paradox

This via Digg.

Awesome.

It is an educational practitioner’s role (I argue) to engage with social media, to look beyond the surface layers of services like Youtube and get beneath it, to create accounts and subscribe to new content feeds, to favorite and comment and connect, and to realise the deeper layers of what is available in social media collections, and to help identify quality information and resources and help it to emerge and rise above other content. Further, if by chance that teacher notices something missing, or something in need of correction, to see that need as an opportunity for them to create the additional or corrective media and add it back into the social media so that it can play its role in that wider collective context. Its “teachable moment”.

The Educational Point of View « Learn Online

I reckon Leigh’s hit the nail on the head here. And the contested role of the teacher as facilitator is all the more apparent. If I look to bell hooks’s work with popular culture artifacts, this is another demonstration of using social media to generate ‘teachable moments’. Mitra’s work is also a good example - a social experiment contesting the role/need of the classroom as a ‘prerequisite’ for learning.

Our learning, as with our teaching is iterative, messy, frustrating, serendipitous and we often fight to control it so as to make it neat and tidy (as we’ve been expected to do), especially in conventional educational contexts. This is why I like the notion of ‘hot action’ that David Beckett (1995, 2001) writes about - it acknowledges the work done ‘on the fly’ with a confidence and a grasp of knowledge that enables someone to push forward to pick up a new skill, strategy or process, whatever it might be. It validates what people develop, understand and learn ‘in action’, whilst working, living, playing - whatever it is that makes up our day (although Beckett talks about the workplace as the context for ‘hot action’).

There’s also the acknowledgment of the body and bodily understanding in Beckett’s notion (not a new thing if you look at work by Merleau-Ponty for example). This isn’t about ‘muscle memory’, repetitive actions refining practical skills, it is more about how our bodies carry and dispense social cues and facets of power (see Foucault’s Power/Knowledge and work by McLaren (1986) and Turner (1982) on the body and ritual for example). This is how we BE, our Self within a social context loaded with power, social politics - the body politic, ‘regimes of truth’ (again, see Foucault). We don’t just teach, we are the embodiment of teaching, likewise a student, a mother, a singer, a carpenter. We don’t simply take on the role - we BE, through our veins, our eyes, our voice, our skeleton.

And so to Leigh’s final paragraph:

I don’t for a second believe that “the education sector” should be waiting until the “greater society” shows prevalent change - we ARE the greater society aren’t we? How can we dissect society in this way? Is change about taking turns? What makes education sit outside the greater society? Since when do we need some sort of permission to “respond when those changes are prevalent”? Who will tell us when that happens?

Stick to your guns Leigh - the proof is in the practice. Surely a critical mass of ‘teachable moments’ must at some point amount to a revolution?

Refs:
Beckett, D. (2001) ‘Hot Action’ At Work: Understanding ‘Understanding’ Differently, in T. Fenwick (ed.) Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Learning Through Work. New Directions for Adult and Community Education Series. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Beckett, D. (1995) Adult Education as Professional Practice. PhD thesis. http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/handle/2100/337

McLaren, P. (1986) Schooling as a Ritual Performance. Taylor & Francis.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=mYcOAAAAQAAJ

Turner, V. (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. PAJ Publications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Turner

I think we are missing the real (and potentially revolutionary) story of the participatory web (Web 2.0 if we must call it that) if we focus on seeking and ensuring “expertise” before we proceed.

Jennifer Maddrell makes a good point here, something that I struggle with when posting to my blog. I have so many posts in draft form, I wonder whether I’m actually keen to post or whether it’s the actual writing process itself that is helpful. This is a valid point, more generally, I think. I for one write to not only express my point of view, but to articulate it in the first instance — from the mind to the world via the fingertips.

In my work, Jennifer’s point rings all the more true when you consider the so-called ‘walled garden‘ approach that is still alive and kicking around most education institutions. Changing mindsets when it comes to the participatory web is not all roses and frilly bits! Is it to do with change, enacting a change process, or, is it more than that? Organisational culture? Individual values, beliefs, preferences?

I, along with others, have been developing the web presence for the Action Learning, Action Research Association and this is certainly one of the key factors that has not only impacted our progress, but has also brought our traditional association structures into question - a good thing, yes, I think so, but at that same time, the transition is untidy, frustrating, and for the most part NONparticipatory! Kind of ironic when you think about what the association stands for. Then again, we’re all subject to the same human flaws I suppose. It’s also a bit of an intergenerational thing. Engaging new members means offering new ways of doing and of being, and there lies a tension between answering to that call and maintaining a place in which more traditional members feel acknowledged for the valuable work they do.

How does participation itself occur? How does one encourage participation? Engage people of their own free will, with little coercion? When is it OK to force the horse’s nose into the trough?

And who can say; perhaps Gill Scott Heron was right, the revolution will not be televised! Still, I’m with Maddrell, just get in there and DO it.

Note: sincere thanks to a work colleague for the subtitle to this post (arising from a discussion about implementing a change process)! :o)

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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Catching up on my feeds and landed on Dave Pollard’s blog once again - if there’s anything I read up close it’s Dave’s blog.

# THE FIRST KEY TO CHANGE: Relate: You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope. If you face a situation that a reasonable person would consider “hopeless,” you need the influence of seemingly “unreasonable” people to restore your hope–to make you believe that you can change and expect that you will change. This is an act of persuasion–really, it’s “selling.” The leader or community has to sell you on yourself and make you believe you have the ability to change. They have to sell you on themselves as your partners, mentors, role models, or sources of newknowledge. And they have to sell you on the specific methods or strategies that they employ.
# THE SECOND KEY TO CHANGE: Repeat: The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you’ll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic and seem natural–until you act the new way without even thinking about it. It helps tremendously to have a good teacher, coach, or mentor to give you guidance, encouragement, and direction along the way. Change doesn’t involve just “selling”; it requires “training.”
# THE THIRD KEY TO CHANGE: Reframe: The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you that it wouldn’t have made any sense before you changed.

How to Save the World

I’m not sure where I’d be (in my head, that is) if Dave wasn’t around to offer some points of focus!

Change is imminent in my workplace - the path is now set, and the time for transition is upon us. Dave has proffered these timely points regarding change management, which I’m blogging here as a reminder for myself, should I feel lost along the way! These points above remind me again of the notion of emergence, or emergent design. Following this, Dave posted a conversation he had with Rob Paterson about the future of education, which I’m now going off to listen to.

I’ll post more in response to this shortly :o)

technorati tags:change, change_management, Dave_Pollard, emergent_design, future, organisational_change

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I’ve picked up on Tracy’s posts recently as I’ve really seen a connection with her process and mine around the nature of emergent practice, where practice leads to (rather than being based in) theoretical approaches to learning and teaching. Perhaps some call this praxis?

Following on from her curious curriculum, Tracy talks a bit more about her teaching process - this time about ambiguity.

Crossing over, I’ve also recently picked up reading Tom Haskins’ blog after meeting him (online) in Sydney last week. Tom’s post, Learning from not really learning, got me thinking once more about the unsettled moments and ambiguities we encounter daily in our work and life.

Those liminal spaces help us to reach forward in our learning as we grapple to understand and make sense of new knowledge. So too, in a changing workplace, we are often in the same state, yet it seems that very quickly we try to find the closest ground, somewhere ’safe’ with some semblance of permanence or firmness. This seems normal in a high state of change, such as a restructure, for example.

Liminality requires time and space. It requires careful holding and is, as Tom reiterates in his post about learning, a process not a product that we can mold. It’s an intangible feeling (usually a feeling of vulnerability) that is often uncomfortable. When we feel uncomfortable, we of course seek comfort. In the learning process we seek understanding in order to feel a sense of comfort and feeling of achievement thus follows.

In learning, these liminal spaces require empathic intelligence (from within us and with others), not a rush to achieve learning outcomes. They require little content and are more a space to wander through one’s learning in process. They are tumultuous and unsettling but have space for stillness and reflection.

‘They’ are not spaces really - liminality is us and our journey towards knowing, where we realise we are on the threshold of understanding.

Thanks Tracy and Tom for your quiet words of wisdom.

technorati tags:liminality, change, emergent_design, learning, practice-led, spaces

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I’ve been reflecting on recent events and readings that have caused me to ponder the state of play in education institutions, especially where much change is evident, and particularly around flexible learning (restructuring is the ‘tool’ of the naughties right ).

We’ve seen a growing push for industry engagement with flexible learning, nationally and locally. We’ve seen professional development and its links to broader strategy in varied ways. And a good deal of time has been spent deliberating over the benefits of global versus local efforts on standards and systems. More broadly we see much discussion and activity around the changing nature of learning, of teaching and of organisations that ‘conventionalise’ both (for want of a better word).

What I seem to be hearing in amongst all of this (and from a range of parties) is a ‘need’ for specialists or strategists to make sense of this thing called flexible learning, which is fine and to be expected. But also I’m hearing that “we want YOU in our area/centre/team”! Perhaps it’s a symptom of the constant struggle we see between the centre and the local site. As a specialist, I work in a central area and have the good fortune to work with many people covering diverse subject areas. For example, if I was to be ‘coveted’ in one area specifically, does that not diminish my opportunity to work across a range of sites? Why couldn’t I work across sites of learning?

[image: RobertFrancis]

Embedding specialists is somewhat different I think. Embedding requires an understanding (by the ‘embedded’, the ‘embedder’ and the ‘embeddee’) about the part the specialist will play in the strategic development in that local site. There is a sense of semi-permanence enough for the specialist to work within the parameters of their ‘placement’, yet still remain attached to the network or ‘centre’ (should there be one), thus remaining connected to other activities and developments.

So why covert specialists? What is at stake here? A specialist is usually part of a special interest network or collective (that validates their ’specialty’), and can communicate changes and developments in their area of specialty more broadly too. When I say specialty I don’t necessarily mean expertise, rather, I mean a focused area of interest, where one is motivated to delve deeply into that area to uncover more and learn a great deal. When a specialist is ‘coveted’, there is limited opportunity to share one’s learning and growth with others who understand that specialty in similar ways. Also, the propensity to ‘on-sell’ those experiences is of benefit only to that locale, not necessarily to the ‘greater good’ (or the other areas of an organisation, pragmatically speaking).

It is important, from a specialist’s point of view, that one is able to carry ideas, learning and innovations from one site to the next; thus, sharing corporate knowledge and supporting long-term growth, shaped by the diversity of their practice. Specialists then also have the freedom to engage with others in their field of interest on broader matters, keeping the lines of communication open for emerging knowledge, ideas and approaches.

I return to the emergent design thoughts I’ve raised here before. Practice enables understanding. Focused practice develops specialised skills and knowledges. Specialisation returns to practice to benefit others, growing the broader schemata. Thus, research and development fuses with practice-led innovations for the benefit of all, rather than applied as a play-thing for the few to meet immediate (often ill-defined) needs.

technorati tags:specialist, learning, strategy, future, professional_development, emergent_design, practice-led, research_and_development, covet, centralised, networks

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samsblog thinking IM think/write:

. . . reason is that we all have different views and ideas. This group effort has enriched my knowledge of e learning and given me a positive PLE

longtail dreaming? ??

your immersion — contention — assertion

explicate ::

dswaters: @leonardlow there is a debate heating up in http://etools.ning.com/ about it right now

!the biG BIG jump

Enso ; (円相) . . . symbolizing enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and the void; it is also an “expression of the moment”.

“expression of the moment“

“expression of the moment“

“expression of the moment“

loosley joined — conjoined — rejoined

. . . Balance is not the same as neutrality. Neutrality only seeks the middle. In kyudo practice we are equally aware of the left, the right, the middle, all of it. How long have you been practicing? One more again, practice. This is my hope . . . – Kanjuro Shibata

holding spacespeople

sharing thingsfeeling

being learningdoing

peoplefeelingdoing

peoplefeelingdoing

people feeling doing

people feeling doing

technorati tags:PLE, liminality, spaces, poem, reflection, nswlearnscope

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Reposted from OTN@CIT:

This from the del.icio.us wikieducator tag via sparkered.

A QR code generated from Wikipedia for use in physical spaces, equals Semapedia.

I tried it out using the kaywa reader and now have the Wikipedia entry to liminality on my phone as I write.

It works like this:

Image: Semapedia

Imagine some of the applications, if you will:

• quick lookup of definitions (those that apply to one’s workplace perhaps)
• find out more about an artist, locale, music band, suburb…
• orientation information within an institute or business or…

At present this is set up for Wikipedia and other ‘Wikisites’. If opened up to Wikiversity, Wikieducator, etc the possibilities are motivating!

technorati tags:QRcode, semacode, semapedia, wiki, wikipedia, mobile, mobile_resources, wikieducator

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I was sifting through my Bloglines feeds and came across a slideshow via elearningpost, by Leisa Reichelt. It’s quite timely, as our small team has been looking into refreshing our approach to supporting - and leading the way for - teachers to design and develop online learning in their subjects. Here’s more on “us”…

So, I checked out this one:

http://www.disambiguity.com/waterfall-bad-washing-machine-good-ia-summit-07-slides/

…then was keen to see what else Leisa had done and spotted this one:

http://www.disambiguity.com/social-project-management-at-enterprise-20/

I began this post when I got to this slide which outlines a Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

The following points have me breathing a sigh of relief that others are also thinking along these lines!

• individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• working software over comprehensive documentation
• customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• responding to change over following a plan

In these points I see interaction, responsiveness, collaboration and action, which says to me that we should try refocusing our design process to be FIRST a communicative one, rather than a content-driven one. That is, not WHAT you want to do, but start with the WHY then look at the HOW, before settling on the WHAT.

Project based work and developmental projects really do require a high level of organic activity, to allow room for creativity and growing of an idea. Often, we’re (especially managers insisting on outcomes and deadlines) easily caught up in paperwork, processes and attempting to work with others who have so little time to ponder, explore and indulge in creative activity (because of paperwork and processes!!), that we end up forgetting why we were doing all this in the first place!

I shouldn’t talk in the third-person like this, because really, that’s been my feeling over the past few months - why am I doing this educational design work again? What is it achieving? Well, after some time letting such thoughts and issues percolate, it seems to be that now the time is ripe for some change!

I have attempted to look at our work processes using this diagram to sort of “draft” my own thinking, as we continue to discuss this as a team. I’m liking the emergent bit (think emergent design) and probably need to flesh that notion out more…

Oh, and thanks to Leisa for helping me to get my thinking back on track! :o)

technorati tags:Leisa_Reichelt, disambiguity, user_experience, educational_design, emergent_design, organic_process, Gliffy_diagram, work_flows, developmental, online_learning

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