learning2gether to achieve the aha! moment

-:Learning2gether:-to achieve the AHA! moment

Vance StevensPlenary address at the 6th International -42nd Annual Conference held at VIT, Vellore, India,

16 to 18 June, 2011

Vance Stevens, VIT / ELTAI Conference June, 2011, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

Basic Concept - Teaching

• Teachers are learners They are one and the same.

• A teacher is a master learner who knows more about learning than his or her students.

• A teacher – models and – demonstrates

how students can learn effectively.


Basic Concept - Learning

• Learning requires change. One cannot enter a quest for learning and emerge unchanged.

• In that case, nothing would have been learned.

• A learner (or as a learner, a teacher …)– Reflects – And practices


If a teacher is a master learner …

• Then it stands to reason that

as a learner,

the teacher must continually be changing.


Let’s stop here and ask

• What is your view of your profession? • What is your colleagues’ view?• Is it that you pass on a set of skills acquired at

one time?– the same set of skills? – year after year?

Let’s hope it’s not! Things change!


Frameworks for coping with Change

• Alan Toffler, Future Shock• Etiene Wenger, Communities of Practice• George Siemens: Connectivism

http://www.connectivism.ca/ • Cross, Informal Learning

directed at knowledge workers

http://www.connectivism.ca/

Knowledge Work

• A good segment of India’s economy is devoted to knowledge work.

• Such work assumes a constantly shifting playing field where change is driven by innovation

• and the education system is charged with training students to work in jobs that haven’t been invented yet.


Challenge #1

To prepare students for careers as knowledge workers in jobs not invented yet, teachers must• Transition from one mindset to another on ten fronts

simultaneously, each involving a substantial break with past thinking

• Grasp how a baker’s dozen of unfamiliar tools and concepts can further learning in the emerging paradigms

Cannot be done in one step… only in many SMALL steps

SMALL = Social Media Assisted Language Learning



How can teachers rise to this challenge?

• Only by constantly learning.• How can they constantly learn? By

http://learning2gether.pbworks.com• Teacher development means constantly re-

learning, even re-inventing, how to learn

http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/


Future of Learning in a Networked World

• We no longer learn in the way we did last century.

• We are much more connected now. • Those who wish to drive innovation, – or teach students to be in a position to drive

innovation, – must themselves be innovative in the way they

learn.


Ten Paradigm Shifts

1. Pedagogy - shift from didactic models of “teaching” to constructivist ones of learning

2. Networking –connectivism: learning as a social vs. isolated activity

3. Literacy –from reliance on print to functioning in multiliteracies

4. Heuristics – from client-server to peer-to-peer

5. Formality – from hierarchical power centricity to informal learning and F.U.N.

6. Transfer - applying social networking skills and concepts from personal life to professional

7. Directionality – from push to pull dissemination of knowledge

8. Ownership – proprietary vs. open source, OER

9. Sharing – from guarded copyright to creative commons, and fair use

10. Classification – taxonomic to folksonomic systems

More information http://tinyurl.com/vance2010calico

http://tinyurl.com/vance2010calico


A few Digital Literacies

• Howard Rheingold: Network awarenesshttp://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/AttentionandOther21stCenturySo/213922

• Multiliteracies: http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com

• Dave Cormier: MOOCshttp://davecormier.com/edblog/wp-content/uploads/MOOC_Final.pdf

http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/AttentionandOther21stCenturySo/213922



http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/



http://davecormier.com/edblog/wp-content/uploads/MOOC_Final.pdf




Cormier’s Success in MOOC

• Orient• Declare• Network• Cluster• Focus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8avYQ5ZqM0&feature=player_embedded

At http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/w/page/33070273/Week2EVO2011

Can this work in huge real world f2f classes?

Like in India?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8avYQ5ZqM0&feature=player_embedded

http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/w/page/33070273/Week2EVO2011


Let’s image …

• All parties have gone some way toward making those paradigm shifts

• Teachers AND learners are sufficiently multi-literate to hold discourse on the goals and affordances inherent in that shift, because– These technologies only become transformative when their

use becomes second-nature to the point where we and those around us use them in our normal workflow.

• From http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2011/03/transforming-learning-with-creative.html

http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2011/03/transforming-learning-with-creative.html



Personal Learning Network

Bringing together elements of a PLN• Webheads http://webheads.info • Twitter http://twitter.com/vances • Facebook• Learning2gether

http://learning2gether.pbworks.com

http://webheads.info/

http://twitter.com/vances

http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/


How to connect

• Elluminate via Learning Timeshttp://tinyurl.com/y3eh

• WiZiQ http://wiziq.com • BigMarker http://bigmarker.com • Open University Flash Meeting• Skype http://skype.com • TappedIn http://tappedin.org

every Sunday noon GMT (4 pm in UAE)

http://tinyurl.com/y3eh

http://wiziq.com/

http://bigmarker.com/

http://skype.com/

http://tappedin.org/


Baker’s dozen of skills, concepts, tools, and genres for the 21st Century

1. Web 2.0 and social networking2. RSS and feed readers3. Podcasts

– Harvesting them, through RSS– Also producing them

4. Blogging– Multiliteracy skills – Following via RSS

5. Microblogging – Twitter– Edmodo, Yammer, etc.

6. Push/pull technologies 7. Aggregation via folksonomic

classification (tags)

8. Digital storytelling and applications of multimedia to new literacies

9. PLNs (personal learning networks)– Communities of practice– Connectivism

10. Informal / just-in-time learning11. Synchronous communications:

instant messaging, online presentation venues incorporating interactive whiteboard, voice, and video

12. Asynchronous collaborations tools: blogs, wikis, Voicethread, Slideshare, Google docs and similar collaboration toolsSee Stevens, 2010 at Google Doc


Change Agency• Cofino, K. (2008). Making the shift happen. Always learning. Retrieved

on March 28, 2011 fromhttp://kimcofino.com/blog/2008/02/24/making-the-shift-happen/

• Curtis, P. (2009). Building A Web 2.0 culture. Multimedia presentation at the K12 Online Conference 2009. Retrieved on March 28, 2011 from http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=457 .

• Carozza, B. (2009). Embracing Web 2.0 for the Administrator. Multimedia presentation at the K12 Online Conference 2009. Retrieved on March 28, 2011 from http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=455.

• Freedman, T. (2006). Overcoming obstacles: Selling Web 2.0 to senior management. Paper delivered at the K12 Online Conference 2006. Retrieved on March 28, 2011 from http://k12online.wm.edu/overcomingobstacles.pdf.

http://kimcofino.com/blog/2008/02/24/making-the-shift-happen/

http://kimcofino.com/blog/2008/02/24/making-the-shift-happen/

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=457



http://k12online.wm.edu/overcomingobstacles.pdf

http://k12online.wm.edu/overcomingobstacles.pdf

Challenge #2 Elucidating the Ineffable

• It's because computers are anything but isolating, because they bring people together in innumerable modalities, that they are transformative in learning. Yet …

this is not widely accepted as fact due to the ineffable nature of the process.

Technogogy has to be experienced to be understood, and many simply do not grant themselves the opportunity to experience it; therefore they never achieve that aha! moment.

• From http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2011/03/transforming-learning-with-creative.html




Paradigm shift: Transfer

• From networking with friends via Facebook• To collaboration with colleagues in

Google Docs and Delicious• Examples with language focus– Writingmatrix http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com – Webheads http://webheads.info

http://writingmatrix.wikispaces.com/

http://webheads.info/


Use it with Students

Photo credit, Barbara Dieu: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bee/5737375/(shared here per creative commons: attribution, noncommercial, share-alike)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bee/5737375/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bee/5737375/


Organizing learners to use Web 2.0

• Tapping into PLN’s– Microblogging

(Twitter)– Ning alternative

Grouply, Grou.ps etc.– Listservs– Facebook

• Cloud collaboration in – Google Docs– Wikis– Etherpad clones– Delicious and Diigo

Get them familiar with project organization and collaboration online:


Design materials to train teachers while teaching students

Simple, practical, hands on exercises in:

• Cloud collaboration in Google Docs (i.e. wiki)• Reading blogs (awareness –> comment –> create content)• Following blogs via RSS

– Via blocks added to LMS / CMS & other aggregators– At a more advanced stage, in Google Reader

• Tagging in Delicious (and/or Diigo)– Organizing bookmarks in the cloud– Using Delicious to communicate through tags– Expanding Internet searches

through suggested alternate key wordsMore information about the three-step progression and full text and slides at http://braz2010vance.pbworks.com/PLN

http://braz2010vance.pbworks.com/PLN


F.U.N. with tags and backchannels

Play tag games with:

• Spezify and Addictomatic

• Flickr and TagGalaxy• Writingmatrix

Backchannel tools

• Lists in Twitter• Edmodo• Wallwisher• Voicethread

http://braz2010vance.pbworks.com/TagGames

http://braz2010vance.pbworks.com/TagGames


Class-roots professional development

Students and staff must

• Recognize potentials of social media for learning

• Model best practices for one another

• Refine skills by training one another

Training

• Not just through reading about IT and attending lectures or workshops

• Necessary to “do” it. • This requires PLN of

peers who will interact and scaffold one another


Making the shift happen

Teachers as“master” lifelong learners must:

• Move toward greater socialization in their learning environments

• Become aware of and incorporate 21st Century skills and paradigm shifts

• Seek out, and become, models of best practices


In Conclusion

• I would like to end by learning from you. • I am in India, a land associated with – transcendental meditation – change and renewal through humility and

introspection.• As Clay Shirky points out in his new book, – technology is the enabler, but – what you’ve always wanted to teach is the driver


Bu it’s not necessarily about tech

• The canvas is large and restricting it to technology would indeed be narrowing the perspective. Let's talk about what is changing, why and how. The direction of the change in the current globalised IT enabled economy - towards hands-on minds-on activities. I guess the change is from a teacher being the dispenser of knowledge to facilitator of discovery learning. Going beyond mere remembering, understanding, applying to analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Let's talk about the implications for teaching, text, test etc. – Fr. Peter

Thanks to all who joined in the live presentation

All Vance’s slides are athttp://slideshare.net/vances This session was recorded:

(URL to be provided by WiZiQ)

http://slideshare.net/vances

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