Risks and opportunities in authentic learning via the Internet

Risks and opportunities inauthentic learning via the Internet
Matthew Allen, Curtin University

Summary of presentation
Learning, authenticity, education & assessment
Examples of authentic assessment
The general value of knowledge networking
Authentic learning as negotiation

I will lay out a brief conceptual ontology of learning and education to identify the specific way in which authentic learning is meaningful and achievable in education
Learning, authenticity, education & assessment

Learning and authentic learning
Learning is not doing (being / acting in the world)
Authentic learning is learning that approximates doing, serving as an interface between the two
At the interface something of the reality of practice influences the practising of practice
Authenticity is a product of the physical and social closeness of learning and doing

Learning and Education
Education is a form of learning in which someone – the teacher – must lead the student
Education is judgment: the leader determines when sufficient or excellent learning has occurred
Education is a social institution: learning somewhere else and some when else
Assessment and institutionalization can be a barrier to authentic learning experiences

Authenticity and Education
Education often involves significant efforts to include ‘authentic learning’
Authentic learning inverts learning-integrated work to become work-integrated learning
What divides education from learning (assessment and location) can actually produce the authenticity we seek

I will give some brief examples of authentic assessment tasks involving public knowledge networking in the Internet Communications degree at Curtin University
Examples of authentic assessment

Internet Communications: context
Students learn socio-cultural knowledge and applied skills, with Internet as both object of study and means of study for professional Internet communications : new-fashioned Arts degree
Students from other degrees, online and on-campus, traditional and Open Universities Australia, diverse abilities and expectations: “indeterminate” cohort

WEB101: an online web presence
The main assignment task was creating 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.

Web presence is not a blog: this page is the central node, but presence requires feeds, links, use of other services.

Note the artificiality – links to lots of other student blogs; the exegesis (for reflection / assessment)

WEB101: an 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)
To get the ‘authenticity’ and be an assessment: artificial constraints and not-quite-real features

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)

In these items, we see no hint of the ‘student’ nature of the project: (clever use of Web206 tag however to distinguish learning-specific elements / posts)

Student has not, perhaps, moved beyond the ‘student’ focus: but as he reflects, and is his own audience, he can learn to distinguish doing from studying.

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 andand reflective essay: doing and reflection captures the duality / complexity of authentic learning

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.

Mango team: excessively student? Perhaps – note cultural reference to programs such as Survivor; even in its playfulness it does capture something of the ‘start up’ culture inherent in the Internet.

One group produced screen-capture videos: while collected on a website, they are also published of course via Youtube. Note the way that they commingle with other Youtube videos, both from the unit and from other contexts for public consumption.

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.

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

No comments; problem but also opportunity; note the social media linking possibilities.

Note the way knowledge networking occurs – slideshare published; social media promotion via twitter; use of bit.ly utility (bit.ly has analytics in it)

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

Note the meta data – who, when, is it liked, tags, views

Group identity – visualisation of the point of the unit; metadata; invites contributions and memberships.

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.
Authenticity generated as much by the students as by the teacher / design: importance of leaders within the student cohort.

What I have not shown you
The Internet Studies Network Conference
Explore http://networkconference.netstudies.org
Presentation at http://slideshare.net/netcrit (with paper coming soon)

Reasons why any discipline can benefit from the use of the Internet by students engaging in assessed public knowledge networking
The general value of knowledge networking

Knowledge networking assists...
Learning within education often needs to reconfigure space/time to become authentic ( ‘proximity’)
Learning within education often requires role-playing / simulacra to become authentic( ‘proxy’)
Authentic learning becomes effective with reflection on the gap between learning and doing( perceiving the approximation)

Knowledge networking required
Knowledge networking is the contemporary direction / state of knowledge work
The knowledge networking condition influences where students are, and will be; and what professions and disciplines need
Authentic learning must be authentic to conditions of knowledge as well as everything else

A brief summation: authenticity is about a negotiation between teachers and learners of the authority by which the first demands compliance from the latter

the ‘real’ authenticity of learning is not a priori, but a negotiated compromise in which students must suspend their disbelief in being ‘students’ and teachers must stop ‘teaching’.
Authentic learning is always messy: it rewrites the rules of ‘who’ (or what) is in charge. The authority of the teacher gives way to authenticity...and some students don’t like that.

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

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Risks and opportunities in authentic learning via the Internet

by Matthew Allen on Nov 30, 2010

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Risks and opportunities in authentic learning via the Internet — Presentation Transcript