This week in course H800 sports the headline “Web 2.0, therefore Education 2.0” and – as the title lets us expect – deals with the significance of Web 2.0 technology on education.

When I first saw the headline, I quickly read on. I regularly use Web 2.0 technology myself, mostly to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Using some of the tools for education seems sensible; collaboratively creating content, actively doing things and thus learning and developing seems promising. Maybe participate in a wiki once in a while, subscribe to a few feeds – that kind of stuff.

But then I came upon this week’s first reading assignment, an article by Weller (2009): “Using learning environments as a metaphor for educational change”. In his article he starts off by stating

I suggest that the reason the centralised learning management system (LMS) is not the answer to the ‘web 2.0 problem’ for education because in its software DNA it embodies the wrong metaphor. It seeks to realise the principles of hierarchy, control and centralisation – the traditional classroom made virtual.

Yeah, well – he’s kind of right here, I thought. Just reading these two sentences suddenly opened a completely new vision, seeing education in a way I hadn’t done before. But to be honest, more than it was fascinating, this vision was frightening for me. OK, modelling virtual learning environments according to real buildings and structures may not be state of the art – but at least it doesn’t deprive us of our treasured control! :)

As a teacher, I like to have things under control. How do you feel about it? I think learning processes may be as open as possible – if in the end I can see who is doing what when and how. If my students work on their own for a couple of hours, there is a lot of self-control and peer feedback. But in the end I gain again control over the situation by being able to reconstruct the work that’s been done.

And now someone proposes making use of “decentralised learning”, letting learners wander off on their own, using tools to which not everyone in class necessarily has to be subscribed. May I panic a bit here? A wiki outside my beloved Moodle platform? Hardly imaginable at the moment for me. Twittering about some “serious” subject instead of collecting discussion posts in a central forum? I wouldn’t encourage my students to do that – even though I highly appreciate Twitter as a socialising tool.

I must be a coward. And then – I consider the responsibility that we teachers are given by … society? by ourselves? by our ethics? Can we really allow ourselves and our students to set off on some learning path that might lead into spheres outside our control, might lead them into cul-de-sacs or even lure them into situations of not-learning? Are school children to be treated differently than university students, who are often used as study subjects in surveys?

I’m still thinking … and processing … and I will tell my mates at H800 about my posting right now. Let’s move away from FirstClass for a while and see how engaging discussions might evolve over Twitter and blogs. I may still be convinced … ;) By some braver souls than myself!

Have a nice evening. Good night. ;)

Today, my tutor at the Open University pointed out a blog posting to me written by Seth Finkelstein for the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/07/twitter-is-a-suckers-game

He sees Twitter as supporting an

attention-seeking game, where everyone enriches the contest runner and surrounding marketers for the privilege of aspiring to be one of the very few big winners.

I beg your pardon? Am I so small minded or have I missed anything? Twitter’s a

one-to-many broadcasting system that serves the needs of high-attention individuals, combined with an appeal to low-attention individuals that the details of one’s life matter to an audience?

I think in his arrogant "I know that. I’m well into a third decade of being on the Net" manner (one of his comments below the article) Seth completely missed the point.

I just adore Twitter and here’s why: http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter.

It is a highly useful tool to stay in touch with people who matter - not with some experts or stars or anyone socially "important".

Let me tell you a story: I am personally awfully weak when it comes to socialising in my private life. I have to stay in touch with so many people in my job that I’m happy to be an island when I’m in private. I do appreciate going out with folks or visiting or inviting someone. I just don’t like to "stay in touch". Not on the phone - I practically never phone -, only occasionally by eMail. There were times when my father and I didn’t hear from each other for weeks, not to mention some of my friends. It’s not that they don’t matter to me, but I just can’t stand hanging another hour on the phone when in reality I’d like to do something completely different.

And then came Twitter.

People who matter post short messages, I know what they’re doing. 140 letters don’t harm, so I squeeze some in myself. They see what I’m up to and might react. When I turn on the computer in the morning, my father had already sent a tweet saying what he’s done and how’s the weather like and hence puts a smile on my face. The situation described in the sensational video above really works for me!

Sure there are lots of other devices you can use to stay in touch - but I simply don’t. I use Twitter because it’s fast, simple and straightforward. I don’t need useless games included in Facebook or hours of chatting on Skype. Twitter works for me and helped me to stay in touch more often. Regardless of what some "stars" post who have thousands of followers. "Serious" discussion about education or eLearning is possible; there are such groups. But in my understanding Twitter is a purely private thing which has nothing to do with being (or not being) elite at all.

In Richardson’s article he also mentions Roger Saljö, who in 1979 came up with five conceptions of learning:

1. Learning as the increase of knowledge
2. Learning as memorising
3. Learning as the acquisition of facts or procedures
4. Learning as the abstraction of meaning
5. Learning as an interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality.

Marton in 1993 added a sixth conception to the list which he called “Changing as a person” and he argued that the six conceptions represent a hierarchy through which students proceeded during the course of their studies. I found this theory very attractive, as I had had similar thoughts earlier in the course when we were asked to define “learning”.

In A2 of week 12, we’re asked to comment on which of these definitions best fits our own definition of learning.

Well, when I posted my own definition of learning earlier in the course, I wrote:

For me, learning means to broaden one’s horizons, to get to know new perspectives and viewpoints - and to include this input into one’s own framework knowledge. I still very much favour the acquire metaphor because it takes some effort, some process or development before one has truly acquired new knowledge.

Looking at Saljö’s five definitions, it seems as if definition #1 and definition #5 best fit my understanding of “learning”. But also Marton’s “new” definition #6 seems highly significant for me.

On the one hand, learning for me is fact-based, meaning that I still regard it very important to actually extend one’s knowledge – especially in times when skill-based learning seems to be so highly regarded. But I think it’s not enough to just know where to find answers in case you need some; there should in any case be some basic framework which helps taking in new knowledge.

On the other hand, however, learning means developing and also eventually changing. I’d like to remind us of the lovely metaphor the play “Educating Rita”, which I saw recently in Vienna. Learning in this piece of literature is shown as having a huge impact on the protagonist, Rita. It actually turns her whole life upside down and she changes as a person drastically. I think when you’ve undergone years of deep learning and hence transformation, there’s no way back to your earlier life.

This posting refers to A2 in week 12 of course H800 at the OU. We were asked to read an article by John Richardson which summarises the qualitative and quantitative research of students’ approaches to learning and teachers’ approaches to teaching in higher education since the 1970s.

The article itself can be accessed online but I think the full text is only viewable to subscribers of the magazine or students who access the material through their online libraries. In this posting, I will comment on two quotes I found particularly interesting.

At the beginning of the article, Richardson defines three approaches to studying in higher education. I found this distinction thought-provoking as I come across similar approaches in my daily work at school and because the labels were new to me.

… a deep approach, based upon understanding the meaning of course materials; a surface approach, based upon memorising the course materials for the purposes of assessment; and a strategic approach, based upon obtaining the highest grades. Even so, the same student could exhibit different approaches to studying in different situations.

A few lines below, Richardson explains that studies comparing problem-based learning and subject-based curricula have shown that

students following problem-based curricula are more likely to adopt a deep approach to studying and are less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying.

These statements made me think a little. First, of course, I thought about the three approaches Richardson described at the beginning of the article. As teachers I think it is one of our main goals to help students to encounter a lasting and impressive learning experience. But is it always necessary in every subject with every topic to achieve that? Don’t we as teachers demand too much of our pupils if we make them learn intensively and deeply everything? Or is it sometimes also ok for us as teachers if some content is just discussed on the surface, just to get it done, before dedicating more time and energy to thoroughly treating topics that we regard as more promising?

And how about the students? Is it ok for them to actively decide for the strategic approach and do some work just to get a good grade? I know that also in higher education, a number of tasks are just fulfilled in order to pass a course, so there’s no doubt about the fact that the strategic approach does exist and occupies a more or less prominent position. But I’m asking myself if we think that this is ok from an ethical, moral point of view. Is it ok to think strategically in learning – or should we be grateful for any learning opportunity and dig as deeply into the materials as possible?

This made me then doubt the second quote about the influence of problem-based learning. If we agree on the fact that more or less work in school and also in higher education is done only to fulfil course requirements – doesn’t that stand in the way of a deep approach in learning and in the end lead to the conclusion that by modelling our teaching according to a problem-based or a subject-based approach we might provide a more or less engaging learning experience for our students – but in the end, due to strategic reasons – it doesn’t make such a big difference?

Here we are again – hello blog! What an unfaithful friend I’ve been over the last weeks. I’ve neglected you completely as work for various projects and my OU studies kept piling up. I think blogging takes time, working on a good text takes time – and I simply haven’t put aside enough of it.

I doubt there’ll be much of a change before the summer, but at least I’ve returned for a quick stop-by to say hello and make sure you know I haven’t forgotten you. I must admit that I don’t only stop by out of pure self-interest. This week’s assignments for the OU require to post one’s thoughts in a blog.

I must admit, I’m not completely convinced by that concept; hence the doubtful title. I think when following a course with a fixed group, with regular activities and some progression over the weeks, one should try to keep the group as neatly together as possible – i.e. use a learning platform or a discussion forum. My experience is that attending an online course next to a full-time job requires a lot of discipline and self-motivation, so we should try to set up the technical side of the course as easily accessible and smoothly as possible. This enables participants to concentrate on the discussions and the content, as they know they can rely on a regular procedure,

The OU uses the FirstClass mailing system for collaborative activities which accompany the self-study parts. I’ve grown to like it after having felt some disappointment in the beginning. I simply had been spoilt by excessive moodle use – I do favour moodle or a dedicated learning system over a pure mailing tool, but that’s another story. ;) Anyway, this week – as I suggested – asks us to comment on the literature to read in our weblogs and also recommends to visit  our colleagues’ journals and comment there.

On the one hand, it is of course absolutely essential to present a variety of eLearning tools and also give people the opportunity to try them out themselves. On the other hand, however, I don’t agree this should be part of the compulsory activities – even during preparation to our next tutor marked assignment (TMA) when confronted with rather complex literature to read. I fear that discussions become very torn this week as it means more work to visit each other’s blogs and keep track of the discussions on top of the actual analysis of the materials.

Of course I’ll take part in this week’s activities and I must admit I’m glad that I was sent to you due to this week’s requirements. :) But I definitely learn from this experience that when organising an online course on my own, I’ll try to keep the participants together as closely as possible.

Oh dear, so many weeks and months have passed since I last updated this page. There’ve been a bit more projects on my desk during the last weeks than I was used to before, and so I kept putting off writing blog entries from day to day …

Not that there wasn’t anything interesting to report; I met a number of fascinating people, read inspiring articles and learned a lot of new things – but I somehow didn’t find enough time to reflect upon all the input.

Last weekend, when I attended the team meeting for an English schoolbook project, I’m currently involved in (www.yourturn.at), coursebook writer Jeremy Harmer enthusiastically told us about Twitter (www.twitter.com), a message service he’d recently used. He’s embedded his Twitter messages into his homepage (www.jeremy-harmer.com) which allows him to quickly update the page with current ideas, thoughts and news right from his mobile phone, if he wishes.

I gave it a try and was instantly drawn into Twitter. It’s a bit like the “What are you doing” status messages known from Facebook, but isn’t overloaded with all those useless applications and games. It’s pure communication, posted either to the public or privately to specific recipients.

If you look on the right hand side of Lernado, you can follow my Twitter timeline and I promise – even if the next longer posting may take a few days … there’s always time for a Tweet in between! :)

This November, the Interpaedagogica, the annual trade fair for teaching aids and school equipment, will take place in Graz, Austria. Apart from the fair, there’s a contest this year. The organisers look for “Das Gesicht der Bildung”, the “face of education / learning”. Everybody who works in some area connected with education can submit their photos for the contest and on the Interpaedagogica homepage, people can vote. The winner gets a professional photoshooting and will appear on promotional material for the trade show next year - and a short holiday’s included as well. ;)

I really want to be the face of education, so pleeease vote for me: http://www.interpaedagogica.at/kopf/vote.html?kopf_id=140

Thank you very much! :)

I don’t know how your impression on that matter is but I’ve the feeling that there are less and less nice HTML editors available on the market. I’m not thinking of highly developed professional applications like the Adobe Dreamweaver, which probably can’t be used at all without a thorough training. No, I’m thinking of easy little applications that support normal people (= teachers!) to get their content on the web.

In times of Web 2.0 there are of course numerous online services that allow people to create blogs, online content (Google pages), wikis or a lot more. These online applications allow collaboration, sharing, commenting and much more. And still - I quite often need a simple HTML editor to create simple pages, e.g. for a Webquest, that I can put onto my school’s computer network, copy into a moodle course or give someone on a USB stick. As soon as there’s no internet connection available, those funky colourful online services no longer glitter as much.

I think what matters most are the good didactic ideas in eLearning, the skilfully crafted lesson plans and not high technical competence. Of course one could learn to encode HTML and eventually create such simple pages in a text editor. But even for an experienced programmer typing in all those tags and commands takes longer than just typing in the pure text, clicking on a colour like in a text processor and then pasting a couple of pictures next to the text. And a less experienced programmer should rather spend their time in thinking about methodology rather than about HTML-encoding, I think. At least for me, creating a HTML page myself is a waste of time - although I do know some technical bits and pieces.

To round off what I wrote in the beginning - after a couple of years with many promising HTML editors (Yes, I think in terms of learning and function also much hated MS Front Page had its purpose), there seems to be a drought at the moment. But I have recently rediscovered a software I loved many years ago when I created my first webpage - then called Languagelab.at. (I had to give up that name because hardly anyone could type it in correctly, but that’s a different story …) This application recently came out in a new polished version: The Namo WebEditor 8. There are some bugs and users complain about the company’s poor support, some even call it a dead horse. But basically the software perfectly does what I want: Quickly create a set of simple webpages, connected with a navigation, that I can fill with my content. And - it features a couple of interesting tools to create interactive quizzes for students.

I like you, Namo - may you have a long life!

Okay, tags are better than categories or folders because they are much more flexible. But still; I don’t like them.

Take for instance my notebook application Evernote. I told you about Evernote in a previous posting. It is the absolute perfect notebook, synchronising my notes between my netbook, the Internet and my smartphone. I keep my personal and work related diary with Evernote and I put there every little piece of information I come across.

In Evernote, you create so called “notebooks”, like major categories in which you put your notes. And then you can tag every note with as many tags as you want. For me, this is pretty useless because I rather use the powerful search engine included in Evernote. It searches all your notes, recognises even words in pictures, embedded PDFs or handwritten notes. If I want to look up a particular note, I  remember a few words that belong to the text - I type them into the search engine and off we go. Powerful search engines are a real handy thing, not tags.

I don’t like tags because you have to consciously think of labels to tag your stuff with - and in most cases that’s forced and pointless anyway. At the OU we have to collect our pieces of work in ePortfolios. Now, I’ve never worked with ePortfolios before … and I already love them! I love the reflective style of working - but there’ll be a text of it’s own about portfolio work. Anyway, one of the necessities is that we have to tag our files with as many tags as we want, but also some of eight default categories: skills, reflection, critique, proactivity, practice-related, communication-related, technology-related, research-related. What’s the point? I will never look for my files with the help of these tags. I might remember an approximate point in time when I wrote the files, so I might look for them chronologically. Or I run a search on the title - or even better, if that’s supported by the software, a full text search.

I don’t like tags, I like search engines. Full stop. :)

As you know, I’m attending an online course at the Open University at the moment. Besides my other projects, that’s quite time consuming and I just don’t find the time to do everything I want in a satisfying way. :(

But luckily, there are synergetic effects among some things. Take for example this blog: I promised to tell you about my experience not only as an eTeacher, but also as an eStudent and I’m determined to do so. At the Open University I have to reflect on my learning as well, in my learning blog. So why don’t I put the two things together? I’ll have an excellent learning blog and you can learn more about my experience at the Open University.

The only problem is: Lernado has been in German for such a long time. But at the Open University I have to write in English of course. So, I’m afraid Lernado has to turn English as I don’t think I can manage both. I hope that won’t be a problem? Please stay faithful to Lernado and it won’t be to your disadvantage! :))