Month: January 2016

During the first week of the Contemporary Pedagogy class we had the opportunity of watching three documentaries related to Connected Learning. Before I start talking about my point of view, I need to confess that this was the first time in my live that I heard such term. Im a PhD student from the the Civil Engineering department without any idea of what Connected Learning could be or with what purpose was created. After a couple of random searches I found the following definition of Connected Learning (http://connectedlearning.tv/frequently-asked-questions#pastandpresent):

Connected learning is a model of learning and social change that is not defined by a specific technology, tool, or technique. Instead, connected learning is defined by a commitment to social equity and progressive learning, and seeks to mold the uptake of new technologies and techniques based on these commitments.

This definition seems to broad to me. From what I understood Connected Learning is the way of learning from everything in every possible way without thinking that learning can be achieved in this unique way that can’t be changed. From the three videos I decided to talk about the case of the ninth-grader Charles Raben, What Does Connected Learning Look Like? During the interview, this young boy said something that caught my attention. He believes that learning can happen anywhere. There is so much truth in those words since in fact you can learn from your daily experiences, from the people that you meet everyday or even from what you overheard from other peoples conversation while having a coffee.

Charles decided by himself to leave the usual daily learning experience at school by helping a newsstand operator that was going to lose his license in the state of New York. He had the opportunity of learning how to acquire signatures for a petition and during that process he was able to feel the sensation of achieving something in his life. He acquired a whole new experience which may not be related to his math or science class but he had the chance to see that in every person that we meet there is a new story to learn that hasn’t been written in a book.

From my point of view, us as future professoriate, we need to consider every possible approach and never stick to one idea. Is not too late for current professors to direct their effort into this emerging way of bringing a new learning experience to their students, because at the end the students will pass on what they learned from those experiences and they will put it into practice to achieve more thing in life.

I really like the idea of connected learning and I think it is a powerful and necessary one. It would be the height of foolishness, if we have this incredibly useful tool  (the internet) for research and information and collaboration and discussion, to not use it and to confine ourselves to a single classroom at a single time, not opening ideas up to the world at large. And certainly, as time has gone on, it has become increasingly necessary to rethink not just what we teach, but how we teach and why.

There has indeed been a lot of discussion and debate about how to rethink what we’re doing and how to incorporate this technology into our experiences. Even in fields that very often welcome new ideas (usually the humanities), it isn’t always easy to introduce new methods.

To me it seems like even more of a struggle to make it work in STEM classes. While STEM fields will often readily accept new technology, there’s a pervasive idea that there’s a certain “correct” way of teaching things, particularly in Engineering.

As both a student and a (new) teacher in an engineering discipline, I want (and need) to rethink my ideas about how to teach, because I don’t want to just teach the way I’ve been taught–that was the aforementioned set way of doing things and it was very formulaic. Predictability can be good, but often at the expense of creativity.

Now, when I see all these ideas being thrown around about online meetings, blogs, discussion, outside collaboration, students running the show, etc., I get immediately disheartened that I’m teaching in the field I am.

This semester, I’m teaching a course on the design and computer modeling of metal castings. I think there are definitely opportunities for collaboration and discussion, because even after all sorts of equations and calculations, Design never has a single, clear-cut, “correct” answer. That being said, I think I would struggle mightily to incorporate many of the other elements of Connected Learning into my class. Not just because I can’t necessarily see a use for them, but because of the students themselves.

Metal casting, as it exists at Tech, is one of the least academic fields we have. Virtaully everyone (if not actually everyone) in the undergrad casting program is interested in one thing: a job. They’re taking casting classes so that they have a better resume and can give better interviews and be better at their future jobs, and they’re taking all their non-casting classes simply because they’re requirements and the students just want a good enough grade to graduate. They don’t seem to care very much about how they’re being taught or learning for the sake of learning–they just want jobs.

I can’t blame them, but it gets frustrating when your students are only there to get better jobs, rather than thinking about why they’re being taught and why they’re learning.

I know these kids; I’ve worked with them for at least a semester already, if not a year or two. I know they don’t give a rat’s ass about what pedagogy or praxes their professors are using. Hell, last year I saw one of my professors try something completely new in one of his classes (I was a TA, not a student), and it failed miserably. The students didn’t keep up with it, the professor couldn’t enforce it, and everyone was back to business as usual after a few weeks.

And most of those students are the ones I’m teaching now.

So, I definitely want to rethink my preconceived notions about teaching and to do my best to create a dynamic, engaging classroom that isn’t just the “sage on a stage” lecturing for an hour (as so many of the classes I’ve taken have gone), but it will certainly be a struggle to do so in the environment where I work.

The Connected Learning movement could not make its role as education’s savior any clearer. I look forward to learning more, but I am not sold. By nature a skeptic and realist (What scientist isn’t?), my experience has led me in a different direction than Connected Learning, as defined by those at http://connectedlearning.tv/ . While I in no way desire to tear down the methodologies outlined by the movement, I simply think this blanket approach is blind to its shortcomings.

Allow me to digress. My PhD work is in the area of Urban Forestry. Specifically, I am interested in woody plant physiological ecology (aka, ecophysiology). My work is all about natural, biological processes, to which “technology” falls so short as a subsidy. I am absolutely in agreement that education needs reform, but in my field, the reform needs to happen in terms of connecting with the subject matter, natural systems.

Likewise, I am wary of focusing on Connected Learning as the answer to all our educational maladies because of the isolationist nature of social media and distance learning. In reality, do we really have greater access to universal knowledge than we did before mainstream internet use? No. Is universal knowledge more accessible, yes, but not by much. Libraries are founded on the principle of accessibility of knowledge transfer. What the internet does provide that libraries do not is opinion-driven, subjective, false knowlege–around every corner.

We, as educators, should reprioritize face-to-face interaction within education, cooperative work, and contextualized learning. Last week, I was researching qualities of great educators, and even now in 2016, educators recognized for their work are those that contextualize the learning. Not once in my research did I come across anything that resembled Connected Learning. Instead, I saw physics professors that put their life on the line demonstrated principles that they whole-heartedly believed in and wanted to imbue to their students. I saw chemistry professors that gave tangible demonstrations of the subject matter that drew students in with oohs and aahs, opening the eyes of many and strengthening the foundation of the knowledge being transferred.

In my own experience, it was only a year ago that I attended my most life-changing course and met my professional mentor. All that I spoke with in the class had similar experiences, and the professor has received much recognition for his remarkable methods. The technology used in the course: a white board and an old-school overhead projector with transparencies.

By no means am I against Connected Learning, but I don’t think it needs to be our focus at this point. I daresay we have out-of-touch educators and relational education has been lost in mainstream education. Also, I believe we use a blanket method to educate, especially in primary and secondary school. We think everyone needs to reach the same standards of learning, when we should inspire students to find their skills and follow their desires (trade school should be just as encouraged as higher education). Within higher ed, we need to remind ourselves of the role of grades and achievements as competitive indicators for employment instead of thinking every student capable of 4.00 GPA. Grade inflation is out of control, yet the quality of education is dropping because we focus on catering to the lowest common denominator. Lastly, we need to help students advance in team problem solving. Having spent years in the industry before beginning my PhD, I can attest to college graduate inability to work in teams and think critically.

Only by addressing these issues can we then reap the benefits of Connected Learning. I am afraid we are merely venturing down a rabbit trail, skirting the issues that should be our main concern. But I am cautiously optimistic that I am missing much of what Connected Learning has to offer. I am very concerned how social media is becoming so intertwined with education at the expense of true collaboration….

http://connectedlearning.tv/infographic (infographic not properly embedding…)

Connected Learning Before the Blog

I’ll be honest. This infographic makes about as much sense to me as the raw data from an MRI scan.

I pulled up this graphic the way I might a dictionary. I wanted a definition – “what is connected learning?” But in reality, I am rarely ever satisfied looking up just the definition of a word. I never feel that I know a word until I know the history of the word – the roots and the parts of a word. And now pedagogy is treating me a bit like the English language. I am walking into a lingo with which I am not familiar.

I’m catching bits and pieces: Connecting learning is about “how to learn and how to engage and how to be flexible and adaptive and find communities and have ideas about things that [one] want[s] to do now.”  Connected learning is about “how to learn and how to engage and how to be flexible and adaptive and find communities and have ideas about things that [one] want[s] to do now” (https://vimeo.com/37639766).  These sound like great things, but I just walked into a room in which everything is strung together, connected to everything else, and I’m not really sure I can tell you at first glance what it is I am actually looking at.

Here is the framework outlined by the Connected Learning Research Network. Here is the framework and terminology they present.

1. The contexts
   1. Peer-supported
   2. Interest-powered
   3. Academically oriented
2. The properties
   1. Production-centered
   2. Shared purpose
   3. Openly networked
3. The design principles
   1. Enable everyone to participate
   2. Make learning experiential
   3. Provide constant challenges
   4. Allow for reflection, planning, and connecting the two

And holding all of these characteristics together, is the idea that media magnifies.

This is still very broad, so I decided if I am going to really understand what we mean when we say “connected learning,” I need to know about the history of this too, not just the definition.

The “connected teaching” model was developed by Mary Field Belenky in 1986 in her book “Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind.”   In 1990, the method was described as an efficient way of engaging a diverse group of students, by Charles S. Claxton in his paper “Learning Styles, Minority Students, and Effective Education.”  While the praxis has changed to include technology at the core of connected learning, the idea has always been to find ways to engage people with diverse backgrounds.

 

 

I’ll be the first to admit that blogging isn’t really my “be all, end all.” I often find it arduous to sift through an internet community and field saturated with blogs, reading post after post, like….

However, I will concede, that when executed and managed appropriately in a classroom, blogging can be effective for some as a means of connected learning. In an era where anything you want to know is available online for free or a relatively low price, an academic setting is no longer the only place a person can gain expertise on a given topic. Furthermore, technology as a whole (not just blogging) has revolutionized both education and entertainment. No longer are education and entertainment mutually exclusive. With an ever increasing dependency on technology, and the unique attributes of the millennial era, is it really enough to rely on traditional content delivery as a primary mode of educating? I think not.

Teachers from all settings are in a race to reinvent their relevance, redefine their scope, and remix their content. From this standpoint, I think connected learning (i.e. the integration of various forms of technologically enhanced learning to educate and create classroom community) is essential. This idea sounds fantastic right?! Tell your students to get a twitter, web page, blog, or what-have-you, to increase learning! This is extremely effective, and in-fact, there ARE research studies in higher education that show this (albeit they vary in objectivity)*…. But, yep, you knew it… there’s a “but” (in my opinion, at least).. In my academic experience, specifically in higher education, too often educators assume that their students know what social media etiquette is, or what comprises virtual classroom community. To me, this is a pedagogical pitfall in connected learning. I’ve yet to have an instructor mediate this outside of a short paragraph in the syllabus which encourages students to think before they post. However, I think an effective way to remedy some of the ambiguity and proactively facilitate student enthusiasm related to blogging might be to defines etiquette and virtual community with your students.  Create and facilitate a dialogue with each class surrounding what their perceptions are on etiquette (i.e. blogging, tweeting, or commenting on their peer’s work), and build the classroom’s principles for social media engagement. I think this may be a viable solution because it provide some autonomy to an otherwise captive audience and ensures a safe space for expressing one’s ideas and opinions.

What are your thoughts? How have your connected learning experiences gone (as a student and/or an instructor)?!

*Carlson S. Weblogs come to the classroom. . The Chronicle of higher education. 2003;50(14):A33.
Downes S. Educational Blogging. Educause review. 2004;1-6(18):2-2.
Ferdig R. Conent delivery in the ‘blogosphere’. Technological horizons in education 2004;31(7):12.
Huffaker D. The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Journal. 2005;13(2):9.
Poling C. Blog on: Building communication and collaboration among staff and students. Learning & Leading with Technology. 2005;32(6):1-5.
Richardson W. Web logs in the English classroom: More than just chat. English Journal. 2003;93(1):3-3.

Whether I enjoy the process of blogging is quite irrelevant. I am not Tom Peters, and I seriously doubt I will remember the exact day of my first blog posting or what it was about. Nor do I believe blogging will become some life changing experience for me. I blog because I have to; I make no excuse for the blunt truth of the matter. That said here is my thought for the week.

I wonder if Scott Rosenburg would still consider blogs as transformative as the telephone, six and half years after his initial musings. He was somewhat dismissive of the genuine erosion of the role and importance of public spaces that resulted from the explosion of technology including the phone and in more recent years technology and social media. Robert Putnam has well documented the phenomena in his book Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000).

Is blogging just another way to further separate ourselves from genuine dialogue with others about important issues?

 

 

I personally liked the method of connected learning to educate the people. I think that it can be a modern education system in the future. Because, I believe all students are involved in an appropriate way and could state their ideas. They use this opportunity to learn more about the applications of their knowledge by sharing them with others. Furthermore, they practically implement their knowledge as a tool to help human beings because they will be educated by the instructors those are experts in that filed. But, I think that some concerns should be addressed before global usage of this method of learning beyond hardware and software issues.

• This type of learning method may conflict between different nations and countries. The mother language of each country should be considered as the official language for education. The language of each country is its identity. The students should know other languages, particularly English language. But, they do not need to consider a foreign language as their own language instead of their mother language. The education in each country should respect to the culture and customs of that country as a pioneer. Therefore, I believe that the connected learning in each country should use the mother language of its region. This is obstacle for global usages of connected learning.
• Another issue regarding this type of learning method is grading method and degree. How do the instructors evaluate their students? You can imagine two students in the same major. They have passed the same courses via connected learning, but one of them took courses with some instructors who took easy. Therefore, their GPA are completely different. But, they have the same level of knowledge. They apply for a specific job and the investigator observes their GPA. Who will be hired? Absolutely, the person who has higher GPA.  So, I believe that connected learning as an education system is not fair. All of the students follow their majors to get degree. But, this degree cannot be an appropriate indicator of their qualifications.  We should find another method to certify the students about their knowledge. We may suggest certifications instead of degrees. Certifications may be awarded to certify that the students know some skills in that area. Therefore, the employers should evaluate their applicants with more effective ways to select most qualified individuals for their jobs.
• Is there any specific age for connected learning? I believe the age for learning is completely subjective. I agree that youths have more chance to learn the knowledge compared to the adults, but I do not think that this is a limitation for adults’ learning. However, I personally believe that one concern for adults is that their performance will be compared to youths, therefore they are afraid to participate in the course via connected learning.

Consequently, there are some problems that should be solved before using the connected learning globally.