I had a fabulous weekend in Bowral back in the last weekend of May, attending a Calmbirth workshop with my husband. Consequently, our first bub is now due in a couple of - ahem - days!

This is one reason I haven’t posted in a long while - too much going on and my brain has become more cottony than I had first anticipated!

Anyway, I’m moved to write following this amazing weekend experience as I see some links to lifelong learning, a phrase that seems to have dropped out of circulation of late (for whatever reason). Let’s first revisit the phrase and then I’ll draw some connections from the Calmbirth workshop itself. In essence, this is an ‘appreciative exploration’ of some thoughts really!

Lifelong learning, particularly as espoused by the OECD, champions the idea of learning for holistic personal, professional and workforce development, which occurs in various learning settings, informal and formal. Closer to home, DEST (now DEEWR) exercises a policy they claim is based on the OECD assumptions:

The lifelong learning policy agenda is built on assumptions about the importance of skills in the new economy. Almost all industrial sectors are increasingly ‘knowledge-based’ and economic returns are obtained from a range of ‘intangible’ inputs, one of which is workers’ skills. Participation in education and training is increasing and economic rewards are flowing to people with high skills…

…which in fact draws a parallel between productivity and further education, and extends further to lifelong learning and the ‘whole person’, especially where the VET sector is concerned. However, in today’s economic rationalist world we are not seeing this in its entirety. We are contending with the worker-learner and have yet to move to the whole person, in reality.

So how does this thinking link to what I experienced as ‘calm birth’ then? Well, from my view it means starting with the person, rather than the system in which the person likely operates. in essence it’s redefining what we have assumed to be learner centred approaches to teaching and learning. Still, we seem to take this as meaning providing options TO the learner to support and enhance their learning; rather, we should take the learner-at-the-centre approach and start there with their networks, their predispositions, their experiences, and so on. We require more discussion around the apparent preoccupation on separating ‘the system’ from the users/producers/agents (see for example, Mejias 2005).

Thus, the science behind Calmbirth (as laid out in the workshop booklet and the various parents’ stories, where mums especially are co-teachers), contends with the human design, participatory methods, holistic therapies and healing work, beliefs and attitudes (e.g. Errington, 2004), cultural values and awareness, as well as the health sciences of midwifery and obstetrics.

So what is out there in terms of calm learning practices? How can we progress this to lifelong learning status? For example, Calm Kids, Smart Kids uses

…a mixture of:

• Physical exercises proven to reduce hyperactivity & increase brain functioning and integration
• Emotional stress release to help reduce anger and frustration, improve communication and increase self esteem
• Unique Nutrition Plan identifies allergies and deficiencies specifically for your child.

What is of some interest here is the links made to factors that influence children’s ability to learning and grow, as discussed also in the Calmbirth workshop and booklet, particularly a stressful pregnancy, a traumatic birth, and medications and operations, as well as accidents, family trauma, and allergic reactions. As Peter Jackson stated in the Calmbirth workshop, ‘it all begins in the womb’. Check out Lyn Schaverien’s work on developmental learning (biological aspects of learning) too.

We may also draw links to appreciative inquiry (see also Cooperrider, et al, 2008) and inquiry-based learning which champions the inherent (and essentially positive) motivations of the learner from within. For me this also conjures links with schooling approaches such as the Montessori movement. We could effectively read open learning into this too. These approaches tend to focus on the learner’s self-guided interests, reminding me of a quote by Freire that champions the learner as teacher (as ‘learning by teaching’):

The teacher… is taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught, also teach.

I understand that I’m touching on a lot of potentially disparate areas of education here, but I think it’s worth noting that whilst we delve into supposedly ‘new’ thinking around learning and teaching, much has been developed in earlier times that remain credible and applicable today - in fact, possibly more so than they did in the past. The time for elements of schooling and education is ripe for change but not always to new and original ideas, but back to ideas that are now seen as befitting our current contexts.

Where can learning go from here? How do we continue to facilitate learning in ways that are relevant to our times? These are some loose connections which I hope to think more deeply about in coming months. I also see connections to networked learning here too, a draft essay of which I will post shortly (this essay picks up on action learning, ‘hot action’, and other action research frameworks that I’ve related to an investigation into VET pedagogy and practice).

References

Errington, E. (2004) The impact of teacher beliefs on flexible learning innovation: some practices and possibilities for academic developers, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 41(1), 39-47.

Cooperrider, D, Whitney, D & Stavros, J (2008), Apreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change (2nd Ed), Crown Custom Publishing Inc: Brunswick OH.

Sessums pulls out this little gem which I can see immediately applying to our teachers too!

Here’s a video that sets the stage nicely–a set of fresh eyes, ears, and minds, sharing their reflections on blogging and their “business:”

Or visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/7PIiizu4yVg

Back in 2005, I blogged about the brain of the blogger, posted by the Eide Neurolearning Blog. I’m sure I blogged about my own blog processes too, in fact it was back in 2004 that I did a three-part posting about my blogging process (in my early days of fascination with this medium)! Heh, this is one of the reasons I blog, in fact, to keep track of my own thinking and writing

I’ve done this recently in preparing for an essay in my Masters course - I found it useful to be able to dedicate some writing and thinking time to drawing out various parts without the sense that I had to work on the ‘whole’. In all I found myself writing freely and with opinion that was not constrained by the structure of an essay, nor by the conventions of a Masters-style essay.

So, blogging for me, is a way in which I can exercise my brain and process my thinking - and I enjoy the writing process too. The content and the process are both emergent.

OK, back to the the brain of the blogger post then. The 5 points the Eides cover include:

1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

We’re three years on (and given the half-life of knowledge and information these days that’s about 6 internet years isn’t it?), how do these points hold up? I particularly like the 5th point which suggests the intersection between reflection and social interaction; it is a wonderous tension that can cripple some and spur others on!

So, why do YOU blog? Or, as Christopher himself asks, what makes it your ‘business’ to blog?

Tags: blogging, reflection, interaction, beginners, brain, bloggers

Commoncraft come through with the goods again! Ever been stuck for ways to describe the Social Web or Web 2.0? Here’s a way that does it so you don’t have to.

Social media in plain english

On another note, I’ve been working on bringing together action research and networked learning in developing a research proposal. This video also demonstrates the affordances of media rich approaches to research don’t you think? Like this project really…

Digital Ethnography

I have been stewing over e-portfolios and PLEs lately, particularly as we head into the new year and avenues by which to further traverse the (e)learning meta-scape!

I came across this recently:

A PLE is composed of a set of customized applications on the client side. Some of them will operate in a standalone way, while others will exchange information with server side applications. Thus, if a PLE becomes essential for the daily work of a user, the data flow between client and server side applications will allow the automatic feed of the social networks to which the users belongs to.

PLE bricks for social network construction « Personal Learning Environments

This short post on the PLE blog got me thinking about Donald Norman’s book Emotional Design (2004), particularly his closing remarks about design. It’s a dilemma many designers - educational, architectural, mechanical, etc contend with - that is, if we design it will they come? The quote above from the post doesn’t say ‘PLE’ to me, more it says ‘here are tools to generate your PLE’. Same goes for discussions around ‘e’portfolios - portfolios are methods, processes, learning approaches, outcomes, etc - adding an ‘e’ only says this is a electronically supported portfolio, another tool or space for me to generate some learning/living/reflection - or whatever frames the portfolio approach in a pedagogical sense (meaning that we are all pedagogues).

Donald Norman (2004),

We are all designers. We manipulate the environment, the better to serve our needs. We select what items to own, which to have around us. We build, buy, arrange, and restructure: all this is a form of design (p.224, my emphasis).

And further on,

We are all designers - and have to be. Professional designers can make things that are attractive and that work well. They can create beautiful products that we fall in love with at first sight. They can create products that fulfill our needs, that are easy to understand, easy to use, and that work just the way we want them to. …. But they cannot make something personal, make something we bond to. Nobody can do that for us: we must do it for ourselves (p.225, my emphasis).

And finally, this,

We are all designers - because we must be. We live our lives, encounter success and failure, joy and sadness. We structure our own worlds to support ourselves throughout life. Some occasions, people, places, and things come to have special meanings, special emotional feelings. These are our bonds, to ourselves, to our past, and to the future. When something gives pleasure, when it becomes a part of our lives, and when the way we interact with it helps define our place in society and in the world, then we have love. Design is part of this equation, but personal interaction is the key (p.227, my emphasis).

It’s not that we should give up and throw away design, or PLEs, or (e)portfolios; more that we can pass on the design decisions to others - which to me is what educational design should be about - learning the ropes, grappling with the concept, checking the landscape, reviewing and entering into the commentary, adding to the ‘research’, sharing the learning, and, ultimately, our lives.

PLEs are just this - US. We learn. We test that learning. We refine. We share with others. They share back, and with more others… it’s not the application, or the content, or the method even - it’s the interactions and the relationships that form and uniform as we learn, unlearn and relearn. Much like life really!

technorati tags:design, emotional_design, Donald_Norman, educational_design, PLE, e-portfolio, pedagogy

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My colleague, Colin, has struck out with a new blog focusing on games based approaches to learning. This from his ‘about’ page:

…my particular interest is computer based games but it includes everything from roleplays to quizzes and puzzles and much much more. Games can motivate learners by engaging their imaginations, giving them control over their experiences, challenging them, enabling them to experience authentic and relevant activities and providing multimedia stimulation. I’ve been exploring the use of games in learning for a couple of years now in my work with the Flexible Learning team at the Canberra Institute of Technology…

The Game Learner » About

[image: margoconnell]

What Colin didn’t mention was the fact that he has been researching games through his Masters study; and this blog is, I think, a useful and necessary addition to the edubloggersphere!

Onya Col - will add to my feeds!

technorati tags:gamebased_learning, games, colin_simpson, flexible_learning, computer_games

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All of these eportfolio template products we’ve looked at exist in a Thingamajig mindset. Rather than let students use tools that have a broad application outside the boundaries of our college, they push the student to think of eportfolios as dependent on institution-specific technology. They keep the student in an unempowered mindset. They force the student to see technology in the wrong way.

Mike Caulfield » Blog Archive » The Parable of the Thingamajig

A little thought from Mike Caulfield. As I’m thinking of ways to tell e-learning ’stories’ to management, Mike parables current thinking around e-portfolios. Parables make for powerful stories!

…and there I shall leave this Friday!

technorati tags:parable, Mike_Caulfield, stories, storytelling, eportfolios

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What does language have to do with learning and change in adult and work based learning contexts?

This short essay covers some thoughts about the use of language in relation to ‘learning and change’ (also the title of my Masters subject).

Introduction
Language plays a central role in learning as both seek to develop understanding and make sense of the world. Language enables us to interact with others in a shared process of making meaning. We use language to describe our reality and to communicate our sense of the world to, and with, others. In this same process, we also communicate who we are; that is, we construct not only our reality but also our ‘self’. When we learn we are engaged in a process of developing our understanding, attempting to make sense of something new or unknown to us. As described in the subject learning guide, ‘learning means getting access to new ways to mean’, so we not only learn new things but refine our learning process at the same time, or ‘learn how to learn’. Change then, is impacted by our efforts in learning new ways to mean; that is, to step from the known to the unknown (learning) and then to mark the transformation (change) from something unknown to known.

In an adult or work based learning context, language plays a significant role in one’s learning, as much as it does in early childhood development and learning. A workplace contains a specific profession (such as auto-mechanics), which involves language and discourse highly characteristic of that profession. The role of apprenticeship (a key component in the training and development in para-professions and trades) is in effect an initiation into the culture, context and discourse of a para-profession or trade. An apprentice, or ‘initiate,’ learns far more than the skills spelt out in a training package or work placement; I am certain that if one was to compare the language and demeanour of a third-year apprentice to a first-year, one would note significant difference. A third-year would use language and terminology with more authority and confidence and perhaps even embellish this with a greater experience than what you’d expect from a first-year, who would use the language more tentatively (and perhaps at times inappropriately).

It is important to also mention that teachers in the adult learning field are also challenged by language and discourse. Often a teacher in auto-mechanics is firstly an auto-mechanic prior to becoming a teacher. In fact, ‘becoming a teacher’ is as much an initiation for them as becoming an auto-mechanic is for their apprentices! It is this aspect of teaching in adult learning that is of most interest to me, being an educational designer and staff developer in a vocational education and training (VET) institute. In this short essay I wish to reflect on the VET teacher in relation to the overarching question:

What does language have to do with learning and change in adult and work based learning contexts?

Contributions from the research literature
I had not fully or explicitly considered the role of language in learning, prior to reading Painter (1989). Painter’s view of the role of language in learning is that we scaffold learning through the progression of our language development. While Painter refers to language development in children, this no doubt can be continually applied into adulthood. We can then add Halliday’s thinking about learning as a semiotic process, where he posits an approach to learning theory informed by language, where “theory would be based on natural data … in context, not in a vacuum; observed, not elicited” (1993, p.94), because “the process of language development is still a continuous learning process” (ibid, p.93). Again this highlights the inherent relationship between language and learning.

Just as Painter refers to scaffolding, Halliday uses the phrase ‘magic gateway’ (see p. 98) to discuss ways in which we might explicitly use language forms and interactions to develop strategies for learning. It is interesting that in adult learning approaches we engage in experiential learning approaches quite explicitly yet don’t seem to engage strategies informed by language. It is as if we assume adults have fully developed their language and it needs no further attention.

On reading Solomon (2003), this is not the case. Solomon discusses the role of portfolios in textually producing ourselves as worker-learners, as she outlines the use of portfolios in a higher education work based learning program. Solomon (2003, p.76) considers portfolio development as a pedagogical tool for learning in the program, and as a narrative text, and suggests that

portfolios can be understood as a site where learners reflexively create a life story of themselves by drawing on available social and cultural resources.

She then endeavours to answer a series of questions about how (and what) we can learn about the worker/learner, and indeed, importantly for me, when a learner or a worker becomes a ‘worker/learner’. The VET teacher is an ideal expose of the worker/learner, given they are in the unique position of being dual-professions as I call them. That is, VET teachers are firstly industry professions and secondly teaching professionals and need to constantly reconcile the two roles.

The scaffolding referred to by Painter (1989) is also evident in Solomon’s discussion around the work site as a site for learning; the academy explicitly frames the work site as a learning site, ‘reconstituting it as a learning experience’ (2003, p.79). This notion forces me to reconsider what we mean by informal learning (taken to mean learning that occurs in less formal settings, such as social and public settings, workplaces or otherwise), where we perhaps think too much about the physical setting and not enough about the frameworks that manifest or account for sites for learning. Reflection helps describe the learning encountered through the learner’s (work based) experience. Reflection is textually produced so thus involves written language. Solomon discussed the ways in which this reflective process is scaffolded (pp.79-83).

My reflections
Having worked through the literature in this module, I see some connection with aspects I would associate with in adult learning and work based learning contexts; namely reflection and the writing process involved in journaling, and in the development of portfolios. Reading the literature in this module has opened up some questions to me:

(1) Does a child’s internalisation of interactions (to produce models for speaking and writing, as described in Painter, 1989 and Halliday, 1993) pose a correlation to an adult’s learning in the process we call reflection?
(2) Does the textual production of oneself through the development of a portfolio adequately capture the discursive and dialogic processes adult learners engage in when they are learning in a workplace context (Solomon, 2003 and Kerka, 1996)?
(3) Is it possible to reconfigure adult learning spaces in ways similar to that proposed by Painter, to draw more deliberately on learners’ (and teachers’) interactions in talking and writing, especially in professional contexts (such as business administration, plumbing, hairdressing and other vocations)? Would this reconfiguration enhance what we have come to know as reflection, and also enhance the understandings about portfolio development for learning and assessment in adult learning settings?

Literacies (Macken-Horarik 1996) and contemporary learning settings which include information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a highly debated topic. The shift from commonsense to uncommonsense, or systematised, language (see Halliday 1993, pp.93-4) fits with this debate, given the rate of change in technology-enriched learning environments: portfolios are now e-portfolios, work based learning is often supplemented with online components, and one’s reflection can be recorded for ‘playback’ via online forums, emails, electronic documents, and audio and video clips. For example, I have found that new ICTs like blogs and wiki provide me with a greater space in which to write that potentially widens my audience (and thus my critics) to enable me to broaden and deepen my ideas as I ‘script’ them in the writing process. I have always kept a journal from a young age and now find that these web based tools complement my journaling in a positive way, extending my writing and discursive and dialogic processes at the same time. In addition, I have also found that I take copious amounts of notes knowing I can revisit (and thus re-use or re-organise) these (e.g. on a wiki) whenever and wherever I may be. Consequently, I feel as if my vocabulary, as well as my understanding of topics, is being enriched more deeply and more broadly than ever before. It seems that while we privilege experiential learning processes in adult learning settings we don’t necessary make the language development process as explicit.

Conclusion
What I’ve found incredibly interesting in this module is my journey of understanding as it has been reframed through a consideration of the role of language in learning. Speaking and writing in adult learning settings are manifested in textual practices such as portfolios, essay writing and structured discussion. I would contend that while language and learning share much, so too do text and identity in parallel, as posited by Solomon (2003, p.87) in her closing remarks:

Our focus here has been on the textual practices [used in a higher education Work-based Learning program], suggesting that these practices are an interesting pedagogical site to explore the way learners produce themselves as worker-learners.

Forming our identity is a key part of making meaning. Our ongoing development of language is also a key component to expressing our identity as well as new understandings and knowledges, and we can discuss our experiences and how we grow and change as a result.

References
Halliday, M.A.K. 1993. Towards a language based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education 5, 93-116.

Kerka, S. 1996. Journal writing and adult learning. ERIC Digest No.174. Retrieved 08/09/2007 from http://ericdigests.org/1997-2/journal.htm (ID: ED399413).

Macken-Horarik. M. 1996. Literacy and learning across the curriculum. In R. Hasan and G.Williams (Eds), Literacy in Society. London: Longman.

Painter, C. 1989. The role of interaction in learning to speak and learning to write. In J.R. Martin and C. Painter (Eds), Writing to mean: Teaching genres across the curriculum. Applied Linguistics Association of Australia, Occasional Papers 9. Sydney: University of Sydney, pp.62-97.

Solomon, N. 2003. Writing portfolios in work-based learning programs: Textually producing one-self. In C. Chappell, C. Rhodes, N. Solomon, M. Tennant and L. Yates (Eds), Reconstructing the Lifelong Learner: Pedagogy and Identity in Individual, Organisational and Social Change. London: Routledge.

Floral fields at Floriade 2007

Originally uploaded by margoc

Floriade ends this weekend. What a great event it’s been this year! Officials reckon they may have broken last year’s record of attendance with about 340,000+ or so through the turnstiles. Pretty good!

I have to also give a big plug to, and highly commend the work of, CIT staff and students who were involved. Building and Construction students helped out and built the beach shacks that were auctioned; Horticulture students helped with preparation, layout and planting; Child Studies students were also on hand to give parents a break from energetic kids for a time! The Floristry students also displayed their talents with creative floral arrangements based on the Floriade theme of Australian myths and icons.

Our friends, all the way from the WA desert ,enjoyed themselves immensely! We have started a bit of a picnic tradition I think with Floriade - a lovely way to take in the flora-tastic spectacle!

View more Floriade pics here as a slideshow.

Sarah Blasko - What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have

…a stunning performer who - whether at a cosycandlelit dinner venue, a remote country hotel or a big city theatre - commands the unwavering attention of her audience; and an entrancing vocalist who bids audiences hang upon her every note…

Sarah Blasko played the first gig of her Showstopper tour in Canberra last night. The above quote from her website says it all for me. The audience was captivated. She received rousing applause after every song and then silence. An expectant, intriguing silence that comes with the curiosity of watching a performer who is simply herself.

In watching Blasko’s show, I wondered about the pursuit of fame and how performers keep their feet on the ground — or not. To me it seems to be a balance between convention and creativity in a lot of ways and the creative tension that affords; using a medium to express your sense of the world and your lived experience of and in it.

“Everything experienced [Erlebte] is experienced through oneself [Selbsterlebtes], and this in part constitutes its meaning, that it belongs to the unity of this self and thereby contains a distinctive and irreplaceable relation to the whole of this one life” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 60 quoted).

We had a bit of a gathering yesterday with other staff from our Division to discuss ways we can work more collaboratively and more strategically in these cahnging times for our institution. I was aware of the term ‘experience’ and the number of times it was mentioned. We were certainly all interested in supporting the learners’ expereinces. However, it seems difficult to place it in action, by virtue of the fact that the learner, whoever they may be, is central to that experience - they own it, it is theirs. We talked more about creating spaces in whcih learners might feel more comfortable to ‘experience’ their learning. We talked about ways to support learners to enhance their experience. We discussed ways to support teachers who have a say in how a learner’s experience (of a course) could be better managed at a strategic, whole-of-institute level.

‘Experience’ is as elusive as ‘quality’. It requires immersion, emotion, commitment and the human body to be present. It is valued as it is remembered, and reflected on. It is contextual and relational, and it is re-experienced. No doubt, it is something we as individuals own and are; thus, supporting the experiences of others is a feat! Learning how to learn from our experience sounds like an ideal point from which to facilitate learning, yet always seems so difficult to do, given the personalised nature of such a process. Yet, it is something we must continue to strive for. The vast diversity of our experiences is our greatest learning tool!

technorati tags:Sarah_Blasko, diversity, learning_experience, lived_experience, Gadamer, music, experiential_learning, personalised, strategy

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ABC Tamworth : Going Web 2.0

Good on you Alex (and thanks to Michael for pointing to this).

Happy Friday!

technorati tags:alex_hayes, radio, Tamworth, Web2.0

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