I agree that networked learning is an idea that I am willing to explore. I however still need to be convinced that any type of teaching model that come from it is designed to work for the average student. Those of us obtaining our masters or a PhD are high achieving students, and work most likely be able to excel at an online course. research put out by Columbia suggest that students in online courses are more likely to withdraw, struggling students fail more often, achievements gaps increase, etc. Those are the statistics of average students, and I know anyone can find research in their defense, but I can find countless studies with a basic Google search that support this conundrum. I think there is a solution, however that idea hasn’t been born in the mind of an innovative teacher yet.

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Erin,

I couldn’t agree more with the title of this blog nor deny the fact that in order to incorporate a healthy work environment any learning done onsite must include elements of “fun”. As a transformational leader I can most certainly guarantee my trainings would be better received than someone who only has a transactional style.

Thanks!

Cheers, Lehi

I agree the blogging is really an art for those in science because we have been trained to think and write analytically. However, as I shared on another comment. I have warmed up to the idea that blogging can be used as a way of becoming current in your field. If you start as a graduate student, you can begin by writing short pieces that breakdown recently published papers in your field. As you go along in your grad training, then your post doc position, and eventually an academia position, you may find that you have been able to think critically about the research in your field for at least the last eight years. You would be more confident being labelled as an “expert in your field”. You would be able to more confidently write reviews of topics, which is also a part of publishing. It doesn’t have to be considered a chore and taking away from researching if you have a purpose to blog.

Arash,

Very good points and I believe that Vlogging is going to be necessary in the very near future simply to keep the attention spans of our future generation. The more sensory items the better in my humble opinion. ?

Thanks!

Cheers, Lehi

I will add to your comment about “a well rounded digital presence”. Your comment reminds me that “Having a corner of the web you control means being able to better control your digital identity” (Belshaw, 2014). The GRAD 5124 (Grad Library Research Skills) course addresses this subject. For example, managing your web presence eliminates scholarly and professional misidentification (VA Tech Libraries). It is important to note that “a well rounded digital presence” requires management to ensure information is up to date.

Belshaw, D. (2014, June 18). Working Openly On the Web [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://literaci.es/working-openly-a-manifesto

VA Tech Libraries. Creating & Managing Your Scholarly Web Presence.

Thanks, Allie!

Ah, the authoritarian world approaches once again. Why bother educating when we can train them, encouraging the recitation of those facts we hold dear? I find it disturbing and uncomfortably empowering at times to stand in front of a class with chairs and eyes all painted in my direction. It is a feeling of control seldom felt, but one which I neither desire nor deserve. My concern is that we continue to make the mistakes of our predecessors. As you alluded to, the efforts are being made but end at the collegiate level, that which is supposed to serve as the summit of public education and opportunity in this country. Many of us have had the luxury to preside in classrooms both resembling and detracting from the totalitarian structure you reference. Yet, we still lazily desire to ignore the “open classroom” concepts and individualized learning that possibly served us more appropriately at some point or another. Maybe the institutions only provide classrooms with this structure (I am not handy enough to redesign my classroom) or maybe we would prefer not to exert the effort needed to accommodate such changes. Regardless of these or any other possibilities, the finger pointing likely will not result in any meaningful or productive discourse. The potential of digital platforms, as they currently stand, lies in our ability to escape the physical classroom environment altogether. Whether our mental state and behavior is altered as a result, I do not pretend to know.

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Thank you for your post! I really enjoyed reading it! I was really intrigued by this idea of working towards and accomplishing something meaningful. You mentioned that students play a large part in making work meaningful. But how can we as educators help students understand and explore how topics and courses may be meaningful for their goals and interests? How can we create these environments where students can explore and find their “why”?

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I will add to your comments about “a broader audience.” Receiving comments from a broad audience can benefit a researcher. However, it also has a potential downside. Researchers may find sharing their work via blogs results in too many comments. Thus, researchers may have to dedicate significant amounts of time to reading them. One scholar mentioned he was warned by friends “that sorting through all those comments will take over his life, or at least take far more time than he expects” (Young, 2008). Researchers sharing work via blogs must allow adequate time for reviewing comments. I will also mention that some comments may not be useful.

Young, J.R. (2008, January 22). Blog Comments and Peer Review Go Head to Head to See Which Makes a Book Better. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Blog-Comments-vs-Peer-Review/425

Your concerns about social media resonate with many of us, I believe. I think a solution for mediating between its potential and its distractions lies in the same approach that we use for many other enjoyable activities: moderation. For a more detailed explanation, I would highly recommend reading or viewing Simon Sinek’s books and presentations on the subject of dopamine in technology usage. He is able to make some perplexing but fair critical comparisons to the behavior of drug and alcohol addicts. You, myself, and many others would greatly desire the information found on such networks to be more reliable and meaningful. However, the medium (excellent use of McLuhan by the way) does not appear to prioritize these interests. It is a medium which gains its prowess from rapid stimulation of our senses, firing information at warp speed as we consume at an alarming rate. The quality of our consumption is not the concern, its our quantity. Hence my comments on moderation. Keeping this in mind, I can see opportunities in education which may utilize social media effectively. For others, I am not so sure.