Reading recommendations

Posted on 4th March 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Person reading a book with a book in each hand and a pile next to themToday Vicki and I are trying out a slow Twitter chat with questions themed around online and blended learning. A couple of questions later on today are about reading recommendations, and I thought I’d collect a few here.

First blogs. I read Steve Wheeler’s Learning with ‘e’s regularly (I’m also reading his book of the same name, which I recommend). I also love Terry Elliot‘s writings, particularly this. Simon Ensor confuses, provokes and stimulates my thoughts with his blog posts as does Ron Samul here. Then of course there’s Hybrid Pedagogy and Audrey Watters. And, of course, Mr rhizo himself, Dave Cormier.  Last, but by no means least is Kevin, who inspires my digital creations. I follow him pretty much everywhere. including his blog here.

I have a lot of books I want to read at the moment. I’m slow reading Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics by Jenkins, Ito and boyd at the moment – cannot recommend it highly enough. I’ve also dipped in and out of Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer and Reading the Visual: An Introduction to Teaching Multimodal Literacy by Frank Serafini – both excellent resources when thinking about online learning design.

I’m particularly interested in online communities, networks, collectives – what they are and what we call them – and A New Culture of Learning by Thomas and Seely Brown is a book that has helped shape my thinking, as has Agoraphobia and the modern learner by Dron and Anderson – I also note with glee the free download of their new book Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media.

Then, of course, there’s pedagogy. I’m half way through Mind in Society by Vygotsky and picked up Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide to get to grips with parts of Vygotsky. I’ve also got a pile of books about constructivism to plough through at some point.

Well, that’s my suggestions – what would you recommend?

flickr photo by Pimthida  shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Reading | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Spring is on the way

Posted on 28th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

It’s been a beautiful weekend. After so many weeks of rain, snow, sleet and drizzle it’s been sunny, though cold. As well as all the crocuses in the front lawn, today I noticed the first flowers peeping through in the back garden. Happy days.IMG_0270

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All photos by me shared under a CC-BY-SA-NC licence

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#onetree

Posted on 26th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

This week Kim’s photo challenge is about trees. Despite D&G’s dislike of trees:

We’re tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They’ve made us suffer too much. All of arborescent culture is founded on them, from biology to linguistics. Nothing is beautiful or loving or political aside from underground stems and aerial root, adventitious growths and rhizomes. ATP p15

I’m very fond of trees – especially the fruit trees that we planted 3 years ago. Here’s one of the apple trees earlier today:

Tiny apple tree

As you can see, it’s not much more than a twig at the moment, although it is starting to show signs of coming back to life after the winter:

Apple blossom buds

I’m looking forward to seeing it blossom over the next few months.

All photos by me shared on a CC-BY-NC-SA licence

Posted in D&G, Garden | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Scaffolding

Posted on 20th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

I know that some folk dislike the term scaffolding. For example, in a recent post Sean Michael Morris explains why he didn’t attempt to scaffold #MoocMooc, and that started a healthy debate about the metaphor. 

Scaffolding: Not just for construction workers anymore
Scaffolding: Not just for construction workers anymore flickr photo by kevin dooley shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Some love the concept, some hate it, some (like Giulia) think it depends how it’s used. For what it’s worth, that’s my opinion. And when thinking about adult learners in things like #MoocMooc, it’s probably fair enough to expect that we’ll get along without the help of scaffolds. But not all learners are in that position.

I can see why some folk dislike the metaphor. If you think literally about metal structures then it seems rigid and forced. But if, like me, you just think of it as a handy label for something that is often a good support for learners, then you might be able to ignore the visual image and focus on other times that this occurs.

2_riding
2_riding flickr photo by mcmrbt shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

So what if we think about scaffolding as being similar to stabilisers? As dissolvable stitches? As holding a child’s hand as they take their first steps? When I teach using the Jigsaw Classroom I begin with fairly structured lessons, and gradually provide less each week as students grow in ability and confidence. That’s what I mean by scaffolding – not pinning learners down to what I want them to think, but keeping a watchful eye over them as they find their feet – something like I was saying here.

For me the best analogy, though, is with parenting (and aunting – I never had kids myself, but I have a lot of nieces and nephews). Anybody who has had children “helping” them bake a cake will appreciate how much scaffolding occurs in order to let the children believe they did it all themselves – and how, gradually, children turn into competent and confident cooks.

Making Pizza
Making Pizza flickr photo by donnierayjones shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Posted in #MoocMooc, Jigsaw Technique, Learning, Online learning, Teaching | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

When is an ism useful?

Posted on 17th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

I responded to a tweet by Simon yesterday like this:

I did this basically to challenge the thought that subjectivity is the opposite of objectivism. Actually, with more space, I’d suggest that these things are all contrary points of view, and binary polarities is maybe not the way to go, but 140 characters and all that.

Anyway, Maha objected to there being a name for this:

Then Simon said:

And Maha replied:

So – no you don’t. And, as Maha said later, she was making fun. But sometimes it is useful to give something a name.

For example – I think that a lot of meaningful learning occurs by students putting things together for themselves, and not by learning by rote. I could call that “the theory that learning occurs by students putting things together for themselves, and not by learning by rote”, or “put-things-together-ism” but that’s kind of longwinded (and in the case of the former, not tweetable), or we could agree to call it constructivism. Well, actually we have agreed to call something like this constructivism already. I think it’s obvious that folk learn like this, but that doesn’t mean that giving it a label is wrong, or bad, or odd. In fact, it is helpful to have some shorthand to use – as long as you also remember to unpack it for those who do not come from a shared understanding. And likewise for social constructivism, or connectivism – they are words for things that I think are obvious – but that does not stop us wanting to name them.

I don’t see why perspectivism is any different from any of this.

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Philosophy, Teaching, Uncategorised | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Where’s the pedagogy?

Posted on 16th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

I love decorating my Christmas tree. Every year I buy more sparkly, shiny things and manage to cram them all onto my fairly small tree – much to N’s amazement and the cats’ delight. Some of the decorations are beautiful, like the bauble from Charlene:

Bauble
Bauble flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Some are not even ornaments, like my Dalek Mr Potato Head:

Mr Potato Head
Mr Potato Head flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

There’s no attempt to co-ordinate or be tasteful, there’s no need to limit myself to what is appropriate – as long as it’s shiny, a frog or a Doctor Who item it’s allowed. And that’s fine in my book – Christmas trees should be tacky and over the top. I appreciate some folk can make theirs look beautiful and themed, but that’s not for me.

Confused
Confused flickr photo by Guudmorning! shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

But when it comes to online course design it’s a different story. There, although the temptation is still to cram all of the shiny, exiting things into one place, it’s important to take a step back and ask what you are trying to achieve. Sure, it might seem innovative to ask your learners to use Snapchat, or Tumblr, or whatever the cool kidz are using this week – but before you do, you have to ask yourself what benefit will this be to your learners. Or, to put it more formally – what is the pedagogical justification for using X in your learning design? If you don’t ask this, you risk confusing your learners, or having them drop out altogether.

As educators we have a responsibility towards our learners*, and means that we need to take the time to think through our course design and ensure that activities align well with whichever pedagogy underpins our teaching practice. So while it might seem cutting edge to design a virtual lecture theatre in Minecraft** and have all learners to attend virtual lectures, if one has a constructivist or connectivist model, then once you think about it, you might realise that there are better, less exciting, ways of delivering meaningful learning.

* I’m not talking here about cMOOCy things like rhizos and the like, but of formal, paid-for courses.

** Idk if this can be done, mind you!

Posted in Online learning, Teaching, Technology | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Appreciative students

Posted on 15th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

White geranium I had a lovely chat with some of my students last week. It was a usual level 1 philosophy seminar and I’d put them into groups of 2-3 to go through some Rousseau quotes together and decide what to make of them. After about 25 minutes I said they could have a couple of minutes to wrap up and then we’d reconvene as a class.

One of them asked me about my PhD, and when I said it was on the importance of peer interaction to learning she told me that she thought it was a really interesting subject, and that she was realising that she learnt a lot more from her peers than from just reading or listening to a lecture. I agreed, and said that was why I’d got them working together.

She nodded and said she knew – and she appreciated it. It’s nice when a student appreciates you. 🙂

Flickr photo by me shared under a CC-BY-SA-NC

Posted in Learning, Philosophy, Teaching, University | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Feb 14th Rhizopoem

Posted on 14th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Blue and yellow irisGinger’s a rhizome

An iris is too

Some irises are pink

But this one is blue

 

 

 

flickr photo by tanakawho shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Posted in Poetry, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

When the student is ready …

Posted on 12th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

There’s a saying that is (apparently) falsely attributed to Buddha, which says that:

teacher appears
teacher appears flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

I was reminded of that during the latest #MoocMooc chat when Mark said that:

And Yishay replied to my tweet asking for clarification by saying that:

Quick as a flash, I replied with my version of this saying:

So what’s better? A teacher who waits in the wings till students need them, or one who “softly and silently vanishes away” when they are no longer needed? Or, rather, which is better when?

Flickr images by me under a CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0

Posted in #MoocMooc, Learning, Online learning, Teaching | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

In defence of the VLE

Posted on 8th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

It’s easy to bash the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). I’m not going to pretend that it is a universal panacea for online or blended learning, but it is not as bad as some folk make out.  I think it’s easy to forget just how difficult it can be to start out putting together online materials, and to keep up with this when it is only a small part of one’s workload (and when senior staff are oblivious to the time needed to produce good elearning materials, or to make realistic estimates of what percentage of one’s workload model it should be). So here’s a few points in defence of the VLE:

  1. It’s all in one place. Students do not have to remember multiple passwords or urls. Typically they just log in with the same username and password as they use for their uni email etc.. Staff do not need to learn how to use multiple bits of software, they only need to master the basics of one.
  2. It’s safe. Because it’s typically only open to authenticated users (i.e. staff/students in a course) there’s a low risk of trolls or vandals. This is important when trying to get students to engage in forums, for example. It’s also important that staff feel free to experiment without worrying asbout ridicule.
  3. It’s familiar. Students (tell us in surveys that they) appreciate the fact that course materials are located where they can easily find them. Staff can upload materials (relatively) quickly and easily.
  4. It’s owned by the University. Unlike third party apps, the data therefore belongs to the Uni – an important consideration when thinking about assessment. In-house ownership also means that changes to the interface need not come as a surprise (unlike Facebook, for example).
  5. It’s scaleable. For those of us who have to support large classes, this is important. Forums can be more manageable than individual emails; online submissions are more easily managed than paper ones.

So I’m not saying that this represents the best that teaching and learning can be, but I do think that we need to be realistic. By all means go beyond the VLE in your own teaching and learning, but don’t belittle those who are not as able or as confident as we are out in the wilds of the internet.

flickr photo by ShawnKimball shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Posted in #MoocMooc, Learning, Online learning, Teaching, Technology | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments