.Edu.Co.Blog

CCK08

I'm having a very hard time trying to get back on track with my CCK08 course. I've been reading as much as possible, but my participation rate fell down dramatically after the first weeks. Too many things going on at the same time.

Of course, this leaves the question of "How do I go back in?" Should I write posts for every week? Should I try and get hold of all the information possible as fast as I can? How can I say something (that is, write something) if I didn't participate in the last weeks? What should I do?!?!?!?!?

Then, I remembered what Stephen and George said at the beginning of the course: No one will be able to read all the information produced. On the other hand, given that this is about my learning (and the universe has a way to make things perfect), everything that got in my way in the last few weeks has something to do with all the issues discussed in CCK08. In fact, I've been kind of living some of those issues. For the last few months I've been a student at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), and I've had the chance to see firsthand some interesting things related to power in the classroom, instructional design (or the lack of it) and groups, networks and communities (and some of the invisible barriers that might hinder their development). Lots of things to think about.

But this week I had the chance to come back again to the Elluminate sessions, this time with Nancy White as our weekly guest. It was a very interesting session, I took a few notes, and after organizing them a little bit, I decided that this was as good as any other excuse to write again about the course.

Follow up:

Obviously, it's important to say that this is my view on the discussion (mainly the chat messages, because I'm having a hard time paying attention to both the audio and the chat at the same time.. Am I getting old?). So here it goes, some relevant points (I'm using nicknames along the text, btw):

• Nancy started reminding us about the importance of practice. To me, it is especially important to keep this in mind when thinking about formal education, because for us laymen, looks like theory is/should be the more determinant factor in the classroom practice, when it's not (I wonder if that feeling comes from the scientific areas, where theory has a huge impact on what's possible to do). There are several others factors at play here, like tradition (I teach the way I learned), practices of others, policies, and even hype. After being a student, then teacher, now again student, seems to me that theory is not that important of many of our teachers/administrators, at least for the higher education level.

  Jon k brought an interesting question related (in my view) to this issue: "so the theory is ahead of the technology?", and ChristyTucker pointed out that "theory is ahead of the infrastructure in general", but I kind of differ with them. I think theory is not really ahead of technology, at least not in areas related to education and learning. I'd say technology helps to shape theory and makes possible the development of new theories. Of course, we would need to discuss what do we understand as a "theory", because in areas like physics, theory in fact guides (in a way) new technological developments (the LHC only make sense because of the interest in the empiric validation of a theory). However, I don't think this is the case with education (or, for that case, many social sciences). I'd agree that vision should be ahead of both technology and infrastructure, but sadly, that is not the case neither.

• FrancesBell brought attention to the issue of change, which led to a interesting question by Nancy: "Are we afraid of change or the SCALE of change?". Several comments followed, including "change has to be iterative in some respects. You try new technology, then apply it a little in your teaching, then try something out. It isn't one first then the other, but back and forth between the two" (ChristyTucker), "it's not scale of change - but more how the teacher needs to change" (jennymackness), "the approach has to be iterative to change because different teachers are at different levels of student 'freedom'" (jon k), "There's anxiety for teachers around control, yes, but also the natural anxieties of wading into a world where your students know more than you do" (rheyden) and "Change is acceptable for only the amount people are willing to allow change. Therefore change needs to be iterative" (bradley.shoebottom).

  To me, the last two comments compile most of the discussion. In my experience is clear that you can't force change going top-down, because the real practices are likely to be unaffected. I agree it needs to be iterative, but I wonder how reasonable is to depend on the willingness of people to change (status quo, anyone?). Obviously, the problem with this is that we go back to the power and control issues, which doesn't have an easy answer.

  rheyden said also "So to support teachers in this change, we have to first support them as learners". I agree with this, but I'd say this has to be preceded by an opportunity for the teachers to discover themselves, once again, as learners (not students). When you think of yourself as a learner, you begin to act as one, and suddenly all the potential of networks and online information begins to make sense, beyond the entertainment possibilities. I agree with glen on "teachers should first be exemplary learners and able to demonstrate their learning process". Yup. Sort of a "Don't do as I say, do as I do" philosophy.

• Following with the subject of change, a brief discussion came up on how to show value and involve the decision-makers. I mentioned how difficult it is to me to show value, and to involve decision-makers. rheyden proposed some possibilities, in the form of questions: "grassroots leadership? finding models of systemic change that inspire? validation with assessment data?". Some other ideas included the demonstration of small projects to the big group (Lisa M Lane), showing their financial benefits (jennymackness), but in a context "so that systemic change can be glimpsed" and "demonstrate efficiency as well as results" (rheyden), and trade-offs, i.e., what's gained/what's lost (ruthdemitroff). Christy Tucker reminded us that "change management needs to come from both bottom and top". Nancy summarized two important things to do: (1) Demostration and (2) validation from the outside or similar groups.

  Now, some of my own demons : If the project leader doesn't have a broad vision, he won't be able to see the importance of talking to administrators about money and tradeoffs. I have lived cases where project leaders are concerned mainly with, let's say, the pedagogical aspect of projects, which is rarely the most attractive subject for decision-makers (not that this makes sense at all, even more if we are talking about education). On the other hand, sometimes policy-makers are so interested in getting their goals right on time, that small demonstrative projects can be quickly dismissed as "low impact" initiatives. A third factor involves money, obviously, but like jennymackness suggested, with the huge amount of both online and open source tools, "nowadays its easier to subvert the system" (that is, subvert existing practices, because "subvert" is a very controversial word in Colombia). In the end, I leave the conversation with an inner question, about what do we mean when we say "resistance to change" (are we really willing to change things from their core?), and how resistant can be public institutions to change.

• Nancy brought in another interesting question: "how do we develop loose ties with little time and many people?". It addresses two critical factors involved in the development of communities: time (lack of, that is) and people (lone rangers, some times). Yet, the most important part for me has to do with the idea of loose ties, becuase I have this tendency to see communities as high-participation venues. The idea of loose ties (a little twitter-esque) reminds me that value doesn't have to be measured just in number of very active participants. Then again, how do you assign value to these loose ties? How do you show that value to decision-makers?
• In the different ideas for change that came up, there were two that caught my attention, both by jennymackness "one of my managers told me - don't ask - just do it. If you ask the answer could be no!", and "Lose your ego - don't ask for recognition". The first one is good advice, but I recommend it with caution. It is very easily to get in trouble (in some organizations, that is) when you do much more that you are supposed to, and you don't have enough context to place your actions. You can end up doing things that don't benefit the organization. For the second one, I'd concentrate more on the "don't ask for recognition" part, because I think that's a very delicate issue for a lot of academics. I'd say the "publish or perish" lifestyle can really affect your attitude towards openness, and a struggle in which people can be mistreated.

• Finally, a statement that I find very controversial, in the middle of an exchange between jon k and Lisa M Lane. Lisa said: "I don't need them [IT professionals] to comprehend it [education], I need them to support it" (before, jon k said that "quite often though IT doesn't have the educational background to comprehend academics").

  I agree with jon k, because that is a fact. Even worse, sometimes IT people refer (and I have heard that in very high level places) to academics in a very, very disdaining way, which to me represents one dreadful consequence of overspecialization (which runs both ways, has to be said). That's why I'm really concerned about Lisa's comment, because I have seen also some of what happens when IT people support that which they don't really understand: Huge communication problems with clients (that is, teachers), projects which scope are limited solely by the technical ability of the IT professional, and even complete failures of technology implementation. I don't think IT people working in education should be educators, but getting to know a little bit about what it means and how it is done, surely has the potential to generate lots of benefits for the human aspect of technology use in classrooms. jon k said it clearly: "to me to support it properly, you should at least understand what's going on in the classroom", and Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers asked something of similar importance: "Can administration support something they do not comprehend, invest in personally or profession?". I don't think so. Of course, that is the way it works in so many places, but that doesn't make it right, and the negative impact it has is easily discovered.

So, that's it. A lot of things in my mind. A little long, but then again, this is about my learning... Looks like I needed to write a lot. Now, if only I could get posts done for every past week of the course...

Links

Elluminate recording.
Summary by Nancy White (slides, chat)
Summary by Christy Tucker (very nice compilation of ideas)

A excepción de que se indique lo contrario, este contenido está publicado bajo una licencia Creative Commons.