Digital Dialogues

Emerging Technologies for Learning - Vol 3

Becta - the UK Government's lead agency for ICT in education - has released their latest edition in the Emerging Technologies for Learning series (Volume 3).

Not surprisingly, they have again selected a diverse range of authors and issues. (If you haven't read Vol 1 or 2 - make sure you do!)

In the Foreword - Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive comments:

"... the adoption of technology in society is genuinely influencing expectations about where and how learning takes place. Educators will increasingly need to understand what these trends really mean and how to respond to related demand from learners. It will become increasingly important to understand how new technologies can enable rich, social, personalised and contextually-based interactions to support learning."

Yes indeed! And that's sooner than later....!

Diana Oblinger's (current President of Educause) opening chapter: "Growing up with Google - What it means to education", extends on her earlier works on the NetGeneration.
A few key points and implications from the chapter:

• students' consumer perspective of education as a commodity to be consumed, acquired, and accumulated
• the high value place on technology as a convenience
• students expect academic success without little academic effort
• more oriented to visual media - prefer to learn by doing rather than telling or reading
• identity online is a flexible concept - pseudonyms and avatars expand their identity
• the web is a medium for commenting, collaborating and creating
• they show no fear of technology - but digital comfort does not mean technology proficiency
• nor does it imply an appreciation of IP, privacy or security!

Wow - any of these issues ringing any alarm bells?
No - not yet? Then the implications for education outlined by Oblinger may:

"educational institutions have an obligation to help students cultivate those skills that learners have the most difficulty attaining on their own:

• judgement - the ability to distinguish the reliable from unreliable information
• synthesis - the capacity to follow the longer argument across multiple modalities
• research
• practice - the opportunity to learn by doing within authentic disciplinary communities
• negotiation - flexibility to work across disciplinary and cultural boundaries to generate innovative, alternative solutions"

The challenges presented by these implications will have a fundamental effect on our practice as educators - how we design our courses, learning activities, and assessment tasks, even through to the philosophical approaches to education!
Coincidentally, for me, these implications relate directly to research and writings I'm doing on assessment. I'll be posting more about this shortly...

In the meantime - I'm going to let you ponder your own educational context and these comments from Oblinger - what does the future of education look like, in your context, through this framework of implications?

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Social Media - edition 3

Trevor Cook & Lee Hopkins have just released their 3rd Social Media: or "how we stopped worrying and learnt to love communication".
This is a really valuable introduction to social media in the organisational context - with an Australian perspective.
I have used the previous editions with small/micro business owners - they love it - it manages to provide enough, but not too much, information that allows them to consider the application of social media within their business strategies.

Now - if you're an organisational learning & development practitioner - pay attention!
This is NOT written for you... but...  I'd recommend you read this! If you are considering introducing social software into your learning environments, you need to understand how the business is framing their strategies. If you are going to get successful sponsorship from within the management team, then you need to view or re-frame your dialogue to present your business case in language that the business understands - so here it is... ! Read it - and learn!

Hey Trevor - perhaps next time we can include a learning landscape perspective too?? Some of us educators are doing rather amazing things that aren't being recognised by the social media tribes!

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Adult Education & Training - new text

Hot off the press is Adult Education and Training - edited by Dr James Athanasou. Here's what the publisher says:

"Adult Education and Training arose from a major project to advance the field of adult learning in Australia. It is a collaborative effort that brings together some of the most well-known international and leading Australian authors in the field of adult education.

It deals with the key issues in post-compulsory education and training, such as critical thinking, transformative learning, gender issues, indigenous education and regional factors. There is coverage of adult education in an Australian context as well as the theory and practice of teaching and learning, namely communication, individual differences, assessment, e-Learning and research methods. It provides a unique and comprehensive introduction to the field of adult teaching and learning from specialists in each topice area."

Key contributors include: Stephen Brookfield, Leona English, Roger Morris (recently awarded an Order of Australian for contributions to Adult Education), Ross Brennan Kemmis, Keiko Yasukawa, Pactricia Cranton & Elizabeth Tisdell, Stephen Billet, Shirley Saunders (my PhD supervisor), James Kehoe, Shelley Gillis & Patrick Griffin, Erica Smith, Brian Hemmings & John Connors, Bob Boughton and.. me!

The diverse range of topics address: transformative learning; teaching critical thinking; language, literacy and numeracy; instructional design; communication and learning; competency assessment; vocational education and training; resources sources and methods; ... to name just a few... 
These chapters make this a key text for anyone studying or working in the Adult Learning field.

The text is currently available through David Barlow Publishing in Australia.

BlogTalks Reloaded - the book

Now available!
Thomas Burg and Jan Schmidt have gathered a collection of papers based on presentations from the BlogTalk Reloaded conference in Vienna, 2006 and published them into the lastest in the BlogTalk book collection.

My copy has just arrived in Sydney (sometimes a challenge to get things from Austria - I think the postal workers get a little confused by the country names - perhaps they're just too similar!).

It's a diverse collection of social software perspectives and a valuable contribution to the growing body of knowledge - here's the table of contents:

Danah Boyd: The significance of social software
Jan Schmidt:  Social Software: Facilitating information-, identity- and relationship management
Adolfo Estalella:  Blogs: From communicative to connective artefacts
Raquel da Cunha Recuero:  Memes and social dynamics in weblogs
Elmine Wijnia / Ton Zijlstra: The IFCCC Patchwork Portal
Alexandre Passant / Jean-David Sta / Philippe Laublet: Folksonomies, ontologies and corporate blogging
Uldis Bojars / John Breslin / Alexandre Passant: SIOC Browser – Towards a richer blog browsing experience
Kathleen Fitzpatrick: The Pleasure of the Blog: The Early Novel, the Serial, and the Narrative Archive
Roland Abold / Maren Heltsche: Weblogs in political campaigns: The critical success factors
Anne Bartlett-Bragg: Reflections on pedagogy: Understanding adult learners’ experiences of weblogs

Thanks for all your efforts Thomas & Jan - which was not without a few challenges!
You can order a copy of the book through Amazon.de (except it's in German) - so you might like to order through the ISBN: 3833496142 !

Tags: blogtalkreloaded

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Book Survey Results...

The LTUG Book Survey has closed... and here's a brief overivew of what people are reading:

By Marc Prensky:  Don't Bother me Mom - I'm Learning!
Our reviewer said:   

Positive guide for parents concerned about their kids' video and computer game playing. In "Don’t Bother Me Mom—I’m Learning!" Prensky maintains that kids "are almost certainly learning more positive, useful things for their future from their video and computer games than they learn in school!"

By John Maxwell: 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Our reviewer said:

" I enjoy the simplicity of the book and its helpful hints on what characteristics are exhibited by strong leaders"

By Steve Krug: Don't Make Me Think
Our reviewer said:

Subtitled 'A common sense approach to web usability', Krug's book is aimed at web designers. However, it is also a great resource for those who need to design online learning materials with intuitive navigation structures. This little book is a masterpiece of concise, jargon-free advice.

By Peter Slattery: Youth Works (order directly from his website)
Our reviewer said:

Peter Slattery is a highly regarded therapist and educator who has worked with young people in Australia for almost 30 years. He is recommended reading by HYPAR (Helping Young People at Risk). In this book he explores ways of 'talking with' young people and offers useful strategies andsuggestions for working through issues in creative and meaningful ways. He focuses on therapeutic questioning and conversation and I have been particularly interested in exploring how to apply such strategies to 'online conversations' or blogs (web logs). A very interesting and helpful read!

By Colin Lankshear & Michele Knobel: New Literacies
No review... but looked really interesting when I read the reviews on Amazon!

If you'd like a full list of books - visit the LearnTel surveys blog and request a copy!
Enjoy your reading!

 

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April Survey - What are you reading?

The April survey is focusing on reading from a professional development perspective - and no, it doesn't have to just be books...!
The survey ends 30 April - and it only has 2 questions - so let's find out what everyone's reading and perhaps expand our own reading list further when we get the results in May!

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More on Teaching Defiance

Mike Newman - author of Teaching Defiance has just let me know about a new website he has created to provide free access to couple of his earlier books!

You can now access (in PDF format):
Maeler's Regard: Images of Adult Learning, 1999
Defining the Enemy: Adult Education in Social Action, 1994
The Third Contract: Theory and Practice in Trade Union Training, 1993

There's a podcast discussion  - if you haven't already listened to Mike discussing Teaching Defiance.
Now - my next task is to get Mike set-up on a blog! ;-)

Thought for the Day....

"A book store is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking" - Jerry Seinfeld...

Oh right - then what about the internet.....

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Teaching Defiance....

Here's a pre-release review of Mike Newman's latest book "Teaching Defiance: Stories and Strategies for Activist Educations"

"This book is for activist adult educators who want to help people make up their own minds and take control of their own lives. It examines how educators can help people identify choices - to agree, question, challenge or defy - and then learn how to make those choices effective.

A mix of theoretical discussion, vivid story-tellings and step-by-step accounts of actual practice, this book:

• presents a unique perspective, challenging accepted ideas and approaches
• place teaching and learning firmly within its social and political contexts
• returns to what actually happens in the encounter between educator and learner
• examines the use of emotions, such as frustration, dismay, anger, hate and love in learning
• draws examples from around the world of activist adult education, education and training within organisations, community adult education, university adult education and trade union (labor) education
• is a counter to some of the increasingly formulaic writing in organisational learning, HRD and adult education.

With a forward from Stephen Brookfield: "...a book that may well become iconic in the field, the kind of text that will cause major reverberations in the field and that people will be talking about for years to come..."

"Michael Newman—a two-time winner of the Cyril O. Houle Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education—examines the use of rational discourse, nonrational discourse, and storytelling to bring about personal and collective change. Using a powerful blend of theoretical discussion and step-by-step accounts of practice, Newman returns to what actually happens in that magical encounter between teacher and learner. He examines the educational use of emotions such as frustration, dismay, anger, hatred and love. He proposes ways of teaching and learning insight. He examines how educators can teach people to take effective action. And he discusses how educators and learners can work together to make that action morally justifiable. Newman argues that the educator’s role is to help people resist the controls imposed on them by others. The task, the challenge, the mission of the activist educator is to teach defiance."

For those who have not studied Adult Education at UTS, you have missed one of the most engaging and inspiring lecturers - affectionately crowned "The World's Favourite Lecturer" by my cohort - who has the ability to create captivating stories or "potted histories" , as Mike called them, of the major adult learning theories and the key influencers in the field.
Disappointingly for new students, Mike has retired, but luckily for me lives locally and we continue the stories over coffees!

If you want to pre-order the book, I had to do it through Amazon, as the Wiley site wouldn't recognise the fact that I lived outside the US!

Handbook for Bloggers & Cyberdissidents

RSF (Reporters san Frontiers - Reporters without Borders), a French press freedom of rights group - have produced a book (online, PDF format) that provides basic definitions and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get around censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation - and it's sponsored by the French foreign ministry! (Can't see Alexander Downer sponsoring this type of publication!)

"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest," RSF said.

I've just quickly glanced through the contents and was particularly engaged  by the chapter on ethics by Dan Gillmor "What ethics should bloggers have?". More comments on that over at my PhD weblog...

It also includes some case studies and personal accounts from bloggers in countries where internet censorship is an issue. I haven't had a chance to read these yet...perhaps sometime over the weekend....looks like a valuable addition to the weblog references!