Form follows Function: Creating the Knowledge Ecology

This is quite a lovely turn of phrase.

“What do you do for a living?”

“Why, I’m part of creating the knowledge ecology.”

Doesn’t that sound lofty and philanthropic? A mix of brainy and organic, benevolent and smart.

Canadian George Siemens, writer, educator, philosopher, and father of Connectivism theory is quoted in this week’s readings, and coined this phrase in the context of a larger discussion about the role of instruction and instructors in supporting the non-linear aspects of learning. He goes on to say that instruction should focus less on presenting information and more on engaging the learner’s ability to navigate information and draw accurate conclusions from it.

Thinking of the teaching and learning process as an organic ecology is a wonderful metaphor for those of us working to create relevant, contextual, engaging, and memorable learning environments. Recognizing that all of the parts of learning impact all of the other parts of learning is a tremendous first step in creating educational opportunities that more closely resemble the developmental, constructivist learning process that all human beings progress through as they live. It’s an acknowledgment of the spirit and practice of life long learning that “online learning,” “learning,” “MOOCs,” etc. are facilitating and igniting worldwide.

Further, an ecological approach to learning amplifies American architect Louis Sullivan’s 1896 axiom “form follows function.” To create authentic learning experiences, we must take into consideration the context for the learning and the desired outcomes. Who is the learner? What are the ongoing objectives? What is the environment? What are the available resources? And finally, what is the result supposed to be? When design answers those questions, we create learner-centered, teacher guided, student-collaborative environments that are ultimately successful. Rereading the source quote for the well-used phrase

“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.“

 

is inspirational in that it lends itself to a sense of inherent “rightness” about moving forward in such a vein. Productivity and lifestyle guru Steven R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People taps into this in Habit #2, “Begin with the end in mind.” This habit is all about defining what you want to happen (“the end” -or “function”), then setting everything else into place (“the form”) in a manner consistent with getting there. It feels so grounded to create and develop with the certainty that if the desired function of something is well-understood, then the steps needed to get there will reveal themselves.

We are so lucky as learners today to have access to technology tools and resources that connect us to others without much effort. We can access a smorgasbord of reference materials and opinions, primary sources of research, assessment tools, and online diaries of the experiences of our peers and mentors. The promise of blended learning is that in the hands of skilled developers, facilitators, and educators, this knowledge ecology can not only thrive. It can respond enthusiastically to the true needs of 21st century learners for years to come.

#connectivism #formfollowsfunction #knowledgeecology #blendkit2014

Overview: Reflections on Week 1 of the Blended Learning Toolkit 2014

This week, M&M started our first MOOC. This isn’t a first online course experience for either of us, but it is our first official entry into the MOOC experience as learners. Delivered by a partnership via the University of Central Florida (UCF)‘s Center for Distributed Learning and EDUCAUSE, this course lasts 5 weeks and is designed to use blended learning formats to demonstrate and teach best practices in BL course design/development. The LMS being used is Canvas, with additional technical support from Adobe Connect (“live” session delivery), Google docs, and more.

One of us is a former colleague of several former UCF distributed learning and ed tech faculty, and as such has high expectations for the quality of this course. The connection with EDUCAUSE, a leading ed tech association supporting higher education, was also a selling point for this MOOC, and only serves to add to collective expectations.

The “Ms.” half of M&M is one tough customer and is the one with the expectation mountain:

I was surprised that the very first “live” session had technical difficulties and was an hour late in starting. This really emphasized a difference from my previous experiences with classes and meetings, namely the etiquette codes of “don’t be late” and “being late lets people know you think your time is worth more than theirs.” Ouch. Further, there was an operating limit on the number of  participants allowed into the online “classroom.” A limit of 100. For an enrollment of 2,100+. Am I totally unrealistic to think that this is a really awkward ratio? Perhaps it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy: no course history indicates the room needs to be bigger than 100, because once learners try one or two times to get in unsuccessfully, they stop trying. Demand meets supply.

Some important notes: free course, free course, free course. I think I would be willing to pay if I could be guaranteed a log-in until 15 minutes in. Something I hope that future iterations might consider, if the room can’t be expanded to accommodate a greater percentage of participants. Also, the readings weren’t available yet, and it’s interesting how the old habits from traditional learning die hard: “Come to class prepared!”  The time set aside for the weekly webinar somehow felt like a colossal waste of time, although I did manage to knit an entire slipper and unsubscribe from a dozen mailing lists while waiting.

The course features different modalities for participation and does a good job of outlining these in advance. As most people tracking the MOOC trend know, it’s super common for learners to sign up and check out. We read somewhere recently that only 11% of MOOC participants ever complete their courses.

Even more dramatic, a 2014 working paper drafted by researchers at both Harvard and MIT, and quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported only 5% of their nearly 900k participants completed their courses, and 35% never even looked at the course materials. The designers of Blended Learning Toolkit 2014 definitely understand this dynamic and go out of their way to emphasis that the decision to participate (and at what level) lies in the hands of the individual learners. No guilt. Just accountability. In fact, the one “ask” made to all learners is to decide for ourselves the level at which we can participate and to “calendar” our participation. This is a great idea and really gets at the heart of low completion levels for self-paced/self-directed learning endeavors…time slips away!

The mix/blend of learning modalities that have surfaced so far include:

• A weekly, 30-minute live session (same day/time each week, featuring guest speakers),
• recordings of the weekly, 30-minute sessions for those who can’t get in or for whom the time doesn’t work,
• contributions to the information stream (Tweeting and/or posting relevant resources to social media),
• the ability to earn badges for learning milestones along the way,
• reading reactions (to blog or other text formats), and
• the readings themselves (in PDF and HTML forms).

Readers of this blog will see a series of reflective entries and musings over the next few weeks. First up will be a response to readings focused on the role of blended learning in higher education and design challenges facing the blended learning instructor/designer.

Question: What are your pet peeves with online/blended learning formats and/or MOOCs? What warts are you willing to accept and how is that different from what you accept in other learning environments (i.e. f2f classes, meetings, trainings, conferences)?

 

 

Attend, connect, refresh: F2F conferencing continues its value

In March, M&M attended a couple of edtech conferences on the West coast. The first was NCCE 2014, hosted by the Northwest Consortium for Computers in Education in Seattle, WA (~2,000 attendees). The second was CUE, hosted by California’s Computer Using Educators in Palm Springs, CA (~5,300 attendees). The primary audience for both events is educators working in K–12 public school educational settings, from classrooms to administration.

Our focus on adult learning put us in a take-from-this-what-we can mode, and it was very interesting talking with the exhibitor/vendors at both conferences. A huge issue for public education in the US is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and adapting curriculum to meet these standards in a formal, measurable way. As a result many sessions were specifically presented and titled with this in mind, kind of a drag for those of us who could care less. What was very powerful, however, was a distinct shift toward accountability and ensuring that products, pedagogy, and innovations had a concrete purpose — the destination had become important, not just the ride.

This, friends, is an exciting trend. There are so many low-cost and free strategies and services available in the K–12 education realm that would benefit adult learners and those designing systems to support them. A revived focus on outcomes positions these products perfectly to be bogarted for association and training use. They now have accountability structures built into them, and many of them can be customized. Pricing also remains very, very (almost obscenely) friendly, and puts some of the big dog LMS’ a bit to shame. Woof-woof, you know who you are.

Two of the best things we saw/heard that have applications for adult learning:

Badges for learning achievement: whether you equate these with gamification or scouting, electronic badging has huge potential for informal learning. Also referred to as micro-credentialling, badges are earned for reaching specific milestones and can be created/issued by any entity.  Mozilla’s OpenBadges platform allows users to create badges and distribute them to learners — and because the badge graphics contain special meta-data (doesn’t that sound smart?!), they can be verified for authenticity. Imagine adding them to your Linked In profile and digital CV. While not every badge issuer has the same credibility as Stanford or MIT, within industries and specific training programs, badges can be a fun source of gathering and displaying credentials, giving credence to learning achievements of all shapes and sizes AND inspiring friendly competition. Read this thought-provoking article from Pixelfountain’s game-based learning blog for more about the role of gamification in life-long learning. It’s kind of exciting 🙂

Built-in annotations for print and video media: We all have them: archives upon archives upon archives of digital content that we started collecting as soon as it was cheap and easy to do so. We recorded endless numbers of conference sessions and digitally-archived every journal article, publication, white paper, and proposal abstract we received. And we now have servers filled with this stuff, waiting to be tagged, curated, bundled, and otherwise REPURPOSED. Doesn’t that sound positive? REPURPOSED!

But how?

New advances in annotation software from providers like Curriculet (for PDFs and other printed-word media) and Zaption (for video) let content developers embed questions, comments, exams, supporting media, collaboration tools, and more into existing content. Teachers are using these tools to enhance the usability of multimedia in support of project-based learning (PBL). And in the adult context, they can be used to extend the usefulness of critical media in training materials, credentialing support, CEUs, course development, content monetization strategies, etc.. This is the cool and exciting part. Imagine being able to take a still-relevant conference session and layer a mask of questions before and after key points. Test for comprehension. Ensure that viewers really are viewing by limiting advancement through the video/book/white paper unless specific criteria have been met. And guess what? There are awesome analytics associated with all of these tools. How many members meeting description X bailed out before completing? What is the average education level of the members who watched session Y?

It’s almost overwhelming.

To summarize, M&M loved attending both of these events. Our co-attendees were engaged, excited, and focused on learning. Talking with people from different backgrounds and different concerns was enlightening and motivating. We saw old friends and made some new ones, we got caught up on innovations in the field and were able to easily survey many tech providers all at once. NCCE sessions were focused on the application of technology to progressive teaching pedagogy and learning science. CUE sessions were very tech-y and focused on specific how-tos using specific pieces of software and hardware. Both were incredibly complementary events to attend. For all of the online opportunities and webinars that are available, it felt somehow important to be meeting face to face again with our cohorts and asking real people real questions in real time. We even saw the Khan Academy‘s Sal Khan and got to hear his story first-hand.

In a way it was like the best of all learning opportunities. Diverse, with the ability to use all of the analog and digital tools at hand to gain meaning, understanding, and perspective. Now that we are back in our metaphorical cave, digesting and implementing the things we learned in the field, the natural ebb and flow of the learning lifestyle washes over us, refreshing attitudes, determination, and commitment.

QUESTION: Do you still like conferencing and meeting face-to-face? How has the availability of online learning changed what f2f means to you? How often do you attend conferences and learning events? 

Pigeon-holes, PLNs, and Community, oh my!

M&M recently joined the eLearningGuild, a 63k+-member organization designed to connect and support professionals in the eLearning space. Particularly delightful about this organization (so far!) is that they seem to go out of their way to avoid pigeon-holing and/or “labeling” professionals in our field. Here at M&M, we’ve been recently discussing what defines an educator and what it really means. We just got back to Vienna after attending two US-based education conferences (CUE 2014 and NCCE 2014), both of which serve primarily the K–12 education team for their respective regions (CUE for California and NCCE for the Pacific Northwest). As a result, most of our fellow attendees were career educators, with formal public school classroom and/or administration experience. The humble would call themselves simply, “teachers.” We were often asked what district we are from and/or what software our schools used. Our response was that we’re actually not from a district/school, but that we are “in adult learning, helping organizations and businesses develop their educational and eLearning strategies.” “Ah,” we heard, “so you’re not really teachers.” Cue failure buzzer sound, then insert sad face. Wahnt-waaaah. Meh.

We’ll post a comprehensive follow-up post about what we learned at these conferences and the supremely cool awesome stuff that is going on in educational technology right now. But for today, a link to the eLearning Guild is what we offer, and an invitation to join us there for discussion, best practices, camaraderie, and learning more about our eLearning passions and what fuels them. Each eLearning specialist, informational designer, instructional designer, content curator, and staff developer is in the practice of educating. Let’s continue to engage and learn from one another as we spread better teaching and learning techniques worldwide.

Feel free to share your personal favorite online hangouts for community and informal learning!

#cue14 #ncce2014 #elearning #edchat #edtech #pln #adultlearning