'Always on' learning

This is a continuation of my series on mobile learning.

Mobile devices represent a tangible step-change for learning. They facilitate personalised learning while we are on the move, and enable us to access the Web. Just these two factors alone would be enough to tip the balance and convince most people that some kind of revolution is taking place, but mobile learning goes so much further. Consider the idea of being 'always on'. This is often used as a derogatory description of younger users of mobile devices. From a negative perspective the 'always on' generation is seen as shallow, easily distracted and lacking in any critical reasoning abilities. This may be true for some, but it's a big generalisation. In a recent post entitled A Quiet Invasion, I proposed that users of mobile devices are breaking the mould of traditional learning formats, bypassing and short-cutting conventional modes of learning, and maximising the affordances of their personal devices to support their learning, and they are doing so in impressive ways.

In my own professional experience, younger students are generally thoughtful, critically aware and reasoned in their learning. Sure, there can be frivolous use of mobile devices. But consider the benefits too. Students can use their personal technology to interact with, and gain a purchase on content at a much deeper level than we were able to do in the days before we had such tools. What's more, their learning can be built upon at any time, and in any place, because the student takes all their content with them wherever they go. 'Always on' should therefore also be seen as a positive phenomenon, in which learners can access content, interact with their peers and tutors, and create, organise, repurpose and share content at any time.

Look at this quote, which is taken from 12 Principles of Mobile Learning: "Always-on learning is self-actuated, spontaneous, iterative, and recursive. There is a persistent need for information access, cognitive reflection, and interdependent function through mobile devices. It is also embedded in communities capable of intimate and natural interaction with students."

Any organisation that refuses to support this kind of learning is myopic. They also put themselves in danger of being left behind. All the contrived arguments that are thrown against the integration of personal digital devices in the classroom, the school, the workplace or the training room fall by the wayside when we become committed to promoting self actuated learning. It is difficult to argue against the trend of personalised, mobile devices and their positive impact on learning. The 'always on' trend in particular offers huge potential in the workplace and in traditional education spaces. If mobile devices can be freely harnessed, we can expect to see exciting new developments in education and the emergence of new forms of learning.

Photo by Jiten Vaghela


Always on learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

'Always on' learning

This is a continuation of my series on mobile learning.

Mobile devices represent a tangible step-change for learning. They facilitate personalised learning while we are on the move, and enable us to access the Web. Just these two factors alone would be enough to tip the balance and convince most people that some kind of revolution is taking place, but mobile learning goes so much further. Consider the idea of being 'always on'. This is often used as a derogatory description of younger users of mobile devices. From a negative perspective the 'always on' generation is seen as shallow, easily distracted and lacking in any critical reasoning abilities. This may be true for some, but it's a big generalisation. In a recent post entitled A Quiet Invasion, I proposed that users of mobile devices are breaking the mould of traditional learning formats, bypassing and short-cutting conventional modes of learning, and maximising the affordances of their personal devices to support their learning, and they are doing so in impressive ways.

In my own professional experience, younger students are generally thoughtful, critically aware and reasoned in their learning. Sure, there can be frivolous use of mobile devices. But consider the benefits too. Students can use their personal technology to interact with, and gain a purchase on content at a much deeper level than we were able to do in the days before we had such tools. What's more, their learning can be built upon at any time, and in any place, because the student takes all their content with them wherever they go. 'Always on' should therefore also be seen as a positive phenomenon, in which learners can access content, interact with their peers and tutors, and create, organise, repurpose and share content at any time.

Look at this quote, which is taken from 12 Principles of Mobile Learning: "Always-on learning is self-actuated, spontaneous, iterative, and recursive. There is a persistent need for information access, cognitive reflection, and interdependent function through mobile devices. It is also embedded in communities capable of intimate and natural interaction with students."

Any organisation that refuses to support this kind of learning is myopic. They also put themselves in danger of being left behind. All the contrived arguments that are thrown against the integration of personal digital devices in the classroom, the school, the workplace or the training room fall by the wayside when we become committed to promoting self actuated learning. It is difficult to argue against the trend of personalised, mobile devices and their positive impact on learning. The 'always on' trend in particular offers huge potential in the workplace and in traditional education spaces. If mobile devices can be freely harnessed, we can expect to see exciting new developments in education and the emergence of new forms of learning.

Photo by Jiten Vaghela


Always on learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mobile content curation

This is a continuation in my series on mobile learning.

What is digital curation? For those who visit museums or galleries, curators are those who are expert in a specific genre of exhibit, and who ensure that the displays are kept up to date, accurate and relevant to the viewing public. Curation is at the very heart of the success of any museum or art gallery. Digital curation is similar in many ways. It is becoming more important as content increases. Mitch Kapor once declared 'Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.' It does feel like that sometimes. We are experiencing a tsunami of content, and we are in danger of being swamped by it, every minute we are online. Finding what you want is usually quite simple. Google and other advanced search engines ensure that. Organising it and managing it is another matter.

Curation of content is one specific response to the problem of information overload. Curation is more than mere aggregation of content. Curation involves organising and adding value to that content once it is aggregated. There are many tools and services now available to users to help them curate content. Some are fairly easy to use, enabling users to share content they find in an organised and highly visual manner. Scoop.it and Pearltrees are useful for this purpose. Others allow you to create a sequence of content, perhaps stuff that you have gathered from a conference or other event. Storify is very useful if you want to do this kind of curation. In my personal opinion, perhaps the most useful and versatile curation tool is Diigo, which enables you to do all of the above, and also take snapshots of websites so you can revisit them, even if they suddenly disappear. Watch the video on the front page of the website and you'll see what I mean.

Mobile device users can capitalise extensively on the many features of curation tools. As has been previously written in this article, mobile devices are ideally suited for the task of curation on the move. They can adapt to the style and personal preferences of users, to 'store files, publish thinking, and connect learners, making curation a matter of process rather than ability.' One more thing - mobile content curation also enables users to interact with their environments more meaningfully.

There is a design issue. It's important for teachers and learners that tools are transparent. That is, tools should be so simple to use that the user thinks more about learning, than how to operate the tool. It's a complete waste of time if a student spends more time trying to work out how to navigate around a website, than they do focusing on the content of the website. In a recent interview I was asked a question about what impact I though mobile devices will have on learning. I replied that the proliferation of mobile devices is only going to drive user generated content in one direction - upwards. Content will always increase rather than decrease. If we all became mobile curators, content could be organised in such a ways that learning would be enhanced, extended, enriched and engaged, rather than detached, confused and diffused.

Photo by The Society Pages


Mobile content curation by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mobile content curation

This is a continuation in my series on mobile learning.

What is digital curation? For those who visit museums or galleries, curators are those who are expert in a specific genre of exhibit, and who ensure that the displays are kept up to date, accurate and relevant to the viewing public. Curation is at the very heart of the success of any museum or art gallery. Digital curation is similar in many ways. It is becoming more important as content increases. Mitch Kapor once declared 'Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.' It does feel like that sometimes. We are experiencing a tsunami of content, and we are in danger of being swamped by it, every minute we are online. Finding what you want is usually quite simple. Google and other advanced search engines ensure that. Organising it and managing it is another matter.

Curation of content is one specific response to the problem of information overload. Curation is more than mere aggregation of content. Curation involves organising and adding value to that content once it is aggregated. There are many tools and services now available to users to help them curate content. Some are fairly easy to use, enabling users to share content they find in an organised and highly visual manner. Scoop.it and Pearltrees are useful for this purpose. Others allow you to create a sequence of content, perhaps stuff that you have gathered from a conference or other event. Storify is very useful if you want to do this kind of curation. In my personal opinion, perhaps the most useful and versatile curation tool is Diigo, which enables you to do all of the above, and also take snapshots of websites so you can revisit them, even if they suddenly disappear. Watch the video on the front page of the website and you'll see what I mean.

Mobile device users can capitalise extensively on the many features of curation tools. As has been previously written in this article, mobile devices are ideally suited for the task of curation on the move. They can adapt to the style and personal preferences of users, to 'store files, publish thinking, and connect learners, making curation a matter of process rather than ability.' One more thing - mobile content curation also enables users to interact with their environments more meaningfully.

There is a design issue. It's important for teachers and learners that tools are transparent. That is, tools should be so simple to use that the user thinks more about learning, than how to operate the tool. It's a complete waste of time if a student spends more time trying to work out how to navigate around a website, than they do focusing on the content of the website. In a recent interview I was asked a question about what impact I though mobile devices will have on learning. I replied that the proliferation of mobile devices is only going to drive user generated content in one direction - upwards. Content will always increase rather than decrease. If we all became mobile curators, content could be organised in such a ways that learning would be enhanced, extended, enriched and engaged, rather than detached, confused and diffused.

Photo by The Society Pages


Mobile content curation by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Self actuated mobile learning

This is a continuation of my short series of blog posts on mobile learning. In previous posts I have argued that mobile learning is increasingly popular as an informal activity, and that personalisation of learning is an important characteristic of smart phone use. We are a now mobile, itinerant society where tethered computing is becoming increasingly anachronistic.

I read a blog post recently called 12 Principles of Mobile Learning, which gave a useful, brief overview of  12 key characteristics of learning on the move using smart phones. Yesterday in Mobile learning and personal metrics I tried to expand on some of the principles mentioned in the article. Here are two more:

"With asynchronous access to content, peers, and experts comes the potential for self-actuation. Here, learners plan topic, sequence, audience, and application via facilitation of teachers who now act as experts of resource and assessment."

Self actuation is all about having control over your own learning. It is about personal agency. A time is coming when people will no longer be told what to learn, when to learn it, and in what environment. Now, and in the future, we can expect that time, place and pace will no longer be prescribed. Learning of the future will have a 'just for me' and 'just enough' capability, relying on each learner's access to personal mobile devices. Workplace learning will never be the same again.

Another extract from the post suggests an agility and flexibility of learning that can be achieved through the use of mobile devices:

"With mobility comes diversity. As learning environments change constantly, that fluidity becomes a norm that provides a stream of new ideas, unexpected challenges, and constant opportunities for revision and application of thinking. Audiences are diverse, as are the environments data is being gleaned from and delivered to."

Diversity is clearly one of the most important attributes of mobile learning. One size does not fit all, and everyone has different expectations for their learning. Adaptability too, is an important affordance learners demand, and mobile devices can provide the impetus for this. Mobile devices also have a similar provisionality to their bigger cousins, the laptop and desktop computers. Provisionality is the state of being temporary, non-permanent. Things can be recorded, captured or written, and then deleted, repurposed, added to, adapted or shared in a variety of formats. This is an important aspect of personal mobile devices, because life is never straight forward and human thought processes are rarely linear. As a tool that can be used to extend and enhance the capabilities of the human mind, mobile devices can offer users endless possibilities and alternatives. Learning on the move has never been richer or more diverse.

Photo by Derek Olsen


Self actuated mobile learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Self actuated mobile learning

This is a continuation of my short series of blog posts on mobile learning. In previous posts I have argued that mobile learning is increasingly popular as an informal activity, and that personalisation of learning is an important characteristic of smart phone use. We are a now mobile, itinerant society where tethered computing is becoming increasingly anachronistic.

I read a blog post recently called 12 Principles of Mobile Learning, which gave a useful, brief overview of  12 key characteristics of learning on the move using smart phones. Yesterday in Mobile learning and personal metrics I tried to expand on some of the principles mentioned in the article. Here are two more:

"With asynchronous access to content, peers, and experts comes the potential for self-actuation. Here, learners plan topic, sequence, audience, and application via facilitation of teachers who now act as experts of resource and assessment."

Self actuation is all about having control over your own learning. It is about personal agency. A time is coming when people will no longer be told what to learn, when to learn it, and in what environment. Now, and in the future, we can expect that time, place and pace will no longer be prescribed. Learning of the future will have a 'just for me' and 'just enough' capability, relying on each learner's access to personal mobile devices. Workplace learning will never be the same again.

Another extract from the post suggests an agility and flexibility of learning that can be achieved through the use of mobile devices:

"With mobility comes diversity. As learning environments change constantly, that fluidity becomes a norm that provides a stream of new ideas, unexpected challenges, and constant opportunities for revision and application of thinking. Audiences are diverse, as are the environments data is being gleaned from and delivered to."

Diversity is clearly one of the most important attributes of mobile learning. One size does not fit all, and everyone has different expectations for their learning. Adaptability too, is an important affordance learners demand, and mobile devices can provide the impetus for this. Mobile devices also have a similar provisionality to their bigger cousins, the laptop and desktop computers. Provisionality is the state of being temporary, non-permanent. Things can be recorded, captured or written, and then deleted, repurposed, added to, adapted or shared in a variety of formats. This is an important aspect of personal mobile devices, because life is never straight forward and human thought processes are rarely linear. As a tool that can be used to extend and enhance the capabilities of the human mind, mobile devices can offer users endless possibilities and alternatives. Learning on the move has never been richer or more diverse.

Photo by Derek Olsen


Self actuated mobile learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mobile learning and personal metrics

On the back of yesterday's #learningpoollive related blog posts from myself and Andrew Jacobs, and having just read the blog post entitled 12 principles of mobile learning, I was prompted to write some further thoughts:

Mobile learning is becoming one of the most prevalent forms of learning in the western industrialised society, due to a number of trends including smaller, more affordable devices, ubiquitous (more or less) universal connectivity, an increasingly itinerant work force, and the desire to connect with communities on a global as well as local basis. The rise is also due to people's desire to develop their learning informally. There are formal contexts for mobile learning, but it is in the leisure time/travelling/down time that mobile learning still comes to the fore. The first principle in the article above relates to access, and states:

"A mobile learning environment is about access to content, peers, experts, portfolio artifacts, credible sources, and previous thinking on relevant topics. It can be actuated via a smartphone or iPad, laptop or in-person, but access is constant–which in turn shifts a unique burden to learn on the shoulders of the student."

I couldn't agree more with this, but would add that there are also other elements that influence access, including the ability to download apps holding content that can be used in situations where there is no access to connection. Mobile devices also afford users the ability to annotate, organise and share content once they have found it, within their community of interest.

The second principle is perhaps even more interesting and relates to personal metrics:

"As mobile learning is a blend of the digital and physical, diverse metrics (i.e., measures) of understanding and 'performance of knowledge' will be available."

Metrics, or in common parlance, measurement of data, is going to be increasingly important not only for organisations who want to track their employees' performance, but also for schools, colleges and universities who want to maintain records of student achievements. We can go further than this and assume quite confidently that most people who interact with their mobile devices each day want to keep a record of the best content they have found, and also have an idea of how that content is impacting upon their daily lives. With the advent of augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality, the introduction of mobile apps such as Layar and Wikitude World Browser enable mobile device users to interact more with their physical environments.

Metrics gathered from these kind of interactions will be quite valuable, not only to retailers who want to harness direct marketing ("forget your problems John Anderton...") based on personalised identifiers such as your mobile device, but also for individuals who are monitoring their health, fitness or consumption of calories, for example. Gathering 'big data' from learning analytics is perhaps the motherlode for most large scale course providers such as EdX, Udacity and Coursera (MOOC platforms). Such large data sets can conceivably be sold on for a sizeable profit to companies who are interested. However, looking past this approach to monetisation and regarding the long term prospects of personal metrics, I see a bright future for those learners who wish to monitor how well they are doing, and to what extend they are able to perform their knowledge within their communities of practice.

More on this tomorrow.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Mobile learning and personal metrics by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mobile learning and personal metrics

On the back of yesterday's #learningpoollive related blog posts from myself and Andrew Jacobs, and having just read the blog post entitled 12 principles of mobile learning, I was prompted to write some further thoughts:

Mobile learning is becoming one of the most prevalent forms of learning in the western industrialised society, due to a number of trends including smaller, more affordable devices, ubiquitous (more or less) universal connectivity, an increasingly itinerant work force, and the desire to connect with communities on a global as well as local basis. The rise is also due to people's desire to develop their learning informally. There are formal contexts for mobile learning, but it is in the leisure time/travelling/down time that mobile learning still comes to the fore. The first principle in the article above relates to access, and states:

"A mobile learning environment is about access to content, peers, experts, portfolio artifacts, credible sources, and previous thinking on relevant topics. It can be actuated via a smartphone or iPad, laptop or in-person, but access is constant–which in turn shifts a unique burden to learn on the shoulders of the student."

I couldn't agree more with this, but would add that there are also other elements that influence access, including the ability to download apps holding content that can be used in situations where there is no access to connection. Mobile devices also afford users the ability to annotate, organise and share content once they have found it, within their community of interest.

The second principle is perhaps even more interesting and relates to personal metrics:

"As mobile learning is a blend of the digital and physical, diverse metrics (i.e., measures) of understanding and 'performance of knowledge' will be available."

Metrics, or in common parlance, measurement of data, is going to be increasingly important not only for organisations who want to track their employees' performance, but also for schools, colleges and universities who want to maintain records of student achievements. We can go further than this and assume quite confidently that most people who interact with their mobile devices each day want to keep a record of the best content they have found, and also have an idea of how that content is impacting upon their daily lives. With the advent of augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality, the introduction of mobile apps such as Layar and Wikitude World Browser enable mobile device users to interact more with their physical environments.

Metrics gathered from these kind of interactions will be quite valuable, not only to retailers who want to harness direct marketing ("forget your problems John Anderton...") based on personalised identifiers such as your mobile device, but also for individuals who are monitoring their health, fitness or consumption of calories, for example. Gathering 'big data' from learning analytics is perhaps the motherlode for most large scale course providers such as EdX, Udacity and Coursera (MOOC platforms). Such large data sets can conceivably be sold on for a sizeable profit to companies who are interested. However, looking past this approach to monetisation and regarding the long term prospects of personal metrics, I see a bright future for those learners who wish to monitor how well they are doing, and to what extend they are able to perform their knowledge within their communities of practice.

More on this tomorrow.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Mobile learning and personal metrics by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mapping mobile learning

Mobile technology is a game changer. For many that is already a reality. I have previously written on this blog about how mobile technology can give the edge and also about some of the social implications of learning on the move. All we needed was to reach a point in society where a critical mass of users was reached. That occurred in my estimation somewhere around 2010, and growth of ownership has been exponential since. That critical mass of users has driven a number of changes, including innovations in design of hardware and software. As I write, news is breaking of Samsung's release of the first curved display screen smartphone. Other innovations are coming, faster and faster. Prices are coming down as customer bases rise. The power of the network increases as numbers rise and more connections are made. We see this happening on a global scale through increasing mobile phone subscriptions. The Mobile World Congress predicts that as early as 2014, mobile phone subscriptions will outstrip the global population (~7.9 billion accounts). Bearing in mind that many people in poorer countries don't yet have access to mobile telephony, this means that many people will have at least two separate subscriptions, and in some cases more. This is already a trend and it is now accelerating

Mobile technology is disruptive, changing irrevocably the common, every day things many of us do. Whether it is navigating your way around the streets of an unfamiliar city or communicating with work colleagues, mobile devices provide an added, and almost always, new dimension to daily routine. What will happen if your organisation, or university fails to capitalise on these trends? What will happen if your school or business ignores the huge potential of these tools to promote learning? Recently, Lambeth Council's Andrew Jacobs, Parliament's Denise Hudson-Lawson and I got together at #learningpoollive to mindmap some of the more familiar attributes and affordances of mobile learning, and attempted to connect concepts together. We were simply playing with mobile learning ideas, seeing where the links were, and watching for what emerged. In just a few minutes of 'brainstorming' the mobile learning concept, we were quite surprised by what we witnessed taking shape on the paper.

The image above is the evidence of our random scribblings and more considered workings, showing some of the links we think are important. Who knew that there was a link between GPS, geocaching, bumpsharing and airdropping? Well there is, or at least we are hypothesising that there is. The simple ability to seek and locate others through the GPS service on your mobile phone will also allow you to bumpshare content or personal contact details using another app. Airdropping will also allow you to share content such as videos, photos or locations with your mates. Knowledge can be spread faster now that ever, through such handheld, accessible applications. Mobile devices are clearly a boon for collaborative learning, especially for those who find themselves constantly on the move. There is also no stopping BYOD (bring your own device) which is on the rise, with many organisations now trying to harness the potential of employee/student owned devices.

Here's the bottom line: We know that nomadic learning is on the increase as more and more organisations cut back on office space and encourage their employees to work from home or on the move. We know that untethered learning and working offer up a whole new world of freedom. Will the use of social media increase as a result? We think it will. Will there be a rise in user generated content, and the subsequent repurposing, sharing and organisation of this content among professional learning networks? Undoubtedly. Will we see a greater emphasis on communities of practice as a result of mobile tools and technologies? It is likely that we will. There is so much more to unpack, which we will all do over the next week or so. Watch out for the other companion blog posts by Andrew and Denise, and in the meantime, please share your own views on mobile technology and its future impact on learning! The comments box awaits....

Related blog posts:
Everything Counts by Andrew Jacobs
Mobile Learning and Personal Metrics by Steve Wheeler
Self Actuated Mobile Learning by Steve Wheeler
12 Principles of Mobile Learning by Teachthought

Photograph by Andrew Jacobs


Mapping mobile learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mapping mobile learning

Mobile technology is a game changer. For many that is already a reality. I have previously written on this blog about how mobile technology can give the edge and also about some of the social implications of learning on the move. All we needed was to reach a point in society where a critical mass of users was reached. That occurred in my estimation somewhere around 2010, and growth of ownership has been exponential since. That critical mass of users has driven a number of changes, including innovations in design of hardware and software. As I write, news is breaking of Samsung's release of the first curved display screen smartphone. Other innovations are coming, faster and faster. Prices are coming down as customer bases rise. The power of the network increases as numbers rise and more connections are made. We see this happening on a global scale through increasing mobile phone subscriptions. The Mobile World Congress predicts that as early as 2014, mobile phone subscriptions will outstrip the global population (~7.9 billion accounts). Bearing in mind that many people in poorer countries don't yet have access to mobile telephony, this means that many people will have at least two separate subscriptions, and in some cases more. This is already a trend and it is now accelerating

Mobile technology is disruptive, changing irrevocably the common, every day things many of us do. Whether it is navigating your way around the streets of an unfamiliar city or communicating with work colleagues, mobile devices provide an added, and almost always, new dimension to daily routine. What will happen if your organisation, or university fails to capitalise on these trends? What will happen if your school or business ignores the huge potential of these tools to promote learning? Recently, Lambeth Council's Andrew Jacobs, Parliament's Denise Hudson-Lawson and I got together at #learningpoollive to mindmap some of the more familiar attributes and affordances of mobile learning, and attempted to connect concepts together. We were simply playing with mobile learning ideas, seeing where the links were, and watching for what emerged. In just a few minutes of 'brainstorming' the mobile learning concept, we were quite surprised by what we witnessed taking shape on the paper.

The image above is the evidence of our random scribblings and more considered workings, showing some of the links we think are important. Who knew that there was a link between GPS, geocaching, bumpsharing and airdropping? Well there is, or at least we are hypothesising that there is. The simple ability to seek and locate others through the GPS service on your mobile phone will also allow you to bumpshare content or personal contact details using another app. Airdropping will also allow you to share content such as videos, photos or locations with your mates. Knowledge can be spread faster now that ever, through such handheld, accessible applications. Mobile devices are clearly a boon for collaborative learning, especially for those who find themselves constantly on the move. There is also no stopping BYOD (bring your own device) which is on the rise, with many organisations now trying to harness the potential of employee/student owned devices.

Here's the bottom line: We know that nomadic learning is on the increase as more and more organisations cut back on office space and encourage their employees to work from home or on the move. We know that untethered learning and working offer up a whole new world of freedom. Will the use of social media increase as a result? We think it will. Will there be a rise in user generated content, and the subsequent repurposing, sharing and organisation of this content among professional learning networks? Undoubtedly. Will we see a greater emphasis on communities of practice as a result of mobile tools and technologies? It is likely that we will. There is so much more to unpack, which we will all do over the next week or so. Watch out for the other companion blog posts by Andrew and Denise, and in the meantime, please share your own views on mobile technology and its future impact on learning! The comments box awaits....

Related blog posts:
Everything Counts by Andrew Jacobs
Mobile Learning and Personal Metrics by Steve Wheeler
Self Actuated Mobile Learning by Steve Wheeler
12 Principles of Mobile Learning by Teachthought

Photograph by Andrew Jacobs


Mapping mobile learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Your personal brand

The job market is increasingly competitive. Now more than ever, graduates need something more than a good degree to be hot candidates, to make employers sit up and take notice. Once you could expect to be invited to interview for your dream job if you presented your certificates, a resume of your past experience and some glowing references from the good and the great. Now that's probably not enough. You may not even be shortlisted if you don't stand out from the crowd. The selection process is increasingly unforgiving. Employers have such a choice of well qualified but unemployed young people right now, new graduates often don't even get a look in. So what exactly will tip the balance and get you noticed?

One way to improve your chances of being employed is to develop your own personal brand. There are several tools and services that will help you to do this, and unsurprisingly, they are all digital. Here are just 5 simple ideas on how to develop your personal branding:

1) Make your own personal web site. A few years ago it was very difficult (and costly) to make your own personal web page. You would either need to be able to program in HTML or have access to FrontPage or Dreamweaver and know how to use them, or have a mate who was ace at making websites. Now it's very easy and very quick indeed. You don't need to spend a single penny. One option is to use about.me - a free service with which you can create a simple web page. You can include a photograph as a background, write a short CV and also create links to your e-mail account, other websites and contact details. Here's one I made earlier. Alternatively, write a blog. You never know who might read it.

2) Set up a presence on a professional social network site. There is nothing quite as powerful as good connections if you want to make some career progress. As they say 'It's not what you know, it's who you know that matters'. Currently the most popular professional social network service is LinkedIn - which touts itself as 'The World's Largest Professional Network'. With over 225 million members worldwide, LinkedIn will increase the likelihood that you might link up with other people who have a similar interest or background to you - and who might, just might - be able to connect you with someone important who might influence your future career.

3) Get yourself a Twitter account. It's a much simpler idea that LinkedIn and a lot more fun. Twitter is a large social networking tool (with almost 500 million regular users) on which you can send messages or 'tweets' of up to 140 characters. This may not sound like a big deal, but if you connect with the influencers in your specific field of expertise, you will be surprised at how powerful Twitter can be in getting your message out there. If you work at it, you can build up quite a sizable following by tweeting the right stuff. And most importantly, you get to have live conversations with some of the leaders in your field.

4) Consider putting yourself out there on the Web on video. Set up your own YouTube channel. YouTube is the world's most popular video sharing tool (other brands are available) with hundreds of millions of visitors every day. Many people have found that their ideas and talents have been very widely showcased through YouTube. If you are a musician, artist, or simply trying to get noticed, and can make a connection with your audience, YouTube might just be the perfect channel for you. Take care though, because YouTube audiences are notoriously caustic and can make very cruel comments, and don't expect to achieve success over night - it almost never happens like that. Finally, make sure you have total control and ownership over what you 'broadcast', because once it's out there, it's there for good.

5) Get yourself a personal logo - this could be your name in a specific typeface, or an image that represents you, or a combination of these and some other unique feature. Make it memorable. Give it impact. Add it to everything you do on the Web so you maintain consistency of your personal brand. Whatever you use, just make sure it's yours, and you're not breaking copyright in some way.

There are many, many other options open to graduates who want to get themselves noticed by potential employers, and employers are increasingly trawling the Web to find out what and who is out there. Gone are the days when you could send off your CV and expect a phone call. Now you will need to work harder to be heard over the clamour of all the other graduates out there who are seeking that perfect job. I bet there are loads of other ideas people have on how to develop a personal brand. If you have an idea, please share it with us in the comments box below.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Your personal brand by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Your personal brand

The job market is increasingly competitive. Now more than ever, graduates need something more than a good degree to be hot candidates, to make employers sit up and take notice. Once you could expect to be invited to interview for your dream job if you presented your certificates, a resume of your past experience and some glowing references from the good and the great. Now that's probably not enough. You may not even be shortlisted if you don't stand out from the crowd. The selection process is increasingly unforgiving. Employers have such a choice of well qualified but unemployed young people right now, new graduates often don't even get a look in. So what exactly will tip the balance and get you noticed?

One way to improve your chances of being employed is to develop your own personal brand. There are several tools and services that will help you to do this, and unsurprisingly, they are all digital. Here are just 5 simple ideas on how to develop your personal branding:

1) Make your own personal web site. A few years ago it was very difficult (and costly) to make your own personal web page. You would either need to be able to program in HTML or have access to FrontPage or Dreamweaver and know how to use them, or have a mate who was ace at making websites. Now it's very easy and very quick indeed. You don't need to spend a single penny. One option is to use about.me - a free service with which you can create a simple web page. You can include a photograph as a background, write a short CV and also create links to your e-mail account, other websites and contact details. Here's one I made earlier. Alternatively, write a blog. You never know who might read it.

2) Set up a presence on a professional social network site. There is nothing quite as powerful as good connections if you want to make some career progress. As they say 'It's not what you know, it's who you know that matters'. Currently the most popular professional social network service is LinkedIn - which touts itself as 'The World's Largest Professional Network'. With over 225 million members worldwide, LinkedIn will increase the likelihood that you might link up with other people who have a similar interest or background to you - and who might, just might - be able to connect you with someone important who might influence your future career.

3) Get yourself a Twitter account. It's a much simpler idea that LinkedIn and a lot more fun. Twitter is a large social networking tool (with almost 500 million regular users) on which you can send messages or 'tweets' of up to 140 characters. This may not sound like a big deal, but if you connect with the influencers in your specific field of expertise, you will be surprised at how powerful Twitter can be in getting your message out there. If you work at it, you can build up quite a sizable following by tweeting the right stuff. And most importantly, you get to have live conversations with some of the leaders in your field.

4) Consider putting yourself out there on the Web on video. Set up your own YouTube channel. YouTube is the world's most popular video sharing tool (other brands are available) with hundreds of millions of visitors every day. Many people have found that their ideas and talents have been very widely showcased through YouTube. If you are a musician, artist, or simply trying to get noticed, and can make a connection with your audience, YouTube might just be the perfect channel for you. Take care though, because YouTube audiences are notoriously caustic and can make very cruel comments, and don't expect to achieve success over night - it almost never happens like that. Finally, make sure you have total control and ownership over what you 'broadcast', because once it's out there, it's there for good.

5) Get yourself a personal logo - this could be your name in a specific typeface, or an image that represents you, or a combination of these and some other unique feature. Make it memorable. Give it impact. Add it to everything you do on the Web so you maintain consistency of your personal brand. Whatever you use, just make sure it's yours, and you're not breaking copyright in some way.

There are many, many other options open to graduates who want to get themselves noticed by potential employers, and employers are increasingly trawling the Web to find out what and who is out there. Gone are the days when you could send off your CV and expect a phone call. Now you will need to work harder to be heard over the clamour of all the other graduates out there who are seeking that perfect job. I bet there are loads of other ideas people have on how to develop a personal brand. If you have an idea, please share it with us in the comments box below.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Your personal brand by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Freinet and social media

When I wrote Blogging with Freire, I was speculating on what that great Brazilian educator and theorist might have made of educational blogging - a concept he never knew, because he died before the Internet and social media came in to common use. Another great theorist who did much to reform the education system around the globe, is the lesser known French educator Celestin Freinet. He died in 1966, when we were only just beginning to realise that computers could be more than mere calculating machines. If he had seen them, what might Freinet have made of digital technology, and what would he have said about social media in education? He certainly believed in using technology to enhance learning. He purchased and ran his own printing press. Search around and you won't find much about Freinet in English - what there is about him on the Web is mainly in French. What you do discover about him is that he cared deeply about holistic approaches to education and believed that the school system of his time was broken. Here are five of his then radical methods placed into the context of social media:

1) The Pedagogy or Work. Learners should be encouraged to learn through making products and providing services. This can be easily set up and conducted using Web 2.0 tools. What better way to encourage students to engage in learning any topic, than to get them to make something that represents the topics they are learning? Even better than that, how about facilitating their engagement in the commercial world? What would happen if students were encouraged to create services and products and then sell them? Several schools already do this of course. One or two keep small farms that yield produce which can be sold at market. Others support their students to develop apps or other digital stuff which can be sold online through established retailers. Students could find out about how e-commerce works by selling on E-Bay or Amazon. Social media make this process a great deal easier, but teachers of younger students should ensure that their safety is protected.

2) Enquiry Based Learning Method. Learning by asking questions is not only fun, it's effective. But we can't always get every answer right at the first attempt. Learners need to learn in a psychologically safe environment where they have permission to fail, and to learn from that failure. One of the most familiar environments for students is in game based learning. Video games, especially those that are social, and where they get to work and play within a team or guild, teach them a great number of transferable skills such as problem solving, team work, dexterity, creative thinking, negotiation of meaning, patience and persistence. Enquiry based learning too, can be incorporated into this kind of scenario, with many games posing problems and challenges for users to overcome. Students need to understand and answer the questions before they can gain more points, or proceed to the next level of the game. This is learning by stealth.

3) Co-operative Learning Method. Learners can co-operate not only in the production processes (1) and games playing (2) outline above, they can also co-operate, or even collaborate on team based creation of blogs, wikis, or video production. All of these can be created by the team, and then posted up online for a audience to appreciate, evaluate and discuss. As has been shown repeatedly in long running projects such as Quadblogging and the 100 Word Challenge, giving students an audience for their work encourages them to hone their writing skills, develop and improve their presentation skills and gain an appreciation of performing their learning for an audience. The benefits of blogging are wide ranging, and when it is developed into co-operative projects it can have a great motivational power.

4) The Natural Method. Students learn best when they are naturally interested in the topic, and this increases in success level when learning takes place in authentic and realistic contexts. Facebook and other social networking tools are great for connecting people, and most students already have an account and can use it effectively to do this. How about extending this to networking with students in other parts of the world? This would be an extension of the pen pal method used many years ago, where schools paired students with those in other schools. They then wrote to each other regularly, and learnt all about each other's cultures, backgrounds and traditions. Using social networking tools to promote e-pals could potentially spread worldwide, with students in different countries discovering about foreign lands, cultures, languages, geography, history, music and sports. See e-Pals Global for one example of how this works in schools around the world.

5) Democratic Method. Students learn about fairness, celebrating diversity, choice, friendship, relationships and a whole host of other human experiences and challenges through an appreciation of their entire community. They can take responsibility for their own choices and actions and understand how they fit into their community (local and global) through connecting with others using social media tools. Using voting tools such as Digg and organising tools such as Diigo and Delicious can aid this process, as can the like and +1 buttons of Facebook and Google Plus. Getting them to make decisions democratically enables them to understand that their opinion counts, but it must always be considered in the wider context of the community.

Photo by the Gates Foundation


Freinet and social media by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Freinet and social media

When I wrote Blogging with Freire, I was speculating on what that great Brazilian educator and theorist might have made of educational blogging - a concept he never knew, because he died before the Internet and social media came in to common use. Another great theorist who did much to reform the education system around the globe, is the lesser known French educator Celestin Freinet. He died in 1966, when we were only just beginning to realise that computers could be more than mere calculating machines. If he had seen them, what might Freinet have made of digital technology, and what would he have said about social media in education? He certainly believed in using technology to enhance learning. He purchased and ran his own printing press. Search around and you won't find much about Freinet in English - what there is about him on the Web is mainly in French. What you do discover about him is that he cared deeply about holistic approaches to education and believed that the school system of his time was broken. Here are five of his then radical methods placed into the context of social media:

1) The Pedagogy or Work. Learners should be encouraged to learn through making products and providing services. This can be easily set up and conducted using Web 2.0 tools. What better way to encourage students to engage in learning any topic, than to get them to make something that represents the topics they are learning? Even better than that, how about facilitating their engagement in the commercial world? What would happen if students were encouraged to create services and products and then sell them? Several schools already do this of course. One or two keep small farms that yield produce which can be sold at market. Others support their students to develop apps or other digital stuff which can be sold online through established retailers. Students could find out about how e-commerce works by selling on E-Bay or Amazon. Social media make this process a great deal easier, but teachers of younger students should ensure that their safety is protected.

2) Enquiry Based Learning Method. Learning by asking questions is not only fun, it's effective. But we can't always get every answer right at the first attempt. Learners need to learn in a psychologically safe environment where they have permission to fail, and to learn from that failure. One of the most familiar environments for students is in game based learning. Video games, especially those that are social, and where they get to work and play within a team or guild, teach them a great number of transferable skills such as problem solving, team work, dexterity, creative thinking, negotiation of meaning, patience and persistence. Enquiry based learning too, can be incorporated into this kind of scenario, with many games posing problems and challenges for users to overcome. Students need to understand and answer the questions before they can gain more points, or proceed to the next level of the game. This is learning by stealth.

3) Co-operative Learning Method. Learners can co-operate not only in the production processes (1) and games playing (2) outline above, they can also co-operate, or even collaborate on team based creation of blogs, wikis, or video production. All of these can be created by the team, and then posted up online for a audience to appreciate, evaluate and discuss. As has been shown repeatedly in long running projects such as Quadblogging and the 100 Word Challenge, giving students an audience for their work encourages them to hone their writing skills, develop and improve their presentation skills and gain an appreciation of performing their learning for an audience. The benefits of blogging are wide ranging, and when it is developed into co-operative projects it can have a great motivational power.

4) The Natural Method. Students learn best when they are naturally interested in the topic, and this increases in success level when learning takes place in authentic and realistic contexts. Facebook and other social networking tools are great for connecting people, and most students already have an account and can use it effectively to do this. How about extending this to networking with students in other parts of the world? This would be an extension of the pen pal method used many years ago, where schools paired students with those in other schools. They then wrote to each other regularly, and learnt all about each other's cultures, backgrounds and traditions. Using social networking tools to promote e-pals could potentially spread worldwide, with students in different countries discovering about foreign lands, cultures, languages, geography, history, music and sports. See e-Pals Global for one example of how this works in schools around the world.

5) Democratic Method. Students learn about fairness, celebrating diversity, choice, friendship, relationships and a whole host of other human experiences and challenges through an appreciation of their entire community. They can take responsibility for their own choices and actions and understand how they fit into their community (local and global) through connecting with others using social media tools. Using voting tools such as Digg and organising tools such as Diigo and Delicious can aid this process, as can the like and +1 buttons of Facebook and Google Plus. Getting them to make decisions democratically enables them to understand that their opinion counts, but it must always be considered in the wider context of the community.

Photo by the Gates Foundation


Freinet and social media by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I want to be an astronaut

I remember my meeting with my careers advice teacher, during my final year at school. It was 1972, in the heady days of the final lunar landings, where space exploration was top news and we were all very excited by it. Space travel and moon landings had caught the imagination of every kid. The conversation with my 'careers master' went something like this:

"Right Wheeler, what do you want to do when you leave school next year?"
"I want to be an astronaut Sir"
A moment's silence, a slight pause while the career teacher's spectacles glinted. He adjusted his tie, then... "Don't be silly sonny, being an astronaut isn't a real job."
"It's what I want to be Sir. I want to explore."
"Well, I'm afraid that's just impossible. You have to be an American to be an astronaut."
"Or a Russian Sir, they're called cosmonauts in Russia, Sir."
"Well, clearly you're neither, so think again. What are you good at?" (He's a careers adviser at the school. He should know this. He should have done his homework on me).
"I'm good at Art, Sir."
"What else are you good at?"
"Music. Not a lot else."
"OK... not academic... so you'll be an artist or a musician then. Good luck with that. Time's up Wheeler, I have a lot of other students to see." He indicated toward the door. I walked out.

And that, as they say, was the end of that. I left the office none the wiser, and still yearned to be an astronaut, or get involved in some other kind of exploration. From my time studying geography and history, I had learnt about the explorers of old, including my heroes David Livingstone, Mungo Park (who always sounded to me like a municipal recreation area) and Robert Falcon Scott, whose mission to reach the South Pole ended in heroic failure. Astronauts to me, were the last great explorers - launching into the deep unknown, exploring the final frontier - space. I wanted to boldly go where no-one had been before. To be the first. Captain Kirk and Mr Spock had a lot to answer for.

Funnily enough, that is exactly what I think I have become. An explorer. I eventually, through a long and convoluted set of career pathways, went from being a graphic designer and photographer, through technical work with videos and computers, to being a psychologist, part-time musician, a lecturer in education, and eventually a researcher. As a researcher, I am an ultimate explorer, discovering and investigating areas that are previously unknown. I experiment with social media and mobile technologies, trying to fit them into new areas and contexts to see what happens. In a strange and round about way, I have fulfilled my schoolboy dreams to become an astronaut.

Careers advice has changed greatly since my time in school. It had to really, because as it stood it was neither use nor ornament. Listening to Bob Athwal this morning made me realise just how far careers advice has really developed. Bob is Director of Leicester University's Careers Service, and keynoted the E-ATP Conference in Malta. Bob echoed many of my own earlier keynote points - education has to change because industry and the job market is changing, much of our education and training is still stuck in the last century, and organisations need to wake up to the fact that an entirely new generation of employees is on the threshold. These are the digital generation, who have been immersed in technology, and although they may not be fully educated in its use, they are none-the-less expectant that universities and organisations will embed these tools into their experience.

He asked whether such organisations are actually geared up to fulfill the expectations of graduates. Bob argued that for undergraduate students 'the first year is the new third year.' Students who fail to commit and engage with learning in their first year should now expect not to do so well. Bob showed that starting in their first year, students need a develop a whole range of skills and competencies to make themselves marketable in the workplace, including critical self awareness, the ability to be flexible and agile, and to be able to think creatively. Universities needed to help promote and foster these at an early stage he said. Bob also argued that in today's economy, where new kinds of jobs are being created constantly, a good degree is not enough to make graduates attractive to employers. Now they also need a good portfolio of extra-curricular activities, previous experience and a personal brand, often achieved through the maintenance of a personal digital presence that has good reputation. The implications for this in the context of digital literacies is clear.

When asked whether students are being put off by the raised university tuition fees Bob had an interesting answer. They viewed paying university tuition fees, he suggested, like they view purchasing a mobile phone contract. If they desire it, they will pay for it. The times are certainly changing, but whether universities, organisations and industry are changing quickly enough to keep pace with these dramatic changes, remains to be seen.

Photo by NASA via Wikimedia Commons


I want to be an astronaut by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I want to be an astronaut

I remember my meeting with my careers advice teacher, during my final year at school. It was 1972, in the heady days of the final lunar landings, where space exploration was top news and we were all very excited by it. Space travel and moon landings had caught the imagination of every kid. The conversation with my 'careers master' went something like this:

"Right Wheeler, what do you want to do when you leave school next year?"
"I want to be an astronaut Sir"
A moment's silence, a slight pause while the career teacher's spectacles glinted. He adjusted his tie, then... "Don't be silly sonny, being an astronaut isn't a real job."
"It's what I want to be Sir. I want to explore."
"Well, I'm afraid that's just impossible. You have to be an American to be an astronaut."
"Or a Russian Sir, they're called cosmonauts in Russia, Sir."
"Well, clearly you're neither, so think again. What are you good at?" (He's a careers adviser at the school. He should know this. He should have done his homework on me).
"I'm good at Art, Sir."
"What else are you good at?"
"Music. Not a lot else."
"OK... not academic... so you'll be an artist or a musician then. Good luck with that. Time's up Wheeler, I have a lot of other students to see." He indicated toward the door. I walked out.

And that, as they say, was the end of that. I left the office none the wiser, and still yearned to be an astronaut, or get involved in some other kind of exploration. From my time studying geography and history, I had learnt about the explorers of old, including my heroes David Livingstone, Mungo Park (who always sounded to me like a municipal recreation area) and Robert Falcon Scott, whose mission to reach the South Pole ended in heroic failure. Astronauts to me, were the last great explorers - launching into the deep unknown, exploring the final frontier - space. I wanted to boldly go where no-one had been before. To be the first. Captain Kirk and Mr Spock had a lot to answer for.

Funnily enough, that is exactly what I think I have become. An explorer. I eventually, through a long and convoluted set of career pathways, went from being a graphic designer and photographer, through technical work with videos and computers, to being a psychologist, part-time musician, a lecturer in education, and eventually a researcher. As a researcher, I am an ultimate explorer, discovering and investigating areas that are previously unknown. I experiment with social media and mobile technologies, trying to fit them into new areas and contexts to see what happens. In a strange and round about way, I have fulfilled my schoolboy dreams to become an astronaut.

Careers advice has changed greatly since my time in school. It had to really, because as it stood it was neither use nor ornament. Listening to Bob Athwal this morning made me realise just how far careers advice has really developed. Bob is Director of Leicester University's Careers Service, and keynoted the E-ATP Conference in Malta. Bob echoed many of my own earlier keynote points - education has to change because industry and the job market is changing, much of our education and training is still stuck in the last century, and organisations need to wake up to the fact that an entirely new generation of employees is on the threshold. These are the digital generation, who have been immersed in technology, and although they may not be fully educated in its use, they are none-the-less expectant that universities and organisations will embed these tools into their experience.

He asked whether such organisations are actually geared up to fulfill the expectations of graduates. Bob argued that for undergraduate students 'the first year is the new third year.' Students who fail to commit and engage with learning in their first year should now expect not to do so well. Bob showed that starting in their first year, students need a develop a whole range of skills and competencies to make themselves marketable in the workplace, including critical self awareness, the ability to be flexible and agile, and to be able to think creatively. Universities needed to help promote and foster these at an early stage he said. Bob also argued that in today's economy, where new kinds of jobs are being created constantly, a good degree is not enough to make graduates attractive to employers. Now they also need a good portfolio of extra-curricular activities, previous experience and a personal brand, often achieved through the maintenance of a personal digital presence that has good reputation. The implications for this in the context of digital literacies is clear.

When asked whether students are being put off by the raised university tuition fees Bob had an interesting answer. They viewed paying university tuition fees, he suggested, like they view purchasing a mobile phone contract. If they desire it, they will pay for it. The times are certainly changing, but whether universities, organisations and industry are changing quickly enough to keep pace with these dramatic changes, remains to be seen.

Photo by NASA via Wikimedia Commons


I want to be an astronaut by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mind technology

Can technology help us to think more clearly?

We find ourselves increasingly immersed in our digital worlds, surrounded by devices and tools, our minds constantly impacted by streams of new information. It's often difficult to keep up, and one could easily feel swamped by the relentless flow. This a similar experience for hundreds of millions of other individuals around the world.

Personally, I don't find it that onerous. That constant flow of information can be daunting, but I have learnt to dip in and out, as though it were a stream flowing by. I am constantly learning new things, discovering new people, being challenged to think in new ways using this stream of information. That wouldn't have happened, at least not as extensively, if I did not have access to my digital tools. The tools I use are a kind of mind technology, a means of extending my cognitive capabilities, enhancing my thinking, memory and recall.

Some might say that I am over-reliant upon technology. I'm perfectly relaxed about that. I don't see myself as a cyborg - one of Andy Clarke's cybernetic organisms enhanced by - and fully dependent upon, technology. Nor do I view my habituated use of technology as detrimental, as dark and fearful as the high priests of doom such as Nicholas Carr would have us believe. This is my choice, certainly not something that is being imposed upon me against my will.  I know I can think more clearly when I use certain deliberately selected tools, while others enable me to recall things I could not otherwise remember. I'm able to organise my content effectively using other specific tools. Still others enable me to perform mundane and repetitive tasks while freeing me up to concentrate on the more important things that demand my attention during the day. If I were to suddenly lose these tools it would not stop me from doing what I wish to do. It would take me a lot longer though, and I would have to divert more cognitive energy away from the core stuff.

My mind technology is embodied in and across a vast biological network of individuals - the connected minds that I call my personal learning network (PLN). They are numerous, and I know many of them personally. Others are familiar to me from repeated online contact. Many more are less familiar still, but each has a role to play and knowledge to pass on. Extended beyond my own PLN, this living network and the tools at its disposal encapsulates all of the knowledge that humankind has accumulated, knowledge that it is constantly being updated, revised, extended. It provides access for all to these vast resources through a bewildering array of device choices, a spectrum of possibilities. The people, devices, connections and knowledge constitute the world wide web - a digital sea upon which float the aspirations of this and future generations.

As recently as the mid 1990s, the World Wide Web did not exist, at least not in as ubiquitous and accessible a form as it does now. It was only at the turn of this century that we began to understand what was going to be possible with social networking on the Web. It was only at the start of this new millennium that we began to harness the power of new cognitive technologies - the smart mobile phones, touch screen technologies and convergent devices that now make up the familiar terrain, the day-to-day objects we so rely on for our work, commerce, entertainment and relationship maintenance.

These tools are indeed cognitive technologies - mind tools that help us to learn new things, to seek out new ideas and new concepts, to boldly take us - who knows where? They not only provide us with all the information, knowledge and learning we will ever need, they actually shape our minds in new ways too. Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan wasn't the only one to notice the effect media have on thinking. Where McLuhan saw the movie as a medium that transports us from linear (story telling) toward configuration (of speed, space and time), he also believed that it is the attributes of the medium, rather than its content that shapes our expectations. McLuhan never lived to see the Web, but if he had, he would no doubt have seen the extension of hyperlinked affordances toward non-linearity and beyond.

This poses a further question: Have the multi-dimensional possibilities of the Web forged a generation of non-linear thinkers, or has the Web simply been fashioned in such a way that it reflects the natural evolution of our collective human minds? Such a conveniently synergetic relationship between mind and tool certainly makes it difficult to detect the join between functionality and perception. Mind technology it certainly is, and richly social too. We would be poorer without it. With it, we can be enslaved or we can be liberated. Whichever direction we choose, there will be hundreds of millions of others to keep us company.

As a wise man recently said: "If you think the Web is simply a place to look up information, you are sadly mistaken".

Photo by Erik Drost


Mind technology by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mind technology

Can technology help us to think more clearly?

We find ourselves increasingly immersed in our digital worlds, surrounded by devices and tools, our minds constantly impacted by streams of new information. It's often difficult to keep up, and one could easily feel swamped by the relentless flow. This a similar experience for hundreds of millions of other individuals around the world.

Personally, I don't find it that onerous. That constant flow of information can be daunting, but I have learnt to dip in and out, as though it were a stream flowing by. I am constantly learning new things, discovering new people, being challenged to think in new ways using this stream of information. That wouldn't have happened, at least not as extensively, if I did not have access to my digital tools. The tools I use are a kind of mind technology, a means of extending my cognitive capabilities, enhancing my thinking, memory and recall.

Some might say that I am over-reliant upon technology. I'm perfectly relaxed about that. I don't see myself as a cyborg - one of Andy Clarke's cybernetic organisms enhanced by - and fully dependent upon, technology. Nor do I view my habituated use of technology as detrimental, as dark and fearful as the high priests of doom such as Nicholas Carr would have us believe. This is my choice, certainly not something that is being imposed upon me against my will.  I know I can think more clearly when I use certain deliberately selected tools, while others enable me to recall things I could not otherwise remember. I'm able to organise my content effectively using other specific tools. Still others enable me to perform mundane and repetitive tasks while freeing me up to concentrate on the more important things that demand my attention during the day. If I were to suddenly lose these tools it would not stop me from doing what I wish to do. It would take me a lot longer though, and I would have to divert more cognitive energy away from the core stuff.

My mind technology is embodied in and across a vast biological network of individuals - the connected minds that I call my personal learning network (PLN). They are numerous, and I know many of them personally. Others are familiar to me from repeated online contact. Many more are less familiar still, but each has a role to play and knowledge to pass on. Extended beyond my own PLN, this living network and the tools at its disposal encapsulates all of the knowledge that humankind has accumulated, knowledge that it is constantly being updated, revised, extended. It provides access for all to these vast resources through a bewildering array of device choices, a spectrum of possibilities. The people, devices, connections and knowledge constitute the world wide web - a digital sea upon which float the aspirations of this and future generations.

As recently as the mid 1990s, the World Wide Web did not exist, at least not in as ubiquitous and accessible a form as it does now. It was only at the turn of this century that we began to understand what was going to be possible with social networking on the Web. It was only at the start of this new millennium that we began to harness the power of new cognitive technologies - the smart mobile phones, touch screen technologies and convergent devices that now make up the familiar terrain, the day-to-day objects we so rely on for our work, commerce, entertainment and relationship maintenance.

These tools are indeed cognitive technologies - mind tools that help us to learn new things, to seek out new ideas and new concepts, to boldly take us - who knows where? They not only provide us with all the information, knowledge and learning we will ever need, they actually shape our minds in new ways too. Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan wasn't the only one to notice the effect media have on thinking. Where McLuhan saw the movie as a medium that transports us from linear (story telling) toward configuration (of speed, space and time), he also believed that it is the attributes of the medium, rather than its content that shapes our expectations. McLuhan never lived to see the Web, but if he had, he would no doubt have seen the extension of hyperlinked affordances toward non-linearity and beyond.

This poses a further question: Have the multi-dimensional possibilities of the Web forged a generation of non-linear thinkers, or has the Web simply been fashioned in such a way that it reflects the natural evolution of our collective human minds? Such a conveniently synergetic relationship between mind and tool certainly makes it difficult to detect the join between functionality and perception. Mind technology it certainly is, and richly social too. We would be poorer without it. With it, we can be enslaved or we can be liberated. Whichever direction we choose, there will be hundreds of millions of others to keep us company.

As a wise man recently said: "If you think the Web is simply a place to look up information, you are sadly mistaken".

Photo by Erik Drost


Mind technology by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Blogging as conversation

"A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I could have simply used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me. But this was a limited view. I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation.

Ultimately, blogging is discursive, promoting discussions and arguments. In that sense, it is like no other form of writing before it. Granted, published texts in the past have provoked debate, fighting, and even in some cases, full blown revolutions. But blogging is different, because it is immediate. You don't need to wait for your publisher to run the presses, or for the postman to deliver your first edition. You don't have to wait for your proofs to be accepted, and you don't need to respond to reviewer comments or amend your text in any way. You simply need to click that Publish button, and then wait for the responses. Depending on the size and reach of your personal learning network, and the level of contentiousness your blog contains, your readership will react. Practice writing, and you will develop your own blogging voice you can use to put across your points clearly and convincingly.

Inevitably, if your post is controversial, compelling or raises new and previously unconsidered points, there will be disagreements and arguments over points that have been raised, and responses that have been made in the comments boxes. Discussion should be polite and all contributors should respect the views of others.  And yet that is the entire point of the conversation of blogging because, as Michel de Montaigne once declared "There is no conversation more boring than when everyone agrees." How is anyone to learn anything from anyone else, if we all agree on every single point? The fact that people argue and don't agree over points means that each has to defend his or her own perspective, whilst thinking more deeply about that which is opposed to their perspective.

Probably the best and most meaningful metric a blog can give you, is the number of comments you receive. Forget how many hits you get every day, or how many pingbacks you receive. When people take time to comment on your blog post, you know they have taken time to read, think and act on what you have said. If you choose to respond to their comments, the conversations starts. Many comments will be simple affirmations of your views, and some will simply ask questions to clarify what you have written. These are very welcome. A few comments may be abusive, off subject or destructive - often from sad, unhappy people who are trolling for a reaction from you. Don't respond - you can usually delete these if you are moderating your blog site (I advise bloggers to do just that - moderating enables you to filter out trolling comments and also eliminate spam messages). The comments you should really look out for are those that disagree with you, argue an alternative viewpoint, or challenge you to justify what you have written. Take for example the indignant and inflammatory comments on my Sugata Mitra - Charlatan or Genius? post. Not that edifying, but I allowed them to show that not everyone can argue their point without losing their composure and insulting someone with name calling. When that occurs, the argument is already lost. Other comments can be less emotive but just as challenging, provoking others to wade in and give a piece of their minds. Often this kind of dialogue can be quite productive in terms of personal learning, and as an added bonus, as you and others engage, you are together helping to educate your entire community of practice.

Over the years I have been blogging, I have enjoyed some great arguments and conversations with readers in the space. I'm grateful to all those who take time to read these posts, and I welcome continued dialogue with all those who are willing to engage with me. Thank you all.

Photo by Martin le Roy


Blogging as conversation by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Blogging as conversation

"A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I could have simply used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me. But this was a limited view. I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation.

Ultimately, blogging is discursive, promoting discussions and arguments. In that sense, it is like no other form of writing before it. Granted, published texts in the past have provoked debate, fighting, and even in some cases, full blown revolutions. But blogging is different, because it is immediate. You don't need to wait for your publisher to run the presses, or for the postman to deliver your first edition. You don't have to wait for your proofs to be accepted, and you don't need to respond to reviewer comments or amend your text in any way. You simply need to click that Publish button, and then wait for the responses. Depending on the size and reach of your personal learning network, and the level of contentiousness your blog contains, your readership will react. Practice writing, and you will develop your own blogging voice you can use to put across your points clearly and convincingly.

Inevitably, if your post is controversial, compelling or raises new and previously unconsidered points, there will be disagreements and arguments over points that have been raised, and responses that have been made in the comments boxes. Discussion should be polite and all contributors should respect the views of others.  And yet that is the entire point of the conversation of blogging because, as Michel de Montaigne once declared "There is no conversation more boring than when everyone agrees." How is anyone to learn anything from anyone else, if we all agree on every single point? The fact that people argue and don't agree over points means that each has to defend his or her own perspective, whilst thinking more deeply about that which is opposed to their perspective.

Probably the best and most meaningful metric a blog can give you, is the number of comments you receive. Forget how many hits you get every day, or how many pingbacks you receive. When people take time to comment on your blog post, you know they have taken time to read, think and act on what you have said. If you choose to respond to their comments, the conversations starts. Many comments will be simple affirmations of your views, and some will simply ask questions to clarify what you have written. These are very welcome. A few comments may be abusive, off subject or destructive - often from sad, unhappy people who are trolling for a reaction from you. Don't respond - you can usually delete these if you are moderating your blog site (I advise bloggers to do just that - moderating enables you to filter out trolling comments and also eliminate spam messages). The comments you should really look out for are those that disagree with you, argue an alternative viewpoint, or challenge you to justify what you have written. Take for example the indignant and inflammatory comments on my Sugata Mitra - Charlatan or Genius? post. Not that edifying, but I allowed them to show that not everyone can argue their point without losing their composure and insulting someone with name calling. When that occurs, the argument is already lost. Other comments can be less emotive but just as challenging, provoking others to wade in and give a piece of their minds. Often this kind of dialogue can be quite productive in terms of personal learning, and as an added bonus, as you and others engage, you are together helping to educate your entire community of practice.

Over the years I have been blogging, I have enjoyed some great arguments and conversations with readers in the space. I'm grateful to all those who take time to read these posts, and I welcome continued dialogue with all those who are willing to engage with me. Thank you all.

Photo by Martin le Roy


Blogging as conversation by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

5 technologies to promote creative learning

Teachers are constantly searching for new ways to promote good learning. If those ideas can also encourage creative thinking, they are even more welcome in the classroom. Technology can provide some of those creative solutions. Here are just five ideas for using technology to support learning, while promoting creative thinking, and I'm sure that with a little thought you will be able to adapt them to your own subject area.

1) Senses: In this picture the five traditional human senses are depicted. But there are actually more than five human senses, and teachers can challenge children to learn about some of the others (there are at least 10 more including proprioception - the kinaesthetic sense of where your body is in space, equilibrioception - the sense of balance and motion, nociception - or the experience of pain, thermoception - sensing heat, and so on). Ask your students to create icons or images representing these newly discovered senses. They could use cameras, graphics software, a combination of these, or some other tools to create and capture their illustrations. They could make their final presentation into a poster. [NB: This is useful in science, especially biology, but could be adapted for other subjects where there are lists or categories involved. To complete this task students must first understand and appreciate what the non-traditional senses are and how they are used, and then use their creativity to depict them accurately.]

2) Wiki'd Writing: Ask your students (in small groups or on their own) to either edit an existing Wikipedia page, or create a new one on a topic not yet covered. The latter option is more advanced and problematic, because many of the commonly known topics are already well covered on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia pages appeal for additional content, verification or editing which could provide students with some clues as to how to proceed. [NB: This could be applied to just about any subject in the curriculum. To complete this task successfully, students will need some in depth knowledge of the topic they are covering - this will require considerable reading, research and investigation.]

3) Commons Touch: Ask students to submit two or three good quality images to Wikimedia Commons. Many people visit the site to find images of high quality that are copyright free. Students can also track how many times their images are used by other people over the course of an academic year. [NB: Again, this should be easily adaptable to any curriculum subject. Students will need to know how to compose and capture good images, and also will need to be aware of the gaps in the image repository on Wikimedia Commons. They will also need a fair appreciation of how Creative Commons licensing works.]

4) Making Twistory: Get students to follow, and interact with, historical figures on Twitter. What kind of questions should they ask? How might they get the historical figures to respond to the questions? There are many characters to choose from such as William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Benjamin Franklin or King Henry VIII. If you would like to have a go tweeting as a historical character yourself, here's a link showing you how to be a historical figure on Twitter. [NB: Great for the study of history, but could be adapted to English language and literature (authors), science or technology (scientists and inventors), geography (explorers), and foreign languages (tweets in those languages - see also Lingua Tweeta). Students will need to search for and verify celebrity or historical figure Twitter accounts, and then frame the questions they wish to ask them.]

5) Video Mashups: Ask students to find 3 unrelated YouTube videos. Using the built in YouTube Editor, ask them to select sections and mash them up, mixing elements to create a totally new message. How is the message different to those of the three component videos used? What does the message mean now, and how does the sequence of moving images and/or narrative support that message (form)? Who is the mash up video aimed at (audience and purpose)? [NB: Ideal for English Language or Media teaching, but could be adaptable to other subject areas. Your students will need to know about purpose, audience and form, will learn how to compare and contrast, and will also need to learn how to use the YouTube editing tools.]

I bet you can come up with some more!

Photo by Niki Dugan


5 technologies to promote creative learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

5 technologies to promote creative learning

Teachers are constantly searching for new ways to promote good learning. If those ideas can also encourage creative thinking, they are even more welcome in the classroom. Technology can provide some of those creative solutions. Here are just five ideas for using technology to support learning, while promoting creative thinking, and I'm sure that with a little thought you will be able to adapt them to your own subject area.

1) Senses: In this picture the five traditional human senses are depicted. But there are actually more than five human senses, and teachers can challenge children to learn about some of the others (there are at least 10 more including proprioception - the kinaesthetic sense of where your body is in space, equilibrioception - the sense of balance and motion, nociception - or the experience of pain, thermoception - sensing heat, and so on). Ask your students to create icons or images representing these newly discovered senses. They could use cameras, graphics software, a combination of these, or some other tools to create and capture their illustrations. They could make their final presentation into a poster. [NB: This is useful in science, especially biology, but could be adapted for other subjects where there are lists or categories involved. To complete this task students must first understand and appreciate what the non-traditional senses are and how they are used, and then use their creativity to depict them accurately.]

2) Wiki'd Writing: Ask your students (in small groups or on their own) to either edit an existing Wikipedia page, or create a new one on a topic not yet covered. The latter option is more advanced and problematic, because many of the commonly known topics are already well covered on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia pages appeal for additional content, verification or editing which could provide students with some clues as to how to proceed. [NB: This could be applied to just about any subject in the curriculum. To complete this task successfully, students will need some in depth knowledge of the topic they are covering - this will require considerable reading, research and investigation.]

3) Commons Touch: Ask students to submit two or three good quality images to Wikimedia Commons. Many people visit the site to find images of high quality that are copyright free. Students can also track how many times their images are used by other people over the course of an academic year. [NB: Again, this should be easily adaptable to any curriculum subject. Students will need to know how to compose and capture good images, and also will need to be aware of the gaps in the image repository on Wikimedia Commons. They will also need a fair appreciation of how Creative Commons licensing works.]

4) Making Twistory: Get students to follow, and interact with, historical figures on Twitter. What kind of questions should they ask? How might they get the historical figures to respond to the questions? There are many characters to choose from such as William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Benjamin Franklin or King Henry VIII. If you would like to have a go tweeting as a historical character yourself, here's a link showing you how to be a historical figure on Twitter. [NB: Great for the study of history, but could be adapted to English language and literature (authors), science or technology (scientists and inventors), geography (explorers), and foreign languages (tweets in those languages - see also Lingua Tweeta). Students will need to search for and verify celebrity or historical figure Twitter accounts, and then frame the questions they wish to ask them.]

5) Video Mashups: Ask students to find 3 unrelated YouTube videos. Using the built in YouTube Editor, ask them to select sections and mash them up, mixing elements to create a totally new message. How is the message different to those of the three component videos used? What does the message mean now, and how does the sequence of moving images and/or narrative support that message (form)? Who is the mash up video aimed at (audience and purpose)? [NB: Ideal for English Language or Media teaching, but could be adaptable to other subject areas. Your students will need to know about purpose, audience and form, will learn how to compare and contrast, and will also need to learn how to use the YouTube editing tools.]

I bet you can come up with some more!

Photo by Niki Dugan


5 technologies to promote creative learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction

At the recent ALT-C Conference in Nottingham (which I couldn't attend) a very good question was asked  by Renee Filius on Twitter: How can we enable true two-way interaction between lecturers and students that is not too time consuming?  This is a perennial question, one that often exercises the minds of many higher education lecturers. It's vitally important that lecturers and their students maintain dialogue throughout the academic year, but often it doesn't happen, or is sporadic, due mainly to the great time pressures lecturers (and students) are under throughout the year. Compounding this is the large size of student cohorts - how can one lecturer individually address the needs of 300 students? If you don't have the space or time for face-to-face meetings, what can you do? Does technology provide any realistic, sustainable solutions?

Here's a few ideas for you to consider:

1) Lecturers can make sure they maintain dialogue with their students through participation in social media sites. But be careful. It's not as simple as 'going where your students are'. That never worked in the student bar and it won't work on Facebook. In both cases I wait until I'm asked before joining students. The last thing they want is their lecturer hanging around like Dad at a disco when they want to talk frankly and openly about their courses, assessment results or what they got up to in the small hours of the night. Student groups tend to set up their own Facebook groups anyway, without any prompting from their teachers. When I'm invited in to a Facebook group or Google Hangout, I tend to lurk until asked a direct question. Then I wade in, give my advice or opinion and join in with the conversation.

2) One popular social media site - Twitter - is a different proposition entirely. It's more public, more succinct (messages are limited to 140 characters in length) and more appropriate for brief conversations between students and their tutors. Interactions can be managed around a specific hashtag related to the course, or can be private between the tutor and students using the Direct Message (DM) option. Hyperinks and other media can be sent as tweets. I have managed many meaningful conversations with students about their work through this method, both during lessons and also post-lecture, but it's clearly not for everyone.

3) Your Managed Learning Environment (or VLE) - in whatever flavour your organisation has chosen - is a walled garden that allows conversations to be protected from outside eyes. However, bear in mind that most VLEs have online discussion threads that all of the group can see and read. Use your discretion about whether your intervention, coaching and other contributions should be publicly available or should be confidential between you and a specific student. Openly discussed topics on a VLE can escalate into valuable, wider discursive events depending on how many students decide to contribute, and how long the conversation is sustained.

4) Set up (or get your students to set up) a group blog (or wiki) which only you and your student group can see and contribute toward. Encourage everyone to let the group know how they are getting on with their studies, project work, placement experiences, and so on. Often, students solve each other's problems long before lecturers can respond. I have used these to great effect with smaller groups to enable them to document and share their progress during project work. As above, use your discretion and professional judgement as to whether you discuss student issues in this kind of semi-open forum, or take them to a one-to-one personal and/or completely confidential level.

5) Mobile phone Texting is always a useful option, but not everyone wants their mobile number to be accessible by academic staff. Decide with your students whether any of them want to choose this option - on the proviso that you are also willing to be reached at odd hours on your own mobile phone. Some lecturers have a second, dedicated mobile phone (or one that is owned by the organisation) that can be used for the purpose of student - teacher interaction. Texting is ideal for sending a quick message, but it's usualy advisable to then move on to another platform to continue a more protracted interaction.

6) Using Skype or another videoconference tool enables tutors and students to interact in a visual mode. Some research suggests that seeing the person at the 'other end' of the conversation improves interaction. The claim is that seeing the other person's expressions, coupled with their body language, vocal tone and posture makes it easier to understand social cues and ascertain meaning. Some are put off by these affordances, and prefer a simple telephone or Twitter conversation instead, so choose wisely with student preferences in mind. Take care with Skype however, as unlike all of the above methods, there will be no record of what has been said, agreed or highlighted, unless you contrive to record it.

7) Finally, if all else fails, resort to e-mail. It's not something many students like to use when they are chatting informally, but most get the idea that e-mail is a formal communication tool. Bear in mind if any students do e-mail you direct with a request for help, a question or a comment, it is best practice to answer as quickly and as comprehensively as you can. They may be relying on your advice to complete an assignment before a deadline, and your rapid considered response will be appreciated.

I'm certain there must be other methods out there that lecturers use to support greater interaction with their students. If you know of any, or have had experiences (good or bad) you would like to share, please do so in the comments box below.

Photo from Search Engine People Blog


7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction

At the recent ALT-C Conference in Nottingham (which I couldn't attend) a very good question was asked  by Renee Filius on Twitter: How can we enable true two-way interaction between lecturers and students that is not too time consuming?  This is a perennial question, one that often exercises the minds of many higher education lecturers. It's vitally important that lecturers and their students maintain dialogue throughout the academic year, but often it doesn't happen, or is sporadic, due mainly to the great time pressures lecturers (and students) are under throughout the year. Compounding this is the large size of student cohorts - how can one lecturer individually address the needs of 300 students? If you don't have the space or time for face-to-face meetings, what can you do? Does technology provide any realistic, sustainable solutions?

Here's a few ideas for you to consider:

1) Lecturers can make sure they maintain dialogue with their students through participation in social media sites. But be careful. It's not as simple as 'going where your students are'. That never worked in the student bar and it won't work on Facebook. In both cases I wait until I'm asked before joining students. The last thing they want is their lecturer hanging around like Dad at a disco when they want to talk frankly and openly about their courses, assessment results or what they got up to in the small hours of the night. Student groups tend to set up their own Facebook groups anyway, without any prompting from their teachers. When I'm invited in to a Facebook group or Google Hangout, I tend to lurk until asked a direct question. Then I wade in, give my advice or opinion and join in with the conversation.

2) One popular social media site - Twitter - is a different proposition entirely. It's more public, more succinct (messages are limited to 140 characters in length) and more appropriate for brief conversations between students and their tutors. Interactions can be managed around a specific hashtag related to the course, or can be private between the tutor and students using the Direct Message (DM) option. Hyperinks and other media can be sent as tweets. I have managed many meaningful conversations with students about their work through this method, both during lessons and also post-lecture, but it's clearly not for everyone.

3) Your Managed Learning Environment (or VLE) - in whatever flavour your organisation has chosen - is a walled garden that allows conversations to be protected from outside eyes. However, bear in mind that most VLEs have online discussion threads that all of the group can see and read. Use your discretion about whether your intervention, coaching and other contributions should be publicly available or should be confidential between you and a specific student. Openly discussed topics on a VLE can escalate into valuable, wider discursive events depending on how many students decide to contribute, and how long the conversation is sustained.

4) Set up (or get your students to set up) a group blog (or wiki) which only you and your student group can see and contribute toward. Encourage everyone to let the group know how they are getting on with their studies, project work, placement experiences, and so on. Often, students solve each other's problems long before lecturers can respond. I have used these to great effect with smaller groups to enable them to document and share their progress during project work. As above, use your discretion and professional judgement as to whether you discuss student issues in this kind of semi-open forum, or take them to a one-to-one personal and/or completely confidential level.

5) Mobile phone Texting is always a useful option, but not everyone wants their mobile number to be accessible by academic staff. Decide with your students whether any of them want to choose this option - on the proviso that you are also willing to be reached at odd hours on your own mobile phone. Some lecturers have a second, dedicated mobile phone (or one that is owned by the organisation) that can be used for the purpose of student - teacher interaction. Texting is ideal for sending a quick message, but it's usualy advisable to then move on to another platform to continue a more protracted interaction.

6) Using Skype or another videoconference tool enables tutors and students to interact in a visual mode. Some research suggests that seeing the person at the 'other end' of the conversation improves interaction. The claim is that seeing the other person's expressions, coupled with their body language, vocal tone and posture makes it easier to understand social cues and ascertain meaning. Some are put off by these affordances, and prefer a simple telephone or Twitter conversation instead, so choose wisely with student preferences in mind. Take care with Skype however, as unlike all of the above methods, there will be no record of what has been said, agreed or highlighted, unless you contrive to record it.

7) Finally, if all else fails, resort to e-mail. It's not something many students like to use when they are chatting informally, but most get the idea that e-mail is a formal communication tool. Bear in mind if any students do e-mail you direct with a request for help, a question or a comment, it is best practice to answer as quickly and as comprehensively as you can. They may be relying on your advice to complete an assignment before a deadline, and your rapid considered response will be appreciated.

I'm certain there must be other methods out there that lecturers use to support greater interaction with their students. If you know of any, or have had experiences (good or bad) you would like to share, please do so in the comments box below.

Photo from Search Engine People Blog


7 ways to support learner-teacher interaction by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Can we teach digital literacies?

There is a disconnect between teaching and learning. Not everything that is taught in school is learnt. And not everything that is learnt in school is actually taught. Many of the things we know as adults may have been propagated in school, but it is only through experience that we actually consolidate that knowledge, usually in later life, post-schooling. A lot is also forgotten (and therefore arguably, never learnt) from our school years. We are at the mercy of the curriculum of our time, and also the whims of the teaching staff who were in charge of our education. In my experience, some teachers were excellent, some were mediocre, and some frankly, should never have become teachers in the first place. Governments continually tinker with curricula, and tend to interfere in school systems, dictating what should be included and excluded from lessons. Public money funds the systems, so they feel it is their right (as democratically elected representatives of the public) to manage the education of the population. They don't always get it right, and in the final analysis, it is often left to the teacher in the classroom to interpret exactly what is contained in each lesson, and how it is to be delivered.

In a blog post entitled 'Digital literacies and the bottom line' Steve Philp questions whether digital literacies should be taught as a part of the school curriculum. The term 'digital literacies' is a relatively recent addition to our vocabulary. It is essentially the skill set that enables us to become digital citizens. (For a deeper explanation of the concept, please read What Digital Literacies?)  Let me respond to Steve's blog post by stating that I don't think that digital literacies can be taught - at least not in formal settings. I believe they can only be learnt informally, mainly due to the fact that many of them are personal, relating directly to a particular student's presence, identity and activities online. That however, does not preclude teachers from supporting the acquisition of digital literacies. Let me explain further:

Learning 'how to' (or procedural knowledge), is often implicit in the learning of a concept (the factual or declarative knowledge is the other part of the equation). But often it is not, and if it is not explicated, the students fails to apprehend the full nuances of the concept.  Digital literacies are largely procedural in nature, but have some declarative components: the learner is able to avoid copyright issues, can protect their digital identity and present their ideas across a number of diverse digital platforms, or create content that does not compromise their integrity or physical safety are just a few examples.

We cannot assume that all students will arrive in class with a fully developed set of digital literacies at their disposal. If we did, we would probably be adherents of the largely discredited Digital Natives theory. Nor can we assume that exposure to computer technology, mobile devices and social media enables them to acquire these literacies through some mysterious form of osmosis. Steve Philps claims that many of his contemporaries are highly digitally literate, holding key jobs in hi-tech industries. He says they did not learn these literacies formally at school. Perhaps not, but I bet they had ample opportunity to make mistakes later on, when they were out in the big bad world and exposed to the risks of online working. How many of them made mistakes they later regretted? How many of those mistakes could have been avoided, if the school providing them with opportunities to take those risks in a safe environment? I think schools definitely have a role to play, but it may not be direct teaching of certain things, because not everything that is learnt can be taught.

So what can schools do?

Asking students what if? questions and giving them time to find answers, within a psychologically safe environment is one method teachers can adopt. Students can construct their own personal meanings from a common question and then show and tell how they will manage their online presence. Showing examples of dangerous or risky practice and the potential consequences is another means teachers have at their disposal. This could be used as a starter activity to support the first method. Encouraging students to discuss the dangers and rewards of communicating and sharing in digital environments is also a powerful method - consolidating their learning. But look out. I don't think any of this can strictly be called 'teaching', but is more akin to facilitating and supporting.

What we can hopefully agree on is that in today's increasingly complex and connected world, everyone of us needs to maintain a sense of what is safe and what is dangerous practice. To get the best out of digital tools, each of us needs to know the boundaries and each of us needs to assimilate the culture of digital citizenship. That is why I argue that we cannot teach digital literacies, nor can we risk students learning them for themselves. There has to be a middle ground. What teachers can do I believe, is create conducive environments in which the acquisition and practice of digital literacies can be scaffolded. That way, we are preparing the next generation of digital citizens with opportunities to acquire literacies that enable them to interpret and successfully negotiate the complex, connected world they already inhabit.

Photo by Gennadiy Ratushenko


Can we teach digital literacies? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.