Author name: davidtheaussie

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Open Badges

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Open Badges

If you want to ride the wave of what’s new and hip, then an emerging concept called open badges is worth checking out. Open badges have actually been around for a while but have recently garnered much attention – especially with Mozilla’s recent release of their open badges site for coding and web development.

The concept is simple, just like boy scouts receive a badge for proficiency of a skill, open badges are proficiency badges that are given by an organisation (such as Mozilla) or by peers. It’s a system where proficiency in skills can be legitimised by receiving peer recognition.

The idea is novel and has enormous potential to disrupt traditional educational institutes. Currently, the only legitimate education is through universities. However what would happen if open badges were legitimsed? What if companies started recognising open badges as ways of evaluating potential employees?

The impact of open badges is yet to be determined. However there’s a clear trend online (in social communities) where certain members are recognised as having skills. In online groups, some participants rise to the top and are acknowledged for their abilities – whether that’s organising the group, contributing, teaching others or whatever.

If we build skills by participating in social online communities, do they translate into workplace skills? Will future resumes be filled with badges instead of academic degrees?

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The 10,000 hour to success – myth busted!

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The 10,000 hour to success – myth busted!

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” certainly hit a chord with educators and academics with his claim, based on empirical research, that 10 000 hours of study would elevate a person to virtuoso levels of skill. 

Interestingly, the study upon which his claim is based makes no such claim. 

Gladwell’s theory is too generalised to be applied to the real world and a number of good arguments have been made to refute his claims. Firstly, virtuoso level skills are dependent on the area being studied. Memorization tasks only take a few hundred hours to achieve mastery levels. And sport, which puts physical strain on the body, doesn’t allow for the level of practice that are possible in other areas (such as music).

If a person practices for 90 minutes a day, they reach the golden number of 10 000 within 20 years. However that level of practice may not be intense enough to increase skills significantly enough to be considered virtuoso. 3 hours of practice a day, attaining 10 000 hours in 10 years, is more likely to result in mastery.

Numerous other factors, such as motivation, also contribute to one’s ability to become a master of their art. Also, not everyone is suitable (physically or intellectually) for any task. My short self would never be able to become a basketball virtuoso in 10 000 hours!

However, there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Gladwell’s 10 000 hours theory is really just a way to grab people’s attention. 10 000 hours sounds more precise than ‘lots and lots of practice’ … which is what Gladwell is actually saying!

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Beyond New Literacies – D. Wilber

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Beyond New Literacies – D. Wilber

The world, according to Wilber, is constantly changing with the development of new technologies. As well, there’s a rise in new language and literary practices born of technological change. The concern is how to analyse such rapid development of technology within that literacies framework.

The field of new literacies is the focus on how technology and tools shape language and literacies in daily life. The emphasis of such study is on what makes literacies ‘new’ in an environment of constantly changing tech tools. Wilber considers how such tools exploit global networking together with cutting edge software and hardware.

Today, technological change happens so rapidly that the changes to literacy are limited not to technology, but rather by our ability to adapt and acquire the new literacies that emerge.

New literacies must be studied as soon as they emerge, while they’re being adopted and taking shape within people’s lifestyles. New literacies are able to traverse all social spaces from education, family, leisure, work, public and private life. 

New literacies can be defined as ‘tech stuff’ and their ‘ethos’ – referring to the spirit or the way in which the technology is used. New technologies lend themselves to an ethos which is participatory , via collaboration and open sharing of information online. Fluidity is also emerging as an ethos of new literacies as texts are remixed, reshaped, mashed up and added to. One good term (not mentioned in Wilber’s paper) is ‘forked’, where a project or text is split into different forks or streams. The result is a shift in power and authorship from academic to social and challenges notions of expertise, legitimising the notion of ‘amateur’ experts.

Participatory culture is the method in which users participate in pop culture and new literacies. This is achieved through avenues such as fan fiction, gaming and online communities. Such literacies result in the creation of original texts, organising, editing and publishing. The result is a challenge to how texts are viewed: what is a text? how is it created, shaped, re-shaped and so forth? New literacies also move into the conventional notion of space – our personal lives, work, popular culture, forums, anime, fan fiction, etc. 

There exists much tension between traditional literacies and new literacies. Studies have looked at how chools attempt to use social networks – combining traditional literacies with new literacies. The results show that technologies don’t always foster new literacies (especially in an traditional literacies context). It supports the notion that technology is often shoehorned into the classroom (producing traditional literacies), despite educators’ best interests to create new literacies.

Taking the view that new literacies can be transformative, technology has the ability to reshape education, taking it into new literacy spaces. Education itself can be remixed with new media and emerge as a new digital space. Vasudevan’s study on “digital geographies” observers the effect of new literacies on participants – who are shaping and shaped by the space around them and tech tools that they use. 

Conducting further research into digital culture, society and technology affords a chance to look at how new literacies are transformative – how media, technology and information shape our lives and are, in turn, shaped by us. 

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Teach Creativity, Not Memorization

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Teach Creativity, Not Memorization

Sternberg’s analysis of the importance of creativity has become seminal reading for those interested in the implications of creativity and learning. Creativity, according to Sternberg, is under utilised and students need to ‘mobilize’ their creativity.

The main area of consideration, he states, is how university and the corporate world values creativity. The qualities of creativity which are so coveted are not taught in schools. The education system focuses on memorisation which is setting students up for failure. 

To promote creativity in the classroom, students need to be encouraged to define and redefine problems that they encounter. This includes things like projects, assignments and presentations. If students make a mistake, they can solve the problem to fix the error or start again if their approach was a mistake. This is all valuable learning for students as they strive to develop judgement. As such, it’s more important for students to learn what questions to ask, and how to ask them, rather than just learning the answers.

Additionally, another crucial element of creativity is selling one’s creative ideas. Ideas have value and students need to learn how to sell those ideas to others.

Having too much knowledge can also be a hindrance to creativity. Knowledge is beneficial but can also entrench thinking and attitudes. Considering this, the learning process can be a two way sharing opportunity. Teachers can share knowledge that students don’t have. Conversely, students have flexibility, precisely because they have less knowledge, and can use that flexibility to open avenues of creative process.

Creativity requires perseverance. Traditionally, creative thinking has encountered obstacles caused by resistance from others. Creative thinking, which lacks structure and discipline, often brings disappointment and disillusionment. There are a lot of grey areas and ambiguity. Creative though can be sporadic, non-linear and takes time to develop. Promoting creative though also means fostering self-efficacy. Steinberg suggests that creative thinking requires measured risk-taking, along with perseverance. By defying norms and producing ideas, creative thinking can result in innovation which is trend setting and respected by others. 

By helping students find something they love, or having them demonstrate their talents or ability, they’re more likely to act creatively. It doesn’t matter what their focus area is, just that they love the activity and feel a sense of importance but without a need for immediate rewards.

“Students develop creativity not when they are told to but when they are shown how.”

Investing in Creativity – R. Sternberg and T. Lubart

The paper on teaching creativity stems from earlier works by Sternberg in which he takes a more analytical and psychological approach to looking at creativity. Sternberg surmised in 1996 when he wrote the paper “Investing in Creativity” that not research had been conducted regarding creativity. It had been neglected as a research topic. Numerous contributors are cited as to why creativity was ignored; partly because of the ambiguity of what creativity actually meant and mostly because there were no rigid methods to study or measure creativity.

Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate. It’s a broad topic that has implications on both an individual and societal level. Individually, creativity is useful for problem solving. Societally, creativity can lead to new scientific findings, art movements, innovations and social programs. 

In the 1950s creativity research increased and a few learning institutes were founded to look specifically at creativity from a psychological perspective. Intelligence, naturally, attracts more interest and research than intelligence. However, Sternberg argues that creativity is just as important as intelligence. 

It is through creativity that we can cope with significant challenges in our environments in novel and appropriate ways. Indeed, given the rate at which the world is changing, the importance of creativity to our lives is likely to increase.

Even now there are few organisations specifically focusing on creativity. Two such journals exist: The Journal of Creative Behavior and the Creative Research Journal. The former is mostly non-empirical, with a focus on how to improve creativity rather than the study of it. The latter, which has a research focus, has been published since 1988. The conclusion here, made by Sternberg, is that creativity is not an area that readily lends itself to scientific study.

An early approach called the psychodynamic approach took the view that creativity arises from tension between conscious reality and unconscious drives. The Freudian theory was that artists used creativity as a way to express their unconscious desires.

The problem is, as noted earlier, that creativity is hard to define and observe. Methods have been tried to scale creativity and measure it in a scientific way. One such method is Guilford’s “divergent thinking” tasks called the Unusual Uses test. The test required asking participants to think of as many uses as they could for a common object. They were tested on a creative scale. 

Where tests and definitions fell short were in the disparity between “Creativity” (big c) by famous artists or eminent thinkers, compared to “creativity” (little c) on an every day level. One related research paper proposed that creativity is, essentially, ordinary cognitive processes hielding extraordinary results – – referring to studies of eminent creators and lab research.

A more social-personality approach focuses on variables such as personality, motivation and sociocultural environments as creative sources. Studies comparing creative samples in eminent “Creativity” and everyday “creativity” have yielded identification of common, relevant traits: independent judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity,, aesthetic orientation and risk taking. Along with Maslow’s observations about creativity, there’s definitely a link between creativity and motivation. Specifically, intrinsic motivation affects creative output. This has relevance to confluence theory – that creativity is a confluence of task motivation, domain relevant knowledge and abilities, as well as creativity-relevant skills. This forms the basis of a model for creative problem solving.

Sternberg’s own research identifies the importance of personality for creative functioning. Creativity requires a willingness to overcome obstacles, take risks, tolerate ambiguity and self-efficacy. All of which are traits mentioned earlier in the paper with relation to creative obstacles. Sternberg, too, asserts the importance of intrinsic motivation for creative work – that creative people love what they do and are less focused on rewards. Finally, he recognises the need for an environment which is supportive of creative ideas. 

In this paper Sternberg has established the importance of creativity, despite the lack of research on the topic, as well as obstacles to creative output. He considers a variety of definitions and concludes that creativity is a vaild field of study. Using confluence theories offer a methodology to study creativity which allows for experimental testing.

Sternberg is an advocate of creativity as a method of promoting learning and critical thinking. While it’s an under-developed field of research, creativity (and particularly motivation) is a desired skill in the buisness world and plays an important role in learning.

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Do you want Google to be your cybernetic friend?

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Do you want Google to be your cybernetic friend?

Google’s vision of the future is a search engine that is your cybernetic friend. World renowned AI guru Ray Kurzweil is in charge of a project that, if it comes to fruition, will answer your questions without you even needing to ask. The idea is that combining keywords from your emails, search habits, surfing habits, and the kinds of things you have in common with friends on social networks, Google can predict what you want to know about and deliver it for you before you’ve asked. Ostensibly, this has the ability to save a lot of time and energy, however it could also be a way to drive targeted manipulation of your shopping habits.

There’s also the concern that Google is making us stupid by doing so much of the hard work for us and reducing people to passive knowledge consumers.

Morozov (been reading a bit by him lately) warns of the impending consumerism that will be the main focus of the internet in the future. He believes that Google’s ultimate goal is to provide opportunities to sell you junk through targeted shopping.

Find out more about Morozov on twitter.

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To Save Everything, Click Here

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To Save Everything, Click Here

Morozov’s new book warns of how too much reliance on the internet as a ‘solution’ is counter productive to what the internet was designed to achieve. 

In this interview with The Guardian, Morozov talks about the perils of technology and how it limits democracy, promotes authoritarianism and removes choice and innovation. 

What is the role of technology in our lives? Do we want it to do the thinking for us by obviating problem solving? Or are technologies there to enhance our problem solving? Morozov’s view is that there’s a very real danger that over-reliance on technology to automate thinking makes us dumb. Moreover, he questions the roles of Facebook and Google as controllers of thinking and innovation, by not scrutinising such companies closely enough. 

If Twitter, he argues, promotes people and sites which support twitter, then they’re following a business model rather than a model of net-neutrality. This is where users should be more critical of what they consume and what they believe, Morozov asserts.

Overall, Morozov pushes for more independent thought and less reliance on internet sound bites and click throughs. The internet is more about marketing, advertising and dominance.

While his concerns are valid, I disagree with his assertion that groups like TED are a failure because it’s not “deep”. While depth is (obviously) desired, there’s also a need to appeal to viewers in a consumable way. If TED talks were nuclear physics, then the audience would be limited and TED would be less successful. Instead, TED seems to me to be striving towards getting ideas out there and gaining interest. It’s a starting point for many people to begin digging further and finding the ‘depth’ that Morozov desires.

Like TOR networks, perhaps learning can be thought of in stages: entry node, middle node, exit node. TED is an entry node and, thus, it’s interesting and consumable without being too deep. Middle node learning would take place via scientific forums, wikis and academic readings (via Google Scholar). 

None the less, I’ll try and acquire a copy of Morozov’s book. It looks like a good read.

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Education as a dying and outdated system – M. Pireddu

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Education as a dying and outdated system – M. Pireddu Pireddu’s discussion about education is a timely and relevant critique. Computers have chanced the social landscape and the world in which students are immersed.

Pireddu talks about the death of education in terms of the rise of technology. From the perspective of constantly evolving technology, Pireddu discusses areas such as social learning and participatory learning. The paper also talks about the battle between technology as a tool and technology as an environment. Finally Pireddu gives a definition and overview of what he calls ‘convergence culture’ and how youth culture has positioned itself as an early adopter of technology.

Education and new media – New technologies have always been used to enrich education. Starting with the literacy, the printing press, television and now computers, technology has had a central position in education. However with the emergence of the internet, technology is able to transform education by no longer being a part of the educational environment. Traditionally technology has always been the tool of education and now it has the ability to become the environment of learning – particularly online learning and virtual learning. These kinds of areas have validity when considering the potential for experiential learning. This change echoes the shift in technology’s position in people’s personal lives. There’s now a dichotomy between the technology in the classroom and personal technology. Technology at school is still entrenched within centuries old Taylorism models of “one size fits all” learning. While at home, people interact with technology in a way which is less structured and more fluid.

Such a move towards a more technology and communication driven environment changes the way in which we acquire knowledge. Instead of needing to memorise, learners can focus on researching and skills such as analysis, critical thinking and creation of original content. A shift in paradigm from knowledgable to knowledge-abled.

Media literacies – Pireddu introduces the idea of convergence culture – how the internet has converged all forms of media and a flow of media across different platforms. Society, culture and technology are all connected by convergence, greatly reducing the cost of creating and sharing digital content. Evidence cited by Pireddu suggests strongly that younger generations are enormously engrossed in convergence culture, producing vast amounts of original content, as well as participating, sharing and discussing content online. Through social networks, information is now consumed and shared, mashed-up and remixed. Websites, social networks, gaming and mobile media technologies have become fixtures of youth culture. Young people are embracing the internet and making it their own.

This has lead to the development of a more participatory culture. Through creation and expression, people feel important and connect to others through common interests. The focus has shifted from knowledge acquisition to participation in collaborative problem solving, distributing knowledge, sharing and discussing. The knowledge itself is no longer the focus, but how that knowledge is used, shared, mixed and mashed and then redistributed.

Teachers might argue that such technologies are disruptive, when students are tweeting or updating their status on Facebook. Yet, students are more likely to be interacting with knowledge in new and innovative ways. If the education system cannot adapt to students’ needs, in terms of their preferred methods of using technology and consuming information, then education will continue to be chaotic and antiquated.

Toward a new learning potential – The role of education is to prepare students for society. Yet how can education be successful when the system itself is not up-to-date with the changing world. This begs to ask whether schools are still relevant . Technology has reached a stage where it can increase and evolve at an exponential rate. Yet education systems, bogged down by bureaucracy, languish and are reactionary in terms of technology. Students are already redefining their own learning and new learning methods are emerging daily. Learners are moving toward less rigid and organic learning styles that are at odds with the Taylorism model. Through social networking, students prefer to cooperate and participate in information sharing. As technology obstacles are removed, it becomes easier and easier for students to network on a global scale, working as a collective to build knowledge. The shift is away from formal learning and towards a amateursed process of collaboration.

Learning is no longer about teachers disseminating information to students. Learning is about communities. New medias and technology will create even more learning communities in what has been described as anti-teaching – creating of learning environments where students are empowered to ask the questions and find the answers themselves.

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Findings from the Teaching, Learning, and Computing Survey: Is Larry Cuban Right?

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Findings from the Teaching, Learning, and Computing Survey: Is Larry Cuban Right?

Note: This article links directly to a PDF file.

Becker attempts to review Cuban’s initial findings that computers are largely incompatible with classroom teaching. His data, 16 years after Cuban’s initial study, asserts that there are conditions under which the likelihood of computer usage can dramatically increase.

However, I was unable to agree with Becker’s views. He did find Cuban’s assertions to still be correct.  Becker claimed, though, that computer usage could improve. My issue with this finding that there were too many caveats required to satisfy Becker’s claims. He stated that a classroom needed at least 5 computers and all students needed an average amount of technical skill. As well, the teacher needs to be highly proficient in using constructionist teaching pedagogy. 

While this may not be too difficult to accomplish, there are too many “ifs” to be satisfied. If the computers are fully functional and all software is up-to-date. If teachers have time to write a computer based curriculum. If time within the curriculum permits computer usage (as all teachers know, computer-based tasks take longer). If the teacher is skilled in developing curriculum that can maximise learning using computers.

Once all those “ifs” can be satisfied, then perhaps computers can make a dramatic difference in classroom education. However it’s still a case of shoehorning computers into classrooms. 

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How about flipping the school instead?

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How about flipping the school instead?

The idea of flipping the classroom, albeit new, has become a somewhat cliched concept already. Teachers talk about how the classroom can be radically changed by using the internet to change the way we teach. I’m not deriding this methodology. In fact, I agree it has its merits – in that it illustrates education’s willingness to change. 

However the entrenched problem of the system itself still remains. Why are children sitting in a classroom, isolated from each other by computer screens? They are learning but what’s the point of traveling all the way to school to get on the internet? 

While some would say that the 1-on-1 tutoring and contact with the teacher is the key ingredient, it doesn’t really answer the question. Students can get that assistance in other ways, such as by a teacher on a webcam (perhaps using Google hangouts). The teacher could use a shared drawing space app to draw and write problems which the student could see while listening to the teacher’s explanation. The teacher could also refer the student to a different instructional video. Another approach would be to have students conference together and explain to each other. Or just use a dedicated forum to ask for help. The student, as well as learning about a math problem, could be learning online interaction skills and research skills while they find the answer to the problem.

Finally, the student could also be getting help from their *gasp* parents in finding ways to solve problems or answer questions they don’t understand.

Flipping the classroom is great … but it’s still a classroom. Technology has always been shoehorned into schools for more political benefit than educational benefit. Kids are learning more online away from classrooms (and away from formal education) than ever. Teachers should not be instructors. They should become a guide, a sounding board or even a safety net for when students need a boost.

Flip the education system. Remove the classroom from the picture and see how quickly kids adapt to an education that they control.

The rise of social learning …

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