Back in study mode

It’s been several weeks since I posted to this blog – although I had the best of intentions to carry on writing even when I wasn’t studying, life intervened.  But I’m now back in study mode, I’ve started another Short Science Course and although it’s not an online course, I intend to use the blog for reflection whenever appropriate. 

In January 2009, I started a three-year career break during which I hoped to study for the MA in Online and Distance Education – having completed the first course and most of the first year, a change in personal circumstances finds me returning to work early – initially part-time until Christmas and then full-time from January.  I haven’t given up on the MA but will have to consider whether I will have the time and headspace to do the next course in Febuary.

I really missed studying in the last few months even though various things happened that would have made it nigh on impossible.  I’m glad to be back in the swing now, though.

Trialling the ‘Polls’ option

I’m thinking of using the polls as part of my learning activity so I’m trialling one here.  Any responses very welcome!

The pressure is on….

Having spent the last week on edge wondering how well (or badly) I’d done in TMA04, I’m relieved to have received a decent mark.  Despite the fact that I had already passed the TMA component of the course before the last TMA, I really needed to see how I’d done because I tried a slightly different approach.  I’m pleased to see that it worked but I’m now putting myself under pressure for doing well in the ECA.  I’m my own worst enemy as my husband is fond of pointing out – and I wish I could relax a bit more but I’ve been like this since my school days so I doubt I’ll be able to change much.  The closer the end of this course comes, the more I’m thinking about continuing with the MA program.  I have no idea whether my Head of Unit is prepared to fund the next course, I need to have a meeting with her in the next two months to discuss this but if she isn’t prepared to fund it, I’ll have to work out whether to put it on ice for a bit or fund it myself from some savings.  I’m still determined to complete the Certificate in Contemporary Science and have already got the money together to pay for the next Short Science Course so I won’t stop being a student altogether but I really wanted to challenge myself with a postgraduate course as well and although it’s been a hard slog, I have also enjoyed it very much and would love to do more.

Anyway, the important thing now is to concentrate on the ECA – one thing that always amazes me is how the writing I’ve done in a TMA seems to be really alien when it comes back marked.  I find myself thinking, ‘gosh, did I really write that, how impressive is that!’ – somehow, the language seems to be a lot more polished than I remember it.  I wonder whether others have the same experience?  I just hope I can produce something equally polished for the ECA.  Time to knuckle down – I’m determined to draft Part A by the end of the weekend and Part B by Wednesday.

ECA – where to start?

It’s time to get down to planning the next few weeks which will be devoted to writing the ECA.  As the course chair states, we’ve made a start by writing TMA03 but it now needs fleshing out, tightening up, etc.  I need to read my tutor’s comments for TMA03 again – I misinterpreted one of the questions so I’m going to start with that, I think, and I also need to look at the references section – at the time of writing TMA03 I had started assembling the list but didn’t feel I wanted to include it at that stage.  I do, however, have the list as part of my notes for TMA03 so that bit shouldn’t be too bad.  Although I have got internet access whilst on holiday, courtesy of mobile broadband , the connection is relatively slow in the mountains, so I want to concentrate on reviewing some of the material I pulled off the course website into OneNote where it is offline and searchable.  I’m hoping that this will get me quite a way before returning home to a high-speed connection and more study time.

Time for reflection

Here I am sitting on the balcony of a flat in Switzerland, about 1100m above sea level, listening to the cow bells and enjoying a bit of peace and quiet while the rest of the family are out exploring.  The last few weeks have been particularly hard going for me – the school holidays have made studying in the daytime very difficult and in the evenings I’ve been very tired.  My husband has been very supportive, taking our son out as much as possible but it’s been hard nevertheless.  Added to which I have found writing the last TMA difficult – too many ideas, trying too hard and in the end I just had to get down to writing it as we were about to go on holiday.  Sometimes you just have to accept that this is the best you can do under the circumstances.  I’m actually looking forward to writing the ECA now; at first, it seemed terribly daunting but once the holiday is over, I will be able to concentrate much better when I’ve got the house to myself in the mornings and after 27 weeks of this course, it’s nice to know that the end is in sight.  I found the whole experience very positive, despite the occasional wobbles – I would love to do another course in the MAODE program but based on my experience with this course, I feel it is probably best to wait until I’m back at work.  I have missed being able to bounce ideas off colleagues and have had to draw on experiences from a long time ago – whilst it just about worked for this course, I’m not sure I could do it again for another course.  At any rate, I’ve got two more Short Sciences Courses to pass before I can claim the Certificate in Contemporary Science – I never thought I’d get this far with a subject that really is out of my comfort zone (given that I’m a linguist) so I know I will get a real sense of achievement out of it if I pass.

Week 24 – Practices with technology (A1)

Reading and reflecting on ‘Technology-mediated learning contexts’ by Mary Thorpe (2009).

In relation to the student task on the course, ‘The Environmental Web’, in what ways does the online activity differ from anything students might have experienced face to face in a campus context? (See in particular the discussion on page 126.)

Face to face tuition in a campus context would require students to be present at set times in specified locations.  The online activity enabled students to work at their own pace in the preparation phase and engage with the asynchronous forum when they were ready albeit within in a specified time frame.  Students were also able to negotiate the timings of their interactions with each other, thus ensuring that they were prepared and motivated.

In relation to the second case study, based on the National College for School Leadership:(a) Why is the talk2learn online ‘community’ referred to as a hybrid?

The hybrid stems from the mix of community (contributors using the talk2learn environment) and network (connecting to experience beyond the environment).  Forum contributions were very much on a casual basis and contributors were already members of a practice community offline so the forum did not create/mimic that community.

(b) What characteristics of communities and of networks are identified?

community – knowledge sharing within a defined context (acc. to Thorpe this could not be transferred online)

‘network of weak links’ – bridging between diverse practice contexts; developing a knowledge base around what might constitute strengths and weaknesses

Week 23 – Mycorrhizae and wild fires (A7)

Read Engeström (2007) ‘From communities of practice to mycorrhizae’ in the stages suggested below.

• Read the article up to the heading ‘Towards collaborative community?’

(a) What criticisms does Engeström make?

Engeström believes that the notion of communities of practice is not situated in the history of real societies and patterns of organising work.  The apprenticeship model is too limited and Wenger himself ‘distanced himself from the original model’ and ‘adopted the complementary notion of “constellations of practice”.’

Now read on, up to the heading ‘Movement and learning in the new landscape’.

(a) What changes does Engeström identify; e.g. open source?

Process management enables organisations to develop shared purpose across units and divisions and to co-ordinate work among varies skills and competencies.  What counts is knowledge rather than hierarchical status and historical structures are abandoned in favour of new ones.  In open source programming, the whole community works together to develop, solve problems etc.  People may be part of a particular team but work across boundaries, contributing their knowledge to particular projects.  In my last job, we tried this approach by forming teams across the boundaries of faculties and Student Services – team members were invited to join the team on the strength of their expert knowledge for a given project; the membership changed when the project needs changed.

(b) What does he mean by negotiated knotworking?

Engeström states that ‘in knotworking, collaboration between the partners is of vital importance, yet takes shape without rigid pretermined rules or a fixed central authority.’  Presumably, this does suggest some rules albeit more fluid ones which would change with different purposes/goals.

Final sections of the article:

(a) What are mycorrhizae?

The invisible organic texture underneath visible fungi; a symbiotic association between a fungus and the roots of a plant. 

(b) How does this organic metaphor relate to networks?

Mycorrhizae are

- difficult (if not impossible) to bound and close, yet not indefinite or elusive

- hard to kill, yet vulnerable

- dormant for extended periods, then generating vibrant visible mushrooms when conditions are right

- made up of heterogenerous participants working symbiotically.

All of these can be ascribed to networks as well.

(c) What are wildfire activities?

Activities that can disappear or die at one location only to suddenly reappear and spread at a new location.  Engeström cites birdwatching and skateboarding as two activities that have these qualities – both predate the digital age but are now embracing (mobile) technologies to link participants and enable communication.

(d) How do you think these metaphors assist or hinder your understanding?

I find Engeström’s metaphors a lot easier to relate to than Jones’ – maybe it’s because of the organisational/commercial examples which make a lot more sense to me than maths!

Week 23 – Jones and Ingraham (A6)

I’ve been thinking about why I found the Jones paper so hard and I think the main problem is that there is too much maths in it!  Maths has been my nemesis for a long time and although I consider myself a bit of a techie and am quite happy doing accounts work, I cannot get my head round mathematical formulae and metaphors.  So, I’m afraid, I have had to rely on fellow students’ blog entries for the activities related to Jones’ paper and the discussion articles to make actual sense of the content.  Ingraham talks about the different dimensions of networks (two-, three- or more) and I do understand that bit but how you relate that to learning is still beyond me.  I share his concerns about viewing tutors and students as nodes and like the way he considers them as link makers.  The term ‘link maker’ made me think of the clematis we have next to the front door – it was already here when we bought the house six years ago.  I cut it back to almost nothing every autumn and every year it grows higher, attaching itself to everything in its vicinity by a number of what I would describe as little tentacles.  You may have guessed that I’m not a gardener – I like plants that are independent enough to just get on with it (I wonder whether that can be seen as a metaphor for my own personality?) – the number of links this plant forms increases every year and probably changes in location as the cutting back breaks the links from the year before; the link making is one-directional though.

Back to Ingraham and Jones – Ingraham’s article introduced me to the word ‘rhizome’, so I’ve learned something new; always a good feeling!  Thanks to Em for the explanatory image of a rhizome.

Jones’ response to Ingraham helped to clarify the original Jones paper – I found the bit about nodes and how they suggest different things in English and French  very interesting.  But he then lost me again towards the end of his response.  Let’s hope I won’t need this bit for the next TMA nor the ECA…..

Week 23 – The network metaphor (A5)

There I was thinking Conole was hard!  I found Jones’ paper even harder to read, let alone understand – thanks to Em’s blog entry I got a bit further but I’m not convinced, I got it!

Anyway, re the questions we were asked for this activity:

1. What does Jones claim the metaphor networked learning provides?

He defines networked learning as ‘learning in which information and communication technology is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources.’

Presumably, the connections should be seen as two-directional rather than one-directional; more like a web.

 

2. What do terms such as ‘computer supported’ or ‘computer assisted’ imply?

Namely, that computers add to the learning process but don’t replace it – in some cases, they can speed things up or automate certain processes, e.g. using a software program to test grammatical structures may free up the teacher to concentrate on pronunciation, i.e. something that requires human interaction.  Depending on the subject, computers may play a small or a larger role but they should always be seen as and add-on, an additional tool in a large set.

3. What are the implications of technology-enhanced learning for teaching and learning in general and for your own practice?

Jones claims that ‘the computer itself is no longer the centre of research attention; instead it is the network and network connections made available through the computer.’  This would mean that technology enhances learning by enabling connections that were previously limited by barriers (physical, monetary, cultural etc).  It thus makes ‘the world your oyster’ but also forces both teachers and learners to be open to far more experiences, situations, experiences etc than previously at the risk of the loss of deep learning, becoming expert on a particular topic, focusing on a narrower field?

Week 23 – New pedagogy schema (A4)

I’m really struggling with schemas and metaphors – I have long claimed not to be a ‘visual or graphic’ person and I find it difficulat to think in pictures.  Give me a table or spreadsheet and I make sense of it; I admire people who can express themselves and/or concepts in pictures and even manage to understand what they are talking about but I find it incredible hard to think of metaphors or pictures myself.  If somebody starts me off I can usually develop a metaphor from there but it is the initial part I’ve got problems with.

This is why I have found this week’s activities so hard – I can see why you would want to find ways of representing the potential of new technologies so that everybody has a common denominator, but these articles are difficult!

Anyway, Conole talks about ‘how liberating and useful blogging has been, as a “stream of consciousness” of the development of my ideas, through being part of an evolving collective of other thinking in the community and increasingly as my main reflective research journal and respository of ideas and resources.’  This really rang a bell with me (hey, a metaphor!) as I started off as a very reluctant blogger and like her, have begun to see it as a valuable tool.

In her article on New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies, Conole states that there is a lag between the impact of Web 2.0 on education and that on other spheres of society, e.g. businesses.  She puts this down to a complex set of factors (technological, organisational and pedagogical).  At the recent Learning and Skills Group Conference, I was surprised to hear how businesses had embraced social networking as a learning tool, even in sectors I would have traditionally thought to be much more like education, e.g. law. 

Conole offers two schema for mapping pedagogical principles – we had been introduced to these in previous weeks and I did find them quite hard to grasp at the time.  Revisiting them as part of this article made them slightly more accessible  – I think I can now see how you would use them to map something existing but still struggle with whether I could use them for specifying/designing something new.

We’re asked to think about 1. what other forms of representation might be useful and 2. what new metaphors might help in terms of describing new technologies and the ways in which teachers and students interact with them.  My mother-in-law is a member of a women’s social group and was recently given a beautiful patchwork quilt which had been put together for her by one of the members of this group.  The other members had all been asked to contribute a piece of material so that my mother-in-law would have a reminder of all the members in the group.  For me, the individual pieces of material could represent individual technologies that are somehow harnessed and adapted in such a way that they can be contributors to the ‘technology whole’.  Another picture that springs to mind is that of a tool box, each tool serving a particular purposes with some being more basic than others – some necessitating an ‘expert’, others basic enough for any ‘lay person’ to use.    I may be going off track here but having just furnished my husband’s home office which necessitated customising some flat pack furniture, I could also see furniture as a metaphor.  I’m a pretty dab hand at putting flat pack furniture together but some of it had to be customised to fit into the space we had – this is where my husband excels (and whilst neither of us are what you would call ‘experts’, we each contributed different skills to getting the furniture to fit the room).  So, instead of going for custom-built furniture (necessitating an expert carpenter), we went for a basic flat pack range, used the ‘lay person’ to put most of it together and then the more ‘creative person’ to adapt the parts that needed customising.  Translating that to technologies and the way teachers and students interact with them, the teachers might be the experts for some things but not all and the students will have different skills to interact with the technologies according to their need and ability.