learning in a digital age: myth and reality

Steve Wheeler@timbuckteeth

Plymouth University

Learning in a Digital Age:Myth and Reality

eLearning 2.0 Conference, Brunel University: June 8, 2012

Prague Airport 2012

Prague Airport 2012

Source: Kelly Hodgkins http://gizmodo.com/5813875/what-happens-in-60-seconds-on-the-internet

So Me use

>850 Million(100 billion connections)

>400 Million >150 Million

>260 Million

>14 million

articles

>6 Billion images

Sources from service providers and also http://econsultancy.com

>4 Billion views/day>60 hours/minute

>170 Million

>90 Million

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_mob_pho-media-mobile-phones

Worldwide ownership of mobile phones

5.9 Billion mobile accounts

= 87% of population ?

Mobile game based learning

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-mobile-gaming-statistics-stats-2011/

“We are becoming distributed beings. Mobile makes the trend more explicit.” - Mark Curtis (2005)

The first mobile device

Connection

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http://i.imwx.com

Although the world’s media were in Berlin for Obama’s historic speech, each person in the

crowd wanted to capture their own memories and share them with others.

“..we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out

knowledge.” - Daniel J. Boorstinhttp://gcaptain.com/drowning?10981/

[The next big thing - Flipped Classrooms]

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/116382

http://schipul.com/photos/3659/in/122/

MOOC

TED The Khan Academy and other attempts to create out of classroom content are great. But learning

is much more than this.

http://w

ww

.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/2300379755/sizes/l/in/photostream

/

Flipping the classroom is not just about video. We need to more deeply consider how students

are learning in the digital age.

Flip the roles, not the classroom

Students can take on the roles of teachers, and teachers those of learners. This is the essence of

the true flipped classroom.

http://campussolutionsinc.com/tag/reach-college-students/

We learn by teaching

Bearpit Pedagogy

http://open.salon.com

Students encouraged to create their own content, present it to their peers and defend it against criticism – developing critical thinking.

[Learning styles]

“There are as many learning styles as there are people.”

– Wheeler (2009)http://fluorescentflicker.files.wordpress.com

VAK model

Visual Seeing and reading

Auditory Hearing and speaking

Kinaesthetic Touching and doing

Multi-modal learning...?

Auditory

Visual

Kinaesthetic

...or Confucius repurposed?

Auditory

Visual

Kinaesthetic

I see, I remember

I hear, I know

I do, I understand

Situated learning

Auditory

Visual

Kinaesthetic

I see, I remember

I hear, I know

I do, I understand

Cognition

Memory Meta Cognition

Deeper Learning

http://www.ldu.leeds.ac.uk/ldu/

We need to think critically on

our beliefs about learning

http://w

ww

.nonformality.org/2006/04/excuse-m

isuse-or-abuse/

“This field suffers from serious conceptual confusion and a lack of accumulated theoretical knowledge.” – Frank Coffield

[Learning in large

organisations cannot be

personalised]

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/3778408_ecdaec0dae.jpg

Personalised learning means ensuring that individual differences are

acknowledged

We are familyhttp://pro.corbis.com

Wii are family!

http://wiifitnessdepot.com

Personal Learning Environment

Source: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-ple.html

Steve Wheeler & Manish Malik (2010)

http://www.slashgear.com/babys-first-ipad-24121114/

“The average digital birth of children

happens at about six months.”

[There are digital natives]

Digital Natives?

The Net

Generation?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56155476@N08/5667863948/

Homo

Zappiens?

http://truedantalion.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/silver-surfers.html

Digital Residents or Visitors?

http://learningputty.com

[Mobile Phones should be banned]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk

...they are distracting and disruptive. The phone becomes

the focus of attention,inappropriate images/videos can

be taken and sent, leading to invasion of privacy and loss of

teacher control!

Mobile phones are banned in most schools because...

Objections from Educators

BYOD - Personal technologies

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/117/291379959_594fa8ef70.jpg

When we ban young people from using their mobile devices, we prevent them from communicating and

learning in ways that are meaningful to them.

Digital cultural capital

“Where digital communication has

fractured the tyranny of distance and computers

have become pervasive and ubiquitous, identification through digital mediation

has become the new cultural capital”.

- Wheeler (2009)

http://www.coreideas.com.au/

http://i125.photobucket.com

[SMS is dumbing down the English Language]

Language is organic

www.socialedge.org

Language is

constantly evolving

as society changes –

‘Neologisms’

20,000 new words introduced into the English language

each year.http://itre.cis.upenn.edu

“The ethos of 50 years ago was that there was one kind of English that was right and everything else was wrong....There’s a new kind of ethos now.”

~ David Crystal

Evolution of Language

http://www.utsa.edu

“The arrival of [new technologies] all pulled

language in new directions. But texting is

different”

~ David Crystal

Competition to write the Lord’s Prayer in <160 characters

r pa in evan, respect 2 u, may u rain ear as in evan. giv us r needs, 4giv r sin as we 4giv r nmes. resq us from the evil 1. 4 ur always the most xlent dude. yo

“Mobile phones are forcing children to become more literate. Without the ability to txt, they

cannot fully participate in their own culture of communication”

Peter Yeomans (2010)

‘Squeeze txt’ and literacy

[All technology is neutral]

http://www.oldukphotos.com

The old debate between Clark and Kozma over whether technology has the potential to change

the way we learn…

http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/why-social-networks-matter

… and some wisdom from Marshal McLuhan on the power of technology to shape our

perceptions and behaviour.

Source: Maria Webster - http://www.ntdaily.com/

Intuitive handheld devices

Natural gesture interface

Connection to my learning network

Learningis changing

http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/why-social-networks-matter

[Wikipedia is untrustworthy]

Who can you trust online?

http://grewordlist.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/perfidious.png

http://www.themodernman.com

“60% of all Internet pages contain

misleading information.”

- Thomas Edison

Learners need ‘digital wisdom’

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- Socrates

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- SocratesPlato

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- SocratesPlato

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-713124904

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- SocratesPlato

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-713124904

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- SocratesPlato

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-713124904

DarwikianismThrough iteration, editing, deletion, addition and reworking, we witness the survival of the fittest

content online.

Wikipedia is crowdsourcing

evaluation

Community as curriculum

Folksonomies emerge based on the desire of the community. This bottom-up approach ensures that

content that is important to the community becomes the most prominent…

[Twitter is all about breakfast]

http://w

ww

.lythhillhouse.com/breakfast.htm

l

Twitter as a libraryTwitter as a street corner

Twitter as a broadcast channel Twitter as amplification

What my students said about Twitter...

http://jcbarrington.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-twitter.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/3601144842/sizes/l/in/photostream/

[The Internet is dangerous]

25 million views 46 million views

447 million views51 million views

Content goes viral when it is useful, funny, entertaining, shocking or otherwise resonant to the community.

Sometimes content can be ambiguous, or subject to subtle changes that are difficult for some to detect…

“Lee Harvey and the Wailers”(Lee Harvey did not jam alone)

http://www.myspace.com/hsu/photos/6850630

We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.

“We know that there are two

thousand elements which

we cannot use to make a good light

bulb.”- Thomas Edison[Failure is a bad thing]

“All too often today we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.”

- John W Gardner

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/image/s_flowers-lost-gardens-of-heligan.jpg

http://www.newcastle.edu.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK:

International Licence.

Steve Wheeler swheeler@plymouth.ac.uk University of Plymouth, United Kingdom