Alm--Learning in a Digital World

Learning in a Digital World 

I believe that learning is an integral part of living and that people are always learning whether they are aware of it or not. So far, I have identified 10 non-negotiable, critical elements of learning and teaching.

1.     Technology is a non-negotiable element of teaching and learning, and should always be part of the learning process.

2.     As Bower, Hedberg, and Kuswara (2010) pointed out, however, it is not just technology, but the pedagogy and cognitive goals, that create a promising learning environment. Those three elements need to be taken into consideration when developing learning situations. 

3.     Tacit knowledge needs to be recognized as occurring and ways to develop it into tacit knowledge should be part of the learning experience.

4.     Motivational factors for students needs to be included and are as important as learning goals.

5.     Recognize Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development in students and build in scaffolding.

6.     Use Bandura’s four phases to help students transition through the ZPD to self-efficacy.

7.     Provide accurate assessment and feedback.

8.     Evaluate strategies to determine effectiveness.

9.     Ensure collaborative activities for students.

10.  Assist students in building adequate knowledge network skills.

          Technology is now a driving force in the economy, and most students use school as a way to qualify for employment. Since technology changes quickly, it is important for students to know how to use technology to their advantage. In addition, technology brings with it other changes, for example, how students learn and the way the brain functions.             Bower, Hedberg, and Kuswara (2010) recommend that technology be researched and evaluated for its usefulness for instructors who have limited time to learn new technologies. These technologies work better with certain pedagogies and cognitive goals. Thus, using these three elements helps to create a meaningful learning experience. Making students aware that they know they know involves changing tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, something that seems to be overlooked in the classroom. Ways to encourage this process should be incorporated into learning activities because it gives depth to the learning process. Motivation plays a large part in learning, and by incorporating the reasons why learning a particular subject will be useful to the student. Using and including Kellars ARC (Driscoll, 2005) in developing learning modules will benefit the student.

Another aspect of learning and instructing is that the instructor needs to be aware of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and scaffolding techniques (Driscoll, 2005). Interestingly, Bandura (Driscoll, 2005) seems to work within the zone with his four main ways people gain evidence that affects their self-efficacy beliefs (p. 318) as techniques to escort the student through the zone to self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a quality instructors need to promote, as well. Evaluations need to be conducted to ensure that the goals of the instruction are reached by the students.  Feedback must always be given for assignments that recognize what the student has attained and encourage them to go further. Evaluating the strategies used in instruction determines whether they attained the desired results or not. Constantly refining and developing strategies will help both instructors and students learn, which makes for a more effective instructor.

Finally, two skills required from today’s students are being able to collaborate and building knowledge networks. Other skills will surface as technology becomes even more complex and sophisticated. Collaboration will replace competition (Rheingold, 2008), which is happening gradually now, and creating knowledge networks as Siemens (2006) proposed is a necessary skill for knowledge management.

Bower, M., Hedberg, J., and Kuswara, A. (2010). A framework for Web 2.0 learning design. Educational Media International, 47(3), pp. 177-198. doi: 10.1080/09523987.2010.518811

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Siemens, G. (2006). Knowing knowledge. Retrieved from http://www.Lulu.com.




POSTS I RESPONDED TO

David Miller's at http://davidjmilleralf.blogspot.com/2012/05/module-6-learning-in-digital-world.html?showComment=1337879226184#c6469520951830733301
Melinda Schroeder's at http://schroederedtech.blogspot.com/2012/05/module-6-learning-in-digital-world.html#comment-form

Alm--Module 5: New Technologies

I have not experienced a situation in the workplace where I have encouraged people to use a new technology and have been met with resistance or disappointing results. My teaching style is to explain my purpose for wanting students to learn a new technology before I teach it and to make it applicable to their lives. For example, several years ago, when blogs were just starting to become popular, I incorporated blogs into the face-to-face composition class I was teaching at a career college. I wanted my students to have a technological edge over possible job competitors since in six weeks they would be entering the job market.  Also, these students were not traditional academic students; most had not done well academically in high school. I explained to my students that since blogs were new and few in their particular professions would know how to design and use them, it would be a good skill for them to learn and that it was fun and easy. It would be in their best interest to know how, so they could volunteer to create one or suggest it to their future company. I did not have anyone refuse, and everyone liked having an edge others might not possess. Without knowing it, I was using Keller’s ARC (2005).

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Alm--Module 4--Connectivism

Siemens (2006) stated “Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources” (para 23). Based on this definition, my network has changed the way I learn because my network is a resource that I use daily. As an introvert, I did not have communities of practice as a node two years ago, as many web tools, or professional organizations. I keep more information in my network, and as a result I use it more often. Siemens precisely described the process that I experienced when he said “The starting point of connectivism is the individual. Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to [the] individual. This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed” (para. 27).

Search engines, blogs, wikis, and user communities are tools that facilitate learning for me. Sometime, simulations or video podcasts are valuable tools for me to use when I want to see how something is accomplished. Often, what I want to learn dictates the tools I will use.

When I want to learn something new or I have a question, I “google” it first to get an overview of listings and topics; I look for a good site that will give me an overall description and then look for an expert’s name associate with the thought or product. I, then, look for websites, blogs, articles, and social networks associated with the expert and the topic. If I spot some anti-topic websites or blogs, I skim them as well.  Finally, I will go to the Walden library to look up articles by the experts I have identified and the topics I am interested in.  

Siemens, G. (n.d.). Connectivism: Networked and social learning [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.connectivism.ca/

Blogs I've posted to:
David Davis at http://edtechlearningtheory8845-2.blogspot.com/2012/04/connectivism-how-has-your-network.html#comment-form
Sherri Carey http://theoryandeducationaltech.blogspot.com/2012/04/connectivism-mindmap.html#comment-form

Alm Module 3-Collaboration

Rheingold (2008, February) discussed people collaborating to achieve positive collective results. While I do not necessarily believe that it is a “basic instinct” to work together and interact in a group, I believe that human beings strive to do things that make their own individual lives easier, so in that context, i.e., a more self-serving context, I think human beings will work collaboratively to strive for a positive collective result if it is in the individual’s self-interest. Sociology says that human beings are by nature gregarious, and I presume that means that people band together, for example, in towns and cities because they need each other’s assistance to live in modern society. That grouping into villages, towns, communities, and cities seems to imply a need to live in groups in order to cooperate for better living conditions because we do not have time to grow our own vegetables and other necessities. We buy gas from the gas station, groceries from stores, and clothing from department stores. So, it would seem that we are at least cooperating for a positive collective results.

There is at type of collaboration on a face-to-face level that I call teamwork that is real collaboration. I have been in those teamwork situations where the team had to come up with a product or a solution and after meeting a time or two, individual egos merge into a group synergistic entity that comes up with products and solutions that no one individual in the group would have thought of alone. It is a fascinating process and exciting to observe and participate in. While Driscoll claimed that “Rather, collaboration enables insights and solutions to arise synergistically (Brown et all, 1989) that would not otherwise come about” (p. 396). I have not experienced that type of synergy in an online setting, and I think it may require a physical presence for it to work.

Technology can facilitate collaboration based on constructivist principles by incorporating opportunities to discuss ideas and ask questions and by setting up group activities that promote collaboration, so, some types of collaboration are possible in an online setting. Ill-devised concepts or erroneous ideas can be clarified through collaboration and students can learn in virtual reality situations that give them opportunities to understand different points of view and as Driscoll stated, “transmission or sharing of cultural knowledge” (p. 397). Papanikolaou and Boubouka (2010) conducted an empirical study that ask three questions: “What are the design variables for a collaboration script intended to promote metacognitive knowledge; what types of metacognitive knowledge should be better supported at specific phases of a project, and which phases of a project should be better supported by peer learning?” (p. 137).

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Papanikaou, K., and Boubouka, M. (2010). Promoting collaboration in a project-based e-learning context. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(2), pp. 135-155

Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Posted comments to:

http://technibug.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/module-3-blog-3-collaboration-4/#comments

http://jacobseduc8845.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/lets-make-meaning-online-and-together/#respond

First QR

Check out my first QR code after reading "Scanning the Potential for Using QR Codes in the Classroom," by Cory Robertson and Tim Green. You will need a QR reader to use the QR code. I downloaded QR Reader for my iphone from the App Store.




Robertson, C. and Green, T. (2012). Scanning theh potential for using QR codes in the classroom. TechTrends, pp. 11-12.

Alm's Module 2 Blog Post--Cognitivism as a Learning Theory

Too Many _isms?

Karl Kapp stated on his blog that “The issue many forget is that “learning” is not one thing…it is a multi-layered word that tends to get treated as if it were just one thing…and it’s not. It is multi-facetted and that is why developing new models for “learning” is so difficult…there are too many levels for one school of thought or one model to do it all” (http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnotes/index.php/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational/). Here is the essence of the issue on the abundance of “–isms.” I see learning as a giant disco ball, with innumerable facets. There is still too much unknown, and there will never be a time when we know everything there is to know about learning. There never will be a one size fits all “ism” because learners do not fit a one-size-fits-all learning model.

Stephen Downes claimed that “I haven't harped on this, because it should be obvious, but it remains puzzling that so much of the instructional design community remains rooted in behaviorism - this more than 30 years after the theory was abandoned everywhere else” (http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=37293). Behaviorism could not have been totally abandoned because clearly there are times when it works; we still have learning objectives because they help the student focus and serve as a foundation for the design of the instructional material. No one admits to being a behaviorist though. Perhaps, that is what Downes meant.

Each new ism is a stepping stone to a previously unidentified aspect or fact of learning. With the advent of the computer, how people learn changed. New tools and methods in the future may change how the mind takes in information and may change how the brain functions, so the quest will always continue. As Bill Kerr stated on his blog “It seems to me that each _ism is offering something useful without any of them being complete or stand alone in their own right” (http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html). A stand-alone ism is an oxymoron.

Downes, S. (2006, December 21). Definitions: ABCD objectives [web blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=37333

Kerr, B. (2007, January 1). _isms as filter, not blinker [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html

Kapp, K. (2007, January 2). Out and about: Discussion on educational schools of thought [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnotes/index.php/2007/01/out-and-about-discussion-on-educational/

BLOGS I POSTED TO:

Jessica's http://jygreensblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/module-2-cognitivism-as-learning-theory.html?showComment=1333129545817#c4004395357910189606

Tim Weaver's at http://weave1-weave1.blogspot.com/2012/03/tweavermod-2-cognitivism-as-learning.html