Codifying Educational Language - Passing it on...

I dread preparing lesson plans. Yet, it's an important step to verbalise the contextualisation of learning to unique audiences. With different batches of learners with disparate learning needs, barriers to learning, learning styles, socio-economical background etc., one could imagine the countless number of lesson plans that would be churned out to support all the learning! Think about this - how wonderful and efficient it would be to be able to share and re-use all these lesson plans without having to modify them heavily for adaptation?

Unfortunately, a lesson plan is no more than a record of the type and sequence of learning activities that occur in a classroom. This could not be readily replicated to other learner groups and even if replicated, the outcomes may not be reproducible as well. Faced with all the variables, how could we then, formulate a common educational language for sharing as most importantly, for educators to be able to re-use and apply the learning activities and the underpinning pedagogies almost instantaneously and effectively?

The answer could be found in Learning Design. Last year, an assembly of learning design experts congregate at Larnaca, Cyprus to collectively concur and produce the 'Larnaca Declaration', a super-long piece of document aimed at defining the crux of Learning Design and on the explicit manifestation of a common and definitive set of 'educational notation' to guide Learning Design and most importantly, to ensure that the design products are poliferated with ease. I briefly skimmed through the document and what really stopped me in my track was the use of music notation as an analogy to suggest the need for development of a similar language to guide the codifcation of implicit knowledge of how teachers teach, the types of actvities chosen, how learners learn etc. and the genrational transfer of such knowledge. I am in full agreement with this sophisicated idea though I do acknowledge that this is an arduous task. 

The document went on to expound the use of LAMS as an effective Learning Design Software system to attempt to capture and make explicit the learning activities and its associated pedagogical approaches. I won't talk about IMS or EML for now but using a LAMS for learning design work enables the user to appreciate the entire architectural flow of design decisions, sequencing and control of learning activities etc. In other words, the system helps one to think aloud a learning design concept. In contrast, a LMS merely serves as a repository where learning activities and resources are simply "parked" and confined to individual classes with minimal opportunities for replication. Will, one could argue that most modern LMS boast the capability of replicating course templates, but really, the course template does not really exhibit any trace of learning design. For instance, learners could easily access all the learning activities such as viewing course lectures, partipating in forum discussions etc. ALL AT THE SAME TIME and hence, there doesn't seem to be a need for extensive design in the course learning. 

I'm not sure if the Larnaca makes mention of this, but in my opinion, I thought that we should also leverage on knowledge management principles, techniques and tools as well to help establish some form of data semantics in the course of harvesting learning design outputs.

Whatever the case is, I thought that the efforts in pushing for a more inclusive and common platform for educational language to take flight were laudable and I really look forward to its fruition one day!

XoXo

Augmented Reality - How Real can we get?

Attended a very interesting session today at ICEM. A senior lecturer from MacQuarie University presented the possibilites of leveraging Augmented Reality technology or simply termed as 'AR' for education. For the skeptics out there, I was once like you where I loathed the idea of flashing sexy technology for learning. Not until today when I am totally wowed over by AR's affordances to immerse learners in an unprecedented learning environment beyond what the human minds could ever imagine!

Before you begin to dish out on the exorbitant cost involved, the time investment and not to mention about the level of technical expertise required to pull this educational stunt, I would like to assure you that the AR technology has evolved since and has permeated the masses. For those of you who aren't exactly sure what AR is, allow me to provide you with a simple definition. As the term 'Augmented Reality' suggests, the technology aims to fuse or merge virtual and real-life elements to produce rich media resources for learning and visualisation. How the fusion occur is really simply building overlayers of virtual elements over physical elements i.e. a physical location. AR is not as tech-intensive as Augment Virtuality and of course, Virtual Reality which really lay at the other end of the spectrum.

It's really invigorating to know that we could optimise technology to enhance learning and this could play to our advantage if we know how to harness its potential well. Of course at the othe end of the pendulum speaks of the possible cyber threats that may potentially undrmine the use of technology for learning. Common threats such as cyber-bullying and even getting to users to observe cyber-etiquette are challenges that we need to overcome. 

Before embarking on the integration of technology to classroom learning, a trainer or a teacher has to first deal with a wider set of what I would term as 'first order barriers'. Taking reference from the TPACK framework, we need to recognise that the mastery of technological skill sets is not a given and yet, is a crucial component driving the successful implementation of digital learning endeavours. Teachers and students alike have to be comfortable in manipulating and navigating the technological aspects of the learning above and beyond any other things. Similarly, like what I've mentioned earlier - teachers have to be aware and address cyber behaviours. There could possibly be a disparity in behaviours when someone hides behind the facade of a digital identity as compared to real-life interactions.

Fortunately, the experts had taken cognizance to these pertinent issues in the form of advocating digital literacies. The set of digital literacy skills is well-defined under the 21st Century Learning Framework and you may want to consider them in your learning design. 

Well, time for me to rush off for the morning keynote for Day 3! Hope that the day's sessions would be jam-packed with more refreshing and though-provoking ideas!

ICEM 2013 : We-learning? - Day 1

What exactly is "We-learning"? By now, we are well aware that the education paradigm had shifted to embrace collaboration, communication and constructivism. The primary underlying idea of 'We-learning' is not only focussed on catapulting the learner in the centre and be contented with learner-centricism, but to now enlarge the focal point to include learner-learner sharing and co-teaching. A lot of new ideas could be generated and harnessed out of this very collaboratve linkages established between learners when they get together and communicate!

It's the 63rd year that ICEM is organising the conference in Singapore and I'm pretty excited to be part of this learning fiesta! Running concurrently is a LAMS conference as well. For those of you who are not familiar with LAMS, it actually stands for Learning Activity Management System. The fundamental design purpose of this system is different from the LMS and based on my limited understanding, an enterprise or IHL would acquire a LAMS if the management really wants to focus on the effective management and deployment of learning events, sequences, sharable and re-usable content such as OER. Whatever the case is, these heavy weights are here to stay and they are no longer seen as peripheral tools playing second fiddle in supporting learning. In fact, the LMS has been lurking around since the '90s and in recent years, has penetrated the education landscape as a core engine driving and impacting organisational or instituitional learning.

Moving on, I would like to share an interesting presumption put forth by one of the presenters. The poor fella was trying his level best to put together the presentation though he misses out on what he's supposed to say! Nonetheless, he challenged the fixated frame of belief that people have on learning and how the belief is guided by norm-referencing how institutions are organised. To put it simply, he asked " why should there even be discrete blocks of audience and roles in a learning context, especially against the backdrop of a collaborative setting?" For instance, why can't teachers and students learn together, especially in common topics such as digital literacy. A further question was thrown to the floor, " Why does students 'learn' and teachers 'develop themselves professionally'?" On the outset, the idea to 'break down the 2nd order barrier' seems seductive to me but on closer examination, I thought the proper functioning of any processes or structures should be anchored on some form of legitimacy? Surely, some form of structure should be in place to power and steer the entire learning process with certain rules of engagement embedded in it. Yes, some of you may argue that as long as the frames are built in, the targets shall then be able to operate within the parameters to achieve the desired outcomes. Unfortunately, I do not think this would be true for our social construct where a 'figurehead' needs to be established to sheperd or worse still, to 'whip them into shape'!

Anyway, I have sumed up the day's programme... Let's hope that Day 2 will be packed with more interesting stuffs!

XoXo