Connected Educator

THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM IN A CONNECTED WORLD (the grammar of the internet?) Michael Coghlan 5th International Congress on English Grammar (Hyderabad) January, 2007 This presentation on the web at http://www.slideshare.net/michaelc/connected_educator

SUBJECT + TRANSITIVE VERB + OBJECT + ADVERBIAL PHRASE

HTML

<p><a href="LA.htm"><img src="mcmarkvenicesm.jpg" width="120" height="73" border="0"></a><br> <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Venice</font> </p> <div id="Layer1" style="position:absolute; width:200px; height:115px; z-index:1; left: 103px; top: 101px"><a href="santamonica.htm"><img src="santamsm.jpg" width="120" height="78" border="0"></a><br> <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Venice</font> </div> <div id="Layer2" style="position:absolute; width:200px; height:115px; z-index:2; left: 198px; top: 156px"><a href="uga.htm"><img src="ugasm.jpg" width="120" height="79" border="0"></a><br> <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Uni of Georgia</font></div> <div id="Layer3" style="position:absolute; width:200px; height:115px; z-index:3; left: 293px; top: 206px"><a href="uga.htm"><img src="uga1sm.jpg" width="120" height="79" border="0"></a><br> <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Uni of Georgia</font></div> <div id="Layer4" style="position:absolute; width:200px; height:115px; z-index:4; left: 13px; top: 431px"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1">Shoshi and Steve</font><br> <a href="confpix.htm"><img src="shoshistevesm.jpg" width="120" height="82" border="0"></a></div>

The Internet – more than just a book

“ The Read/Write Web” (Tim Berners Lee) Original photo by Hummanna .

eLearning 2.0/Web 2.0 (Stephen Downes)

Elearning 1.0:

static packaged content

little true interactivity and learner input and

very little contact with a tutor.

represented by Learner Management Systems. (eg WebCT, Blackboard, etc)

Elearning 2.0:

more student-centred

centred around a Personal Learning Environment using social software.

students generate and share content.

they interact not only with teachers and their peers, but with anyone in the world they can learn from .

(this description courtesy of Sean Fitzgerald)

Expansion of the ‘Grammar of the Internet’

Javascript, XML, PHP, Ajax

Increased interactivity

and usability of Internet

pages

Image Plate from Owen Jones' 1853 classic, "The Grammar of Ornament". Photo by EricGjerde

Rewriting or Killing our Cultures?

My Story

ESL classroom teacher 1987 – 1997

1997 – went online

Blended ESL teaching 1997 – 2000

Volunteer teaching for EFI (English for the Internet) founded by David Winet

ESL online 1997 – 2004

Founding member of the Webheads online English teaching and learning community

Current : facilitator on the Graduate Certificate in eLearning (TAFE SA); eLearning Networks of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework; independent elearning consultant

How do I work?

I know from my own life that something has changed. I am now a much more social learner. I like to draw on the knowledge of others who I can contact and with whom I can discuss issues... I have definitely changed the way I learn, and have found a more enjoyable way of learning. Technology, and the connections it affords, has made that possible.

I doubt that I could study a formal ‘course’ anymore….

My ‘TAG CLOUD’ folksonomy from http://del.icio.us/mikecogh

“ technology” “ future” TAGS

A GLOBAL AUDIENCE:

YouTube - http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =QjA5faZF1A8

Performance by a 13 yr old Korean boy

Jan 31st: 34,770,497 million views; 142796 comments

That’s more than the populations of

Israel 5.7m Denmark 5.3m Finland 5.1m New Zealand 3.6m Ireland 3.6m

Holland 16.4m

Australia 20.4m etc

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

Is it real?

Who are these 34.7 million people?

Copyright implications? – I can reuse the content for my own purposes

Who is exercising editorial control?

Disintermediation – the decline of the gatekeepers of content

Should students have access to sites like this? (see ‘ YouTube – a Class Act’)

How do students like this feel at school?

Should we be encouraging our students

to create content

To publish to these kinds of sites

Empowerment and realisation of identity through personal publishing to social networking sites

MIT; Jason and TV shows…..

DIGITAL STORY PLAYED AT THIS POINT AVAILABLE AT http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =Pue4FtOb3HM

PERSONAL PUBLISHING/ PARTICIPATORY MEDIA TOOLS

Blogs

Digital story telling

Podcasts

Flickr (photo sharing)

Wikis (Wikispaces.com) – collaborative workspaces

MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut (most popular in India)

Video repositories: YouTube, Google Video, BlipTV

http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =e5jtiJPlv4Y

YouTube in Chennai Media:

Indian YouTube Equivalents

http:// meravideo.com /

http:// apnatube.com /

http://layfile.com/

http:// www.aapkavideo.com

Facebook in India

… .these people are not your average Indian young people; they are from upper socio-economic tier of Mumbai. But one thing is clear, there is a revolution brewing in the Internet space.

Environments like Facebook and MySpace offer easy publishing tools, powerful communication mechanisms using multimedia experience…

http:// ngs.ics.uci.edu/blog/?p =779

Indian Initiative: babajob.com/babalife.com NY Times, Oct 30 th , 2007

Indian Technology in a Flat World http:// ngs.ics.uci.edu/blog/?p =849

It’s a Wild World http:// youtube.com/watch?v =T-t8tUED9MI “ Just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware.”

Are we sociologically ready?

What are our ethical responsibilities

as educators :

to our students?

to ourselves? (teacher sacked for

posting photo on MySpace )

Who are the Webheads?

“an experiment in world friendship through online language learning”

300 + members

Where are the Webheads? in approximately 50 countries To join the Webhead community send an email to [email_address] Or join in a 6 week online seminar: Becoming a Webhead in Jan/Feb - Becoming a Webhead 2008

See http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/unaccusative-verbs.aspx/ for commentary

http:// grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx

IN A CONNECTED WORLD:

Daily contact with the planet

In the supermarket…..Australian made products are made offshore

My neighbours may not be my closest companions

Overseas call centres

LOCAL GLOBAL LOCAL = (GLOCAL?)

Implications for the Classroom

The Local, Unconnected Pre-Global World

all dialogue was between teacher and students with some communication between students (but who was really listening?)

Internet

enter Internet tools: writing/speaking for an audience other than just your teacher ie authentic contexts for language learning

The Global, Connected World

Personal publishing tools/participatory media (without boundaries)

Teachers and students can now reach a global audience

Moot point : does everyone find this idea appealing?

Why might teachers create an online presence?

You will get wider recognition

Wider network of professional and personal contacts

Greater variety of options for learning activities

Place to store and record resources

Why might students create an online presence?

For students:

Developing (soft) skills for the knowledge era* (facility with technology, collaboration, conflict negotiation, problem solving, communication, adjusting to rapid change: ‘employability skills’)

Access to personal publishing tools for self-expression and realisation of identity

Excitement at publishing for a wider audience:

“ Thank you so much for being such supportive, all of you! I hope to continue my learning process and get ready to speak and write in English. I was really surprised to see all the people who wrote about our wiki. It's so cool because it was from all different places of the world... I think that's so great! :)” (Maria, Venezuela)

*Soft Skills and the Net (Terry Anderson) at http://terrya.edublogs.org/2007/09/30/distance-educators-and-dogma/

“ I blog therefore I am.”

Weblog search engine Technorati:

8,000 -17,000 new blogs created every single day.

a new weblog is created somewhere in the world every 5.8 seconds .

On average, approx 3 blogs are updated every second.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/13/8000_bloggers_per_day/ (13/4/06)

http://flickr.com/photos/dbarefoot/5279903/

From a student of Konrad Glogowski:

“ Hello Mr. Glogowski

It’s Phil, just in case you haven’t guessed already. I’d just like to thank you for a great year of blogging, and to wish you luck in the years ahead. You really managed to make a few of us into writers. I think writing/blogging will be something I’ll carry with me my whole life.”

(http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/)

MEDIA RICH BLOGS

http://english-ad.blogspot.com /

by students of Aiden Yeh

Aiden is an EFL Lecturer, Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages Kaohsiung, Taiwan MOVIE MULTILITERACY DIGITAL LITERACY ELITERACY

CONNECTIVISM: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age (George Siemens, University of Manitoba, Canada)

Principles of Connectivism:

Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning .

Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.

Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT

Does teacher know best?

Image courtesy of http://www.sussex.ac.uk/USIS/test/education/1-2-14.html

THE CROWD: Collective wisdom? Stupidity of the masses? Is our culture being re-written? Is the Internet killing our Culture? (Andrew Keen: the cult of the amateur)

THE MOBILE/CELL PHONE

Mobile/Cell Phone

Phone to web communications

Post photos to Flickr (flickr.com)

Post photos/videos to blog (moblog.co.uk)

Post audio to blog (hipcast.com)

Web to Phone via SMS (ipipi.com)

Lesson feedback

Spot quizzes

Anonymous contributions to controversial topics

SMS – may need to be taught; it is now a legitimate form of communication

http://flickr.com/photos/32912387@N00/171506548/

SLOW LEARNING "It is going to become very fashionable at some point to be disconnected," Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo predicts. "There are going to be people who wear their disconnectivity like a badge.“ ( http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070111/1a_tech-noxx.art.htm )

SLOW LEARNING: A Dangerous but Powerful Idea - Counter Acceleration and Speed with Slowness and Wholeness

Geetha Narayanan is Principal Investigator with Project Vision at the Centre for Education Research Training and Development (CERTAD) within the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in Bangalore, India.

Geetha Narayanan - Slowness as a pedagogy

consciously embrace the core value of slowness – both as way of being and as a way of learning

culture of immediacy values fast knowledge which in turn runs counter to the development of both the self and the mind.

The thoughtless and widespread use of technology as the universal solution to the rising need for fast knowledge is wrong and must be questioned. Often in developing countries, such as India, the term ‘digital divide’ is used to support the argument that the use of new technologies, alone, will create conditions of learning … That is not true

the new digital technologies are tools that allow for learners to develop their imaginations, to be able to play and to have fun, to be able to tell stories in different and exciting ways. But in order to generate value they need to be integrated into new forms and structures in an invisible and contextual manner - one where new media arts can sustain social change .

Slowness promotes “wellness of being”

HORIZONTAL V VERTICAL LEARNING

Horizontal Learning (multitasking) Instant Messaging Assignment SMS iPod Surfing Watching video/TV

Vertical Learning (single focus) Assignment: What were the principal factors that led to the Indonesian coup in 1965 and the eventual downfall of President Sukarno? (5000 words)

Horizontal v Vertical Learning

The discerning eteacher:

Acknowledges the nature and influence of horizontal learning (multitasking)

Knows when to encourage vertical learning (single focus activity)

Using RSS to aggregate content

Netvibes, Protopage, Pageflakes

The excellent eteacher:

has an online presence/website (eg course homepage on LMS, or own website, blog, etc)

Knows how to use technology for delivery and assessment and therefore has a blog, a wiki, or podcast site

Includes media in delivery and production of teaching materials and student assessment

Models and teaches digital literacy

Creates and provides digital resources

Teaches search, validation, and verification skills

Employs and models RSS as a means of aggregating and distributing content

Teaches about, and employs collaborative approaches

Switches between sage and guide as appropriate

Knows when to call in the wisdom of the experts to balance the wisdom of the crowd

Acknowledges the value of informal learning

Accepts that engaging learners is necessary (and that probably means using technology)

Acknowledges that students may assess the value of a resource via their networks rather than accept the word of the expert (teacher/lecturer)

Uses social bookmarking for collective mining and sharing of resources

Is a good (and frequent) online communicator

Knows how to effectively combine synchronous and asynchronous modes of delivery

Is able to teach in a virtual classroom/web conferencing environment (eg Centra, Elluminate, etc)

Must be e-connected and draw on the resources of their networks to remain current (and demonstrate to students)

AN EXAMPLE OF eTEACHING IN PRACTICE

IN CONCLUSION:

Living as a connected educator (Nancy White: ‘eliving’):

reduces the time you have available to attend to relationships locally

broadens your sphere of influence

widens your catchment area for information, knowledge, and collegiality.

involves reconceptualising the way you learn and the way you teach.

IN CONCLUSION:

Being a connected educator involves :

engaging with the world of participatory media

guiding students in this new disintermediated world

modelling the use of technology for lifelong learning

allowing time for ‘slow learning’ and reflection

It’s all about connections ……

Education by and large has not changed. Syllabus/curriculum is still rooted in a past paradigm of fixed knowledge. The world beyond classrooms has changed a great deal, and will continue to do so at an ever-increasing rate…… Photo courtesy of Sawrah, http://flickr.com/photos/sawrah/314474272/

Further Resources