Ecologicalframework

Ecological learning design framework Kai Pata Center of Educa7onal Technology, Tallinn University Email: kpata@tlu.ee December, 2008

Based on ar7cles •  Pata, K. (submiIed) Modeling spaces for self‐directed learning at university courses. Journal of Educa7onal Technology & Society. •  Pata, K. (accepted). Revising the framework of knowledge ecologies: how ac7vity paIerns deﬁne learning spaces? In Niki Lambropoulos & Margarida Romero (Eds.), Educa7onal Social SoVware for Context‐Aware Learning: Collabora7ve Methods & Human Interac7on. IGI Global imprints in 2010. [ilmumas] •  Väljataga, T.; Pata, K.; Tammets, K. (2009). Considering learners' perspec7ves to personal learning environments in course design. Mark J. W. Lee; Catherine McLoughlin (Toim.). Web 2.0‐Based E‐Learning: Applying Social Informa7cs for Ter7ary Teaching. IGI Global hIp://www.igi‐global.com/ [ilmumas] •  Fiedler, S.; Pata, K. (2009). Distributed learning environments and social soVware: in search for a framework of design.In Stylianos Hatzipanagos & Steven Warburton (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Social SoVware and Developing Community Ontologies. IGI Global hIp://www.igi‐global.com/[ilmumas] •  Tammets, K.; Väljataga, T.; Pata, K. (2008). Self‐direc7ng at social spaces: conceptual framework for course design. In: Proceedings Ed‐Media 2008 (pp. 2030 – 2038). Vienna, 30th june‐4th july, 2008. AACE. •  Pata, K.; Väljataga, T. (2007). Collabora7ng across na7onal and ins7tu7onal boundaries in higher educa7on – the decentralized iCamp approach. In: Proceedings of Ed‐Media 2007 (pp. 353 – 362). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Star7ng from ecologies of knowledge… •  The theore7cal framework developed by Web visionaries like John Seeley Brown (1999; 2002), George Siemens (2005; 2006) and others is directed towards informa(on and artefacts, meanings and knowledge, networks and connec(ons, in weaving ecologies of knowledge.

How ecology func7ons is not clear From “Knowing knowledge” book by Siemens (2006): •  Ecologies and networks provide the solu5on to needed structures and spaces to house and facilitate knowledge flow (p. 86). Ecology is a knowledge‐sharing environment (p. 87). •  Ecologies permit diverse, mul5‐faceted concepts… and meanings to emerge based on how items are organized or self‐organize (p. 87). •  Ecologies are capable of rapid growth, adap;ng to new compe;;on, differing perspec;ves, and enabling innova;ve concepts and ideas to gain trac;on (p. 87). •  Ecologies are nurtured and fostered…instead of constructed, organized and mandated. Ecologies are: loose, free, dynamic, adaptable, messy, and chao;c (p. 90). Ecology is a living organism (p. 92). •  The ecology influences the forma;on of the network itself. The health of each personal learning network is influenced by the suitability of the ecology in which learner exists (p. 92). •  The ecology fosters connec;ons to original and knowledge sources, allowing for currency. The ecology fosters rich interac;on between disparate fields of knowledge, allowing growth and adapta5on of ideas and concepts. Each par5cipant in the ecology pursues his/her own objec5ves, but within the organized domain of knowledge of a par5cular field (p. 117). •  The crea5on of the ecology permits a broad‐scale implementa;on of differing knowledge and learning experiences, permiNng employees to achieve knowledge‐based needs in a mul5‐faceted manner, mul5ple ways, and through mul5ple devices (p. 132).

..towards deepening the ecological approach •  Siemens (2005; 2006) assumes that crea7ng meanings and rela7ons publicly in social soVware environments would aid through connec7ve processes the forma7on of new knowledge ecologies and learning cultures. •  This approach is strongly 7lted towards knowledge, meanings, communi7es and networks and their spaces – knowledge ecosystems. •  However, the Connec7vism framework is inconsistent in elabora(ng the ecological role of tools, ac(vi(es, and communi(es in the forma(on and evolvement of knowledge ecologies.

Elabora7ng the framework •  Siemens (2005, 2006) has built his Connec7vist framework on the ecological understanding. •  Deepening of the ecological approach enables to see ac(vi(es in the more central posi(on in the knowledge ecologies. •  It is necessary to: –  elaborate the knowledge ecosystem idea, –  strengthen the role of ac7vi7es, and –  introduce the theore7cal framework how ac7vi7es are related to the knowledge ecosystems.

Components in the learning ecology framework

Network‐knowledge interrela7ons •  Siemens (2006) wrote in “Knowing Knowledge”: knowledge rests and changes in the networks that connect people and their ar5facts. •  I elaborate this: –  Tools and ac(vi(es are an ecologically entwined parts of the network. –  Knowledge, is more than informa7on and meanings – knowledge has an ac(vity‐ and tool‐related dimension. •  Personal learning environments (PLEs) that people construct and use in their daily ac7vi7es are not merely the mediators, ‘the inac7ve pipes’ that enable knowledge ﬂow. PLEs are dynamically evolving ac7vity systems in which the personal objec7ves and human and material resources are integrated in the course of ac7on.

Distributed knowledge inheres in social prac7ces •  Bereiter (2002, p. 57) framed and answered the ques7on about the nature of knowledge as follows: Where is knowledge if it isn’t contained in individual minds? –  The kind of answer coming from ac7vity and situated cogni7on theorists runs along the following lines: –  Knowledge is not lodged in any physical or metaphysical organ. –  Rather knowledge inheres in social prac7ces and in the tools and ar7facts used in those prac7ces. –  Knowledge is regarded as distributed. This does not mean merely that it is spread around, a bit here and a bit there… knowledge does not consist of liIle bits… all the knowledge is in the rela(onships – rela(onships among the people engaged in an ac(vity, the tools they use, and the material condi(ons of the environment in which ac(on takes place.

Network in the ecological framework •  The network in the ecological framework may be interpreted as a distributed system con(nuously constructed of our minds and the environment components. •  Knowledge that the networks hold is paIern‐like, distributed between the environment and people, and dynamically emergent in ac(vi(es. The tool has been incorporated into one’s body image as an extended hand or forearm. Regarding it as a tool Not regarding it as a tool Atsushi Iriki, and Osamu Sakura The neuroscience of primate intellectual evolu7on: natural selec7on and passive and inten7onal niche construc7on Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2008) 363, 2229–2241

Embodied ac7on and enac7on •  Varela, Thompson & Rosch (1991, p. 149) wrote that knowledge is the result of ongoing interpreta(on that emerges from our capaci7es of understanding. These capaci7es are rooted in the structures of our biological embodiment but are lived and experienced within a domain of consensual ac(on and cultural history. •  They coined the term embodied ac5on to transmit the idea that –  cogni7on depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensori‐motor capaci7es –  individual sensori‐motor capaci7es are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological, and cultural context. •  Using the term enac5on they focused on two points (Varela et al., 1991, p. 173): –  1) percep7on consists of perceptually guided ac(on, and –  2) cogni7ve structures emerge from recurrent sensori‐motor paAerns that enable ac(on to be perceptually guided.

Conceptualiza7on of objects is dependent of our bodily projec7ons •  Lakoﬀ and Johnson (1999, p. 20) introduce the idea of embodiment, which incorporates our experiences as an integral part in the forma(on of concepts. •  Previously percep7on has been associated with movement and separate from mental processes with concep7ons. Lakoﬀ and Johnson claim that categoriza7on is not a product of conscious reasoning or the intellect but results instead as a product of embodied experiences. •  An embodied concept is a neutral structure that is actually part of, or makes use of, the sensori‐motor system of our brains. From our daily experiences we form understanding of events and cluster them under conceptual metaphors (eg. ahead, under, forward), our experiences drive our formula7on of complex metaphors (eg. argument is war) •  New, embodied view of concepts considers perceptual symbols as neural representa7ons located in sensory‐motor areas in brain. This means concepts are not perceived as arbitary symbols but rather concepts consist of the reac(va(on of the same neural ac(va(on paAern that is present when we perceive the objects or en((es they refer to and when we interact with them (Pecher and Zwaan, 2005).

Cognitve iceberg from Adrian Paul Harris extended cogni7on, percep7on Habitus ‐ sets of interrelated Complex Metaphors cogni7ve unconscious Complex Metaphors (CM) Primary Metaphors (PM) The whole 'iceberg' triangle represents the physical body, while the area below the wavy line represents the quot;cogni7ve unconsciousquot; (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999: 10). This contains the Primary Metaphors (PM) that underpin Complex Metaphors (CM), and sets of interrelated Complex Metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) which I interpret as habitus seen from a different perspec7ve. The physical body is engaged in a dynamic rela7onship with the local environment through extended cogni7on, percep7on and what Gibson calls quot;affordancesquot; (Gibson, 1979). As 95 percent of embodied thought occurs below our consciousness (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), most of this processing never reaches everyday awareness, which is at the iceberg's 7p.

Embodied simula7on we simulate ac7on and emo7on directly without cogni7ve processing We simulate the ac7on ‘context’ and ‘culture’ play a major role in taking par7cular ac7on traces as if doing it Ac7ons embedded in contexts yield a signiﬁcant signal increase (Iaccoboni et al., 2005).

Distributed knowledge emerges as a result of embodied simula7on •  Cogni7on is embodied through grounding knowledge directly in sensory‐motor experiences without the media7on of symbolic representa7ons (Pecher & Zwaan, 2005). •  We perceptually ac7vate certain mul7‐modal ac7on‐ poten7alites of embodied symbols that mediate our purposeful and goal‐directed ac7ons (see Gallese & Lakoﬀ, 2005): –  from observa7on of others and the environment (Rizzolay et al., 2001), –  from listening narra7ves (Rizzolay & Arbib, 1998; Iaccoboni, 2005) –  from reading narra7ves (Scorolli & Borghi, 2007) –  from looking everyday images of objects or works of art (Gallese & Freedberg, 2007).

Ac7on‐related cues in social soVware systems •  When ac7ng in social learning environments not only the meanings are newly created from found informa7on, but also the ac(on‐related cues are picked up from diﬀerent narra(ves and from the whole systems, and they are integrated into our ac(on plans. •  Besides possibili7es of organizing meanings with various ways in social learning environments, much more aIen7on needs to be put on these ac(on‐related cues individuals and communi(es interact with in the environment.

Ecological learning framework •  Network may be interpreted as a distributed system con7nuously constructed of our minds and the environment components in the course of ac7on; •  Knowledge is paIern‐like, distributed between the environment and people, and is dynamically emergent in ac7vi7es, •  Knowledge emerges as a result of embodied simula(on, when people perceptually ac7vate certain mul7‐modal ac7on‐poten7alites from the environment that mediate their purposeful and goal‐directed ac7ons, and leave ac7on‐ and meaning traces as a feedback to the environment.

Ecological learning framework •  Self‐directed learners’ common cultural learning spaces may be characterized as abstract niches, and the facilitators may use these niche descrip7ons in learning design instead of learning environment proper7es and func7ons. •  Niche characteris7cs are collec7vely determined through individually perceived aﬀordances during the applica7on of personal and collabora7ve learning environments for self‐directed ac7vi7es.

Components in the learning ecology framework

Personal learning spaces – learning niches – learning ecology •  To take ac7on self‐directed learners develop abstract individual cogni(ve learning spaces (Underwood & Banyard, 2008) ‐ personal learning environments (PLEs). PLEs contain various material and human resources that they ac7vate in their goal‐directed ac7on. •  Ecologies are formed when many individuals with various perspec7ves and goals would embody parts of the environment selec7vely in the course of ac7on while they compose PLEs as cogni7ve learning spaces. •  Many abstract subspaces – learning niches ‐ can be formed within ecologies. Such spaces emerge when parts of the environment are embodied and used similar way by many people.

Niches •  Hutchinson (1957) deﬁned a niche as a region (n‐dimensional hypervolume) in a mul7‐ dimensional space of environmental factors that aﬀect the welfare of a species. •  Niches have been conceptualized as the environmental gradients with certain ecological amplitude, where the ecological op7mum marks the gradient peaks where the organisms are most abundant.

Niche gradients •  Any niche gradient is a peak of the fitness landscape of one environmental characteris7c (Wright, 1931), which can be visualized in two‐ dimensional space as a graph with certain skew and width, determining the ecological amplitude. •  The shape of the fitness graph for certain characteris7c can be ploIed through the abundance of certain specimen benefiGng of this characteris(c.

Affordances as learning niche gradients •  Gibson (1979) originally defined affordances as opportuni7es for ac7on for an observer, provided by an environment. He suggested that a niche is a set of affordances that constrains possible behavior with respect to what we are able to do in a certain niche. •  The environment in affordance conceptualiza7on does not merely involve material objects and tools in the environment. •  Barab and Roth (2006) have noted that connec7ng learners to ecological networks, where they can learn through engaged par7cipa7on, ac7vates the affordance networks, which are not en7rely delimited by their material, social, or cultural structure, although one may have elements of all of these; instead, they are func7onally bound in terms of the facts, concepts, tools, methods, prac7ces, commitments, and even people that can be enlisted toward the sa7sfac7on of a par7cular goal.

Learning niches appear as social collec7on or affordances •  Affordances emerge and poten7ally become observable in ac7ons what people undertake to realize individual or shared objec7ves. •  Any individual conceptualizes learning affordances personally, but the range of similar learning affordance conceptualiza7ons may be clustered into more general affordance groups. •  Communi7es interac7ng similarly within certain environmental surroundings for certain learning would define various ideal or affordances and niches. •  The crea7on of these niches is of ecological nature and they are not part of the material learning environment per se.

Feedback from cultural knowledge •  Niches enable to enact knowledge and influence personal networks because of ecological inheritance leH as feedback to the social soHware systems. •  HeV (2001) wrote that: “we engage a meaningful environment of affordances and refashion some aspects of them… These laRer constructed embodiments of what is known – which include tools, ar5facts, representa5ons, social paRerns of ac5ons, and ins5tu5ons – can be called ecological knowledge. Ecological knowledge through its various structural, material culture, human seNng manifesta5ons becomes an integral social and cultural part of ‘the environment’, with these social and cultural affordances cons5tu5ng effec5ve, largely material, forms of knowledge with their own func5onal significance, cultural transmission, and adapta5on implica5ons.”

Feedback as an ecological factor •  A recent literature in evolu7onary theory emphasizes the idea of niche construc7on (Odling‐Smee et al., 2003) as an ecological factor. They introduce the term ecological inheritance. •  The niche‐construc7on perspec7ve stresses two legacies that organisms inherit from their ancestors, genes and a modified environment with its associated selec(on pressures. •  The feedback must persist for long enough, and with enough local consistency, to be able to have an evolu(onary effect. •  Social soVware systems demonstrate similar interdependency between user‐generated environmental influence and the development of user culture.

Social retrieval of ac7vity‐related informa7on •  The more user‐deﬁned ac7vity‐related informa7on an ac7vity traces exist in social‐soVware, the beIer the systems get for social retrieval of ac7vity‐related informa7on and interac7on with similar people. •  The systems obtain new quali7es for monitoring and geyng awareness, that would open the gateway to the otherwise non‐traceble communi7es in which the members are not personally related into social networks through shared ac(vi(es, but they inhabit similar ac(vity‐niches.

Communi7es may be influenced by the niches of other communi7es •  Vandermeer (2008) has defined some niche rules what I have elaborated for social systems: –  a) In an obligate construc(ve niche the organism dies in the absence of niche construc7on; Wikis and microblogging environments can be considered obligate construc7ve niches, where single person without the community has very liIle benefit of the system –  b) In a faculta(ve construc(ve niche the organism survives even in the absence of niche construc7on, nevertheless will benefit further from the construc7on; Blogs or social bookmarking systems may be seen as faculta7ve construc7ve niches, in which keeping individual diary or collec7ng bookmarks gives some addi7onal value even without the community –  c) A faculta(ve organism survives even in a non‐construc7ve niche, but benefits further from the construc7on; A faculta7ve user of web systems will not rely on its’ ac7vi7es on the niche construc7on of the other users; –  d) An obligate organism does not survive unless a constructed niche becomes available; An obligate web user has constructed its personal learning environment of community tools and services eg. of ‘pulling feeds’, and cannot func7on effec7vely without this niche construc7on.

Niches in a learning space •  The learning space term denotes an abstract composi7on of dynamically changing learning niches. •  Within one abstract learning space for a certain group several learning niches may appear, which may be commonly actualized in diﬀerent phases of the learning ac(vity.

Changing niches in learning space •  In a learning space people construct inconsistent personal cogni(ve spaces (PLEs) in their minds, which in community level are perceived as niches. •  Learner’ appropriate personal learning environment and the current niche is determined by the exclusion of the affordances that form the align niches – thus, always binary structures of common and align niches exist. •  The affordances from align niches must be integrated temporarily into ones personal learning environment for performing certain ac7ons. For this we must translate affordances from align to our own space. This causes us to move from one niche to another. My current niche where I am with My PLE Niche affodances my PLE Align niches Niche affodances

Perceived learning aﬀordances of using an aggregator ploIed on the learning space

Diﬀerences between the tradi7onal and ecological learning designs

An ecological learning design framework for suppor7ng self‐directed learning in new social Web Promo7ng self‐direc7on with self‐chosen tools at courses: 1. Define the learning and teaching niches for your students by collec7ng their affordance percep7ons of their learning spaces. •  To support the conscious self‐managed development of learner‐ determined spaces, provide students with the tools of visualizing and monitoring their ac7vity‐paIerns and learning landscapes, and enhancing public self‐reflec7on and collabora7ve grounding of learning affordances. •  To maintain coherence of the current niche, introduce cycles of re‐ evalua7on of learning affordances of the learning space within your course. 2. Try to influence the niche re‐emergence by embedding ac7vity traces and ecological knowledge relevant to evoke affordances for certain niches or select ac7vity systems where these traces are naturally present. 3. Use same social learning environments repeatedly to gain from feedback leV as ac7vity traces and embodied knowledge of earlier learners.

Evolving design •  Theore7cally, in the self‐directed learning process students should be promoted to use their own personal learning environments. Thus, the learning environment as a system of tools and resources cannot be ready when learning starts but has to evolve as part of learners’ self‐directed individual and collabora7ve ac7on process in which facilitator has a guiding role.

Using niches in design •  To run emergent boIom‐up courses, facilitators would need to establish some constraints and guidelines for planning the learning process. •  Rather than composing a list of op7onal course tools, resources and ac7vi7es, an abstract learning space might be determined for the course design and made explicit to the learners. •  Learners’ percep7on of ac7on poten7ali7es of their personal and collabora7ve learning environments – learning aﬀordances ‐ could be dynamically collected in a boIom up manner during learners’ public planning of their goals, visualiza7on, and self‐reﬂec7on of their learning ac7vi7es and learning environments.

BoIom up genera7on of niche aﬀordances Aﬀordance ontologies for coupling ac7vi7es and tools Ployng niches on tool landscape

Using niche info for planning ac7vi7es and choosing tools •  The aﬀordance‐based learning space descrip7on might be re‐used in the course design as a guideline for students and the facilitator •  Knowing the learning niche characteris7cs enables to develop par7cular list of suggested ac7vi7es and plan appropriate instruc7ons during the course. •  When planning par7cipa7on at the courses and for choosing tools and resources for personal learning environments, self‐directed students might need informa7on of the aﬀordances that a par7cular course community perceives in rela7on to certain tools.

Using feedback from niche for adap7ve self‐direc7on •  Knowing niche’s learning affordances and making the abstract learning space explicit for the learners and for the facilitator would permit: –  i) the individualized learner‐specific integra(on of their goal‐directed ac(vi(es with other perceived components, resources and community ac(vi(es in the environment; and –  ii) the reuse of the commonly perceived affordances for environmentally adap(ve self‐direc(on.

Dynamic monitoring of niche •  The emergence of the course’s learning space would consist of cycles of developing and monitoring the learning niches. •  Such dynamical monitoring and grounding of the mutually used learning affordances is possible when learner can draw schemes of ac7vity paIerns and tool landscapes and write public reflec7ve pos7ngs in their weblogs. •  It is assumed that if some tools were available for learners and facilitator to visualize the niche with less analy7cal effort during the course of ac7on, this might increase the use of affordances as niche gradients in adap7ve shaping of self‐directed learning.

Acknowledgements to…. 2008 september Peeter Normak Moving between niches

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Ecologicalframework

by Kai Pata on Dec 13, 2008

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Ecologicalframework — Presentation Transcript