Finding the open in the in-between: changing culture and space in higher educ...
Middleton apt15-sole
1. Baring my SOLE
does informal, self and socially directed learning
make for an inclusive learning environment?
Andrew Middleton
Head ofAcademic Practice & Learning Innovation
LEAD, Sheffield Hallam University
@andrewmid
APT 2015 - Mainstreaming Open Education
2. SOLEs and me
Social Open Learning Ecologies – a playful acronym
A heterotopian ideal? – Gourlay (2015)
A collection of emerging ideas that suggest a future
disrupted learning space
Smart Learning – new spaces for new learning
the convergence of diverse innovative methods (spaces)
that each promise to disrupt longstanding approaches to
teaching and learning
creating an educational philosophy that is widely
accessible, open, flexible and convincing
SOLE today
Social Open Learning
Ecologies (SOLEs) – a way
to imagine the future.
Prolific use of social media
and personal smart
technologies underpin
new forms of learner
engagement that reflect
changing life habits
(Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012; Jackson, 2010;
Barnett, 2006)
3. SOLEs and me
I want to conceptualise, believe in and enact SOLEs…
but it has to be inclusive
4. Free and open
“Does the education system serve the interests of
the providers, or of the learners?”
Stephen Downes (2011, p.7)
5. Informal – some (false?) dichotomies
Disrupting the formal
Provided or self-constructed space
Directed vs self-directed learning
Regulated vs self-regulated learning
Disconnected vs connected learning
Commercial vs non-commercial
Instructivism vs constructivism
Content vs interaction
Another view of 'informal'
Aspires to transform "university"
A parallel, people-centred "university"?
Get real in the third space
Ideal or real?
Can we construct a realistic informal
paradigm for learning in higher
education that is inclusive?
6. Self-directed learning
Aids learners in managing and solving
complex problems within changing work
environments
Supports development of lifelong learning
Capability is thus an extension of competency
Self-regulation of learning leading to self-
confidence, self-efficacy and so self-esteem
(Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2010) Valuing self
Are graduate capabilities and
attributes more valuable than
knowing what they know?
Blaschke, L. (2014). Using social media to engage and
develop the online learner in self-determined learning.
Research in Learning Technology, 22
The devaluation of knowledge
"The shrinking half-life of
knowledge..." (Gonzalez, 2004;
Siemens, 2004)
Knowing how to learn is a
fundamental skill given the pace
of innovation and the changing
structure of communities and
workplaces
7. Socially-directed learning
Social capital
Digital neighbourliness?
“Relationships of mutual acquaintance and
recognition” (Bourdieu 1983, p.249)
Connections among individuals – social networks,
reciprocity and trustworthiness (Putnam, 2000)
A sense of belonging
Social media - a place for bridging, bonding and
linking social capital
Valuing belonging and
community
How important is the social
construct and how is this
fostered?
Smith, M. K. (2000-2009). ‘Social capital’, the encyclopedia of informal education. http://infed.org/mobi/social-capital/. Retriev 4 July 2015
8. Recognise and transform the ways in
which students are able engage with,
reflect on, and record their journeys
to ‘becoming professional’
Ashley Holmes (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Accommodating difference:
Contexts
Perceptions
Experience
Levels of knowledge
Aspirations
Journeys
Interpretations….
Rhizomatic learning
“Acknowledge that learners come from
different contexts, that they need
different things… presuming you know
what those things are is like believing in
magic. It is a commitment to multiple
paths.”
Dave Cormier, 2011
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-
learning-why-learn/
Learning ecologies
9. Open learning environments
1. Freedom to reuse
2. Open access
3. Free cost
4. Easy to use
5. Digital networked content
6. Social based approaches
7. Ethical arguments for openness
8. Openness as an efficient model
Open, accessible and inclusive
Can open learning environments be easy,
accessible and efficient?
Weller, M. (2014) Battle for the open. Ubiquity
Press
Principles
"A characteristic of these early MOOCs was that they
were associated with individuals, not institutions"
p.94
Can individuals shift the paradigm?
10. Personal Learning Environments
PLEs are inherently self-directed
A technological and a pedagogical approach
Designed by the learner around personally
defined goals or approach
Place the responsibility for organizing learning
on the individual
Johnson et al. (2011)
Personal
To what extent does the PLE
concept disregard the social
richness?
Capability
Do effective PLE learner’s need
to be highly capable and
confident first?
Inclusivity
Does moving away from
deficit models of pedagogy
reduce inclusivity?
11. So.., SLEs
Social Learning Environments
A socially mediated space
Formed around the potential of a community
to support its collective and individual
learning, exponentially
However, distance, technology and commerce
challenge dynamism and promote content
packaging.
Social - connected learning
How does bringing the social
and connected dimension into
the PLE concept strengthen it?
How is the social dimension
facilitated?
Technology
To what extent is technology
critical to either PLEs or SLEs?
12. Open learning environments
1. Autonomy
2. Open association
3. Self-direction
4. Self-regulation
5. Social mediation
Questions
What are the intersections
between openness and
heutagogy?
Who is discussing learner
inclusivity in terms of
capability?
Is developing learner capability
our next priority?
Values
14. Does informal, self and socially directed
learning make for an inclusive learning
environment?
How do we learn how to learn in the open?
Does self-direction lead to isolation?
We’re interested in MOOCs – but how interested are we in
disrupted open learning spaces?
15. Smart Learning
See Smart Learning Scenarios
Please speak to me about your smart learning
scenarios
Editor's Notes
Baring my SOLE: does informal, self and socially directed open learning make for an inclusive learning environment?
Andrew Middleton
Building: Queen Anne Court Room: Queen Anne 165 Date: 07-07-2015 11:00 – 12:00
Abstract
Social Open Learning Ecologies (SOLEs) provide higher education with a useful way to imagine the future of teaching and learning. The prolific use of social media and personal smart technologies by students and teachers (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012) underpin new forms of learner engagement that reflect fundamental changing life habits; changes that create as many problems as opportunities for provided formal education. Appreciation of life-wide learning (Jackson, 2011) and learning ecologies (Barnet, 2011) is growing, as is the exploration of how digital and social media are being used to personalise and open up learning (Megele, 2014). Clarà and Barberà (2013) contrast the conceptualisations of community-centred cMOOCs with content-centred xMOOCs, and alternative acronyms for similar disruptive learning environments are abundant: S[ocial]OOCs and T[ruely]OOCs being two. The playing with nomenclature is both indicative of the critique of MOOCs, and massiveness in particular, and the interest amongst educators in formulating a more open view of learning. In this forum session we will consider openness as being the most significant current focus for sustained disruptive innovation. Massive, Online and Course all compound the MOOC phenomenon in terms of provided education; in many ways the antithesis of openness. Openness encapsulates a set of learner-centred ideals including autonomy, free association, self-direction and social mediation: ideas that qualitatively change thinking about engagement with, and the experience of, learning. While openness has many meanings (Anderson, 2013), it can be understood as a dimension of self-determination and of fostering a sense of ‘being’. The forum will discuss intersections between openness and heutagogy; the latter being the study of self-determined learning addressing future capabilities, including that of knowing how to learn and which “emphasise[s] a more holistic development in the learner” (Hase & Kenyon, 2000). The idea of SOLE is offered as a useful framework and basis for self-directed learning networks born out of life-wide habits of using social media, with openness signalling a necessary shift towards autonomous learning, and ecology situating learning as something that is complex and lived. The forum's challenge will be to make use of these ideals to the extent that it is able to address the needs of learners, "especially those who do not have high self-regulation skills, feel lost and without any direction and support" in open learning environments (Clarà and Barberà, 2013, p.131). The answer may lie in committing more attention to valuing and developing learning capabilities across physical and online spaces, in parallel to delivered curricula; an inclusive strategy that cuts across more instrumental approaches to developing employability, digital literacy and support for disabled students for example. A learning-centred philosophy in the digital and social age needs to result in an inclusive, life-wide and lifelong strategy. I argue the concept of SOLE contains the necessary bare essentials to allow us, as academic innovators, to progress our thinking about future conceptualisations of learning.
References
Anderson, T. (2013) 'Promise and/or Peril: MOOCs and Open and Distance Education'. Last updated March 2013. Online at: http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/MOOCsPromisePeril_Anderson.pdf.
Barnett, R. (2011) Lifewide education: a new and transformative concept for higher education. in N. J. Jackson (ed) Learning for a Complex World: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Authorhouse 22-38
Clarà, M. & Barberà, E. (2013). Learning online: massive open online courses (MOOCs), connectivism, and cultural psychology, Distance Education, 34(1), 129-136.
Dabbagh, N., & Kitsantas, A. (2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. The Internet and Higher Education. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.06.002
Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. In UltiBase Articles. Retrieved from: http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec00/hase2.htm
Jackson, N.J. (2011) The lifelong and lifewide dimensions of living, learning and developing. In N. J. Jackson (ed) Learning for a Complex World: A lifewide concept of learning, education and personal development. Authorhouse 1-21
Megele, C. (2014). Theorising Twitter chat. Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 2(2), 46–51.
Open education as a ‘heterotopia of desire’
Open education as a ‘heterotopia of desire’
Lesley Gourlay (2015). Open education as a ‘heterotopia of desire’. Learning, Media and Technology.DOI:10.1080/17439884.2015.1029941
Abstract: The movement towards ‘openness’ in education has tended to position itself as inherently democratising, radical, egalitarian and critical of powerful gatekeepers to learning. While ‘openness’ is often positioned as a critique, I will argue that its mainstream discourses – while appearing to oppose large-scale operations of power – in fact reinforce a fantasy of an all-powerful, panoptic institutional apparatus. The human subject is idealised as capable of generating higher order knowledge without recourse to expertise, a canon of knowledge or scaffolded development. This highlights an inherent contradiction between this movement and critical educational theory which opposes narratives of potential utopian futures, offering theoretical counterpositions and data which reveal diversity and complexity and resisting attempts at definition, typology and fixity. This argument will be advanced by referring to Gourlay and Oliver’s one-year longitudinal qualitative multimodal journaling and interview study of student day-to-day entanglements with technologies in higher education, which was combined with a shorter study focused on academic staff engagement (see article for full text reference). Drawing on sociomaterial perspectives, I will conclude that allegedly ‘radical’ claims of the ‘openness’ movement in education may in fact serve to reinforce rather than challenge utopic thinking, fantasies of the human, and monolithic social categories, fixity and power, and as such may be seen as indicative of a ‘heterotopia of desire’.
"This paper seeks to examine how OERs (for the purposes of this paper the term is being used to include MOOCs) and resources have been ideologically positioned as inherently anti-hierarchical and therefore able to claim a critical position in relation to the ‘traditional’ university and forms of academic publication, which are via this formulation portrayed as exclusive, retrograde and reproductive of social privilege." (p.2)
"Critical educational theory arguably positions itself in opposition to simplistic ideological narratives, seeking to undermine these with theoretical counterpositions and empirical data (in particular qualitative and ethnographic work), which reveal diversity and complexity. The tendency here is to resist attempts at definition, typology and fixity. Here, notions of the absolute are rejected in favour of the ‘messy’ and contingent unfolding of day-to-day social practice." (p.3)
"[Downes] explores various dimensions of the concept of ‘free’ education, arguing that this can refer to either commercial aspect of educational provision or the extent to which the student ‘directs’ his/her learning. He sets this out as the following:
Directed learning vs self-directed learning (or, instructivism or constructivism; or, formal vs informal; or, control learning vs free learning) – or to put it another way – does the education system serve the interests of the providers, or of the learners? (Downes 2011, 7)
Downes’ analysis divides the options into a series of binaries, with ‘directed learning’, ‘instructivism’, ‘formal learning’ and ‘control learning’ being presented as associated with the interests of the providers... What is striking throughout this discussion is the emphasis on ‘content’ – essentially texts of various kinds. ‘Access’ is also emphasised as key concept, and taken together these emphases seem to situate educational engagement particularly in this ‘material’ or ‘resource’, and the ability to gain unfettered access to it. Importance is also placed on production, the ‘creation’ of material, interaction and sharing as opposed to mere ‘broadcast’." (pp. 3-4)
Downes, S. 2011. Free Learning: Essays on Open Educational Resources and Copyright. Accessed February 13, 2012. http://www.downes.ca/files/books/ FreeLearning.pdf.
Knox "points out that this vision is reliant on a utopian fantasy of the innately self-directing, autonomous, freefloating subject, in opposition to the absolute and restrictive power of the institution." P.4
"The role of formal education and institutions is seen as rendering students ‘passive and disempowered’ (2011, 248). Downes contrasts this with the central goal of ‘edupunk’ and OERs, which for him is the involvement of the student in the creation of resources:
'Edupunk, and for that matter OERs, are not and should not be thought of in the context of the traditional educational model, where students are passive recipients of ‘instruction’ and ‘support’ and ‘learning resources’. Rather, it is the much more active conception where students are engaged in the actual creation of those resources ... this is exactly what corporations and institutions do *not* want edu- punks and proponents of OERs to do, and they have expended a great deal of effort to ensure that this does not become the mainstream of learning, to ensure students remain passive and disempowered.' (Downes 2011, 248)
The joint creation of online open ‘resources’ is reified as the most valuable and meaningful activity for students to be engaged in, with all aspects of traditional education in contrast characterized as transmission-based." P.4
Gourlay seems to be creating a binary herself in this article (top p.5) where she takes against learner-generated content.
"The notion that individuals may require or want degrees or other formal qualifications for progression in careers is not discussed." P.5
"any form of teaching or facilitation appears to be rejected as hierarchical ...Education’ is instead reified into the distribution and joint production of lay online ‘content’" p.5
"Utopias are generally understood to denote idealised, perfect, imagined worlds. The essence of a utopia is that it does not exist – it is an abstraction, a dream which is seen as in some sense unrealistic and unattainable, rather than a ‘real-life’ social space or setting. In this sense, a utopia in the classic form is not situated in a particular place." P.6
Foucault "develops an alterna- tive notion of the ‘heterotopia’, which he characterises as an ‘enacted utopia’" p. 6
"Foucault acknowledges the notion that a heterotopia may appear ‘open’, but may in fact ‘hide curious exclusions’:
... here are others, on the contrary, that seem to be pure and simple openings, but that generally hide curious exclusions. Everyone can enter into the heterotopic sites, but in fact that is only an illusion – we think we enter where we are, by the very fact that we enter, excluded. (Foucault 1967/1984)" p. 7
Gosling' (2014 ) "...analysis applies several of Foucault’s subcategories of heterotopia – of crisis, deviation, illusion and compensation – to these projects which in various ways sat outside of the mainstream and came to represent a space where a range of educational beliefs and practices could be nurtured, beliefs and practices that were otherwise not valued or encouraged within the main- stream. He reports on an interview study into the perspectives of the project leaders and participants, revealing that they were seen as special, rarified, pro- tected spaces of practice which could not be sustained easily in the mainstream university environment." P. 7 [Gosling, D. 2014. “Teaching and Learning Projects as ‘Heterotopias.’” Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning 2 (1): 25–48.]
"OERs and the interactions they generate could be read as an attempt to create an ‘enacted utopia’ which is created and maintained in order to com- pensate for what is regarded as a morally imperfect and corrupt mainstream." P. 7
"qualitative and ethnographic work into student engagement with the digital reveals that day-to-day engagement with digital mediation and online education is – unsurprisingly – highly complex and intensely intertwined with the particular unfolding social and material settings in which social actors are situated." P. 8
"An example is given below of a flowchart produced by a participant in the study to illustrate his production of an academic text in digital media. What is striking about this representation is the degree to which the student engages with the digital in constant interplay with the material, in a highly situated bricolage of micro-practices which cumulatively move towards the production of a digital text. This network consists of the participant himself, nonhuman actors in the form of digital devices, but also print literacy artefacts, material spaces, temporal frames and other social actors. This arena of practice is one which is ephemeral, materially bounded and constantly in a process of active renegotiation (Figure 1)." P.10
"This view of student digital practice is perhaps the opposite of ideological and utopian – instead it is fine-grained, materially-situated and focused on the small, pragmatic steps taken by the participant in his daily study practices online – reminiscent of Latour’s ‘oligopticon’ view discussed above. Instead of appearing as a hapless and passive recipient, the students here report engage- ment with digital and material interfaces and representatives of ‘the traditional university’ in a highly agentive fashion – and in doing so create emergent and contingent spaces within which they can work and achieve their objectives in an individual and situated way. ‘Space’ or ‘context’ here is not abstracted, nor is it even a neutral backcloth, but instead it is co-constitutive with social action itself. This stands in stark contrast to the ‘passive’ and ‘disempowered’ students conjured by Downes to support and maintain his ‘enacted utopia’ of OERs. As Fenwick et al. observe:
'Humans, and what they take to be their learning and social process, do not float, distinct, in container-like contexts of education, such as classrooms or community sites that can be conceptualised and dismissed as simply a wash of material stuff and spaces. The things that assemble these contexts, and incidentally the actions and bodies including human ones that are part of these assemblages, are continu- ously acting upon each other to bring forth and distribute, as well as to obscure and deny, knowledge. (Fenwick, Edwards, and Sawchuck 2011, vii)'" p. 11
[Fenwick, T., R. Edwards, and P. Sawchuck. 2011. Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial. London: Routledge.]
"I went on to apply Foucault’s concept of heterotopias to OERs, arguing that this framing gives us additional insight into how these have been constructed and maintained as a ‘special’ type of social and educational space, a rarified space which might compensate for inadequacies or hostility in the mainstream." P.16
"[OERs] appear to have the features of a heterotopia of compensation – but would perhaps be better regarded as what I would call a heterotopia of desire – the passionate and laudable desire of their proponents for OERs to exhibit these characteristics, for this rarified and special space to exist, a necessary construct in order to maintain a particular world view and set of identity positions surrounding the nature of education, critique, learning and power." P. 16
See: Downes, S. 2011. Free Learning: Essays on Open Educational Resources and Copyright. http://www.downes.ca/files/books/ FreeLearning.pdf.
Downes, S. 2011. Free Learning: Essays on Open Educational Resources and Copyright. http://www.downes.ca/files/books/FreeLearning.pdf.
Informal - a problematic word used for different purposes in different educational contexts
Non-formal - Eraut
Provided or self-constructed space – eg BYOD, SM4L
Directed learning vs self-directed – learning construction is about a personal engagement. Teaching should be about supporting effective personal engagement with learning and being a learner
Regulated vs self-regulated learning - when a student is driven and responsible for their learning what does regulation look like?
Disconnected vs Connected learning – the learning environment is no longer isolated, why would we be disconnected in this day and age?
Commercial vs non-commercial (Downes, 2011) – to what extent should learning be driven by commercial expectations?
Instructivism vs constructivism (Downes, 2011) – what methods do we deploy?
Another view of 'informal'
Aspires to transform "university" - what would happen if universities had no classrooms or lecture theatres or LMSs?
A parallel, people-centred "university"?
Get real in the third space
Ideal or real?
Can we construct a realistic informal paradigm for learning in higher education that is inclusive?
Transforming "university" – the very idea of what university means and how it is perceived
A parallel "universe"? – are we heading for two or more systems of philosophies of a higher education? Maybe we have many already? Does higher education have/need a unified identity in the UK/globally?
Content-centred or people-centred? – strategically do people learn from receiving knowledge or by identifying themselves with knowledges domains?
Ideal or real? – is it enough to explore and enjoy the ideal and the abstract or must educational innovators take care to construct a realistic paradigm.
Can we construct a realistic paradigm for learning in higher education that is inclusive? Does it need to be?
Downes: “…the major philosophical divides in 21st century education. The divides are: - commercial vs non-commercial? What is the role of the private for-profit sector in learning? Is open education the the final full flourishing of public education, or is it the end of it? - directed learning vs self-directed learning (or, instructivism or constructivism; or, formal vs informal; or, control learning vs free learning) - or to put it another way - does the education system serve the interests of the providers, or of the learners?” Downes, 2011, p.7
Heutagogy and self-direction
learning to be self-directed
"Research into the theory has shown that the approach can support development of lifelong learning capacity, as well as aid learners in managing and solving complex problems within changing work environments (Ashton and Newman 2006; Ashton and Elliott 2007; Bhoryrub et al. 2010; Canning and Callan 2010)."
"heutagogy emphasises learner-centeredness and the development of learner capabilities, which need to be developed ‘as a complementary set of attributes to competency’ in order to create a culture of lifelong learning (Gardner et al. 2008, p. 257). Capability is thus an extension of competency (knowing in familiar environments) in that the learner is able to apply what she or he has learned to complex situations (knowing in unfamiliar environments). Examples of capabilities include: knowing how to learn, working well with others, creativity, critical thinking, empathy, active and experiential learning, autonomy, self-efficacy, self-confidence, active citizenship and deliberative dialogue (Gardner et al. 2008; Walker 2008). A review of the literature demonstrates that there is limited research into heutagogy as an approach for development of learner capabilities (Blaschke 2012)."
Blaschke, L. (2014). Using social media to engage and develop the online learner in self-determined learning. Research In Learning Technology, 22. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.21635
"the future in which knowing how to learn will be a fundamental skill given the pace of innovation and the changing structure of communities and workplaces.” - heutagogy website: https://heutagogycop.wordpress.com/history-of-heutagogy/
Hase, S. & Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. Ultibase, RMIT. http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec00/hase2.htm
"The shrinking half-life of knowledge..." (Gonzalez, 2004 in Siemens, 2005)
Siemens, G. (2005). A learning theory for the digital age. Online at: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Gonzalez, C., (2004). The Role of Blended Learning in the World of Technology. Retrieved December 10, 2004 from http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/2004/september04/eis.htm.
Self-regulation of learning leading to self-confidence, self-efficacy and so self-esteem (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2010)
Dacre-Pool, L and Sewell, P, (2010), Moving from conceptual ambiguity to operational clarity: Employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship in higher education, Education and Training, 52, 1, 89-94.
Social capital - the cultivation of good will, fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse among those that ‘make up a social unit’ (Hanifa, 1920)
Neighbourliness –
John Field (2003: 1-2): ‘relationships matter’. The central idea is that ‘social networks are a valuable asset’. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. (from: http://infed.org/mobi/social-capital/
A sense of belonging
“ultimately, it becomes a shared set of values, virtues, and expectations within society as a whole” (Beem 1999: 20)
a place for bridging, bonding and linking social capital (Putnam)
First, social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily… People often might be better off if they cooperate, with each doing her share. …
Second, social capital greases the wheels that allow communities to advance smoothly. Where people are trusting and trustworthy, and where they are subject to repeated interactions with fellow citizens, everyday business and social transactions are less costly….
A third way is which social capital improves our lot is by widening our awareness of the many ways in which our fates are linked… When people lack connection to others, they are unable to test the veracity of their own views, whether in the give or take of casual conversation or in more formal deliberation. Without such an opportunity, people are more likely to be swayed by their worse impulses….
The networks that constitute social capital also serve as conduits for the flow of helpful information that facilitates achieving our goals…. Social capital also operates through psychological and biological processes to improve individual’s lives. … Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference to our lives.
Robert Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community, New York: Simon and Schuster: 288-290
Putnam, R. D. (ed.) (2002). Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, New York: Oxford University Press. 522 pages. Further exploration of social transformations using the notion of social capital within ‘economically advanced democracies’.
Reference:
Smith, M. K. (2000-2009). ‘Social capital’, the encyclopedia of informal education. [http://infed.org/mobi/social-capital/. Retrieved: 4 July 2015
Accommodating difference:
Contexts
Perceptions
Experience
Levels of knowledge
Aspirations
Journeys
Interpretations….
Rhizomatic learning
"the whole idea of rhizomatic learning is to acknowledge that learners come from different contexts, that they need different things, and that presuming you know what those things are is like believing in magic. It is a commitment to multiple paths. "
Dave Cormier, 2011
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-learning-why-learn/
Open Education – principles from Weller, 2015
Freedom to reuse
Open access
Free cost
Easy to use
Digital networked content
Social based approaches
Ethical arguments for openness
Openness as an efficient model
Weller, M. (2014) Battle for the open. Ubiquity Press. Page 42
From Dabbagh et al. (2012)
Dabbagh, N. & Kitsantas, A.(2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. Internet and Higher Education 15, pp.3–8
"Rubin adds that PLEs are inherently self-directed placing the responsibility for organizing learning on the individual. These definitions and conceptual descriptions imply that PLEs can be perceived as both a technology and a pedagogical approach that is student-designed around each student's goals or a learning approach “chosen by a student to match his or her personal learning style and pace” (Johnson et al., 2011, p. 8)." p.4
"LMS have always been under the control of the institution, its faculty and administrators, leaving little room for learners to manage and maintain a learning space that facilitates their own learning activities as well as connections to peers and social networks across time and place (Valjataga et al., 2011; van Harmelen, 2006)."
Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K-12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Available from: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf
Rrubin?
Valjataga, T., Pata, K., & Tammets, K. (2011). Considering students' perspective on personal and distributed learning environments. In M. J. W. Lee, & C. McLoughlin (Eds.), Web 2.0-based e-Learning: Applying social informatics for tertiary teaching (pp. 85–107). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
van Harmelen, M. (2006). Personal learning environments. In R. Kinshuk, P. Koper, P. Kommers, D. Kirschner, W. Didderen, & Sampson (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (pp. 815–816). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society.
From Dabbagh et al. (2012)
Dabbagh, N. & Kitsantas, A.(2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. Internet and Higher Education 15, pp.3–8
"Rubin adds that PLEs are inherently self-directed placing the responsibility for organizing learning on the individual. These definitions and conceptual descriptions imply that PLEs can be perceived as both a technology and a pedagogical approach that is student-designed around each student's goals or a learning approach “chosen by a student to match his or her personal learning style and pace” (Johnson et al., 2011, p. 8)." p.4
"LMS have always been under the control of the institution, its faculty and administrators, leaving little room for learners to manage and maintain a learning space that facilitates their own learning activities as well as connections to peers and social networks across time and place (Valjataga et al., 2011; van Harmelen, 2006)."
Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K-12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Available from: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf
Rrubin?
Valjataga, T., Pata, K., & Tammets, K. (2011). Considering students' perspective on personal and distributed learning environments. In M. J. W. Lee, & C. McLoughlin (Eds.), Web 2.0-based e-Learning: Applying social informatics for tertiary teaching (pp. 85–107). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
van Harmelen, M. (2006). Personal learning environments. In R. Kinshuk, P. Koper, P. Kommers, D. Kirschner, W. Didderen, & Sampson (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (pp. 815–816). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society.
Ideals and values
Autonomy - being responsible
Open association - not closed, PLE, SLE
Self-direction - being clear and capable to govern your own course of learning
Self-regulation - and seek and use formal in informal/non-formal and independent support strategies
Social mediation – CoP, PLE, SLE
Rich digital media disrupts dependency on text as the dominant academic form
Social media disrupts One-to-Many model
Open learning disrupts models of formal of delivery
User-generated content disrupts provided content model disrupts Provided Technology model
Mobile learning disrupts provided “classroom" model
What happens when we start to bring some of these innovative ideas together?
It is not about adding ideas – it is about multiplying. The multiplier effect – 1+1=3 AND one thing leads to another, proliferation and exponential growth in impact
Either,
Noticing connections, or
Making connections
Baring my SOLE: does informal, self and socially directed open learning make for an inclusive learning environment?
Questions to consider:
What are the intersections between openness and heutagogy?
Does the education system serve the interests of the providers, or of the learners?
Design - Who designs the learning space?
Is a higher education content-centred or people-centred? What are the implications of this?
A parallel "university"? – is it time for higher education to divide and regenerate?
Should we be ideal or real as we ‘future think’?
Can we construct a realistic informal learning paradigm in higher education that is inclusive?
Valuing self - Are graduate capabilities and attributes more valuable than knowledge?
Capability - Do effective PLE learner’s need to be highly capable and confident as a pre-requisite to learning?
Is developing learner capability our next priority?
Who is discussing learner inclusivity in terms of capability?
Do we pander to expectations? Whose expectations?
Provision - Who provides the learning space?
Personal - To what extent does the PLE concept disregard the social richness?
Social - How does bringing the social and connected dimension into the PLE concept strengthen it?
How is the social dimension facilitated?
Technology - To what extent is technology critical to either PLE or SOLE concepts?
Inclusivity - Does moving away from deficit models of pedagogy reduce inclusivity?
Valuing belonging and community - How important is the social construct and how is this fostered?
Open, accessible and inclusive - Can open learning environments be easy, accessible and efficient?
Can individuals shift the paradigm?
