Group items tagged

I’m in the midst of a great book by Allan Collins and Richard Halverson titled Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, and they spend about 20 pages writing about why the system is so resistant to change. The bottom line, they say, is that “teaching is an inevitably conservative practice.” When embedded in institutions that protect instruction from systemic change, a conservative practice is reinforced by a conserving institution. It is difficult for teachers to implement substantially changed programs when they already have dedicated years adapting to what the traditional system of school offers (36).

Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined as “materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone” (Downes, 2011). Open Educational Practices (OEP) are practices which “support the production, use and reuse of high quality OER through institutional policies, which promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path.” (ICDE, 2011). Open Communication is reciprocal and respectful exchange which contributes to social presence in online learning (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997), and the development of intercultural awareness and competence in language learning.

“A culture of sharing resources and practices will help facilitate change and innovation in education” (OER Commons, 2011).

Open access initiatives to make research publications freely available online or the adoption of open source software solutions, such as Moodle or Mahara, are already having a big impact on education.

At core was an alignment between what makes effective learning practice, and what makes engaging experiences.  Looking across educational theories, repeated elements emerge. Similarly with experience design.  It turns that they perfectly align.  If you recognize that, and can execute against it, your learning will be greater than the sum of the parts, and will both seriously engage and truly educate.  Learning can, and should, be hard fun!

Please, wherever you draw inspiration, however you figure it out, make more engaging learning. Align the elements of effective practice and the elements of engaging experiences, and make your learning rock. For your learners’ sake, please!

Adults must be socially stimulated to learn, which is why language retention is usually only successful for adults when they are immersed with other language-speakers. Bilingual people “build new bridges” in the brain, said Dr. Kuhl, and their brains are constantly adapting and reshuffling data as they translate.

“Bilingual people aren’t cognitively smarter, but they are more cognitively flexible,” she added. “Practice at constant switching improves an aspect of their cognitive abilities. They become more facile at adjusting to new situations and inventing new situations.”

This is much like what people do when they’re updating their Twitter status, instant-messaging friends, or answering text messages and emails while they’re doing something else. Dr. Kuhl said this multitasking, where people are stimulating new patterns of sequential processing, could then reap the same benefits as bilingualism.