linarmstrong’s posterous

I like the idea of using lots of theorists to explain what is happening to the teaching and learning! one of my learners,jen Snape, made this from a lecture. Very useful!

Dyslexia Awareness in a College of Further Education 

Before the course about connectivity and connective knowledge I had not thought about the idea all knowledge should be put out there for every one to contest or agree with.

 I am so grateful to George Siemens and Stephen Downes for their generosity in  sharing their knowledge .

And to Ihar ivannou for checking every dot  and comma is in the correct academic place in my book !

My book  took a case study college and a few schools and asked what is the current knowledge of dyslexia (in England) in educational establishments. 

Its a study about dyslexia and some will find it true of their college others may find it hard to believe  but either way it is a very valid study and can be downloaded free on lulul.   http://www.lulu.com/content/5598244  

I just wanted to share the sentiment behind a message from my friend;

In the name of Guru Nanak and the timeless consciousness Satnam, may 2009 be a 

year graced with awakening, inner contentment,compassion and kindness

May your divine light ever shine with increasing brightness and shower all you

 know with your loving kindness  and healing. 

May every one be blessed with a friend like you.

 Waheguru Satnam

I was just reading another educators blog Lani in the united States , http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com/2008/12/beneath-surface.html        and it reminded me of the joy of teaching and learning with students that create a challenge. 

we all feel over whelmed at times by the study we are involved in but some have to cope constantly with the fear they are on the wrong track.

 I loved the Connectivism course CCK08    but it is    still challenging me to think ,read and write and there is enough material there to last for years! Imagine if every week felt like that much work and organizational battle.

The learners with dyslexia are usually hard to identify at first but I have learnt so much from so many of them that I feel confident in supporting and rephrasing their definition of them selves. 

As learners they have survived an education system that at best ignored them as if invisible and at worst failed to use their gifts and tallents and measured stuff they could not succed at without tremendous effort.

The tutors that hate working with dyslexia are missing a treat. I love the creativity and networked stance of the learner with dyslexia. They have had to get good at getting around liniar/ one way teaching and had to find strategies for all the challenges that reading ,writing,organizing bring.

The well set up course gives the impression this is the way to gain your knowledge and the power to change anything lies only with the tutor  who knows best.

 i enjoy helping learners to challenge the power paradigm. Surely good teaching is listening to fears, hopes ,expectations and re-designing the curriculum with people for people-in short connectivism but not alone with connectivism and behaviorism and any other methods that give humankind choices in their knowledge collections. and actually suceeding to finish school. There is a good discussion on power..and lots of other issues that i revisited to day o http://www.archive.org/details/Cck08UstreamSessionChatOctober172008

feed://podcasts.odiogo.com/linarmstrongs-posterous/podcasts-xml.php

What is the quality of my networks ?      

Before I joined the connectivism and connectives on line course from the University of Manitoba I used Google scholar, Lycos , Athens , Blackwell synergy ,Moodleäand open learn materials to transmit to learners in a well crafted series of lectures that contained learning styles a plenty.

 I learnt MSN, Face book , made my own web page http://www.linarmstrong.co.uk   using front page and videos. I had a dabble with applications such as audacity and photoshop and can use basic functions on my mobile and “Tom Tom” navigation system .

I now know a lot of these were actually transmitting and simple messaging tools. They developed according to need. According to Rhizomic educators  I could be said to have grown a fungi that helped me to connect to my friends and paste fluna and fauna to rocks so learners and lurkers could gain from my finds .

My MoodleäUse was to paste useful resources and the learners’ own power points to the VLE. This  method was good to keep notes for those of us who like to see the lesson again but research showed the learners never used it for long –just enough to answer their assignment question .

 This innovative use of IT earned me and what ever cohort I was observed with, an outstanding grade 1 from ofsted and internal assessors .So as long as information is strung together and connected well enough to make an active classroom experience and  using  what is said to be the learners’ learning style in it  I am considered a good tutor.

After joining CCK08 I now know why the use of networks not groups is an equality of learning and teaching issue . I have created my own first blog http://linarmstrong.posterous.com/ and all the students on the degree course first and second year are connected not just to each other but to year 3 of their course and the web sites of various universities. They can filter information from far and wide across the world using links to educator’s blogs that we found and attached to Moodleä.I see  digital literacy as a right ( )  http://fraser.typepad.com/socialtech/2008/10/notes-towards-d.html

 The learners have now over  taken my power point offering by making their own you tube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0irRbRfUw5M and posting photos and videos to the web sites. This is evidence of deep learning that will affect their memory and recall and provide a secure peg to hang future information on. They tag and aggregate their own sites and I can see the results from the classroom lesson blossoming and twining with their own searches.  The individualization means they can scratch their own itch! (3) The openness of the network can only come from asking the learners to use tools. The tutor must be networked and using tools to do this.

I am now a member of so many newsletters and others blogs like Bradley Shoebottom/ Tom Whyte/  Keith lyons and this has added greatly to my thoughts about IT and dyslexia. My study has grown effortlessly and suddenly I am competent , independent learner.

My voice often resonates with others blogs or adds a bloom or two to create a picture of knowledge. People around the world in educational situations are tackling the same issues as I am and the feeling of being grounded and connected to professional communities makes the terrain safer. Many guides help to navigate my way.

 So in meetings and discussions I am confident to offer opinions backed by professional communities and arguments forwarded by people who have studied and reflected a whole lot longer than I have and can offer a well thought out proposition to tackle problems and challenges that worry college leaders such as openness and licenses.(4 ) http://www.downes.ca/post/33401

Innovations seem possible in a world where we tutors  try to  fit in such a lot :write publish, teach, mark papers and get some family time in.

My new found “Slide Share” and “Blink T.V”  resources have enlightened our learners and I have passed them onto other tutors. I observe and help tutors who struggle to mix their classroom offer from the basic fruit of power point and the bitter plant of Moodleä. I see through research that Moodleäat college is used only by tutors and often as a transmitter -notes for learners  to copy or cut and paste to assignments. I am teaching a learning theory of connectivism whenever I feedback from the observation as it covers differentiation much better and learner’s voice and other buzz words such as lifelong learning.

I did the course to improve my teaching (it was under £300 to enrol) and did not expect too much to come out of it but the wealth of creative visual materials and  excellent academic papers to show me how to teach are so worth it.  I can make a whole nourishing environment with others that satisfies and serves the assessments and measurements of today. The new free journals and organisations I have joined feed great innovations and updates straight to my computer .Two very useful ones are Future lab and Brandon hall research which I will use to do a part of the child studies development day.

This course has influenced my own learning so much I feel sure connectivism works. I have passed it on to e learning directors , librarians, cohort leaders and Techies  at college as answers to finding the student voice (Huge government initiative) answers to cost effective networking with other colleges offering the same courses (a big business initiative)  and as an answer to working co-operatively with employers to supply skills for the future (Leitch report initiative).

The behaviour and control of huge numbers of disaffected youngsters now being forced to attend college also can be answered with a connectivism design.(A huge politicians dream in the present context)

The course has influenced me to put more emphasis onto students to get connected as seen in the video made in the classroom when we discussed racism.( to be linked to you tube as soon as I get the copy)

Connectivity will challenge the organisation to become fit for their employees equality forums by joining up female or gays or black workers and giving them their own spaces and connections with others in the same work.

I strive to use designs in my teaching that is all about equal access and power to learners and this way of looking at things really has moved this to another level.

I have started innovative collaborative projects such as a childstudies wiki

 http://childstudies-nwhc.wikispaces.com/Wiki+Help

And students blogs

http://noonooislearning.blogspot.com/        

http://hazelarmstrong.blogspot.com/2008/11/moral-development-kohlberg-1973.html#

http://claireparratts.blogspot.com/

http://www.crystal6323.blogspot.com/

http://kellyfenners.blogspot.com/

http://jensnapes.blogspot.com/

http://www.georginaglover.blogspot.com/

http://www.jamie-lee-2ndyear.blogspot.com/

and supported the library staff to bid to the innovation fund for Clickview .

Other tutors on the degree courses enjoy seeing the context of their students lives and college work-the students help each other to contextualise work requirements. Their comments and reflections blow me away. They write because it interests them not because I have set a paper that must be handed in. Not all learners are prolific writers some watch and read without anyone knowing until they comment in class. The lurkers  enjoy reading and bringing comments and personal support back to the classroom to create a caring ,learning community where personal thoughts get free when ever they are created not when the tutor points a finger and says “What do you think?”

Level 2 learners have ,according to my research 50% already authored on their own social sites. They make dance videos and photo collections and publish them to the web.In childstudies the skills to do this are used for example to do a short video of theorists that travelled through time to help learners in childstudies with their college work. The library you tube (uk.youtube.com/NWHClibrary ) and childstudies wiki carries this type of materials to help learners through networking which is much more dynamic than transmitting on one VLE.

Thanks to the course from Canada CCK08 I am now in a position to critically analyse the packaged on line courses that are offered to the college at great expense and talk about creative commons licence and other copyright laws.

The quality of my learning networks have exceeded my expectations .To consider the course a success I wanted to add to my Phd chapters but I have actually lived/experienced a whole evolution of my learning theory.

 I have been honoured to join in and see and hear brilliant media created by people who just want to share .This suits my philosophy there is no great glory in being the know all but there is a real satisfaction In teaching a learner  to fish and feeding him for life .

The course influenced the process of learning and teaching in my classrooms and the other day I said to another tutor the materials will belong to the learners even when I lock them out of the course Moodleä because a lot of resources are now created and shared by them on their own spaces. His eyebrows shot up because the letting go of the stuff we see as our qualified professional opinion could change a culture based on years of practice.

I know this culture should be challenged and changed because it suits the culture and context –or zone of proximinal development of the individual learner. We have digital learners and need a learning theory to go with it.

The lessons still to be researched and still outstanding for me are about getting the mix right for each level of learner. Tutors are scared of safety and censure everything so need help in building confidence to let go. The pilt on the child studies corridor has shown learners have not uploaded anything worrying but one renegade or disruptive  voices might pull the whole cohort off course due to unprofessional or immature needs for an uprising and tutors need to teach netiquette and handle their virtual space as well as they can if a problem does arise. We teach table manners by sitting with our children at the table so need tutors on the net to teach filtering and using information.

 The very fact the people who choose to write most can be represented by a power law means to me the web is not representative, not a democracy since some voices will be heard. Some could be subversive, unhelpful, bullying or just add to the confusion. The development of netiquette has plenty of opinions and tutors will just have to negotiate the right mix for each cohort of learners.

Connectivist principles greatly help my own personal development as a researcher and a learner and –my aim for this CCK08 course was that as a tutor, I  can really make a ittle step into technology. Make a difference in a world that insists on measuring my teaching and the learners progress In terms of exam progress. I think I’ve gained some learning for life!

Many thanks to all on the CCK08.

The discussion in dyslexia has always been about language and the ability to manipulate the written and spoken word.Most theories are “cognitivist” in the way they depict knowledge and learning as being grounded in language and logic.

"However, other learning theorist defend the use of language, logic, and the social influence as the way people learn. The difference in this argument makes for an interesting discussion.”http://edmusings.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/theorizing-about-connectivism/.>

 Rita Kop and Adrian “There must be leaders in the learning process that offer critical and localized influence, as believed by Freire. Kop states “nearly all students preferred the help and support of the local or online tutor to guide them through resources and activities, to validate information, and to critically engage them in the course content” (p.8).Hill, IRRODL, November 6, 2008 

Short paper 3 Due In November 17^th 2008

A real opportunity to create student centred learning has arisen due to a participatory era when all can have a say about TV programmes, radio talks, news making, even how people drive their vans and politicians actions. Most of British society can see tools that are  good for connecting with others and tools for constructing our own individualised play list, film viewing order, phone ring tones and personal layouts for our own lap top.

Educational governance defines very formal structures and values that reduce the individual to an institutional number with a scorecard and a target to reach. The curriculum is defined by steps, a road everyone follows in order ,over the set year for the child’s age. It is written centrally by “experts” and teachers are expected to follow it, design lessons around learning outcomes and mark tests from learners knowledge about the said outcomes. The learner learns to follow set teaching and stop being an individual thinker or social entity that could upset the marking systems and undermine the behavioural policy.

With lots of industry a child might reach the governments targets of 5 GCSE s at grade C and go onto college. (or if a minority get better grades and apply to university)

If the magic target is not reached by their set time the failure is blamed on the parents, the system of education, lack of discipline, absent fathers, mothers who don’t read to their off-spring and many other society ills.

The tension between the education system and those who misfit can be seen as an opportunity to use connectivism as a learning theory. Just as the “bad boys” tend to go on every out of school trip they might be put onto a computer to keep them out of the proper classrooms. They usually can face book and therefore could be shown blogging and wiki building, creation and design of their own site. From this could come collaboration and peer support. Then, just like in Montessori’s time the under dogs could be seen as achieving as highly as the privately taught learners .A modern day model classroom to show off.

Ideas in teaching that offer better foundations to gaining the softer skills and literacy for finding a job are more than welcome in today’s climate but innovation and collaboration are not easy when competitiveness and business models are adopted amongst education providers. A consumer being the employers not the learner and the purchaser being government who demand certain practices that resist changes and these must be inspected for their money to be paid to colleges.

The move from industrial models to newer network models where is a real opportunity for meritocracy. If a learner finds a skill through the learning community or networks that can be developed and used to support individual hopes and experiences they can sell it.

Education then becomes for the individual not for the employers, the school league tables and any other stakeholder with a cause to push through on the back of the education system in general and the college system in particular. But because the learner becomes educated the employer,Ofsted inspector and college people are in a win win situation.

Education would then be for improving opportunities and access , for creating powerful collectives to fight against inequalities such as gender ,pay and conditions  or specific educational needs .

Diversity in education can be a real opportunity for individuals and a big threat to social cohesion as it reduces possibilities for controlling and taming the masses.This becomes an opportunity to repect ,empower and let go of control and practice facilitating.

Another threat or resistance to free web access is copyright. Learners and tutors stealing or using others work is considered so serious the first weeks induction on courses always covers plagiarism. It could be hard to assess the true value of a worker if the group project masked their proportion of the work. To gain employment the job role usually requires team work but an individual is expected to have level of skill and ability.An opportunity to learn how to segregate own work into off shoots of personal pages and sites.

Another resistant part of the present model is around Insurances and timetabling in college. If learners are all set up for one afternoon a week in the IT room  as a group with a common task and a tutor it stops the connectivity. A real opportunity is to install wy fi and bring learners into a lap top scheme. Alternatively this could create a whole new generation of learners who won’t talk and commit to a social space -hiding behind their computer. Efficient consumption of the computer room is a threat to participatory education.  A challenge would be to design spaces for learning to fit social spaces with firm pedagogy behind it .

Another opportunity is to use the context of weak ties and easy connections that are super for taking part in  Face book , X box games and Bebo spaces that are excellent for contextualising individuals .Using lunch time breaks to connect would produce better behaviours in social spaces. The use of these tools can be supplemented by teaching blogs, wikis and podcasts. The tools chosen and used by the well thought out tutor would actually produce some exchanges of content /knowledge made by learners for learners and changed or used to jump off onto other ideas. This deep meaningful connection is so experienced it is not easily forgotten.So exam work would be well rehearsed.

The real opportunity is for tutors In this age. They can see a step change happening and a chance to jump on the bus (or horse drawn carriage)and develop unique specialised skills developed through trial and error with learners in a participatory classroom without walls.

To reach our full potential as teachers with a responsibility to provide for the digital age we need to reverse the aspects of the current system and take the opportunity at every meeting and teaching occasion to change our paradigm to participatory work. Connecting with others across countries to support and guide us and give us faith to speak even with the voices of resistance who demand  a uniform answer.

The co-constructed ,reconstructed, reconstituted and rehashed and re-mashed materials made with learners have always been the best way to teach.

The real voices of resistance to the education system are those that wont vote, wont participate in civic society and wont get a decent education or job–the drop outs , failures and not good enough’s that are blamed for being un-teachable!

Don’t we all love it when the famous person tells the story of the teacher who said they would never amount to much?

“For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance :but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he has”. Matthew XXV.29:

The Matthew Effect is used regularly in discussions about dyslexia and education and it is the expression of concern about he who has less will have even less in the future and wont be able to catch up. (1)

It can also be applied to tutors at college .Its an ongoing educators’ nightmare that if they cant catch up with how to tune the TV or set a video how can they manage e-mails and worse is to come with the read- write web.

In this paper I will use the metaphor of “white water” to represent rapid change and turmoil that s happening and tutors have to swim fast to survive. With the use of learning theory and by applying a little tweak to the way we know good teaching should be, we can keep up with technology.

To have  a reason to change the way we teach there has to be a belief the old theories do not work and are out of context .The role of the tutor is to develop them selves, keep an open enquiring mind  and keep up to date. Learning theory usually leads design. The predominant psychology being the mind as a container to put things (knowledge) into according to Beriter and Scardamalia (1996) (2) is at variance with the connectivism theory.

“Connectivism is a theoretical framework for understanding learning.  In connectivism, the starting point for learning occurs when knowledge is actuated through the process of a learner connecting to and feeding information into a learning community. (3)

Already the tutor can move from designing a whole course of resources and move to helping the network with skills to filter and navigate the web. Some of the old principles still hold merit and  an ethical way forward is to treat people as  individuals with their own learning pathways. Tomlinson states ;

We need a match between how people learn, their learning goals and the learning environment” (4). Tutors find this hard anyway and the fact this does not happen is blogged frequently;” No one who has stood at the front of a classroom in the last twenty years has any illusions that the current educational system actually functions.” (5)

So we let go of the old design and start to blog. Blogs such as the ones written by the college students (6 in  college  get prolific contributors but the  tutors have to make a shift  to value them. Minor voices may be just as trustworthy for content and are definitely real evidence for context and the reality of what’s really going on for learners. Learning can be produced within the community to sell organisations and credit information or tutors according to Howard Jarch (7)

  Learning and knowledge are said to “rest in diversity of opinions” (Siemens, 2008, para. 8). (8)

So as a first toe in the water the role is to learn about peadagogy behind the tools and use the one you can enjoy .

Although tutor and learner roles are changing one of the fears about the use of technology is the literacy mismatch between ‘good” writing standards and text speak. Should we edit and correct the materials as much as possible before we post them?

An argument can be made for not editing and that would be to show student work need not be perfect to be accepted and all voices can be heard. But if the work is to be published for the WWW audience all conventions of English should be followed, and all facts checked, lest we become part of the Internet problem.(8)

 But if the role of the tutor is to censor and shape where will it stop?  The tutor’s role is –as always-to do with factual accuracy, but now the work could be more visible/accountable.  Maybe some would like to put a disclaimer on published  products from the teaching saying “I’m young and possibly wrong sometimes” or “I am a girl” or even “this space was created by a learner with dyslexia?” This over concern about publishing might just resonate with tutors who need to be the top of the hierarchy, king of the writing game and the creator of correct learning.

Thinking about the power and control we wield is an important part of a tutor’s role. The move from groups to networks is good for teaching. We could learn to trust the two-way nature of this medium to allow learners to push back /correct errors in comments. But what if learners are kind to each other and won’t criticize.? Perfectionism and fear will not create conditions to encourage  learners to write freely and discover that they enjoy learning. One appropriate response could be to talk in general about errors after reading enough blogs and, as a team, do an error analysis of the most serious grammar/spelling problems especially if they are technical terms needed for employment. The group can priorities label make a web page or leaflet and study buddy each other to get them right.

 Choosing the correct tool for the job can skirt the whole accuracy debate. (8) By doing more creative narratives and course material reflections on one blog and collecting on a wiki with less written work. The role of the tutor would be to agree netiquette or manners, confidentiality and safety issues according to perceived wisdom (10)

So when comparing and contrasting the role of the connected, networked tutor to he role of the “Glocalised tutor” (11) there would still be conventions and mechanisms to follow since we write to learn. Organisation, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and grammar/spelling/punctuation can all be learned using connectivism as a theory and using technology tools with thought.

So the same role as always –picking the right intervention, pace, tool -with learners- negotiating the best way for them.

There should always be room for a negotiated session from the needs of the cohort at the time.  Nothing good teachers have not been doing. The change could be in the power and control. “As a result of the overwhelming complexity, learners turn more to way finding and sense making on their own...rather than acquiring the patterns and views held by instructors”(12)

To calm the waters for tutors I would say its not the applications and tools of technology we have to worry about –the learners will teach us these, its our own attitudes and self development to be able to let go of the rudder and give someone else the chance to steer the ship.

If writing is secondary to learning the biggest change for tutors is to become networked to gain deeper and broader retention, comprehension and insight to the digital illiteracies.

“This learning and professional development needs to be self-sustaining, and traditional linear learning design models do not always provide this.”(13)

References for paper 2 changing roles of educators.

(1) Miles,T.R andMiles,E (1999)Dyslexia A Hundred Years on .Buckingham . Open University Press.

2) Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1996). Rethinking learning. In D.R. Olson, & N. Torrance (Eds.),

The Handbook of education and human development: New models of learning, teaching and

Schooling (pp 485-513). Cambridge, MA:Basil Blackwell.

 (3) Downes, S (2007a, February 6). Msg. 30, Re: What Connectivism Is. Connectivism Conference: University of Manitoba.  Message posted to http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=12

 (4)Tomlinson, J. chair of FEFC Specialist Committee on students with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities

(5)http://www.northguard.com/mbs/archive/fifth.html

6)http://jensnapes.blogspot.com/

7)Jarch H, http://www.jarche.com/2005/07/page/2/

.

(8)Siemens, G. (2006b, November 12). Connectivism: Learning theory or pastime of the self-amused? Elearnspace blog. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism_self-amused.htm

(8)Clay Burettes blog http//beyond-school.org

(9) current issues in education volume 8 Number 18

(10 )web safety  http://fraser.typepad.com/socialte

(11)Wellman ,B (  ) little Boxes.

(12) Downes ,S October 31^st 2008 the Daily

(13)Kop,R and Hill,A 3831Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 9, No 3 (2008),   ISSN: 1492-

Blogs used

The fifth Language Mark shainblum

 http://www.northguard.com/mbs/archive/fifth.html

http://rajmmiller.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html