1.+Intro

INTRO
Welcome How to use this book The authors' assumptions The personal in personal learning environment The network in social learning networks

Welcome and How to Use this Book  Welcome / How to Use this Book We are delighted that you have joined us on an adventure into the realm of socially and technologically mediated learning [We really need a jazzy title for this book]. Together we will explore what it means to learn in a rich learning ecology ... blah blah blah.

As we, the authors, grapple with our own expanding notion of information, knowledge and books - we present the included material in a variety of ways. Layout You will find a table of contents with a list of Chapter Headings on the home page and on the left navigation bar. You will see these same content headings depicted as a cycle, with no clear beginning or end. You may also explore the content through the tag cloud found on the left navigation bar. Finally we represent the content in this book as a network of interconnected nodes. Feel free to enter this book in the way that is most meaningful to you. We provide links to the other nodes at the beginning of each and peppered throughout the content as references.

Learning objects Much of the first iteration of the book is text, written in the individual voices of the three authors. We hope that over time additional voices will be added. We employ graphics and video and of course hyperlinks whenever possible.

[insert image of the contents as a ball of interconnecting nodes with Intro zoomed and bright.] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Caption: The content is displayed here as a __network__ [link to description of what we mean by network] of interconnected nodes. The <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">network <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> metaphor will be applied in a variety of ways**.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ** We will also talk about learning occurring within a network of human contacts and digital information [link to where this is discussed]. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">** We also hope to create a network of readers / contributors that will grow as more people interact with this book [Link to where readers may register and join the discussion].

==<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Basic assumptions: Internet and communication tools are not going away  Internet and communication tools are the tools of global economy, global problem solving, global culture  Internet and communication tools are the tools of our youth. We are capable of harnessing these tools for our own learning and to support the learning efforts of our students. ==

==<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The Personal Internet and communication tools are not going away ==

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__New paradigms__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Technology leads to major changes in our paradigms. Technology has played an important part in the lives of humanids since the beginning of tool use some 3 million years ago. This is not the first time in history that a technological accomplishment has led to grand scale changes in the way we look at the world. Think of the shift from following the herd to planting a crop. Consider the perspective change when transcontinental flight was achieved.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> That said, we are in a period of rapid technological change and shifting paradigms. While much of what you read in this book will reverberate the familiar - consider looking at the familiar with new eyes. Like the person who had not imagined flight, look at the fields from the clouds. While your students look like the students you had 15 years ago, remember that these kids are always connected to friends and information through their cell phones, game controllers, computers. We invite you to look at what it means to know, think and learn through a new lens, from a new perspective. Together lets try to describe what the shift means.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__The personal network or the me and the us__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In this book we will explore an approach to education which is on the one hand learner-centric and on the other community-centric. SAY MORE

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__Friends__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> One of the paradigmatic shifts of the digital age is our concept of friend. Throughout this book you will see the word friend used to describe a new type of relationship. Within this definition, a friend is a person with whom you share common interests. Like acquaintances of the past there are degrees of involvement with friends. With some you share intimate details and others you share little or nothing besides the interest that connects you. This relationship may be an equal exchange or one in which you get more than you give. You may or may not have ever met the friend face to face, you may or may not have ever spoken to the friend by phone/voice, you may or may not have ever had direct communication with the friend.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__Communities of Practice__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Constructivist epistemology <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Collins, Brown and Neuman - Cognitive Apprenticeship <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lave and Wenger’s notion of Communities of Practice <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Constructivist epistemology <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Personal Learning Network

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What I love about my Personal Learning Network <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> For the past four years I have been building a personal learning network. At first it wasn’t a conscious decision. In fact I didn’t know what was happening to me when it all started...

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I decided to play a game and attend a meeting....

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Before I knew what was happening I was rapidly and easily climbing a steep learning curve. I was flooded with new ideas, new experiences, new perspectives and rather than being exhausted I was exhilarated. In the first year I would repeatedly say “I have learned more about my field in the past 3 months (6months, 12 months) as I have in my adult life. At the time I thought it was “the game.” I entered Second Life and this intellectual blossoming began to occur. But I heard other’s describe the same experience using twitter. I came to realize it was my learning network. Second Life was the catalyst but the people and my interactions with them were the key to what was happening.

I don’t know where this goes.

Last night I saw a list and an image that provoked what follows. Both having to do with the use of iPads in the classroom.

But first let’s start with the automobile engine. Carl Bereiter makes the remarkable claim that “a flawed idea, if continually refined, can win out over a better idea that has not had the benefit of as much development.” He uses as an example the case of the internal combustion engine. The reciprocating piston engine has had many competitors over its one hundred year + history. And though engineers have long recognized the limitations of the original design, more recent attempts (see Wenkle engine) at radical change have failed to receive the financial and time investment necessary to overcome the good-enough design of the tried and true, in spite of the long term promise of a much more efficient engine.

So goes education argues Bereiter. And the evidence is clear in the above mentioned list and image. We have been doing education the way we do for so long and invested in its foundation that there are better ways that there could be radically better ways - does not sway us from sticking with what we know to work however poorly.

The list: I found this list recommended in a list serve to which I subscribe. It claims to offer the 100 Most Educational iPhone apps.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. How is “educational” defined by the curators of the list? Education is the acquisition of facts. You can practice crunching data with brain games, you can drill yourself with quizzes and flashcards. You can look at encyclopedic entries on science, math and social studies facts. You can memorize new vocabulary, synonyms and popular quotes. Education is a private matter between the authoritative source and the acquirer of knowledge <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 2. How is educational technology or mobile computing defined by the curators of the list? Educational technology and the mobile phone are small storage devices, replacing the early instructional CD. According to this list technology has reduced the weight of a set of encyclopedias and has enabled limited hyperlinking. It does not offer any new ways to explore information, nor does it provide access to alternative perspectives or encourage the learner to contribute to the existing knowledge. One of the more telling characteristics of this list is the omission of google earth from the category Geography and History.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> This is not a critique of the apps on the list. There are a few that I would add to my list of 100 useful tools for education. Evernote is a favorite tool and the US Historical Documents (200 searchable primary sources) might be useful if I wanted to see a particular document. In the face of a communications revolution, I am concerned that “experts” are stuck in traditional ideas of education, unable to use technology to advance the possibilities for learning.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> What I see as a great learning app and why: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> World of Goo.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> This is a game. When you begin the objective is unclear. The game offers no instructions, but plenty of reward as you discover your mission and gradually improve upon your strategy. Two learners and an iPad or 5 learners with 5 iPads will result in a lively learning experience that will support problem solving, communication, collaboration and a good bit of physics.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The image:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I first saw this image in an advertisement for iPads. Later I could not track down the original source but found the photo again in an op ed piece on the quite good technology site <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://obamapacman.com/2011/01/schools-embraces-ipad-in-education-improve-learning-save-money/ipad-in-education-classroom/__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (which by the way has a great list of Mobile apps).

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> What struck me about the image is that there is NOTHING NEW GOING ON here. Replace the iPad with a text or notebook and you have an English, History, Math class from the 1990s or the 1940s. Now I cannot say from this picture what is actually going on (or even if the picture is real). The be-pumped teacher may be telling a riveting story or introducing a field trip. But this is not a good example of iPad use and is a poor poster for how technology has transformed education.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Mobile devices support individual exploration, team work, communication, creativity, playfulness. Again I am not criticizing this particular class, teacher or students. We don’t know what is going on here. And every teacher will likely stand at the board from time to time. The problem is that this picture - worth a thousands words - tells a traditional, very boring story that we have heard many times before.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Seen another way, this picture -- worth a thousand years -- captures a transition <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__from__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> slideshows and blackboards, “classroom” seating patterns, and single-source passion and teaching of yore. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">__To__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the launch of student-passion-fueled learning using and connecting in virtual format (through personal classroom ware [Jane and Rick would probably think of “wear”]). This teacher is reviewing the rules of engagement, establishing coordinates for reporting and consultations, and seeing her students off on their learning quests. We will discuss <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__this process and the emergent skills__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that keep teachers at the forefront of the learning experience as pictured here.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I see the picture much more along the lines that Jane does - nothing new. The ‘students’ still face the ‘teacher’ in orderly rows, the teacher is jacked up on mid-century middlebrow pumps, and my guess is that what’s going on on those iPads is a traditional bullet-point discussion of social studies as it applies to mid-century middle American views barely supplemented and updated in the ensuing <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//6 decades// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I love how this document balances where we are going with the technology with a critique of the ways it can be used to prop up the creaky, cobweb-ridden practices of yore (yawn!).

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I would like to see more here, I know in some regards this is a sketch of what’s to come combined with some mature content- witness Jane’s note-to-self “SAY MORE”. Please, please give us more!

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #38761d; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I think this sets the tone nicely for where we will go with this book. I would like to see a peppering of Jane’s critical eye across the entire book as it is a distinctive, discriminating (in a good way) voice that sets us apart from the mind-numbing boosterism that is still so rampant in tech books that purport to show where we’re going and how great it will be as we sprout propellers from our beanies and levitate upon clouds of middlebrow utopian gas.