Changing blogs

Flexilearn is now enactivist – hello world!

Is it an -ism or is it art ?

CCK08 – In my student days in South Africa, a local hit song imprinted on those biochemical pathways in my brain that connect me through memory and music to 1984.  Niki Daly’s “Is it an ism or is it art” didn’t really comment on the UDF, school boycotts, and the rising tide of resistance to apartheid – but it did make us arty types think more deeply about the relationship of artists to critics, the reification of artistic fads, and I suppose the album as whole did question the white dream of insulated existence in the larney suburbs….

The first 3 weeks of CCK08 evoked that song for me as I trawled through the blogs and lurked in the Moodle forums – skimming the posts, assimilating and accommodating, just immersing myself in the network in a passive kind of a way, feeling a tad guilty as I took precious time out of a busy RL day to follow some threads. Got a feel for it now and can hopefully start contributing back into the conversations.

I started out doubtful that ‘connectivism’ provides anything really new or useful for education theory – a theory of learning needs to explain a lot more than how code, electricity and screens can link learners together. But connectivism does seem to be pointing towards that something more … But after 3 weeks I’m still not clear about where is connectivism is pointing, or how it fits in with my own schema of what learning/teaching is.  For there can be no learning without teaching, and that is not the same as saying that a person called a ‘teacher’ is necessary for learning to take place… but that is another conversation….

Back to the song memory trace though. In relation to ‘connectivism’ – what kind of ‘-ism’ is it ? There is a proposition that ‘connectivism’ is some kind of advance on the cliched triptych of behaviourism-cognitivism-constructivism.  That ‘connectivism’ somehow ‘is unique in bringing together ideas of neuroscience, cognitive science, network theory, complex systems, and related disciplines.’  A thread in the Moodle forum suggests that ‘connectivism’ is ‘behaviourism redux’.  Catherine/Prokofy relentlessly exposes the ideological underpinnings of what she sees as ‘technocommunism’ and ‘digital maoism’.  Stephen goes to the philosophers and brings in ‘intentionalism’, ‘associationism’ and ‘realism’ – not to mention ‘connectionism’.  Plenty of criticism and dialogism as well. Now if only we had some kind of virtual prism to focus all these scattered feeds and posts into something coherent (ah but maybe that’s where the individual brain comes into play )

When it comes to the -isms, I’m an enactivist. That is, I believe that enactivism is the -ism that provides the most appropriate and useful theoretical context for the ways in which learning and teaching is developing in the networked world. I suggest that if ‘connectivism’ is ever going to have any theoretical legs to stand on, it needs to clearly delineate its affinities with and differences from enactivism.  As a way of starting this conversation I’ll revisit Brent Davis (a lot of enactivists seem to hang out in Canada ) and his wonderful genealogy called Inventions of Teaching.  I want to put the focus on teaching because it’s all too easy in ‘connectivism’ to forget that teaching is actually an integral part of learning.  I mean, when Stephen claims that the network has actually replaced the teacher – “content from elsewhere in the network will, if it is of value, make its way to you. That, indeed, is the value of working in a network” – I think it’s really important for those who see themselves as educators and make their living as teachers to question this somewhat dodgy ideology.

In Inventions of Teaching Davis sets out a comprehensive view of conceptions of teaching as they relate to the main currents of Western thought in “an attempt to make sense of the knots of belief and commonsense that have underpinned efforts at teaching over the past few millennia”.  The main aspects are summarised in this diagram (click on it for a larger version):

There is a lot of information condensed here and I recommend this text to anyone wanting to understand how teaching situates itself in relation to the key branches and bifurcations in Western thinking.  The point for this post is how ‘connectivism’ fits in – or not – to this way of seeing the variation in educational discourse on teaching.  So if we try and map the -isms onto this diagram it would look something like this:

On the face of it, ‘connectivism’ should be located on the Interobjectivity – Complexity Science/Ecology bifurcation – which is where I have situated enactivism.  There doesn’t really seem to be anywhere else – I don’t think that it is behaviourism in another guise – and although there might be some mystical elements and some quasi-religious dogma (Catherine ? ), I don’t believe that this is where George and Stephen are intending to go.  Or is it a completely new branch splintering off on its own somewhere ?

But to get onto this tree, ‘connectivism’ needs to define its conceptions of teaching.  And this is where ‘connectivism’ shoots itself in the foot (well, sort of).  If learning is merely the process of creating and traversing the connections in the network, where is the body of the learner, and where indeed is the teacher ? Does the body itself become some kind of Tron-like entity in the matrix of infinite connectivity ?  I’m not dismissing ‘connectivism’ per se, because I do think that we need to expand Davis’ genealogy by incorporating the insights and new approaches to teaching that are emerging from networked learning, and ‘connectivism’ may have something to offer here.   But let’s see if we can use the existing -isms before assuming that the latest neolog-ism is simply going to replace centuries of educational wisdom …

A learner theory or a theory of learning?

CCK08 is underway now and already some good discussion on the Moodle forums.  I can see how difficult it’s going to be to keep pace with everything, and also keep all my own contributions in one place.  For example, had a discussion with George Siemens sparked off by my introduction on the Moodle space – so I’m going to copy it here as a reference point for more detailed reflection and exploration later:

Stanley:
I don’t believe that ‘connectivism’ or ‘connected knowledge’ is some kind of ‘paradigm shift’ in education – but I’m not sceptical, rather more dubious that there is actually a theory of learning there. So I’m interested to see if there is anything really substantial in the concept that can contribute to the nitty-gritty challenges of teaching and learning – for example, I’m currently designing some new courses for our first-year students where there will be upwards of 1200 students in a course…

George:
First, I’m not a fan of paradigm shifts as expressed in popular literature. Kuhn detailed a paradigm shift as a once in a lifetime event (or, for that matter, several times in the history of a discipline). Now, it’s suggested these shifts happen several times a day .

You make two distinct points in your post:
1. You’re not convinced a learner theory exists in connectivism
2. You want something that can contribute to nitty-gritty challenges of teaching.

Obviously, the two are somewhat related. A theory is useful if it leads to and informs practice. I’ve taken a fair bit of negative feedback for asserting that connectivism is a learning theory. As others have suggested, stating it’s a theory of learning ends up being a distraction and people become fixated on that aspect of it, rather than exploring it’s alignment with the reality of teaching and learning in a networked/technologically-mediated world. I recognize that the emphasis on theory is distracting, but we need a theoretical base – replete with philosophizing, experimentation, and leading to application – to guide the conversation. I’m suggesting that connections are vital and sufficiently valuable (and complex) to warrant broad study and analysis. Understanding connection forming and how connections and networks relate to learning, is vital for education.

in terms of nitty-gritty, the tools that fall under the banner of participatory technologies (or web2.0) are very practical in nature. Blogs, wikis, SecondLife, and other tools can be adopted with far less resistence than how I recall moving courses online in an LMS. In fact, I think we have an entire basis of practical applications (tools and approaches) in need of a theory. And to this end, i advance connectivism as a theory.

Stanley:
I do think that some of the claims made about connectivism and connective knowledge (eg. going ‘beyond behaviourism and constructivism’ ) are suggestive of a paradigm shift (not the daily kind ) – and I guess the numbers of participants on the course also suggest that there is something going on … ?

I think there’s a difference between a ‘learner theory’ and a ‘theory of learning’ – I’m more interested in the latter. I agree that all the cool new tools can connect learners in amazing ways that were not even on the radar when I started teaching (or learning for that matter) – but for me, a theory of learning needs to explain a lot more than how code, electricity and screens can link learners together. But connectivism does seem to be pointing towards that something more – as you suggest in the comparison of learning theories - and I’m looking forward to exploring this over the duration.

So I’m going to listen to your post on‘what is connectivism’ now and continue reflecting and questioning on my blog …

Off to a great start I reckon and looking forward to developing this in a bit more detail!

Only connect…

Connecting now to the massive open online course on connectivism and connective knowledge. I’m looking forward to participating and seeing how the facilitators ‘manage’ the numbers – over 1800 is the estimate but there are only about 350 in the Moodle space for the course. There is a Google Maps page, a Twitter space, a Facebook group, but no way of knowing at a glance who all of my ‘classmates’ are that I’m supposed to be connecting with …. ah well I’m sure something like a class list will emerge from the network as the 12 weeks progress. Maybe that’s part of the adventure – that your connections to the class increase the more you blog, tweet, post on forums, facebook, etc., and you gradually get a more connected sense of the whole. Still, the facilitators must have the uber-list somewhere and it would be good to see it ?

Educlunk and edugunk

Edupunk took off across the edublogosphere this week – I guess we can now think about educlunk and edugunk!

Educlunk, (n): e-learning software that is, well, clunky! e.g the Blackboard interface, Powerpoint, …

Edugunk, (n): digitised learning material that just clogs up bandwidth and learners’ minds. e.g. Powerpoint slides of lectures uploaded onto the web, long screeds of text in .pdf for learners to download and printout, …

additions welcome.

On Universities – JM Coetzee

In Diary of a Bad Year – his new novel – Coetzee has a short chapter in amongst his musings on various themes that concern the intellectual today. The origins of the State, Machiavelli, anarchism, .. and Universities (I’m still reading the book and finding it quite complex but rewarding to read the three parallel narratives all at once, instead of reading one right through and then going on to the next …).

The writer is no stranger to universities having taught at the University of Cape Town for most of his academic career. If we have anything in common we are both ex-South African academics who now live in the Antipodes (Coetzee is in Adelaide) – but beyond that very minor coincidence I remain totally in awe of his writing.

Having dealt to postmodern literary theory in the previous ‘chapter’ (it’s not a conventional book at all in terms of structure) Coetzee laments the loss of the powers of the professoriate to the scrutiny of professsional managers, as the creeping managerialism of the 80s and 90s eroded ‘academic freedom’. He recalls Poland under Communist rule, where dissident academics held covert night classes on topics that were banned from the official curriculum decided by the State: “If the spirit of the university is to survive, something along those lines may have to come into being in countries where tertiary education has become wholly subordinate to business principles. In other words, the real university may have to move into people’s homes and grant degrees for which the sole backing will be the names of the scholars who sign the certificates.” (p31-32, emphasis added)

Maybe I should put that on the agenda for the next Academic Board meeting!

But seriously, isn’t the real university already in our homes ? Wiki-pedia/wiki-versity, Open knowledge/content, the whole internet itself. The ‘network way’, infinite connectivism, and the revival of Illich, PLEs and self-directed autonomous learning. But here in the line above is the kernel of the debate – what is a degree and who pays for it, legitimates and accredits it, awards it ?? The content of knowledge has been set free from its ivory container, but the official stamp of validation that you know it is still very much locked up in the degree-granting system (see Joseph Axelrod’s The University Teacher as Artist for an early take on this…).

So the problem is not in increasing the amount of open content and developing more complex social and connective software to link learners. The relentless iterating towards openness driven by networked educational technologies is now bumping up against the ‘technologies of power’ – in Foucault’s phrase – that lock students into pathways and control the degree-granting system. I spoke about this at e-Fest but as yet don’t see exactly how the institution – with the increasing dominance of corporate managerialism and ever-declining government funding – is going to meekly surrender the power of awarding qualifications to individual scholars. Perhaps it may happen that informal webs and extra-mural communities of practice will begin to gain some traction as learners grow increasingly frustrated with rigid curricula – in this Illichian vision the ‘degree’ is legitimated by the collective as the novice is inducted into disciplinary expertise. Open-source BAs and BScs …. ? Well why not – we have open-source pharmaceuticals, Moodle and Linux. But the sheer scale of the economic investment in the university is such that it will take a total dismantling of the system to achieve a ‘personal degree-gaining environment’….

The real university is in our homes, for free, but we still have to pay for the degree.

Can MOODLE become more SUPPLE ?

I gave a presentation at the NZ Moodle Moot 07 conference on Thursday (thanks Stuart for the invite). Was great to be back in the fellowship of Moodlers and see how far the application has moved in a mere 6 months. I had a go at recording the presentation and using Slideshare to sync the audio to the slides ….

The ‘network’ and the ‘Rebel Sell’

Reading Jon Husband’s post about the Rebel Sell (which I hadn’t heard of before) – it struck me that there might be some similarities between the ‘countercultural consumers’ in Heath and Potter’s analysis, and those advocates of the ‘network way’ who would sweep away the institutional structures that frame (or contain / constrain ?) learning. In the Rebel Sell perspective:

“Potter and Heath look to many counter-cultural perspectives such as ecological activists, culture-jammers, thugs, skateboarders, and anti-consumerists and draw similarities between all of them. They all perceive the rest of the world (the mainstream), as oppressed or brainwashed into conforming by a larger social force, and society’s rules (formal and otherwise) are thought to be suppressive of human nature for this reason. These parallels lead Potter and Heath to conclude that counter-cultural movements are not as unique as they appear.”

Yes, and the counter-teaching movement is also not as unique as it appears. I remember reading Postman and Weingartner’s Teaching as a Subversive Activity as a student teacher in 1982 and getting all fired up (and then getting disillusioned when they later wrote Teaching as a Conserving Activity – but then later realising Bateson was right and learning, like evolution, is stochastic, and combines the random with the purposeful, imagination with rigour.)

As I argued at eFest – the real change needs to happens in our mental models, not in the visible structures of the hierarchy. The educational system is not simply going to disappear because of a new technology. It will be disrupted and transformed, but not subsumed by some meta-network that grants certification on reputation alone.

Or as Dave Snowden aptly put it: “One of the great challenges is going to be to allow a co-evolution of the capability of 2.0 tools with the needs to organisations. Those organisations are going to be managed, will need to make revenue and sell solutions and products. Governments have to handle significantly higher demands on resources, while those resources are themselves reducing. All of this requires transformation, but it will also require management.” And making a similar point in a different way “We need to think about the interface between social computing and traditional world of publishing and validation.”  And we need to think about the ways in which elearning 2.0 can creatively disrupt the ‘real university’ but keep baby and bathwater together.

The ‘swampy lowlands’ – 2.0 learning in action

After the summit, I went to the NSW Learnscope showcase day. Following up a connection made through Rose (of FLNW fame)- I met up with Robby Weatherley and her colleagues from ICVET. On arriving at the venue, it struck that me that I was directly witnessing what Donald Schön called the difference between the high ground of theory and the ‘swampy lowlands’ of practice:

“In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the use of research-based theory and technique. In the swampy lowlands, problems are messy and confusing and incapable of technical solution. The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or to society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern.” (see eg. http://www.aishe.org/readings/2007-1/foreword.html). The Learnscope experience provided a window into how to apply 2.0 learning to immediate and pressing practical issues in vocational issues.

After feeling a bit lost I spotted Sparker and was immediately on a podcast – being interviewed about thoughts on using blogs and wikis in the training of fridge technicians…….

…. and after that I had a bit of a hiatus – for 6 months! – during which time I changed jobs and returned to a university. Now that I’ve got my head round the new job I decided to return to the swampy world of blog – so here goes. Hopefully more sustainable this time …

Is there a dead teacher on the summit ?

There was much to learn from the richly diverse presentations and the roundtable discussions at the Global Summit on Technology Connected Futures in Sydney. It was a workable format for a largish conference (+200 delegates) in a big ballroom – about 20 tables with laptop power and good free wireless. I wanted to blog live from the venue but found it difficult to process thoughts quickly enough after a session of listening to a speaker and then discussing in a somewhat random group round a table. So I waited until I got back to Auckland – but there’s still heaps to process!