Wk 4 – More on Participation- Brown (webcast)

I watched the web-cast of John Seeley-Brown’s keynote presentation to the Open Learn Conference in 2007 – see

http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?whichevent=1063&s=31 (accessed 20 March 2009)

This link was used earlier in the Block but was given again in Week 4 as further reading/viewing.

The original article we read in Week 4 by Brown et al was written in 1989 so it was interesting to read Brown’s current thoughts.

Some key points were:

• Understanding and participation is learning that happens that you cannot stop, learning that you don’t realise is happening.
• Most academics reject the Cartesian view of learning where pedagogy is knowledge transfer (I think therefore I am)
• The social view of learning is I participate therefore I learn.
• Understanding, not knowledge, is socially constructed
• We learn from our interactions with others
• Distributed study groups and social networks – extending out networking.
• Nothing clarifies our learning more than explaining it to someone else (blogging perhaps, even if you don’t have an audience, you have a perceived audience)
• Peripheral participation – when you learn from observing the learning of others, even if you didn’t do it yourself – architecture atelier example
• Where work in progress is made public, learning as enculturation takes place
• Explicit – learning about
• Tacit – learning to be
• technology and research – Technology enabled active learning (TEAL) projects have students doing research and submitted data online, professionals then help the students to turn that data into information. This benefits the student community – learning and mixing with the professional community, and benefits the professionals as once in a while the student finds something new. Tacitly the students begin to learn to be professionals.
• Net generation – we need to understand what we have to do to engage them, what creates meaning for the net gen
• Brown describes web 2.0 in a similar way the Engestrom did in his video interview (see earlier blog) that it used to be about Production and consumption, but now it’s interweaved WEB of production, consumption, modification  by all users.
• a culture of participation – creating meaning on what I produce, share and build on it
• You have to be able to enculturate yourself to a society before you can penetrate it
• Moving to a creator economy
• Culture of co-creation and participation

Isn’t it odd how the spell check on this blog doesn’t recognise the word blog!

Week 5 Activity 2- The Medium is the message, web 2.0

The course introduces us to Marshall McLuhan, a commentator from the 1960s who coined the phrase ” the medium is the message” and “the global village”.

What is McLuhan talking about when he speaks about participation?

• People want to be involved and have influence on what appears in the media
• The TV audience acts as a producer
• Instant replays in TV – audience participation in the game – “let us replay the action and observe how this particular effect was attained.”
• In the US Football games were halted to watch replays and adverts.
• People expect to participate in every walk of life. In learning children expect to participate not just consume – AM moving to PM again. They want to view the processes, not just the end product.

How does participation using the internet and the Web differ from broadcast media such as TV?

The web, in partciular web 2.o tools allow the audience to truly particpate in the creation of knowledge. Individuals contribute to blogs, wikis, social networking sharing information and knowledge to help others form their opinions. They are involved in the process and participate at all levels.

As Anthony posted what he felt to be the key differences.

. interactive – feedback is given to the user which should/could engage them more effectively;
. selective – the user decides what they want to see/hear (not being spoon fed);
. uncontrolled – a tv programme has a beginning and an end and no possibility of deviation; Web2 is anarchic;
. uncensored – the freedom of authorship encourages freedom of content
. immediate – Web2 is now, not scheduled for some time in the future (or past)
. choice – all of the above give the participant the freedom to do as they wish

Berry, A. (2009) H800 les6 09 Week 5 10 March 2009 11:19

And Sharon gave an example of how the internet really will make the audience into producers, unlike TV.

With the internet, there is the potential to create media and so become a producer….
it creates something that is far beyond what the original producer intended.

Clark, S. (2009) H800 les6 09 Week 5 10 March 2009 13:46

And Mike writes an intersting case for why we’re not doing anything new, just a new medium

Obviously, web technology provides far more opportunity for dialogue, but I am
not sure what is really new here. People have been talking to each other for
millenia. The technology is very useful as we can now communicate across the
world rather than just face to face, but we are still cimmunicating in much the
same way (talking and writing) as we ever were.

Gilbert, M. (2009) H800 les6 09 Week 5 11 March 2009 00:37

And Jonathan Campbell helped me understand how audience participation in Big Brother, for example, is still no where near to the type of participation that can happen with Web 2.

Internet participation allows you to not only create the content but to also decide how to interact with it and with the others who are involved. And because the broadcast media offers limited ways to participate then the feedback will
generally be limited to those areas. Internet feedback can be more like a
dialogue without the limitations of topic or time.
The broadcast media offer the avenues of participation and you are limited to using them (vote for this participant or watch this match anytime) but the internet allows you to create the way you want to participate.

Campbell, J. (2009) H800 les6 09 Week 5 11 March 2009 09:50

Tanya McEvoy from another tutor group wrote
” Nowadays you can, pause, rewind, fast forward, change the speed in which the images are delivered to your screen. In some cases the viewer has less control. The BBC have been accused of ‘sugar-coating’ events and news reports in an attempt to control the medium. Certain programs are denied air-time due to specific content that the government deem inappropriate for the British public.
However, on the Internet, there is no such control. In fact, viewers are able to produce and reproduce material as they see fit, which has consequently lead to serious conflicts with copyright laws. Web 2.0 applications such as YouTube have allowed,  the average person to actively produce and publish their own medium for the world to see.”

McEvoy, T. (2009) Forum: H800 sc2367 Wk5 Act2. 10 March 2009 11:09

AM and PM Metaphors – my thoughts

February 25, 2009

Having read about the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors and the Activity Theory I’ve got the following thoughts and key points

Sfard does not claim that AM and PM are muturally exclusive, in fact, PM rarely exists without some AM first. A combincation of AM and PM bring to forward the advantages of both and pushes back the limitations of each.

There should be more metaphors such as the knowledge-creation metaphor and to crudely categorise things as simply AM or PM was unsatisfactory.

Activity Theory – in elearning control is lost by the teacher to the student. In face to face practice teachers have control over their excellence in teaching. The outcome of the activity system is a change in the learner. In elearning technology the excellence in teaching is limited by the software, which is limited by the norms, skills, etc of the developers. The content developers become involved and have further norms and rules to follow.

However, this does not concur with the findings of Bayne where she found that students felt a lack of control and teachers felt more control over the learners from the perspective of cyber identities.

Activity Theory hlps us to understand how in elearning the activity control is lost by the teacher to the student. In face to face practice teachers have control over their excellence in teaching. The outcome of the activity system is a change in the learner. In elearning technology the excellence in teaching is limited by the software, which is limited by the norms, skills, etc of the developers. The content developers become involved and have further norms and rules to follow.

The author doesn’t mention the influence of the students. I feel that in discussion forums a lot of the control over how stable the objective remains is down to the students and the route that their discussion take. In H808 discussions were given more freedom and time to develop and explore different avenues, so far on H800 this has been difficult due to the overloaded nature of the activities. There is no time for deep learning.

Comparing the metaphors to my own learning experiences (from wk 1)

a) do all of my examples of learning refer to learning in terms of either acquisition or participation? Learning how to use captivate was acquisition because I just read the instructions, but it was participation in terms of action as in order to establish the learning I had to practice it.   Most have a combination of both AM and PM. Surely, how can you learn through PM if you don’t have the knowledge acquisition either before or during the Participatory period.

b) Any instances that do not fit into either AM or PM?No.

c) Is your learning process more oriented to you as an individual or to you within a social context? Social. I prefer to learn from doing, sharing and discussing than from reading/listening. It helps to reinforce my learning. Even blogging to me is PM, I’m participating with myself because I don’t have a class to “talk” to about what we’re learning. I’ve always learnt more from vocalising what I’m learning, eg explaining to others or simply discussing or sharing information.

Sfard was basically saying in Week 3 that learning is acquisition and learning is participation. On reflection, my thoughts are that acquisition is one of the “ends” of learning, and participation is one of the “means”. The other signifcant end to learning is application which takes us onto Brown’s article for Week 4 about authentic learning experiences and the enculturation of learning.

Week 3b What it means to learn – metaphors and practices

Week 3b What is means to learn – metaphors and practices
You need to think about what learning means and to question whether collaboration and active participation are all there is to learning. Your assumptions about learning drive what you do to bring learning to yourself or others. Two core metaphors underpin learning – the acquisition metaphor (AM) and the participation metaphor (PM).

Metaphors and approaches to learning
Often educationalists concentrate on how learning happens as opposed to what learning is because it is difficult to define. Kolb learning cycle 1984 introduced the concept that reflection on concrete experience plays a role in the learning process, and not just abstract knowledge and thinking. Kolb draws on the ideas of both participation and acquisition in his work on learning. A metaphor asserts one thing is the same as another, thus the quality of one known thing are used to say something about another. Sfard (1998) argues that metaphors play a key role in thinking and shape approaches to research and the development of theory. Technologies impact on the meaning of learning. When you explore what learning means, you have to see how TEL affects this. You need to test out the metaphors against your experience of TEL.

Sfard, A. (1998) On two metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just one in Educational Researcher, Vol 27 No 2 (March 1998). American Educational Research Association.

- about how humans conceptualise learning, and the role that the two dominant metaphors for learning have played.
Read Sfard – 1. How Sfard defines the A and P metaphors
2. How she distinguishes between them
3. The significance of Table 1 and the difference between questions of what learning is v. how learning happens.

The AM is more likely to be present in older texts, the PM is more prominent in more recent studies.
AM – Human learning is conceived as an acquisition of something, growth of knowledge, concept development. Basic units of knowledge (concepts) that can be accumulated, refined and form ever richer cognitive structures. Human mind as a container to be filled with certain materials and about the learner as becoming an owner of these materials.AM is learning as an acquisition of goods, implying gaining ownership.

PM Knowledge is replaced with the noun knowing, which implies action – having gives way to doing. AM implies that there is a clear end point to the process of learning, PM states that there is no end to learning. PM is linked to practice, reflection, discourse, communicating and that the learner is a person interested in participation in activities rather than in accumulating private possessions. Learning is seen as a process of becoming a part of a community. Learners contribute to the very existence of the group.
AM stresses the individual mind and what goes into it, PM shifts the focus to the evolving bonds between the individual and others.

Most learning theories cannot be regarded as purely AM or PM, the act of Acquisition is often tantamount to the act of becoming a participant. Each has something to offer that the other does not. Metaphorical pluralism leads to better research and more satisfactory practice. No two students have the same needs and no two teachers arrive at their best performance in the same way, theoretical exclusivity and didactic single mindedness should be avoided.

The most powerful research is that research which depends on more than one metaphor.A combination of AM and PM would bring fore the advantages of both of them and keeping their respective drawbacks at bay. Dictatorship of a single metaphor may lead to theories that serve the interest of certain groups and disadvantages others.

But this plurality does not imply the anything goes and theory/practice should still be based on sound research.

The metaphorical mappings (table from Sfard 1998)

AM		PM
Individual Enrichment	Goal of learning	Community building
Acquisition of something	Learning	Becoming a participant
Recipient	Student	Peripheral participant, apprentice
Provider, facilitator, mediator	Teacher	Expert participant, preserver of practice/discourse
Property, possession, commodity	Knowledge, concept	Aspect of practice/discourse/activity
Having, possessing	Knowing	Belonging, participating and communicating

Comparing the metaphors to my own learning experiences (from wk 1)
a) do all of them refer to learning in terms of either acquisition or participation?
Learning how to use captivate was acquisition because I just read the instructions, but it was participation in terms of action as in order to establish the learning I had to practice it.

b) Any instances that do not fit into either AM or PM? No – all involve AM, most involve PM.

c) Is your learning process more oriented to you as an individual or to you within a social context? Social. I prefer to learn from doing, sharing and discussing than from reading/listening.

Week 2a – Activities 1 and 2

Activity 1 and 2 notes are here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfjp86bs_89txxt3fcv

Activity 1 – watched a web cast by John Seeley Brown http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?whichevent=1063&s=31

Debate about participation being the most successful way of learning. Very engaging webcast. I get the message from Brown that group work is about helping the learner to understand the knowledge that has been given to them before the group learning takes place; so having only watched to 13 minutes I would say that no he doesn’t devalue reading/viewing/listening alone, the message I am receiving is that you need both. I liked the iceberg metaphor, the tip being the explicit learning (reading, listening etc) but the mass of the iceberg under the water is the social learning where you become to understand the knowledge in your own context.
This extract of the video has really helped me to understand better why we encourage our students to be members of study groups and use the discussion boards. I could use this information to help in the process of encouraging this to take place more. I can transfer the ideas about the architects lab and you learn by teaching, to the discussion forums for the DLMBA. We are also looking at moving away from a face to face induction for the DLMBA so the idea of using Second Life for the social side of the induction day is interesting to me.
found his style very easy to watch and listen too. Much more engaging to me than the Rowlands screencast from Wk 1 Activity 6. The use of video in this presentation really did add something to the experience – but when you have a more engaging and lively presenter that is bound to happen.

Actiivity 2
Learnt about citizen science and citizen journalism.
Citizen science is a term used for projects or ongoing program of scientific work in which individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation. The use of citizen-science networks often allows scientists to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. In addition, these projects aim to promote public engagement with the research, as well as with science in general. Some programs provide materials specifically for use by primary or secondary school students. As such, citizen science is one approach to informal science education.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science)
Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism or democratic journalism[1], is the act of non-professionals “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information,”
Heat magazine gets people to send in “spotted” messages when they spot a celebrity in public, these are then printed in the gossip pages.
BBC news often ask people to send in photographs of their local area to contribute to the delivery of news stories (E.g. pictures of snow, floods, etc)
Mark Glasser, a longtime freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, gets to the heart of it:
The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.