The past our memorials and mLearning

The gift of mLearning is in unlocking the barriers to experience placed upon the learner in our "schools"....how interpretation through experience changes the learning process is ever-present in an mLearning event. There are the shades of a decolonization of learning evident....how students reflect, the mentors pace, the chance to dwell in a place is not remotely akin to the "school" experience of disjointed timed obsolescence in learning. mLearning is also more than a "field trip" to a museum. Phones, flips, video, collaboration, purpose, reflection, network, connection.....this organic experience is meaningful and lasting.

Being in this Museum with learners who are engaged outside the borders of the school makes me preflect on a day when we will be mentoring mLearning trips to museums of learning where our past will seem painful because of the time it took to change education from a schooling process to a learning network.

I look forward to reading that memorial.

What would they say to you if they could?

Would you listen?

A Note to an amazing group of teachers and learners....

I have been encouraged by our meetings in EDT400 this spring semester. But today you showed the desire to innovate in clear terms. You saw that learning-not teaching is what education is all about. The barriers to seeing and acting to move learning from irrelevance into a networked, purposeful, fun, and useful....environment for the young and old are real. Your candor and imaging today gave me cause to be hopeful. Your passions will guide you well as teachers and learners. I also saw many ah ha moments today! If machines can replace teachers, they will. Who will be replaced.....



Much for us to discuss.....networks in learning, opening the school, mLearning revolutions, design based learning.....

Thank you all.

Learning Structures as barriers to Connection

What do our "buildings" do to learning....

Thank you for feeding this forward Micheal Wesch

Connectivism is about networks|place, global, internet

Can you have connectivism without computers….could you treat the classroom/learning center and face to face “time” like a connectivist hub? If so, where would the student go to find, validate, leverage, analyze and synthesize information in that place? Could she problem solve and communicate in an unrestricted way to learn freely? ….”

Connectivism is about networks of learning that connect individuals with the world.  This may be messy and no, it most likely does not fit neatly into the institution of "schooling".  That said, connectivist praxis can happen wherever we choose to embrace the learning theory and experience.  We need to work to find ways to learning that are meaningful and stop squabbling over old institutional theories that fit neatly into our outdated vision of the school.

As Sawyer (2006) states,

Educated graduates need a deep conceptual understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with them creatively to generate new ideas, new theories....and new knowledge (p.2).

We need to focus on active connections, networks, and our ability to revision the places education happens.

 

Sawyer, R. K. (2006). The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This post was inspired by a student....and new teacher in the field

From Stephen Downes National Research Council Canada March 9, 2005

"And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the centre of our existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

Going Home (Robert Patterson)
http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2005/02/going_home_our_.html

We Must Resist Change

Irresistible play on Apple inc. original.



The real question is why we need a LMS to begin with....

I recieved an A, but I failed?

In a welcomed twist to our review of educational theory on Tuesday a few folks in section 2 of EDT400 sought to deliberate on Behaviorism and specifically the issue of grading with letters and numbers as reward and punishment. Reflections on the import of grading centered on "not knowing where I was, or what my learning meant" because of assessment systems that "looked and felt" "different". The use of "check marks" in elementary school (lasting effects!) and a high school experience at one of the most innovative schools in Maine if not New England, where letter grades and rank are not used in favor of more authentic assessment modes (see below).



Why we learn is as important as what we learn when attempting to understand educational theory, and underlying issues with teaching and learning. To this end I am very interested in this discussion. EDT 400: can you receive an A on something (a paper or in a course) and still fail? If so what does this mean for networked learning in a blended VLE such as ours? How should you be assessed? Why are you involved in the learning community? These are well worn questions and important for a course like ours to deliberate on. We seek to imagine new ways of learning at the same time old ways of learning are dominant and this is difficult. You are involved in important work.

So for those of you who are attending or participating in any learning episode for a good grade; is this all you need to advance? What do you really want out of learning? What if I were to give everyone in EDT 400 an A now? What would happen? Let me know if this is what the community wants, my ears and eyes are open.

Thursday's Meeting

A few more considerations for our meeting on Thursday: How do the following TPCK and SAMR models square up with Constructivism and Connectivism?



TPCK - Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge - TPCK. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2011, from http://www.tpck.org/



Ruben R. Puentedura's Weblog: As We May Teach: Educational Technology, From Theory Into Practice. (n.d.). Hippasus. Retrieved February 02, 2011, from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/000025.html