Well ... it's time for another post. The last few weeks have been hectic with 30 June approaching so not much time for reflection. I did manage to catch up on the KNowledge Tree article by Dana Boyd http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/which got me thinking about how young people and youth culture is changing with the growth of mediated social networking. How does this impact on learning in VET? What are the expectations of young people when they 'walk' into a learning environment? Do they want to bring their mediated social networking culture and tools into the learning process? What will they think if technology is not used to mediate learning, when it is so much a part of their life experience?

As teachers, we need to

• be aware of the use of technology by our learners and engage with them on how they want to use it in the learning and assessment process. We have known of this need for a while - so there's really nothing new here!
• develop our own skills and comfort with the technologies - particularly with social networking and media-making tools
• examine our teaching practice and revise our strategies to enhance learner engagement, incorporate social networking and empower learners in the assessment process
• utilise learners as resource co-developers.

What are some doable steps to achieve or move toward this new learning?

• identify an assessment or learning task that can be adapted to incorporate social networking and/or media tools, eg use a wiki for a group project, have learners use their mobile phone cameras to photograph the product of a learning task and post to flickr, have a learner group collect weblinks in a class del.icio.us account, ask students to create digital stories that you can use as a learning resource/exemplar
• set aside 1/2 to 1 hour a week to explore social networking tools and new learning strategies - ideally do this with a team of colleagues
• find out what others are doing and learn from them (pinch/adapt ideas and resources and share back to the community)
• create your own blog or wiki to collect ideas and resources, to reflect, to model for your learners

Michael Coghlan's website 'New Technologies - New Learning' also provides an opportunity to engage in conversation on this topic: http://newlearning.wikispaces.com/

Are young people 'wired differently' and has learning process changed with technology developments? I'm not so sure. Maybe young people have always learned this way, but our teaching practice has not always matched up and social networking, mediation and technology have provided learners with a tool to learn in the way they choose. It exposes some of our inadequate teaching practices in a way that is hard to ignore. This offers a challenge to us for reflection, professional development and quality improvement in teaching and learning strategies.

What next I wonder ...

Catching up on Jimmy and the Chaser ...

Thoughts about Jimmy Wales' Challenging How Knowledge is Created seminar:

• Jimmy used the term 'intentional vulnerability' to describe philosophy of wikipedia; it's just not interesting/challenging to wreck wikipedia content – no firewalls, passwords, etc to break; it is usually fixed within minutes … ho hu
• wikipedia about factual information, not opinions, so articles written collaboratively and based on consensus to ensure objectivity (neutrality) of information
• errors identified are quickly fixed (where possible)
• governance – first level openness, individuals/groups who operate to undermine can be banned, limit on reverts to prevent ‘edit wars’ – contributors encouraged to discuss and come to a consensus
• scientific journal Nature identified that wikipedia had an average of 4 errors per article, while Britannica had 3. Wikipedia asked for the list of errors and corrected all errors found by the study
• how many articles, users??
• Concept of wikipedia and wikia foundation based on people (this part is very inspiring!) – respect, consensus, collaboration, sum of all information available to every individual, global - same philosophy is driving wikia (likened to a library and community, where wikipedia is one type of publication, an encyclopedia)
• wikipedia has articles in 128 languages with at least 1000 articles (this number identifies there is a significant community in the language
• concern about students using/copying wikipedia articles in assessments - the recommendation that students use the wikipedia article as a starting point for research I thought was a good one - students would find links to other sources in the article, or find other sources themselves to verify, flesh out their information.

The panel discussion was a bit of a waste of time - there was a lot of theorising and soapboxing, but not much that you could grab hold of and say 'now that sounds like something that would work - that gels'.

The group activity after lunch was a discussion around the question of "what are the practical and philosophical challenges of sharing information?" There were some great ideas generated (I'm trying to find these as the organisers, education.au, were going to post the outcomes ... watch this space)

To listen to podcasts of the seminar go to: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/pid/439

And, the best part of the day... Chaser's War 10 Questions segment - If you view the episode you will see me behind Andrew Hansen as he asks Jimmy Wales why he looks more like a daytime soap star than a computer geek!! (see Episode 6) How cool is that!!

Web Conferencing not just ...

... an online teaching or meeting tool to mitigate distance and travel time for participants and students. Today I have been exploring the use of Adobe Connect - in the hands of the students -to record student presentations, to link an expert guest speaker with a class, to record practical demonstrations and student job interviews and role plays .

Good teaching practice, that is already learner-centred, can be readily enhanced by the use of technology tools. The challenge is in transforming teaching strategies that are less learner-centred to enable more student choice and control. What are the pedagogies, pathways and choices that technology can afford to learners? How can we identify these and encourage teachers to adopt them without feeling threatened or overburdened?

Introducing technologies that are used to enhance the traditional teacher-centred model, will not necessarily transform or improve the learning experience for the student. Redesign of assessment and learning activities are required concurrently with technology application.

Some thoughts to pursue ...

Beginning of a new blog

I always start the day with a latte - so what better way to start my new blog than with the same ... hence the title: Learning And Teaching, Talking 'e'.

The theme of my blog is around learning and teaching in the vocational education sector and the 'e' is everything electronic that engages, excites, empowers and enhances learning. Let's see where this will take us ... let's explore!!