Learning Philosophy V2

Words in my learning philosophy. "Information" and "experience" being the biggest after "learning"

Wordle of my learning philosophy v2.

Learning Philosophy V2 Video

Video Text: Learning is how we define our interests. Our interests become reputations. Reputations become jobs. Jobs become contributions to society. And our contributions allow humanity to thrive and prosper. Learning is important because it initiates the development of our society.

But, where does a learner begin?

The world is a confusing place with diverse opportunities and challenges. Learning must be guided by practitioners, researchers, experts, and teachers who can curate the needs of the world and supply-push objectives onto learners. They must also share and facilitate the use of resources like web 2.0 tools. Real-world needs will establish the “worthiness of learning” and access to web 2.0 tools will enable learners to give and take information they need to make meaningful contributions to society.

Equipped with objectives and resources, the role of the learner in the 21st century is to steer their exploration based on their interests. My initial belief was that the behaviorist approach could explain all of the learning that happened, but I now believe it is a combination of the constructivist, connectivist and behaviorist perspectives.

Constructivism happens when learners apply concepts to real-life and the meaning of know-how and know-what information is internalized through experience. This process of learning takes time, but leads to confidence in the findings and the learning is evidenced by the ability to replicate the experiences.

When information is needed more rapidly, students can demand-pull information through connectivism. Today’s networked resources enable students to learn from the experiences of others. In this process, knowing other individuals with the appropriate experience can be as valuable as having the experience. Connectivist learning is evidenced by individual’s reliance on know-where to find information.

Behaviorism is a process of choosing future behaviors based on past responses. Behaviors that result in rewards will be repeated, such as posting a blog online which receives meaningful feedback. Behaviors that result in punishment will be stopped, such as posting a blog online which receives harsh feedback.

In summary, constructivism says we learn through our own experiences, connectivism says we learn from the experiences of others and by evaluating the results of our and others experiences, behaviorism says that we learn whether those experiences should be repeated or not based on their positive or negative outcomes.

Learning is a dynamic system, that once begun, should continue. In systems, operations build off of the results of preceding operations. Learning should build off of results of prior learning. The recent emergence of online networks, where users can both consume and produce information should make the practice of life-long learning more visible. Network learning tools like wikis, blogs, podcasts, media and social networks allow users to stay aware of the latest innovations and share their own latest findings from practice. Once people know how to use these tools, they should be equipped for life-long learning, and life-long contributions to our society.

Week 11 – Social Networks and Learning

Imagine Alexander the Great and Mother Teresa collaborating on a project. They would have conquered nations without harming a soul, right? Strong personalities bring big ideas to the table, but diverse opinions help the team consider all the angles before choosing the best course of action. Social networks offer an informal space in which people can equally express strong personalities, be vulnerable, take risks, share unconventional ideas and receive feedback. The absence of discrimination and loyalty invites everyone to participate.

The informal and inviting nature of social networks relies heavily on one thing: the equality of all members.

In educational environments, instructors are perceived as authoritative, and it seems that social networks used for formal education are no different. The study, “Online Social Networks as Formal Learning Environments: Learner Experiences and Activities,” introduced an instructor into a social network. One conclusion they found was that “learners did not engage with one another in activities beyond what was required for course credit”, so they only used the space for formal reasons and did not take personal steps to interact.

Using social networks for formal education may not naturally uncover personalities, but some of the tools can be used to create moments of openness.

For example, in this class I experienced some anxiety using VoiceThread, because it felt like I was making statements on the record, spontaneously and vulnerably. But, listening to other people’s answers and personalities helped me to feel more comfortable sharing ideas with my classmates. In another instance, group 3 used twitter to collaborate on the tech tool project, and sharing our personal schedules with each other sometimes felt like I was exposing my secrets, but I really enjoyed hearing about other people’s busy lives just like mine.

Being open on social network tools initially caused some anxiety, but later lead to the strongest connections I’ve had with my classmates. It’s nice to have a mix of formal and informal experiences in a class. The informal social networking let me know others are out there working towards the same goals as me. It’s encouraging.

Week 10 – Media Sharing and Learning

Social media have shown us that people are self-motivated to share information with huge audiences when they are presented with casual, informal spaces to share their ideas and opinions. Media like podcasts, videos and photo collections bring that sense of casualness and informality into the classroom. Better than the formal, text-based books and lectures, these media convey feelings and vulnerabilities that make a lecture feel more like a conversation. Conversations invite participation, and participation invites active learning.

After reading his course blog, (http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/courses/disruptive/), I was curious to hear how Dr. Scott McDonald integrated social media into his “Disruptive Technologies” course and how receptive his students were to the idea of participating “openly” online. Check out what he had to say:

Understandably, the social media added a layer of complexity to his Disruptive Technology course. In the interview, Dr. McDonald explained how he delivered the lecture while a colleague co-taught by monitoring the background chatter on twitter.  Interestingly, the instructors were surprised when twitter not only engaged students in background questions and answers but also kept them in touch after class, so they really got to know each other. I also liked Dr. McDonald’s observation that posting opinions “openly” online for “anybody” to see only seemed to become clear to students when “anybody” started answering back.

Based on Dr. McDonald’s observations, I can see myself continuing to consult feeds like #edchat and #edtech on twitter to crowd-source answers to my own questions. Also I look forward to when “anybody” might change the way I interact online, so I would like to continue blogging on my own. Has anyone in this class experienced what it’s like to hear back from “anybody” on a blog or another Web 2.0 tool?

I thought the interview process went smoothly. I sent Dr. McDonald my main questions in advance so he wasn’t surprised when they came up. I also found myself adding follow up questions when he brought up interesting topics. Audacity was easy to download and use on my mac laptop. I did have some difficulty saving the file as an MP3 and uploading it to the blog, but I Google Searched some instructions and it all worked out. Good old Google!

Creating this podcast helped me understand the feelings and personality captured by an audio medium. The discussion was driven by my curiosity and Dr. McDonald’s excitement about his experience. The podcast, (for those who listen to it), will bring a bit of casualness and informality into this otherwise formal, text-based blog. Do you agree that casualness encourages conversation? It seems like that feeling has been a long-time coming for online, but now that it is being facilitated by social media and Web 2.0 tools, more conversations may start happening.

 

Week 9 – Blogs and Learning

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anaïs Nin, French-born novelist who gained international fame with her journals.

Cartoon of a bookmarked page of an open book

Source: Stacey Reid’s Blog, Dear Diary Day, http://www.staceyreid.com/news/?p=4625

Like journals, blogs are valuable for learning because they store thoughts while we develop our personal guiding principles. In the article, “Ten Good Reasons to Start a Blog“, Jessica Balsley primarily praised the medium for helping her stay focused on her career. The benefit of a blog over a journal is that blogs are open to feedback from others, which can help shape our opinions. Writing in the public blog-o-sphere helps us “taste life” more than twice, including additional learning every time we contemplate the questions or conflicting ideas raised by others.

Blogs administered in a formal setting, such as in MRKT 3311, are effective places for publicly evaluating tools, companies or other entities, but the formality seems to limit personality in the writing. The research-base rather than experience-base seems to cause a separation between the author and the subject matter. As a repository for research findings, the writing lacks whimsical sentence styling or admission of feelings. That’s not to say that the opinions can’t still be well-developed and valuable to the global community.

In contrast, blogs might be more effective in capturing the author’s personality when they are self-initiated, like those of the Cornell students documenting their experiences abroad. These blog postings are more varied in length and sentence structure based on the authors’ feelings about their experiences. They are also more story-like, with discussions about the beginnings, middles, and ends. The planned adventure sets the timeframe and framework for the blog.

A framework or stated ‘focus of thought’ seems to be important for any blogger. Educator-created blogs are self-initiated and open-ended and they still center around a main topic. For example, Will Richardson consistently weighs the tension between accepting new technologies or maintaining current methods. By holding this focus, his writing and the feedback he receives from the community will eventually shape his guiding principles on his use of technology in teaching.

Until now, I believed the point of a blog was to participate in a topic discussion that could continue forever. Sound familiar anyone? Now though, I think the intention should be to REACH a conclusion about a personal point of confusion. I think the maximum value of a blog comes from striving to define our personal guiding principles. With that in mind, from the beginning we could ask ourselves:

“What is a muddy ‘taste’ in my life that I need to understand better?”

That should be the framework for vetting out complexities until a conclusion is reached. In the article, “Blogging to Learn,” Anne Martlett-Bragg’s fifth stage of blogging, the “Knowledge Artifact” also implied that blogs should have an end. What do others think about the ongoing nature of blogs vs. the intention of reaching a conclusion?

Week 7 – The Power of Wikis

Like other Web 2.0 tools, wiki spaces empower content producers to support life-long learning online. Wikis expand indefinitely to capture massive amounts of cognitive thoughts in a social environment that is accessible, searchable and editable. The cognitive and social coupling leads to a knowledge building tool that gains value and validity with each contribution.

The knowledge building begins when one user puts thoughts down on a publicly searchable, viewable, and editable wiki page. By externalizing his knowledge through processing and clarification, the individual himself learns and adjusts his own knowledge while contributing to the wiki community’s knowledge base. Other users also learn by finding, reading and internalizing the content on the page, but this is still not where the bulk of the knowledge building happens.

The real building begins when subsequent users who search for and view the wiki page disagree with the findings because of some cognitive conflict or irritation. I liked how these two concepts were explained in the article, “A Systemic and Cognitive View on Collaborative Knowledge Building with Wikis” by Cress and Kimmerle. Piaget’s model of Equilibrium described a cognitive conflict as the incongruence of someone’s prior knowledge to new environmental knowledge. Luhmann’s model explained that a system such as a wiki space, was sensitive to environmental irritations such as users with differing cognitive views. Cognitive conflicts and irritations helped to answer one of my long-pondered questions, which is “Why do people post things online?” It seems, when the amount of disagreement is high, users are motivated to add missing content, correct errors and even re-arrange the page so that it makes more sense. To justify their choices, users may also site sources and include in-line links to supporting articles.

These last steps to site sources and justify findings are crucial to establishing knowledge validity. It allows readers to take a more skeptical approach, follow the data trails and draw their own individual conclusions. The knowledge and process involved in a collaborative wiki space may even be more valid than expert publications because it gives users a chance to question the “facts”.

I am curious what others think regarding how many reviewers are needed before a wiki space’s knowledge can be regarded as valid. For example, if your friend created a private wiki on the Myths and Mysteries of Siberia and only shared it with you, would you consider it as valid as the Princeton University wiki on Siberia? Is the content more relevant or the number of reviewers to validity?

Group 2 Blog Summary – Becoming a Networked Learner/Teacher

Everyone in group 2 seemed to agree that learning and understanding online network tools would be a necessary professional development endeavor to become 21st century educators. Rich and Laura felt this learning would help educators maintain a leadership stance, while Jessie and Meredith felt it would allow the student-teacher relationship to be more level. Interestingly, professional development activities in the online network focused on two things: mastering the tools and establishing a presence.

Mastering the Tools – Laura acknowledged the plethora of online tools available. She wanted TIME to play and explore. In contrast, Meredith put emphasis on the importance of quality. Filtering out the non-quality sources from the vast quantity of posts being made could also be a good professional development activity.

Establishing a Presence – Jessie said it would be valuable for facilitators to spend professional development time adding value back into the network to establish followers and perhaps credibility. Similarly, Richard mentioned that moving beyond the knowing of how to use tools would allow facilitators to stay involved in the networked environment and lead discussions by ensuring the “class is continuously flowing.”

When learning through online networks is so fragmented, one common question was how can 21st century educators better track and evaluate student learning?

Becoming a Networked Learner/Teacher

One job of the teacher has always been role modeling, and according to Siemens in “Teaching in Social and Technological Networks”, modeling will also be important in the networked space, so it is time facilitators started making themselves comfortable online.

There is a lot to explore online and in order for facilitators to be effective role models, I think they should focus their professional development efforts on these top priorities: 1. Creating a personal networked learning experience online, 2. Determining personal web-ettiquite standards, and 3. Establishing a web presence that adds value.  Specific steps are in italics below…

Creating a personal networked learning experience will help facilitators witness the value that the online network provides to students. To get started, RSS feeds, (like Feedly), Facebook and Twitter allow people to join and spectate in certain circles as well as add small tid bits of valuable commentary. “Teaching in Social and Technological Networks” suggests that 15 minutes per day is sufficient time to keep in touch with the highlights and begin learning from the network.

Determining personal web-ettiquite standards will help facilitators set guidelines and model how to be good online citizens, which everyone in this group, Rich, Meredith and Laura, have all concluded was important in past weeks. Facilitators (in the learner role for professional development’s sake) that consistently read posts by the networked community will eventually recognize the common questions and the common vocabulary. To take it a step further, posting responses on Facebook and Twitter and asking original questions will help get a feel for what manners and content resonate with the audience.

Establishing a web presence that adds value will lead to followers. I liked how Mancabelli & Richardson in “Becoming a Networked Learner” page 56 summed things up with the one simple mantra: Add Value. If you only read and post minimal feedback, like the 68% of online users on the ladder diagram on page 55, no one will know who you are. Facilitators need to take their commentary further to attract followers. After experiencing a blog in this class, I would be interested in creating a web page or public blog on a site like Google Blogger to start linking to it in my Facebook and Twitter posts, even if only my family and friends, who make up my current network, read the content at first. Other followers will choose to “follow” when my content is relevant, thought-provoing and valuable.

My questions are, does the number of followers directly relate to credibility? Or, will some topics naturally have less participation, resulting in fewer followers? Is following an important way for facilitators to establish themselves as credible online?

The New Ecology of Learning

The new ecology of learning, a connected network, gains my support for its potential to cultivate the imagination. In order for creativity and imagination to blossom, this ecology claims only two general requirements: rules and technology. Rules, like in a game, define the structure so facilitators can set objectives and measure progressive changes in behavior. Technology allows access to unlimited information so students can explore their individual interests, learn from experts and contribute unique perspectives. To deal with the copious amounts of data students will be presented with, Siemens discusses supplementing “know-how” and “know-what” teaching objectives with “know-where” objectives in the article, Connectivism. The emphasis is less on knowledge absorption and more on knowledge organization, so that students can manage larger amounts of information and make more connections, which lead to imaginative ideas and exploration.

Previous learning theories, like “Behaviorism” and “Constructivism” support the individual’s ownership of the thought-development process, but “Connectivism” acknowledges that learning also happens outside of the individual. When someone in the network shares a relevant experience with the rest, everyone in the network is qualified to say they “know-how” to re-create that experience, thus learning has occurred for everyone. Individual experiences are still valuable, but in a connected network world, so is the ability to share and learn from others experiences. The Connectivist system leads to much faster learning as long as people within the system “know-where” to look.

One key thing to note, however, is that not all network members always make meaningful contributions to the community. In the Arc of Life Learning article, Sam’s programming contributions needed to be supportive and substantial for them to be valuable. But, are not “freeloaders” who just google the information one time and never return are also “nodes” in the network? In essence, those members are purely takers and not contributors to the overall system.

My question is, do “freeloaders” pollute networked communities? What motivates people to contribute “how-to” videos on YouTube, or post disease information on public forums if they know that people are going to use their expertise for free? Have you contributed any meaningful experiences online for the benefit of others?

The Networked Learner

The learning 2.0 movement could be responsible for sculpting a generation of young leaders. Web 2.0 tools empower students to seek out expert advice, so that they can direct their own learning according to their personal interests. For example, a friend of mine with an interest in fitness recently created a profile in the Crossfit Games 2014 community, where he can review stats of other people in his age group, learn exercises from the “fittest” people, post his own performance stats and measure his progress against the rest of the community. His motivation to progress is fueled by a desire to establish his credibility among others in the community. In my mind, this validates John Seely Brown’s claim in the video, Rethinking Learning, that students “want to be measured, because they want to see how much they are improving.” But, my friend also expresses doubts that he can be a leader, aka the “Best”, in any aspect of that community. A facilitator would help my friend understand that the “Best” is determined by hard work towards a particular goal and not just natural ability. Web 2.0 learners will need facilitators to not only introduce them to their fields of interest, but also to help develop goals that are both challenging and possible that help students work toward leadership of their particular abilities.

While the “networked learning” model sounds promising to build social, economic, technological and cultural LEADERS in our society, it also poses some implementation challenges. For example, if it is left in the informal setting, only elite students with connections and resources will be able to benefit from networked learning communities. Going back to my friend, if he was a student in an under-privileged household, he could be interested in fitness all he wanted, but without access to weight-lifting equipment, or advice from trainers, he would never become a weight-lifting champion. Leaving networked learning in the informal setting poses the threat of increasing the knowledge gap between the elite and the under-privileged further than it already is. However, if it is introduced into the formal setting, even more questions arise. Would one facilitator need to have connections to every student’s field of interest? Would the model of measurement (grading) have to change so that it can accurately capture a student’s progress towards his or her eventual leadership? Would students lose motivation knowing their work was being done for school, aka someone else, and not on their own terms?

To me, formalized networked learning still has too many unknown variables, so it will take time to integrate. A more immediate and actionable solution may be to keep the networked learning happening informally, perhaps drawing aspects of it into the classroom little by little. Communities have already begun working towards establishing safe spaces for equal access to learning networks, such as the examples on page 8 of Connected Learning. Do I go too far by saying “We would be losing future leaders if that progress stopped”?

Personal Learning Philosophy v1

Word Collage based on blog post

Word Collage, “Wordle,” based on the following blog…

In my experience, in-depth learning has stemmed from curiosity. Story-sparked curiosity. Stories cropped up in math problems like determining the diameter of a pie, psychological breakthroughs like Pavlov’s dogs learning to recognize the sound of a bell, and in the historical context that lead to the creation of great literary works. In developing a framework for an area of study, guidance from a facilitator helped to identify the key concepts and steer my curiosity in a fruitful direction.

I subscribe to the Behaviorist theory of behavior learning where positive outcomes are rewarded and negative outcomes are punished. Grades in school perform this function of rewards and punishment. Teacher acknowledgement of good ideas was rewarding, and falling behind by missing a class was frustrating. In the absence of rewards and punishments, repetition of key concepts from the facilitator or discussion groups reinforced the learning as people related different stories to the concepts and enhanced the understanding.

The learner’s role is to be actively engaged in the story-sharing by questioning the aspects that seem curious or intriguing. The teacher’s role is to manage the content, enable participation and guide the questions towards higher levels of thinking.

Indicators of learning include: enthusiasm, notes, questions and discussions of original ideas by students.

Technology helps document the knowledge learned so it can be easily referenced later. It also provides a medium to transfer knowledge and communicate in an online community of practice.

Key Words: Interest, Question, Communication, Story