Fundamentals: Taxonomies for Learning

One project I have for 2009 is to create a framework for Professional Learning (PL) at Macquarie University. I’m pretty happy to get asked to say the least. The course will offer 26 hours of PL. It will follow the Open University 13 week timetable. The course is Foundations of Web2.0. It uses the ‘back story’ of how we have got to here, why we need to change and just where the opportunities lie. It will use simple ‘tools’ to address how and were pedagogy can be expanded and enriched – without being an ‘expert’ in IT.

Here’s how I’m approaching this.

Element #1 – Taxonomies for learning and teaching

Before we can effectively talk about blogs, wikis, podcasts etc., we first need to get our heads around a few things.

1. The internet is designed to be dis-organised! – so how can we organise information scaffolds to guide learners?
2. You can’t search the internet! – So if I can’t search ‘the internet’ – what can I do with it?
3. Search engines are not free! – so what is the costs of using Google in the classroom?
4. 80% of people who use the internet use 1 taxonomy! - and they don’t even know it!
5. Folksonomies can save the world! – But first, they need to change your understanding.

Here are some workshop questions …

Example A - Someone searches “curb morning sickness,” “you’re pregnant he doesn’t want the baby,” “baby names,” “abortion clinics charlotte nc,” and “engagement rings” – in that order. – What will Google think?

Example B – The word cloud – taken LIVE from AOL’s search engine. (I deleted the offensive words). This is what people (today) were searching for.

Example 3: “The zero option”. Type in “What is a field mouse?” into the bar where the URL should go and press return. Here’s what I got – a direct LINK to a website. Firstly – it will be different in IE and Firefox. Next, thats where the address should go! and lastly – how the hell did it know I’d accept this as the best result? Does it do the same if you type the same thing into Google? How about Yahoo? How about the Google Task Bar – or even Excite (do they exisit?).

Creativity, Curiosity, Consideration, Consistency

This is a series of three posts that look at the history of ICT in schools and the learning frameworks that are working.

Ever wondered how ICTs got the way they are in education? Part 1/3

Technology was originally used in schools for ‘drill and skill’ learning. It was a ‘science’ in the 1980s and spent many awkward years in the maths department, science department and even industrial arts. In short it has always been a dependant of something else. Eventually, it became a whole school thing – a bolt on to existing disciplines and not all teachers welcomed it’s introduction to ‘their’ syllabus’.

The software used throughout the 1990s and was based on Computer Aided Instruction (CAI). We bought software on CD-Rom, and CD-Roms with pre-developed worksheets. There are still a vast amount of titles on CD-Rom for this purpose, and a multi-million dollar ‘marketing’ machine pushing into school classrooms. Schools had little choice – as the Internet was still the preserve of ‘experts’ and software had evolved into quite sophisticated CD-Roms teaching anything from German Grammar to Touch Typing. CAI was widely adopted in schools. Schools began ‘using’ software where Universities used the Internet to collaborate and share academic research. Ironically much of the discussion in the 1990s in University over the www, was about ‘software’ such as HypeCard – and not the www itself. They used listservs, message boards, MOOs etc., schools had almost no access to the www, in NSW until the late 1990s.

Another decade, same debate

In the archives of the NSW Parliament, 30th May 2001. The minister of Education and Training replies to the question “What is the latest information on the Government’s plan for students to use the Internet and email?

“I remind honourable members that it was the first Government to connect every school to the Internet, a program which was completed by the end of 1996. Since 1995 it has had a roll out of 90,000 new and replacement computers and a further 25,000 computers will be rolled out during the next two years. More than 20,000 teachers have been trained in how to use IT in teaching and learning, with another 20,000 to be trained during the next two years. It is now time for IT to revolutionise not just what our students learn about or what tools they use to learn with, but how they learn.”

So by 1998, a decade ago, every school had internet access, new equipment and trained teachers apparently. Are we not having the same discussion today? – The next post looks at how the internet disrupted the ICT classroom.

Moshi Monsters

The PR blurb says : Moshi Monsters is a virtual world for children that allows users to adopt and care for their own pet monsters. Users create a home for their pet monster in Monstro City, play games and make friends, and show off their monster. It is not ‘new’ as such – but new to me. It was nominated for a Childrens BAFTA Award in December 2008.

The blogger says: Moshi Monsters is slick and well able to align it’s product offering with big brands to fish in the same markets – such as a current tie in competition with the up coming Ben 10 movie. It also got a whopping US$10million as a start up. It’s a 2D flash based site, in which children solve puzzles, earn points, and do the usual social stuff. However, one of the sticky points – a little neo-pets like – is that the monster has a quite clever behavior engine. You have to try and keep it happy. It has in effect an emotional literacy – how to keep your avatar pet alive. Being social is one way – the site allows messages and connections between other Moshi owners.

There are obvious, earlier comparisons to draw here with ‘pet based’ interaction online – but the site also has a ‘blog’, which contains a lot of information – including discussions about what users have created – and some very subtle marketing and cross promotional activity.

A quick trial with the house hold ‘test monkeys’ – and it was a cinch to figure out, but to get the most out of it, they need cognitive skills of online communication as well as problem solving, so not for pre-schoolers or early learners. I’d say 9-11 year olds might stick with it for a while.

There are lots of puzzle sites around, and indeed puzzle based MUVEs, what I found interesting here was the degree of social media integration done over and above the ‘game’ itself. Blogs, buddy lists, message boards … and avatar management – what looks like a simple site – is actually demanding a high level of literacy. Mindcandy – the creators – seem very aware of parent communication and site monitoring, but I didn’t see active evidence of that in the way that ReadingEggs sends a report of your child’s activity.

But it’s been this weeks ‘hit’ internet ‘time’ toy, though I am not at all sure that it has any ‘educational’ value in it’s games – that you can’t get with less of an overhead elsewhere with Dora or Disney, but makes big leaps into social media territory – which is what I found more interesting.

I do wish these things could be more adaptable. Right now they are almost as frustrating as Computer Aided Instruction software in the 1990s. Sure they look nice, do neat stuff  – but they don’t allow ‘learning’ to be at the centre. Collecting “Rox” in return for puzzles is mearly a means to an end. There is no real ability to put the character into a learning framework, no opportunity to ‘create’ or ’story tell’, so once again, I think we are heading down the wrong path. This might lead to kids ’social networking’ but really – what is the point – the age of their development does not require them too, or equip them to. Virtualising it and adding moral pressure didn’t thrill me, or make me want to take kids to it in an educational setting.

I can see merit in MeetSee in school and home – and there are others such as MetaPlace that offer more learning centred opportunities. Games have their place, especially with boys education – maths and science – such as Runescape, but then there are things such as Moshi Monsters. It is much harder to ‘extract’ how you’d add these to a class, so this means they are left to be used at home. It is important that teachers at least ‘know’ what is happening in this growing realm – as the skills being developed are significant – and so is the collaborative, social nature used to aquire them. Moshi Monsters would make an interesting study in comparison to other more adaptive offerings.

Tweets from the RMS Titanic

History repeats – or so they say. Edward John Smith’s ship was thought un-sinkable until 1517 people died on the night of 14 April 1912 when it hit an ‘iceburg’. It used the most advanced technology available at the time – yet failed to recognise the significance of the warnings, but more importantly, communication technology.

“a message from the steamer Amerika warned that large icebergs lay in the Titanic’s path, but as Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, the Marconi wireless radio operators, were employed by Marconi and paid to relay messages to and from the passengers, they were not focused on relaying such “non-essential” ice messages to the bridge.”(wikipedia)

History shows that time and again we fail to recognise the importance of communication technology until it reaches a critical point. Schools have a history of using computing as an instructional aid, university as a communication tool. Metaphoric ‘tools’, previously used for instruction, are now exploratory and constructive – they are best used for communication. Something that still appears lost on even the BBC.

As the new school year starts – teachers are relaying, what some consider non-essential messages about technology and pedagogy. Imagine if the passengers on the Titanic had Twitter – how different the story, if not the tragedy, might be. It’s a silly allegory as obviously today’s technology prevents such thing from repeating.  Please don’t hassle other teachers, executives, principals, politicians about non-essential messages about education – the party is in full swing and the water is calm. I wish all other radio operators sucess this year – and look forward to working with you.

The 3Rs are now the 3Ts

Learning with Web2.0 requires a shift from Educational ICTs being user centered to learning centred.

Software applications by their nature put the user at the centre. We ‘use’ software. We read the ‘user’ manual etc., Confusion occurs when attempting to differentiate between software and Web2.0 technologies. For example, ‘using’ a blog interface to write is remarkably similar to writing a letter in a Word. But there is a distinct difference between seeing students as ‘users’ of technology or ‘learners’ with technology. I suggest that effective 21st Century pedagogy is learning centred and uses the 3Ts, not the 3Rs.

The 3Ts of Web2.0

Tools: The Web2.0 tools used must be adaptable to suit the needs of the learning. For example, if we are teaching collaboration, the tool must allow students to collaborate in their educational setting. What works in an elementary school in Kansas, may not work in a school in Adelaide. Each school has it’s own cultural capital, socio-economic, cultural and leadership differences. The key decision is to try them, not to worry about replication.

Techniques: The teacher is not the ‘gateway’ to knowledge, nor is the software. They both act as simultaneous conduits though which learning occurs. For example: The teacher will teach students how to use Delicious to find information – because it will produce better learning outcomes in the future.

Task: Is a scaffolding activity. Mastery skills may be learned, however a scaffold is used to deliver the disciplinary requirements of the syllabus, though authentic, relevant, goal directed ‘doing’ activities. For example: The students go on a science fiield trip. The students use technology to document their learning. This, you might argue could be done without technology. But what if it was a ‘digital’ field trip using Flickr, Google Sky – as the trip is inter-planetary?

We use the Web2.0 ‘tools’ to assist learning. These tools are not there to be ‘learned’ in the same way we taught students to learn how to use Word or to make a Spreadsheet. Web2.0 represents an opportunity to adapt the read/write, connectedness of the internet into Learning. The central activity is to learn – by doing – using tools, tasks and techniques.

We once thought we needed to learn how to use computers. We would have them on our desk. This was because we had previously (and sucessfully) trained people to be machinists or signal box operators. We thought the next generation would use ‘computers’ like their parents used a factory machine. They did for a while, but todays ICTs left the desktop and local area network long ago. Being media and network literate is more important that being a ‘user’.

Like Fire

In a Talk With Howard Rheingold and Will Richardson now on Ustream – I was particularly taken with their discussion on how social media impacts pedagogy.

Rheingold talks about it acting like ‘fire’; ideas and interests to leap from one area to another quicker and faster than institutions can react and slow change may in part be due to the terms of employment not encouraging professional development leading to large scale pedagogical shifts in learning. Interest and peer driven social media in education allows teachers to make this shift regardless of institutional objection or indifference. Right now there is little alternative for teachers as ‘leaders’ dither and procrastinate.

I took from this conversation a real sense that the ‘systems’ binding and controlling pedagogy now will be less important in the future.

Constructivist approaches to learning that understand and embed social media in read/write approaches – brings about renewal. Renewal means staying relevant to the world around us, recognising that our 19th Century pedagogy is failing. Rheingold talks about ‘fire starting’ ideas – exemplified by someone posting a ‘tweet’,  they talk about how it gains their attention and takes them to new places and new people – where they learn. The example highlights how people are essentially interest-driven difference engines. We notice things that look interesting – especially if they also appear different.

Rheingold calls George Siemens online Connectivism course -  a ‘roll your own University’ – and that people are now finding connections and learning in places that are off the institutional radar.  Rheingold suggests that learning to prioritise and manage online activity is something we must to learn and teach. To focus on the immediate, but be aware of the peripheral opportunities and connections, and find time to explore them. Rhiengold talks further about how he has to manage his message boards for class, his blog, his social bookmarks and the various other ‘network’ demands that he considers vital to his professional life.

Alvin Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

This conversation highlighted to me that a ‘networked’ learner means being in at least two realms constantly – because we are at a time of cross-over. We cross back and forth from the 19th to the 21st Century. While some school leaders enjoy the ‘cudos’ that  creates – students need the renewal of pedagogy and schools need to support teachers in this goal – not alienate staff or continually debate wether or not Web2.0 is a ‘good idea’.

The conversation starts talking about the landscape around where Rheingold lives. Living in Australia, it amazes me how fast a bushfire can move and the devastation it appears to cause. I am equally amazed how fast the ecosystem renews itself – it is a natural process for which we cannot dictate terms – merely be prepared for the event.

The metaphor of the bush fire leaping great gaps in the pedagogical landscape, causing havoc and then renewing learning is entirely apt in Australia’s current K12 educational climate. Right now we have a few spot fires … but sooner or later the wind will change (or so the students hope).

Great interview that once again challenges my thinking.

Touch Typing or Curriculum Renewal?

20 years ago, schools understood that typing was an important. I even did typing class while studying a graphic degree, well before the advent of desktop publishing. 15 years ago, schools understood that typing with a computer and navigating graphical interfaces was important. We taught typing, it was on the time-table and used special applications to do it.

10 years ago schools thought that information super highway was important. We entered the age of ‘information technology’ and encouraged students to ‘look up’ and ‘find’. We learned to type, to use a computer and to search the internet because someone thought it was important.

But now we know it’s important to think about technology in terms of media literacy, where friend driven and interest driven learning blends with formal learning. We know connectivism is influencing how and where learning happens; we know social media has transformed communication and collaboration. We are rethinking the very nature of information itself.

While schools often take the long break to renovate or rejuvenate the physical infrastructures, doing the similar in the pedagogical domain is almost none existent and the year begins much as it left off.

I propose these schools re-introduce ‘touch typing’. That is a better use of time and resources than using Web2.0 poorly or fumbling with learning-theory-rhetoric in staff meetings or in front of parents. At least then, kids can go home and use their own social networks with at least one relevant skill from the ICT classroom. I am not sure why learning to type was removed from so many classrooms – perhaps its something to do with ‘digital natives’. Students starting school for the first time will have signifiantly different experience of technology that those starting high school this year experienced in their pre-school years. Pre-schoolers develop sufficient skills to operate a keyboard, mouse and navigate iconography using a range of technologies. Early readers and writers have been using a wealth of online activities before entering K12.

What are they going to learn about in the next 12 years beyond basic office automation and search/copy/paste?

To my mind if curriculum leaders need to be articulating a clear vision of what media literacy is; putting professional development in place to allow staff to learn it; putting school programs in place to teach it; – just as they did with touch typing all those years ago.

Lara Croft is my new teacher

Lara Croft was perhaps one of the greatest teachers of all time. Tombraider was one of the games that redefined gaming through it’s immersive, strategic interactivity – together with a back-story and ‘cut’ scenes that rewarded players for perseverance and solving problems. Sure she has sex appeal, but that was not her biggest asset. Tombraider in many ways set the scene for today’s massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft.

Problem solving, improving performance though the acquisition of skills and meta-cognative knowledge. Sound familiar? Games have a pseudo-pedagogy all of their own which can be leveraged into learning and teaching in education.

Games teach kids a high degree of visual and auditory literacy – as well as ‘reading’ and now writing, social skills and collaboration.

Where is the alignment with pedagogy?

1.    Goal orientated learning
2.    Problem solving
3.    Critical thinking
4.    Literacies for learning
5.    Tenacity and exploration
6.    Selection of ‘tool’ best suited to solve problems
7.    Sense of mastery and achievement
8.    Ability to apply congnitive knowledge to situations
9.    Collaboration
10.    Social behavioural modeling.

Of course there are expections and issues is some games ‘context’ and ‘content’. I would not advocate simulated ‘real’ violence such as Grand Theft Auto for example, though interestingly one of the US Army’s best recruitment tools – is a game called Americas Army. I’m not going to get into the social and ethical debate of some ‘titles’, but stick to the underlying ‘learning’ that games are teaching or kids. Herein lies a separate debate, but like everything they see or hear – some of experiences and activities are harmful, some positive. We can even leverage this into discussions of social and ethical values in society. They are doing it anyway remember. Just poll your class for ‘titles’ if you are in any doubt.

The internet has transformed gaming – and therefore informal-learning. Learning does is exclusively ‘at school’ in the way it once was – social learning models are active at home – be that through using and reading MySpace or playing World of Warcraft. Games are online to ‘win’ you simply have to work with others – and model ‘winning’ techniques and behaviours.

Games are goal orientated, and to get to the ‘top’ of your game – they know that they have to start at the bottom – and through the various skills outlined, they ‘level’ up. They accept defeat only temporarily – as you always re-spawn and try again. In this way – gaming uses the ‘zone of proximal development’. The problems can be neither too easy that they are not worth doing, or too frustrating that they give up. Game designers are very savvy when doing this. Its all the more amazing to hear adults comment when watching kids play games ‘I have no idea how he can take all that in’. They can because they are multi-literate and able to predict the model and methods. Games often stick to a very tried and tested approach – reward for problem solving, through effort and experimentation. This leads to cognitive knowledge. If anything, I think that exploration and play, is where kids learn much of what some are calling ‘digital native’ – they were not born with these skills – they learned them – and Lara, was their teacher so to speak.

If teachers use a similar approach – chunking tasks, building on core skills to solve problems though experimentation and inquiry then kids will bring a huge amount of game-cognition to the classroom. Of course, learning needs a context, content and discipline. In gaming there is a back-story, the context – and the problems being solved are the ‘content’. The tools to solve it are provided by the software.

So rather than hand over a text-book, use the text book as the ‘level guide’ – a point of reference when you are getting stuck in a problem. Use a forum – a place to ask questions, and get answers. Make the goal ‘massive’ and ‘authentic’, but chunk it into incremental levels – though individual classroom activities.

Don’t focus on the tool – Gamers know that to beat the ‘boss’ you have to select the right set of tools in the context. Students need to be selecting the right tools (blogs, wikis, rss, delicious, forums, podcasts) within a short period. My view is that a 7th grader with zero Web2.0 exposure, should be using all these in around 10 weeks – after that, they should be selecting and justifying their choices to the teacher and their peers. Let them teach each other the mastery skills – stick to the context and the content.

Get off the tools curve early – the cognitive skills are there, so focus on the context and the content. Take a risk – let them apply their vast gaming skills to learning. Adopt Lara’s pedagogy, they will see it as far more relevant than a 19th Century one.

I am not suggesting – playing games (though I am not against it) in the classroom, but I am suggesting that playing games – just might make you a better teacher – as you can adopt a lot of the methods and cognitive processes that they have – into learning and teaching. It will also lead to better appreciation on how educational MUVES such as Quest Atlantis and Second Life can be leveraged into learning. So if you’ve never played a game, or think it’s not relevant to you – then think again – it is relevant – because games teach kids so much. Grab the 10 day World or Warcraft trial – it may just be the potion that gives you insight into what Lara has been teaching them for over a decade.

Wakoopa – Time of your (digital) life

This is a great little gadget, for mac and pc. Wakoopa is a widget with code you can embed online. At first glance, its a tool that watches how much time you spend with various applications. Great for finding out just how much time you’ve ‘wasted’ in Second Life or WoW perhaps.

I think it might have a far more constructive use for 21C educators. One of the greatest myths, put downs or unknowns that ‘connected’ teachers have justifying time online in networks or learning new applications. Its time that often goes totally unseen (in the eyes of HR). The amount of self-directed PD that these teachers and edtechs are doing combined with the amount of time they spend using these technologies to develop learning environments is almost impossible to measure, let along report.

I’m not going to pretend that I believe it is acceptable for teachers not to be learners or that traditional professional development models will keep pace with learning technologies. Its time to move on from passive ICT approaches.

Blogging is perhaps the most visible sign that a teacher has decided to engage in the 21C discussions and teaching approaches. But a blog post is a small part of the time people spend online, especially when starting to take in the enormity of the problems and solutions being explored by so many. You begin to read way more than you post.

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) for example are by far an large the most important ‘technologies’ that teachers are using in professional development. These were again and again highlighted in conferences and panel discussions throughout 2008. The knowledge of all of us is greater than any one of us – as the saying goes.

Wakoopa is one way that a teacher could track their own time, but also use it to evidence their level of activity and engagement in their professional acitivity. You might not want to put it one a public page, but a private page on a blog or wiki, would be a very useful reporting tool. Of course this once again opens people to the critisism – you have too much time on your hands, you don’t have a life etc., – which to those who understand it’s transformative power, don’t really care about these days. More fool them. Recruitment ads are increasingly calling for ‘demonstrated ability’ in regard to ICTs – and I think in that regard Wakoopa could just be one of those widgets that gives real evidence of professional development.

Diigo Update (weekly)

• Afro Brazillian Dance Course Tuggerah Lakes Kincumber Community College

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• Find a music class near to you on the Central Coast. Music teaching and learning opportunities

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