W2.0 Intro video thoughts - Context, Learning & Design

[Joshua Underwood]

As we had a comment on the intro video on you tube I thought I'd start a thread here for people to ask questions about that.

Here is the link to Prof. Rose Luckin's intro to week 2.

If you have questions or comments related to the video you can make them on this thread.

[Joshua Underwood]

Copied from you tube comments

Patricia Gandara 1 hour ago

Thank you Rose Luckin for your clear presentation.

Could you explain about your Learner context as potential help graphic ?(Luckin, 2010)

Thank you, Patricia from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

[Joshua Underwood]

This is the image.

The interactions and resources of the Zone of Available Assistance ZAA (Luckin, 2010 p92).

"The ZAA describes the variety of resources within a learner's world that could provide different qualities and quantities of assistance and that may be available to a learner at a particular time". (Luckin 2010 p 28)

Luckin, R. (2010) Re-designing Learning Contexts Technology-rich, learner-centred ecologies. Routledge.

[Cristina Neto]

Hi, Rose, and all

In this image, the little back spots, stand for friends, family members, teachers, etc., i.e. personal relationships, am I right? Since a great part of relationships are carried out (simultaneously or exclusively) via web, I believe we could consider this ZAA as being a part of the PLE of each learner, either regarding formal or informal learning, don't you think?

Quinta-feira, 17 de Janeiro de 2013 9:09:20 UTC, Joshua Underwood escreveu:

This is the image.

[Joshua Underwood]

Absolutely, but the black dots could also be other stuff (elements of our contexts) that helps us learn, maybe?

[p003...@brookes.ac.uk]

Hi all - I am developing a sustainability cloud and it strikes me that context is really useful here. Sustainability is no bleak abstraction but a hard-hitting issue that directly affects the context of participants (e.g. many people in the UK have been victims of flooding - but so have many others around the world - as in the Philippines). So I would introduce a sustainability MOOC by asking people what the topic means for them and how it has affected them. Building on this, I would ask participants to develop their profiles and add tags. I would then ask them to search for others, using those tags. Having done that, these new sub-networks would be asked to develop their new online communities by more fully sharing their environmental contexts with each other. Best regards, Jeff

[Joshua Underwood]

Good luck with the sustainability cloud :-) I realise you are likely using sustainability in a slightly different way than the way I am going to use it now but...

I think learning designs are often more concerned to initiate trajectories of learning than to sustain these trajectories beyond specific settings and episodes (e.g. teaching interventions in classrooms). When telling stories about learning in task 2 for this week I would encourage people to think and what happens next? What happens beyond this episode and setting how does this experience extend and connect with characters lives further into the future (and how can we as designers support the making of these connections and their sustenance)?

[Katerina Avramides]

and that's how using the Ecology of Resources framework has helped in our work. To understand how the learning experience extends within learners' lives, particularly in terms of their motivation to learn. Why is the learning experience meaningful / what does it relate to in their lives?

I think that's very relevant to your sustainability cloud Jeff. Trying to make connections so that sustainability is not some abstract concept, but people can see what the effect of their actions are - when it's not a direct effect on them (yet) but on people in other parts of the world. Trying to create connections that will sustain interest and learning about sustainability...

[Cristina Neto]

Yes, of course. Tv shows, movies, books we read, newspapers, cultural events or others, etc, etc, if that's what you mean, right?

[Cristina Neto]

Oh I got it now, (dahhh) Joshua , you meant, not only personal relationships, sorry, a bit late, now....

[Chris Teplovs]

I wonder if someone might be able to help me understand the difference between "Ecology of Resources" and Lave & Wenger's "Situated Learning".

[Katerina Avramides]

Nice connection. The Ecology of Resources is a design framework that supports us in designing learning experiences that take into account the learner's context (it provides a method for modelling the learner's context in terms of people. tools, environment, knowledge and skills to be constructed, and the learner's knowledge, motivation, etc). The EoR does not specify that we design for learning in authentic contexts (i.e. contexts where the knowledge would be applied - as situated learning discusses). We might be designing a classroom experience. But modelling the learner's context through the EoR helps us design that classroom experience so that it is not an isolated, abstract one, but an experience that is connected to other resources (people, tools, etc) in the learner's context. For example, the learner might come across relevant knowledge/skills/learning outside of the classroom, and with careful design we could create connections to those experiences. 

What are your thoughts?

[Ronald Macintrye]

I think you identify one of the main issues in education for sustainable development, yes its about ideas (and not getting to gloomy with the knowledge) but really its about actions and putting activities into practice. Not easy.

[Joshua Underwood]

Yes indeed, all those. Uncovering the potentially helpful resources learners and designers can draw requires investigation of context.

[alessand...@open.ac.uk]

Thanks Katerina. I am on a steep learning curve here and your contribution (and your example in particular) helped me see some light.

Alessandro

[Chris Teplovs]

Nicely explained, thanks!  I'm not really a big fan of situativity and so it's a relief to see that EoR doesn't necessarily espouse that particular mindset.  Of course if one wants to focus on the situated nature of learning EoR doesn't stipulate you can't.  I guess it depends the degree of specificity with which the designer considers the context (e.g. a particular class or classroom vs. a generic class or classroom that might have typical or representative features).  So that's what I'm taking away from this: as a designer it's worth reflecting on the degree of specificity that one uses to characterize a context.  And of course there's no "right" answer: it's the awareness that's important.

[Katerina Avramides]

Yes, I agree. When we map a learner's context we need to specify which aspects of it are relevant (it would be quite a task to map anyone's context fully...). As you say, as designers we need to reflect on the parameters within which we characterise a context. We're doing some work with the EoR to understand teenagers' awareness of their personal energy consumption. In this case, our modelling of the learner's context is constrained to energy consumption (what they understand, how they conceptualise it, where they hear about energy, how they use energy, etc).

The 'degree of specificity' will depend on what is relevant to our aims. In the above research we've specified context in terms of a specific subject: anything related to energy consumption. In another case, for example if we were designing an online community for self-directed learning, we might be focussed on modelling the learner's context in terms of their access to, experience of, and use of digital tools, and also in terms of how they form and communicate within existing online and offline networks.

The EoR is basically a tool to help designers reflect upon learners' context - identify relevant resources that make up the context, model them, and (critically) model the connections between them. Then we can design in a way that supports those connections (and new ones) for learning.

[Carolina Kuhn H]

Hi! 

So if I understand in the consumption of energy context, you do indeed think of a context that has a relationship with the concept you want them to learn? You are teaching energy consumption by teenagers, so you are working out a context of consumption of energy? Did I understand well? So it is in a sense situated learning because the learning context is where you want the knowledge to be learned of. 

It is still confusing for me, I indeed need to read more. I am reading the persona chapter, interesting but a bit long. I am flipping now into the EOR reading. That I have the impression will clarify more the context concept. 

[Katerina Avramides]

Hi! I'm not sure what situated learning in this case would mean.. energy consumption is an indirect result of activity rather than an activity in itself. I haven't thought about it!

So the learning objective is for teenagers to become aware of how they consume energy (and also why energy consumption is an issue). So when we're modelling the learner/teenager's context we're focussing specifically on resources in their context that are related to energy (for example, parents who tell them to switch the lights off, science lessons on methods for producing energy, TV programmes on climate change, leaflets on how to save energy, etc). So we're not trying to model everything in the learner's context, including resources that are not related to learning about energy.

The learning experience may take place at home or in the classroom or when they switch the TV on (depending on what we design)... but (given our understanding of all these resources in their context that relate to learning about energy consumption) this learning experience will link in to other resources and will be tailored to what is relevant to these learners (for example, it will focus on energy that teenagers consume, it might create links between what parents tell them with what they learn at school, it might help them better assess what they understand from TV programmes or where to find information online, etc).

How we capture information about this context is another challenge!

[Kelly Edmonds]

Good point, Joshua. I like the concept of enduring idea (Reigeluth) and starting with the end in mind (Tighe & Wiggins - understanding by design) with your added concept of the learning piece's impacting a future. I believe if we narrow down the main learning objectives of any learning piece (seminar, e-tutorial, program) we might be able to enrich the learning through a more simplified and focused approach. Deepening a learning experience, I think, is better than cramming a bunch of info at learners.

However, this can be hard to do when you desire to add all the layers of understanding (basic concepts, background, etc.). To alleviate this, the designer should research their potential learners and trust their level of understanding and lose a bit of the control.

Also, simplistic designs have the potential of allowing learners to branch off into different streams of creation and further exploration. For instance, a course or module could explore the discovery of another planet or star, provide critical questions to be answered, and offer a collection of valid and current resources (background info, expert responses to the new star, and production tools) allowing the learner to explore and create their response in a way suited to them. Thoughts?

[Kelly Edmonds]

Katerina, thanks for sharing this. I am curious about mapping the concepts, context and resources. Do you have any further explanation or example of this?

And it seems to me the EoR is about making learning relevant to the learner's environment/experiences. Would this be correct?

[Katerina Avramides]

Hi Kelly, thanks for your post. There are some practical examples of the application of the EoR here 

http://eorframework.pbworks.com/w/page/3777765/FrontPage

But do ask any questions on the forum. Each case is different, because the learners, learning focus, etc will be different. And the methodology for identifying and modelling the resources in a learner's context will again depend on the specific case.

Continuing with the teenagers example around energy consumption, we started off with photo diary studies. We didn't want to ask explicitly about energy use, because we'd end up with a lot of photos of mobile phones! By giving a broader task (a diary of a day in your life) we were able to capture information that the teens were willing to share (there is always the ethical dimension) and also information that was relevant to their energy consumption though they weren't aware of it (for example, indirect energy to produce their breakfast cereal or shared energy use in the home). The fact that we could talk about personal examples makes all the difference. As someone said in a comment in this thread I think, the difficulty is translating learning into action and, as you say, it's about making learning relevant to the learner's experiences. Otherwise, the knowledge may become compartmentalised, it's not understood in a way that can be applied. I was surprised how much knowledge teens have about energy used indirectly in products - but they found it difficult to understand that as energy consumption.