Learning in the Collective
April 17, 2013 |
by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown
In the new culture of learning, people learn through their interaction and participation with one another in fluid relationships that are the result of shared interests and opportunity. In this environment, the participants all stand on equal ground -- no one is assigned to the traditional role of teacher or student. Instead, anyone who has particular knowledge of, or experience with, a given subject may take on the role of mentor at any time. Mentors provide a sense of structure to guide learning, which they may do by listening empathically and by reinforcing intrinsic motivation to help the student discover a voice, a calling, or a passion. Once a particular passion or interest is unleashed, constant interaction among group members, with their varying skills and talents, functions as a kind of peer amplifier, providing numerous outlets, resources, and aids to further an individual’s learning.
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In the new culture of learning, people learn through their interaction and participation with one another in fluid relationships that are the result of shared interests and opportunity. In this environment, the participants all stand on equal ground -- no one is assigned to the traditional role of teacher or student. Instead, anyone who has particular knowledge of, or experience with, a given subject may take on the role of mentor at any time. Mentors provide a sense of structure to guide learning, which they may do by listening empathically and by reinforcing intrinsic motivation to help the student discover a voice, a calling, or a passion. Once a particular passion or interest is unleashed, constant interaction among group members, with their varying skills and talents, functions as a kind of peer amplifier, providing numerous outlets, resources, and aids to further an individual’s learning.
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It’s Time to Play: Games, Gamification, and Active Learning
March 25, 2013 |
by Lee Skallerup Bessette
Play is making a comeback. There have been TED Talks, peer-reviewed articles in pediatrics journals, pieces in The Atlantic, and an entire industry now devoted to the “right” kind of play for our kids’ development. So why devote another 2000+ words to play and pedagogy, especially because it has already been done well by the creators of this very site? I’ve learned a great deal from watching my two kids, currently aged just four and almost six. I’ve watched them perform free imaginative play, interactive narrative play, and rules-driven play. Currently the conflict in my household is between the elder sister, who is obsessed with making sure everyone follows the rules, and her younger brother, who is still more interested in exploring and experimenting, happily making it up as he goes along.
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Play is making a comeback. There have been TED Talks, peer-reviewed articles in pediatrics journals, pieces in The Atlantic, and an entire industry now devoted to the “right” kind of play for our kids’ development. So why devote another 2000+ words to play and pedagogy, especially because it has already been done well by the creators of this very site? I’ve learned a great deal from watching my two kids, currently aged just four and almost six. I’ve watched them perform free imaginative play, interactive narrative play, and rules-driven play. Currently the conflict in my household is between the elder sister, who is obsessed with making sure everyone follows the rules, and her younger brother, who is still more interested in exploring and experimenting, happily making it up as he goes along.
Read More...Personal Learning Networks: Knowledge Sharing as Democracy
January 03, 2013 |
by Alison Seaman
Sherry Turkle famously argues technology has begun to overtake our attention and time, which has led to increased physical isolation and shallow online interaction. She contends, in a community-starved world, we need to disconnect from our smartphones and other Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-enabling devices in order to create greater balance: “We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true ... If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely”. Detractors such as David Banks, Nathan Jurgenson and others counter that Turkle’s assessment of alienation creates a digital dualism. As David Banks at Cyborgology suggests, it may be more appropriate instead to consider our technique—how we use technology.
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Sherry Turkle famously argues technology has begun to overtake our attention and time, which has led to increased physical isolation and shallow online interaction. She contends, in a community-starved world, we need to disconnect from our smartphones and other Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-enabling devices in order to create greater balance: “We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true ... If we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will know only how to be lonely”. Detractors such as David Banks, Nathan Jurgenson and others counter that Turkle’s assessment of alienation creates a digital dualism. As David Banks at Cyborgology suggests, it may be more appropriate instead to consider our technique—how we use technology.
Read More...Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities
October 08, 2012 |
by Sean Michael Morris
As a self-proclaimed Internet non-user (a proclamation that elicits hoots and howls from my friends), the allure of digital writing for me does not lie in its medium; instead, I’m tantalized by the proposition that digital writing is action. Not that the writing inspires action, or comes out of action, or responds to action. But that the words themselves are active. They move, slither, creep, sprint, and outpace us. Digital words have lives of their own. We may write them, birth them ourselves, but without any compunction or notice, they enact themselves in ways we can’t predict. And this is because digital writing is communal writing.
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As a self-proclaimed Internet non-user (a proclamation that elicits hoots and howls from my friends), the allure of digital writing for me does not lie in its medium; instead, I’m tantalized by the proposition that digital writing is action. Not that the writing inspires action, or comes out of action, or responds to action. But that the words themselves are active. They move, slither, creep, sprint, and outpace us. Digital words have lives of their own. We may write them, birth them ourselves, but without any compunction or notice, they enact themselves in ways we can’t predict. And this is because digital writing is communal writing.
Read More...Theorizing Google Docs: 10 Tips for Navigating Online Collaboration
May 14, 2012 |
by Jesse Stommel
My Hybrid Pedagogy co-editor (Pete Rorabaugh) and I hatched the plan for this journal in a Google Doc, and we’ve since written 29,316 words in that document. Before the end of 2012, we will likely produce the equivalent of a lengthy academic book. We contribute ideas synchronously and asynchronously, writing together at specific times and taking turns in the document on our own. Our collaboration runs so deep that single sentences are usually co-composed, our cursors occasionally blinking in unison within a single word. While I still recognize the texture of my own language and the idiosyncratic turns of my writerly voice, I don’t take ownership of my own writing the way I once did. And it isn’t just that I’m no longer attached to the sentences I write when collaborating; rather, I find myself more and more unattached to (but not detached from) the writing I do no matter the circumstance.
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My Hybrid Pedagogy co-editor (Pete Rorabaugh) and I hatched the plan for this journal in a Google Doc, and we’ve since written 29,316 words in that document. Before the end of 2012, we will likely produce the equivalent of a lengthy academic book. We contribute ideas synchronously and asynchronously, writing together at specific times and taking turns in the document on our own. Our collaboration runs so deep that single sentences are usually co-composed, our cursors occasionally blinking in unison within a single word. While I still recognize the texture of my own language and the idiosyncratic turns of my writerly voice, I don’t take ownership of my own writing the way I once did. And it isn’t just that I’m no longer attached to the sentences I write when collaborating; rather, I find myself more and more unattached to (but not detached from) the writing I do no matter the circumstance.
Read More...Experiments in Mass Collaboration
February 15, 2012 |
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
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We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
Read More...Document Sharing and Markup
February 13, 2012 |
by Pete Rorabaugh
Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
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Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
Read More...