At the start I thought the Visitor/Resident continuum was primarily about the degree of comfort learners have with the learning environment. What I have observed about my own student-teachers is that many of them ‘reside’ online in a social sense; they may feel ‘at home’ on Facebook, for example. They feel relatively safe there; they choose who they share their space with and feel that they have a sense of ownership of their space. They feel they have a sufficient degree of control over what goes on in that space. However, when they are working on the blog-based reading and discussion activities I’ve set them, or uploading their first video to Process Arts, they may not feel so much ‘at home’. They may feel their safety is being compromised as they share their thoughts and their work with the world, expose their uncertainties and open themselves up to judgement from their peers. They may not feel that they ‘own’ their space or their actions within it; although it is ‘their’ space, it is also NOT their space; I have instructed them to create the space and have dictated certain aspects of what happens within it.

So (still working within my initial understanding of the Visitor/Resident concept), I found myself asking whether it mattered that my student-teachers feel and behave like visitors rather than residents in our online learning spaces. Learning is not supposed to be comfortable; it requires the expansion of boundaries and questioning of assumptions. The last seven months have certainly been challenging for the learners I work with, but we got there, and I can honestly say it has been the most rewarding time of my life, seeing them change and grow. In addition to having grasped the fundamental concept that teaching is something that is best done with one’s mouth shut, many have also now realised that sharing their practice on the open web will not result in the sky falling on their heads. The others are at least peering around the doorframe and are on the way to crossing that particular threshold.

So at first, I thought the question I should be asking myself was whether I should prioritise the nudging of each learner towards the Resident end of the spectrum; helping them to feel more comfortable, safe and in control. I’ve concluded that I would like my student-teachers to feel a little more comfortable in the learning environment, to the point where they are more willing to persist with it, and the grade awarded for participation is not such a significant factor in their engagement. Fortunately I now have additional resources in the form of several hundred blog posts and over fifty three-minute videos that have been produced by the current cohort; these will come in handy next year when I need to model the online learning behaviours that are required to complete the course. In particular, I have good examples of blogs – and even videos – that have been completed anonymously using pseudonyms and other techniques. This is a much more appropriate stepping-stone to open practice than keeping a private blog or producing a video that remains on a CD.
I have tried to make plenty of space and time for open dialogue about the learning activities and tools/environments within the course, in order to deal with any anxieties. The feedback I received this week told me what I already suspected; firstly that the interim (formative) peer assessment sessions were incredibly valuable in surfacing and addressing the difficulties learners were experiencing, and perhaps these should come earlier in each unit. Secondly, the learners felt they needed more f2f time to gain familiarity with new tools and environments. The session on the first day where we get them to set up their blogs needs to be longer, so that they can experiment not only with writing, but also with commenting, changing settings and working with group and networking tools. They also need more technical support in producing videos for the web – in particular how to ensure a manageable file size. These changes have already been implemented in the 2012-13 schedule.

However… talking with Dave White during the afternoon, I began to realise that the visiting/residing distinction isn’t just about perceptions of comfort and safety, familiarity and control. It dawned on me that ‘residing’ is an immersed state of mind. Delegates on a residential course or conference, for example (or undergraduates living in halls for another), are engaged in the learning experience full-time. Although their engagement during that time is variable, it is persistent, and there is a blurring of the boundaries between formal and informal, professional and personal.

This realisation transformed and deepened how I saw the visiting/residing distinction as being useful for course design and teaching. Finding strategies that enable learners to feel a little more comfortable within the learning environment is one thing, but the fact remains that that each group of learners will vary in their ‘immersedness’. There will be numerous external factors impacting on the degree to which a learner chooses to engage with a course, and there should actually be no reason why – as a couple of people pointed out to me on Twitter on Thursday – why a ‘visitor’ cannot feel as comfortable engaging with a course, or learn as much, as a ‘resident’ might. This doesn’t mean my earlier reflections are defunct; I think taking steps to minimise the discomfort of all learners is a vital aspect of ensuring everyone’s needs are met. But it does serve as a reminder that my courses should not expect or require the total immersion implied in ‘residency’, but be inclusive of all learners.

Here is my perspective; we are all consumers. We all want stuff and take stuff from people. It stands to reason that, as fellow human beings we are on the other end of it too; people want things from us, and we often provide them. It’s a two-way street.

Now, constantly providing for people is not easy. Even if we collect a salary from it, it can feel relentless and unrewarding, and on occasion we may decide that the level of provision people expect from us is unsustainable. We may need to make changes so that our provision is more efficient, or our ‘consumers’ are empowered to find what they need without our help. Fair enough, you may say – but what about when we’re the consumer? How do we feel when we are seeking something from someone else and we are turned away? If we’re working within a structure where we are empowered to find the answers for ourselves, or in discussion with others – and those self-sought answers are seen to have value, then fine; we may learn to be content with our independence. But building these structures takes time.

Take the example of this conference. Imagine a few hundred people in a room, nodding sagely at the suggestion that students should be treated as co-creators of knowledge, and consumerism in HE should be crushed. Now let me share three things I heard or saw at that same conference, earlier that same day:

1. (surprised, mildly disapproving tone) ‘well, that’s a novel approach to a keynote, asking us to come up with the answers!’ [AUA delegate sitting next to me during Sarah Porter's keynote]

2. ‘Well, I don’t know, that’s what I came to this session to find out!’ [AUA delegate in our workshop, during a group activity]

3. Please assess this session on:

a) Quality of Presentation and Delivery
b) Content
c) Overall

[standard AUA session evaluation proforma - N.B. these were the only three elements listed]

I hope these observations serve to illustrate what I’m trying to say; it all comes down to the Golden Rule; Treat others as you would expect to be treated. Don’t expect people to change their ‘consumerist’ attitudes and behaviours without the necessary infrastructure and a number of positive experiences to support a change in attitude. In the first two examples, previous conceptions of learning were being challenged – hopefully successfully, but given the design of the session evaluation forms we may never find out

My old MA tutor Jack Whitehead taught me that thoughts and words are pretty useless without actions, so my action arising from these thoughts is going to be to get in touch with the AUA people to suggest they change their session evaluation forms for next year to focus on what the delegate did during the session (and what they may do as a result of it), rather than what the ‘presenter’ did. Any suggestions for how they might word that…? Answers below…?!

The impact of a professional development programme on teachers’ use of learning technologies

…and I’ve revised my responses to those questions:

Dissertation – initial ideas and key questions

What is my dissertation about (what’s my research question)?
Can regular peer- and self-assessed learning activities, completed through the medium of weblogs, encourage constructive collaboration between learners and associative thinking, increase understanding of assessment criteria and the benefits and challenges of peer assessment, and improve aspects of participants’ digital literacy?

Why is my topic interesting?
The use of blog-based learning activities has been trialled by a number of educators since the mid 2000’s. Like many educational technologies, blogging has weathered a period of hype and a subsequent backlash from users whose inflated expectations were not met. As educators’ collective understanding of the affordances and limitations of this technology improves, its use is now beginning to move into the mainstream, particularly in the professional and creative education sectors.

Key challenges and questions remain about the use of blogs in education; for example their limitations as a tool for facilitating discussion and the technical barriers to their use. Some (e.g. O’Donnell 2006, p8) have have made particular recommendations for their effective use. However, the question I am posing is not merely about the use of blogs in learning; it is also about the value of engaging learners with peer assessment and the selection and use of assessment criteria; teaching practices that are generally thought of as highly desirable for effective learning, but difficult to manage efficiently.

Is my research question a single question?
I have phrased it as such, but the current question specifies five different outcomes that I feel are worth measuring;

• constructive collaboration between learners
• associative thinking
• understanding of assessment criteria
• appreciation of benefits and challenges of peer assessment
• aspects of digital literacy

This question requires me to research and present a hypothesis for each outcome. Evaluating each outcome will not be so much of a problem as I would be gathering data for each outcome from the same sources; the work produced by students through the blog-based learning activities and the final assessment task, and the results of focus groups, interviews and questionnaires.

Is my research question manageable within the time and word constraints of this dissertation?
I don’t think the range of outcomes being measured will make much of a difference to the time this study will take; however attempting to hypothesise and measure all five outcomes within 15,000 words may restrict the depth of the analysis.

An alternative I am considering is to focus purely on the digital literacy issue. I am currently closely involved in our institution’s JISC-funded Developing Digital Literacies project. In collaboration with the PG Cert participants I will be carrying out baselining of existing digital literacies, interventions to develop digital literacy (such as the introduction of the aforementioned blogging activities!), and evaluating the impact of these interventions on participants’ digital literacy. Documenting and discussing these activities and findings rigorously under the banner of a Masters’ dissertation, in addition to the report and resources that will be produced as outputs of the JISC-funded project, may add depth and purpose to the activity.

How is my topic related to gaps I am finding in the literature?
A sense that there is currently a gap in the pedagogic research literature is what is prompting me to study the combination of blog-based learning activities in distributed online environments with peer and self assessment. There are more and more studies beginning to emerge that deal with either one or the other. I recently spoke with Dr Jennie Paterson about her study at the University of Edinburgh where they have utilised blog-based learning activities across several programmes but not (yet) attempted to combine this with peer and self assessment. It may be the case that such studies are often initiated – and at least strongly supported – by e-learning developers and learning technologists, who are more likely to be exploring or evaluating a particular tool or technology, rather than taking a broader approach to the design of learning activities and assessment.

There is an argument that if I were to focus on the digital literacy issue, this would also serve to fill a gap in the literature; digital literacy is a relatively young topic of research, with arguably the most significant body of research emerging in 2009 out of the JISC-funded LLiDA (Learning Literacies in a Digital Age) project. The current Developing Digital Literacies project strand, also funded by JISC and involving 12 HEIs, and other professional bodies such as SEDA, is running from 2011-2013. The fact that the JISC is investing a significant amount of funding into these projects is an indicator of the value this authoritative body places on further research and development in this area.

How might my research be unique in its contribution?
In answering this question, I find myself returning back to my original idea to plan, execute and evaluate a particular series of activities against five desired outcomes. I feel that this approach is perhaps a little unusual (hopefully not unique!) in its thoughtful learning design that utilises appropriate technologies without being preoccupied with the technologies used, or aiming to attribute particular qualities or benefits to the technologies themselves. Many learning and teaching departments consist of two halves; e-learning development and academic staff development, which I have observed in several cases as working side by side rather than truly together. I’m not going to claim that academic staff developers are generally backwards in using technology – I know a few who are very much ahead of the game – but my position as a Lecturer in Learning and Teaching who has moved across from e-learning is fairly rare. When I worked at the University of Bath I found it frustrating that the PGCAPP did not put learning technologies to any significant use across the units of study, apart from the (optional) e-learning unit, which was led and taught by members of the e-learning team. I was concerned about the message that gives to participants; that teaching and learning with technology is not only optional, but something that regular teachers – in fact, even those whose job it is to teach teachers – don’t engage with. What I want to do with this research is to apply a range of principles of good practice in teaching and learning, facilitated with appropriate technologies, to improve the alignment of learning and assessment activities with desired learning outcomes. Nothing flashy – and arguably nothing unique – but potentially very useful.

Who is this research for and what it will it provide them?
This research is primarily for the participants and course teams of academic staff development programmes. I want to show how a joined-up approach to course design – utilising key principles such as constructive alignment and peer assessment, and appropriate technologies – can achieve a variety of desirable outcomes, to identify where the approaches used fall short of achieving their potential, and what may be done differently in order to improve matters.

This research is also for me; to put into practice many of the lessons I have learned throughout my studies on the Masters in Education programme and to show a culmination of my own development from understanding how people learn, to good assessment design, technologies for learning, executing educational change and undertaking educational research.

How practical is my research – will I have enough time to carry out my research?
This is something I would be doing anyway; I will just be evaluating it more rigorously than I may have otherwise done.

How is my research linked with ‘great debates’ and/or major schools of thought?
I think the ‘great debate’ that is going to be most relevant here is the value of online reflection and communication versus ‘traditional’ or ‘analogue’ means. A significant proportion of the teachers on our PG Cert programme work in very hands-on craft disciplines such as painting, drawing, bookbinding, etc., and I have sensed a perception, particularly among new entrants to the programme, of a debate about whether digital technologies are inherently ‘good’ or ‘evil’. I expect – and hope – such ideas and perceptions will surface in the conversations I have with participants throughout the various stages of this project, because they are very interesting and relevant to all disciplines. The exciting aspect about working with Art and Design teachers is that the debate feels more polarised than, for example, in the social sciences.

Another ‘great debate’ that this project is relevant to is the question so many e-learning and educational developers are currently asking (and have been for the last few years); how do we get more teachers using appropriate technologies for learning and teaching? I firmly believe, and will tell anyone willing to listen, that the answer lies in providing teachers with a positive learning experience of their own, within which such technologies are embedded. Maybe this should be my research question?!

How is my methodological framework the best for my research question?
I am proposing to use an action research methodology; it is the methodology I am the most familiar with, and I feel that it is appropriate to this study as I am executing an intervention in my own teaching practice.

Is my dissertation going to be a literature review or an empirical-based research study?
It’s going to be an Action Research study. Is that the same as an empirical-based research study? (I should probably know the answer to that, shouldn’t I!)

What philosophical and epistemological frameworks are guiding my research question and methodological framework and for what reasons?
That’s a lot of long words. Crumbs, these questions are getting difficult…

What are the potential limitations of my research?
The research will be situated in my own context of a blended Academic Practice PG Cert programme in a collegiate Art and Design focused HEI. I fully intend to frame my conclusions in a way that is useful to others and I hope that the discipline-specific nature of the programme and the institution will not be a significant limitation to wider relevance; my own teaching background is in secondary science and as yet I have not come across any aspects of teaching and learning in Art & Design that are not relevant to a range of other disciplines.

Phew… all comments, questions hugely welcomed…

One of my favourite bits:

“when we reach a certain state of freedom, we immediately discover we have another one to attain”

Like power, and oppression, freedom is relative. This year, the CCK11 facilitators decided to do away with the Moodle forums and move to an entirely distributed model, primarily in an attempt to prevent a small number of dominant individuals from controlling the forums. Having been liberated from this particular form of oppression, a proportion of participants felt that they were now being shoehorned into working in a more distributed way than they would have liked. Are we now grappling with Illich’s principle of counterproductivity? A critical point at which we can no longer liberate in one way without oppressing in another? Have we reached a threshold of expertise in connectivism and connectivist knowledge where what we produce begins to counter what we set out to achieve?

During Friday’s live session, Stephen posed a question on the whiteboard – something along the lines of ‘how do we avoid oppressing others/our students?’ Many participants contributed suggestions like ‘giving more choice’, ‘more freedom’, ‘more flexibility in the learning experience’, ‘negotiated assessment’, etc. I think I wrote ‘find out what makes them tick’. As I’ve mentioned previously, I teach on the postgraduate professional development courses we offer our full-time and associate teaching staff. I was relieved when Stephen posted up a link to a post from Tony Bates suggesting that more choice & freedom in the learning experience might not be so desirable. Offers of choice and freedom don’t generally go down well with my PG Cert students – an experience echoed in Tony’s quote from Guri-Rosenblit and Gros (2011):

“Most students…are unable and unwilling to control fully or largely their studies.”

This mismatch between the learning preferences shared by my personal learning network, and the dominant preferences of my own students, brings me back to the question of the design of the CCK11 course being particularly – and perhaps solely – appropriate to those interested in MOOCs and connectivism. Would a MOOC in applied general pedagogic theory work? Would it appeal? Probably not. Would it be more realistic to try and incorporate MOOC-like elements (okay, cut the M; ‘OOC’-like elements) into a general applied pedagogy course? Because I have tried – in a dabbling, non-committal kind of way. I’ve facilitated debates on the role of networked technologies in learning, provided examples and case studies, shown my groups how I use blogs and Twitter in my own learning, started group blogs, asked them to set up online research journals… yada yada yada. Some have taken the bait, but an abridged version of the exchanges I’ve had on the topic over the last two years probably looks something like this:

ME: So, having done this activity, do you think this is something you might see a use for in your own practice?
PARTICIPANTS: No. I can’t think of anything worse. This kind of thing epitomises everything I think is wrong with the world today. How on earth do people have time to do this kind of stuff, and why on earth would they want to? What’s wrong with having a proper conversation, with someone you genuinely know, in the real world?

Over time, I’ve developed the following explanation that seems to help:

Imagine a triangle. The three points represent ‘self-development’, ‘helping others’, and ‘ego’. Every interaction – online or offline – can be said to occupy a particular point within that triangle, depending on the relative contribution of these three motivating factors. With online interactions, particularly those of a one-to-many nature, we can immediately see that there is greater potential for both helping others, and boosting ego. I honestly feel that the majority of people in my own network prefer to learn in this way because they have experienced a greater degree of self-development. That’s not to say ego doesn’t come into it; similarly with altruism – either of these may also be the dominant factors, and they often are!

In my experience of trying to introduce this kind of learning to those for whom it is entirely alien, this explanation seems to go down best. I’d be interested to find out if others have had similar experiences, and how you go about introducing the uninitiated to networked learning.

My cat died a week ago (www.twitter.com/snoodgit). She was fussing to be let out at bedtime to torment the frogs so I relented, and she promptly snuck out the front and got boshed by a car. We found her in the morning, laid out on the pavement, the injured side of her little head turned away so it wouldn’t scare passing schoolchildren.

So I chose to learn alone this week. I’ve needed something to distract my brain from the memory of picking up her rigid little body but I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, or even dipping into the newsletter or the facebook group. I think I agree with Stephen about learning networks being built on rationality rather than emotion, and I’ve been rather too emotional to focus on learning conversations. But – reading Keith Hamon’s post on complexity and PLEs showed me the perspective that I haven’t actually been learning alone but within the ‘learning apparatus and context’ of CCK11. Right now I’m preparing to offer my ‘solitary learning’ back into the network. This evening I’ll drop in to the live elluminate session to pick up and offer some further insights and to finish off the week I’ll try to make some practical conclusions to share with others.

So – here are some key ideas I picked out from the readings this week – the ones that particularly resonated with me:

Adaptive systems have internal reactivity. All the biological systems I can think of incorporate complicated feedback loops that can make predicting the observable reaction to any event pretty difficult. With the little I know of economics I can see something similar. However, taking a broader perspective causes most phenomena to seem more stable and/or predictable.

We are complex adaptive systems within complex adaptive systems.

I like that single-celled organisms equal half the world’s biomass; that prokaryotic cells, too small to be seen, have more mass all together than all the world’s forests, meerkats, humans, fish, coral reefs, cabbages and cows. I love that there are many more different species of these single-celled organisms than there are types of insect, tree, mammal, arthropod and flowering plant. It seems to be a common belief that evolution equals increasing complexity, but in truth (if truth exists) while some trends favour complexity, others drive systems towards more simple states.

There is a distinction as I see it between reactive adaptation and intelligent adaptation; with the latter there is another level of adaptation (‘learning’?) in response to adaptation itself. The system ‘learns’ through its adaptations to influence, predict and prepare for change.

If you take CCK11 to be a complex adaptive system, we are reminded that it only has to be slightly better than its competitors to thrive. At the moment the Facebook group, blogs and GRSShopper appear to be chopping and changing as the tool of the moment, which is interesting to observe. At any particular point in the course, what is ‘better’ about the tool or environment that is clearly out in front? If all appear to be thriving equally, what’s going on behind the scenes?  I’m going to try and address questions such as these in my MA assignment on Technologies for Learning.

Finally – one of the most interesting ideas I took away from this week’s reading material is that the most productive state to be in is at the edge of chaos – where variety and creativity rub shoulders with competition and co-operation. I’m not, as a rule, that comfortable with chaos. I appreciate the opportunity to dip my toe in it every now and again, provided I can take it out again when I want to and put my slippers back on – like I have done this week :-/

As a result, I did a concept mapping activity with both my tutor groups last week. They are currently starting small-scale teaching development projects of their own, and a common anxiety among them is their lack of knowledge of educational theory and pedagogic research. I wanted to get them exploring what they already know and understand in terms of the connections between things they’ve read, heard, discussed and experienced.

I started off by pairing them up and suggesting they share what they thought of as their central topic or concept – in most cases this would be their action research question – and help each other come up with three or four aspects of the concept to explore on their maps. I then gave them around 15-20 minutes to start constructing the maps before getting feedback from them on what they would take away from the activity, and what challenges they encountered in constructing the maps.

Everyone in the group said that in the process of starting to construct the map they had a) realised they knew more than they thought they did and b) uncovered at least one aspect that they hadn’t yet investigated at all, but which could be quite central to their study. So the activity definitely appeared to have some value; it will be interesting to get more feedback from them later on in the year when they are writing up their projects.

The most common challenge identified was the organisation of the maps; we were using paper and pens and some people were making flexible maps using post-its (well, just sticky notes – I’m not sure they were the leading brand). I suggested they might want to do a little planning first in order to make the best use of the space but in hindsight I’m not sure the process benefits from too much organisation! I did supply sticky tape so they could create bigger sheets of paper if they wanted, but what I would really like to do is something like my colleague Paul did when hosting the most excellent JISC Mediating Boundaries event in May – he got the participants to write and draw on paper tablecloths (see image).

The Mediating Boundaries event at LCC in May 2010

I think our scribblings eventually got transmogrified into an electronic uber-mind-map on flickr.

My guess is that anything I can do to bring the focus on the identification of connections, rather than the mechanics of organising them, will result in a more valuable experience and a more useful outcome.

I said before that personally I think I’m completely rubbish at drawing concept maps, but after forcing myself to give it a go, and having the opportunity to do this in a group and share our thoughts about it, I think I might try it again. like many things, it’s going to take practice – good old David Kolb and his experiential learning cycle again…! Next time I might use Prezi; that should help me break the mental shackles of the A3 sheet of paper

I found myself referring to Actor-Network theory a few times over the last two days; we were discussing the conceptualisation stage of the reflection/experiential learning cycle and how we come up with new ideas. We concluded that, when we take the perspective of ourselves as existing within an actor network, it becomes apparent how other ‘actors’ have influenced, contributed to and/or enabled our ideas and actions to take shape. We thought it might be a particularly helpful lens at those points where we feel ‘stuck’ and unsure of how to move forward; seeing ourselves not as struggling in isolation but surrounded by a network of actors that is in constant flux. The right combination of actors/actants may at any point align to facilitate a productive connection.

The format of the University of Colorado Denver resource linked to in the Week 4 resources didn’t go unnoticed. There was a definite message in the medium here as well; a series of discrete descriptions and explanations of actor-network theory from a selection of thinkers. There was wide variety in the emphasis and depth of these descriptions but they were all presented equally; this resource wasn’t about synthesis, comparison or analysis; they were presented simply as a collection of nodes of knowledge. Very connectivist
I feel just about ready to move on to Week 5 now, having already delved into connectivism and its distinction from other perspectives on learning while grappling with the week 1 materials. The theme of Week 5 – groups and networks – has serendipitously (or deliberately?) coincided with that phase of the course where it seems many people have dropped off the radar. The blog feeds are tailing off and the feeling is less ‘where do I begin – how do I stop?’ and more ‘where has the good stuff gone?’. It might be a good time to think about the longevity of learning groups and how this is influenced by the existence (or lack) of shared aims and learning outcomes.

I work with Art & Design teachers at postgraduate level; mostly those who are working towards their PG Cert in Learning & Teaching. The mix of artistic disciplines is mind-blowing; we have film-makers, performance artists, letterpress technicians, painters and sculptors, photographers and fashion designers… and the rest. Some are relatively new to teaching but most have been teaching for many years; the majority for far longer than I have, which means I often feel uncomfortable referring to myself as their ‘tutor’.

So what do I want for my tutees? I’d like them to experience, and enjoy, learning like this. I’d like them to see that learning, or education, should be complex rather than complicated. I’d like them to take a look through the lens of actor network theory, and to benefit from recognising that they can draw upon each others’ knowledge, experience and skills almost as readily as they can their own. I would also like them to want their own students to learn in this way too.

How do I start them off on this journey? George raised some practical starting points in his video with Richard Schwier. 1) Encouraging the use of concept maps; 2) Bringing in practitioners from outside the boundaries of the course and the institution and connecting with them in a productive way; 3) Using resources that have been created by others and highlighting this in order to raise awareness of the potential connections beyond the institution, beyond London and the UK.

I already do a lot of (3), and I’ve had feedback from many participants to the effect that this kind of activity has significantly broadened their perspective and their awareness of the wealth of resources that are out there for the taking. My attempts to connect participants with external events and practitioners would benefit from being incorporated into the course as core activities. At the moment they are presented – and unsurprisingly perceived – as extra-curricular. I think my reluctance in using concept maps as a learning activity in the past is related to me being completely rubbish at drawing concept maps. But my tutees are much more artistically minded than I am, so I think I might give it a go with them this week. We’re doing a session on action research and it might be fun to get them drawing a big concept map focusing on one aspects of their project – the literature review for example – and all the different sources, inputs, ideas or activities involved.

I think that was a rather productive post!

I found it really interesting to think about the range of people ‘pushing’ the use of social media in education and what might be driving them to do so. I found it difficult to identify with any particular one of the categories Neil presented; I love learning, and I have a leaning towards online social learning because, while I love talking with people, I often feel much more comfortable when I’m at a distance from them. Learning online, with people I don’t really know and who don’t know me, has worked for me, so I believe in it. Mind you, I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘pusher’ of social media in education. I’ve experienced its challenges as well as its benefits.

In fact, it’s a wonder how these ‘pushers’ maintain their belief in their own agenda, if they’re immersing themselves in this world of open-minded, reasoned debate, sharing and discussion. You would have thought the rest of the connectivism brigade would have beaten them back onto the fence where we all belong…

Another interesting point Neil came out with was that people who are ‘good at learning’ can learn anywhere. This is a refreshing take on it; no ‘multiple intelligences’ or ‘learning styles’ but a continuum that extends from being ‘good at learning’ to, presumably, being ‘not good at learning’. This, to me, resonates with John Biggs’ ‘Roberts’ and ‘Susans’. However, Biggs – and the rest of the deep/surface learning crowd – stress that ‘Robertness’ and ‘Susanness’ does not have to be innate in the individual, but can be influenced by several factors that we, the educator, have control over. I guess we *have* to believe that, otherwise we’d all go crazy with the futility of it all, but it doesn’t fit brilliantly with this idea of the ‘good at learning’-‘not good at learning’ continuum.

Regardless, I agree with Neil that, whether someone is, or is being, good at learning – or not – there is still value in – sometimes – being told what to read and what to listen to (provided your audio is working). The danger of entirely discovery-based learning – as Neil said – is that “people don’t know what they don’t know”. All my PG Cert tutees have, at some point, alluded to this as a core anxiety they have about their learning. Having someone who’s further along in the journey to point out where they might go next, is really, really useful.

My own interim conclusion on the social media front is to carry on going with what my students want to do. I’m not going to start making them use social media, or even recommending it, but I’ll continue to encourage open debate on the benefits and challenges, and if they are interested in giving it a go I’ll give them all the help and advice they need.