This PowerPoint helps students to consider the concept of infinity.
The New Face of Learning?
1. The New Face of Learning? Judith Christian-Carter
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Editor's Notes
Caveats: I am not a luddite. I’ve worked with and in L&D technology since the mid 1980s. What I am is someone who puts education, training and development first and technology second. I always question and analyse any new L&D development before I get excited about it!
Explanation of the ‘menu’: How these terms are being used. What is going on out there. Who are the end users – how much do we really know about them. The impact Web 2.0 apps can have on organisations. How much will instructional designers need to change - should they start looking for another job. To what extent should the use of Web 2.0 apps be formalised.
Many definitions of Web 2.0 – this is a fairly common one. Importance of the words ‘create’ and ‘share’. Web 2.0 mantra – rip, mix and feed: you take content from wherever, mix it up as you see fit, and then feed it to all those who might find it useful. Learners, who are creating and sharing podcasts, blogs and wikis, and using social networks, have all been tagged as undertaking e-Learning 2.0 or Learning 2.0 activities. Web 2.0 and its associated tools are just technologies – the human element is needed to make them useful – just because they are there doesn’t mean that people have to use them. But they are being used, mainly to support informal learning.
I’m doing it right now! The extent to which it’s happening – difficult to tell for 3 reasons: i) when used for informal learning, ii) trend only research, and iii) far too many spurious claims and considerable hype. But Web 2.0 technologies are being used as educational and L& D tools because they are available and accessible to a large number of computer users. Some organisations, in particular educational institutions, have started to formalise their students’ use of Web 2.0 technologies by: a) endorsing their use, b) allowing people to publish their own content, and c) providing Enterprise Systems to handle content in an extremely sophisticated manner.
Know thy target audience – mantra of all good instructional designers. But please, either take with a massive sprinkling of salt or, preferably, just ignore the stereotypical rubbish which is currently being spouted by some of those who are hyping Web 2.0, etc. to the heavens. According to these people there are 4 groups (there always are, aren't there?): Veterans (b 1925-1945), Baby Boomers (b 1946-1964), Generation X (b 1965-1979 – I don’t know why they are called that – perhaps to compare them with the last group, Generation Y (apparently because they are forever asking why!) (b 1980-1995). Each group is said to have a different profile but the greatest difference is Generation Y’s profile when compared to the other 3. OK some of the very generalised stuff may be fairly accurate in describing some of the common traits of people in each of the groups. However, extrapolating these common traits to the ways in which these people learn is just downright dangerous. Theories and models of Learning Styles are bad enough but to have this load of unproven twaddle thrown into the mix is enough to make this Baby Boomer move pronto into the Veterans class! .... and then, of course, there is always the Silver Surfers (they don’t even get a mention – why not?)
If you want to know if it’s happening in your organisation - and why wouldn’t you? – then these 4 areas might help you to focus your research: Covert – overt dimension (says a lot about the organisation’s culture) Who is driving it – the learners themselves, the managers, IT(!!!) – if you’ve got a situation where learners are driving it and managers are encouraging it then raise a flag! Where are the tools – how sophisticated is the system in which they are accessible? Likely to be used informally but you never know – if so then how are they being used and with what effect. Remember, if you do wish to formalise the use of some or all of these tools, they vary in the extent to which they can be branded for your organisation – would this matter? Don’t assume – ask your employees (a representative sample please) what it is they want now and what they might want in the short-term.
Panic – help – do I need to be able to control it? As an instructional designer I’m used to being in control and ‘conducting the orchestra’. I need to know what this is all about and to get a really good feel for what’s going on out there. I need to work out why, when and how I might need to incorporate the use of these tools in to my learning design. Educational programmes – existing instructional design strategies and methods (seminars, tutorials, broad objectives, group work, individual research ....) should easily accommodate the overt and ‘formalised’ use of Web 2.0 tools and apps. Training programmes – if applied in an overt manner, then a whole new ball game for ID. However, formalised rules for which may never be written because they will never be needed. Development programmes – may be formally incorporated in some areas/aspects, e.g. action learning sets, but more likely to remain covert but organisation-backed activities. This will depend on the nature of the ‘learning’ programme, the type of organisation and its culture, and the needs of learners.
Several ways and levels: First degree/aspect of formalisation is for the organisation to endorse the use of Web 2.0 tools and apps be this in a covert or overt manner. By providing suitable Enterprise systems, this makes the use of such tools and apps more formalised. Are there still organisations out there who block Internet sites and issue PCs with unusable CD drives? Now this is really ‘pushing the envelope’ – no problem whatsoever in educational institutions but could another matter altogether in both public and private organisations. The ultimate level – real power to the people but probably one where there are far too many constraints and vested interests in ever letting this happen – but there again I said the same about Rapid e-Learning tools several years ago!
Horses for courses (programmes) The ‘toys’ are there, so why not endorse their use at the very minimum? Web 2.0 tools and apps for me are learner support tools and these, in my book, should never be made compulsory for everyone – it depends on what individuals require, when they require them, and if they find them helpful. A point which is so often forgotten in the excitement and rush to be ‘with it with technology’ – dogs and tails spring to mind as the technology tail wags the learner’s dog!
To summarise: There are two main drivers for the use of Web 2.0 tools and apps – learners and people like us. In the context of social learning then their use is appropriate. Possibly, but it will take a lot of hard evidence to convince me, by which time we will probably be wondering what all the fuss was about (c/f e-Learning a few years ago). Only time will reduce or remove the hype and be replaced by substance, or, we will look back and say “oh yes, I remember the Web 2.0 period – what ever happened to it?”. The tools and apps are relatively new as is their use (although people have been using their iPods to rip, mix and burn since 2001 – Apple’s first use of the concept). The process is not that new, just easier to do.
Web 3.0 = the third generation of Internet-based services that collectively comprise what might be called 'the intelligent Web'—such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies—which emphasize machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.
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