 Chapter 7: Knowing, Making, and Playing
Quote “A lifelong ability to learn has given human beings all kinds of evolutionary advantages over other animals...homo sapiens, homo faber, and homo ludens—or humans who know, humans who make (things), and humans who play” By explaining that play has given humans an “evolutionary advantage,” Thomas and Brown validate play as more than meaningless activity done by children and recreational breaks taken by adults. It also leads the reader to believe that play can lead to success. Question “Whatever one accomplishes through play, the activity is never about achieving a particular goal, even if a game has a defined endpoint or end state. It is always about finding the next challenge or becoming more fully immersed in the state of play.” What types of challenges should educators create? Is gamification and badging enough? Connection “In a world where images, text, and meaning can be manipulated for nearly any purpose, an awareness of the play of context and the ability to reshape it become incredibly important parts of decision making.” In my previous MA program, I explored research transliteracy. At the time, the term was being used among librarians and focused on helping students comprehend multiple forms of media, such as videos, websites, and audio files. It was an appropriate issue to discuss at the time, but the term transliteracy has now been replaced with digital literacy. Thomas and Brown extend upon the concept of literacy by explaining that students need to be able to do more than comprehended digital media-they need to be able to communicate using these mediums. Epiphany “Learning content through making is a very different exercise from learning through shaping context.” Making resonates more than shaping content. Consider the questions “What did you make today?” Followed by, “What did you learn while making that?” These are much different than a simple, “What did you learn today?” Chapter 8: Hanging Around, Messing Around, and Geeking Out Quote “Geeking out provides an experiential, embodied sense of learning within a rich social context of peer interaction, feedback, and knowledge construction enabled by a technological infrastructure that promotes “intense, autonomous, interest driven” learning.” When people “geek out,” they become the “lifelong learners” educators have been striving to create for the past few decades. The social connections, tools, and access to information provided by technology enable learners to “geek out.” Question “In essence, hanging out is a social, not merely technological, activity. It is about developing a social identity.” Our students are already building these identities, but so many educators just look the other way. How can create and encourage hanging out experiences for adults? Is Facebook enough? Connection “Experimenting with the familiar in terms of content and tools is apt to open up a gap between this first unfocused form of play and the potential that emerges because of it. The gap is between the way something could be—what a person begins to imagine she can accomplish—and the way it is.” “I have an idea. Hang on.” “What is it?” “It’s a surprise. Let me go try to make it. BRB” This conversation regularly occurs between my cohort mate Jake Bowker (@jbowker88) and I. We often share tools and discuss our learning, but sometimes he just completely disappears to immerse himself in play. He will spend hours teaching himself how to use tools he already knows and/or discovering new tools needed to create his project. Often, his vision of “way something could be” ends up evolving along the way as it is shaped by the learning that occurs as through play. This play leads to an increase his learning and the quality of his product. Epiphany “Ito and her team constructed a typology of practices to describe the way young people participate with new media: hanging out, messing around, and geeking out. We believe that these three practices could frame a progression of learning that is endemic to digital networks.” Okay, Jeff! Of course, as soon I read the title to this chapter, I could hear Jeff Heil’s (@jehil5) proud chuckle. The three badges we are earning in this class are named after these three practices. Additionally prior to any exposure to this text, I already used the term “geeking out” in a way that aligned with this meaning. I often say that I “geek out” when I spend hours on my laptop building an invented project. Lately my “geekiness” has been enhanced as I share and collaborate with my peers. Chapter 9: The New Culture of Learning for a World of Constant Change Quote “And where imaginations play, learning happens.” In preschools, imaginative play is a part of the daily routine and integrated into many lessons. As a result, the young children in these environments spend their days immersed in learning and chose to engage in imaginative play during free time, such as playground time. This applies to the students in our classrooms and people in general. The best way to encourage learning is to provide opportunities for students’ to play. Question “Only when we care about experimentation, play, and questions more than efficiency, outcomes, and answers do we have a space that is truly open to the imagination.” Why do all of the academic examples focus on colleges and universities? Are primary and secondary institutions really that far off? What about schools like High Tech High? Connection “The team relies on everyone to understand that their success as individuals creates something that amounts to more than the sum of its parts.” In my roles as ASB adviser, yearbook adviser, and volleyball coach, I support teams of students as they work together to create or accomplish something that is greater than what any individual student--or I-- could produce. Even with all of this experiences, it is still challenging to provide similar learning opportunities in classroom lessons. Epiphany “Maybe members of the new collective will provide an existing piece of information that makes the problem solvable. Or maybe they will inspire a player to find a new, unique solution to the problem and share it with the collective in turn.” This is why we need more people in the edtech community! Currently many vocal and visible leaders, or “educelebrities,” exist among this group, but many questions and challenges still exist. By bringing new educators into the conversation, we may be able to find “unique solutions” that will benefit all of our students. Works Cited Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky.: [CreateSpace?].
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 Chapter 4: Learning in the Collective Quote “Once a particular passion or interest is unleashed, constant interaction among group members, with their varying skills and talents, functions as a kind of peer amplifier, providing numerous outlets, resources, and aids to further an individual’s learning.” Thomas and Brown (2011) explain that the social interactions that take place in a collective continuously affect the learning of each individual. This synergy deepens learning in a way that cannot occur within private learning experiences. Question “In a collective, there is no sense of core or center. People are free to move and out of the group at various times for various reasons, and their participation may vary based on topic, interest, experience, or need. Therefore, collectives scale in an almost unlimited way.” How can teachers build collectives in traditional classrooms? How are common “topic, interest, experience, or need” identified and developed within a group placed together based on the criteria of age and geographic location? Connection “Simply by being among the people around them--in study groups, for instance--students are learning from their environment, participating in an experience rich in resources of deep encounters. ” In my previous online MA program through Ashford University, I did not have a collective experience--in fact, I was barely even part of a community. I wrote discussions, commented to peers, and submitted individual assignments. I was bored. I spent hours sitting alone reading, writing, and creating digital media projects. None of my peers (or, even professors!), authentically challenged me by responding to my work. It was like I was learning in a bubble that was occasionally nudged by a forced comment or rubric grade. As I began my online MA program, I knew that I needed to push myself to connect with my peers. Thanks to the environment provided through Google + and individual friendships I am forming, I am connecting. Many moments of deep thought and learning are actually occurring when I am not directly working on an assignment. The conversations my professors often do not hear (emails, instant messages, voice messages, texts, and phone calls) are sincerely deepening my learning experience and pushing me to develop my academic, collaboration, and leadership skills. I am already benefiting from the collective we are just beginning to build! Epiphany “In communities, people learn in order to belong. in a collective, people belong in order to learn. Communities derive their strength from creating a sense of belonging, while collectives derive theirs from participation. ” The term “community” is almost overused on my campus. San Pasqual Academy’s geographically isolated residential campus is a community with a unique culture. Most students are able to figure out how to behave to become a member of the community, but I am beginning to think that this is not enough. After learning about the differences between collectives and communities, I am questioning our focus on community. Instead, maybe we should strive to create a collective focused on helping foster youth learn how to heal and prepare for emancipation. Maybe? My brain is still processing this. Chapter 5: The Personal with the Collective Quote “The personal is the basis for an individual’s notions of who she is (identity) and what she can do (agency). It is not necessarily private, though it may be, and it does not exist in a vacuum. We shape and define the boundaries of our agency and identity within the collective.” Thomas and Brown explain, that contrary to the shared beliefs of western culture, individuals’ identify and agency are not simply developed through private or public conversations. Instead, they are developed through private and public interactions. Participating in collectives intensifies this growth. Additionally, technology creates avenues for collaborative communication, such as blogs, which extend the collective even beyond face-to-face interpersonal interactions. Question “Because learning with digital media occupies a space that is both personal and collective, people can share experience as well as knowledge. Here, people are not just learning from one another, they are learning with one another.” How does a teacher harness digital media to encourage a collective? Can individuals simply form a collective around the shared problem of passing a course? That does not seem like enough. What strategies have educators tried? Connection “Ryverson’s objections to the Facebook study group, which was nothing more than a digital re-creation of the physical-world study groups that have been around for centuries, were that it made learning easy, allowed students to do whatever they wanted, and as a result threatened academic integrity.” This week, a multiple-choice and short-answer midterm was assigned to our cohort. The instructions explicitly stated, “We expect individual graduate students to complete this task on their own...This is not a GROUP PROJECT.” However, over the past six weeks, we have been pushed by all three of our professors to use technology to work together, utilizing tools such as discussion board comments, Google+ community, and student-run webcasts. Like the Ryverson University students in the Facebook study group, we have already entered into a collective. Knowing that collective learning exists, it is incredibly challenging and almost unreasonable to expect us to simply snap back into individually completing an explicit learning task. Epiphany “And because there is no targeted goal or learning objective, the site can be used and shaped in ways that meet the needs of the collective.” My district is currently doing the opposite of this! Our current instructional coaches and administrators are heavily pushing learning targets and success criteria. During the last English Language-Arts training I attended, they shared specific learning targets and success criteria for for every little lesson within the California State University Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum. I agree with Thomas and Brown and foresee that I am going to struggle when I am told post daily learning targets and success criteria daily. Chapter 6: We Know More than We Can Say
Quote “Explicit knowledge, as we have seen, lends itself well to the process of teaching--that is, transferring knowledge from one person to another. You teach and I learn. But tacit knowledge, which grows through personal experience and experimentation, is not transferrable--you can’t teach it to me, though I can still learn it.” Thomas and Brown explain how explicit knowledge was valuable in “the old culture of learning.” But, technology has made explicit knowledge so easily accessible that now the role of educators is to develop tacit knowledge. The challenge is that tacit knowledge has to be experienced instead of taught; so, now, educators are challenged to create learning experiences instead of just directly teaching explicit knowledge. Question “When that tacit dimension is taken into consideration, the value of a university education grows to include the learning that happens when students are immersed in an environment that values learning itself.” Why do all of the academic examples focus on colleges and universities? Are primary and secondary institutions really that far off? What about schools like High Tech High? Connection “What they learn in the process has less to do with solving a particular problem than it does with learning the nature of the tools they have at their disposal.” The word “tools” instantly reminded me of Wesch’s 2010 video, “From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able”, in which he makes the case that students needs to “embrace real problems... and harness relevant tools.” I am noticing a recurring message about the importance of helping my students build toolkits. Epiphany “Different people, when presented with exactly the same information in exactly the same way, will learn different things.” I already see this happening in my classroom! My students’ reading reflections provide evidence of it. Even when we read a novel as a whole-group during class and discuss the text together, each student’s reflection shares a unique connection to the text. When they are given writing prompts that allow them to explore any possible thesis with the requirement that they back it up by providing and explaining textual evidence, they are also able to to show their own perspective. I feel like my classroom may support more inquiry than I previously thought. Works Cited Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky.: [CreateSpace?].  Chapter 1: Arc-of-Life Learning Quote “Play, questioning, and--perhaps most important--imagination lie at the very heart of arc-of-life learning.” Thomas and Brown (2011) provide examples of how people, of various ages and settings, willing choose to engage in learning that involves “play, questioning, and...imagination.” As I continue to read the book, I expect to learn how to bring these types of learning experiences into my classroom and school. Question “The new culture of learning gives us the freedom to make the general personal and then share our personal experience in a way that, in turn, adds to the general flow of knowledge.” What about the voices of students who are institutionally blocked from adding “ the general flow of knowledge”? Connection “The connection between resources and personal motivation led people to cultivate their imaginations and recreate the space in a new way.” 20time projects are a simple way teachers can motivate students to use their imaginations. In order to solve what Kevin Brookhouser calls “wicked problems,” students will need to utilize resources and their imaginations. Additionally, by selecting their own 20time project ideas, students will be motivated because they can explore a topic of personal interest. Epiphany “In the new culture we describe, learning thus becomes a lifelong interest that is renewed and redefined on a continual basis.” When I first began teaching, posters covered the walls of of many classrooms describing schoolwide goals of creating “lifelong learners.” However, the learning taking place inside of these classroom walls--lectures, movies, textbook questions, worksheets, and standardized assessments--was actually creating resistant learners and simply preparing them for the next phase of learning down the conveyor belt of public education. The idea of lifelong learning is nothing new. But, now technology provides increased access to learning. Chapter 2: A Tale of Two Cultures Quote “The primary difference between the teaching-based approach to education and the learning-based approach is that in the first case the culture is the environment, while in the second case, the culture emerges from the environment--and grows along with it.” Thomas and Brown use the two definitions of culture to frame their explanation of the way education is changing. They contrast the social science definition with the natural science definition. This figurative comparison helps me to link the growth of a culture in a petri dish to the learning of a student in a classroom. Question “Learning should be viewed in terms of an environment--combined with the rich resources provided by the digital information network--where the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way.” What about teachers who have not yet utilized “the digital information network” as a learner? Connection “The second difference is that the teaching-based approach focuses on teaching us about the world, while the new culture of learning focuses on learning through engagement within the world.” This aligns with the skills that are taught through project-based learning units. This focus on skills rather than content also aligns with Common Core State Standards,National Council of Teachers of English’s 21st Century Literacies, and National Educational Technology Standards. By teaching students skills instead of just content, we are preparing them to actively participate in the world. Epiphany “If we change the vocabulary and consider schools as learning environments, however, it makes no sense to talk about them being broken because environments don’t break.” Honestly, over the past few months, I have engaged in many conversations about my school being “broken.” But, following Thomas and Browns’ perspective, I can see that my school may just be going through a bit of a drought. Chapter 3: Embracing Change
Quote “If the twentieth century was about creating a sense of stability to buttress against change and then trying to adapt to it, then the twenty-first century is about embracing change, not fighting it. Embracing change means looking forward to what will come next. It means viewing the future as a set of new possibilities, rather than something that forces us to adjust.” Thomas and Brown begin to prepare the reader for their arguments explaining how education by putting it in a broader context. It’s not just education that is changing--the whole world is changing. Question “Yet while people in other adult learning cultures, such as amateur hobbyists, are innovating like crazy, workplaces have become relatively moribund.” How can teachers be given opportunities to observe and understand innovative workplaces? Connection “What happens, then, when you are dealing with change on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis?” This reminds me of the popular explanation of the old industrial model of education in which teachers and schools did not adjust to their students--much less changes to content and tools. At this time, it was possible to simply reuse the same classroom behavior expectations, routines, and curriculum year after year. The social culture and environment did not change. Currently, educators are challenged to respond to constant changes. Epiphany “And therein lies the major pitfall of the twenty-first century’s teaching model--namely, the belief that most of what we know will remain relatively unchanged for a long enough period of time to be worth the effort of transferring it.” Textbooks are filled with knowledge believed to be “worth the effort of transferring.” I have heard many discussions around textbooks becoming outdated, but this statement deepens the conversation by explaining knowledge is changing instead of just updating. Works Cited Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky.: [CreateSpace?]. |
@npriesterA collection of my learning from SDSU EDL 680 Seminar in Personalized Learning Archives
August 2015
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