Introduction• Myth & Metaphor allow us to understand complex and

incomprehensible phenomena in ways that are accessible to us.

• These metaphors or models allow us to organize the data of our experience in ways that substantiate or repudiate the model that we have chosen.

• If the data contradicts the sentiments of the metaphor then the scientific inductive method requires that we abandon it in search of one that is more aligned with the facts.

• If the inquirer is patient enough and can extricate themselves from the thicket of data, patterns and relationships present themselves in ways that suggest an apt metaphor.

• We began our journey by creating a morass of data that we later sifted through, like the augur, in search of understanding.

Objectives

Research Question

Methodology

Results

Future Research• Deeper exploration of iTunes U as a global marketing and content distribution

tool.

• Customization of mobile content subscriptions to course material.

• Student-driven customization of social learning spaces.

• Development of a new business model that recognizes the emerging role of students as partners in the enterprise of knowledge generation and sharing

• Experimenting in institutional development, licensing and IP frameworks that recognise emerging role shifts, and balances global market trends with respecting and accommodating local and regional nuances in philosophy, law and politics.

• Formation of an industry/education partnership in creating a dedicated BETA-testing research facility that can deliver pioneering, RISK-based, Just In Time Learning.

Lessons Learned• Effective communication & storytelling through digital means as well as live

• Leveraging latent student potential in real-world situations

• The effectiveness of customized social learning networks in facilitating deep, rich collaborations between students faculty and industry

• Students can add value in exploring and articulating the potentialities and limits of BETA technologies and can make valuable contributions in applied research

• Ability to test new technologies and develop standards and best practices that are directly relevant to learning contexts

• Current User Materials lack context specificity. These sorts of interactions allow for organizations to develop material that addresses this shortcoming

• Data expands exponentially and has the potential to overwhelm you with complexity unless you develop organizational strategies and metaphors to help understand complex relationships.

• While Mobility was a core interest in the research and it did provide a level of convenience it emerged to be secondary in importance (in our experience) to the technologies ability to empower students to actively take stewardship of a collaboration on building new dimensions in learning.

• This technology can be used in a broad variety of educational scenarios where complex, anecdotal data, demonstrations and rich faculty interaction and collaboration is required.

• Once installed and configured the technology requires little oversight and mediation if a philosophy of student stewardship is enculturated.

• A small technical and pedagogical team could be employed to consult, configure and train institutional clients on harnessing the power of this technology.

• Challenge to forge local, institutional, regional and national licensing agreements using existing U.S.-centric framework. The medium is not one size fits all. Rather, it demands approaches that allow for diversity, nuance and local specificity.

Epilogue…Standing in the Garden

• The data of our experiences and the networked digital universe into which they were sown, organically expanded and grew , at first, unchecked into a jungle of sorts. We were in danger of becoming engulfed and entangled in it!

• We sensed a need to cultivate these experiences in a more orderly and predictable fashion and, hence, the metaphor of gardening or cultivation suggested itself.

…Standing in the Garden• TILLING THE SOIL: The old ground of traditional

teaching methods needed to be turned over on itself, broken down and mashed together in new ways in order to re-invigorate its potential. It required that we re-define traditional roles and methods (RISK-based learning). Installing and configuring the technology (Building Wiki) prepared the grounds for our experimentation.

• CONDITIONING THE SOIL: Creating a fertile environment that could nurture and support the growth of new knowledge structures required the introduction of financial, technical and human resources but the most important ingredient was an open and a curious mind and a determined will.

…Standing in the Garden

• THE ALMANAC: We produced and posted simple, easy to follow reference materials on how to fruitfully cultivate new knowledge structures (web pages & wiki branches) and seed them with new learning objects (podcasts, pdfs, jpgs and text) that could then be classified and catalogued (metadata tagging, and topical hierarchies in WIKI structure) to facilitate efficient harvesting of their fruits. Ideally, the almanac should evolve to articulate a set of best practices that ensures optimal yield and quality of the knowledge cultivated.

…Standing in the Garden• SEEDING: Student groups were given their own plots

(group areas) to organize and utilize according to their collective and individual needs in order to encourage a diverse range of practices and materials from which we might harvest and hybridize exemplars to inform and seed future group initiatives.

• Training & Pruning: Enable & encourage experimentation in form, content and relationships in learning. Students build, organize and promote the growth of or “train” particular branches of knowledge—expanding, collapsing, merging and inter-relating them in a myriad of ways and, eventually, as branches obsolesce they prune them.

…Standing in the Garden

• FRUITS: While the learning objects in and of themselves represent a culmination point and have value they are used to support applied activities that result in the creation of additional tangible products such as technical illustrations, technical manuals and other visualizations. The overarching value; however, comes from the deep rich interaction across a spectrum of inter-related roles that are germaine to this form of collaboration.

…Standing in the Garden• CROSS POLLINATION: Distributed, collaborative

learning gives us the ability to rapidly and effectively address massive technological shifts and provides us with an emergent methodology that can continue to reform, recombine and revolutionize itself.

• HARVEST: By rapidly spawning new knowledge objects and structures and embedding within them powerful metadata tags, we can share the bounty of our insights and expertise with collaborators and the world at large within a formalized framework that converts ad-hoc, informal and latent potential into tangible fruits.

…Standing in the Garden

Gardeners:

Apple Canada • CONCERT• O.C.E. Connections • Sara Darvish • Ihor

Dawidiuk • Lorraine Feliciano • Luigi Ferrara • George Brown College • Jim

Kinney • Robert Luke • Magpies Consulting • Catrina Padmore •

Owen Pearce • Jonathan Rothstzain •