Beyond the walled garden - the story of how one learner used social media for professional learning and development.

Beyond the walled garden. The story of how one learner used social media for professional learning and

development.

Helen Crump@crumphelen7th June, 2013

#celt13

I live in Co. Leitrim in the North West of Ireland.

I work in the community, supporting and helping people with their literacy practices.

I’m a recent graduate of St. Angela’s College, Sligo where I completed an M.A. in Technology, Learning, Innovation and Change.

Introductions.

I’m a literacies practitioner and a learner.

Literacy as a social and situated practice

Literacy as meaning making

Literacy as learning technology

…becoming more digital and connected.

Literacy practices are changing.

students have “marked lack of enthusiasm” for institutional VLE.

eLearning: institutional VLE or Web 2.0?

Source: Conole et al., 2006, p. 95

Social media.

participatory; “sites of practice”, not “tools”.

Source: Goodfellow and Lea, 2007, p.50

Twitter, a tool for professional development.

Microblogging and social networking.

#justsaying

opportunities arise through trivial and terrific tweets.

Open education.

Learningcreep is born, a blog to take my learning forward.

Welcome!

The Program for Online Teaching Certificate Class, an open online class, will begin again in September 2013.. The class is free, offered by the Program for Online Teaching (not an accredited institution), run by volunteer faculty and participants, and open to everyone. We offer a certificate for those who fulfil the syllabus requirements, and open participation for anyone not interested in the certificate.

Communities of Practice [CoPs].

a shared passion, and a desire to learn how to do it better.

A new Community of Practice intended for those interested in the use of social media to work and learn smarter. This is a place where you can join discussions, ask questions, share links, experiences and events with others about social learning – whether it be in education or in the workplace. Jay Cross calls it “the living room for social learning conversations”!

Jane HartFounder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (C4LPT).

Harold JarcheCo-author of The Working Smarter

Fieldbook.

The Social Learning Centre is a joint initiative between the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies and Jarche Consulting.

• MOOC MOOC #moocmooc Jan 6th to 12th, an examination of the MOOC phenomenon offered by Hybrid Pedagogy.• Open Learning Design Studio’s MOOC – “Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum” #OLDSMOOC Jan 10th to Mar 13th, offered by JISC.• Educational Technology & Media #ETMOOC Jan 13th to Mar 30th, offered by Alex Couros @courosa and ‘conspirators’.• eLearning and Digital Cultures #EDCMOOC Jan 28th to Mar 3rd, offered on the Coursera platform by a team from Edinburgh University.• Social Media #CNSoMe Feb 25th to May 5th, offered on the Canvas Network.• Open Course in Technology Enhanced Learning #ocTEL April 3rd to June 21st, offered by The Association for Learning Technology (ALT).

MOOCs.

my MOOCs (so far).

Classification of MOOCs.

Suggested twelve dimensions of MOOCs:1. degree of openness2. scale of participation (massification)3. amount of use of multimedia4. amount of communication5. extent to which collaboration is included6. type of learner pathway (from learner centred

to teacher-centred and highly structured)7. level of quality assurance8. extent to which reflection is encouraged9. level of assessment10. how informal or formal it is11. autonomy12. diversity

Grainne Conole, “the current discourse around the concept of xMOOCs and cMOOCs is an inadequate way of describing the variety of MOOCs and the ways in which learners engage with them.”

many ways to engage in a…

https://tw

itter.com

/audreywatt

ers/status/314119610851008512

#justsaying

learner experience – coal mine or gold rush?

Connectivism.

online and in networks, creating connections, making meaning and learning to be.

Siemens, 2005

Rhizomatic learning.

learn as a nomad, rhizomatically, growing and changing ideas as you explore new contexts; making your own path.

Deleuze & Guttari, 1980; Cormier, 2011

A rhizome has no beginning or end… like the learning process

Lurking and learning vicariously.

look and learn: lurk and learn.

Lave and Wenger, 1991 ; Bandura, 1962

Heutagogy.

self-directed or self-determined learning.

“I’m convinced the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge” – Seymour Papert

Hase and Kenyon, 2000

#justsaying

similar to a pyro technician, design for the (learner) experience.

Continuous learning across contexts.

…it’s all learning.

Courses

MOOCs

CoPsNetworks

#justsaying

…and possibly, educators don’t have a full view of the whole learning ecosystem either.

Social learning.

learners are increasingly coming to expect a social experience.

Social learning - you’re already doing it. It’s going on all the time; it’s just that social media helps enable it on a much larger scale - Jane Bozarth

Build your personal learning network [PLN].

filter and collect knowledge through people.

You can use a PLN to:

• organise links and sources • ask and answer questions• curate content• reflect on learning

A PLN is a filtering system to help you to cope with ‘information overload’.

• technical algorithms (search engines)

• personalised algorithms (RSS feeds)• social algorithms (network

connections)

Learning as a narrative process.(Clark and Rossiter, 2008)

When we learn something, we’re essentially trying to make sense of it, to discern its internal logic, and figure out how it’s related to what we already know.

In constructing a narrative we can make diverse experiences cohere, establish connections and make sense out of chaos or complexity.

Narrative is how we make meaning.It’s also how we craft our sense of self, our identity.

Bring your learning together.

make sense; narrate your learning by blogging..

#justsaying

blogging – it’s hard fun; it’s zip-wire fun.

Blogging makes learning visible; it’s learning out loud.

Blogging is fun, but it’s not easy. Like Seymour Papert says, the best fun is often hard fun.

Every time I write a blog post I get butterflies in my stomach. I type the words and craft the sentences; I read back over the post; I read again; I re-phrase certain bits and change certain words hoping that they convey my precise meaning and tone, hoping that I’m not saying anything too stupid, too banal, inaccurate or controversial before I finally hit the publish button to experience the hard fun that's like jumping off a zip-wire.

Present your learning and achievements (display badges).

a blog as portfolio and business card.

#justsaying

open badges could be used to honour embedded skills.

Open badges(Belshaw, 2013)

Learning happens everywhere, but it's often difficult to get recognition for skills and achievements that happen online or out of school.[me] …or for skills that are embedded in subjects and activities.

Badges are visual representations of achievements, learning, skills, interests and competencies. Open badges can capture learning wherever and however it happens.

Badges can be used for “stealth assessment”. [me] Why assess by stealth? It doesn’t half sound sneaky, never mind “done to”. Why not be more upfront? Why not call it “honour assessment” instead?

?

It’s time to make learning: • learner-centred, or

self-directed• connected• social• visible• whole

#finally

learning practices are changing.

Blogging

Video

Tweeting

Podcast

public performance of learning? Yep, sure feels like it.

#andonelastthing

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/timbuckteeth/learning-theories-for-the-digital-age