Heli on Connectivism

We had a conference week about net pedagogy in CCK09 and I will gather my thoughts if I have any -actually I try to find my new thoughts by writing this post. We had six sessions in our program, I participated three and listened to others. I must be well up-to-date about global net pedagogy developmental trends after this participation. Where to begin?

Frances Bell’s session was great because her preach- and- practice were in a good balance. She had a short introduction and we all participated by answering questions. She really listened and was interested about our answers both in the board and in the chat. The climate was friendly and warm, we collaborated basic questions. That’s why I got some ideas myself.

In other sessions I recieved much information via lectures, mainly by listening to the presentations. I had not earlier asked about abundance vs scarcity in pedagogy and I am not sure should I.. The learner has always abundance of challenges in front of oneself. The learner has to make decisions and put things in some order. It was Martin Weller who gave this theme to us.

Stephen’s first lecture was about all the open systems in the world. It is good to know them, I didn’t know all – now I have a summary. It is useful. Terry Anderson’s presentation was a good summary about open education in Canada. I had read his book about the new theory of online learning and could partly follow the quick presentation about it. I will continue studying his book because I have the opportunity to meet him again next Friday in another session.

Vicki Davis described and demonstrated many ideas she has  implemented with her pupils and internationally. She has a blog named coolcatteacher – I have followed it and linked to it in my Finnish blog. Excellent work, I enjoyed listening but she was so quick that I must listen again to understand all. The pictures were great and helped following. It is easy to agree with the main principles although I am working with adult students. Vicki is so experienced that she can differentiate between important and less important issues. It takes time to separate them. It was nice to get appreciation to Finland via OECD and PISA.

Stephen’s other lecture about LOLcats etc was confusing and hard to follow in my mind. I suppose that he wants to show us how restricted people we are – that we should live more open-minded and ask NEW questions all the time. He believes that our world has totally changed because of internet and mobiles and so on. He want to deal with all human knowledge and put in a new suitable order. He hates defining but he does it and uses mainly words, with a picture about network structure. It is not an easy job he wants to do. I feel empathy but I do not trust him and I cannot say why not.

Thanks for this CCK09 week and the opportunities to check the limits of my knowing. I visit our Moodle, too but I haven’t written there. I am visitor – nothing touches me there. I don’t like Daily any more, it is better to check recent posts from Moodle and Twitter -  why to put them in Daily? But many people like Daily and it is not a problem – recieve or not to recieve.

Young engineering students from Austria, Finland, Czech, Germany and Slovakia have participated in a laboratory course managed by universities in six European countries (Switzerland, too). I have been analyzing the results of student questionnaires. Pedagogical principles are my focus and my inquiry tells only about them. I do not understand anything about routing which was the main subject in labs.

I have answers from 99 university students (only five female). Main results seem very good. Students consider practical work, problem solving,  group work and discory learning most important methods of their learning. Students were very well informed about the course and they were motivated, even enthusiastic to participate. Guidance during the course was given by their own teacher or fellow students in the same university. Learning environment, manuals and guidelines and instructions helped, this is obvious and normal in labs, I suppose. Some technical problems are also normal phenomena, I suppose.

Students assessed themselves to be good listeners, good at task solving, reasoning and explaining. Sometimes they gave advices to fellow students. Other students were described as team work facilitators, knowledge builders and team cohesion builders. Only few were over-riders or lurkers or passive in group working. So they are normal and fine European nerds, aren’t they?

Transnational cooperation happened to some extent. Actually all the project was it, but concrete interaction between students was seen in two universities that I could examine more.

I am wondering what are the possibilities to use different pedagogical methods in remote laboratories environment? Participants have seen that quite similar ideas existed at the partner universities-  only implemented in a slightly different way. In the beginning of the project they had sat together and created a common concept. And now I can see the results.

The pedagogical framework is an important part of the Edinet project. Edinet will create International Semi Virtual campus, which is more complex task comparing to already existing solutions. The most interesting part will be the part regarding Learning in Edinet – Practical suggestions.

Edinet project has workpackages about competencies and so on … pedagogy is only one package. Perhaps we have to collaborate inside the project in order to plan and recommend practical solutions for future. My results from student inquiry seem very appropriate in this phase.

Partners have a meeting in Bremen in June – I would be happy about comments.

I am gathering materials for Edinet project

In Finland we have a  Online Teaching and Learning Quality Project called Vopla with pages in English.

In Europe we have EFQUEL organisation for enhancing th quality of eLearning in Europe: quality papers

ASIIN = accreditation agency for Degree programmes in Engineering, Quality in Higher Education. ASIIN QM Handbook is only in German, but it is OK in Edinet I suppose.

In Finland we have Reflektori symposium of Engineering education, years 2007 and 2005 available. Not all presentations are in English, look at the program please.

Dillenbourg seem to be one of experts concerning pedagogical scripts, perhaps one of creators. I got a copy of his pdf  Over-scripting CSCL The risks of blending collaborative learning with instructional design.

CSCL= Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

A copy of the abstract (2002)

Free collaboration does not systematically produce learning. One way to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative learning is to structure interactions by engaging students in well-defined scripts.

A collaboration script is a set of instructions prescribing how students should form groups, how they should interact and collaborate and how they should solve the problem. In computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), the script is reified in the interface of the learning environment. This contribution  dismantles the concept of script. Syntactically, a script is sequence of phases and each phase can be described by five attributes. The grammatical combination of these elements may however produce any kind of pedagogical method, even those that have nothing to do with the idea of collaborative learning.

On the one hand, the definition of scripts constitutes a promising convergence between educational engineering and socio-cultural approaches but, on the other hand, it drifts away from the genuine notion of collaborative learning.

Will the fun and the richness of group interactions survive to this quest for effectiveness? The answer depends on the semantics of collaborative scripts: what is the design rationale, what is the core mechanism in the script through which the script designer expects to foster productive interaction and learning.

Prof. Pierre Dillenbourgh works in Lausanne, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

My questions:

In adult education, when students are committed to and they have intrinsic motivation, teachers or facilitators only create the circumstances for favourable learning. There is no need for pedagogical scripts?

Young students may have less motivation and they are used to clear rules and certain coercion: what I have to do for getting credits. Wise scripts are neeeded here, I suppose.

I am working with these questions in my way from CCK08 to Edinet. I don’t know  yet how motivates the students are but we need a general structure od learning and pedagogical scripts may help in this modeling.

Just studying the concept SCRIPT and considering if I need it at all. What new does it bring according to online teaching or is it “planning my course well/ planning from learner’s point of view.” I have heard the concept in two dissertations in Jyväskylä (Mäkitalo, Hämäläinen) and now researchers from Oulu University (Minna Pesonen).

A script is a more detailed and more explicit didactic contract between the teacher and the group of students regarding their mode of interaction (Dillenbourg 2004)

There are scripts called macro or micro, external or internal, content oriented (epistemic) or communication oriented (social). I can follow that content oriented scripts = assignments and communication oriented scipts tell about the interaction expected to happen during the course. You need sequencing, too: the order and schedule for happening. And last (or first) you need the group and resources. The script combines this all. That sounds good, I like the concept because it refers to a play or drama in my mind (not only teaching period)

Choosing the appropriate level of coercion is the oldest educational trade-off (Dillenbourgh 2004)

That is very true: every facilitator is studying that question all the time and the solutions need much experience and intuition. Students need guidance and freedom, both in epistemic and social area. How to become a wise fasilitator? Reflection is necessary and feedback and … Over-scripting means too much guidance or too strict assigments and so on – learning becomes boring, I would say. Every teacher can do that, I suppose.

Structuring approaches aim to create favourable conditions for learning by designing and scripting the learning situation before the interaction begins (Jermann 2004)

Oh, I need to say design, not plan. Design reasearch is the right concept nowadays, not action reasearch any more. I tend to be old-fashioned because I have age

This is European research: in Germany Fischer, Koppe, Weinberger, Kollar, in Switzerland Dillenbourg and Jermann and in Finland (names in the beginning). Thanks to Minna Pesonen for this orientation. Finnish researchers travel to Germany, it is our old custom. I don’t remember anybody commented scripts in CCK08?

Script researchers come from educational sciences, psychology and computer sciences – collaboration is needed. I know there is a doctoral study group (educational and computer sciences) in Joensuu Universities too.

Something very interesting in this script theme – I have to continue my studies. I have links but Foxit Reader didn’t open them correctly, so I add them later. And some concept maps or pictures would help.

After travelling in global world with CCK08 course, this blog will continue in Europe. I will gather here information and knowledge about EDINET, not only the project itself but all the topics around it:

• networking
• ICT students professional growth
• ICT teachers development in their work
• guidance processes
• online pedagogy

Here comes first material: Designing and investigating pedagogical scripts to facilitate computer supported collaborative learning, dissertation by Raija Hämäläinen 2008, University of Jyväskylä. You can find it as pdf opening “Julkaisun verkkoversio”. This publication was very useful when we planned a questionnaire for students in Edinet pilot.

Elearnineuropa pages gather very much knowledge about projects and happenings in Europe. It is worth following. I must remember the possibility to publish there.

There are other Virtual Campus projects in Europe: ReViCa (Reviewing Virtual Campuses) seems very interesting. After my global virtual study experiences I wonder why it seems to be hard to develop joint courses for many universities. CCK08 was not official, perhaps it succeeded therefore? Projects also report problems in online pedagogy and want a general concept map about it. I have to collect my online pedagogy here for getting feedback.

Welcome all old and new friends who are interested in these themes.