<p>The style of learning will be completely different. The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.</p> <p>Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.</p>

And so, the challenge is that when I try to divest myself of my teacherly voice I need to remember that this process is not about losing the voice of the expert but about losing the voice of the traditional authoritarian teacher who enters the classroom as an official persona armed with a pre-defined set of goals and very specific lesson plans for his students to follow. It is about giving the students the freedom to engage with ideas that they find relevant and interesting, not about dictating every step of their learning process.

I believe that it is important to lose the authoritarian voice, the controlling voice, but not the voice of an expert who chose to teach because of his passion for the subject. The students need to see that the instructor is someone who lives and breathes whatever it is that they’re studying, that they have in their midst someone who has a wealth of expertise.

<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Kirshner</span> argues, very clearly, that non-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">instructivist</span> methods result in no better learning than direct instruction, and sometimes in *less* learning, because of the 'cognitive overhead' required in self-directed methodologies.<br><br><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Kirshner's</span> argument on this point is not based on experimental data, but rather, on his theory of cognition. Specifically, he argues that short-term memory has a limited capacity, and that if some of this capacity is not available for new facts (because it is taken up 'selecting scientific principles') then the transfer of information to the student is reduced.<br><br>I respond to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">this</span> argument by showing how <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Kirshner's</span> theory is false. We do not 'retrieve theories' into short term memory and then 'select' from them. That is not how thinking works; that is not ow scientific thinking works. And therefore, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Kirshner's</span> argument, on these grounds, against student-directed learning, fails.

The best mechanism for demonstrating knowledge is not likely the production of a certain set of facts on demand. Expertise in a discipline on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">part</span> of a student is something that is typically *recognized*, not measured, by people who are already experts in the field.

When we assume each student has an inner teacher within their minds, we will stop interfering with the discovery, cultivation and trust building with that inner teacher. The inner teacher will come to the fore of the students learning experiences and and reconfigure how they picture learning occurring. Problems with a particular learning challenge or patterns of learning efforts will get worked out between the student and the inner teacher who already knows what the underlying problems are.

When immersed in learning from everything that happens, people will appear very fascinating to each other. No two people will be the same and offer so much more to explore as their mysterious nature captivates other learners. The process of getting learned about by others-- will give each a feeling of being understood. A context of mutual respect, insight and acceptance will dramatically reduce the urge to get attention, get even or act out frustrations.

The sculpture demonstrated a fascinating idea: given fewer rules, people actually behaved in more creative, co-operative, and collaborative (or competitive, as the case may be) ways.

Any time you construct specific rules of engagement, they are instantly open to interpretation and circumvention, and we want our members to negotiate their place with each other, not with The Authority.

Any community—online or off—must start slowly, and be nurtured. You cannot “just add community.” It simply must happen gradually. It must be cared for, and hosted; it takes time and people with great communication skills to set the tone and tend the conversation.

We also tried to create an egalitarian playing field. At a glance, visitors can’t differentiate a professional photographer with an enormous lens from an enthusiast just getting started in photography. There is no indication of “quality” apart from the content itself.

Participate in the community you’re trying to build. Add content, make contact, show yourself as a person and have fun.

We argue that learning occurs in networks, and therefore, that the properties of successful networks are also the properties of successful learning environments. We don't 'apply' this in any strict sense - we would never force people to be connectivists. Indeed, within the learning environment, we believe there should be diversity; we believe people should be free to choose their own form of learning.

To me, <span style="font-style: italic;">far more</span> complex - and insightful - forms of reasoning are being created through the interplay among thousands, or millions, of individual content elements. Where each content element may by itself appear to be <span style="font-style: italic;">simple</span>, it is the interconnections between them that creates a much more complex, deep, and <span style="font-style: italic;">rich</span> tapestry of meaning, <span style="font-style: italic;">far more</span> than could be created merely using linguistic devices.

It is substantially <span style="font-style: italic;">harder</span> to work with the disorder and complexity we see within a connectivist network. Because linguistic (syntactical and semantical) descriptions of the concepts and entities in such a network just barely touch the surface, and students must therefore immerse themselves in the process of reasoning in such a system, rather than merely reading about it.

<p>I believe that the roles &nbsp;of the Instructional Designer and Teacher are changing and must change in the face of the ever-increasing onslaught of information every human being faces today.&nbsp; Those roles must merge into the Sharer, who shows new technologies and connections to information to others while always keeping in mind his/her own role as perpetual student.&nbsp;</p> <p>To do this, the Sharer must, at least in some respects, plant the environment for others, set up what may grow into connections and give opportunity for emergence in ways even the Sharer may not envision yet, but in a reasonably “safe” environment for exploration.</p>

The Teacher/Sharer, parents and student collaborate on ensuring that whatever method the student is using is assisting in wayfinding toward those goals.&nbsp; If more connections are made, so much the better.&nbsp; But along the path, like signposts, each of the connections (parents, Teacher/Sharers) and&nbsp;each tool (video, Second Life, writing, drawing, blog, podcast,&nbsp; etc.) used&nbsp;to connect&nbsp;to people&nbsp;will prompt the student for responses (dates, opinions, responses to readings) of the set curriculum, but framed in the context best suited for that student.&nbsp;A&nbsp;record of the waypoints shows how the student connected and which connections seemed to spark the most activity and best learning.&nbsp; If the student misses a certain number of waypoints, the direction of the connections is adjusted until success is achieved.

How will your students communicate when they leave school? How will they gather information? How will they say what they need to say?

The thing about toolbelts though, is that no two people ever really need the same one.

So the trick to tool use is to learn to evaluate tasks and environments and your skills and the tools themselves as they change and determine what works best for you. I call this the "TEST" - <span style="font-weight: bold;">T</span>ask - <span style="font-weight: bold;">E</span>nvironment - <span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span>kills - <span style="font-weight: bold;">T</span>ools, a specifically ordered reframing of <a href="http://sweb.uky.edu/%7Ejszaba0/JoyZabala.html">Joy Zabala</a>'s "<a href="http://www.ode.state.or.us/initiatives/elearning/nasdse/settintrogeneric2005.pdf">SETT</a>" protocol. A specifically ordered reframing designed for self-determination.

And on top of this, the tools most schools are devoted to are antiques which serve few functions anywhere outside of school. It is as if you were learning to build homes but were allowed to use only tools invented before 1940. You'd be close to unemployable when you finished that training.

The only way to allow students to assemble this essential toolbelt for information and communication is to to throw open your classroom and let the world in. How will your students know which calendar works for them - the one on their phone, Google Calendar with SMS appointment texting, Microsoft Outlook, or any of a dozen paper systems unless you allow them to try them out?