Edtech webcast
A classmate of mine pointed us in the direction of Worldbridges - Global Webcasts Podcasts & New Media: A Global Network of Homegrown Webcasting
The site provides–as can be deducted from the title, a number of webcasts/podcasts of interest in EDTECH. I took the time to listen with a distracted ear–multitasking of course ;-) to an hour long conversation between Jay Cross and George Siemens. In this audio transmission they contrast their views on learning. Informal learning is Jay Cross’ area (in a corporate environment) while George Siemens is interested in networks and nodes of interconnected learning (in higher education). There was some back and forth between the two where similarities and differences were contrasted.
For one JC feels that the term learning should be replaced by adaptation. He said he was coming at it from a corporate perspective where the term connotates negatively. GS on the other hand, finds learning should become a meta skill.
I find JC’s adaptation is too related to ajustment and fitting in for my liking. It reminds me of the DSM-IV adjustment disorders category. As though what is out there should continuously usurp agency and will, take precedence over what individuals consider to be their rhythm or ways. This one doesn’t go over well with me.
On the other hand, I find myself wanting to agree that learning should be a meta skill. But again, I think it already is. We continuously learn by adjusting or by creatively tweaking circumstances on a day to day basis. We learn from the time we are born from being in the world. Learning is a meta skill that is part of our genetic blueprint. In the definition of learning (both as process and as end product) I include: ajusting, adapting, creating, experiencing. I include, JC’s notion of gut knowing, felt experiencing. Learning through the senses, through the body, through the eyes.
Getting back to the webcast, a number of interesting ‘morcels’ of thinking could be heard in the following:
- He means that pre-packaged top down training should give way to learner centered ways.
- I guess this is a logical consequence. If not they should be closed, seriously rethought and re-designed.
- Meaning if it is useful use it, forget about the label.
- He said he was looking for a definition that takes into account heart, head and gut approaches to learning (JC) (nod *_*)
- I too find we need to design more of the environment, than the content,
- Design more for information flow and access, than manage content
- Design people supports and connections, than performance measurements.
I found myself appreciating this respectful back and forth clarification conversation. And appreciating George Siemens candid ‘public learning’ anecdotes, when he said his readers could often point out the contradictions in his own writing when reading his blog.
I think we can all connect to that one, I too do a lot of public learning, In fact this is something I’ve come to appreciate in networked social environments. The ability to work on ideas by having others give them a spin according to their views. But I’ve also come across too many that could not stand a debate around ideas and took everything personally.
I have also seen cultural differences. In France for example, ideas are expected to be challenged, and you as a person are suppose to be equipped to debate and discuss. The person is not the target, his ideas are. Instead I’ve found that in Canada, and perhaps the States, ideas are personalized, too close to the individual and when you challenge them, you are in effect challenging the person who too often responds angrily or defensively because of hurt feelings. That I find problematic. Could it be we are not teaching skills in debate and as we say in french ‘répartie’ ? It has been my experience that the French were usually more comfortable with language and translating their thoughts into words.
Having lived in Israel for two years, I understand what you mean by the cultural differences in etiquette when it comes to one’s ideas. Coming back to the States, I often got myself (and occasionally still get myself) in trouble by disagreeing with people’s ideas. Discourse through (often ritualized) debate is a difficult thing to let go of once you’ve experienced it. Another possible reason for the “hurt feelings” may be the culture of “Flawed Self-Assessment” as outlined in the paper of the same name by David Dunning, Chip Heath, and Jerry M. Suls (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/index.cfm?journal=pspi&content=pspi/5_3).
The paper includes a thorough qualitative meta-analysis and how flawed self-assessment impacts health, education, and the workplace. People may just think too highly of themselves without meaning to.
Although I did not listen to the podcast — so I’m relying on your summary — I find it interesting that so often “informal” learning is confounded with an almost automatic variant of “formal” learning (i.e., that which takes place in a classroom or lecture hall). Like your labelling of learning as a “meta” skill, I’d call it “tacit.” The goal of any learning environment — in my humble opinion — is to help the participants make this learning “explicit” (sort of like your “public”?) so that participation is more meaningful. In my experience working for the education department of a natural history museum in the past, this was our primary goal. This helps to find commonalities between “informal,” “formal.” “networked” — and whatever other modifier could be dreamed up — learning environments.
Posted December 5, 2005, 2:40 pmKets de Vries takes a psychoanalytic view to organizations and leadership to unearth deviance and pathological reactions to organizational events. Add cultural differences to the mix and it gets pretty complicated.
I deplore not being able to debate ideas in my neck of the planetary woods, to pull them apart and in so doing learn from each other. This too close for comfort identification with ideas is to me quite problematic, as you have also pointed out.
In anoter posting I commented on Jay Cross’ use of the term adjustment: adjustment as pathology. Thinking for one self is an important navigation tool, too often subsummed under pressures to conform, to be liked, to adapt and adopt dominant ideas and viewpoint. This is a rich and complex subject that blends social and psychological aspects that help navigate the world of others.
BTW, I am not the author of learning as a meta-skill. George Siemens is. I only repositionned his notion as one that is not new but inherent to living and development.
Jeremy I am less favorable with the position that our task is making “tacit” K “explicit”, in the sense of turning what has yet to be articulated into something that is: through some kind of artifact. We can continue talking, expressing, performing as a way of communicating, but I do think we need to let go of what I think is left-over from the Enlightment period, the grandiose notion that ALL CAN BE KNOWN through explication. The KM community for one has moved away somewhat from Content management systems to eliciting knowledge flow processess amongst people. The expliciteness is in dialogue and debate (there it is again), in the processes of meaning making and various ‘translations’ not in finite pieces of K.
People are the dynamic “repositories” that organize and manage the K artifacts (ideas, books, concepts, technologies) in their environment. These are socially negotiated in communities and in networks. That is why I find the basis of Connectivism interesting but lacking in directionality. It is presented as something static: a web like structure of links and nodes. What is less clear is what happens on this web.
A book is needed here, enough for now. Both Callon Latour’s actor-network theory and Karen Knorr Cetina’s studies of scientific knowledge creation are helpful in understanding this complex phenomenon.
Posted December 5, 2005, 7:02 pmBTW Jeremy thank you for the link to the Flawed self-assessment paper. I took a quick glance and it looks most interesting.
When my research focus was more socio-cultural aspects of KM, I found that the notion of learning from mistakes in organizational milieus confronted the culture of excellence and yes the culture of ‘image’ we are taught throughout our life.
In educational milieus
No student is comfortable in revealing mistakes to anyone, peers or teachers. It would be quite unusual to hear “Hey!! I made this type of mistake, but I learned that from it”.
Instead we keep quiet, only foregrounding what we believe we master, leaving a whole territory of learning opportunities in the shadows. A challenge for teachers to take up and make mistakes central in learning. Sometimes mistakes teach much much more than correct answers.
I argue that in so doing, we psychologically shape individuals who can no longer be whole, when not knowing and mistakes are the materials of life, living and learning in the world.
This is a cultural challenge, more than a personal trait to change.
Posted December 5, 2005, 7:41 pmFrancine, I’m delighted to find this discussion, for I openly admit that I’m promoting a balance of formal and informal learning, and the more dialog, the better.
It’s tough to express all the nuances of one’s position in an impromptu discussion, and I imagine that’s the source of a misinterpretation of how I look at adaptation. Rather than submerging one’s identity, adaptation can be a flowering of one’s personality and gifts.
(I’m referring to your comment that, “I find JC’s adaptation is too related to ajustment and fitting in for my liking. It reminds me of the DSM-IV adjustment disorders category.”)
Humans adapt by learning. I define learning as any non-genetic adaptation one makes to interact more effectively with one’s ecosystems. This is not all give and no take. For example, I don’t buy into the DSM categories, so I’m hardly going to knuckle under to them. My adaptation in this case is to expose the false precision and cultural bias of DSM’s checklist approach to mental health.
If anyone’s interested, I’ve posted more complete information on my wiki.
Posted December 21, 2005, 1:09 pmHello Jay,
Nice to see you here. I’m late in responding to your comment but … I promised myself a breather and a breather I took.
Meanwhile, You are right it is difficult to factor in nuances when blogging especially when we take fragments out of context to make our brief (sometimes not so brief)points.
If I read your meaning correctly, you are saying that ‘adaptation’ can provide the means/context to favorably expand and test personalities, competencies and skills.
You say:
Would you agree Jay to the possibility that ‘adapting’ can be located on a continuum from effective fit all the way to pathological fit with an ecosystem. The term adaptation tends to promote a context that is unquestionned. It is assumed to be ‘good’ a priori. I don’t see any space for healthy resistance, for rejecting pressures to conform.
What I am trying to convey is the need for “conscious adaptation” in contrast to “brute fitting in”. Rejecting what is presented, standing at odds with a crowd, can be a measure of ‘adaptive learning’.
Perhaps your definition included both.
Posted January 2, 2006, 5:56 am