Phd

The Body in Online Learning (1)

MariisLeave a comment

In my post on lessons learned from the CCK08 course last week I posed the question where the Body is in Connectivism, and one of the CCK08 facilitators, Steven Downes, commented and so did my PhD-supervisor, Janni Nielsen. This has inspired me to do some preliminary reflections on the Body in online learning in general. Since embodiment is a core concept in my PhD, this is something I’ll return to again and again, but I do have to start at some point …

I think Downes, Nielsen and I agree that technology can provide a perception of embodiment, and as I commented to Downes, that’s why I dare claim “that 3D representation e.g. in SL, offers a unique opportunity (especially in distance education) for users to feel part of an authentic or real context even if it is mediated through technology.”

Nielsen confronts my “to feel part of .. even if ..” phrase, which may seem illogical if you really believe that technology can provide a sense of embodiment. I guess this stems from my talks about SL. It’s my impression that 3D technology still is rather exotic to most people (even 2D!), and I think I might lose credibility if I started a talk by stating that this is real! Perhaps I underestimate my audience, but I do feel that if you’re not familiar with online behavior and haven’t been immersed in a 3D setting it may seem surreal … And I know that some people who actually are familiar with e.g. online learning do not feel the way I do.

I am very much inspired by phenomenology, and in preparation for my PhD application last summer, I revisited some of the great thinkers within that field, some of them being Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hubert L. Dreyfus. According to Ajana (2005) perception in Merleau-Ponty’s terms is:

(…) a ‘system’ of meanings by which the phenomenological process of recognizing and ‘sensing’ objects takes place, and it is through the medium of the body that we get to ‘experience’ and ‘perceive’ the world: ‘Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism: it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a system’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 203).

This may be what Downes refers to, when he states that “we’re pattern recognition devices” though I’m not sure Downes would label himself as a phenomenologist.

Anyway, Dreyfus inspires me, because he is also influenced by Merleau-Ponty, but I have to say that we read and interpret Merleau-Ponty in different ways, and that forces me to reflect on my own position. In 2001 Dreyfus published the book “On the Internet”, and if I had to point to one single reason why I wanted to do a PhD on 3D-mediated teaching and learning potential this is it!

Dreyfus goes against the hype on the potentials of the Internet, and I do think that that can be quite appropriate, but I just do not agree with the majority of Dreyfus’ points and his argumentation. In the introduction Dreyfus writes:

(…) in what follows, I hope to show that, if our body goes, so does relevance, skill, reality and meaning. If that is the trade-off, the prospect of living our lives in and through the Web may not be as attractive after all. (Dreyfus, 2001:7 – my italics)

A short comment to this could be that our bodies do not go (anywhere!) when we engage in internet activities – like the heart in the organism we’re bodily grounded in the world regardless of how it presents itself to us. Furthermore I’m pretty sure that millions of Internet users find meaning and learn skills no matter how they perceive reality. But my intention in this post is not to review and comment on Dreyfus’ entire book, where he of course elaborates this and many other points.

First of all, I’m in the beginning of my research and I still lack insight and sufficient academic competencies to do so in a reputable manner, and I certainly do not want to seem disrespectful. That specific comment just triggered my research and for that I do feel appreciative to Dreyfus.

Second, other researchers have already presented arguments against the Dreyfus claims, and in this post I want to point the reader’s attention to Ray Land.

One of Dreyfus’ claims is that risk-taking is a necessary prerequisite for learning at a higher level and that especially due to the anonymous nature of online learning the learner and the teacher do not really take any risks. Land (2004) addresses this issue;

What is puzzling about Dreyfus’ analysis is how it seems to take no cognizance of the many risks to identity, confidence, emotional security and esteem that are encountered on a daily basis by participants within online learning environments.

I think both my MIL students and some of the participants in the CCK08 will recognize Land’s description, I know I do – even here as I write on my “own” blog. An interesting angle to this could be to explore Dreyfus (and Dreyfus. 1986) renowned taxonomy of learning. I do appreciate the methodic/analytical benefits of looking at the learning process this way, but I’m really not convinced that learning occurs linearly …

These will be my first public thoughts on the body in online learning – I will return…

/Mariis

If this caught your attention I really recommend that you read Dreyfus and the other below mentioned references :-)

References:
Ajana, B. (2005): Disembodiment and Cyberspace: A Phenomenological Approach.

Dreyfus, H.L. (2001): On the Internet.

Land, R. (2004): Issues of Embodiment and Risk in Online Learning.

Related references:
Virtual Identity and the Cyberspace

CCK08 – Lessons Learned (2)

Mariis8 Comments

This post is about the Massively Online Open Course on Connectivism and Connective knowledge (CCK08) facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. This week I couldn’t attend any of the SL cohort meetings, so I decided to participate in the weekly Ustream ® session for the first time. This meant that I had to face a couple of learning challenges.

1) I’ve never used Ustream, so I had to figure out how to in a technical manner, but fortunately it turned out to be quite intuitive and user-friendly, and the sound quality was pretty good.

2) I also had to get accustomed to this particular synchronous way (speak combined with text chat) of communicating. I’ve been using video conferencing for a couple of years now, but different systems and mainly as facilitator. There were between 47-54 participants while I was logged in. Speakers were Siemens and Downes, and Dave Cormier moderated the discussion – also by asking some of the questions posed by the participants in the chat. Ustream’s video option wasn’t used, which didn’t bother me since I actually find small pictures of people’s heads constantly shifting very distracting. Compared to my text chat experience last week, I found this session easier to follow. I think Cormier did a really good job, it’s not an easy task to moderate :-)

3) It was the first time in the CCK08 I meet participants outside my more familiar SL cohort, and I was a bit concerned that I might feel somewhat disconnected, but I didn’t. This time the context was unfamiliar, but I recognized the voices of both Siemens and Downes, and I’ve had the opportunity to study more of this week’s course materials and I also have some previous experience with this week’s topic (Networks). In the chat I suddenly recognized Jenny :-), who commented on my CCK post last week, but otherwise the usernames represented complete strangers. There was at least one more Dane, Ivrig (Eager), but I have absolutely no idea who that might be? Anyway, I did end up feeling connected, but not in the same sense as last week. I think Jenny’s thoughts on the difference between Network and Community as expressed by Wenger could apply here:

In the words of Etienne Wenger, ‘every community is a network, but not every network is a community’. In a community ‘there is a level of identification that goes beyond degrees of connectedness.’

There’s no doubt that I identify more with the SL cohort than the rest of the CCK participants, but I have a feeling that as the weeks pass by I’ll get more and more acquainted with the non-SL participants and ideally they too can become a valuable community of learning practice. Some of us did ask for Siemens’ and Downes’ take on the distinction between networks and community, but we will focus on that later on in the course, so more on this topic will follow ..

On a completely different topic, there is a question that keeps coming back to me regarding the epistemology of Connectivism. I’m not sure it will make much sense to others, since I find it hard to articulate, but I’ll give a shot – if nothing else documenting is a way of keeping it alive!

I don’t mean to suggest that I have found an epistemological truth in other theories, I don’t even think such a truth exists – the genesis of knowledge is far too complex, but I am however very inspired by my second PhD supervisor, Janni Nielsen’s thoughts on this. According to Nielsen we perceive and generate knowledge via 3 different domains;

  1. Senso-motoric
  2. Emotions
  3. Symbols

No hierarchy intended by the numbers, but 1 and 2 also constitute the domains for tacit knowledge, and when studying Connectivism I find it hard to recognize these domains. I do appreciate Siemens’ distinction between Neural/Biological, Conceptual and External Social and I do think there are some similarities between these types of networks (Siemens)/domains (Downes) and the above mentioned. But … where is the Body in Connectivism, is it just a Cartesian container for the Brain (the Neural) or how is the Biological to be understood –and how do we understand these questions in relation to technology and especially the Web. Would it be plausible in relation to Connectivism to state that technology can provide a perception of embodiment ..

Hmmm !? :-( … learning really can be challenging. Embodiment is a core concept in my PhD project, so I do have to figure out what to think of these questions. Luckily I have 2 ½ years left to do so.

/Mariis

Classroom Research and Didactics

MariisLeave a comment

Next week I’ll be attending a PhD course entitled ”Classroom Research and Didactics” at The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. All Danish PhD students must participate in PhD courses equivalent to a minimum of 30 ECTS points, and with this course I’ll hopefully earn 5 points.  Since one of the courses I facilitate at the Master Programme in ICT and Learning (MIL) is about Educational Design and ICT, and given that my primary case in which I’m doing part of my PhD research is that course, I think this PhD course will be especially relevant for my project.

The course is facilitated by Professors from The Danish PhD Programme on Didactics and Curriculum Research. Coming from another Danish University and another PhD Programme (HCCI), it will be quite interesting to learn how they define central pedagogical concepts/terms and what they define as relevant research methodologies. Even before the course has started I’m interested in the terms from the course title, and according to the course description (in Danish only) they could be defined as follows:

·         Classroom – an institutional room.

·         Didactical oriented classroom research – emphasizes the relation between on one side didactically founded goals and intentions and on the other side the actual practice in the classroom.

Part the course literature is about “belief research” implying that teachers’ underpinning beliefs can explain much of the actual classroom practice, and a course objective will be for us to examine and probably challenge our pre-understandings. In trying to do so, I’ll focus on the classroom term in this first post on the course.

Classroom
It is my understanding that the term denotes a tradition within Danish Educational Research, and it is widely used both by researchers and practitioners especially in what I think would be equivalent to K12. However, I don’t think the term is appropriate when describing my own project.  At least to me, the classroom term brings associations of a strictly physical setting, a specific way of organizing the teaching and learning processes, and the term “class” indicates young learners.

My course is blended with approximately 5 hrs. face-to-face confrontation out of a total of five weeks, which means that the vast majority of the course is conducted online in both a traditional 2D learning platform (FirstClass®) and in the 3D virtual world, Second Life ® (SL). Room is simply too restricted a term to describe the setting, and I do prefer learning environment. When emphasizing learning, I do realize that there’s a risk of “forgetting” the teacher/facilitator, but since the term also indicates a very important and much needed paradigmatic shift from almost exclusive focus on the teacher/teaching to the learners/learning processes in educational research and pedagogy in general, I think this term is acceptable – at least as part of a working terminology.

When examining teaching and learning in 3D virtual worlds (and perhaps to a lesser degree in 2D settings) the whole concept of context (room, space, place, environment etc.) becomes highly relevant. The 3rd dimension is, in my opinion, what make these contexts both particular and interesting seen from an educational perspective. So this is something I will return to again and again during my project.

I do appreciate the institutional character of the classroom concept, and my focus is also on teaching and learning in a formal, university setting. However, this doesn’t mean that informal learning processes will be neglected in my own research. In fact, my pilot study (22 participants 5 weeks in SL, fall ’07) indicated that the 3D world setting amplified the students’ motivation and engagement for connecting and collaborating in more informal relations – also with other residents. Here I see another argument for not restricting my terminology to a room metaphor.  If SL is recognized and truly appreciated as a world the implications are numerous, and the complexity of the phenomena becomes apparent.

The term class is used in describing an entity of learners e.g. in a concrete course, but it is a term that we primarily reserve for describing organization in K12, which also is why we would call the learners “pupils” in that context, whereas learners at university level typically would be called “students”.  The learners in my course are adults, and we usually refer to them as students. The distinction between pupils and students may come across as academic babble, but I do think it is relevant in the sense that this distinction also indicates a difference in the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in the teaching and learning processes.  The term student is actually debated quite often at The MIL Programme, because the term still indicates what you might call an old-fashioned view on the power balance in the learning situation and because there still is a passive, transfer element associated with the term.  So quite often we resolve to call our learners participants.

As organizing principle the term class tends to describe a situation where the whole entity of learners is addressed simultaneously, and apart from our 4 yearly face-to-face seminars, we rarely use this type of one-to-many communication. The MIL Programme is based on a Problem Oriented Project Pedagogy (POPP), which I will elaborate on in future posts. For now it suffices to say, that it basically means that we organize our participants in small groups working and theorizing on real life problems. Connected to these groups will be one or several supervisors practicing different roles/methods ranging from instruction to facilitation depending on the needs of the groups.

My initial critique of the term classroom may be too one-sided, I may not be aware of the current status of the term within classical educational research (which is how I would characterize the research at The Danish School of Education when comparing it to my own university), so I’m looking forward to discussing this and learning more during the course …

/Mariis

Development of in-world NoEL meeting log

MariisLeave a comment

Soon the in-world group NoEL will start visiting interesting locations in SL again in order to both explore and evaluate potential educational design.

As a phd-student I have to document all my activities, so I’ve been working on developing a log that I can use when we have these meetings – also I hope that others will find the documentation inspirational, since I plan to publish it here on the blog.

Today I presented my draft for the log at an action learning meeting with my supervisor, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld and my fellow phd-students Heilyn Camacho and Mayela Coto.

The challenge of documenting the meetings is to do this while participating in the actual meeting. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to document some of the meetings via Camtasia, but I anticipate that Camtasia will not always be an option, and also I want the textual documentation just in case ..

Lone, Heilyn and Mayela were positive but also concerned that I want too much information – that I’m moving away from the focus in my phd-project. Below are the chunks of information I would like to document for each meeting;

  • Date, duration
  • Presenter(s), typically Island/location owners, incl. SL and RL contact data
  • Location, incl. landmark
  • Short description of presenter(s) and location
  • Potential subject matter and target group

Questions for the presenter(s):

  1. When did you start in SL?
  2. What is your interest in SL – personal/professional?
  3. What do you use SL objects/location for – and how do you do it in practice?
  4. What is your pedagogical (learning theoretical) foundations?
  5. What is your experience with the usage? (preferably also something about duration and individual vs. group usage)
  6. If students – what is their experiences? (how many, why, when and for how long)
  7. What is in our own opinion the educational potential of your objects/location?
  8. What is special about SL compared to other platforms?
  9. What challenges should one be aware of in using your objects/location – SL in general?
  10. Is your location open for public use? (details for usage)

Not all locations we will visit have been build explicitly for educational use, so some of the above questions will be for me to figure out afterwards ..

Based on the meetings we had before the summer holiday, I’m sure that most of the questions will be answered quite naturally during the meetings.

I would very much appriciate feedback on both interesting places to visit and comments on the information chuncks – what else do you as an educator want to know??

I’ll continue working on questions more directly related to avatar and context mediation, but since these NoEL meetings will serve as a way of exploring the field and not necessarily end up in my final dissertation, I’m keeping the questions for now …

/Mariis

Joining Second Life Community Convention – SLCC08

Mariis4 Comments

I have to break “the vaction silence”, since I’ve just been granted permission to participate in the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, Florida in the beginning of september :-)))))))))))))))))

I’m just so thrilled, excited and relieved that my bosses granted me this trip. Being a PhD-student can be quite a lonesome endeavor and I’m really looking forward to meeting up with other avatars both on a social and on a professional level.

Unlike many other SL researchers, I don’t have an island of my own, where I can experiment, and – even though I’m conduction a Action Research-project on my own teaching – my interest is also in looking on other peoples educational designs, which means that my project hopefully will be based on multiple cases.

I’m quite confident that the SLCC08 will give me an opportunity to meet competent and relevant people, who might be interested in discussing and documenting their educational thoughts and designs with me both at the conference and later on in-world :-)

/Mariis, now in an even better vacation mood!