Learning

Learning

Recommended reads on informal learning

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There are about 15 people signed up for the Ottawa informal learning workshop. This post is for anyone who is keen and wants to get in some early reading. Of course it’s not required, but these could spark some ideas for interesting conversations.

Jay Cross has just posted Internet Culture & the Evolution of Learning. This is a great read if you’re interested in the big picture of why this stuff may be important. Jay’s article is more comprehensive than my previous post on the forces of change.

Here’s a short post, by Tom Haskins called, I found it inside my blog reader, that gives you an idea of how some people in the educational technology field are connecting and learning informally – without any direction ;-)

If you’re looking for something concrete, here’s a post on How a restaurant uses stories to keep staff motivated.

An aggregated listing of various Definitions of Informal learning by Mohamed Amine Chatti.

If you want to dig deeper into social networking, then Dave Pollard’s Whirlwind tour of social networking for business covers a lot of the available tools.

SoulSoup on Why companies try to avoid informal learning, knowledge sharing and even innovation in the workplace.

Finally, I would recommend watching an interview (33 minutes) with Robert Paterson, done by Iowa Public TV in 2006, in which Rob explains the power of blogging.

… or just have a laugh:

Managing Time Management

Forces of change

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I’m conducting a workshop on informal learning on Tuesday, January 30th. In preparation for the workshop and hopefully to foster some early conversations, I’ll be posting my thoughts on informal learning here for the next week.

My initial reaction, when asked to present a full day workshop on informal learning, was to ensure that what I was going to talk about was not just a bunch of hype on the latest Web 2.0 tools that are being tested by the early adopters in the educational technology field. I didn’t want to be selling a new brand of silicon snake oil, so I tried to look at what forces are actually changing the way we work and learn.

First of all, the ubiquitous connectivity that over a billion people now have has had a significant impact. Search (or Google as a verb) is an integral part of most of our lives. Today, we can publish something online as soon as we feel like it – whether in the form of blogs, wikis, social spaces like MySpace or FaceBook, as well as pictures or videos. We can find almost anything online and we can share our digital creations with the world. We can also connect with individuals.

The main force of the Web is that you don’t need anyone else (postman, broadcaster, photo developer, social convener) to help you reach out to the world and find others who may be interested in the same thing you are. Until recently, we needed an organisation (company, union, association, school) to help us connect with others. Now we can pretty well do it on our own.

One of the main forces of change that will affect how we learn is the weakening of the industrial command & control organisation. We don’t need a third party to mediate our learning because we can find interesting stuff and interesting people (interesting to us, at least) on the Web. I see those workers, who one could call the “Cluetrained’, as already dropping out of the bottom of the industrial organisation’s pyramid and doing it on their own. “It” meaning working, learning, creating and collaborating.

We’re seeing signs of this weakening of the industrial hierarchical model (see Wirearchy for more details), with workers dropping out of the “Corporation” and becoming free agents. Will this trend continue? I don’t know; but it sure appears that a job for life is a thing of the past and learning how learn for yourself, or at least with your own online network, might not be a bad skill-set. Unfortunately, many of us have come through school and training programs where we’ve been told what the learning objectives are and that we will be tested at the end of the course. On completion, we get a certificate to hang on the wall to simulate some kind of actual competence.

The figure below is my first attempt to synthesize these thoughts into a graphic. I’m not an artist, but I’m learning informally ;-)

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In a less structured and networked world, we all will need to learn in unstructured and networked ways. More to follow …

Where would we be without school drop outs?

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Nine Shift (required reading in my opinion) explains in “Schools depend on drop outs”, that the education monopoly is not primarily responsible for innovation in our society. Bill and Julie show how young men (yes, it’s usually boys who quit) who drop out of school are often the ones who go on to achieve great things. Notable drop outs:

Bill Gates – Microsoft
Steve Jobs – Apple
Michael Dell – Dell
Larry Ellison – Oracle
Mike Lazaridis – Blackberry
Shawn Fanning – Napster

What technologies would schools use without these guys?

How Computer Games Help Children Learn – Review

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Will Richardson commented on my recent post where I referred to the book, How Computer Games Help Children Learn:

The thing I find so much more effective about the network learning I do is that it’s asynchronous and done on my time. And yet IM and Skype and others make synchronous discussion imminently possible when needed or necessary. And all of that is what to me at least poses such a challenge to the traditional work of classrooms where we are all expected to learn the same things at the same time.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in learning and education, but the title is a bit misleading. It’s more about the theory and practice of authentic learning experiences than specific computer games. Many of games mentioned in the book, like the debating game, are not computer-based, but could be computer enhanced. David Williamson Shaffer’s book is really about epistemic games, or “games that are fundamentally about learning to think in innovative ways”.

He begins by showing the fundamental weaknesses of our Industrial School System, itself a game:

Not surprisingly, the epistemology of School is the epistemology of the Industrial Revolution – of creating wealth through mass production of standardized goods. School is a game about thinking like a factory worker. It is a game with an epistemology of right and wrong answers in which Students are supposed to follow instructions, whether they make sense in the moment or not. Truth is whatever the teacher says is the right answer, and actions are justified based on appeal to authority. School is a game in which what it means to know something is to be able to answer specific kinds of questions on specific kinds of tests.

Shaffer shows the need for teaching how to think and how to be creative, instead of how to memorize, and lays the argument for the use of games in learning. Most of his examples are outside of the classroom because it is obvious that these kinds of epistemic games would disrupt classes and the curriculum. The games that are discussed are called monument games, or exemplars of good practice. None of the games is available “out of the box” but the ideas and concepts are critical for anyone who wants to use games in learning, not just playing bingo and using words or figures out of context. The latter does not help learning.

The use of epistemic games is an approach that resembles cognitive apprenticeship. As our society moves from a linear print-based medium of knowledge creation to a networked and computer-assisted medium, we need new, post-industrial learning models:

As the late Jim Kaput and I have argued, if written symbols led to a theoretic culture based on external symbolic of storage, then computers are in the process of creating a digital or virtual culture based on the externalization of symbolic processing. This is the kind of change that has happened three of four times in the course of human evolution – a change of similar magnitude to the development of the printing press and the development of writing and language itself. What it means is that being “literate” in the digital age is not about reading and writing but about solving problems using simulations. What matters in the digital age is not learning to do things a computer can do for you but learning to use the computer to do things that neither you nor it could do alone.

I have emphasized what I see as the core argument of the book. We need to do things differently because the world has changed.

I highly recommend “How Computer Games Help Children Learn”.

Other books I recommend.

The Woz Wows Sackville

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Steve Wozniak, author of iWoz, gave a superb performance at Mount Allison University this evening. The Woz is a very open and friendly person who freely gives of his time in the spirit of learning and collaboration. His presentation this evening covered much that it in his book, but in person you get to feel the passion. People came from all over the region to listen to his inspirational speech, as witnessed by the capacity audience.

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Our son, Nicholas, is reading the book and he found the presentation very interesting. Being able to hold the attention of a 14-year old, using almost no computer-generated effects is no small feat. Steve Wozniak spoke as if he was on fire, and some people felt that they could barely keep up listening to his fast-paced speech. At the end of the presentation, my friend next to me said, “now that is a very nice man”.

I really liked the part when Woz talked about his time working at Texas Instruments and how he got a job designing calculators because he had the skills and therefore didn’t need the formal certifications. He definitely believes in informal learning and taking charge of your life and your learning.

Afterwards, Nick got his book signed and Dad got the picture.

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On professionalism and creativity

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I’m reading David Shaffer’s “How Computer Games Help Children Learn” and will be writing a detailed review once I finish the book, which is excellent so far. I can also say that this book is not just about how children learn, as it’s applicable to learners of all ages.

In the section on professionalism, I found a connection between informal learning and professionalism. To quote Shaffer:

Creativity is a conversation – a tension – between individuals working on individual problems and the professional communities they belong to.

This reflects much of what is happening between the bloggers in the informally-bounded educational technology community. We are discussing our individual concerns and issues with the larger community of “professionals”:

A professional is anyone who does work that cannot be standardized easily and who continuously welcomes challenges at the cutting edge of his or her expertise.

Shaffer goes on to discuss Vigotsky’s zone of proximal development [the gap between a learner’s current development level and the learner’s potential level of development]. I believe that professionals immersed in communities of practice or continuously pushing their informal learning opportunities can have a larger zone of proximal development. They are more open to learning and to expanding their knowledge. I have had a huge growth in my professional network since I started blogging. These professional conversations are not possible off-line when you live outside a major urban centre, as I do. Today, active involvement in informal learning, particularly through web-based communities, is key to remaining professional and creative in a field.

To paraphrase Jay, informal learning is more about your network than your knowledge. This seems obvious when you use Shaffer’s definitions of creativity and professionalism. You need the network to engage in the problem-solving conversations at the edge of your expertise.

Informal Learning Unworkshop #4

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Jay Cross, Judy Brown and I will be conducting our fourth online Informal Learning Unworkshop starting on February 6th, 2007. In a nutshell, this is what “Learning with Blogs, Wikis and the Web”, will be about:

  • Learn to use blogs, wikis, and other web tools to improve organizational learning
  • Four weeks of online webinars, hands-on exercises, and groupwork to build foundation knowledge
  • One year of professional network and resources to continue learning

Come and join this worldwide community of interest/practice.

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School’s Out

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This morning we woke up to the message:

Mon Jan 08 2007 06:08 AM: ALL schools in District 2 will be closed today due to weather conditions.

For me, it’s a regular work day, though I’ll try to get a bike ride in between first light and the first snow flake. My wife’s workshop is in the house, so it’s a regular day for her too. If we were home-schooling (an option we’re considering), it would be a regular day all over. No cancellation or re-arranging of schedules would be necessary. We would be two free-agent parents with two free-agent learners. In 2001, Dan Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind” and “Free Agent Nation”, wrote:

“Home schooling,” though, is a bit of a misnomer. Parents don’t re-create the classroom in the living room any more than free agents re-create the cubicle in their basement offices. Instead, home schooling makes it easier for children to pursue their own interests in their own way — a My Size Fits Me approach to learning. In part for this reason, some adherents — particularly those who have opted out of traditional schools for reasons other than religion — prefer the term “unschooling.”

The similarities to free agency — having an “unjob” — are many. Free agents are independent workers; home-schoolers are independent learners. Free agents maintain robust networks and tight connections through informal groups and professional associations; home-schoolers have assembled powerful groups — like the 3,000-family Family Unschoolers Network — to share teaching strategies and materials and to offer advice and support. Free agents often challenge the idea of separating work and family; home-schoolers take the same approach to the boundary between school and family.

The number of free-agents has increased in this country, especially with corporate outsourcing and ubiquitous access to the Internet. We’re still the minority, but this continuing economic/demographic shift is bound to have its effects on school, work, taxation, leisure time and everything else. I believe that the magic number is 20%. Once 20% of people are doing something, it seems that everyone is doing it, and then the pace quickens.

It’s the system, stupid

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Research has shown that if a good person is put in an unethical environment, the environment will dominate over the individual.

This quote, from Peter Dean, sums up the need for system change to make lasting change – addressing causes not just symptoms.

Gary Stager, in The Pulse, discusses the well-known Milgram Experiments, conducted in the 1960’s to see how far people would go in administering electric shocks to learners. These experiments were recently replicated by ABC News and Stager picks up the direct link to public education [please read the whole article]:

One of the subjects in the television program was a 7th grade teacher who explained that she didn’t stop shocking the learner because as a teacher she had learned when a student’s complaints were phony. I thought to myself, “Has she electrocuted many students?”

The teacher asked the researcher, “There isn’t going to be any lawsuit from this medical facility, right?” When told that the teacher was not liable, she replied, “That’s what I needed to know.” It is however worth noting that this was after she induced the maximum shock and the learner demanded that the experiment be terminated.

This is why we need to change the entire system – constraining curriculum; compulsory testing; useless homework; irrelevant subjects; classrooms cut off from the world; systemic bullying; etc. More or better teachers won’t help; we need to change the system.

Reading iWoz

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I’m currently reading Steve Wozniak’s autobiography, iWoz. Wozniak was the co-founder of Apple Computers and is an engineer by profession. It’s not my usual reading, but he will be at our local university in two weeks, as part of the Wilford Jonah Lecture Series.

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The other reviews of the book are quite mixed but what I’ve found interesting about his early years is the importance of positive reinforcement and the key roles of a few people at critical times. One or two teachers, as well as his father, provided the right amount of encouragement at the right time. Wozniak went on to become what many claim to be “the inventor” of the personal computer.

As Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

Update:

After reading the book, I find that it is a personal account of how Woz learned about computers, electronics and engineering. The book is partially about Apple Computers, but I would not call this a business book. Woz says he wrote the book to set the record straight on several statements that appear in the press or other published books. He also seems to have written this book as inspiration for young people who may wish to become inventors.

I found the book interesting, but not overly inspirational, but then I’m not a fan of autobiographies. I would recommend it for computer engineers, techies or high school students who may be looking at their options in life.