Link - an ALTC Fellowship project

LINKLearning in networks of knowledgean ALTC Fellowship project
Matthew Allen, Curtin University

Summary of presentation
Introduction
LINK I –Internet Communications at Curtin
LINK II – “Web 2.0” for knowledge networking
Conclusions – reflecting on the project process

The basics of my project:goals, foci, activities, events and outcomes
Introduction

Introduction: LINK in one slide
In simple terms, LINK sought to develop, trial and assess new methods of learning via the Internet. The aim was to assist the re-invigoration of university-level online learning by updating techniques and underlying pedagogic approaches to take account of the changing nature of the Internet in society today.
Critical to achieving this aim, was to focus on the way the Internet now easily and with sophistication hosts networks of knowledge and that this capability is its foundation for making learning more effective.
To successfully exploit the Internet’s capacity for enhanced student learning, the project focused on the pedagogic challenges of creating a student experience that is centred on knowledge production in a networked environment. The broad approach was to trial new ideas about learning via the Internet, utilizing the most recent forms of online knowledge activity.

Introduction: key goals
Develop, trial and assess new methods of learning via the Internet
Update techniques and underlying pedagogic approaches to account for changing nature of the Internet in society (catch up with Web 2.0)
Explore the Internet’s foundational capabilities for active knowledge production and analysis

Introduction: key foci
Learning is a subset of knowledge work: knowledge work is becoming knowledge networking, therefore learning is changing
Internet’s key capacity is for hosting networks of knowledge
Students’ learning experience should involve knowledge production in a networked environment

Introduction: key activities
Implement new techniques in Internet Communications linked directly to curriculum reform; formulate this work as action research – anticipations as hypotheses.
Conduct research into ‘web 2.0’ tools to discover what could work, and when, and how – and theorise‘web 2.0’ in terms of new forms of knowledge work

Introduction: key events
Several workshops to identify web 2.0 teaching and learning trends ... It ended up redefining a key outcome for what and how to disseminate
Formal presentation of ‘top 10’ tools – both what and why – (20+ universities)
Specialist workshops at four universities on key aspects of project
Papers at conferences and overseas institutions on foundational concepts / early results

Introduction: key outcomes
Embedded changes to curriculum and approaches within degree : coherent across all units and staff capability development
Research data on innovations in online learning, (focus on authentic learning experiences); data being worked on, first publications in press.
Extensive website coming outlining 50+ ‘web 2.0’ tools, plus suggested uses and framework for understanding

Brief summary of specific techniques used within eight units in the BA (Internet Communications)
LINK I – reshaping Internet Communications

Reshaping Internet Communications
The BA (Internet Communications) is a major program at Curtin University. It contains 11 units of study: all 11 are being developed as cutting-edge examples of learning in networks of knowledge. The following slides present basic ideas being applied, and lessons learned, for the eight units already up and running.

NET102: collaborative mindmap
Students individually contributed to a group mindmap: adding, amplifying existing entries
Task was a ‘summation’ activity, done after several topics had been discussed but also open for students to do the task as they went.

NET102: collaborative mindmap
Task did not scale particularly well when group size increased from 50 to 150: Internet connectivity (everyone can contribute) is its own constraint
Technology less challenging than the cognitive activity, which was unfamiliar to many students: simple tools can require complex skills

WEB101: online web presence
Students had to create a web presence, consisting of blog or wiki, plus interconnections to web 2.0 services (e.g. Twitter)
Done live to the Internet, no moderation, based on substantial discussion of issues, emphasis on experience and reflection.

WEB101: online web presence
Students were more enthusiastic and did more work for this task; they interpreted instructions better and went beyond the ‘minimum’
The task led students to share what they were working on for peer feedback (unprompted by us)
Technological competence was not necessarily evident; nor did it imply social competence with online tools

NET204: online conference
authentic learning experience of online conference including development of community approach to running it; entire unit designed around conference
students self-generated social media to support conference; utilised various online community tools to discuss and develop approach to running conference (positively rushed out of Blackboard!)

NET204: online conference
Three-week conference – more effective and more extensive and informed discussion, focused on papers, than ever experienced before
Student creativity with digital media needs to be unleashed by ceding of authority
Online technologies overcome simple time/space constraints (100+ 2000 word papers )

NET205: explaining net economics
Working in teams, students had to produce a report explaining how the economics of the Internet work: no guidance as to format – just ‘for an online audience’ : most used a wiki.
Other tasks supported the process of thinking about communicating with audiences, capturing individual learning outcomes and so on: the mix of assessment critical.

NET205: explaining net economics
Controlling the place of publication failed: students chose the tools and techniques that were meanigful to them.
Students reported that the audience they had in mind was, however, not ‘the general public’ but their fellow students.

WEB206: blogging for real
The main assignment task was a portfolio of writing, exploring different aspects of the writing process, guided by scaffolding and discussion
Done as a real blog – emphasis on something which they might continue with ‘as if’ not studying it (and some still are)

WEB206: blogging for real
No requirement to do anything but write: making the blog ‘work’ (social media, links etc) was left to students - yet they did it without needing assessment
The final assignment involved both the writing and reflective essay: doing and reflection captures the duality / complexity of authentic learning

NET303: online policy primer
Primarily, the unit uses ‘traditional’ assessment (which are, themselves, authentic to the context of learning advanced scholarly work): but also recognises the communication of such analysis to a wider public
Task was to take a specific website’s terms of service and present them critically to ‘users’ of that service: slideshow published via Slideshare

NET303: online policy primer
Digital content creation: a slideshow without voice is an important genre of knowledge object which is increasingly common online. Students understood what to do from the fact so many other presentations were there already
Authentic learning needs to integrate more than just the creation of knowledge objects online, but also the fostering of discussion about them online. No comments = a gap.

NET308: resource sharing group
Unit involves studying online collaboration and organisation (the individuated collective), is the most advanced unit students take in terms of required analytical / research skills
Task was to work together in a Diigo group sharing, annotating, commenting on resources relevant to individuals’ work in the unit; Diigo provides better group management than some other services

NET308: resource sharing group
Authentic to the subject at hand: task specifically modelled / exemplified the subject matter; involved bridges between on-campus, online, different cohorts, people working ‘together’ while not actually doing so.
importance of leaders within the student cohort which reminds us that students, not tools, make these tasks valuable.

NET390: learning network
Individual study project unit: has been run ‘individually’ (email as well as meetings) and via a ‘collaboratory’ (everyone shares ideas and activities within a learning management system site)
Change to use free groupware (with several affordances – Facebook-style updates, chat, calendar, shared documents)

NET390: learning network
The technology was positively regarded because it was more realistic and ‘like’ everyday Internet use and was more elegant and simple to use (even though it was free and relatively ‘beta’).
However the inherently indivdual nature of projects limited effectiveness of ‘groupware’ approach: disjunction between what tool would do vs what was needed.

So-called Web 2.0 tools provide diverse technologies to enable learning innovation based on knowledge networking
LINK II – “Web 2.0” tools

Link II – Web 2.0 tools
First – one example of the ‘top 1o’ tools presentation from 2010
Then – an overview of the way in which I will expand on this approach (50 tools)
Finally – an overarching understanding of ‘tools’

xtimeline a ‘web 2.0’ app for your teaching
(from the ‘top 10 tools’ presentation)

xtimeline
xtimeline enables users to create timelines of events, in a constrained but flexible format, with collaboration features, and public communication options

Key features...
Users create profiles for managing access and use of the site and its contents
Creation of knowledge objects (timelines) via input into data fields that develops a particular kind of thinking
Relationship of whole (timeline) and parts (events) is structured into the process
Collaboration via comments or co-editing

Ideas for using...
Tutorial groups work as groups on same timeline task, privately, then all are revealed and compared and contrasted
Practicum students use timeline as a “personal journey” tool as aid to reflective practice
“Empty” timeline established by teacher; students must discover what information goes against each date

Key conclusions about xtimeline
Timelines are the creation of knowledge objects, in a granular fashion, which are then combined to speak both their own knowledge and contribute to the overall story told by a larger knowledge object
Timelines, especially presented electronically, are interactive; they show graphically the relations between events, events and time, and the overall meta-event .
Collaboration is not only permitted by the system but the kind of knowledge to be created promotes collaborative endeavour; distinction, also, between collaboration on production and commentary on reception.

Link II – more tools
The overriding need, for most academics, is more information about the diverse array of applications, presented in a way that intuitively links them to teaching needs and learning possibilities
In all, 50 sites, services and applications will be presented ranging from ‘standards’ , through ‘intriguing’, and including some which call for exploration http://knowledgenetworklearning.net

Link II – overarching framework
But, there is a ‘trick’ (and all pedagogy is trickery, to some extent)
These tools and the research involved in selecting them ‘add up’ to a conceptualisation of web 2.0
This conceptualisation moves from ‘collaboration’ to shared cognition & knowledge networking

Web 2.0 for networked learning
Web 2.0
Is the term outdated? Perhaps it is confusing? Does it reflect the spirit of the technology, the people, or their symbiosis? What does it mean?
We need to move our appreciation from collaboration to shared cognition as the key notion within knowledge networking

50 most frequent words in a dataset of 139,000 words used to describe some 3,250 web 2.0 sites, services and applications
Web 2.0 word cloud

50 most frequent words in a dataset of 139,000 words used to describe some 3,250 web 2.0 sites, services and applications
Web 2.0 word cloud
Web 2.0 is what we are told it is...Web 2.0 is what we make of it

Grounded theory developed from playing, testing and analysing several hundred Web 2.0 sites and services.
Dynamics not categories

Grounded theory developed from playing, testing and analysing several hundred Web 2.0 sites and services.
Dynamics not categories
Web distributes knowledge work (people, places, devices)Distributed knowledge work is networked through the web

The digital knowledge ecology
Pumps
...draw on reservoirs of information and circulate it with various degrees of filtering, flavouring, and transformation through many channels and pipes...
Engines
...work with users as partners in the cognitive acts; can be structured, exploring time and idea, free-form, creative, transformational, reflective...

The digital knowledge ecology
Environments
... loose social networking utilities, detailed group-work systems, real-time interaction channels, they are spaces, mediated by technologies, within which people can act socially in knowledge work...
Outlets
... identified places & channels that connect knowledge work with its audiences, generating conversations and interactions, and feeding the reservoirs of information...

Making sense of an ALTC Fellow project, with the benefit of hindsight!
Conclusions

Conclusions - process
Fellowship project became integrated into everyday academic life with attendant benefits and challenges
Initial workshop led to a change of strategy, especially concerning broader dissemination and what was needed
Research approach changes the nature of ‘teaching and learning projects’

Conclusions - outcomes
The concept of ‘web presence’ – distributed, interlinked activities utilising the substance of the Internet
Agility as a new virtue for teaching and learning excellence
Complementary paradigms: network learning, even for fully online courses, exists in creative tension with formal educational structures.

Thank you....
Visit me http://netcrit.net
Tweet me @netcrit
Email me m.allen@curtin.edu.au
Slides at http://slideshare.net/netcrit

Link - an ALTC Fellowship project

by Matthew Allen

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 55

Statistics