ConnectEd: A User Centred Model of Learning

This is part two of my ConnectED series. The last post was an opening foray and explanation of the term in general. Over the next couple of posts I’ll attempt to dig a little deeper into some of the key components. Welcome to the first of those where I’ll introduced a new model to frame learning, the Three Spheres. There are a huge number of established pedagogical approaches, theoretical frameworks and established good practice out there that I don’t wish to compete with. I don’t see ConnectEd as competition in that space, instead it is a way of reframing that work, pulling it together, joining and forging links between theory, practice and technology. In terms of doing that I first need to define my view of learning: I don’t see learning as a process, I see it as an outcome. As I’ve written previously:

… learning is a subjective, personal and sometimes spiritual event. An intangible, ephemeral and immeasurable object. It is something that is perceivable only by its consequence and affect. We can measure it through testing and demonstrating knowledge, skills, application and process – but it is measurement by proxy, not of the learning itself.

This view of learning gives it a magical quality, one that actually can sustain my work and life, but it’s difficult to try to then discuss and debate how we can do it better. Dealing with ephemera is pretty difficult, so I’ve tried to define three spheres that learning tends to operates within – Autonomous, Interactive and Environmental.

Three Spheres of Learning

The idea of the spheres was to visualise them as spaces for learning to occur. They are 3D not flat and the merge and bleed into one another. They aren’t separate delineated bodies held together with a weak force like gravity. To me the three sphere operate regardless of time, place, technology or practice – they are simply the environment or conditions where learning happens.

Autonomous Learning (planned)

This is probably what most of us would understand as the ‘traditional’ concept of learning, in so much that it is driven by content. What that content looks like, how it functions, the support and scaffolding required to navigate covers a range of different pedagogies and technologies – but in essence it is up to the leaner to navigate. This type of learning is learner centric, it is consumption and interpretation by the individual. The learner makes the required decisions and actions for learning to occur. This might be choosing to read, listen, attend and click, but those verbs and their consequences are subjective decisions. While autonomous learning has the onus on self direction, there is a level of planning involved in terms of framing this within an education. Outcomes are mapped out in advance whether it be by the student, teacher or designer.

Interactive Learning (responsive)

This type of learning is driven by the interactions with other people. This sphere goes right back to the dawn of humanity and our oral traditions, through Socratic practices and on to discussion boards and forums. This is learning that is dependant on the involvement of others, whether they be teachers or peers. It is only possible via human to human interaction because it relies on the nuance of a thinking and an emotive being at the other end. Interaction at this level requires randomness, disagreement, contradiction, humour and conjecture. It is the tutorial, the discussion, the critique, the group project, the peer-to-peer, the actual process of person-to-person interaction that stimulates learning. Interactive learning is about being responsive. Learning outcomes are often not planned or scheduled but occur serendipitously and indirectly.

Environmental Learning (developed)

This final sphere of learning is difficult to articulate but its drive comes from relationships. This kind of learning is about forging links between people and places, theory and practice, ideas and emotions. It is the learning that takes place by doing rather than theorising, feeling rather than thinking. Environmental learning is about creating context and understanding, constructing truth, vision and skill. Environmental leaning is about developing outcomes in a constructive way. They are like levels and grades that are built up and accumulate over time through action.

User Centred

The main aim of developing the three spheres is to develop a user centric model of learning. The individual, not the teacher or the institution is at the centre of all learning which dissociates the conflict between formal and informal learning. Here they overlap, connect and bleed into one another. At this point it is also important to try to differentiate learning from education – to me they are not the same thing. Learning is not something that is forced, controlled or mandated, learning can only happen through the individual. However, Education is what we can control because it is about creating the environment, content and activities in which learning can occur and to help cultivate the right kind of outcomes. It is an acceptance of the changing relationships between institutions, educators, teachers and students – see previous posts for more detail. These spheres of learning are an attempt to contextualise and develop a learner centric model that incorporates and expands upon the pedagogy/andragogy/heutagogy continuum. It also creates a space for cognitive theories – like those of Piaget, Dewey and Vygotsky – to interact with other concepts around authenticity, content development and social interaction.

Connecting the Dots

One of the problems I’ve observed over the last year or so is that when learning is being discussed, it is usually a single sphere being discussed in isolation. This compartmentalisation of techniques, practice, pedagogy and technology makes it easy to rubbish ideas, innovations and sets up the discussion to turn into a competitive X versus Y scenario. Learning is subjective so ConnectED is about shifting the emphasis from the ephemeral and onto the links and relationships between spheres, an area that can be supported and enhanced by the institution and the teacher. Learning is subjective so therefore good education practice is about getting out of the way and instead working to foster the connections through improvements to community, pedagogy, practice, participation, and seamless administration. We need to develop an understanding that each of these learning spheres is crucial to the overall experience, and even more importantly, how they interact, intersect and connect with each other in a much broader sense is what makes good education. Different content, different areas of study and different people are going to respond and require different approaches. ConnectEd is about joining the dots and creating a space where each sphere is connected. Education is often conceptualised as a mechanised structure of processes and outcomes that are too simplified and generalised to be applicable. ConnectEd is re-imagining education as an ecology – embracing its organic, chaotic, connected and complex nature. Instead of seeking to create something that is controllable, processed and industrialised, ConnectEd is about participation, cultivation, sustainability, longevity, relationships and personalisation. So next post lets start to explore some of these complex connections. Remember comments are open and that this is a work in progress. Feel free to share your ideas, criticisms and feedback – all is appreciated.

The Tech Dilemma: Asking questions before solving problems in education

At the moment I am situated in the midst of a number of debates and discussion around technology and education. There are those around mobile and the desire to embrace this new suite of technologies. Those around innovative ideas and practices of technology and incorporating them into the mainstream. Technical discussions over formats, development processes, standards, ownership, data governance and privacy. Other still around strategy, vision and planning a roadmap for these technologies. It’s all extremely important work, key issues and problems that have to be resolved.

The dilemma I am starting to face is – to what end?

This kind of work consumes hundreds of hours a week at our institution on all levels of the business, from the academic in the classroom, through divisional and faculty structures right up to the Vice Chancellor. It costs thousands of dollar and to what end?

The clarity of vision required to justify that kind of spend just isn’t there and I am really struggling with the signal to noise ratio at the moment. I feel that good ideas and topics of vital importance, the stuff we really need to be talking about is being lost in the constant babble.

As a designer a client will come to you with a job, and it usually has a price tag and a timeline associated with it. However the job itself often lacks the fundamental details required to get it done. An example might be a logo for a business that they need in a months time and they are willing to pay $1000. The job sounds quite reasonable but you can see there is no detail or information to work on to get it done. You can’t hand that back to your team and expect that it will happen, the client will accept it and be forthcoming with their payment. No, what you need to develop is a brief where you ask questions of the client and glean as much information from them about their company, what they do, their style, language, market, position, values, principles and aesthetic. Without a brief its just a shot in the dark, guesses that are often wildly inaccurate, impertinent, inconsequential and won’t get you paid! The brief is the crucial element in design and a good brief will produce good outcomes that are crafted and purpose-built for the client. The key to a brief is asking the right questions to elicit the right information to achieve the right outcomes.

So whats the “brief” for education at the moment? Did anyone even ask? As we travel down this road has anyone sat down and really asked the right questions because from where I’m sitting the answer is No.

To me MOOCs are a good example of a solution without a brief. An unproven theoretical model that equates free with open, applies an outdated, outmoded and ineffectual instructionalist pedagogy, relies on venture capital, frames education as a disaster scenario and requires a return on investment to private investors. The fact is they have failed to do even precursory research into educational theory or practice in say the last 150 years. Are there good ideas in there? Yes of course, but it is design without a brief, a shot in the dark, technically sound but education without any understanding of current context or practice.

We need to stop. Slow down and take a deep breath.

Let’s instead put our efforts into formulating a brief. Let’s ask the questions we need to ask, find the answers we need to find and work out what we want to get out of this. Let’s stop engaging with technology blindly and instead engage it with purpose and vision. Let’s not play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey in the edtech space and instead work craft solutions to suit our needs rather than shoehorning them into the next big thing. Let’s design for the outcomes we want, that our students need not what the purveyors of solutions present. Let’s reassert control over the process and lead by example. If silicon valley wants to get involved let’s be good clients and write them a brief, give them the information they need to make the right decisions, formulate the best solutions to what we actually want and are willing to pay for.

The illusion of permanence

I keep hearing phrases that reiterate the desire for more freedom in our digital spaces, to avoid “vendor lock-in” and a general concern not to be fenced in. Apparently signing up and purchasing apps is the equivalent of locking yourself in the basement, proceeding to chain yourself to the floor and then throwing away the key.

There seems to be a sense of permanence in our digital spaces – the hardware, software and services we sign up for – which seems odd, considering the technology depends on a complete lack of anything tangible. We have created a sense of the artefact and of the analogue where none ever existed. Digital came to free us of these things, but somehow they have returned with greater resilience, vim and vigour.

Zip disks anyone?

This year I cleaned out my cache of legacy technology. CDROMs with applications that no longer work, files unable to be opened, operating systems no longer current and hardware no longer able to connect. There is so much legacy technology it’s scary how quickly we change and adapt.

This concept of lock-in scares me because it seems to strike fear into people. They become stunned and unable to function, frozen by fear of making the wrong decision. Yet when we look back at our recent past how much has changed? Are you using the same computer, the same apps, the same software version, the same services from 3 years ago? Five? Ten? Has every update, and version upgrade ran smoothly or come without tradeoffs or made components/features/files legacy? Are you reading this in your chains from your basement?

Permanence is a myth in the digital age. Entropy follows us into the digital realm because it is a fundamental rule of the universe. Everything changes, everything moves and everything evolves.

“Nothing is static. Everything is falling apart.”
- Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Reading List #3

So another week another set of new articles – mixed up with a few video and audio posts this time round!

A 10th Grader Explains How Social Media Can Replace Textbooks – A really nicely put piece, simple but lovely.

“Social media can transform a class from a traditional, cookie cutter, textbook-using class into an innovative, fascinating, and extremely relevant course.”

Project Mighty and Napoleon – Not really a read but this smart stylus & digital ruler from Adobe really are innovative and definitely have a wow factor. Looks like tablets are growing up and becoming more capable than desktops – at least in some areas.

The 70 mega rich who don’t pay tax – with all the discussion around budget blackholes – this looks like an issues worth addressing. I don’t begrudge anyone making money but feel we have a system that encourages cheating and lacks any sense of citizenship. Sorry, but you wouldn’t make that money if it weren’t for Australian society – time to pay back into the system.

Bill Gates on the iPad: ‘A Lot Of Those Users Are Frustrated’ – I’m still trying to see the logic in how users are frustrated by the iPad not providing word functionality – and not Microsoft? Easiest thing to do? Realise Word is just bloatware and find something better!

The High Risk of a ‘Wait and See’ Approach – As someone who sees constant change, evolution and innovation as the natural state, this just makes sense. I like the last part of the article in particular:

“Stop Waiting; Start Doing” & “Remember this: “If you don’t do it, someone else will.” And they’re doing it right now!”

Beware the Big Errors of ‘Big Data’ – Really good article on some of the issues around the next “saviour technology” – Big Data. We need to understand that:

“Big data may mean more information, but it also means more false information”

What a data point tells us is not truth. Not when truth is abstracted from context.

Disaster Capitalism Comes to Education – This is one of those ideas that has so much relevance today and I’m glad Mike reinstated this post. I agree so deeply with this sentiment -

“the most important thing we can do as we talk to people is remind them that they are *not* surrounded by rubble, that in fact students at their college *do* have transformative, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Not enough experiences. Not as many students as should. Not at a reasonable and accessible cost. Not always in a way that is directly related to the world they enter on graduation.”

Education isn’t a the rubble strewn wasteland a lot of people want us to imagine – my analogy was a car with a flat tire, not a seized engine – but that message seems to get lost, especially when you speak to vendors hocking products. I’ll have to add this one to my list of docos to watch!

Inspiration calling – OK, technically another ‘non-reading’ but this is too good not to share. It’s an audio recoding of a phone call from web developer Jeremy Keith to the owner of a company whose website looks very similar to Jeremy’s. In academia there is such vitriol around plagiarism – but I tend to think that this might perhaps be a better way of dealing with it. Not punitive, not shameful – it is justice served Socratically through a calm melodic voice encouraging self-awareness and inner change. Getting caught is one thing, handling it and committing to change is another.

You didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral—corporations did – Great article in our meme culture – the mix of technology and social. Some great lines too – “Memes become themes become meta-memes become norms” and “Primacy is more important than privacy.”

Overblown students’ egos ignore teachers’ expertise – This is quite an interesting piece on the research by Dr Ann O. Watters in the latest edition of The Journal of General Education. In it she contends that “today’s student-led learning environment, which stresses the importance of student voices and experiences, has led to a loss of teachers’ authority within the classroom”. I think this is quite an interesting perspective and something that gave some ideas in placing the next article.

More on education a la carte – A post from University Canberra Vice Chancellor Stephen Parker. Stephen makes some really valid points here which I agree with, but I sense that there is something wrong with the tone of the post. This was difficult for me to read, and perhaps just as difficult to try to pinpoint why. It took me a little time to realise that the reason it didn’t sit well was because the voice takes such a passive stance and it seems quite timid. I understand that the point of the piece may be more to stimulate discussion than to argue a specific point, so maybe my problem is just how that discussion is being framed.

What seems to be missing is any recognition of the substantial role of the institution in all this. Institutions, companies and individuals have a voice and have a role to play – they are active participants that affect the relationships that come with economic, technological and cultural change. The trends that Stephen raised aren’t foreign – they are part of our daily interactions, or maybe the problem is most universities haven’t seen it that way. Many Universities, and sections within universities, have acted as hermetically sealed spaces and have chosen not to engage with change and to develop a relationship beyond themselves. They have been selfish and self-centred and it is no wonder they feel threatened.

However, it needs be pointed out that we aren’t victims of change, we are in a relationship with it. We can react and interact with it in many ways and be passive or proactive. I wish we could have this discussion. It would be nice to spend time talking about this relationship, rather than jumping on every messianic technological solution as a quick fix. The truth is that we must realise relationships are really hard work!

To take Steven’s analogy – the al a carte menu is a symbol of the diners relationship with the restaurant. You get choice, but that is limited to what’s on the menu. Boundaries were set and the relationship works within it. The diner gets to participate in the experience but the restaurant has a responsibility to live up to their side of the deal. They have control and provide the ambience, the food on the menu and the level of service. Students can have a la carte but we have to provide a restaurant they want to dine in!

To round out this post I wanted to draw some parallels between Stephens post and the work done by Dr Watters and the framing of education around the students. I am a firm believer in a student centric approach – but to me this is not about becoming student led, but instead achieving an equilibrium in the relationship between institution and student. It addresses the millennia of inequality through institutional dominance in this relationship by allowing more participation from the students. At the same time we need not go too far the other way and need to avoid the concept of student led. Student Led undermines the experience and expertise inherent in most institutions and substituting it with an ideal of choice but a reality that fails to meet anyone’s expectations.

This idea of relationships seems to be what we need to pursue because students don’t want control of their education, they want to participate. Students want to own the experience but that doesn’t translate into taking responsibility for constructing courses, content, timetables. They want flexibility but that doesn’t mean they want to forgo structure or planning. Students want a relationship with the institution. They want to engage with us, they want to participate and they want to interact. What needs to happen, and is the most appropriate course of action, is to even out the power relationship between institution and student.

Separating Content from Presentation

At the moment I’m planning some work in the area of digital publishing. The premise is to develop a proof of concept for an adaptive digital publishing system. Central to this idea is the concept of the separation of content from presentation. This concept is perhaps best embodied on the web – HTML providing structure to content and CSS providing all the necessary visual styles. This model provides a surprisingly flexible system probably best showcased by the CSS Zen Garden site. What changes on the site isn’t the HTML, the content stays the same, just the CSS file is changed to create radically different page designs.

The idea is that the two can be neatly divided was thrown into disarray by content strategist Karen McGrane in her recent post over on A List Apart – WYSIWTF. In the introduction she states:

The reality, of course, is that content and form, structure and style, can never be fully separated. Anyone who’s ever written a document and played around to see the impact of different fonts, heading weights, and whitespace on the way the writing flows knows this is true.

Now the WYSIWYG editor and the faith we put in it has to die, because it is simply no longer relavent. Content will end up on the device chosen by your viewer, not you. Did you know there’s a browser on the Kindle? Yes your site and your content displayed in 256 glorious shades of grey. Did you design for that? Did your WYSIWYG editor show you that? But what can we use instead? Karen dismisses the inline editor for many of the same reasons as the need to ditch WYSIWYG, so what’s the alternative?

Well the last line “If we want true separation of content from form, it has to start in the CMS” was a bit of a guiding light.

Content, Container and Presentation

I think what we are missing is the concept of a middle man. Content and presentation are too distinct, they are the two extremes in this case and we need to find some common ground. This is the place for the container.

The container is a shapeless vessel, more liquid than solid, but it provides a flexible structure for the content. The container defines what the content is. It might be a chapter, an article, a post, a review – but what it does is create a defined space for the content to live. The container is the tool to avoid “blobs” and faceless chunks of text and defines how content belongs and provides context. Content without context is pointless, so we need containers to help us develop better systems, better tools and better presentation. Once we have a container in place then we can start to develop better tools to preview, review and edit. We can provide more expansive “preview” modes so that we can render models on different devices, screen sizes, browsers and even in different channels like in an app.

The container appears to represent the missing piece for my work and I can see the need to develop this idea further. So I’ll keep you posted on how things develop.

PS – wondering if I was channeling this great Aussie invention:

The Goon Bag

 

If you could share advice with aspiring web designers, what would it be?

I came across this tweet this morning from Brad Frost – so I decided to share my thoughts and it got favourited a number of times – so there must be something to it!

@brad_frost find people who know more than you, and learn everything you can from them. Adopt “toddler mode” and keep asking why?—
Tim Klapdor (@timklapdor) May 05, 2013

Find more advice on Storify.

Reading List #2

In all honesty this was a week of some cracking reads – special thanks to Audrey Watters for some fantastic work (you made the list twice!):

• Connected leadership by Harold Jarche http://t.co/FaFasDFp9q  – interesting commentary on the role of leadership and hierachy in an increasingly networked world. Really enjoying Jarche’s writing in this space as it fits with my vision of the changes required within organisations and businesses.

• The 3 Laws of Ed-Tech Robotics - Audrey Watters writes another great post on the automation of teaching and learning, the development of teaching machines and robots in the classroom. I think this whole area is illustrative of the lack of differentiation between “learning” and “education”. In many ways its organic cognitive function vs mechanical practice – but there is a fundamental lack of debate about this. You can make education as mechanical as you like but learning will never be. Audrey’s main point however is to ask why? Why do we want a mechanised system? What benefit will it be and how will it impact on our humanity? I can’t wait for the video!
• How to capture the “full benefits of the creative, original and imaginative efforts of” teaching staff - David Jones. A good post discussing points from the Group of 8 -
  

  If Australia is to capture the full benefits of the creative, original and imaginative efforts of its researchers, it will always need a means to support the ideas and challenges coming from individuals and small groups, even when these ideas fall outside formal priority setting mechanisms.

  I can definitely see a mismatch in this statement and the practices that most institutions are engaging and resourcing. There is a disjoin from what management wants, what teachers/students want and the policies that then get implemented. Is it that there is a lack of models available to management to encourage innovation? Skunkworks is one that is tried and tested, but are there others? Should innovation just be the domain of a single group within an organisation or embedded in it’s day to day business?

• Peer Learning, Online Learning, MOOCs, and Me: Response to the Chronicle of Higher Education - Wow! A really fantastic post from Cathy Davidson worth more than a tweet. To give context its a response to an infographic published by the Chronicle of Higher Education linking her to MOOCs, where she questions the categorisation and the framing of debate. I think she nails the root cause of the challenges that education faces:
  

  “Nothing about our current Industrial Age education system, with its silo’d knowledge and emphasis on professionalism, is designed for adaptation to rapid change, interactive thinking, iterative process, or collaborative methodologies, all informed by deeply humanistic and social attention to such major issues as intellectual property, security, privacy, freedom, and even the definition of the “self.” Everyday life and everyday work brings most of us into constant contact with these issues. And education? Hardly at all. The world has changed drastically since April 22, 1993 when NCSA decided to make the Mosaic 1.0 browser available to the larger public, officially entering in the Information Age. Education has undergone few structural changes in the last twenty years commensurate with these huge shifts in how we work, play, socialize, interact, exchange capital, and even pray in the 21st century.”

• Hybrid Academic Collectives by Jesse Stommel. This transcript is from this talk: I’m so grateful for watching as it introduced a great new concept to me, that of the collective. To quote:
  

  “Thomas and Brown offer a useful exploration of the notion of a “collective,” which they contrast with the notion of a “community.” For Thomas and Brown communities are built around a sense of belonging, whereas collectives are built around participation. Collectives are “content-neutral platforms” with facilitating peer-to-peer learning as their reason for existing (53). According to Thomas and Brown, “collectives scale in an almost unlimited way” (53), because they are built around shared practice and are inherently nodal.”

  The other point “Collaboration, though, both in teaching and learning, is rarely institutionalized at an administrative level” really honed in on a key issue for me around the enablers of innovation. How can you build it into the culture and the institution? The concept of the collective is one that could allow this, combined with social media and online spaces perhaps we can begin to collaborate across discipline areas, faculties and universities. This idea of the collective fits this ideas that “You can do anything. But you can’t do everything.” Collaboration isn’t just about belonging, but achieving together and leveraging the different perspectives, skills and talents we can all bring to the table.

• [Expletive Deleted] Ed-Tech Another great article from @audreywatters. She is smashing them out of the park at the moment and cutting through the hype, the byllshit, and the spin surrounding edtech. It is refreshing and insightful stuff, like this:
  

  “building human capacity trumps adding tablet capacity; ones where agency matter more than algorithms; ones where innovation comes from students, from professors, from librarians, from researchers; ones where new ideas are not driven by commercialism but by care; stories and initiatives that are local and will not scale but need not scale;”

• The value of bad ideas -  An Interesting take on MOOCs – and perhaps more importantly the value of good design. Some interesting comments too.