Snemand Olsen, Jacob og Pernille, vinterferie 2005

Især hvis du arbejder sammen med andre om opgaven, er det helt afgørende, at I bruger den nødvendige tid på at afklare præcist hvad det er for et problem, I ønsker at arbejde med. I skal klarlægge jeres vinkel på emnet og forklare, hvad det er for specifikke elementer, I ønsker at undersøge. Ingen i gruppen må være i tvivl om, hvor I er på vej hen. De nødvendige diskussioner må tages med det samme, sådan at alle bakker op om projektet.

Husk på, at vi hver især har vores eget billede af verden i hovedet. Vi har vores helt egen forståelse af, hvordan verden hænger sammen. Når I udarbejder en problemformulering vil den uværgerligt bygge på denne forforståelse. For at gøre det muligt for læseren at følge jeres tankerække og argumenter, må I sørge for direkte at skrive i problemformuleringen, hvilke antagelser I har om verden. Jeres forforståelse skal tydeliggøres.

Hvorfor er det nu så vigtigt at bekymre sig om og bruge tid og energi på dette felt?

Jo, hvis først metode og formalia er på plads i en skriftlig opgave, er der ikke noget, der distraherer din læser eller trækker ned i den samlede bedømmelse. Du har fanget læserens opmærksomhed og kan aflevere dit budskab.

The Futurelab seems to think so. In their publication Opening Education: Social software and learning (2006), they suggest using a combination of blogs and syndication to allow both teachers and students to publish material and responses in blogs with a notification system announcing the publishing of new items. This will certainly add a timely and personal touch to online communication. And indeed an addition for Blackboard is now being offered containing social learning applications, which, among other things, include blogs, wikis and RSS feeds. An interesting concept considering the very centralized and well-controlled environment of the Blackboard courses.

What do we do with all the wonderful new tools and possibilities? How can we fit them into our existing programmes? Well, that is not really the question, we are supposed to ask. Rather, we should consider the implications of the development within digital technology. We should try to understand how the digital age is changing people’s thinking patterns (Prensky 2001) and the concept of knowledge itself (Owen et al. 2006).

Futurelab’s publication certainly manages to persuade me that the development within digital technology has not only brought with it a suite of new tools. We are also faced with a new way of perceiving and dealing with knowledge. Today we see technologies that support “the creation of communities and resources in which individuals come together to learn, collaborate and build knowledge” (Owen et al 2006, p. 3). Social software lets people “organise knowledge in ways that are significant to us at different times and in different places”, (Owen et al. 2006, p. 3). Multi-tasking and several, overlapping knowledge streams are the order of the day. Thus we are moving away from traditional teaching with the teacher and the subject in focus. Learning that takes place one step at a time progressing in a very linear manner is simply outdated.

What is called for here, the Futrelab argues is “evolution of the National Curriculum to one which takes account of new relationships with knowledge, and we need to develop assessment practices which respond to new approaches to learning and new competencies we expect learners to delveop” (Owen et al., pp. 4-5). So we are facing a rethink of the entire education system. This corresponds very well with the conclusion of Kjaer and Mathiasen who have done research involving the introduction of laptops in the classroom: “...we have to rethink education as a whole – i.e. its objective, its goal, its content, the organization of the educational activities – in relation to the lesson schedule, the physical space, and our understanding of the subjects, - and what the subject for the examination should be” (Kjaer and Mathiasen 2002, p. 142).

Futurelab calls for a shift from e-learning to c-learning warranted by the shift from web 1.0 to web 2.0. C-learning then rests on the principles of Community, Communication and Collaboration. I would like to add a fourth c, namely Closeness, as the heading of this blog entry indicates.

However, the authors are more vague when it comes to specific ways in which we can cope with the digital age in education. It is now up to individuals, communities and organisations to experiment with social software and develop feasible learning programmes.

Literature:

Kjaer, Arne og Mathiasen, Helle (2002): IT: A Challenge for the Educational System i Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L & Fibiger, B. (eds.) Learning in Virtual Environments. Copenhagen. Samfundslitteratur.

Owen, M. et al. (2006). Opening Education : Social software and learning. Futurelab. http://www.futurelab.org.uk/download/pdfs/research/opening_education/Social_Software_report.pdf 

Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital Natives, Digtial Immigrants. Available from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/default.asp

Alexander points out the difference between the static or database-driven web pages of Web 1.0 and the wikis and blogs of Web 2.0 with timeliness and user modification in focus. He concludes that Web 2.0 is about microcontent at the level of blog entries and tags e.g., whereas the foundation of Web 1.0 is web pages. Furthermore, he offers a very good definition of wikis, namely “streams of conversation, revision, amendment, and truncation (Alexander 2006, p. 33).

Another keyword is openness which again distinguishes Web 2.0 from the more recipient specific e-mail messages and discussion board posts of Web 1.0. Many blogs are open to all net users, and some systems allow the individual user to set up access restrictions from entry to entry, thus determining the level of openness him-/herself.

The ideology or perhaps rather the culture of Web 2.0 can thus be characterised as democratic with very low power distance (Hofstede 1991). This ideology takes on a very physical presence in the “controversial new form of metadata, the folksonomy” (Alexander 2006, p. 34), in which users themselves generate metadata through tagging instead of the traditional hierarchical lists provided by content authorities. Social bookmarking allows people to locate and connect with others who share the same interests thus providing a basis for new learning to take place.

1. How can we integrate ICT in learning in ways that will enhance the level of learning our students reach?
2. How can we motivate teachers to integrate ICT in learning in meaningful ways?

What we need to realise is that teachers and students are often divided by a gap that is caused by their different backgrounds and experiences. Marc Prensky (2001) delivers a very accurate description of this gap in his article: Digital Natives, Digtal Immigrants. Prensky characterises people under the age of 25 as digital natives. People who thrive on multi-tasking, performing parallel tasks. Living life online is great. Blogging and instant messaging plus the mobile phone are essential elements. The digital natives like to produce content and their motto is: sharing is power.

Opposite the digital natives, we find the digital immigrants (25+), who process information one piece at a time. Linear thinking and working is the order of the day. Real life only takes place off line. Their motto is: knowledge is power. Let's keep good knowledge to ourselves.

Often teachers are digital immigrants with a strong accent, whereas students are digital natives. So challenge no. 3 is:

How do we create respect and understanding between the two groups of people? Where is the middle ground where digital natives and digital immigrants can work together and create learning of the highest order?