elearning reflections

To access my final task for EMT1 on reflections of the group process please go to:

http://tatiloz.edublogs.org/assessment-2-task-2/

Happy reading!

Tags: grouplearning, learningcommunities, onlinegroups, reflectiononlearning

Now that I have finally got the hang of blogging I realise that I have not been using this edublog site as I could have been for the semester as I tended to use it more where I was required to comment in readings or particular ideas for EMT1. I did not use it as a platform where I could, as I am doing now, reflect on my ideas, learning, life, etc on a daily basis or weekly basis.

I have in my life written a lot in a journal and generally I have a notebook where from time to time I jot down my feelings and thoughts and in some way I realise that a blog work in that way, somewhat, except that the whole world can read it and that I am not comfortable about when it comes to feelings and some thoughts. However, I can see that for some people this platform would work for them to write down and share their thoughts and ideas with the wider world and that it would be a satisfactory experience.

I note, though, that as I have gotten older I feel less of an immediate need to write everything down and more a need to quitten my soul. I used to thrive on a thriving and very active mind but now days I am sick and tired of it and instead I look for activities and states of mind that help me quitten than space for me rather than mad eit louder and faster which I feel the new e-world of communications is all about. I am a very outward looking person in nost areas of my life: work, social, and community life but when I am not otherwise engaged I like to refelct and meditate as much as I can and find peace and tranquility instead of more forms of communication.

Hence, I cannot see my self becoming a personal blogger despite learning about blogs but I can see thier use in the area of learning, communication, activitsm etc and will use them in those areas. I will continue to reflect and inspire deeper learning in my self which may from time to time involve writing but I do not think that I will do so via a personal blog. Instead I will treasure looking for a fab writing book and using one of my Lamy fountain pens and write away in some scribble with the odd drawing in between.

This does not mean that I am not excited about the technology and its amazing advances but I like learning about it so I can choose how and when to use it.

Tags: blogging

Well, after spending days on a wiki thinking about learning activities I feel I am able to share my thoughts on these new developments in the area of e-communication. Ahhhhhhh and more ahhhhhh!!!

Lets start with the wiki … I thought that wikis were going to be as easy to use as word type documents where I am so familiar with their workings that I can jump from here to there back to some other spot retaining font style and text size – well not in a wiki – what a cumbersome experience it was.

It is extremely frustrating to develop a wiki within the wiki as you cannot perform all desired text functions within the edit function – for example – you can’t cut and paste and if you drag some text it then does not allow you to change it and it often changes its style. So the best option is to constantly travel between the completed page and the edit function. Why have they left out the spelling check function – or was it that I did not find it? and what happened to undo? – extremely handy tool when writing long pieces of text.

So I would suggest to the developers of wikis to make them a lot more user friendly so that someone like me, after spending days working on creating some knowledge, could feel inspired to return to a wiki with enthusiasm. If I reflect on my experience of working on wiki I struggle past the benefit that a group of people can work on it and keep track of changes – something I have done with word documents for a long time with good version control. There is potential there but unless they are made much more user friendly then I can only see much frustration for its users. I would like to think that I stand to be corrected.

Now to blogs and particularly to blogs and forums – I think I have finally worked out the difference (thanks to my fellow learner in EMT1).  As any adult learner my past experiences help me to learn about new things like e-communication tools like blogs and online-forums and so I can understand tnat blogs are like the old boxes that people used to stand on boxes in the park like the Domain or Centennial Park or Hyde Park in London to make statements of their views on the world, like:

Like making comments on soap boxes there is no expectation of a response, instead one makes a statement about one’s views regardless of what others may think.

Online forums on the other hand are more about dialogue – they are conversations started by/someone who does expect a response so as to discuss the issue/idea being proposed.

Like Mason and Rennie (2008) I think that having blogs and forums in the one community or online learning site is confusing for members and there should be a clear explanation of the difference to encourage use of the technology appropriately. I have experiences this confusion on a Ning community where I am a member and as there is a lack of clarity one has to look in many places to find the right discussion.

Perhaps there is a need for assuming less knowledge about these various e-communication platforms and more clarity provided about their purpose and use so that online travellers can feel more confident in the online world.

Reference

Mason, R and Rennie, F., 2008, E-Learning and Social Networking handbook: resources for higher education, Routledge, London.

Tags: wikis blogs forums

Some initial thoughts on group work ..

Group work is something we can’t avoid in life – either in formal learning, at work, in community, and many other areas. Yet, it is something that is difficult, complex, and very challenging. There is much literature on group development and dynamics, some of which I have studied as part of my postgraduate studies, but when it comes to it knowing the theory does not make much difference to the participation and negotiation involved in group work.

I think group work highlights that social learning is very complex as it involves a group of diverse people coming together to achieve a learning outcome – each with a different approach, learning style, learning objectives, level of knowledge, and commitment to the learning process. Working with such diversity requires good communication skills, awareness of power structures, and an ability to be self-reflective and open to challenging one’s own attitudes and habits.

I think group work truley challenges us to work with diversity and even though it is something that we can easily say we practice it is actually very difficult to do in a fair and just fashion. There is the needs to truly share and let go of the need to control the learning process and see that there is learning in the process that is highly valuable.

To be truly inclusive in group work is difficult in an assessment context if one if fixed on a particular outcome rather than the process.

Tags: groupwork

I thought I might try something new on my blog by using it to express general thoughts/relfections on my learning process because now that I am reading more blogs and the educaitonal rationale behind them as an educational tool I see that their role can be infinite and can include a kind of journal-like record of everyday experiences like those I am having in EMT1.

I must say that I have often felt frustrated during this course and I think it is because so much of what I am learning is new in a technological sense and its taking to areas where I do not feel very confident yet. I guess in some ways I am having some disorienting dilemmas as Mezirow would say about my attitudes towards technology and its uses in every day life and now in learning.

When I started EMT1 I was open to the fact that  I wanted to to learn about technologies that I really should already know about but I did not think that I it would be so confronting. I see my self as being a fairly resourcesful person when it comes to academic research in terms of my post grad studies but I am not sure what happens when it comes to new technology? My resourcefulness seems to vanish and instead I feel angry and frustrated because I don’t know where to start looking or its almost as if I don’t even start looking and just keep trying the same thing over and over again.

I am having such an experience in trying to work out how a wiki works and how I can  create a story board within a wiki. I was nervous about wikis because I had not used them before and then once in there I feel lost and unsure of which way to navigate in there and create what I would like to create. In other contexts I would search for an answer but in this context I freeze and get stuck – I ask my self why is it so different in this context?

My patience goes out the window and and I want the answer now! which is not how it works – I think it takes patience and searching for help and guidance. In terms if learning I think I have some king of phobia perhaps about technology that makes me closed to it and hence the attitude of being perhaps somewhat dismissive of it. This work that I am doing in EMT1 makes me challenge that and hence the disorienting dilemma which if I am open to the learning process could result in transformative learning – but am I truly open to that?

That’s why I am thinking of trying something new and doing some search into how to work with wikis and give it my all so that I can learn from this experience.

Tags: wikis

This assessment piece which analyses my learning experiences on the Freire Project is available at:

http://tatiloz.edublogs.org/assessment-1-task-2/

Happy reading!

Tags: Freireproject, learningexperiences, learningonline

Having spent a considerable amount of time participating in my chosen e-community: The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, I started to question what and how I was learning by being a member of this community. I found that any analysis of my learning experience needed an understanding or framework of learning with which to explore my experiences. This took me right back to questions such as “what is learning” and “how do we learn” and can this be easily applied to an e-learning community?

I knew from previous studies that I was drawn to the work of Kolb on experiential learning and constructionists theories of learning but felt as a person committed to social change I also needed to consider the work on transformative learning of Mezirow (1991). Having read about the social theories of learning and Bandura’s work I also felt drawn to these propositions and found them particularly relevant to learning through community. However, it took some research to find more contemporary work on the particular quality fo learning online and found the work on Siemens (2008) just what I was looking for to reflect the uniqueness of learning online.

So feeling that I was on my way to a very sound framework for conceptualising and analysing learning a friend recommended I read the work of Illeris (2002) on the Three Dimensions of Learning and I felt that Illeris summed up very nicely the complexity of learning which I was trying to arrive at with all the above mentioned theories (except perhaps Siemen’s work on connectivism).

So the framework which I am using to analyse my learning is based on Illeris’ (2002) propositions that there are three dimensions to learning: cognitive, emotional, and environmental, and I have been able to fit in constructivism, transformative learning, social learning, and connectivism into that framework using Illeris (2002) as a foundation. I feel that this model, although rather complex, is apt to describe the amazing and diverse process of learning, particularly online with the inclusion of the more recent work on connectivism.

As I interact and participate in the Freire Project I am questioning how it is that I am learning – through the particular online experience that allows such a broad sense of social networking; through the emotions that come with belonging and being affirmed or ignored; through agreement and  feedback; through the connectivity inherent in the community; am I learning such that I can change my practice; and most of all I ask myself am I questioning and reflecting on my own assumptions and being open to challenging them?

Next of course are thoguth around learning design – what aspect of my community foster or hinder learning?

References:

Illeris, K. (2002), The Three Dimensions of Learning, Roskilde University Press, Denmark.

Siemes, G. (2008) New Structures and spaces of learning: The systemic impact of connective knowledge, connectivism and networked learning, available at http://www.connectivism.ca/ accessed on 17 April 2009.

Mezirow, J. (1991) Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, Jossey-Bass, San Franscisco.

Tags: learningtheory

I have spent much of today exploring the Freire Project community and I am feeling very excited about my choice of community. I enjoyed being lost and found amongst blogs, forums, wikis, You-tube videos, articles, etc learning more about critical pedagogy and its applicability in my personal and professional life. At times I did feel frustrated at not being sure where to follow the thread of a topic – was it the blog, forums, etc. But by the end of the day my skills at navigating were much better.

I have spent quite a bit of time before today just observing or lurking as the literature refers to it (Nonnecke and Preece 2000) – this was however not as passive as I thought it was before doing some reading on participation on online communities (Gulanti 2004, Williams 2002, Siemes 2008). As I lurked I observed patterns of interaction or non-interaction, response rates, type of knowledge being shared, “loud” contributors, and I made decisions about where to look in this new community.

Today as my first active day on the community I felt rather nervous and some what hesitant about sharing my ideas and many questions of an established community of thinkers and practitioners. However, the more I participated the more I felt confident and like I had something to contribute. I found some fellow Australians in the community and exchanged hellos which definitely contributed to my sense of belonging and value – by the end of the day I felt part of a global community of critical pedagogues which is something I had not felt before.

I saw that the site is a place where much sharing occurs about ideas in the area of critical pedagogy and where research in the area is encouraged. People share their reflections on practice and ideas on current issues which are of concern to critical thinkers – it was great to see my fellow Antipodes presenting a critical view of Australia – its politics of oppression and what is being done to challenge such structures.

The community definitely satisfied my need to connect with like minded educators and critical thinkers and activists and felt elated to read that others share the same concerns for social justice within the field of education. Many of the contributions come from people that are very well versed in critical pedagogy and are highly sophisticated in their arguments and thoughts. I really enjoyed that kind of engagement and look forward to more. I found the referencing of ideas to be very useful to my further research in the area and went of on some every interesting side trips like seeing videos on Avenue Q which I had not heard of before.

The founder of the community Joe Kincheloe has sadly died last December and I feel he was key to keeping the dialogue flowing and encouraging people to contribute to the community. I wonder whether his passing will have a negative impact on the continuation or further learning in this community.

I am keen to continue my participation in the community to see how people learn – that is – do people reflect their learning in the community? Is it evident when someone learns by being a member of this community? I think that more active participation by members helps the learning of others because the interaction in crucial to the learning (Saunders 2000, Conford 1999). I am finding that if the original blogger does not respond the learning can be truncated – will explore this further as time goes by.

To finish off I am still thinking about the framework with which I will be able to analyse learning in this community but I am finding that to be a complicated decision as I think learning is a dynamic process that defines one particular theory. So I leaning towards blending a few theories and applying them to my experience in the Freire Project.

References

Nonnecke, B. and Peerce, J. (2000) Silent Participants; Getting to know Lurkers Better? Chapter 6. pp. 110-132. In. From Usenet to CoWebs. Available online: http://www.cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/research/silentparticipants.pdf. Accessed on 2 April 2009.

Gulati, S. (2004) Constructivism and emerging online learning pedagogy: a discussion for formal to acknowledge and promote the informal, Annual Conference of the Universities Association for Continuing Education. Available online: http://leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003562.htm, Accessed on 3rd April 2009.

Williams, C. (2002) Learning online: a review of recent literature in a rapidly expanding field, Journal of Further and Higher Education, vol. 26, No. 3.

Siemes, G. (2008) New structures and spaces for learning; The systemic impcat of connective knowledege, connectivism and networked learning, Available online: http://www.connectivism.ca/. Accessed on 3rd April 2009.

Saunders (2008) and Cornford (2008), respectively, provide a detailed analysis of the psychological processes involved in social learning and the usefulness of Badura’s observational learning model to social learning. I found both of their work useful in exploring (to great depth) the various influences on how we learn in a social context, particularly Saunders’ focus on how learner’s may change their attitudes and behaviour as a result of social learning (particularly relevant to my work practice). Conford’s work was equally useful for unpacking the factors/process involved when we learn from the observation of others, but at the end of reading both articles I felt uncertain about the applicability of these theories to learning online, such as that which we are doing as part of EMT1.

This concern was particularly strong with Cronford’s work as I read his his focus to be very much on face-to-face (physical) learning, that is, that which can be observed and performed, skills and practice based, enactment of what was learnt, etc. I saw the usefulness of his work to analyse how someone might learn to perform a task being modelled by a mentor/teacher or learning about behaviours such as toilet training (his example p. 83), but unlike the theories examined by Saunders I could not imagine applying to learning as part of an e-community.

Saunder’s work on the other hand focused much more on learning through inteaction with people (which happens in an online learning community) and how processes such as comparison, judgement, disclosure, feedback, conversations and self-monitoring affect the learning process. When I was reading Saunders’ article I could apply the theories more easily to our experiences in EMT1. For example, as participants on the Ning community we watch how others communicate in it, how often, what is said, how others respond (if at all) and what is disclosed, the group’s cohesion and dynamics, etc to decide what and how we will contribute in a new terrain (for some of us) – that is what we learn. I am very aware of my interaction with others in my participation on Ning and can apply the theories summarised by Saunders to my learning process in EMT1 across the other platforms.

I am however, not satisfied that the work by Saunders and Cornfordadequately describes the way we learn on an online or networked environment. I say this because I have felt that I am learning in a different way in EMT1 as I have done in the past. PreviouslySaunder’s and Cornford’s theories would have been applicable and satisfactory to my more linear or cyclical way of learning. In a f2f context I felt I learned as Kolb (1984) describes in his learning cylce and as Knowles (1978) describes in his theory of andragogy, of course adding the constructivist and critical theories of learning to their understanding. But in EMT1 I feel I am learning differently, at first I felt very forieng to it and now I think I am getting more use to it, but it feel different in my learning experience and that it is much more about connections (so many connections!), sifting through knowledge, finding the right information and people, navigating new platforms, and accepting I cannot cover it all.

I am keen to find people writing on how the tools we use to learn now, are influencing the way we learn and whether it is possible to incorporate work such as Saunders’ and Conrford’s in an analysis of the new way we are learning. Perhaps, I will find that scholarship is sticking to its guns and using existing theories to describe online learning – following the notion that learning is learning no matter where it happens – but my suspicion is that there are some interesting new ideas out there about this learning in a networked world. Actually, I have found a few leads but need to explore further.

I am very glad to have found such a fantastic ecommunity to join for the first assessment task in this subject.

URL for the assessment piece see page title Assessment 1 Task 1 at http://tatiloz.edublogs.org/ or visit http://tatiloz.edublogs.org/assessment-1-task-1/

Happy reading!