I had a fabulous weekend in Bowral back in the last weekend of May, attending a Calmbirth workshop with my husband. Consequently, our first bub is now due in a couple of - ahem - days!

This is one reason I haven’t posted in a long while - too much going on and my brain has become more cottony than I had first anticipated!

Anyway, I’m moved to write following this amazing weekend experience as I see some links to lifelong learning, a phrase that seems to have dropped out of circulation of late (for whatever reason). Let’s first revisit the phrase and then I’ll draw some connections from the Calmbirth workshop itself. In essence, this is an ‘appreciative exploration’ of some thoughts really!

Lifelong learning, particularly as espoused by the OECD, champions the idea of learning for holistic personal, professional and workforce development, which occurs in various learning settings, informal and formal. Closer to home, DEST (now DEEWR) exercises a policy they claim is based on the OECD assumptions:

The lifelong learning policy agenda is built on assumptions about the importance of skills in the new economy. Almost all industrial sectors are increasingly ‘knowledge-based’ and economic returns are obtained from a range of ‘intangible’ inputs, one of which is workers’ skills. Participation in education and training is increasing and economic rewards are flowing to people with high skills…

…which in fact draws a parallel between productivity and further education, and extends further to lifelong learning and the ‘whole person’, especially where the VET sector is concerned. However, in today’s economic rationalist world we are not seeing this in its entirety. We are contending with the worker-learner and have yet to move to the whole person, in reality.

So how does this thinking link to what I experienced as ‘calm birth’ then? Well, from my view it means starting with the person, rather than the system in which the person likely operates. in essence it’s redefining what we have assumed to be learner centred approaches to teaching and learning. Still, we seem to take this as meaning providing options TO the learner to support and enhance their learning; rather, we should take the learner-at-the-centre approach and start there with their networks, their predispositions, their experiences, and so on. We require more discussion around the apparent preoccupation on separating ‘the system’ from the users/producers/agents (see for example, Mejias 2005).

Thus, the science behind Calmbirth (as laid out in the workshop booklet and the various parents’ stories, where mums especially are co-teachers), contends with the human design, participatory methods, holistic therapies and healing work, beliefs and attitudes (e.g. Errington, 2004), cultural values and awareness, as well as the health sciences of midwifery and obstetrics.

So what is out there in terms of calm learning practices? How can we progress this to lifelong learning status? For example, Calm Kids, Smart Kids uses

…a mixture of:

• Physical exercises proven to reduce hyperactivity & increase brain functioning and integration
• Emotional stress release to help reduce anger and frustration, improve communication and increase self esteem
• Unique Nutrition Plan identifies allergies and deficiencies specifically for your child.

What is of some interest here is the links made to factors that influence children’s ability to learning and grow, as discussed also in the Calmbirth workshop and booklet, particularly a stressful pregnancy, a traumatic birth, and medications and operations, as well as accidents, family trauma, and allergic reactions. As Peter Jackson stated in the Calmbirth workshop, ‘it all begins in the womb’. Check out Lyn Schaverien’s work on developmental learning (biological aspects of learning) too.

We may also draw links to appreciative inquiry (see also Cooperrider, et al, 2008) and inquiry-based learning which champions the inherent (and essentially positive) motivations of the learner from within. For me this also conjures links with schooling approaches such as the Montessori movement. We could effectively read open learning into this too. These approaches tend to focus on the learner’s self-guided interests, reminding me of a quote by Freire that champions the learner as teacher (as ‘learning by teaching’):

The teacher… is taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught, also teach.

I understand that I’m touching on a lot of potentially disparate areas of education here, but I think it’s worth noting that whilst we delve into supposedly ‘new’ thinking around learning and teaching, much has been developed in earlier times that remain credible and applicable today - in fact, possibly more so than they did in the past. The time for elements of schooling and education is ripe for change but not always to new and original ideas, but back to ideas that are now seen as befitting our current contexts.

Where can learning go from here? How do we continue to facilitate learning in ways that are relevant to our times? These are some loose connections which I hope to think more deeply about in coming months. I also see connections to networked learning here too, a draft essay of which I will post shortly (this essay picks up on action learning, ‘hot action’, and other action research frameworks that I’ve related to an investigation into VET pedagogy and practice).

References

Errington, E. (2004) The impact of teacher beliefs on flexible learning innovation: some practices and possibilities for academic developers, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 41(1), 39-47.

Cooperrider, D, Whitney, D & Stavros, J (2008), Apreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change (2nd Ed), Crown Custom Publishing Inc: Brunswick OH.

I have a presentation lined up next week and have been reviewing my thinking on flexible learning and learning futures generally.

So far, I’ve returned to two slideshows I loaded to Flickr some time earlier this year and will likely focus my thinking on ideas from these for my presentation.

1. Quality through personalised learning

2. The business of learning (or, 21st century learning)

I think I’ll focus on learning futures and how flexible learning is defined and can be promoted through this thinking. Some of the key themes I’d like to draw out include:

• learner as teacher
• business IS learning
• the learning design process is a collaborative one with the learner

I’ll start with that and see where I head - shall post an update soon! What do you reckon?

Sessums pulls out this little gem which I can see immediately applying to our teachers too!

Here’s a video that sets the stage nicely–a set of fresh eyes, ears, and minds, sharing their reflections on blogging and their “business:”

Or visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/7PIiizu4yVg

Back in 2005, I blogged about the brain of the blogger, posted by the Eide Neurolearning Blog. I’m sure I blogged about my own blog processes too, in fact it was back in 2004 that I did a three-part posting about my blogging process (in my early days of fascination with this medium)! Heh, this is one of the reasons I blog, in fact, to keep track of my own thinking and writing

I’ve done this recently in preparing for an essay in my Masters course - I found it useful to be able to dedicate some writing and thinking time to drawing out various parts without the sense that I had to work on the ‘whole’. In all I found myself writing freely and with opinion that was not constrained by the structure of an essay, nor by the conventions of a Masters-style essay.

So, blogging for me, is a way in which I can exercise my brain and process my thinking - and I enjoy the writing process too. The content and the process are both emergent.

OK, back to the the brain of the blogger post then. The 5 points the Eides cover include:

1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

We’re three years on (and given the half-life of knowledge and information these days that’s about 6 internet years isn’t it?), how do these points hold up? I particularly like the 5th point which suggests the intersection between reflection and social interaction; it is a wonderous tension that can cripple some and spur others on!

So, why do YOU blog? Or, as Christopher himself asks, what makes it your ‘business’ to blog?

Tags: blogging, reflection, interaction, beginners, brain, bloggers

Commoncraft come through with the goods again! Ever been stuck for ways to describe the Social Web or Web 2.0? Here’s a way that does it so you don’t have to.

Social media in plain english

On another note, I’ve been working on bringing together action research and networked learning in developing a research proposal. This video also demonstrates the affordances of media rich approaches to research don’t you think? Like this project really…

Digital Ethnography

Most of us have heard of ‘Where’s Wally‘ right? I used to love the ‘great picture hunts’ and the after-school cartoon!

image: Entertainment Rights

Well, ‘where’s Marg’ applies equally well, as I haven’t blogged since end of April! Time just evaporates doesn’t it??

There are many reasons for this which altogether looks and feels like a ‘where’s Wally’ crowded picture! I’ve been active elsewhere that has left me with little time to blog - I’ve only just this week caught up on my blog feeds from other blogs!

I’m co-preparing an action research, action learning conference through ALARA (of which I’m a member), in partnership with CIT’s Centre for Education Excellence, as well as (slowly) working through my masters units, some thoughts of which I’ve posted on my ALARA blog in recent times. I’ve also kept some conversation going regarding the conference via my ALARA blog too. More information regarding the conference will be forthcoming shortly, but if you’re keen to attend, keep September 11th and 12th free in your diaries!

Of course, those of you who have been following my other news now know that the birth of my first bub is imminent! Some pics are here (although some are hidden due to ‘belly-cam’ shyness on my part!)… not long to go now, and as a consequence, you can imagine I’ve been preparing for leave at work, which is in itself a major process (certainly a major ‘unhooking’ process for me particularly)!

The ‘nesting’ syndrome has also hit, and we’ve been renovating as well - we certainly made the most of the long weekend! We’re recording our progress here.

Back to work then, and we’ve been supporting the submissions and successful recipients of the E-learning Innovations funding available this year through the Framework and have 7 projects based at CIT as a result. With us looking down the barrel of the second half of 2008 already, these projects will be our main focus along with supplementary PD activities and the like to ensure the projects are successfully completed by early December!

I’m developing a post on the notion of ‘calm learning’, based on my recent experiences of a wonderful weekend-long workshop on calmbirth, in Bowral NSW. This triggered much in me (for obvious reasons outlined above) and I saw some interesting connections between birthing, conscious parenting and engagement with learning. Stay tuned on that!

Thank you to those who have wished me luck and showed your support for the impending birth and I hope to introduce you to the latest addition sometime around the end of July!!

April 24 saw Canberra host the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay. This was how I saw the day emerging.

I have been stewing over e-portfolios and PLEs lately, particularly as we head into the new year and avenues by which to further traverse the (e)learning meta-scape!

I came across this recently:

A PLE is composed of a set of customized applications on the client side. Some of them will operate in a standalone way, while others will exchange information with server side applications. Thus, if a PLE becomes essential for the daily work of a user, the data flow between client and server side applications will allow the automatic feed of the social networks to which the users belongs to.

PLE bricks for social network construction « Personal Learning Environments

This short post on the PLE blog got me thinking about Donald Norman’s book Emotional Design (2004), particularly his closing remarks about design. It’s a dilemma many designers - educational, architectural, mechanical, etc contend with - that is, if we design it will they come? The quote above from the post doesn’t say ‘PLE’ to me, more it says ‘here are tools to generate your PLE’. Same goes for discussions around ‘e’portfolios - portfolios are methods, processes, learning approaches, outcomes, etc - adding an ‘e’ only says this is a electronically supported portfolio, another tool or space for me to generate some learning/living/reflection - or whatever frames the portfolio approach in a pedagogical sense (meaning that we are all pedagogues).

Donald Norman (2004),

We are all designers. We manipulate the environment, the better to serve our needs. We select what items to own, which to have around us. We build, buy, arrange, and restructure: all this is a form of design (p.224, my emphasis).

And further on,

We are all designers - and have to be. Professional designers can make things that are attractive and that work well. They can create beautiful products that we fall in love with at first sight. They can create products that fulfill our needs, that are easy to understand, easy to use, and that work just the way we want them to. …. But they cannot make something personal, make something we bond to. Nobody can do that for us: we must do it for ourselves (p.225, my emphasis).

And finally, this,

We are all designers - because we must be. We live our lives, encounter success and failure, joy and sadness. We structure our own worlds to support ourselves throughout life. Some occasions, people, places, and things come to have special meanings, special emotional feelings. These are our bonds, to ourselves, to our past, and to the future. When something gives pleasure, when it becomes a part of our lives, and when the way we interact with it helps define our place in society and in the world, then we have love. Design is part of this equation, but personal interaction is the key (p.227, my emphasis).

It’s not that we should give up and throw away design, or PLEs, or (e)portfolios; more that we can pass on the design decisions to others - which to me is what educational design should be about - learning the ropes, grappling with the concept, checking the landscape, reviewing and entering into the commentary, adding to the ‘research’, sharing the learning, and, ultimately, our lives.

PLEs are just this - US. We learn. We test that learning. We refine. We share with others. They share back, and with more others… it’s not the application, or the content, or the method even - it’s the interactions and the relationships that form and uniform as we learn, unlearn and relearn. Much like life really!

technorati tags:design, emotional_design, Donald_Norman, educational_design, PLE, e-portfolio, pedagogy

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Happy New Year! Whilst lolling around at the beach a few days ago (leading up to NYE) a friend asked what our New Year’s resolutions were for 2008.

[image by imranchaudhry]

I haven’t articulated a New Year’s resolution for some years now, and I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it all started with a particularly heightened sense of (over?)achievement one year to which I then attributed to subsequent years…then again, perhaps focusing on only ONE resolution seemed a little drab? I am a Gemini after all, craving variety at the demise of boredom single mindedness!

I think the last time I attempted some medium to long term, whole-of-person, visioning was at the turning point of my career, in Geraldton, northwest WA, where I kept copious lists, prioritised tasks, managed a handful of projects on the go, outlined my long-term “business development plan”, and developed a reflective list of my life goals. Prior to these efforts, upon finishing high school, I wrote myself a letter which I consequently read on turning 21. This letter stated my dreams and aspirations as I entered into womanhood in earnest.

I’ve since lost that letter, have lost track of my planning documents since moving between three states (not to mention some of my marbles in the process), but I do have a copy of the business plan I started out with (and I think my life goals are in there) … somewhere.

This is not to say I don’t have a good measure of resolve either! :o)

[image by margoc]

So, what are New Year’s resolutions supposed to be all about then? Well, resolving to attend to, put effort into, make the most of, be focused on, think better of, better care for, etc, etc, right? Yeah yeah.

On reading Tracy’s ‘Getting Things Done’ post and tracking back to Allen’s GTD info on Wikipedia, via Scott’s post, I’m reassessing the worth and scope of the whole New Year’s resolution thang for myself. Really, there is so much to keep track of these days and with so much info to process, digest and comment on, it all seems too much to throw in a New Year’s resolution on top of it all. But it DOES make sense to me to revise my own Getting Things Done routine, as it affects a whole lot of things (particularly those I’ve just mentioned) - so that will be my New Year’s resolution!

I’m also hoping a side major benefit of this will be my team’s obvious relief (sheesh!) as I dutifully acknowledge their work schedules and plan projects, etc accordingly! (Is that a collective sigh of relief I hear?)

I will take a leaf out of Scott’s GTD post (thanks Tracy!) and reassess my ‘hardware’ in plotting out my own GTD plan (not sure I can revert back to paper tho Scott, as convincing as your points are!) :o) Some of my can’t-do-without tools so far include:

• Nokia 6233 for syncing with my calendar, taking that quick photo, recording discussions, etc (I always wanted my own PA!)
• Google Docs for documents and spreadsheets shareable with my team and other colleagues across campuses, states and countries
• GoogleTalk to converse regularly with said colleagues (Skype is killed by our firewall)
• Wiki for whipping up that last minute presentation, report, workshop plan or brainstorming exercise (I use Wikispaces mostly)
• Flickr for storing all my images both for work and for play! Keeps me in touch and informed visually over the longer term (here’s an Animoto sample!)
• (OK then, ONE paper based thing) an A5-sized spiral notebook (otherwise known as my ‘laptop’) for keeping notes should other more electronic ‘tools’ not be accessible

I’ll just qualify all this by saying that I’m certainly NOT a stickler for keeping time and managing projects Gannt-style - but there is much merit in maintaining a healthy and achievable level of meaningful work, as this directly corresponds to one’s own sanity (not to mention that of others) and wellbeing!!

Oh, did you just get a whiff of ‘commitment-phobia’??

P.S. See, I NEED this GTD thing, cos Tracy’s post was from November 2007!! Maybe my resolution should be to read more of my feeds more regularly!?! So, uh, you might want to read this reflective post of Tracy’s instead… ;o)

technorati tags:2008, New_Year, resolution, GTD, goals

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My colleague, Colin, has struck out with a new blog focusing on games based approaches to learning. This from his ‘about’ page:

…my particular interest is computer based games but it includes everything from roleplays to quizzes and puzzles and much much more. Games can motivate learners by engaging their imaginations, giving them control over their experiences, challenging them, enabling them to experience authentic and relevant activities and providing multimedia stimulation. I’ve been exploring the use of games in learning for a couple of years now in my work with the Flexible Learning team at the Canberra Institute of Technology…

The Game Learner » About

[image: margoconnell]

What Colin didn’t mention was the fact that he has been researching games through his Masters study; and this blog is, I think, a useful and necessary addition to the edubloggersphere!

Onya Col - will add to my feeds!

technorati tags:gamebased_learning, games, colin_simpson, flexible_learning, computer_games

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All of these eportfolio template products we’ve looked at exist in a Thingamajig mindset. Rather than let students use tools that have a broad application outside the boundaries of our college, they push the student to think of eportfolios as dependent on institution-specific technology. They keep the student in an unempowered mindset. They force the student to see technology in the wrong way.

Mike Caulfield » Blog Archive » The Parable of the Thingamajig

A little thought from Mike Caulfield. As I’m thinking of ways to tell e-learning ’stories’ to management, Mike parables current thinking around e-portfolios. Parables make for powerful stories!

…and there I shall leave this Friday!

technorati tags:parable, Mike_Caulfield, stories, storytelling, eportfolios

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