What future for education - Week 1

I have just signed up for a new MOOC, "What future for education?" by University of London and UCL Institute of Education. The first task is to reflect on your previous learning experiences by thinking about one particularly successful and one unsuccessful learning experience. Then, considering what were the conditions that made this experience successful or unsuccessful for you and what this tells you about your own preferred ways to learn."

So here goes..

Unsuccessful Learning Experience

This is going back a long way, but the fact that it remains with me, proves its significance. I have to say O Level Maths was a nightmare for me. The reasons why it was unsuccessful were:

• Lack of motivation, the subject bored me.
• The teacher's reluctance to explain why such and such happened. She explained what to do, but refused to explain why you got the answer by doing it. If I didn't know why it happened I was unable to process it.
• Related to the above point, I was ridiculed by the teacher for asking "Why?" all the time and was regarded as the class dunce by the teacher and consequently the other students because of it.
• It was school, I didn't particularly like school.

On a happy footnote, after failing the exam, I got extra tuition from a newly qualified teacher who sorted me out because he took the time to explain why.

Successful Learning Experience

A more recent successful experience was my online degree in Education Technology, particularly a module titled "Emerging Learning Environments". The reasons why it was successful were:

• I was interested in the topic, therefore motivated.
• The tutor, despite being online was very supportive and would always answer any questions you had within a few hours.
• The learning was collaborative, the work was done on a wiki and there was a strong support network from your fellow students.
• I was learning on my terms, when I wanted, where I wanted and to a great extent how I wanted.

What does this tell me?

Well apart from the fact that I don't like Maths, it tells me that:

• I have to be interested in what I'm learning.
• I need support from a learned willing tutor.
• I thrive on collaboration and the sharing of ideas.
• I need to learn on my terms. Working and having a family means the regular school/college scenario is out of the question.

Digital Artefact #edcmooc

Is my son being taken to the African savannah by being totally engaged by the content on his iPad. Or is he so engrossed by the content on his iPad, that he missing the wonders of Africa.

I think this is one of the questions that came up in the course. Is technology helping us engage with much more than we could before, or is it resulting in a lack of engagement with others and our surroundings. Most people with teenage children must of thought about that. 

How you interpret this image will be an indication on your view of technology and its ability to educate us, or distract us. 

Me trying to understand Herbrechter #edcmooc

Interview with Stefan Herbrechter (2013) Critical Posthumanism

This post is me trying to get my head around the different terms used by Herbrechter in his interview (see link above). I realize I’m over simplifying; Philosophy is not my strong subject.

To understand the term “Critical Post Humanism”, I need to know how Humanism is defined; it seems to be the belief that human dignity, interests and values are of primary importance.  Humans are special. Although there are many other definitions I think this is the one that Hebrechter is alluding to.

The Post Humanists believe we are heading towards the end of Humanism or starting an era after Humanism.  They are critical of humanism in light of recent abhorrent world events, imminent environmental disaster, advances in life science (animals are pretty clever too), and advances in technology. I think they also disagree with the idea of humans being categorized as a single entity, as humans by their nature are so diverse (could be wrong on that).

The Post Humanist comes in many forms, the most far out being the Transhumanists, they believe that technology can make us more human (more special), through enhancement using technology to improve our physical and mental abilities. This would include the (once SciFi only) practices of cyborgisation and prosthesisation, as well as prolonging life etc.

So that leaves us with Critical Post Humanism, the critical post humanist believes as other Post Humanists, that we are at the end of the Humanist period, or start of a new period after Humanism, but is not prepared to throw away everything that humanism stood for.  There were some pretty good things like equality, justice etc. While their attitude towards Transhumanism is open, and they’ll take it on a case by case basis. 

Or at least that's how I understood it.

Kolowich and Monke #edcmooc

Here is my response to the Kolowich article, followed by a brief comment on the Monke article.

Kolowich, S (2010) The Human Element. Inside Higher Ed

Kolowich believes that the addition of video to an online course can add the human touch and therefore improve retention rates.  Is he right? What aspect of the human if any, can help alleviate the distance in Distance Education. I think one thing to consider is whether the communication by video is synchronous or asynchronous.  Synchronous communication with an expert or fellow learner gives immediate feedback to a question or response to an idea, but is video any better than text live chat.  Video certainly is a closer imitator of the face to face experience.  However, text is often more considered and succinct. With regard to asynchronous communication there may be some who prefer watching a video of the lecturer reading his study notes while sat at a desk, rather than reading themselves online. Having spent 4 years studying a degree online, I did not have a yearning to see or hear my tutors, but I did find that I appreciated a quick response from a tutor on a forum or a comment on a wiki post.  It may depend on your learning style. Personally, I am happy having the tutor guiding us as to what we should read and them posting some pertinent questions for our response.  Pretty much as we are doing here. Again I believe, the issue here is fear of change. Fear by some lecturers that they are losing control over the learning, their response to this is to take the new medium and try and make it as similar as possible to the old.

Monke, L (2004) The Human Touch, EducationNext

Monke questions the use of technology in Education. He believes that "Technology education should be driven by 'human values' not by the prerogatives of the technology". It is a rewording of "technology should follow pedagogy"  Which I believe, as I'm sure most educators do is correct. There may be occasions when it seems that the technology is the driving force behind a curriculum, but often this follows the initial implementation of the technology and it eventually settles and the pedagogy once more takes ascendance.
In this article Monke, to my mind, seems to have decided it is either one thing or the other, technological or the human/natural way. Surely the ideal is to combine the two. 

Thoughts on Fuller #edcmooc

This is my response to the Steve Fuller TEDx lecture (link below) on defining humanity, guided by the questions set by the tutors of the MOOC.

Humanity 2.0: defining humanity - Steve Fuller’s TEDx Warwick talk

First of all, I could watch/listen to this guy all night, a wonderfully charismatic lecturer.

"Education is a dying art" Fuller jokes while discussing the ancient artifice of trying to make people human through education, aspects of which are dealing with others, speaking in sentences, looking each other in the eye, justifying your opinion, taking others opinion. Initially I thought he was having a dig at someone not paying attention at the back, but I think it is a comment on how some people conceive online/distance education, how education is devalued through a lack of face to face contact. But as we shall see later, it is quite the opposite.

He goes on to talk about the modern artifice of enhancement. Enhancement of ourselves to become more fully human. If we accept that education is a path towards humanism, then I feel we are already using enhancement through technology.  The Internet gives us instant access to limitless information, our mobile devices allow to record every thought, we can store and retrieve masses of data and social networking allows us to collaborate and share ideas. While these are not physical enhancements to our own body, they are enhancements to our brains capacity to access, hold and learn new information.

Professor Fuller notes that there is a historical precedent for only some homo sapiens to be human. An idea, which is abhorrent to a modern day humanist and non fundamental theist alike, all men are created equal etc. However, he mentions that we have failed in our human project of equality for all, there are still obvious inequalities in gender, race and class throughout the world and this is reflected in education. For example, in part of the world where I currently reside, Bedouin (nomads) and their descendants are not entitled to a free state education, but are unable to leave the country as they have no passport. There are countless other examples including the lack of education for women in some countries. However, Fuller finishes his presentation by stating that the old humanist project should not be stopped in order to reassert our humanity, we must continue the fight for equality. Giving access to education for all is a necessary component of complete equality. Education technology can achieve this through providing free education for all, once there is a network. MOOCs are a prime example of how this can be achieved. Thousands of people, who are equal (e learning is a great leveller) connected, working together, sharing ideas in one space, this could include the bedouin and the girls who aren't allowed to go to school. It's got to be a good thing.

Balfour and Stewart through Johnston's filter #edcmooc

I read three articles this week, here is my rather limited reflection on them:

Johnston, R (2009) Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet. First Monday, 14(4).

In the article above Johnston discusses the use of metaphor when describing the Internet, based on a study of editorials. She broadly divides the metaphors into those which are utopian (salvation) or dystopian (destruction) . Examples of salvation metaphors she quotes are the Internet helps, transforms, handles. While destructive metaphors include the Internet targets, attacks, assaults. As Johnston states when we choose to use either set of metaphors we are choosing a filter through which to view the Internet. This is obviously designed to influence the reader.

Bearing this in mind, the tutors have asked us to read the following 2 articles on MOOCs. The first by Balfour focuses on the assessment of written work, looking at two methods, one automated, the other peer review. While the second by Stewart looks at how he believes that the advent of MOOCs has created an unintentional opportunity for students to develop digital literacies through participation and collaboration.

Balfour, S., 2013. Assessing Writing in MOOCs: Automated Essay Scoring and Calibrated Peer ReviewTM. Research and Practice in Assessment, 8, pp.40–48.

Stewart, B., 2013. Massiveness + Openness = New Literacies of Participation? Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2).

Balfour and Stewart articles approach MOOCs from polar opposites.  Balfour's article is comparing 2 assessment tools, that are aiming to assess student written work on a MOOC to the same rigorous standard as work submitted on regular University Bachelors course, where there are a manageable number of students.  While Stewart is looking at how the MOOC presents an opportunity to learn new digital literacies and take the teaching out of the lecturers direct control, while the learners use collaboration through social networking, blogs and discussion boards to share expertise and knowledge. Essentially, as I see it, Balfour is writing about how some are trying to limit the change MOOCs could bring, while Stewart is writing about how we should embrace the change and use it to develop learning in a new direction.

The metaphors used in both articles back this up, Balfour's are very mechanistic, tools, mechanisms, which suggest control and reliance on something/somebody else. While the metaphors used by Stewart suggest openness, vastness, growth and movement, sea of knowledge, flow of information, sowing seeds. 

It seems to me obvious which view of MOOCs is the most desirable, which heralds a utopian future for education, rather a drab dystopian one, but I have no interest in keeping things the way they are, I have no need of an A grade paper. I want to learn and learning by sharing is the future.

The Future, in 4 short films #edcmooc

I watched 4 short films, which portray future technology from different perspectives. I will try to make sense of all these through the tutors questions and my own impressions.The films were:

Film 1: A day made of glass 2
Film 2: Bridging our future
Film 3: A digital tomorrow
Film 4: Sight

Film 1 and 2 were adverts by Corning and Intel respectively, showing how there products would seamlessly fit into our future lives, particularly into education.  The thing that struck me most about the videos, was that despite all the fantastic technology, the kids were still being taught in a very traditional way. Mostly in a classroom, while the students soaked up knowledge from the teacher/expert via the technology or the technology itself. This contrasts nicely with Stewarts article on MOOCs and the New Literacies of Participation (more on that later). Both videos are trying to portray a Utopian view of the future, as they would being adverts. However, for an old cynic like me, who has read/watched to much Scifi, I found them rather depressing, I imagine a massive underclass, who live separately, with no means to access this bright new world. 

Film 3 on the other hand I found far more representative of how I see the future. I think the overall message in "A Digital Tomorrow" is the future is never as bright as you think it is going to be. We are living the past future, now (if that makes sense), I think we all get excited about future technological developments, but once they arrive they just slot in, they become the norm and life goes on.  This is also highlighted in the video with the mix of the old and new technologies, the hand recognition to open the car door, but then she leans in and opens the boot with a latch (I thought that was really funny).  But that is how it is, in the two adverts for Cornings and Intel, the technology is all encompassing, it all matches, it's all linked, but you can guarantee that in reality, if when start using this kind of technology in education, there will still be a kid sat there with a pencil and note pad, because he forgot his "Glass", or he dropped it, or he forgot to charge it, or his parents can't afford it, or he just prefers to write things in a note book, because it helps him remember.

In film 4 we see a character who uses technology to his own advantage. The sky diving sequence is a metaphor for how he lives his life as a game. Through "badging" (a new term to me) he gains data that gives him the advantage when trying to seduce the girl. The ending is simply "restart", like in a game if you fail, you start again. This is a very dystopian view of the future when compared to the Corning and Intel adverts.