is an important element for many educators. Why be receptive to different teaching methods if we like you already do? Put bluntly, some like the sound of their own voice too much. There, I said it. But how can you challenge that? Not easily for sure.

I've said in previous posts how important it is to educate the educators in learning technologies. One good idea from this discussion is to give them a reason to use it in their real lives, e.g. an aggregator for their news, and they will naturally start thinking about their teaching once this is embedded.

Face-to-face to Online - A Process

I've been way behind on my blog reading but have been learning loads converting a face-to-face course into an online one. My key learning point from the last couple of week is not to underestimate the time and effort it takes to do this. Overall, it's very rewarding. This is especially true as the lecturer I am working with is receptive to the process and happy to learn about everything that's an offer. I thought I'd record here the process we have gone through so far:

- I learn about the course
- I demonstrate the organisation VLE we are supposed to be using
- We decide where to house the course - The VLE with Web 2.0 linked in where necessary
- We talk through the activities used on each face-to-face day. Each activity is unpicked and I suggest and demonstrate the options available online
- I set up the course online
- Timings are set and activities are edited

Actually, we haven't finished and the last 3 points are currently being worked up through several iterations. Much of the time is taken with distilling the activity to what's most important and addressing that above everything else. Another big issues is ensuring making it right timing-wise. At the heart of this issue is transferring the synchronous to asynchronous. It sounds straightforward to try and replicate any face-to-face discussion online in a forum of some sort. You could do the odd one synchronously but largely this will need to be asynchronous and with any asynchronous discussion you need to give it time to develop. I favour two weeks for any subject but one week often has to do. So, if you have 4 discussions during 1 face-to-face day and you want to keep all of these online, you will need 4 weeks at least. Hopefully, timeframes are not as pressing as time spent - which needs to be comparable with face-to-face. All this needs to be carefully thought through.

One of the other main things I am trying to do is mix things up and use a wide a range of Web 2.0 tools as possible. You shouldn't really do things for the sake of it so I'm trying to ensure suitability and appropriateness. However, there is an evangelical element to it. I want people to experience a new learning tool to show how good it is! Show how easy it is! It makes it harder to be tied to a less than impressive VLE but they are getting better as they cobble together some Web 2.0-like tools to keep up with the real world and I can link to outside tools easily.

Learning about TPACK

I went to an interesting seminar yesterday run by Punya Mishra where I learnt about TPACK - Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The A is present to make a better sounding word. Basically, it's what educators need to know in order for effective integration of technologies into their teaching.

“Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic, transactional relationship between all three components. A teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator).” Punya MIshra’s website

As with any model or theory that rings true with me, this is not really telling me anything new. But it articulates one of the fundamental issues facing education. And articulates it very well.

How do we address this? Well, firstly I guess people in position like me need to help educators use learning technologies appropriately by not just showing them how to use the tools, but also learning about and helping them integrate it into their course. It’s a two-way process that requires the educator to involve the Learning Technologist in the learning design helping him/her understand the learning process with the LT helping the educator understand the essence of a particular tool.

Interestingly, Punya didn’t advocate a presentation of the TPACK model to teachers. It’s useful for us to understand the process we are trying to get the educators to go through. But it’s not necessary to draw the circles. I’m not sure you should hide things but he’s right that if you talk too much theory most people switch off.

One other good learning point centres around repurposing. We repurpose any technology for our own ends. This is true and obviously so but I really like its simplicity. Presenting things simply is very, very important and a skill that I constantly strive for.