Darren Rees explores online learning experiences

Darren Rees Personal Identifier C6675225
Week 5, Activity 1, Forms of representation (OU Web Forum)
In this activity I became aware of my use of technology to facilitate
connections with other learners in an interactive, social and collaborative
process where I was able to ‘co-produce knowledge through activity’ (Brown et
al., 1989) . Thus I shared my own preferences with other learners who
expressed theirs and from this diversity of views, situated in an authentic
learning context, we were able to reflect and negotiate our understanding in a
dynamic discussion over a period of eight days, where twenty six postings (of
6098 words) were made by nine different members of the tutor group including
the tutor.
Reflection, review and think time
The asynchronous nature of the web discussion forum afforded reflection
and review time, enabling deeper understanding of topics, and developed my
critical thinking (Ghodrati &, 2011; Breen, 2011). For example, in the
discussion thread my post received a reply which was developed in succession
by three other participants who replied adding their own perspective, besides
my own continuing participation. The cumulative effect was a deeper
understanding as I was able to adjust my own thinking in the light of others
sharing theirs and my own reflection.
Trust holding human networks together
I have learned that I am able to use technology to virtually collaborate
working as part of a group and that a ‘shared understanding of a common sense
of purpose’ (Havard et al., 2008) and trust is vital to accomplish learning goals.
In the eloquent description of Stephenson (1998) ‘trust is the glue that makes
knowledge whole by holding human networks together’. Over the duration of
the first few weeks, I sensed in myself a growing trust in others learning in a
‘community of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Using technology for this exercise I noticed the limitation in one aspect
of my own preferential learning styles. For example, I prefer to synthesize and
summarize ideas and seek a sense of ‘finishedness’ in my posting, but this goes
against the inherently malleable characteristics of the Web 2.0 medium.
Imagining an open architecture of participation

Therefore I would re-create this learning activity as a practical and
philosophical exercise reflecting on how Web 2.0 characteristics – the
‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly, 2004) - could influence the design of
the media and task and what ‘pedagogical affordances’ (Dabbagh & Kitsantas,
2011) would accrue from these social media characteristics. For example,
RSS (Rich Site Summary) could be used to link content from one forum with
another. How would this impact learning and participation ?
Glahn et al. (2011) suggest that social tagging could be employed as a
means for stimulating reflection and metacognitive processes. In this activity, I
would like to see participants tag their posts thus enabling the creation of tag
clouds. Lavoué (2011, pp. 92-101) characterise these tag clouds as ‘negotiation
and comparison objects’. How do these objects hinder or help learning ? I
would want the learner to discuss and reflect on how implicit knowledge is
made explicit by the process of tagging.
Words 500
Week 3, Activity 1, Trying out OU Live on your own
Flow in play and exploration
This activity has helped me understand how play and exploration are
important in my use of technology for learning. As in Csikszentmihalyi (2002,
pp. 67-70) being immersed in the technology gave me a sense of flow. I found
Barab and Plucker’s view useful that ‘talent is not in the head or in the
environment, but in the variables of the flow itself’ (2002, p. 178) and thus in
this activity, my use of technology has enabled me learn through play and
exploration with others, socially constructing knowledge in ‘talented
transactions’ (2002, p. 179).
My first experience with OU Live in Week 3 came about purely by
chance after reading a tweet (using the revived #H800 hashtag) from another
Twitter user advertising a student session. This ‘dovetailing with social media’
(Pettit, 2014, p.14) enabled me to join a session with a fellow student in
Australia and another in the UK simultaneously. Since this first experiment, I
have taken part in regular OU live sessions becoming confident with the
technology.
Trust and identity in a virtual learning space

In this activity I was aware of feelings of anxiety surrounding my ‘more
freely transformable’ (Bayne, 2005) identity in a virtual learning space, and
these were reminscent of my experience of using IRC in the 1990s. In a
previous paper Bayne described the screen as functioning ‘to limit the intensity
of interpersonal contact’ (2004). I needed to explore this issue further,
particularly in relation to the use and non-use of webcam technology. During
the two OU Live Tutor sessions in Block 1, only the tutor used the webcam
during most of the session. This raised issues on trust and identity for me, and I
submitted my question to the tutor group as an item for future live discussion.
During a subsequent OU live session with myself and two others in the tutor
group (see Figure 1) we explored the issue, switched our webcams on and
recorded an hour of student-only OU live discussion. This seemed to
exemplify Stephenson’s (1998) theory that tacit knowledge is ‘stored in people’
and ‘actuated (shared) through trust formation’.
Learning to be online learners
Pettit (2014) resonated deeply with me in his suggestion that during
student OU live sessions we are ‘learning to be Master’s students, learning to be
online students’ (p. 25). The student session gave me a freedom to play and
explore, to own my learning, and to experiment in Havnes’ (2008) description
‘just outside the boundary of the formal curriculum’ (as cited in Pettit, 2014, p.
25).
Icebreaker and Starter
I would change this activity by requesting an icebreaker activity be
prepared before a session. Ericksen (2012) suggests using the webcam to show
something personal on the desk, or posting a suitable photo to the shared
whiteboard. In one student-led session my colleague, an experienced OU live
user, uploaded a help screen graphic for OU Live on to the whiteboard and this
served as a very effective starter activity focus for the session.
Words 498
Week 4, Activity 3, OU Live tutorial on Brown
From the sidelines, to the centre

This activity gave me a more mature understanding of how I use
technology to participate in ways which are peripheral to the activity, how my
participation is dynamic and congruent with my personality as a predominantly
introverted learner. Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest that participation in a
community of practice can be observing from the sidelines, or ‘legitimate
peripheral participation’. I learned to see the activity as a ‘process of
enculturation’ (Brown et al., 1989, p.33) and being apprenticed and
‘embedded’ (Herrington & Oliver, 1995) in an authentic learning situation. By
holding back and, in Brown’s memorable phrase, ‘linking, lurking and learning’
(2002 article), I observed the use of tools in the tutorial. For example, I noticed
the use of the recording facility, voting and the webcam. In later student
sessions, I would use these tools myself in a creative and central role.
Learning by doing tasks
I learned to use the OU Live software by using the software for
progressively more complex tasks, moving from observing my tutor and fellow
students to acting. As Reigleiluth (2012) suggests, task-based learning
enhances instrinsic motivation and engagement. This activity made me aware
of the extent to which I learn by doing and immersing myself in technological
tasks – or challenges - and view the experience as enjoyable and fun. In my
lifetime I have learned many skills by using technology. In the 1990s, I learned
system administration skills on UNIX-based systems by doing the task of
administering systems (eg. maintaining a mail, name or news server).
Similarly, I have learned beekeeping by keeping bees with a mentor, learned
mindfulness by sitting with a meditator-mentor, and nowadays I am learning
about about online learning by learning online, being situated with an authentic
task.
Redesigning for CPD (Continuous Professional Develoment)
I work as a supply teacher and CPD is a key professional issue. The
National Assembly for Wales’ Children, Young People and Education
Committee recently recommended in their report ‘Inquiry into Supply
Teaching’ that ‘the Welsh Government should promote the importance of face-
to-face CPD alongside online learning.... with specific focus on CPD for supply
teachers’ (2015, p.10). Therefore I would change the activity to make it more
relevant to my professional life, by designing a self-organised CPD session for
teachers using software similar to OU Live. I have indeed started on this task

in my practice. After a recent CPD session on growth mindset, I set up a forum
on the Hwb All-Wales VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) for teachers and
recruited a current membership of approximately thirty teachers. I am now in
the process of organising a webconference using the Webex platform.
Creating a knowledge-base
Brown illustrates the importance of creating a solid knowledge base out
of the fleeting conversations and stories ‘being told through the ether’ (2000,
p.17). How could the ephemeral but valuable conversations that happen in an
OU live session can be tranformed into a more solid, textual artefact? This
activity would be in addition to the ability to record the session.
Words 502
DISCUSSION
I found that ideas of acquisition metaphor (AM) and participation
metaphor (PM) useful in partly illuminating my understanding of my
experiences, but that further illumination was required in the form of additional
metaphors : an identity change metaphor (IM) such as that in Bayne (2005) and
Rogers (1961) , a knowledge creation metaphor (KM) as in Paavola and
Hakkarainen (2005), and a connectivism metaphor (CM) as in Siemens (2004).
The activities had a yeast-like energising effect on my learning. My
participation elsewhere in other social learning networks multipied. In the
space of few weeks I had resumed blogging (after a seven year ‘retirement’),
tweeting, and created social learning networks (eg. on Hwb, the All-Wales
Teachers’ VLE and a H800 module user group on Facebook) for CPD purposes.
It felt like I was on a Kolbian cycle of growth through experience and reflection
(Kolb, 1984). In Sfard’s description the ‘permanence of having gives way to
the constant flux of doing’ (1998). This was my kinesis in response to the
stimulus of the activities.
I was becoming. As noted in my definition of learning in Activity 1,
Week 4 I defined learning as ‘a journey and process of becoming... an ongoing
renewal’ (Rees, 2016). By omitting to specify that becoming meant becoming
a part of a ‘social group’ I express my humanistic emphasis putting the
individual before the community. Sfard gives the PM perspective that

‘learning a subject is now conceived of as a process of becoming a member of a
community’ (1998). Brown argues this PM view that learning ‘advances
through collaborative social interaction and the social construction of
knowledge’ and that it is ‘a process of enculturation’ (1989). In my increasing
functioning in a community of practice, I sensed this growing enculturation
which, importantly, requires more than the AM and PM metaphor to explain
itself.
I would qualify this social, collaborative and community emphasis in the
above discussion because it does not account for my own personal experience in
the activities and what I sense as the value and validity of solitary learning. I
believe there is a need to differentiate online learning so that, in the eloquent
words of Ke & Carr-Chellman (2006), ‘solitary learners understand the value of
collaboration, while also feeling valued as learners’ (p. 261). I perceive a
simplification in Brown’s emphasis on social interaction. I acknowledge, in the
interests of balance, that I am influenced in my perception here by my recent
experience situating myself in a solitary and silent retreat for several days
during the start of Block 1 of the H800 module. This was an experience where I
learned a tremendous amount, being authentically situated as part of a
community of practice, but nonetheless had extremely limited social interaction.
Brown highlights the blurred boundary between production/participation
(PM) and consumption/acquisition (AM) in today’s ‘remix world’ where ‘I
produce, other people consume it’ (2002).

Figure 1 – Welcome to the Remix World
I further imagine the blending of these metaphors in considering my own
learning : in the process of becoming a part (PM) of a community of practice I
have acquired participatory skills (AM), and I have changed as a person (IM)
becoming a more ‘fully functioning person’ (Rogers, 1961) or better learner.
Knowledge (KM) has been created in the community through collaboration.
But none of these myriad of metaphors accounted for my moment of epiphany
during the course when it dawned on me that people could be ‘surrogates for
knowledge’ (Stephenson, 1998) and that cognition could be distributed and
externalised as part of a network. Connectivism is a suitable alternative
metaphor to add to my sensemaking to explain this.
Siemens’ (2004) connectivism ‘is the integration of principles explored
by chaos, network, and complexity’ and ‘where learning can reside outside of
ourselves (within an organization or a database)’. I found Siemens’ emphasis
on chaos, networking and complexity useful in understanding the effervescence
of H800 discussion, where discussion has became dispersed beyond the initial
OU web forums to social media sites like Twitter, migrating to new forums such
as a Facebook group (see Figure 2).
These activities are intricately interwoven – or networked – with the
chosen learning activities I have described above. Connectivism clarifies this
for me and sits nicely with Brown’s (2007) conference discussion on ‘open
participatory learning’ :

'How do you actually do this in a way that this ecosystem is not only
crosspollinating with itself but this ecosystem is getting better and better and
better with use?' (Open Learn Conference presentation, Brown, 2007)
Strenski counsels that ‘metaphors have consequences. They reflect and
shape our attitudes and, in turn, determine our behaviour’ (Strenski, 1989, p.
137). My attitude values diversity and openness and self-knowledge and this
is reflected in my remixing of many metaphors. As in Sfard’s case I am at ease
that this offers me ‘local sensemaking’ (1998).
Words 798
Total Words 2300
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