Category Archives: Pedagogy

Personalised Radio Ciphers: internet-radio and augmented social media for transformational learning of disadvantaged young people

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This is proposal submitted by Andrew Ravenscroft, Graham Attwell, David Blagbrough and Dirk Stieglitz for the PLE2011 conference in Southampton has been accepted. We are going to have a lot of fun. And remember you can join us too. Whilst paper submissions are closed you can still submit proposals for posters pecha keucha or the media competition until June 11th.

Introduction: Designing personalized new media spaces to support transformational and emancipatory learning

Relatively recent research into, and definitions of, personalised learning environments (e.g. van Harmelen, 2008) have proposed new technological configurations or learning design patterns. These typically harmonise individual learner agency and initiative with a developing ecology of open web services and tools. This is the PLEs from an ‘alternative learning technology perspective’. Another and complementary way to view personalisation, that has a history beyond relatively recent technological developments, is to view ‘personlisation as practice’. In this sense, personalisation is rooted in the ‘deep’ matching and development of learners interests, experiences and motivations with their chosen informal or formal learning trajectories, that may be realized through personalised technologies. This is a psycho-social approach to personalisaton and learning technology design and use, that conceives of learning as something that grows out from the learner, rather than something that is acquired from some pre-structured, ‘external’ and ‘imposed’ curricula.

This position is particularly important when we are attempting to find technology-enabled ways to engage, retain and support the learning of disadvantaged people who are excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from traditional learning paths and trajectories. Arguably, this problem is most severe in the burgeoning numbers of NEETs (Not in Education Employment and Training) throughout the UK and Europe. Addressing the needs of these growing communities requires new and radical approaches to learning, learning design and technology-enabled practice. One foundation for a radical and technology-enabled pedagogy for disadvantaged groups is the groundbreaking work of Paulo Freire (1970).

Applying Friere to PLE design: Technical reformulation of ciphers

In Paulo Freire’s seminal work “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (Freire, 1970), he emphasized the importance of critical engagement in and analysis of broader societal ‘cycles’ and their effects. One way to do this is through using lived culture, and praxis (action that is informed by values) as the foundational elements for developing circles that promote transformational learning. These ideas have recently been taken up within the non hierarchical, shared, creative, inclusive, safe and supported spaces called “ciphers” – which have emerged from the urban youth culture particularly around hip hop music (Wiliams, 2009).

We are currently using this cipher concept as a metaphor for designing and developing RadioActive, a hybrid of internet-radio and augmented social media platform to support the transformational learning of disadvantaged young people.

The RadioActive pilot

This presentation will describe the design, piloting and evaluation of RadioActive with NEETs in the London Borough of Hackney. The radio-social media platform is being co-designed with these NEETs and their support actors (such as youth workers and parents) in Hackney (in London). A key aspect is that the ‘going live’ aspect acts as a catalyst for community engagement and cohesion, linked to related social media activity. Put simply, the internet-radio gives a presence, real-time narrative and an energy that drives participation, interaction and content creation.

This is an innovative and participative broadcasting model that combines Open Source or easily affordable technology to create ‘the communities’ radio platform. This deliberately fuses, inspired by Web 2.0 trends, traditional distinctions between broadcaster/program planner and listener/consumer. The holistic design concept is an edutainment platform and hard to reach community combined, via the cipher approach, into a connected ‘live entity’ rather than the community being seen as a separate audience that is broadcast to.

The central idea is that this radio cipher provides the means to initially engage and retain NEETs, who can then be exposed to and participate in informal learning activities that lead to the development of skills and competencies that prepare them for Further Education or work. They develop both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills through RadioActive. The softer ones relate to personal expression, the development of self-confidence and self-esteem, and the development of collaborative working skills. The harder ones involve the development of concrete digital literacy, media production, communication and organizational skills, that can exploited in other education or employment related activities. Similarly, their artefacts and competencies are recorded (e.g. in an eportfolio) or made public (e.g on the web) in ways that can be presented to potential Educators or Employers.

The proposed conference activities

This contribution will follow the collaborative and praxis driven spirit of this project and the PLE conference, through incorporating 2 related activities:
1. A presentation linked to the archive of the pilot radio show;
2. Mashup madness or a community in harmony? Live RadioActive show and DJ set during a social event at the conference, with RadioActive DJ’s mixing a set based on 1 or 2 favorite songs suggested by each delegate.

References

Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum Publishing.

Van Harmelen, H., Design trajectories: four experiments in PLE implementation, Interactive Learning Environments, 1744-5191, Volume 16, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 35 – 46.

Wiliams, D. (2009). The critical cultural cypher: Remaking Paulo Frieire’s cultural circles using Hip Hp culture. International, Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2, 1, pp 1-29.

Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School

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I was talking with Cristina Costa this morning about some of our ideas for the Radioactive project (more to come on this soon) and she asked me if I have read anything by Myles Horton. To my regret I have not and intend to remedy that later this week. In the meantime here is a short video about Myles Horton and his work and an excerpt from Wikipedia:

“A poor white man from Savannah in West Tennessee, Horton’s social and political views were strongly influenced by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, under whom he studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Along with educator Don West and Methodist minister James A. Dombrowski of New Orleans, Horton founded the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) in his native Tennessee in 1932. He remained its director until 1973, traveling with it to reorganize in Knoxville after the state shut it down in 1961.

Horton and West had both traveled to Denmark to study its folk schools, centers for adult education and community empowerment. The resulting school in Monteagle, Tennessee was based on a concept originating in Denmark: “that an oppressed people collectively hold strategies for liberation that are lost to its individuals . . . The Highlander School had been a haven for the South’s handful of functional radicals during the thirties and the essential alma mater for the leaders of the CIO‘s fledgling southern organizing drives.” (McWhorter) The school was created to educate and empower adults for social change.

In their 1985 documentary You Got to Move, Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver prominently featured Horton and the Highlander School. Horton also inspired the founding of the Myles Horton Organization at the University of Tennessee in 1986. The group organized numerous protests and events in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area, including demonstrations to counter the Ku Klux Klan, and the construction of a shantytown on campus to encourage the university to divest from South Africa.”

Beyond blended learning- towards a fluid discourse of educational conversations

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Steve Wheeler has written an interesting bog post, which deserves unpacking and discussing.

Steve says:

Blended learning (in the established, traditional sense) means a mix of learning activities that involved students learning both in the classroom, and at a distance from the classroom, usually mediated through technology. I am claiming that this type of blended learning – in concept at least – is now outmoded because the boundaries between local and remote have now been substantially blurred.

I think I would largely agree with him although I am not so sure it is due to the blurring of the boundary between local and remote. Reading older papers on technology enhanced learning, there was great emphasis placed on the divide between synchronous and asynchronous communication and how to provide a proper ‘mix’ of technologies facilatating such modes. Today we flip between different modes without thinking about it. Take Skype – if I text someone they may reply straight away or may reply the next day. I may have a series of short episodic conversations with a colleague throughout the day. I may switch from text to audio or video for parts of these conversations. They may be one to one or we may invite others to participants for particular parts of the conversation. Instead of a divide between synchronous or asynchronous communication, tools now support multi modal communication and multi modal learning.

Steve goes on to say:

The new blend is to blur formal and informal learning

Of this I am less convinced. I am in a few problems here because I have often written myself about informal learning. But in truth I am unconvinced of the value of the concept. Indeed there is little agreement even on what the terms formal, informal and non-formal learning mean. If you are interested in this debate there is an excellent literature review by Colley, Hodkinson and Malcom who explore different definitions and uses of the terms. I have tended to use the idea of informal learning in two ways – to refer to learning which takes place outside the formal education system or to learning which takes place in the absence of formal teaching. The problem with the first use of the term is that it refers only to what it is not, rather than to what it is. And in the case of the second, it tends to ignore the influence of what Vykotsly called a More Knowledgeable Other. The More Knowledgeable Other is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process – a friend, a peer, a colleague, who can support the scaffolding of  learning. Technology is playing a significant role in blurring boundaries here. If I read Steve Wheeler’s article, think about it and write my own ideas then surely I am learning, and in this case Steve is playing the part of the More Knowledgeable Other in guiding my thinking. Recently one of my computers was overheating. I searched for and found a web site telling me at what temperature the Northbridge chip should be running (it was running much hotter). I then found a YouTube video showing me how to take my computer apart and clean the filters. Is this formal or informal learning? Do I have scaffolding and guidance in my learning? I would suggest I do.

Even more problematic is Steve’s idea of “informal technology”. I think this may just be careless use of terminology. Of course technologies are not informal or formal. However what is certainly true is that most young people today own various technology based devices, which can be used or as John Cook calls it “appropriated” for learning. And as we move towards near ubiquitous connectivity, at least in richer countries, then these devices provide constant access to all kinds of learning – including contact to those with more knowledge than we have. It is interesting to note that most of this learning takes place in the absence of purpose built education technology, rather we appropriate applications designed for business or enterprise use or for entertainment, for learning.

I think more useful than setting a dichotomy between the formal and the informal is to explore the different relationships and contexts in which learning takes place. Last year Jenny Hughes and I made a slidecast called Critical Literacies, Pragmatics and Education as part of a Critical Literacies course being run by Rita Kop and Stephen Downes as part of their ongoing research project on Personal Learning Environments.

In this we referred to the relationships in which learning take place. These include the relationships between learners and teachers, between the learners themselves and between the learners and the wider community.

We went on to look at context. Obviously this includes place or physical context, which could be described as the learning domain. This might be a school or college, the workplace or at home. Important here is the distance between the different domains. Sometimes this distance will be short (say in the case of an apprenticeship involving workplace and school based study), but sometimes there may be a quite broad seperation between the different domains.

A second context is the social, cultural and political environment in which earning takes place. A third – and to my mind critical – context is the idea of what is legitimate learning – what is learnt and how it is learnt. Obviously this involves the idea of control.

Especially important is the context of how we recognise achievement – how outcomes are defined, what value is placed on learning, by whom and how.

We also raised the idea of discourses – the sum total of the conversations around education. In the past, we suggested, education has tended to be a top down discourse with prescribed and structured strategies  for learning. This is changing and now leaners may be more likely to start from practice without a predetermined strategy for learning.

Thus relations and context or learning are becoming fluid and are contently changing. Technology is playing a major role in these changing relationships and contexts. Such a fluid discourse inevitably leads to conflict with an educational structure based on top down educational discourses.

Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects and Visualising Data

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I have been spending a lot of time lately on visualising data as part of our efforts for build technology Enhanced Boundary Objects (TEBOs) to support careers professional in understanding and using Labour Market Information. The work is being undertaken as part of the EU funded Mature-IP and G8WAY projects.

In a short series of posts I will be reporting on my experiences with this work. But first more about those TEBOs.

Background to TEBOs

One particularly fruitful way of thinking about skills development at work is to look at the boundaries between different communities of employees within a workplace and the artefacts (documents, graphs, computer software) that are used to communicate between communities (Kent et al., 2007). Following the analysis of Bowker & Star (1999), “boundary objects” are “objects that both inhabit several communities of practice and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them”, thus making possible productive communication and “boundary crossing” of knowledge. In an earlier project on knowledge maturing and organisational performance (including in career guidance) we developed an approach to learning based on the design of symbolic boundary objects which were intended to act as a facilitator of communication across community boundaries, between teams and specialists or experts. Effective learning could follow from engagement in authentic activities that embedded models which were made more visible and manipulable through interactive software tools. In bringing the idea of boundary objects to the present research, we realised that a sub-set of general boundary objects could be ‘TEBOs’ (technology-enhanced boundary objects), resources within an OLME which were software based.

This approach makes use of the notions of boundary object and boundary crossing. The ideas of boundary crossing and tool mediation (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003; Kaptelinin & Miettinen 2005) and situated learning with a close alignment to the importance of a focus upon practice (Brown et al., 1989; Hall, 1996) informed considerations of the role of technologically-enhanced boundary objects in knowledge maturing processes in different contexts. One specific concern is to make visible the epistemological role of symbolic boundary objects in situations in which people from different communities use common artefacts in communication. A fruitful approach to choosing ways to develop particular boundary objects is to focus on what Onstenk (1997) defines as core problems: the problems and dilemmas that are central to the practice of an occupation that have significance both for individual and organisational performance — in this case the problems associated with providing advice relevant for career planning. One method this development project used was therefore to engage in a dialogue with careers guidance practitioners about common scenarios involving Labour Market Information (LMI) which could inform the development of prototype technologically-enhanced boundary objects (TEBOs). The development of the TEBO is therefore informed by a consideration of the following issues:

  • Importance of developing methods and strategies for co-design with users.
  • Need for conceptual tools to help people understand the models and ideas which are part of LMI.
  • Need for a more open pedagogy (than is typical of much existing technology-enhanced learning, and existing workplace training practice).
  • A system in which boundary objects are configurable by end-users. (practitioners) and by guidance trainers to be used in multiple ways
  • Need to build an understanding of how TEBOs may be used in ways that have utility for the employing organisation (in terms of efficiency savings), are empowering for practitioners, and ultimately for clients too.

These concerns could be coupled with another set of issues concerning appropriate skill development:

  • Need for time for people to interact, reflect, use concepts etc.
  • Trying to reach a stage where practitioners have justifiable confidence in the claims they make and can exercise judgement about the value of information when faced with unfamiliar LMI.
  • Choosing between a range of possible use-contexts.
  • Deciding how to employ support from communication and discussion tools.
  • Developing and transmitting Labour Market intelligence – importance of communicating to others.
  • Preconfiguring certain ways of thinking through use of scenarios; discussions can point into and lead from scenarios.

The above sets of issues provided a clear steer to the type of investigations that would be needed to investigate how TEBOs might be used to support the learning and development of careers guidance practitioners. There are also broader questions about the overall design of the learning system and how users might interact with the system in practice.

Communities of Practice

The importance of Labour Market Information (LMI) in Careers Advice, Information and Guidance has been recognized by the EU in its New Skills, New Jobs strategy. LMI is crucial for effective career decision-making because it can help young people in planning future careers or those planning a change in career in selecting training new careers pathways. LMI is also critical for professionals in supporting other stakeholders in education (like careers coordinators in schools) and training planners and providers in determining future skills training provision. LMI is collected by a variety of different organizations and agencies in Europe including government and regional statistical agencies, industry sector bodies and private organisations. Each collects data for different purposes. Some of these data are made available in a standardized form through Eurostat. However access is uneven. Furthermore the format of the data is seldom usable for careers guidance, and there are few tools to enable its use by advisors or job seekers. This is especially an issue at a time of financial pressures on training courses when potential participants will wish to know of the potential benefits of investing in training. It is also often difficult to access potential training opportunities with the lack of data linking potential careers to training places.

The use of LMI, therefore, lays at the boundaries between a number of communities (and emerging communities of practice).

The practice of careers professionals is related to the provision of careers guidance to clients, such as young people, those returning to the labour market, unemployed people and those seeking a change in careers, amongst others.

LMI is predominantly collected by statisticians working for governmental or non-governmental organisations and agencies. Their practice relates to the collection, compiling, curating and interpretation of data. Data are not collected primarily for providing careers guidance, but for economic and social forecasting and policy advice.

The forms of artefacts used in these different practices vary considerably, with data being released in data tables, which make little sense without (re)interpretation and visualisation. Visualisation is an emergent specialist practice itself requiring cross disciplinary knowledge and a new skills base. Furthermore the use of data in careers practice may require the use of statistical and visualisation tools, however basic, which are generally outside the skills and practice of careers professionals.

In the next post in this series I will look at the identification of the core problems as the basis for the pilot TEBO.

References

Ainsworth, S. & Th Loizou, A. (2003) The Effects of Self-explaining When Learning with Text or Diagrams, Cognitive Science, 27 (4), pp. 669-681.

Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out. Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989) Situated cognition and the culture of learning, Educational Researcher, 18 (1), pp. 32-41.

Chandler P. (2004) The crucial role of cognitive processes in the design of dynamic visualizations, Learning and Instruction 14 (3), pp. 353-357.

Hall, R. (1996) Representation as shared activity: Situated cognition and Dewey’s cartography of experience, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 5 (3), 209-238.

Hegarty, M. (2004) Dynamic visualizations and learning: getting to the difficult questions, Learning and Instruction 14 (3), pp 343-351.

Kaptelinin, V., & Miettinen, R. (Eds.) (2005). Perspectives on the object of activity. [Special issue]. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 12 (1).

Kent, P., Noss, R., Guile, D., Hoyles, C., & Bakker, A (2007). “Characterising the use of mathematical knowledge in boundary crossing situations at work”. Mind, Culture, and Activity 14, 1-2, 64-82.

Lowe, R.K. (2003) Animation and Learning: selective processing of information in dynamic graphics, Learning and Instruction, 13 (2), pp. 157-176.

Lowe, R. (2004) Changing status: Re-conceptualising text as an aid to graphic comprehension. Paper presented at the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) SIG2 meeting, ‘Comprehension of Text and Graphics: basic and applied issues’, Valencia, September 9-11.

Narayanan, N. H. & Hegarty, M. (2002) Multimedia design for communication of dynamic information. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57 (4), pp. 279-315.

Onstenk, J. (1997) Core problems, information and communication technologies and innovation in vocational education and training. Amsterdam: SCO Kohnstamn Institut.

Ploetzner R. and Lowe R. (2004) Dynamic Visualisations and Learning, Learning and Instruction 14 (3), pp. 235-240.

Tuomi-Gröhn, T., & Engeström, Y. (2003) Conceptualizing transfer: From standard notions to developmental perspectives. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Between school and work: New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing. Amsterdam: Pergamon, pp. 19-38.

van Someren, M., Reimann, P., Boshuizen, H.P.A., & de Jong, T. (1998) Introduction, in M. van Someren, H.P.A. Boshuizen, T. de Jong & P. Reimann (Eds) Learning with Multiple Representations, Kidlington: Pergamon, pp. 1-5.

Story telling with Data

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Today Google Labs released their new data visualisation store. Very impressive it is too, although it is not a straightforward task to register on the site, upload uses an XML format and you cannot download data. But the visualisation is pretty good and Google themselves have linked to a number of large Eurostat data sets.

I have been working on data for the last couple of weeks. I am trying to build a TEBO – a Technology Enhanced Boundary Object (or objects) for explaining Labour Market data to Careers Advice, Information and Guidance (CAIG). Together with my colleagues from the Institute for Employment Research at Warwick University, I have been looking at TEBOs for some time.

Alan Brown explains the conceptual idea behind TEBOs:

The ideas of boundary crossing and tool mediation (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003; Kaptelinin & Miettinen 2005) and situated learning with a close alignment to the importance of a focus upon practice (Brown et al., 1989; Hall, 1996) informed considerations of the role of technologically-enhanced boundary objects in knowledge maturing processes in different contexts. One specific concern is to make visible the epistemological role of symbolic boundary objects in situations in which people from different communities use common artefacts in communication. A fruitful approach to choosing ways to develop particular boundary objects is to focus on what Onstenk (1997) defines as core problems: the problems and dilemmas that are central to the practice of an occupation that have significance both for individual and organisational performance — in this case the problems associated with providing advice relevant for career planning. One method this development project used was therefore to engage in a dialogue with guidance practitioners about common scenarios involving Labour Market Information (LMI) which could inform the development of prototype technologically-enhanced boundary objects (TEBOs). The development … was therefore informed by a consideration of the following issues:

  • Importance of developing methods and strategies for co-design with users
  • Need for conceptual tools to help people understand the models and ideas which are part of LMI
  • Need for a more open pedagogy (than is typical of much existing technology-enhanced learning, and existing workplace training practice)
  • A system in which boundary objects are configurable by end-users (practitioners) and by guidance trainers to be used in multiple ways
  • Need to build an understanding of how TEBOs may be used in ways that are empowering for practitioners, and ultimately for clients too.

These concerns could be coupled with another set of issues concerning appropriate skill development:

  • Need for time for people to interact, reflect, use concepts etc.
  • Trying to reach a stage where practitioners have justifiable confidence in the claims they make and can exercise judgement about the value of information when faced with unfamiliar LMI
  • Choosing between a range of possible use-contexts
  • Decide how to employ support from communication and discussion tools
  • Developing and transmitting Labour Market intelligence – importance of communicating to others
  • Preconfigure certain ways of thinking through use of scenarios; discussions can point into and lead from scenarios.

In practice it is not so easy to develop such TEBOs. Identifying key problmes is probably the most useful approach. But then there is an issue in accessing different data to visualise as part of the process. A great deal of data is now publicly available. But I am no data specialist and have faced a steep learning curve in understanding and interpreting the data myself. then there is the issue of visualisation – I am mainly using Google Gadgets, although we are also working with Tableau (a powerful tool, but unfortunately only available for Windows) and IBM;s Many Eyes. All these tools are good, but are all extremely finicky about how the data is formatted. We are working with data in xls and Apple’s Numbers but I suspect longer term it would be better to use the Open Source R programming environment.

And the hardest task of all is the storyboarding. At the end of the day we are trying to tell stories with data: TEBOs are a storytelling and exploration approach to learning. So for each TEBO I intend to make a short video explaining the key concepts and showing the various visualizations. We will also provide access to the raw data and to static versions of the graphing, along with explanatory notes. And for each TEBO we will try to construct an interactive visualisation tool, allowing learners to play with the data and displays. I also want to try to build some sort of simulations using the Forio tool. No doubt there is better software (and if anyone has any ideas I would be very grateful). But I sort of feel that the more social software, open source or free tools we can use the better. We want to encourage people to do it for themselves. And they have no money to spend on fancy software tools.We cannot possibly provide access to visualisations of all the data available. But if we cane explain what is possible, hopefully interested CAIG professionals will start there own work. And then who knows – a Careers Guidance data store?