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.

New wine, new wineskins

"... no man putteth new wine into old wineskins; else the new wine will burst the wineskins, and be spilled, and the wineskins shall perish. But new wine must be put into new wineskins; and both are preserved. " (Luke 5:37-38)

The above passage relates to Jesus Christ and his teaching to his disciples. It's a quote that is often misquoted (used for example as "old wine into new bottles"), and is applied metaphorically within a wide range of contexts. As you will see, it's important to use 'wineskin' rather than 'bottle', to appreciate the full meaning of the quote. The meaning of the parable has been applied as a popular metaphor to show how volatile it can be at the nexus of old and new cultures or ideas. Alvin Toffler illustrates this phenomenon quite eruditely in his book Future Shock, warning that where old and new cultures clash, there will be disorientation, confusion, stress, disruption ... and there will also be winners and losers.

Today we are facing this challenge in education, across all the sectors of learning and teaching. In fact we have been facing this challenge for some time. Putting new wine into old bottles means that new practices do not sit well with old practices. New methods cannot be fully explained or justified by old theories. New approaches often break the boundaries and rules of old paradigms.

The rapid influx of new technologies into formal learning environments has created a large amount of disruption to old practices, and it has created a fair amount of stress for those practitioners who have become comfortable with old practices. There are winners and losers. Some teachers thrive, others merely survive, and some fall by the wayside. Change is never an easy thing to manage, and is never fully welcomed by any profession. And yet change is exactly what we face each and every day, especially if we are educators.

Let's deconstruct the meaning behind the parable of the new wine in old wineskins. 2000 years ago, at the time of Jesus and the disciples, wine was stored in skins - bladders that were usually fashioned from goat skin or sheep skin, to hold the liquid. Often the wine would ferment inside the skins, forcing them to expand to their limit, and eventually causing them to become brittle. Once used, the wineskins had to be discarded, otherwise the new wine would ferment, expanding them further, and causing them to burst. It was false economy not to buy new wineskins to store the new wine in. Wine was spoilt and money lost when the rubric was ignored. The power of the parable resides in the nature of the wineskin. Replacing wineskin with 'bottle' would therefore make the analogy meaningless.

The parallels between the wineskin parable and the state of the current state education system are clear to me. My interpretation is this: new societal needs require new methods of teaching; new methods of teaching need new theories - theories for the information age. For example, if new technology is used in the same way as old technology, the pedagogy 'wineskin' is likely to break. When interactive whiteboards were introduced into classrooms a decade or so ago, many teachers used them poorly, often in the same way they had used the non-interactive dry wipe whiteboards. This was usually down to ignorance due to lack of training. The old practices continued, negating the potential of the new technologies, with the result that teaching did not improve. Teachers failed to capitalise on the affordances and potential of the 'new wine' technology, because they were still limiting their practice and their imagination to the 'old wineskins' mind set of the past. Similarly, now that mobile phones are owned by just about every student in the school, it seems that the old wineskin of 'banning phones in class' needs to be discarded, and a new wineskin of 'let's see how we can harness the potential of smartphones in learning' needs to be applied. I could go on, giving other examples of how the old paradigm needs to be discarded in favour of new pedagogies and theories, but time and space prevent me.

We should know this though: The current generation of learners brings a new set of expectations that are largely unfulfilled because of the old models of teaching that still exist in schools, colleges and universities. Rigid delivery methods and siloed curricula do little to support the development of the Knowmad Society. There is evidence to suggest that learners appearing in our classes are learning in different ways to those in previous generations. And yet state-funded education has not advanced sufficiently to support these new ways. The new wine is still being contained in the old wineskins. Society also has new priorities that were unknown even a decade ago. These have arrived with such rapidity that they have caught the conservative, slow-to-change state education system off guard and ill-prepared to meet them. The old wineskins are leaking at the seams, and are about to burst. We are now preparing students for a world of work that doesn't yet exist. It follows that new theories must be applied to explain and underpin the new practices that need to emerge to meet the new expectations. We need new wineskins for new wine if we are going to save education. We need a new vision in our schools, colleges and universities to preserve what is good and great about education - a 'wineskin' that will cope with the vast, sweeping and fermenting changes that are about to engulf us.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


New wine, new wineskins by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New wine, new wineskins

"... no man putteth new wine into old wineskins; else the new wine will burst the wineskins, and be spilled, and the wineskins shall perish. But new wine must be put into new wineskins; and both are preserved. " (Luke 5:37-38)

The above passage relates to Jesus Christ and his teaching to his disciples. It's a quote that is often misquoted (used for example as "old wine into new bottles"), and is applied metaphorically within a wide range of contexts. As you will see, it's important to use 'wineskin' rather than 'bottle', to appreciate the full meaning of the quote. The meaning of the parable has been applied as a popular metaphor to show how volatile it can be at the nexus of old and new cultures or ideas. Alvin Toffler illustrates this phenomenon quite eruditely in his book Future Shock, warning that where old and new cultures clash, there will be disorientation, confusion, stress, disruption ... and there will also be winners and losers.

Today we are facing this challenge in education, across all the sectors of learning and teaching. In fact we have been facing this challenge for some time. Putting new wine into old bottles means that new practices do not sit well with old practices. New methods cannot be fully explained or justified by old theories. New approaches often break the boundaries and rules of old paradigms.

The rapid influx of new technologies into formal learning environments has created a large amount of disruption to old practices, and it has created a fair amount of stress for those practitioners who have become comfortable with old practices. There are winners and losers. Some teachers thrive, others merely survive, and some fall by the wayside. Change is never an easy thing to manage, and is never fully welcomed by any profession. And yet change is exactly what we face each and every day, especially if we are educators.

Let's deconstruct the meaning behind the parable of the new wine in old wineskins. 2000 years ago, at the time of Jesus and the disciples, wine was stored in skins - bladders that were usually fashioned from goat skin or sheep skin, to hold the liquid. Often the wine would ferment inside the skins, forcing them to expand to their limit, and eventually causing them to become brittle. Once used, the wineskins had to be discarded, otherwise the new wine would ferment, expanding them further, and causing them to burst. It was false economy not to buy new wineskins to store the new wine in. Wine was spoilt and money lost when the rubric was ignored. The power of the parable resides in the nature of the wineskin. Replacing wineskin with 'bottle' would therefore make the analogy meaningless.

The parallels between the wineskin parable and the state of the current state education system are clear to me. My interpretation is this: new societal needs require new methods of teaching; new methods of teaching need new theories - theories for the information age. For example, if new technology is used in the same way as old technology, the pedagogy 'wineskin' is likely to break. When interactive whiteboards were introduced into classrooms a decade or so ago, many teachers used them poorly, often in the same way they had used the non-interactive dry wipe whiteboards. This was usually down to ignorance due to lack of training. The old practices continued, negating the potential of the new technologies, with the result that teaching did not improve. Teachers failed to capitalise on the affordances and potential of the 'new wine' technology, because they were still limiting their practice and their imagination to the 'old wineskins' mind set of the past. Similarly, now that mobile phones are owned by just about every student in the school, it seems that the old wineskin of 'banning phones in class' needs to be discarded, and a new wineskin of 'let's see how we can harness the potential of smartphones in learning' needs to be applied. I could go on, giving other examples of how the old paradigm needs to be discarded in favour of new pedagogies and theories, but time and space prevent me.

We should know this though: The current generation of learners brings a new set of expectations that are largely unfulfilled because of the old models of teaching that still exist in schools, colleges and universities. Rigid delivery methods and siloed curricula do little to support the development of the Knowmad Society. There is evidence to suggest that learners appearing in our classes are learning in different ways to those in previous generations. And yet state-funded education has not advanced sufficiently to support these new ways. The new wine is still being contained in the old wineskins. Society also has new priorities that were unknown even a decade ago. These have arrived with such rapidity that they have caught the conservative, slow-to-change state education system off guard and ill-prepared to meet them. The old wineskins are leaking at the seams, and are about to burst. We are now preparing students for a world of work that doesn't yet exist. It follows that new theories must be applied to explain and underpin the new practices that need to emerge to meet the new expectations. We need new wineskins for new wine if we are going to save education. We need a new vision in our schools, colleges and universities to preserve what is good and great about education - a 'wineskin' that will cope with the vast, sweeping and fermenting changes that are about to engulf us.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


New wine, new wineskins by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Standing alone

While driving through the forests of Northern Romania several years ago, I came across a large swathe of trees that had died. I asked my guide what the problem was, and was told it was the result of acid rain. Pollutants from local factories had risen into the atmosphere, distilled in the rain clouds and had then descended onto the forests as a corrosive agent, destroying and damaging large tracts of foliage. In such a beautifully lush forest, the dead trees looked rather unsightly, and served as a reminder of the destruction we have brought to our environment through unchecked fossil-fuelled large-scale industrial processing. And yet, in amongst the large scale destruction, surprisingly, the occasional green tree stood, somehow defiant and resilient against the acid rain. Years later, thinking back on how incongruous this seemed to me at the time, I can now see how the acid rain trees story can be applied as a potent metaphor. You see, in even the most strident incidences of widespread oppression, disaster or destruction, there will often be elements of society that will resist, and there will be some who remain untouched. Life goes on. Some survive, against all odds. Some even grow stronger. Such a metaphor can be applied to just about any situation where there is strife, and where people are struggling to survive against seemingly irrepressible odds.

One powerful example of this is Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl who lived in Pakistan's Northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and who stood up against the Taliban militants who controlled the region. When the Taliban decreed that girls were to be banned from receiving an education, and started to destroy schools in the area, she began to write a blog about life under the regime.  She also protested strongly against their archaic laws on Facebook and other social media. She wrote her blog for the BBC under a pseudonym, but unfortunately, the Taliban soon discovered her identity. In October 2012, as the teenager was returning home, Taliban gunmen attempted to assassinate her, shooting her in the head and neck.  She was airlifted to hospital, and although in a critical condition and unconscious for a period of time, she survived the surgery and after also receiving specialist treatment in a British hospital, recovered from her injuries. The Taliban were unrepentant, reiterating their plan to murder her (and members of her family), considering her a clear threat to their regime.

Many others, especially young people might, understandably, have abandoned their crusade at that point, intimidated by the threats from the Taliban gunmen. But Malala did not yield. She had the courage and conviction to stand her ground, and now campaigns openly and vigorously for free education for all. She is an inspiration to millions around the world, has addressed the United Nations Assembly, and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. She has now established the Malala Fund for Girls' Education, and a biographical film about her life is currently in production. Malala's courageous stand has already made a huge impact on education around the world. Schools have been re-established in many places where they were once closed, and world leaders have caught her vision to campaign for free education for all, regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity. Malala is truly a tree standing alone in the midst of destruction, resilient and unyielding. At her young age, she is an agent for change, surviving and succeeding against all the odds.

One of Malala's most memorable quotes to date is: 'books will defeat terrorism'. I hope she inspires you as much as she has inspired me.

'Standing up for what you believe in, sometimes means standing alone'

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


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

Standing alone

While driving through the forests of Northern Romania several years ago, I came across a large swathe of trees that had died. I asked my guide what the problem was, and was told it was the result of acid rain. Pollutants from local factories had risen into the atmosphere, distilled in the rain clouds and had then descended onto the forests as a corrosive agent, destroying and damaging large tracts of foliage. In such a beautifully lush forest, the dead trees looked rather unsightly, and served as a reminder of the destruction we have brought to our environment through unchecked fossil-fuelled large-scale industrial processing. And yet, in amongst the large scale destruction, surprisingly, the occasional green tree stood, somehow defiant and resilient against the acid rain. Years later, thinking back on how incongruous this seemed to me at the time, I can now see how the acid rain trees story can be applied as a potent metaphor. You see, in even the most strident incidences of widespread oppression, disaster or destruction, there will often be elements of society that will resist, and there will be some who remain untouched. Life goes on. Some survive, against all odds. Some even grow stronger. Such a metaphor can be applied to just about any situation where there is strife, and where people are struggling to survive against seemingly irrepressible odds.

One powerful example of this is Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl who lived in Pakistan's Northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and who stood up against the Taliban militants who controlled the region. When the Taliban decreed that girls were to be banned from receiving an education, and started to destroy schools in the area, she began to write a blog about life under the regime.  She also protested strongly against their archaic laws on Facebook and other social media. She wrote her blog for the BBC under a pseudonym, but unfortunately, the Taliban soon discovered her identity. In October 2012, as the teenager was returning home, Taliban gunmen attempted to assassinate her, shooting her in the head and neck.  She was airlifted to hospital, and although in a critical condition and unconscious for a period of time, she survived the surgery and after also receiving specialist treatment in a British hospital, recovered from her injuries. The Taliban were unrepentant, reiterating their plan to murder her (and members of her family), considering her a clear threat to their regime.

Many others, especially young people might, understandably, have abandoned their crusade at that point, intimidated by the threats from the Taliban gunmen. But Malala did not yield. She had the courage and conviction to stand her ground, and now campaigns openly and vigorously for free education for all. She is an inspiration to millions around the world, has addressed the United Nations Assembly, and was nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. She has now established the Malala Fund for Girls' Education, and a biographical film about her life is currently in production. Malala's courageous stand has already made a huge impact on education around the world. Schools have been re-established in many places where they were once closed, and world leaders have caught her vision to campaign for free education for all, regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity. Malala is truly a tree standing alone in the midst of destruction, resilient and unyielding. At her young age, she is an agent for change, surviving and succeeding against all the odds.

One of Malala's most memorable quotes to date is: 'books will defeat terrorism'. I hope she inspires you as much as she has inspired me.

'Standing up for what you believe in, sometimes means standing alone'

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


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

Digital assignments: How shall we grade them?

A couple of years ago, I took the decision to encourage students to submit their assignments in forms other than the traditional, paper based essay. It was about time. Should we persist in assessing students in modes of communication they may never use in the real world? I therefore decided to give them different opportunities to express their learning. Many of the modules I teach at my university deal with alternative methods of learning and teaching, and focus a great deal on new and emerging technologies. It was therefore both opportune and appropriate that I should lock assessment into the mode of learning and the subject matter. That year, one or two students from the group were courageous enough to accept my challenge, and submitted their assignments in the form of blogs. Most played safe and kept to the familiar pathway by submitting standard essays, which was not a problem. Last year, several more students submitted their assignments in blog format, and one or two created videos as their assignments. I believe it's a trend that will grow in pace. Over the next few academic years I predict that submitting assignments in alternative digital formats will become the norm. Then they won't be 'alternative' any more.

Clearly, there are several questions to contemplate here.

The first question is how do you grade these assignments, if they are not presented in traditional essay mode? On this issue, you need to agree with students prior to submission over what the assessment criteria are, and exactly for what the marks are going to be awarded. These criteria must be equalised across all the possible submission formats. How for example, have you agreed an equivalency for wordcount in a video? How should a blog be structured and sequenced, when there may be several non-linear posts contained within it? Would a hyperlink in a blog be equivalent to a reference in an essay? It may be prudent to present your students with model assignments in blog, video, wiki and other non-traditional formats so they can see what they need to be aiming at. Modelling best practice is a very powerful approach and if applied appropriately can offer cognitive apprenticeship to learners.

The second question is how can you ensure that students put the equivalent cognitive effort into say, a video, as they would into a 4000 word assignment? Can a 5 minute video contain the same level and quality of academic discussion as a 2000 word essay? Or is it an easier option? Firstly, you need yourself to be aware of what is possible within the formats and technologies that students will use. How difficult is it for example, to put a voice-over track or a music track onto a video, or overlay captions? If you don't know what the issues are, and the effort involved, you may be fooled into thinking students have worked hard (or not hard enough) to achieve the end product. Secondly, over a course of several months, it may be a good strategy to require students to create assignments in several formats, so they gain an insight into what each can afford, and acquire skills in presenting their academic ideas and arguments in several formats.

Whatever you decide to do, it will be imperative that you ensure all assessment criteria are applied equally across all assignments, no matter what wrapper they are presented in. I'm quite clear with my students. Good structure, good grammar and readability (or watchability), critical analysis and evaluation, good data application and presentation, clear arguments and acknowledgement of sources - must all be evidenced in the assignment I give to my students, in no matter what format it is presented.

There are further, procedural and administrative issues that each institution will need to deal with. What if support services cannot (or will not) accommodate the submission of non-paper assignments? What if your external examiner is unwilling to accept blogs, wikis or videos as legitimate academic evidence of learning? For the first issue, it all depends on how your admin system is set up. Usually a few words or friendly discussion with the relevant manager will be enough to adjust systems to enable admin staff to process non-linear and/or non-paper based assignments. For the second issue - I would advise that you to change your external examiner.

I'm certain this is not complete. Please feel free to add your own ideas and advice in the comments box below.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Digital assignments: How shall we grade them? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital assignments: How shall we grade them?

A couple of years ago, I took the decision to encourage students to submit their assignments in forms other than the traditional, paper based essay. It was about time. Should we persist in assessing students in modes of communication they may never use in the real world? I therefore decided to give them different opportunities to express their learning. Many of the modules I teach at my university deal with alternative methods of learning and teaching, and focus a great deal on new and emerging technologies. It was therefore both opportune and appropriate that I should lock assessment into the mode of learning and the subject matter. That year, one or two students from the group were courageous enough to accept my challenge, and submitted their assignments in the form of blogs. Most played safe and kept to the familiar pathway by submitting standard essays, which was not a problem. Last year, several more students submitted their assignments in blog format, and one or two created videos as their assignments. I believe it's a trend that will grow in pace. Over the next few academic years I predict that submitting assignments in alternative digital formats will become the norm. Then they won't be 'alternative' any more.

Clearly, there are several questions to contemplate here.

The first question is how do you grade these assignments, if they are not presented in traditional essay mode? On this issue, you need to agree with students prior to submission over what the assessment criteria are, and exactly for what the marks are going to be awarded. These criteria must be equalised across all the possible submission formats. How for example, have you agreed an equivalency for wordcount in a video? How should a blog be structured and sequenced, when there may be several non-linear posts contained within it? Would a hyperlink in a blog be equivalent to a reference in an essay? It may be prudent to present your students with model assignments in blog, video, wiki and other non-traditional formats so they can see what they need to be aiming at. Modelling best practice is a very powerful approach and if applied appropriately can offer cognitive apprenticeship to learners.

The second question is how can you ensure that students put the equivalent cognitive effort into say, a video, as they would into a 4000 word assignment? Can a 5 minute video contain the same level and quality of academic discussion as a 2000 word essay? Or is it an easier option? Firstly, you need yourself to be aware of what is possible within the formats and technologies that students will use. How difficult is it for example, to put a voice-over track or a music track onto a video, or overlay captions? If you don't know what the issues are, and the effort involved, you may be fooled into thinking students have worked hard (or not hard enough) to achieve the end product. Secondly, over a course of several months, it may be a good strategy to require students to create assignments in several formats, so they gain an insight into what each can afford, and acquire skills in presenting their academic ideas and arguments in several formats.

Whatever you decide to do, it will be imperative that you ensure all assessment criteria are applied equally across all assignments, no matter what wrapper they are presented in. I'm quite clear with my students. Good structure, good grammar and readability (or watchability), critical analysis and evaluation, good data application and presentation, clear arguments and acknowledgement of sources - must all be evidenced in the assignment I give to my students, in no matter what format it is presented.

There are further, procedural and administrative issues that each institution will need to deal with. What if support services cannot (or will not) accommodate the submission of non-paper assignments? What if your external examiner is unwilling to accept blogs, wikis or videos as legitimate academic evidence of learning? For the first issue, it all depends on how your admin system is set up. Usually a few words or friendly discussion with the relevant manager will be enough to adjust systems to enable admin staff to process non-linear and/or non-paper based assignments. For the second issue - I would advise that you to change your external examiner.

I'm certain this is not complete. Please feel free to add your own ideas and advice in the comments box below.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Digital assignments: How shall we grade them? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learners as producers

For the longest time teachers and lecturers have held the monopoly on the production of academic content. They create lesson plans, produce resources, devise marking schemes and search around for activities and games they can repurpose to use in teaching sessions. Although the production of content has been the preserve of the teacher and the academic since the formalisation of education, increasingly, we also see learners creating their own content. They have the tools, they own the technology, and they have the confidence to use them, not only informally, but increasingly in formal learning contexts. Many are prolific and proficient in producing blogs, podcasts, videos and photos for sharing on the web. They can do it all using the simple smartphone in their pocket. This user generated content trend is apparent not only in universities and colleges but also in the compulsory education sectors.

What are the implications of this trend? There are many of course, but in this post I want to draw your attention to just 5 key areas which I believe educators need to pay attention to.

Firstly, the traditional role of teachers is changing. Teachers won't be redundant in the new technology rich learning economy, but they will need to adapt as conditions change, becoming guides and mentors rather than instructors. As teachers switch from directors to co-producers, from pedagogues to co-learners, they begin to realise the power of peer production, and the deeper engagement students can achieve when they research and learn for themselves. This shift was going to happen anyway, even before learners started to create their own content. Teacher roles have been moving from didactic to facilitative roles ever since constructivist theories started to enter into teacher training curricula.

Secondly, as partly as a result of the first trend, learners are becoming more central to the learning process. Where once students were seen as the passive recipients, and end products of schooling, now they are an integral part of the learning process and play an active role in their own education. Students are assuming greater responsibility for their own learning, and in so doing, are gaining greater insights into the process of learning by creating their own content around their studies. Personalised learning and the student experience are central components in the mission statements of many leading universities worldwide. Student centred learning is clearly where education providers recognise they should locate themselves. Teachers now need to wake up to the fact that they don't teach subjects, they teach people.

Thirdly, content can become more engaging because students invest their own time, energy and vision into creating it. That gives them personal ownership of their learning. They place their own individual stamp on the content they create, and then share it within their personal learning environment and across their peer network. Thereby, in gaining an audience for their content, they are spurred on further to develop, refine and perfect not only their content, but indirectly and probably unwittingly, their understanding of the knowledge that content contains. There is little that is more motivating than gaining an audience that appreciates your knowledge and skills. Social media tools such as blogs and video sharing sites facilitate this process, but on a global scale.

Fourthly, students are becoming evaluators as well as producers of learning content. Because they produce content, they also consume content, and this puts them in an ideal position to assess the quality, relevance and provenance of the content they encounter. Also, many learners find out how to produce their content to an acceptable standard by evaluating other people's content, and although useful guidance can come from experts such as teachers and lecturers, increasingly, auto-didacticism is taking a central place in the student experience.

Finally, the context in which the content is produced is assuming more importance. The importance of the situatedness of learning at all levels cannot be overemphasised. Some of the strongest experiences and lessons we learn are rooted in authentic contexts, cultures and activities. In work-based learning this is particularly vital, as it enables workers to embed themselves within their culture of their work and learn more deeply about the social, political, technical and economic contexts that are specific to their employment.

Some readers may argue that this is an idealistic position to adopt regarding self learning and user generated content. My response would be - look around you and see what is happening inside and outside the classroom. Learners are more resilient and able than many teachers give them credit for. They have unprecedented access to a large array of new technologies. They connect and communicate in ways previous generations could only imagine. Most importantly, creating, repurposing, organising and sharing content are a way of life for this generation. They are identified and maintain their identities through their social media and are very familiar with the terrain. Schools, colleges and universities that support the ethos of student generated content will find themselves tapping directly into the rich motherlode of creativity and innovation this generation of learners offers.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


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

Learners as producers

For the longest time teachers and lecturers have held the monopoly on the production of academic content. They create lesson plans, produce resources, devise marking schemes and search around for activities and games they can repurpose to use in teaching sessions. Although the production of content has been the preserve of the teacher and the academic since the formalisation of education, increasingly, we also see learners creating their own content. They have the tools, they own the technology, and they have the confidence to use them, not only informally, but increasingly in formal learning contexts. Many are prolific and proficient in producing blogs, podcasts, videos and photos for sharing on the web. They can do it all using the simple smartphone in their pocket. This user generated content trend is apparent not only in universities and colleges but also in the compulsory education sectors.

What are the implications of this trend? There are many of course, but in this post I want to draw your attention to just 5 key areas which I believe educators need to pay attention to.

Firstly, the traditional role of teachers is changing. Teachers won't be redundant in the new technology rich learning economy, but they will need to adapt as conditions change, becoming guides and mentors rather than instructors. As teachers switch from directors to co-producers, from pedagogues to co-learners, they begin to realise the power of peer production, and the deeper engagement students can achieve when they research and learn for themselves. This shift was going to happen anyway, even before learners started to create their own content. Teacher roles have been moving from didactic to facilitative roles ever since constructivist theories started to enter into teacher training curricula.

Secondly, as partly as a result of the first trend, learners are becoming more central to the learning process. Where once students were seen as the passive recipients, and end products of schooling, now they are an integral part of the learning process and play an active role in their own education. Students are assuming greater responsibility for their own learning, and in so doing, are gaining greater insights into the process of learning by creating their own content around their studies. Personalised learning and the student experience are central components in the mission statements of many leading universities worldwide. Student centred learning is clearly where education providers recognise they should locate themselves. Teachers now need to wake up to the fact that they don't teach subjects, they teach people.

Thirdly, content can become more engaging because students invest their own time, energy and vision into creating it. That gives them personal ownership of their learning. They place their own individual stamp on the content they create, and then share it within their personal learning environment and across their peer network. Thereby, in gaining an audience for their content, they are spurred on further to develop, refine and perfect not only their content, but indirectly and probably unwittingly, their understanding of the knowledge that content contains. There is little that is more motivating than gaining an audience that appreciates your knowledge and skills. Social media tools such as blogs and video sharing sites facilitate this process, but on a global scale.

Fourthly, students are becoming evaluators as well as producers of learning content. Because they produce content, they also consume content, and this puts them in an ideal position to assess the quality, relevance and provenance of the content they encounter. Also, many learners find out how to produce their content to an acceptable standard by evaluating other people's content, and although useful guidance can come from experts such as teachers and lecturers, increasingly, auto-didacticism is taking a central place in the student experience.

Finally, the context in which the content is produced is assuming more importance. The importance of the situatedness of learning at all levels cannot be overemphasised. Some of the strongest experiences and lessons we learn are rooted in authentic contexts, cultures and activities. In work-based learning this is particularly vital, as it enables workers to embed themselves within their culture of their work and learn more deeply about the social, political, technical and economic contexts that are specific to their employment.

Some readers may argue that this is an idealistic position to adopt regarding self learning and user generated content. My response would be - look around you and see what is happening inside and outside the classroom. Learners are more resilient and able than many teachers give them credit for. They have unprecedented access to a large array of new technologies. They connect and communicate in ways previous generations could only imagine. Most importantly, creating, repurposing, organising and sharing content are a way of life for this generation. They are identified and maintain their identities through their social media and are very familiar with the terrain. Schools, colleges and universities that support the ethos of student generated content will find themselves tapping directly into the rich motherlode of creativity and innovation this generation of learners offers.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


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

All just a click away?

Everything is just one click away. All knowledge, all learning, anything you want to know - can be found online. Have you ever sat down and watched a movie or a TV programme and then Googled the actors or directors to find out more about them? Ever listened to a track and then delved deeper to discover the meaning behind the music? If you have, then you are not alone. People do it all the time, because they can. You can track down resources, people, contacts, tunes, images, videos, quotes. As long as you are able to ask the right question and enter it into an appropriate search engine query box, you will find what you are looking for. That makes it easy. It saves us time. It's very convenient. But does that make it right? If knowledge is now so easy to come by, and we no longer have to strive to find it, do we still understand what we discover? Are we able to contextualise and critically evaluate knowledge if we find it online?

Increasingly, the use of the Internet and other digital tools is coming under the scrutiny of researchers. Some commentators hold the belief that searching for content online is 'dumbing down' education. Tara Brabazon for example argues that internet education is poisoning teaching and learning (see for example her book Digital Hemlock) and builds the case for a return to more traditional values of education. Nicholas Carr is another critic of the Internet and its effect on learning. In his book The Shallows, he argues that Google and other 'short cut' tools are damaging the way we think. Invoking the earlier work of Marshall McLuhan, Carr argues that digital media are dangerous when used regularly, and that they can insidiously alter the structure of the brain.

Others are more positive about the effects and influence of digital technology on learning. The web, they argue is capable not only of informing us of any knowledge or content we need, but can also change the way we learn, enabling us to search wider, perform personal research, and engage with the content in a rich social environment where peer learning occurs. Writers such as Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody) and Tapscott and Williams (Wikinomics)  espouse the use of digital media as as offering unprecedented opportunities to connect, crowdsource ideas and collaborate with others across the globe.

This from Tapscott and Williams: 'The knowledge, resources and computing power of billions of people are self-organising into a massive, new collective force. Interconnected and orchestrated via blogs, wikis, chat rooms, peer-to-peer networks, and personal broadcasting, the web is being reinvented to provide the world's first global platform for collaboration.' (sleeve notes, Wikinomics)

This argument relates more to context than it does to the content based arguments proposed by Carr and Brabazon, and tends to be the view adopted by many of the new generation of Internet users. It tends to be a compelling argument, given the global needs of society and the expediency for worldwide communication on issues that will ultimately affect us all. The question is: can we harness the power and potential of the Internet to make a difference, to provide new and previously unavailable education for the world? Some would argue that this is already happening, whilst others argue that this is the wrong way to proceed. What are your views on this important question? Is all knowledge just one click away? And if it is, should we be celebrating it, or cautioning against this easy to come by learning?

Photo from Public Domain Images


All just a click away? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

All just a click away?

Everything is just one click away. All knowledge, all learning, anything you want to know - can be found online. Have you ever sat down and watched a movie or a TV programme and then Googled the actors or directors to find out more about them? Ever listened to a track and then delved deeper to discover the meaning behind the music? If you have, then you are not alone. People do it all the time, because they can. You can track down resources, people, contacts, tunes, images, videos, quotes. As long as you are able to ask the right question and enter it into an appropriate search engine query box, you will find what you are looking for. That makes it easy. It saves us time. It's very convenient. But does that make it right? If knowledge is now so easy to come by, and we no longer have to strive to find it, do we still understand what we discover? Are we able to contextualise and critically evaluate knowledge if we find it online?

Increasingly, the use of the Internet and other digital tools is coming under the scrutiny of researchers. Some commentators hold the belief that searching for content online is 'dumbing down' education. Tara Brabazon for example argues that internet education is poisoning teaching and learning (see for example her book Digital Hemlock) and builds the case for a return to more traditional values of education. Nicholas Carr is another critic of the Internet and its effect on learning. In his book The Shallows, he argues that Google and other 'short cut' tools are damaging the way we think. Invoking the earlier work of Marshall McLuhan, Carr argues that digital media are dangerous when used regularly, and that they can insidiously alter the structure of the brain.

Others are more positive about the effects and influence of digital technology on learning. The web, they argue is capable not only of informing us of any knowledge or content we need, but can also change the way we learn, enabling us to search wider, perform personal research, and engage with the content in a rich social environment where peer learning occurs. Writers such as Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody) and Tapscott and Williams (Wikinomics)  espouse the use of digital media as as offering unprecedented opportunities to connect, crowdsource ideas and collaborate with others across the globe.

This from Tapscott and Williams: 'The knowledge, resources and computing power of billions of people are self-organising into a massive, new collective force. Interconnected and orchestrated via blogs, wikis, chat rooms, peer-to-peer networks, and personal broadcasting, the web is being reinvented to provide the world's first global platform for collaboration.' (sleeve notes, Wikinomics)

This argument relates more to context than it does to the content based arguments proposed by Carr and Brabazon, and tends to be the view adopted by many of the new generation of Internet users. It tends to be a compelling argument, given the global needs of society and the expediency for worldwide communication on issues that will ultimately affect us all. The question is: can we harness the power and potential of the Internet to make a difference, to provide new and previously unavailable education for the world? Some would argue that this is already happening, whilst others argue that this is the wrong way to proceed. What are your views on this important question? Is all knowledge just one click away? And if it is, should we be celebrating it, or cautioning against this easy to come by learning?

Photo from Public Domain Images


All just a click away? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Diversity or conformity?

'You can have it in any colour you like, so long as it's black' - Henry Ford on the Model T Ford Motorcar.

Henry Ford built motor vehicles. He was very good at it. The cars were identical, and due to the economy of scale and the industrial process he devised, they were affordable for many, but still made a sizeable profit for Ford's company. His large scale industrial model rationalised resources, processed in batches, maximised the labour of his work force and minimised errors and guesswork. The result was the Model T Ford - a car that was driven by a diverse population, but each one looked exactly the same. This idea, when applied to other production processes, was known as Fordism, and it's now a byword for conformity and massification.

What about education? Ask anyone. We live in a diverse world. We are all unique individuals. Each of us has his or her own specific abilities and talents, preferences, desires and aspirations. These should be nurtured and encouraged, especially during our formative years. And yet many schools are based on the Fordist principles of conformity and massification. State funded education, said Nietzsche, is often mediocre for the same reasons that cooking in large kitchens is poor. Even with the best teachers and the highest aspirations, state funded education is still about lack of attention to detail, and a push to serve up a 'one size fits all' education. Children are required to perform according to the expectations of the school system, teachers, parents, society. It doesn't start with the mind. Insidiously, this indoctrination starts even before they arrive at school, through the way children are required to dress. Children in British schools are all expected to attend school dressed exactly the same, in the dreaded school uniform. The school coerces uniform behaviour through the symbolic act of uniform wearing. This often creates more problems than it addresses. School uniforms place an inordinate strain on the finances of many families who have to purchase the school uniform. Again and again. Throughout a child's formal education. I should know, having put three of my own kids through school, with new purchases required year in year out, to take into consideration; child growth, normal wear and tear and impromptu muddy football matches.

Another conformity device is the school bell. When it rings, the entire population of the school moves en masse to another location to start another activity. The school is ruled by that audio signal. When the bell sounds at 1300 hours, you had better be hungry, because it's lunchtime! No running in the corridors! No loitering outside the science lab! Do you have a hall pass? Clearly, there are logistical issues to consider if we are to safely and effectively manage a volatile school population of over 1000 young people, but surely there are less militaristic ways to operate? When will we see schools acting less like prisons or military bases, and more like places where learning can actually be enjoyed?

Lessons are all conducted the same way, at the same pace (we have a lot to get through today...), and for those who are not quick enough it can be a regular nightmare. To address this problem teachers have to place children into 'sets' or 'streams' and teach souped up or dumbed down versions of each lesson to cope with the bright and less bright students. That's because schools insist on batch processing kids on the basis of their age and not their ability. Just another example of the Fordist principles schools are based on.

Standardised testing is yet another outcome of the conformity doctrine. Schools are meant to be places where children can gain education for the whole person, preparation for life. And yet standardised testing, in all its forms, is designed to capture a narrow, quantifiable impression of children's abilities. More often than not, it is a memory test, a snapshot of what they know there and then. Teaching to the test is a symptom of that doctrine. It's a way of ensuring that a school's achievement record is kept within the parameters of standards demanded by the funding body. It's where hard pressed and stressed teachers simply cover what is expected to come up in the exams. It's like teaching students to paint one picture over and over again, at the expense of learning the art of painting.

We are all different and have different interests, but somehow, school has succeeded in compartmentalising these interests into subjects, and this militates against holistic understanding of the world. How will children know that science and art have many connections, or that music and physics have a lot on common, if the subjects are taught differently, at different times and in vastly different environments? How will children express their individuality and creativity, if they are all expected to produce exactly the same products to 'prove' their learning, in identical formats, at precisely the same time each year?

It is clear that schools should be founded on diversity not on conformity. Yet to achieve this involves not only a strong consideration of the development of individuals and their specific abilities, but also on the need for each school to create its own distinct identity within its community. How can this be encouraged and supported?

Firstly, schools need good leadership, and each school leader needs to understand that school is only the beginning of the journey of lifelong learning. Get it wrong in school, and young people can be turned off from the joy of learning for a life time. Get it right, and children grow into informed, responsible adults whose innate curiosity and creativity are perpetuated for a life time. School leaders who understand this will do all they can to ensure that the school environment nurtures curiosity and transforms it into enquiry based learning of the highest order. Head teachers and principals who embrace the ethos of diversity will encourage their teams to provide opportunities for children to be creative, whatever the subject, wherever they are.

Secondly, educational systems need to change. Once and for all, we need to reject the standardised testing and 'terminal' assessment approaches to measuring children's knowledge, and instead concentrate on developing fair and appropriate testing that is continuous, ability specific and personalised. I wrote previously about some alternative assessment approaches in a blog entitled Fair Measures some time ago. Let's stop branding children as failures during their formative years, and instead celebrate their successes against their own previous attainment levels.

Thirdly, we need to celebrate diversity in all its forms. Every child has something to offer, a unique capability, a special contribution they can bring. As psychologist Carl Rogers once argued, all children should be unconditionally accepted with positive regard. Children need to know that they are valued for who they are, not just for what they do, and that they are accepted into the community of learning. They need to know that school is just the start of their long journey to discovery, and that failure is just another way of learning how to get it right in the end. Teaching them tenacity, patience, the ability to apply creative solutions to problems and positive regard for their peers is infinitely more rewarding than teaching them multiplication tables.

Rant over. What are your views?

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Diversity or conformity? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Sharpest tools in the box

One of the longest running radio programmes on the BBC is Desert Island Discs. It has been on air almost every week since 1942, and it's remarkable to see that it has maintained its popularity for over 70 years. The secret of the programme is in its simplicity. Each programme features an interview with a celebrity, who is invited to bring a list of their 8 favourite music tracks and during the show they talk about why they chose them, thereby giving their listening audience an insight into their lives.

It would be easy to reproduce the same radio format using other favourite items. How about 8 favourite movies, or 8 favourite TV programmes? It would perhaps be interesting to hear about people's 8 favourite meals, or the 8 books they couldn't do without. What about technology? If I were to ask you what are the sharpest tools in your box, what would you say? What would be the 8 technologies you couldn't possibly do without?

Here are my 8 essential tools:

1) Twitter, because as I recently said in a YouTube video, it is immediate, social and personal. It connects me to my personal learning network (PLN) and is simple to use.
2) My laptops. I have an old, faithful laptop called Keith, which is now sadly in retirement, but still used occasionally to write a blog post. I also have a Netbook (known as Nigel), which is now on more or less permanent duty connected to my flatscreen television to display large screen live Twitter feeds in my home office. The laptop I now work on most of the time is my Chromebook (which has no name - it would be silly to give a Chromebook a name; they have no memory, they have no soul).
3) My iPad, which accompanies me on all my travels, keeping me in touch with e-mail, Twitter and other sites I visit regularly during a working day. It's all about connection.
4) Blogger, my blogging tool which hosts this blog and several more I run. My blog is my publishing tool, allowing me to get my thoughts and ideas out into the public where they can be discussed with others in my PLN.
5) YouTube. I discover so much great content on YouTube, and am also increasingly using it as a platform to share my own video blogs. YouTube is so simple to use, and so versatile and becomes a personal television broadcast channel for many. OK, there is a lot of rubbish on there, but if you use your digital literacies to discern the good from the bad, you'll find it is an incredible resource for learning and teaching.
6) My iPhone. I only use it for phone calls and texting and it's now officially obsolete, because it is an iPhone first edition. It may be worth something in a few years time, mainly as a museum piece.
7) Google. Many of the Google suite of tools have become quite important in my working day. Google Docs is great for sharing and collaborating on documents, and Google Scholar is good for keeping up with citations, publications and metrics. It goes without saying that Google search for me, is still one of the most powerful and far reaching tools I have discovered online.
8) My multi-standard power plug adaptor. It can be used in any country, and can connect any device to the power source of the country I am visiting. It has multiple interchangeable inputs and outputs. It even houses two USB connectors for my iPhone and iPad to charge up. I travel the world, and wouldn't be able to use any of the above tools easily if I didn't take it with me everywhere.

So those are my top 8 tools. Those are the 8 technologies I take with me everywhere I travel. Sure, I could do without most, if not all of them, but it would take a lot of adaptation, and I'm finding it hard to remember a time when I didn't have them, they all make my working life so much easier. What have I left out? Well, email and the Microsoft Office certainly, because Google tools can replace them easily. What are your 8 top tools?

Photo by Eric Bjerke


Sharpest tools in the box by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Life thru a lens

Frequent visitors to this blog will have noticed that over the last few weeks I've been videoblogging (or vlogging). I first started playing with video in the late 1970s, when I began to use it to train teachers. That was where I first learnt about editing, lighting, audio recording and producing video content. I decided some time ago that when I had some time, I would get back to my roots, and put together a series of '101' type short videos on subjects that relate closely to education and technology. That opportunity arose during the summer holidays of 2013. I wanted the videos to be watchable, so to simplify the process and product, I decided that each video would feature just 3 key points - '3 things you should know...' - and I ensured that none of them was more than 3 minutes in duration. So far I have produced 4 videos and there are several more in the pipeline. I was quite surprised by the quick success I achieved when I posted them up onto YouTube. In just two weeks, there have been over 8,500 blog visits and over 2,500 views YouTube views. That may not sound like many in the grand scheme of viral videos, but for a specialist, niche subject, that ain't too bad.

The four videos, in their sequence are 3 things you should know about Twitter, 3 things you should know about blogging, 3 things you should know about digital literacies, and 3 things you should know about Edupunk. The first was recorded in one single take, which is easier said than done. For the rest of the videos I enlisted the support of my 18 year old son Sam, who is excellent behind the camera, and makes some creative suggestions during shooting. I have kept the production simple too. I write a simple script with a few guideline points and follow it loosely during recording. We shoot the videos out of sequence, using a Flip Cam, and I edit them using Microsoft Moviemaker, and then upload them straight to YouTube. The Edupunk video has been the most challenging to date, because I wanted to shoot it and edit it in the style of the punk genre, with plenty of fast edits, moving images, grafitti wall backdrops and edgy camera angles. I'm very pleased with that one. It's quick and dirty, amateurish and in keeping with the 'do it yourself' ethos that was epitomised in the punk rock movement of the 1970s.

Now I would like to enlist your help too. I'm looking for my next challenge. What other subjects would you like to see covered in the series? I will consider all and any topics, provided they are relevant to learning technology, school or education, and treat them in the same style, with '3 things you should know...' points succinctly made. Please let me know what you think of the videos, and also what you think I should cover next.

Photo by Popperipopp


Life thru a lens by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Enjoy your trip?

A recent BBC news article highlights the persistence of negative school experiences in the memories of adults. Recollections of bad experiences like being bullied or pranked tend to linger longer in our minds than much of what we learnt in the classroom, it suggests. It rang true with me. Things that seemed amusing to other children left emotional scars on me. Being deliberately tripped up in the corridor, falling flat on my face in front of several dozen laughing classmates, and then being asked 'did you enjoy your trip?' was humiliating.

Personally, I can also recall some of the bad teaching experiences quite vividly. It wasn't just the contact with certain overbearing teachers that had an effect on this diffident child. Looking back, I can also recall some of the poor pedagogy that we were subjected to. When ever I see the Simpsons kids going on a school trip to the box factory, I remember the day trip we took to Wilton carpet factory when I was in Year 5 at Cherhill Primary School in Wiltshire. On reflection, I can't remember a thing we learnt about life, science or culture. All I remember was being shepherded around a huge hot factory full of noisy machines, whilst one of the employees assigned to be our guide droned on and on (inaudibly) about the manufacture of floor coverings. We were just glad to get outside into the clear air and away from the noise. All I learnt from the trip was that I never, ever wanted to work in a hot, noisy factory. This leads me to ask a question: Are school trips worth the effort and the expense? What exactly do these realia experiences actually help children to learn? More cynically, are school trips simply a way for teachers to 'take a day off' from teaching?

I'm being provocative of course, but let me answer my own question by recounting a school trip I enjoyed when I was living in Holland. It was 1973 and I was in my final year at AFCENT International School (now AFNORTH) in the South of Holland, and my entire year group went for a day trip to the futuristic, Philips Evoluon (pictured) in Eindhoven. At that time, the Philips 'Flying Saucer' was a science and technology museum and demonstration centre. Rumour had it that the Dutch electronics company had built it as a tax dodge, so it could lose money and then claim back on the loss. Instead, the Evoluon became a roaring success and people travelled from all over Europe to see it. Starting at the ground floor reception, we were all issued with a pair of headphones and a cassette tape player, on which a guide (in our own language) talked us around the exhibits. This was in itself quite a departure from the museums of the time, most of which simply handed you a leaflet to guide you around. We then proceeded to the glass lift (yes, it was totally transparent) which took us up to the top floor. Emerging, we explored the history of technology, from the cave dwelling art of Neolithic times, right up to the most recent, and proposed technological developments, as we progressed down, floor by floor.

Certain experiences from that day are still vivid in my memory. I saw videoconferencing for the first time, and used it to talk to my friends who were in a room just down the corridor. It was a crude representation of what would eventually be possible, and was simply a camera, TV and microphone connected to the other room, but it captured our imagination, and I remember thinking that this would one day be how we communicated with each other across the globe. Out imagination was fuelled even more when later that year we saw the first episodes of Star Trek, where people conversed with each other with full motion sound and vision. Whenever I see or use a video link today, my thoughts go back to that first experience in Holland.

Other exhibits also caught my attention. There was a demonstration where one of the staff bounced a rubber ball on the floor, and then immersed it into liquid nitrogen. Seconds later, he retrieved it and smashed it on the floor as though it was earthenware. I also remember watching a robot very slowly drilling holes in a piece of perspex that eventually became a graphic representation of the Evoluon.  I waited patiently for about 20 minutes until it had finished, and was then rewarded when it deposited the perspex in the receptacle. I took it home with me, and was offered tempting sums of money by some of my friends on the bus home to part with it. I still have that robot created piece of art in my possession to this day.

The entire experience at the Philips Flying Saucer changed me. I only spent a few hours there, but it is still massive in my mind, a lifetime later. I became interested in science and technology and began to collect books, models, artefacts, experiments - and I avidly read more and more about technology and the future. I really believe that that school trip was the catalyst that shaped me into who I am today. It is ironic that I failed all my science exams and left school later that year with very few academic qualifications. That didn't matter to me. What was most important for me was that I had the seed of ideas in my head, and a new found fascination for discovering new things. I now had a passion for science and technology, that became the drive for my later career as an academic working in technology and education. It's just a pity that kind of school trip didn't take place earlier in my school career.

You see, I made the link between the school trip, and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It excited and inspired me. For me, that is the power of the school trip. But it has to be meaningful to be effective. It has to have some sound pedagogy to underpin it. So teacher, the next time you plan a school trip for your students, make sure it is to somewhere exciting, relevant and potentially inspiring. No more carpet factories please!

Photos by Lee Morley and Stephane Gaudry


Enjoy your trip? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

3 things you should know about Edupunk

Following on in my series of short '3 things' videos, I thought I would have a little fun (well, I am on holiday right now), and so I went out and recorded this video on Edupunk. Although it's treated in a fun way, Edupunk has a serious underpinning. Those who are involved in the 'do it yourself' approach to learning will tell you that there is quite a struggle going on right now between institutions and individuals over what tools to use for the serious business of lifelong learning. Should we use centralised services and endure all the constraints that accompany them, or should we instead use our own patchwork collection of tools, loosely aggregated social media and handheld personal devices that give us freedom, but at a price? There is also a belief that, just as the music industry of the late 1970s was stagnating, so the education system of the early 21st Century is in need of a reboot. Punk rock revitalised the 70s music scene and, say its adherents, Edupunk can do the same today with our tired education system.

My previous writings around Edupunk can be found in Edupunk stalks the institution (which details the tensions highlighted above) and also elsewhere on this blog. I hope you enjoy this different, 'bricolage' approach to making videos - it's not perfect, but it was never intended to be. Please let me know what you think about the concept and its treatment in the comments box below.

Photo by Steve Wheeler



3 things you should know about Edupunk by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

3 things you should know about digital literacies

This is a continuation in my '3 things' short video series. If you follow this blog you will know that I wrote a series of posts last year on digital literacies. Many people confuse literacies with skills or competencies, but as you will see in the video I made below, they are different. For me literacies go beyond and deeper than skills and competencies, enabling users to assimilate into unfamiliar and challenging new cultures and environments. We have a bewildering array of digital media at our fingertips, but to use these tools effectively takes a lot of practice, critical thinking and immersion in the culture before we can claim to be literate in them. Also, many of us need to be able to discern the difference between good and bad content online, to be able to navigate effectively around digital spaces and to be able to create, remix, organise and share content effectively. How much practice do we need using these tools before we can claim to be literate? Below is a short video which I hope will help people to deepen their own understanding of what it really means to be a digital citizen. As ever, your comments are most welcome in the comments box below.



3 things you should know about digital literacies by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Go your own way

Here's a little confession: I have always been a bit of a rebel. I'm not keen on too many rules and structures being imposed, and I have a healthy disrespect for authority. I have always been that way, and I don't mind admitting it. I have been labelled an Edupunk because I practise bricolage, the 'do it yourself' approach to personal learning, and this manifests itself in my professional practice too. If someone says to me 'it can't be done', or 'you shouldn't do that', I will probably try to do it anyway (sometimes twice) just to prove them wrong, because I'm bloody minded like that. Give me a boundary and I will try to climb it, undermine it or circumvent it in some way. That's just the kind of person I have turned out to be. This personality trait doesn't endear me to particular people, and I'm not that popular in certain circles, but I don't lose that much sleep over it. From as far back as I can remember, I have not been dependent upon other people, and although like everyone else, I care what others think about me, I have always gone my own way regardless, choosing the way that in my judgement, I think is best for me. That is the reason I have evangelised for personal learning environments, and have openly criticised many of the institutional constraints I see being imposed upon learners of all ages.

It was with great interest then, that I read Helen Crump's blog post today. Entitled Rhizomatic me, a learning nomad, it focuses on self determined learning, and draws on the work of Dave Cormier (and the theories he drew on from the post-modernistic thinking of Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari around Rhizomes, nomads and schizos). In this form of learning, as Helen explains, we each take on the disposition and behaviour of a nomad, (or indeed the Flânerie of Charles Baudelaire) wandering seemingly aimlessly in the space we create for ourselves, to discover what is important for us. This is reminiscent of the personal learning pathways I described in one of my own past blogposts. Helen explains:

'According to Dave Cormier, nomads (or those with a disposition for play as exploration) “have the ability to learn rhizomatically, to ‘self-reproduce’, to grow and change ideas as they explore new contexts”. So, what does “to learn rhizomatically” actually mean? And, where does the term come from? Well, rhizome refers to a way in which certain plants spread. Often understood as a creeping root stalks, rhizomes go out horizontally and interact with their environment. Certainly, they’re messy, disorderly and difficult to control, but at the same time they’re resilient and have a lot of important qualities, which allows them to adapt within their ecosystem. As such, rhizomes have come to represent a model for learning for uncertainty and, like the learning process of life itself, they’ve no beginning or end either.'

The rhizome is certainly a powerful metaphor for chaotic learning, and is personified in the nomad. Nomadic learning clearly appeals to many in the digital age, whether or not they recognise that that is what they are in fact doing. They don't have to be rebels or Edupunks either. Self directed creation, repurposing, organisating and sharing of content (i.e. user generated content) is one of the dominant modes of technology use in both formal and informal learning, and is increasingly pervasive throughout the Western World. The tools nomads have at their disposal (smart phones, mobile devices, social media) enable them to learn on the move, whenever they wish, in their own idiosyncratic styles, and at a pace that suits their personal preferences and lifestyles. As a result of this, some are questioning the future of formal education and the nature of knowledge and learning is being redefined. For many, 'going your own way' is becoming a very important lifestyle choice. How about you?

Photo by Kris Williams


Go your own way by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

3 things you should know about blogging

I'm on a crusade. I want to encourage as many educators as possible to engage online with their professional community. One of the best ways to do this is through blogging - sharing your thoughts, ideas, best practice, and so on, using a public online platform. Following on from various blog posts such as 7 reasons teachers should blog, and a recent video I produced called 3 things you should know about Twitter, here is another short video. I intend to produce more of these if people find them useful. Let me know what you think in the comments box below. Do watch the video, feel free to share it, comment on it, or use it in any constructive way you wish. And then get blogging!



3 things you should know about blogging by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creativity unleashed!

One of my workshops is proving particularly popular wherever I present it. It's a workshop about how to promote creativity in learning, and as you might imagine, I get the audience involved in lots of activities, exercises and games and give them some fun challenges and problems to solve. We also enjoy a lot of dialogue around questions that evolve during the workshop. I challenge teachers to tell me how they recognise when their learners are being creative. It's a difficult task, because most of the time we can't even agree what creativity is. Is music I don't like creative? What about graffiti on a wall? Or a new building design that I think is hideous? Creativity means different things to different people, and polarises our responses, and that is part of the appeal of discussing the topic. There are always some great answers in the workshops, such as: 'students are quiet and focused', 'they lose track of time', or 'they surprise me with great ideas or solutions'. I decided to crowd source some more comments from my Twitter community to see what teachers currently think about creativity and how best to promote it in formal learning contexts. What follows is a sample of the conversation:

I see students being creative when they challenge my own thinking. Emma Rutherford (@erutherford247), a teacher in Melbourne, Australia, said: 'Avoid 'guess what's in the teacher's head' - ask questions you DON'T already know the answers to'. London based Catherine Hughes (aka @CatherineHughe7) tweeted something similar today: 'their solution surprises, inspires, challenges me'. I agree that this is a tell tale sign of creativity in the classroom, but it's only one of many. I have challenged my own students to come up with something new, surprising or inspiring - and they don't disappoint me. In fact, I know my students are being creative when they teach me things I didn't know. That's a real bonus, but a teachers' professional pride has to be put to one side. Be humble and admit to them that you learnt from them. There is always more to learn.

Kim Pascoe (@acorns47) a nurse in Hampshire came up with the most comical response: 'When your tutor tells you to be creative with your artbook, so you tear out all the pages to make a paper mache model with it.' This reminds me of a conversation I heard on a train on Father's Day. A little girl two seats behind me was writing out her card to her Father, and her Mother was 'directing' the proceedings. She drew a heart and asked the little girl to colour it in. The little girl started colouring it in blue, and her mother said: 'No, darling, it should be red'. 'Why?' asked the little girl. 'Because hearts are always red darling' said her mother. The little girl wasn't convinced by the answer, and said 'well this heart is blue'. She also coloured outside the lines, which drew another criticism from her mother. I was thinking, please, please stop and let the little girl write the card the way she wants to! Isn't this a little like the mentality we see in school classrooms? Follow the rules... Don't colour outside the lines...

Which brings me on to another question I often ask during my Creative Learning workshops: What do teachers do to promote creative learning environments? How do we unstop the bottle that contains all this untapped imagination and energy? How do we ensure it is released in the form of creativity? Ann Michaelsen in Oslo, Norway (@annmic) suggests letting students ask more questions and decide on the topics that interest them, a sentiment echoed by Hawaiin teacher Amy Burvall (@amyburvall) who said that 'most important is freedom and time...but I find offering inspirational examples helps.' But do teachers have that much time to promote creative learning, tinkering, play? How can they break out of the endless cycle of delivering curriculum content and teaching 'to the test'.  Clearly some radical approaches are called for. Malyn Mawby (@malynmawby) an educator in Sydney, Australia sent a link to an entire collection of blog posts on creative learning that is good reading.

Heidi Hass Gabel, (@HHG) a teacher in Canada, relates the story of a gifted LD child who is incredibly creative, but feels the pressure to conform when in the larger classroom. This raises a number of pertinent questions not only about the way classrooms in traditional settings are managed, but also the lack of personalised learning opportunities for children in mass education systems. Are we being realistic if we expect creativity in classrooms, when the school system stifles this in its very nature? Heidi asks: 'We say we want creativity, but how do we model alternatives and value diversity in practice?' Good question. Do you have any answers?

Which brings us to Helena Gillespie (@helenauea) at the University of East Anglia in England, who believes that learners' ideas can often be better than teachers' ideas. I see that comment as advocating more leading from students and teachers taking more of a back seat. In my own experience, if I do just that and let the students lead, the full session and often the direction of the entire module can take a different, and richer trajectory, encompassing content that might not have been considered by the lecturer. This is also the point in crowdsourcing comments for blog posts such as this one. A few simple questions sent out onto Twitter have reaped a wealth of comments and ideas, far more than I can feature in this short piece, but all thought provoking, challenging and exceeding any thoughts I might have been able to generate on my own.

Thanks to all those who responded to my Twitter questions this morning. There is plenty of space for you to continue the conversation below in the comments box. But be creative! ;)

Photos by Steve Wheeler


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3 things you should know about Twitter

I was asked by Wayne Macintosh - founder of WikiEducator - if I would produce a short video explaining why I use Twitter. I was a little surprised because I had assumed that anyone who was going to use Twitter was probably on board and already familiar with the social media tool. Not so of course, as Wayne pointed out to me. He tells me there are many people who still need to know about Twitter and how to use it effectively. There are also many more who need to know why it is such an important tool for professionals. So here it is. My two minutes or so of opinion on why I use Twitter:



3 things you should know about Twitter by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

... and then our tools shape us

My series of retrospective reviews of seminal  learning and technology books continues. I have scoured my personal book library in search of a dozen books that have influenced my own thinking, and share a synopsis of their contents with you. For previous reviews start here. Today's book recommendation is the fifth in the series:

Howard Rheingold (2002) Smart Mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

There are several books that make an impact as soon as you pick them up and start reading. Smart Mobs is one of those books. I first read it whilst a new academic and still finding my way, and I read it in a time that pre-dated what we now know as social media. Mobile (cellular) phones were just beginning to make their impact on society, and were starting to penetrate sufficiently into the public consciousness to provide the media with occasional stories. In writing Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold, one of the pioneers of virtual communities and internet communication, created a land-mark volume on the social revolution that at the time was only just gaining ground. I don't believe it is too early to declare that Smart Mobs has been instrumental in shaping the way we have come to understand how smart phones can be used as tools to organise, motivate and sustain social movements. The book remains a significant contribution to the discourse around learning technology.

Rhiengold takes us on a global odyssey of mobile communication, telepresence, pervasive computing, RFID, barcode readers, alludes to crowdsourcing and the 'wisdom of crowds' (before these concepts were defined) and even predicts wearable computers and the emergence of tangible computing - the internet of things - as he draws together his arguments to describe a future that is defined by, and through prolific ownership of personal devices. In an envisioned world where information is ubiquitous, Rheingold uses down to earth, accessible prose to argue that the only barrier to accessing this information is the ability to use a mobile device:

'Think of all the public places where inexpensive chips could squirt up-to-the-second information of particular interest to you - such as the time your flight leaves and animated directions to your destination in an unfamiliar city - direct to your phone. Point your hand-held computer at a restaurant, and find out what the last dozen customers said about the food. Point your device at a billboard, and see clips of the film or music it advertises, and then buy tickets or download a copy on the spot. Not only will products and locations have websites, but many will have message boards and chat-rooms' (p 95).

Howard Rheingold is prescient indeed in his predictions. He uses the language of the time, declaring correctly that customers will demand conversation to supplement business and retail experiences, but within a decade, this functionality would be taken up by Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. The implications for education were also implied within this passage of text. Any educational organisation still ignoring the supplementary techno-social dimensions of the learning experience is anachronistic, and out of touch with reality.

The final chapter of Smart Mobs poses some interesting philosophical questions. He exposes many of the psychological and moral dilemmas around wholesale adoption of new technologies, describing the impact of technological disruption including the changing (and possible eroded?) role of centralised media and services, personal choice, privacy, freedom and democracy, relationships, and legal issues. He reveals some rich complexity when he says:

'For most people, individual decisions about the roles of mobile and pervasive technologies in our lives are more likely to involve matters of degree rather than crisply binary choices. I suspect that thoughtful technology usage in the future will require each person and family to decide which settings and which times should be sequestered from the reach of communication media' (p 184).

Rheingold then poses perhaps the most important question in the entire book:

'Will we be wiser in our choices of how to use the small screen in our hands than we were with the TV screen in what used to be the family room? (p 184).

In hindsight, we failed to learn from the lessons of the television. As Marshall McLuhan once said: 'We shape out tools and then our tools shape us.' Just how has the smart phone shaped us? Perhaps we are still finding out. The final word in my review comes from a conversation Rheingold reported he had about new technologies with an Amish gentleman:

'It's not just how we use technology that concerns us. We're also concerned about what kind of people we become when we use it' (p 185).

Photo by Biser Todorov (Wikimedia Commons)


... and then our tools shape us by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

All together now

This is a continuation of my series of retrospective reviews of seminal  learning and technology books. I have scoured my personal book library in search of a dozen books that have influenced my own thinking, and share a synopsis of their contents with you. For previous reviews start here. Today's book recommendation is the fourth in the series:

Clay Shirky (2008) Here Comes Everybody. London: Penguin.

The strapline to Clay Shirky's book is 'How change happens when people come together.' From the very early days of civilisation, people have been teaming up to achieve change. In fact, human civilisation has been founded upon change, and without teamwork, collective action, social movements and group effort, much of that change would not have been achievable. Shirky's book delivers that message strongly, and there are clear implications for education, especially where groups use new tools to promote change. Shirky says:

'Collective action, where a group acts as a whole, is even more complex than collaborative production, but here again new tools give life to new forms of action. This in turn challenges existing institutions, by eroding the institutional monopoly on large-scale coordination' (p 143).

The book features a number of examples of collective action using new tools, including the creation of the world's largest repository of knowledge, Wikipedia, which didn't even exist prior to 2001. Shirky shows how, similar to hive and swarm behaviour seen in animals, humans perform in networks and thrive within 'architectures of participation' - so whilst bees make hives, humans create mobile telephone networks and the internet. Shirky also underlines the importance of one specific aspect of the internet - social media tools - as 'amplifiers' of ideas and collective actions. He points out that collective action is harder to promote than individual action, but once it gets going, it is very difficult to stop. He draws on a variety of examples from social history, but if a new updated edition of this book were to be published, I have no doubt he would draw on recent social events such as the Arab Spring and citizen journalism as examples of effective social collective action using new media tools. For educators, the question is how much of this potential we can harness within formal learning contexts. We know instinctively and empirically that people learn best when they are in rich social contexts. It is probable that many of the world's most trenchant problems could be addressed through education with social tools to amplify the process. Shirky remarks:

'There are real and permanent social dilemmas, which can only be optimised for, never completely resolved. The human social repertoire includes many such optimisations, which social tools can amplify' (p 188).

This book makes it clear that in an ever increasingly social world, telecommunication and social media are connecting us more richly. Education still has a long way to go before we can begin to claim that  harnessing the power of the collective worldwide intelligence to provide equally rich learning opportunities for our students. But if we consider the 'here comes everybody' ethos Shirky advocates, we will begin to understand that everyone, teachers and students together, can equally create knowledge, organise and share it, and in so doing we will benefit together as a global learning community.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


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Cargo cults, wooden phones and superficial learning

During a conference at Plymouth University recently, my colleague Oliver Quinlan told us all a fascinating story about the Cargo Cult movement, and equated it to superficial learning responses. Cargo Cults are an interesting socio-cultural phenomenon, because they derive from a collective misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the world, brought about by simplistic beliefs. One example of cargo cult can be found in the Melanesian Islands of the South Pacific, where, during World War Two, the islanders were invaded by the Japanese and then liberated by the Allied forces. Both occupying armies were far more technologically advanced than the society that hosted them. On both occasions, the primitive islanders were exposed to the advanced technology, and the alien culture and philosophies of their visitors, which altered their world view. They benefited for a while from them. Both the Japanese and Allied forces gave them manufactured goods such as clothing, tents, food and other commodities, which expanded their consciousness and increased their collective wealth.

When finally the war ended, and the Allied forces departed, the islanders were left with an interruption to their new found wealth. They attempted to regain this wealth by creating replicas of many of the iconic technologies their visitors had used. For example, they created landing strips and aircraft from straw or made wireless radios from coconuts.  One could perhaps imagine them today carving a mobile phone out of wood. They attempted from their collective memories to fashion their society into the image of their technologically advanced visitors. Some staged marches and parade drills using sticks to represent rifles, and painted military style insignia on their bodies to make them look like soldiers. They tried to recreate a set of circumstances that they believed would attract the wealth back into their communities. Essentially, they fell into the trap of commodity fetishism, and an entirely new belief system grew up around it.

Oliver drew our attention to the manner in which many novice learners, and in particular undergraduate students, attempt to build into their work what they believe their lecturers require from them. This is a superficial response to learning. For example I have often heard students asking 'how many references should I include in my essay?' to which my reply is: 'include what is relevant to support your arguments and justify your choices.' Just as the Melanesian islanders failed to understand the inner workings of technology, but attempted to recreate it from its surface appearance, so undergraduate students who 'don't get it' attempt to write critical essays by stringing together references into some form of meaningful narrative. It barely scratches the surface. As Oliver pointed out, we send our students a better message if we ask them to 'inform their essays' from the literature, rather than asking them to 'reference their work'. I go farther and advise students that they need to engage with the theories and published work they incorporate into their work, rather than quoting them disjointedly. Once students get the idea that they can write critically by going deeper, actually understanding the concepts and theories rather than simply creating replicas, they will begin to assimilate these ideas successfully in to their professional practice.

Photo by Erik Wilde


Cargo cults, primitive cultures and superficial learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learning in round spaces

Plymouth University's Immersive Vision Theatre

Traditionally, classrooms have been rectangular. Square buildings are easier to design and cheaper to build. There is a door at one end, some windows on one side, and at the front end stands the teacher, in exactly the right place to direct the educational process. Situating learning in rectangular spaces naturally promotes some forms of pedagogy at the expense of others. It is of course possible in traditional classrooms to create opportunities for learning to be driven by learners, where collaborative and cooperative learning can be facilitated, and where students can move around the room as they investigate and experiment, create and discuss. It's possible, but it has to be a conscious decision by the teacher. The natural default education mode in rectangular space classrooms is to place students in a passive and controllable situation, where chairs and tables are configured to face the front - the 'presentation area'. You can easily recognise this area because it is where all of the presentational materials and tools are fixed in place (whiteboard, projector and screen, teacher resources) and where the teacher tends to stand much of the time. Such organisation of tools and resources is fairly permanent and inflexible, and it is easy for teachers to lapse into 'teaching in the same way they themselves were taught'.

So what happens when we change the shape of the learning space? What if we make the classroom circular instead of square? Think for example of theatre that is performed 'in the round'. The action happens in the middle of the room, and all those who participate face inwards towards the performance. Many feel as though they are actually in the play rather than simply observing it. Change it again, and face the participants outwards instead, and what is the effect? Each participant experiences something different, perhaps unique and personal to them. This is the concept behind vision immersion, where 360 degree projection and surround sound provide enhanced sensory experience.  Learners feel more involved in the learning process, and each learns through watching, engaging, conversing and discussing. This is the idea behind the Immersive Vision Theatre at Plymouth University, a converted planetarium that employs fish-eye lens projection systems to render 3 D moving images on a concave surface. Audiences sit in cinema style seats, and their field of vision is saturated by the images, supplemented by surround sound. High powered Blade server technology renders the video in high definition and real time to create the illusion of movement and immersion. Sit there for long enough and you feel like the entire room is moving around you.

Igloo Vision 360 System

Another example of circular learning spaces is the Igloo Vision 360 portable round classroom (pictured) which I experienced at the recent Welsh Digital Learning Conference in Cardiff. The Igloo Education system uses five mounted projection screens housed within an igloo shaped tent structure, to create a digitally 'stitched together' panoramic video and/or still image display complete with high quality audio. Children sit on the floor and face the curved walls of the igloo to experience the full 360 degree effect of the colour, movement and sound. Imagine a geography lesson where you are sat in the middle of the scenes, experiencing the sights and sounds of the country you are studying. Or imagine a biology lesson where you see what it looks like to pass through the human arterial system as a red blood corpuscle. It's true that the experiences we remember most in school are those that impact on all our senses. Such technology can do this. It is quite expensive though, and investing in a system could make a sizeable dent in an average school's annual budget.  However, those schools who decide to either purchase or create their own circular spaces will probably discover that - whether they have projection systems in them or not - round spaces can radically change the format of lessons and can challenge the perspective of just about any educator who participates.

Photos by Mike Smail and Igloo Vision


Learning in round spaces by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.