Chapter 4 - Learning in the Collective
Chapter 4 is a focus on what the authors refer to as "the collective," otherwise known as the emerging database that students are able to interact with through multiple mediums. An example is the ability of people today to not only search for content on the web (news, music, videos, research, etc...), but also create it and display it as well. Much like Sam's story in Chapter 1 in which he was able to collaborate on computer code over the internet with his peers and produce exceptional work. It is this type of student learning that this section is eluding to.
We are all too familiar with the traditional sense of school. You attend class, listen to the instructor, learn from your thick text book, and don't ever copy or get help from your classmates. For the average college graduate, it's 16 years of conditioning to work independently, cram for the test, and cherish the grade with your teacher as your only source of feedback. Is that necessarily useful in this new culture of learning. The growing consensus answers is leaning towards no. As the chapter states, "learning from others isn't new or revolutionary; it has just been ignored by most of our educational institutions."
With this in mind, it begs to question the long standing role of the teacher when trying to "learn from the collective." More and more this is evolving to a facilitator type of role. Thomas and Brown explain, "In this environment, all the participants stand on equal ground - no one is assigned 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 do by listening empathically and by reinforcing intrinsic motivation to help the students discover a voice, a calling, or a passion." As a math teacher with the ideals of the common core becoming increasingly present in our schools, I can't help but find similarities between the it and this new culture in my own experiences. Additionally, in EDSS 530, it goes without saying that we are much less instructed than we are set free in environments of collaboration. This includes our website blogs, google+ community, twitter feeds, and more.
Chapter 5 - The Personal with the Collective
A polarizing issue of the digital age is topic of privacy and drawing the fine line between what is personal domain and public domain. With so many media outlets, often the line becomes blurred at a time when it is increasingly easy to share personal information or project a persona. Being the sports fan I am, it's hard not to point to the evolution of sports reporting and access to athletes through the media. Before the internet age, professional athletes were merely watched from afar while reporters wrote narratives about them. They were essentially anonymous superstars. Nowadays, with the advent of twitter, facebook, bloggers, and 24/7 media coverage, we are now more connected to these people than ever before and probably have access to more information than we could ever care for. This is just one example of how personal lives can become spread over the web. Likewise, a growing number of people are becoming "residents" of the internet. But as Brown and Thomas explain, this doesn't necessarily mean being vulnerable or exposed, rather it is being an individual in a like-minded community or "collective." I find their karaoke analogy very helpful in understanding this. That is, a person singing at a karaoke bar is having a far different experience than say someone at a singing competition. The former is driven by participation of those present and the audience is made up of people of the same mindset or situation. The latter is quite the opposite. Another good example is the idea of blogging. Essentially, a blog is personal and informal expression in writing of say, an opinion, yet, it is often consumed by an audience of readers who are interested in the topic (as the author likely is as well). It is that aspect, a shared interest, that is the catalyst for mixing the personal with the collective. Because of this, people within the collective group can learn in ways that are free of inhibition. A couple of quotes tied it all together for me, "A website dedicated to gardening, for example, makes no demands on its users; there are no tests or lectures. There is no public influence of private minds. Yet learning happens all the time. And because there is no targeted goal or learning objective, the site can be used and shaped in ways that meet the needs of the collective - in this case, people with a shared interest in gardening." The authors later conclude, "technology has now made connecting personal interests to collectives possible, easy, fun, and playful because people are inspired to think beyond the boundaries and limitations of their current situation." In a way, teachers are a collective of people with a shared interest in education. Hence, learning new strategies to teach and help students becomes an altruistic practice, or in other words, learning for the sake of learning.
Chapter 6 - We Know More Than We Can Say
I'm not the fastest writer by my own standards let alone anyone else's. I tend to be very particular about what I'm trying to say regardless of what I'm writing about. As a result, I over think it and often struggle to find the best way to translate my thoughts to words. This is the premise of Chapter 6 in A New Culture of Learning. This section discusses the difference between "explicit" knowledge and "tacit" knowledge. Explicit knowledge is straightforward and non negotiable. Therefore it is easily described and hence is the basis for much of our traditional schooling. As a math teacher, my content is often taught in explicit manner using formulas, processes, and generally accepted facts of mathematics. Meanwhile, tacit knowledge is, in my own words, everything in between. Tacit knowledge is reinforced through thinking and experiences. As Thomas and Brown explain, "In the digital world, we learn by doing, watching, and experiencing. Generally, people don't take a class or read books or manuals to learn how to use a web browser or web program. They just start doing it, learning by absorption and making tacit connections." As the passage states, the digital world is one that is built on tacit knowledge which in turn is gained by tacit learning. In the new culture of learning, it is important to break away from the traditional blueprints of education that pigeonhole students into learning topics in a rigid manner. Rather we need to foster the pursuit of passions and therefore genuine learning. A prime example of this is our 20% project. For me, I chose to dive into learning some new music on my piano and guitar. Because I was genuinely interested in doing so, I was personally invested in the product. As a result I happily researched my topic and practiced daily when given the opportunity. Could I teach someone else how to go about doing the same in an explicit manner? Not likely as it was my own process of tacit learning that was taking place. Ideally, this would be the new direction of education.
Chapter 4 is a focus on what the authors refer to as "the collective," otherwise known as the emerging database that students are able to interact with through multiple mediums. An example is the ability of people today to not only search for content on the web (news, music, videos, research, etc...), but also create it and display it as well. Much like Sam's story in Chapter 1 in which he was able to collaborate on computer code over the internet with his peers and produce exceptional work. It is this type of student learning that this section is eluding to.
We are all too familiar with the traditional sense of school. You attend class, listen to the instructor, learn from your thick text book, and don't ever copy or get help from your classmates. For the average college graduate, it's 16 years of conditioning to work independently, cram for the test, and cherish the grade with your teacher as your only source of feedback. Is that necessarily useful in this new culture of learning. The growing consensus answers is leaning towards no. As the chapter states, "learning from others isn't new or revolutionary; it has just been ignored by most of our educational institutions."
With this in mind, it begs to question the long standing role of the teacher when trying to "learn from the collective." More and more this is evolving to a facilitator type of role. Thomas and Brown explain, "In this environment, all the participants stand on equal ground - no one is assigned 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 do by listening empathically and by reinforcing intrinsic motivation to help the students discover a voice, a calling, or a passion." As a math teacher with the ideals of the common core becoming increasingly present in our schools, I can't help but find similarities between the it and this new culture in my own experiences. Additionally, in EDSS 530, it goes without saying that we are much less instructed than we are set free in environments of collaboration. This includes our website blogs, google+ community, twitter feeds, and more.
Chapter 5 - The Personal with the Collective
A polarizing issue of the digital age is topic of privacy and drawing the fine line between what is personal domain and public domain. With so many media outlets, often the line becomes blurred at a time when it is increasingly easy to share personal information or project a persona. Being the sports fan I am, it's hard not to point to the evolution of sports reporting and access to athletes through the media. Before the internet age, professional athletes were merely watched from afar while reporters wrote narratives about them. They were essentially anonymous superstars. Nowadays, with the advent of twitter, facebook, bloggers, and 24/7 media coverage, we are now more connected to these people than ever before and probably have access to more information than we could ever care for. This is just one example of how personal lives can become spread over the web. Likewise, a growing number of people are becoming "residents" of the internet. But as Brown and Thomas explain, this doesn't necessarily mean being vulnerable or exposed, rather it is being an individual in a like-minded community or "collective." I find their karaoke analogy very helpful in understanding this. That is, a person singing at a karaoke bar is having a far different experience than say someone at a singing competition. The former is driven by participation of those present and the audience is made up of people of the same mindset or situation. The latter is quite the opposite. Another good example is the idea of blogging. Essentially, a blog is personal and informal expression in writing of say, an opinion, yet, it is often consumed by an audience of readers who are interested in the topic (as the author likely is as well). It is that aspect, a shared interest, that is the catalyst for mixing the personal with the collective. Because of this, people within the collective group can learn in ways that are free of inhibition. A couple of quotes tied it all together for me, "A website dedicated to gardening, for example, makes no demands on its users; there are no tests or lectures. There is no public influence of private minds. Yet learning happens all the time. And because there is no targeted goal or learning objective, the site can be used and shaped in ways that meet the needs of the collective - in this case, people with a shared interest in gardening." The authors later conclude, "technology has now made connecting personal interests to collectives possible, easy, fun, and playful because people are inspired to think beyond the boundaries and limitations of their current situation." In a way, teachers are a collective of people with a shared interest in education. Hence, learning new strategies to teach and help students becomes an altruistic practice, or in other words, learning for the sake of learning.
Chapter 6 - We Know More Than We Can Say
I'm not the fastest writer by my own standards let alone anyone else's. I tend to be very particular about what I'm trying to say regardless of what I'm writing about. As a result, I over think it and often struggle to find the best way to translate my thoughts to words. This is the premise of Chapter 6 in A New Culture of Learning. This section discusses the difference between "explicit" knowledge and "tacit" knowledge. Explicit knowledge is straightforward and non negotiable. Therefore it is easily described and hence is the basis for much of our traditional schooling. As a math teacher, my content is often taught in explicit manner using formulas, processes, and generally accepted facts of mathematics. Meanwhile, tacit knowledge is, in my own words, everything in between. Tacit knowledge is reinforced through thinking and experiences. As Thomas and Brown explain, "In the digital world, we learn by doing, watching, and experiencing. Generally, people don't take a class or read books or manuals to learn how to use a web browser or web program. They just start doing it, learning by absorption and making tacit connections." As the passage states, the digital world is one that is built on tacit knowledge which in turn is gained by tacit learning. In the new culture of learning, it is important to break away from the traditional blueprints of education that pigeonhole students into learning topics in a rigid manner. Rather we need to foster the pursuit of passions and therefore genuine learning. A prime example of this is our 20% project. For me, I chose to dive into learning some new music on my piano and guitar. Because I was genuinely interested in doing so, I was personally invested in the product. As a result I happily researched my topic and practiced daily when given the opportunity. Could I teach someone else how to go about doing the same in an explicit manner? Not likely as it was my own process of tacit learning that was taking place. Ideally, this would be the new direction of education.