uLearning Blog

There were three jobs I had for this week if this mobile learning project with learning support students was to get off the ground:

1. intro the personalised learning approach to students

2. explain concept to staff

3. physical setup of space and devices

Here’s some reflection on each of these:

1. very silly of me, but introducing the philosophy of students taking responsibility for their learning (via personalised learning using the iPod touch) was probably the area I found I had least through through. Selling the use of the devices was easy – but helping students grasp what would be expected of them learning-wise is a bit harder to do. My first intro sessions (with students in levelled groups of four) didn’t go so well at explaining this – I had to create a short keynote and incorporate a group mindmapping exercise before these sessions started to achieve what I’d been after. Live and learn. – I must say that being able to use a projector has also transformed this intro. I project up an image (say of a mindmap) which shows students instantly what me drawing and talking about would take a few minutes to do as well.

I’ve also now compartmentalised the steps involved in this first part. Students have just completed part 1 where they are introduced to the personalised learning challenge and have chosen their focus area. Next week is hitting the app store to find an app that will fit with their chosen focus.

2. This has gone well – staff are used to me trying new things etc. And all are supportive of creating self-motivated learners

3. This is proving to be the hardest area as it relies on others… Not that that is a bad thing, and in fact the other staff involved are great. But getting one thing in place (say a lockable cabinet) involves many steps and I’m not even sure if I can get the devices in students hands until next week even though they are here! – I have been able to get a special email account setup (thanks Kate!) so we can open an App store account. – Need to get the devices security coded and get some furniture supplies sorted…

I aim to keep reporting on our progress, good and bad! Love to hear from others also seeking to add personalised and challenge-based ubiquitous learning to their school environs.

1. The ‘digital’ in this digital pedagogy ie. iPod touch’s and XO laptops are available to me in enough numbers now to be used by students as personal learning platforms
2. I have a supportive local and regional administration
3. I stand on the shoulders of the giants above
4. My education department recognises how key ‘digital pedagogy’ is
5. I feel confident enough to attempt it.

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In a few days, I get to present at a massive educational conference – Ulearn09 in Christchurch, New Zealand. This year there will be over 1700 educators present. I’m presenting the following paper. I publish it here now (and at Scribd) so attendees, but also the wider blogosphere and twitterverse can appreciate the great thoughts contributed by several distinguished educators from George Siemens and Stephen Heppell, to practicing classroom teachers. Enjoy! (UPDATE: slides of the presentation are now available at Slideshare HERE)

TIME between TIMES

: the joy of educating during a time of rapid technological change.

Which educator with even a vague interest in keeping pedagogy up to date hasn’t shaken their head when overhearing comments like these in staffrooms or education gatherings:

“I have a school provided laptop, but it just sits in my cupboard.”

“Our network is always down so I’ve just given up trying.”

“All mobile phones in schools should be banned.”

“I’m just a digital immigrant, so can’t be expected to learn that!”

“I’m retiring in 5 years, so I’m not going bother with technology.”

“You’re the guru, you do it!”

At my own large primary school with over 65 teaching staff, I sadly know of several for which the first comment holds true. Anyone reading this could probably similarly pick out the ones they have been exposed to. Day after day, and year after year of being an advocate for transformational learning in the face of these kinds of attitudes can have a pretty disheartening effect. Thank goodness that one of the benefits of the technology that so many educators still shun is that we can now access other colleagues via Facebook and Twitter who feel the same, but just as what is still most needed across nearly all Education sectors is not necessarily more money, but a total mindset change, so can we who are charged with leading change benefit from turning around our thinking.

The Digital revolution is a fast moving beast. Change is now a constant, not a once every now and then event. Mobile, wireless and cloud computing developments are leading very quickly towards a world of ubiquitous, or ‘everyware’ computing. Its no secret that Education has been slow to respond to rise of these technologies. In fact, a 2003 report into the ICT-intensiveness of 55 industries found that Education ranked … last. While its easy to get down about such a result, as well as the responses that many teachers still give today when invited to incorporate digital pedagogies into their students learning, there are plenty of great examples where educators have responded in wonderful ways to the digital revolution. I encourage you to seek them out, perhaps by visiting the sites of the distinguished educators you’ll find below who have responded to this:

Statement:

This is the time between times for educators working with technology. Before mobile, ubiquitous and everyware computing become the invisible norm, but after a time when educators could sit back and wait for the digital revolution to pass on by. As slow as some in education have been to respond to rapid technological change, this is however the most exciting and dynamic time to be an educator of the educators because …

George Siemens, Canada.

Founder of ‘Connectivism’, Associate Director with the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba.

www.elearnspace.org

“I believe that we are seeing, in educational technology, a rare convergence of technological transformation and ideological development. Twin trends of this sort are infrequent, last occurring with the industrial revolution when (rudimentary) concepts of democracy compounded the trends of industrialization. In education, the last century has provided growing consensus of learning as a social and participative process. While not always ideologically aligned, thinkers like Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Bandura, Bruner, Engestrom, Wenger, Lave, Pea, and others have emphasized the distributed, social, and multi-faceted dimensions of learning.

The last several decades has also produced an increase in technologies that enable participants to engage with information in a manner not seen in history. The rise of social networking services, participative web, and growth in mobile technologies and broadband access, provides a compelling argument for change. When the technological movement combines with the ideological shift in learning theory, the impact on education may be transformative. The future of education will be shaped by those who are able to anticipate and understand the impact of the dual forces of social learning and participative technology”.

Tony Vincent, USA.

Former teacher, now trainer and education consultant.

www.learninginhand.com

“What I love even more than teaching is learning. And in the changing digital and social landscape, I get to learn constantly and reinforce my learning by sharing it with others”.

Dr Tony Karrer, USA.

CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a software, web and eLearning development firm.

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com

“My only real formal learning on the metacognitive methods and tools that are the heart of the value I bring as a knowledge worker was by educators.  But I learned in an era of card catalogs, microfiche readers, notes on paper. There were no laptops or mobile devices; no instant access to trillions of web pages; no networks of millions of people; nor free access to thousands of new tools.  Educators today are in the midst of one of the most interesting transformations where individual knowledge becomes devalued but the ability to teach new metacognitive tools and methods is more important than ever”.

Toni Twiss, NZ.

Former teacher, now a director of eLearning for secondary schools and a  lecturer at Waikato University.

http://tonitwiss.com

“Of the opportunity we have to remind ourselves of and rekindle our passion for learning within a truly authentic context. We are forming our own new way forward, often through experimentation, and along the way are experiencing the feelings of satisfaction when something new is learned or achieved.  I think as teachers it is also a timely reminder of what it feels like to be a learner and perhaps at times a struggling learner.  We are put in the shoes of the very students we teach as we explore and experiment with the potential of new technologies and perhaps most importantly reconstruct and refresh understanding of our own pedagogy and practice rather than just doing what we have always done.

We are developing teaching methods to allow our students to be successful contributors to the world that they will be part of when they leave school.   It is exciting because by the choices we as teachers are making about what and how we choose to teach, we are helping to define the values and skills that we see as being key to the future”.

Shane Roberts, Australia.

Secondary HPE teacher, and Advanced Pedagogical Licence holder.

http://shanetechteach.edublogs.org

“The change in others that can be realised and witnessed is immense. This could be a time considered for preparation for anywhere, anytime learning and as such the phenomenon of educators learning from each other is a rising river. Innovators and early adopters can educate through means other than direct tuition which is impacting on the teaching and learning methodologies and practices experienced by today’s students. The range of devices available is also transforming ideas about teaching and learning, and the processes that distribute this teaching and learning.

Change is an exciting process, for me in particular as it means trial and experimentation are welcomed. Less effective or productive practices can be discovered, trialled and reported on without fear of being labeled incompetent – as long as learning is achieved and demonstrated. Accompanying this is the ability to gain feedback from a worldwide audience, leading to inspiration within one’s own practice.

Mathew Nehrling, USA.

Sr. Instructional Designer with a Fortune 500 telecommunications company.

http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com

“During a transition period like this, many minds are not in the box to solutions and ideas. Everyone is looking for how to integrate the new innovation (be it idea or technology).  After an innovation is standard, creativity is often stifled because people have the baseline as to ‘how it is’.

During the economic downturn as much off the world is having, it forces people to think about real, practical application.  It sharpens the focus like a sword.  How can you take the innovation and produce the greatest ROI?  It takes all the creative ideas and helps one hone in on what is practical.

We are at a point now where we have a perfect combination of the two. There is a technological revolution in anywhere, anytime computing, but with economic downturns, you have to focus on real, productive solutions, thus more energy is spent on what can be produced and static (data asphyxiation) is pushed aside”.

Emma Heffernan, Australia.

Manager Discovery Programs, eLearning Branch, Education Queensland.

“For the first time in history, students and teachers are consciously playing the same role; learners. Technology is a great democratiser of education. It is no longer expected that educators hold the knowledge to impart to their learners, rather that we are all learners. The role of the educator is evolving to one of true facilitator, guide and model learner. We have unprecedented access to people, information, resources and wisdom, and as we develop new ways of learning and working we are reshaping our view of education and schooling”.

Professor Stephen Heppell, U.K.

Founder, Ultralab and Think.com

www.heppell.net

“Because we are in a world recession. Every past recession has seen a step change for New Learning as Keynesian investment boost the new, rejects the old and favours public service; because we have moved from the flat start of technological progression’s exponential curve to the steep part. Where before we had good time to reflect on small changes, now we have little time to reflect on momentous changes – that means there is no time for a top-down quality control model and we must rely on people, practitioners and communities for judgement for what might be effective;

Because technology destroys cartels: music, automobiles, banks and more. Those who sought to build value from vast scale and barriers to new competition see their walls crumble as a people’s century erodes their foundations. It was people that called time on recorded music and rediscovered live performance; it’s small local mutual banks that have survived. Learning is about people, not corporations.

Because all the old certainties of a last century world of factory schools with its formulaic rigours of “met before” learning have palpably failed to meet the needs of a world full of surprises and the unexpected. It’s the death of factory education and, as I have often reflected before, the dawn of learning..

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And the winner is … ? Based on all the above responses, and a word count/analysis, LEARNING is now king, and being a learner the key to educators finding a place in 21st Century learning. Many thanks to all the respondents for their key contributions.

- Jonathan Nalder, August 2009.

I’ve recently had the fortune to attend major technology in education two conferences in the space of a week that featured Keynote’s from such high-profile educators as Stephen Heppell, Gary Stager, Mark Treadwell and Mark Prensky. As interesting as these were however, I’m not going to write about them here. I can probably post links to the podcasts at some stage, but what doesn’t necessarily get captured on video at these conferences is what the attendees themselves revealed about just where educators are at in this ‘time between times’ – before mobile and ubiquitous computing becomes the invisible norm, but after a time when we could sit back and wait for the digital revolution to pass on by.

So what did I observe?

Firstly, that pedagogy and learning can still be outshone by shiny technology. I saw educators flirting with software and hardware vendors rather than asking ‘where’s the research for that?’.

Secondly, that paper and pens are still ahead as notetaking tools of choice for educators, but only just. Despite one lady failing to bring a notepad or pen as “every conference always gives you free notepaper and pens”, the ratio I observed has improved to about 50:50 between pen and paper and laptops and smartphones. In fact, at both conferences, I had people comment to me that they’d never seen so many laptops at a conference. And there were a lot, at least 50% of attendees I observed were using laptops or smartphones to record their notes. Why the other 50% are even attending a technology in education conference yet still recording everything in un-taggable and un-searchable or un-sharable paper notepads (especially when at least several digital pen options are now available) is …

Thirdly, that just as the Horizon report moves mobile technology into the ‘one year or less’ zone of implementation for education, the promise of anywhere, anytime learning is starting to be taken seriously in my corner of the world. There were at least two sessions around this topic at each conference, and not only was a significant proportion (15%) of educators I observed using mobile devices to enhance their own learning, but many of them are also thinking now about how to catch up to where students are already at in this area.

Lastly, if you do want to see what the connected learners at each of these conferences were thinking and recording, many of them did actually capture it themselves. The fascinating and infinitely useful results can be found by conducting a twitter search for the tags #IWBnet09 or #SC09expo ! Enjoy.

The iPhone 3GS is the most advanced converged mobile device and as such, is one that teachers and educators need to be familiar with. Its really a signpost on the road to ubiquitous computing, where mobile, miniaturised, wirless and cloud-based devices proliferate.

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I am currently working towards achieving the highest level of technology in teaching recognition that my employer (Education Queensland) awards. Known as the ‘Digital Pedagogy License, Advanced’, it forms part of the worlds best practice in this area ‘Smart Classrooms framework‘. The main thrust of the preparation work I am doing for the license is not about sounding off about learning theories, or naming the tools I use, but about real, practical ways that I believe and KNOW technology is improving and transforming my ability to lead learning. Its also been designed as an incredibly and deliberately self-reflective process, and I will over the next couple of months share some of my thoughts and the drafts of the different sections I am compiling. Here’s the first – Enjoy!
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(excerpt from a draft of my belief statement)

I believe that ICT, while an essential component of schooling students for life in a digital world, is not as important as the learner themselves. Thus any learning experience must start with where the learner is, and be based on a relationship that both challenges and makes a student feel safe.

I believe that ICT exists to serve learning. Thus rather than teaching ICT for its own sake, ie. where students learn specific technology skills that can go quickly out of date, I instead seek to teach life-long skills such as digital storytelling that can be adapted across technology platforms.

I believe that the learner and their understandings of the world come first, and so choose to initially consider student needs, and then choose technology that is capable of enabling their improvement. In this way, my practice incorporates simple, mobile devices that can be taken to the small-group spaces where I work with my students, and which can be learnt in seconds such that they become an invisible part of students learning. These simple voice recorders and PDAs do however allow students to capture their learning experiences and use the technology to help them reflect and improve in ways which their learning difficulties prevents them from doing.

Finally, I believe that I must learn with my students to be a role model for going where I in turn can ask them to go. Thus, if the world of technology is going towards ubiquitous, real-time communication, so must I. And also so must I share this world with them in responsible AND innovative ways.

Funny how it is that the more you know, the more you know how little you know? Such is the curse of an always-connected, instant-search world where every question can be googled. But are we finding that human brains can cope with such a potential flood of email, RSS, twitter, facebook etc messages beamed at us in real-time? As empowering as it is (and believe me it is!), this amount of data may be bringing a new survival skill to the forefront – adaptability.

This is my conclusion after reading this article from the ad-heavy but still excellent MasterNewMedia site. In the article, Jay Cross posits that due to the effect of events like 911 and the ever-increasing pace of technological innovation, the ability to be flexible and adaptable may be more important now than just being able to access large chunks of knowledge. 

As always, a middle path will perhaps prove best – ie. those who adapted to the introduction of micro-blogging services like twitter in the early stages have now built extremely powerful knowledge networks.

“Today, the duality of conceptual (new models of education, advancement of social learning theory) and technological (elearning, mobile devices, learning networks) revolutions offers the prospect of transformative change in teaching and learning” – George Siemens

Luckily for every educator currently wrestling with integrating digital technology into the learning we provide, elucidator of Connectivism, George Seimens, has created a wiki based off his new book, ‘The handbook of emerging technologies for learning’ (web address for wiki: http://bit.ly/RVuv3), that looks at how we all can cope and thrive as we seek to teach in the middle of such transformative times.

This idea of having a wiki to accompany the book means it won’t date so fast, plus as Monty Python have found, making some of your content available on the web generally increases sales (their DVD sales rose by 500% when they released free content on youtube recently) !

Beyond this though, the collaborative nature of a wiki is really what Connectivism and much of Siemens work is really about – so kudos George for practicing what you preach and thanks for the great site! There is a PDF version that can be downloaded also – head over and enjoy!

Came across a great visual chart during the week from a twitter contact, and as I have a few readers involved in the process of transitioning technology into the school environment, I thought it worthy of sharing. Go to http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2009/03/05/iris-model for the full image and explanation.

Suffice to say its a complex process, requiring extensive thought if you’re an educator charged with integrating technology into education – oh wait, thats all of us! Guess you better head over there.

Came across this today and had to share. Its an overview of what a 21st century school should look like, and I like it because rather than just being theory or ideas, its very grounded in the practicalities. Something else you might notice – it doesn’t even directly mention ‘technology’ … hmmm… This is because integrating digital tools for learning = good teaching anyway. Head over to HERE (info via Apple) to read the WHY’s behind each of the categories.

I just recieved my email newsletter from Internet World stats today. It provides a fascinating summary of internet use and penetration across nine geographic regions (it strangely has the Carribbean as its own region) as well as the world as a whole. These are vitally important pieces of information for those wanting to track how much internet training to provide their students based on the trends for how important its becoming in their region of the world.

The stats this time (from end of 2008) are fascinating in that they show that while North America has an internet penetration of 73.1%, Australia/Oceania was second with 59.9%, and Europe was at 48.5%. Asia as a whole was at 17.2% (but off a much larger population base). Whats even more interesting/ shocking to me was that as a whole, internet use/ availability was 23.5%. Less than a quarter of the world use/access the world wide web. Maybe we should change the name for a while? It made me stop and think that even though I live in an entirely connected/ internet based reality, on a global scale I’m in the minority and should cherish the benefits I am able to gain from living where I do. Just sayin.

In December 2008 the number of Internet users reached 1,574,313,184 persons. This represents a 23.5% Internet penetration rate for the world.

Kudo’s to Tony Vincent at learninginhand.com for finding this article reporting that students accessing podcasts rather than live lectures performed 9% better on the closing test. Lets be clear, this is only one study, but can it be believed? Perhaps these tools allowing learning to occur anywhere anytime do have a future…

The dawn of uLearning: Jonathan Nalder Masters thesis

Courtesy of eSchool News comes this fantastic collection of resources compiled ahead of the USA’s adding of ‘tech literacy’ to report cards from 2012.

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Google releases Books browser for iPhone

Via TUAW.com

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While it has often proved inadequate when pushed too far, Marc Prensky’s 2001 positing of Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives has given the world the terms needed to start many a technology in education debate. Now almost a decade later, Prensky has written a new article on where citizenship of a digital society now places us.

I’ll be honest, his talk of implants and controlling games with our minds does seem a little sci-fi – not even the characters in Battlestar Galactica can do that! As he states however, these technologies are not way off in the future, but are currently being trialled and deployed. So what will this mean for life as homo sapiens? What effect will all the automation available to us even now on a day to day basis have on our cognition? And where will those without access to such enhancements be left?

This is a significant article from one of Educational technology’s leading thinkers. Read the article at Innovate HERE (requires a simple registration).

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=56922

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