Blog posts

<p class="MainText">Some students believe that their intellectual ability is a fixed trait. They have a certain amount of intelligence, and that's that. Students with this fixed mind-set become excessively concerned with how smart they are, seeking tasks that will prove their intelligence and avoiding ones that might not (Dweck, 1999, 2006). The desire to learn takes a backseat.</p> <p class="MainText">Other students believe that their intellectual ability is something they can develop through effort and education. They don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or a Mozart, but they do understand that even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were. When students believe that they can develop their intelligence, they focus on doing just that.</p>

The common wisdom holds that in the information age, we are each responsible for our own learning. The new insight is that we are each responsible for our own instructional design. We must ask ourselves whether we want to learn something or just to learn how to find it.

In fact, Michael Moore, of the American Journal of Distance Education, wrote that interactivity between a learner and the content is “the defining characteristic of education. Without it there cannot be education, since it is the process of intellectually interacting with content that results in changes in the learner’s understanding, the learner’s perspective, or the cognitive structures of the learner’s mind .”

William Horton, a leading expert in the field of web-based instructional design, in his work titled Designing Web-Based Training. Horton writes, “Interactivity boosts learning. People learn faster and develop more positive attitudes when learning is interactive.”

<p><font color="#0000ff">“The Reality is</font></p> <p><font color="#ff6600"></font><font color="#0000ff">Learning has changed…… from being about reality….. to verifying reality…… to creating reality.”</font></p> <p><font color="#ff6600"></font><font color="#0000ff">Stephen Downes, &nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.downes.ca/presentation/170" title="Kaliedoscope of Future Learning" onclick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.downes.ca');">A Kaleidoscope of Futures: Reflections on the Reality of Virtual Learning.</a></em></font></p>

But our institutions need to change because of the increasing complexity of society and globalization. Schools and universities play a dual role: accommodating learner’s method and mode of learning <i>and</i> transforming learners and preparing them to function in the world that is unfolding. This distinction may seem slight, but it's important. <br> Why should schools react to learner's methods of learning and interacting with content? Well, obviously, if we ignore how they interact with each other and with content, we are largely subjecting them to a mode of thinking (linear, certainty-based) that is at odds with how they experience life (complex, social, and collaborative). Contrary to Prensksy's views, this distinction is NOT a function of age. It's a function of attitude...a mindset of experimentation...experience with technology.

What can you know about a profcessional who doesn't blog his or her work? How do you know they are competent, that they have the respect of their peers, that they understand the issues, that they practice sound methodology, that they show consideration for their clients? You cannot know any of this without the openness blogging (or equivalent) provides. Which means, once a substantial number begin to share, there will be increasing pressure on all to share.

<p> The expert/novice literature within cognitive psychology reaches similar conclusions about the nature of expertise. Researchers have found that expertise is </p><p> --largely intuitive and inaccessible to direct reflection (e.g., Bloom, 1986) </p><p> --more pattern-matching than rule-following (Suchman, 1987, Bereiter, 1991) </p><p> --more qualitative than quantitative (White &amp; Frederiksen, 1986) </p><p> --highly context- and domain-dependent (Brandt, 1988-89). </p><p> Such a view of expertise seems also to fit the field of ID.</p>

The role I am advocating for analysis is fairly modest. Analysis provides an overall framework for instruction, and provides extra help on some tricky parts, such as identifying likely misconceptions or previous knowledge that may undercut students' efforts to understand the content. The role of the designer is then to design a series of experiences-interactions or environments or products-intended to help students learn effectively. Neither the instruction nor the assessment of learning can be as confidently dictated as thought to be possible in the past. But the important point to keep in mind is that the design role is not lost in such a revised system; the design still happens, only it's less analytical, more holistic, more reliant on the cooperation of teachers and materials and learners to generously fill in the gaps left gaping by the limitations of our analytical tools. Instruction thus construed becomes much more integrally connected to the context and the surrounding culture. ID thus becomes more truly <i>systemic</i> in the the sense that it is highly sensitive to the conditions of use.

<tr><td><strong>Scarcity</strong></td> <td><strong>Abundance</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td>It’s every man for himself</td> <td>We can work together</td> </tr> <tr> <td>I never have time</td> <td>I take time for the things that matter</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mistakes are disasters</td> <td>I can recover and learn from mistakes</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ideas are hard to come by and must be kept secret</td> <td>I can always have a great idea</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Our company is lacking</td> <td>Our company has everything it needs to succeed</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Look at all the resources we need</td> <td>Look at all the resources we have</td> </tr> <tr> <td>The market is full of threats</td> <td>The market is full of opportunities</td> </tr> <tr> <td>People are out to get me</td> <td>People are out to help me</td></tr>

I think that it's this picture of abundance that I find so engaging about the Internet and social media. A lot of people give generously of their time, their expertise and their support to write their own blogs, comment on others, create videos and podcasts and beautiful art that enriches the rest of us. And they do it for nothing.This is abundance thinking. This is a belief that there is an endless flow of ideas and information that we can connect and shape to create new things all the time.

Anyone who can access the Internet can be part of the knowledge-access, knowledge-building, information-exchanging culture, regardless of location.

Learning communities do not have to be built through face-to-face interactions. They can be realized using nontraditional electronic communication.

Research suggests that in order for busy teachers to use an asynchronous learning environment they must feel part of a shared vision, have a sense of ownership of some part of the site, and benefit from the shared perspectives of others (Robertson, 2007).&nbsp; Providing the kind of scaffolding that has these features is challenging.&nbsp; Teachers are not typically given the time or the venue to share, discuss, or see examples of pedagogical alternatives for their classroom on any kind of regular basis (Darling-Hammond, 1997).

<p>Although our sample size is rather small, the findings of this study suggest that most participants (community college faculty members, mentor, and intern teachers) recognized the value of blogging as a platform for sharing resources and ideas and reflecting on personal experiences. Several teachers were planning to use blogging with their own students. </p> <p>Blogging seemed to at least indirectly benefit most&nbsp; PLC-MAP teachers in terms of integrating technology into their own teaching practices. </p>