I like how the article challenges the traditional teaching theory, Cartesian, where the teacher instructs the student, and offers up a new view of social learning, "we participate, therefore we are".
The author references a "compelling" study by Richard J. Light, for the "importance of social interatctin to learning".
"Light discovered that one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles was their ability to form or participate in small study groups. Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own."
This idea is also talked about by Mimi Ito who believes" peer bases social exchange is the key to unlocking the full potential of learning in the digital age". In a youtube video she talks about the power of the social learning process through two examples.
One example Mimi Ito gives, showing the power of social learning, is about a high school student who found a social website focused on writing, called faraway lands(could not locate a link for diigo but I contacted Mimi for more info). To be accepted into this social community you have to create a character that will interact in a world create by this social website. Once in, you are constantly writing, creating, and critiquing your peers from all over the world. This social website has greatly expanded the size of any students classroom. The student used in the example used her experience in this social learning environment, that was outside of school, and done for fun, in a school project and as part of her college admissions essay.
The cool thing that Mimi points out is that the student did this social learning on her own, and that many students have the desire for social learning but have not found the niche for them. This is where the teacher has to come in, and find the niche, and really exploit the social learning envirnment and tools by introducing it to the curriculum.
And the Social/peer learning environments are huge and span every subject. I work in the technology field and when I have a question I do not know I google it and I am taken to hundreds of discussion boards that might be hosted by industry leaders like microsoft or intel, but is composed of a huge international peer/social network of computer users who are seeking and offering knowledge. If you talk to anyone in the computer or tech industry you will find that throughout their day they are tapping into this social network.
The article, Mins on Fire talks about how socail learning places the learrner in the middle of the field he is learning, as an active participant much earlier than would happen with the traditional Cartesian learning module. In the Cartesian model the learner would learn all the material than later, become an active member of the community. The modern idea of social learning, according the the author of the article, has to do with learning a little and jumping write into the community, and learning more, as needed.
I like this idea, because in the end I think this is how it happens anyway. Many people who go to school for a certain trade will say that they learned so much more on the job than in the classroom. Some people say they dont use anything they learned in the classroom and only use things they have learned on the job.
The cooking world is full of people who say you do not need to go to school, just get a job in a kitchen and start learning on the job.
My own experience with social networking is find people in the industry and learn from them. This article has dozens of resources, of studies, and of individuals advancing the field of learning with technology that I can run with and read and connect with these people on website, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, twitter, face book and second life to learn more about what they are involved in. Each person will most likely mention dozens of other studies and leaders in the field so that I can continue to increase my database of resources in any given field of knowledge. I sometimes go on the internet and read one article, and somehow an hour later I have 2 dozens websites open of related items that I want to read and learn about but just don’t have the time. In a way its such a tease, because there is so much, maybe too much information out there, that there is no way I can read and learn it all. It's not fair in a way. It is also annoying in the sense that some people will read two articles on a subject matter and think they have the subject down pat.
I am currently following individuals in exercise, training, nutrition, health, alternative health, politics, economics, food, cooking, restaurants, spirituality, meditation, fermented foods, fermented drinks.
Two online learning projects that I really enjoyed reading about in Minds on Fire were the Faulkes telescope project, and the Bechman Institute microscope project.
Faulkes telescope project allows students to use high powered expensive telescope equipment remotely to carry out their own experiments. This is just amazing. and very motivating. When I told someone over the weekend, whome I met, what I do, working with teachers who teach online, she did not have a good impression of online courses. Her daughter was taking one and when she spoke with her daughter about what she was learning in her online english course, this lady was surprised at the content that was not being taught. My thought was well there are good teachers and poor teachers and good technology will not help poor teachers. But I wish I had this peice of information to share with her.
Another cool project mentioned in the article is at the Beckman Institute of Advnaced science and technology at the University of Illinois, where student can send in insects to the program from anywhere, that will be put under a microscope so that the student can use the microscope online, to view the specimen. This is just an awesome ways to use online learning.
After reading this and learning about the many uses for online learning it will be very interesting inded to see where this can lead to in the future.
Ian - I too found the article to be very interesting, and as I wrote in my blog, I'm curious to see how the free Open Educational Resources can be used to perhaps close the achievement gap in our urban schools. One of the many difficulties that urban schools face is the inability to keep good teachers. Urban schools can't compete with the higher salaries of suburban schools. In addition, urban schools tend to be more run down and have fewer teaching materials and resources.
ReplyDeleteOpen Educational Resources seems like a very viable alternative for bringing the virtual classroom to the students who need it most. I don't think it will be easy, but we are going to have to really address the wide achievement gap that our American schools have allowed to grow over the past few decades. We are losing large numbers of minority and low income students; they are not making it to graduation. They fall off the radar somewhere around 10th grade, never to be seen again. That's not acceptable, or it shouldn't be. If we can utilize the technology to help bridge the gap between the teaching resources that the urban schools need, and what they actually have, we can begin to close the achievement gap.