Group items tagged

It seeks to determine how a teacher can scaffold a networked learning approach while providing a foundation on which students take more control of the learning process.

Emerging web applications offer unique opportunities to customise the learning environment for individual learners

In the past, learning environments were immediately associated with a physical location

however, the concept is increasingly expanded to include online learning, virtual schools, and blended opportunities that combine traditional with digital options

Traditional, lecture-based classrooms are designed as passive learning environments in which the teacher conveys knowledge and the student responds (Chen, 2009). Imagine the potential frustration that self-regulated learning holds for students who are quite comfortably accustomed to specific teacher directions with finite expectations.

learner motivation

Personal learning suggests learner autonomy and increased self regulation

self-directed.

they are also required to take an active role in the learning process by making decisions

Teachers, on the other hand, are challenged to provide an appropriate balance between structure and learner autonomy in order to facilitate self-directed, personalised learning

Such a scenario further presents challenges to traditional forms of assessment

The role of a teacher within a student-centered approach to instruction is that of a facilitator or coach

He or she supports the students in their search and supply of relevant material, coordinates the students' presentations of individual milestones of their projects, moderates discussions, consults in all kinds of problem-solving and seeking for solutions, lectures on topics that are selected in plenary discussions with the students and conforms to the curriculum"

The purpose of this test case is to introduce a model for the student construction of personal learning environments that balances teacher control with increased student autonomy

a level of structure is required to scaffold the learning process

Networked learning refers specifically to "learning in which information communication technology is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors, between a learning community and its learning resources"

Networked learning is manifested in personal learning environments (PLEs), or "systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning"

a model of the networked teacher that represents an educator's professional personal learning environment (PLE)

Figure 1: The Networked Teacher (Couros, 2008) It is a model through which teachers begin to build professional connections to support teaching practice

The Networked Student Model adapts Couros' vision for teacher professional development in a format that is applicable to the K-12 student. It includes four primary categories, each with many components evident in the networked teacher version (Figure 2).

he networked student follows a constructivist approach to learning. He or she constructs knowledge based on experiences and social interactions

Constructivism encourages "greater participation by students in their appropriation of scholarly knowledge"

Technology supports this appropriation as a collection of tools that promote knowledge construction,

Networked Student Model.

Students use RSS and social bookmarking to organise information and build upon prior knowledge with the goal of completing a task or meeting a learning objective. Social media, or web-based applications designed for the purpose of interacting with others online, promote conversations. Blogs are an example of a vehicle through which students can reflect on the learning process. The sub-parts coexist to support a constructive learning experience. The student's personal learning environment pulls them all together.

Siemens (2008) associates the concept of connectivism with networked learning

in the networked learning environment, blogging is a key component of the personal learning environment through which students respond to and collect the opinions of others. Students identify blogs that target a specific unit of study, and they have the option to respond with opinions of their own.

In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher has primary control over the content.

Networked learning gives students the ability and the control to connect with subject matter experts in virtually any field.

The skill to identify valid content and expertise,

The connection to humans is an essential part of the learning process. That connection expands to include access to resources and creative artifacts.

design of the teacher-facilitated, student-created personal learning environment

The teacher was a facilitator in the process helping the student scaffold network learning and manage the content as it became more complex.

Construction of a personal learning environment does not necessarily facilitate comprehension or deep understanding

The networked student model is one of inquiry, or the process of "exploring problems, asking questions, making discoveries, achieving new understanding and fulfilling personal curiosity"

In guided inquiry, the teacher provides the problem and directs the students to the materials for investigation

The teacher is necessary to help the students navigate the breadth of content, apply the tools properly, and offer support in the form of digital literacy skills and subject matter expertise. Yet the teacher may not be the only expert in the learning process.

The test case for this model took place at a K-12 independent school in the southeastern United States. Fifteen students participated during a nine-week term as part of a contemporary issues research project. The contemporary issues course was unique to the school in its delivery. It was the first time a blended format had been offered. Students attended class three days face to face and two days online. Course assignments and discussions were organised using Moodle,

For the networked student project, each student selected a contemporary issue or topic for which he or she had a strong interest

Passion for a topic was one means of motivation

assessment of each student's ability to synthesise the research

The networked student test

It addresses the problem of determining the level of structure needed to facilitate networked learning while providing a foundation for greater student control over a personal learning environment

to collect student perceptions of the learning experience relative to their autonomy and comfort with the networked learning format

two key considerations when introducing the Networked Student Model. The first was student familiarity with web applications used to build the personal learning environment.

Second, considerably more structure was required since this was the first time each student embarked on the Networked Student Model.

The teacher gauged the level of structure depending upon the student's motivation, comfort with technology, and interest in the topic.

Patterns for networked learning

The learning environment slowly shifted from the classroom to online.

Google is used repeatedly because signing up for one account gave students access to a number of useful learning tools.

The level of structure is adjusted based on the prior experience of individual students.

Student activitylevel of structure

Personal learning environment toolset

a new tool was introduced each day over two weeks.

personal web page aggregators

iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo

Personal web page compiles learning tools

There were four components of the assessment process for this test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay, and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content.

Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At least three new resources should be added each week. Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs and news alerts using the reader. Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available). Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter expert recognised in the field. Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook. Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day.

At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above.

The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a reflective essay.

The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular reflection during the course of the project.

Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic and why others should care or be concerned.

As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this exposure

to give the students an additional opportunity to share and learn from each other.

Creativity is considered a key 21st century skil

A number of emerging web applications support the academic creative process

Students in this project used web tools to combine text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki page.

The student-selected topics of study included

Video conferences were conducted with

All students participated in the video conferences and identified subject matter expertise as a key element of a personal learning environment.

Four key areas were targeted to assess the success of the project and determine whether an effective balance between teacher control and student autonomy was achieved:

Creation of the personal learning environment as a replacement for a traditional textbook

Student use of technology to complete projects was identified as important because the students had little prior exposure to technology as a learning tool.

Time management and workload were tangible measures of comparison from the student's perspective and indicated his or her ability to self regulate the learning process.

Student perception of whether he or she felt equipped to study other topics in this format with less teacher intervention provided some indication as to whether greater student autonomy was achieved

how information flows through a network

our position in a network, and the overlap with other networks, influences the type of information and people that we can acces

While networks have always been the backbone structure of society and knowledge,

the experience of being part of a network was not fully conscious or even explicit

What mattered was who you knew and your role in society

overlooks an important question

Even the act of connection forming requires explicit activity from a person : “Follow X” or “Accept friend request from X”

The online formation of networks is more directive than the offline experienc

the connection seems more real, more intentional

Klout analyzes influence

The prevalence of social network tools and the attention now devoted to analyzing the shape and attributes of those networks – and the evaluation of how information flows

Networks can be analyzed quantitatively to determine

I’m interested in the qualitative aspects of information flow

three elements

involved in addressing the question of

how did the person get to have many followers?

He has 12000 followers.

Let’s look at someone like Alec Couros on Twitter.

He has posted over 55000 tweets (wow!).

qualitatively, how does Alec differ from others in his activities on Twitter?

because he posts more often?

Because he is talented at engaging with individuals?

because he replies to more of his followers

Does he participate in more network sub-clusters

Maybe he’s just a nicer person

What are the qualitative attributes of a message that influence why it is shared

Two attributes

a tweet about something happening today is more valuable than

this is a complex/fuzzy concept

When someone posts a link or comment on Twitter, and it resonates with me

the prospect of retweeting is increased.

a) to express agreement b) to express outrage c) humour d) social grooming

e) self-promote f) raise awareness

what would you add?

If we have a coding scheme, we can randomly analyze the posting habits of people on Twitter

No doubt, the coding process would be better if it was automated

Not only are media firms interested in who is talking about GM or BP, but what are the emotions behind posts on Twitter/FB?

Educators are paying attention to social media.

change is required in two vast and interwoven domains

First we need to toss out the old industrial model of pedagogy (how learning is accomplished) and replace it with a new model called collaborative learning. Second we need an entirely new modus operandi for how

(the content of higher education) are created.

Collaborative Learning: Reinventing Pedagogy

In the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster

"In collaborative classrooms, the lecturing/listening/note-taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other processes that are based in students' discussion and active work with the course material."

Collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows for student talk

With technology, it is now possible to embrace new collaboration models that change the paradigm

This is not about distance learning

Rather, this represents a change in the relationship between students and teachers in the learning process.

Collaborative Learning Is Social Learning.

we need to focus not on what we are learning but on how we are learning

instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of 'I think, therefore I am,' . . . the social view of learning says, 'We participate, therefore we are.'"

the web provides powerful new tools and environments for collaborative learning

from wikis to virtual worlds like Second Life

However, the web enables social learning in other ways as well.

Collaborative Learning Embraces Discovery.

"The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."14

Students need to integrate new information with the information they already have — to "construct" new knowledge structures and meaning.

Today, every college and university student has at his or her fingertips the most powerful tool for discovery, for constructing knowledge, and for learning.

the web

the web

seeing the web as a threat to the old order, universities should embrace its potential and take discovery learning to the next step

Rather

Collaborative Learning Is Student-Focused and Self-Paced.

the education model has to change to suit this generation of students. Smart but impatient, today's students like to collaborate, and they reject one-way lectures

"They want to learn, but they want to learn only what they have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for them."15

Collaborative Knowledge Production: Opening Up the University

The university needs to open up, embrace collaborative knowledge production, and break down the walls that exist among institutions of higher education and between those institutions and the rest of the world

To do so, universities require deep structural changes

in the open-access movement, we are seeing the early emergence of a meta-university

The Internet and the Web will provide the communication infrastructure, and the open-access movement and its derivatives will provide much of the knowledge and information infrastructure."

The emerging meta-university, built on the power and ubiquity of the Web and launched by the open courseware movement, will give teachers and learners everywhere the ability to access and share teaching materials, scholarly publications, scientific works in progress, teleoperation of experiments, and worldwide collaborations, thereby achieving economic efficiencies and raising the quality of education through a noble and global endeavor."17

For universities to succeed, we believe they need to cooperate to launch what we call the Global Network for Higher Learning

This network would have five stages or levels:

Level 1: Course Content Exchange

colleges and universities post their educational materials online, putting into the commons what would have traditionally been viewed as cherished and closely held intellectual property. MIT pioneered the concept with its OpenCourseWare initiative (http://ocw.mit.edu), and today more than 200 institutions of higher learning have followed suit.

Consider what a change this offers to a typical professor's life

Level 2: Course Content Collaboration

What higher education desperately needs is a social network — a Facebook for faculty.

Sharing materials is an important first step. But the course materials available freely online could also be constructed as a platform for users to collaborate and share experiences with the materials. As the Global Network for Higher Learning gains momentum, the volume of material being posted will become overwhelming, comprising not only text but also lecture notes, assignments, exams, videos, podcasts, and so on.

But it shouldn't be a standalone application; it should be integral to the Global Network for Higher Learning.

A little effort can yield large returns. For example

Level 3: Course Content Co-Innovation

the Wikimedia Foundation organized Wikiversity

The next level in the Global Network for Higher Learning goes beyond sharing and collaborating on course content to actually co-creating content. Professors can co-innovate new teaching material based on work already available and can then make this newly synthesized content available to the world.

For the ultimate course, teachers need more than course materials, of course. They need course software enabling students to interact with the content, supporting small group discussions, facilitating testing, and so on. Such software can be developed using the tried-and-true techniques and tools of the open-source software movement.

Sakai

Sakai.

Level 4: Knowledge Co-Creation

In the next level of the Global Network for Higher Learning, scholars move beyond course materials and collaborate to co-create all subject-matter-appropriate knowledge.

Knowledge from university-based research should be a public good.

Universities and academics need to embrace the Global Network for Higher Learning as the platform for collaboration in research, creation, communication, and exploitation of new knowledge. With the Global Network for Higher Learning, the current problems of academic journals would go away.

The traditional peer-reviewed academic journals would adopt a much more dynamic online process.

Level 5: Collaborative Learning Connection

How can we network the world's higher education institutions to go beyond the production of knowledge to the consumption of that knowledge by learners?

The 21st-century university will be a network and an ecosystem — not a tower — and educators need to get going on the partnerships to make this work for students.

Reinvention or Atrophy

he combination of the Internet, the new generation of learners, the demands of the global knowledge economy, and the shock of the current economic crisis is creating a perfect storm for universities, and the storm warnings are everywhere.

As the model of pedagogy is challenged, inevitably the revenue model of universities will be too.

Many will argue: "But what about credentials?

Others will argue: "What about the campus experience?

If institutions want to survive the arrival of free, university-level education online, they need to change the way professors and students interact on campus.

How, then, can universities reinvent themselves, rather than atrophy? What are the steps to be taken?

Adopt Collaborative Learning As the Core Model of Pedagogy.

Professors who want to remain relevant will have to abandon the traditional lecture and start listening to and conversing with students — shifting from a broadcast style to an interactive one

Professors should encourage students to discover for themselves and to engage in critical thinking instead of simply memorizing the professor's store of information. Finally, professors need to tailor the style of education to their students' individual learning styles.

The Internet and the new digital platforms for learning are critical to all of this, especially given the high student-faculty ratio in many universities.

Collaboratively Produce Higher Education Content and Knowledge by Launching the Global Network for Higher Learning.

Right now, universities around the world are embracing level one — course content exchange — of the Global Network for Higher Learning. But they need to move further in the next four levels.

Content should be multimedia — not just text. Content should be networked and hyperlinked bits — not atoms. Moreover, interactive courseware — not separate "books" — should be used to present this content to students, constituting a platform for every subject, across disciplines, among institutions, and around the world.

Build New Revenue and Collaboration Models between Higher Education Institutions to Break Down the Silos between Them.

we will need to build a collaborative revenue model and a new structure of transfer pricing.

Change Incentive Systems to Reward Teaching, Not Just Research.

If universities are to become institutions whose primary goal is the learning by students, not faculty, then the incentive systems will need to change. Tenure should be granted for teaching excellence and not just for a publishing record.

How can this be done?

Build the Infrastructure for 21st-Century Higher Education.

a new kind of infrastructure is required to realize the University 2.0.

The world needs a "Digital Marshall Plan."

Where is the University 2.0?

A powerful force to change the university is the students.

The Industrial Age model of education is hard to change. New paradigms cause dislocation, disruption, confusion, uncertainty. They are nearly always received with coolness or hostility. Vested interests fight change. And leaders of old paradigms are often the last to embrace the new.

Changing the model of pedagogy and the model of knowledge production is crucial for the survival of the university

Global Network for Higher Learning

In addition, this also will encourage open communication between companies, employers, HR departments, owners, and managers.” 

Without appropriate technology tools and resources available in their work environment, they may look for help from non-work related services such as Facebook.com. Integrating social media into the development environment eliminates this potential challenge and at the same time increases the potential for success of the development effort and of the new managers. 

Can social networking provide a practical way to help prepare new managers for their duties? Considering the rapid growth of social networking adoption among younger workers, this is a question well worth asking

Creating a curriculum for training new managers and supervisors is a common task that falls to instructional designers

The typical approach for many decades has consisted of a combination of classroom events, each lasting from one to five days (or more). This default design has many problems, including travel expense and time away from the job for the managers. Not infrequently, there are severe mismatches between what is taught and the actual practices supported by the organization’s culture.

There is an increasing number of companies and online service providers who are convinced that social networking can help overcome at least some of the issues common to the classroom-only approach

By combining formal classroom instruction and online reference and performance support with online coaching, mentoring, and informal learning through social networking, a new manager can gain a solid theory foundation, just-in-time help, and culturally correct application pointers.

Informal learning, as an object of attention by researchers, is not a new topic. However, it only appeared on the radar screens of instructional designers less than ten years ago. The emergence of online social media has led to the notion of somehow tapping into the potential of this channel, that carries so much of the real learning that goes on in organizations.

In our current age, we have plenty of channels in which informal learning can take place: everything from microblogs (Twitter), to communities (LinkedIn Groups, discussion forums), to user-created content (wikis, Weblogs, YouTube), to social bookmarking (Delicious), and surely more to come.

But we also have plenty of examples of attempts at use of these channels in which the attempts failed. The virtual landscape is littered with the remains of abandoned wikis, content-less and comment-less Weblogs, and LinkedIn Groups where the spam has driven out the discussion and all but eliminated any possibility of learning.

Existing informal learning groups online include a surprising variety of formats

Jay Cross’ Internet Time Community,

Participants in the Twitter #lrnchat sessions also comprise an ongoing informal learning group

if informal learning is going to take place online, it must be self-sustaining

Focus

Focus

Dialogue

here are the factors that seem to drive participation and commitment by members.

What makes informal learning online work?

Focus

Payoff

Leadership

Membership

Process

If a group lacks focus, or focus is too narrow, if the group’s process is too complicated, if there are not enough members, and if there are no rewards for participation, the group will fail. Informal groups are a lot of work to establish and maintain, and the work falls equally on all members.

Setting up a social network for manager training

The first task is to establish a design for the social interaction. This must come before technology selection, so that the limitations of the technology do not drive or constrain the interaction.

I recommend Innovative Educators new to PLNs begin as a PLN consumer (1.0 skills) and grow into PLN producers (2.0 skills).

5 Ways to Begin Building Your Personal Learning Network 1.0

5 Ways to Begin Building Your Personal Learning Network 1.0

1-Join a professional social network.

1-Join a professional social network.

2-Pick 5 Blogs you find interesting and start reading them.

2-Pick 5 Blogs you find interesting and start reading them.

3-Set up an iGoogle account using your professional email and subscribe to the blogs you selected in Google Reader.

3-Set up an iGoogle account using your professional email and subscribe to the blogs you selected in Google Reader.

4-Become a part of the conversation and start commenting on the blogs you read

5-Join the microblogging phenomena by reading Tweets at Twitter.

5-Join the microblogging phenomena by reading Tweets at Twitter.

4-Become a part of the conversation and start commenting on the blogs you read.

Personal Learning Network Tool for further investigation

the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments

the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments

the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments

the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments

Can you share some of what you learned about student-directed learning?

distinction

between teaching and learning

it means to be an educator and being open to ideas such as student-directed learning

In a way, that is a much more challenging, but also much more rewarding, role.

has become a cliché

"Lifelong learning"

the world of networked computing you describe which transforms this abstract concept into a reality?

kids learn about the world through play

play and learning are indistinguishable

which means that more often than not, we are faced with the same problem that vexes children

we are now living in a world of constant change and flux

How do I make sense of this strange, changing, amazing world?

By returning to play as a modality of learning

is about the productions of new meanings by reframing or shifting the context in which something means

In a networked world, information is always available and getting easier and easier to access

Essentially what this means is that

Information and knowledge begin to function like currency: the more of it you have, the more opportunities you will have to do things.

The force that seems to be pushing the knowledge curve forward at an exponential rate is two fold.

The 21st century has really marked the time in our history where the tools to manipulate context have become as commonplace as the ones for content creation and we now have a low cost or free network of distribution that can allow for worldwide dissemination of new contexts in amazingly brief periods of time.

s only one kind of content, which tells you what something means

It tells why something is important to you, how it relates to your life and social practices

Every time we publish information on the internet, we are effectively starting a conversation, because people can respond or react to it. However, we are also speaking to a vast, unknown audience and it is easy to get lost in the crowd.

That is why social networking tools are so powerful and if used appropriately, can have such a positive impact on learning

'wisdom of the crowd'

The power of the network

its ability to adapt or change its focus

This has expanded into the idea of a social presence where one is able to be seen as a real person in a virtual environment

Study findings have supported the idea that the cause of success in an online environment is the establishment of an effective learning community [9].

what steps may be taken to create and establish online PLCs to make them work for a virtual environment

Tim Kastelle (a great source of knowledge on innovation) discusses how it’s better to have a good idea than a large network to fire off any old idea.

This is an important innovation lesson as well. We don’t need more ideas, we need better ideas.

Note: my blog is where I hammer out ideas, so you may be finding some of these posts a bit repetitive. Sorry about that

My working definition of personal knowledge management: PKM: a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world, work more effectively and contribute to society. PKM is [...]

What effective means have we found to aggregate, filter and share information? Is personal KM a good foundation for corporate KM, or are they competing efforts? What are the corporate benefits of individual KM [...]

“understand” is more descriptive of the human sense-making activities than “filter” is

our best opportunity to function in complex and chaotic environments is found in structures that adapt and respond to feedback. Change requires structures that also change. To this end, we turn to networks and ecologies as a model for:LearningKnowledge/epistemology (as both process and product)Managing complexity

Explaining emergence in its multiple forms in education: learner understanding, group formation, advancement of a discipline, etc.Designing educational systems that embody the society that learners will be expected to engage as members (ontology - learners becoming)

the irreducibility of learning to its individual parts, the recognition of dynamic interactions, the criticality of feedback in influencing adaptation, and openness are sufficient for our application to learning.

definition of complexity

“a set of diverse actors who dynamically interact with one another awash in a sea of feedbacks”

An example I often use to distinguish complicated from complex: a puzzle and the weather

“What differentiates physical systems from social ones is that agents in social systems often alter their behaviour in response to anticipated outcomes”

The autonomy of agents

Emergence

The interactions of multiple agents at a local level can create or contribute to significant system-level change

On a personal level, we could argue that our learning is the emergent phenomena of our own interactions with others and how we have engaged with and connected different concepts.

How do these concepts impact learning?

Ecologies and networks are reflective of chaos and complexity theories main tenets and provide a suitable replacement for the current classroom and hierarchical model of education.

They freeze in their tracks

Often they're people with years of expertise, who are knowledgeable about their work and aren't accustomed to feeling uninformed.

it's better to ask them if they'd like to cool off, relax, and enjoy the beautiful view from the harbor.

It's like asking someone who has never sailed to put in

Here are some approaches you can take to help people who are new to social tools understand them:

There are hundreds of small-use cases that could benefit from using networked communications environments