I am currently participating in a discussion entitled Active Learning Strategies for Online Learning at SCoPE, and one of the participants posted this image that struck me as very applicable to a host of learning issues. 
I used to believe that information could be dumped in, but have since learned that socio-cultural and historical factors make this impossible. No two people could ever learn the same thing in the same way–context is against it.
I think about how this exemplifies Paulo Freire and his criticism of traditional pedagogy as “banking” education. In this form, education is banked and thus controlled by those in power to choose a curriculum. All knowledge is conveyed through this lens, with what is considered right and wrong, good and bad, and just and unjust seen in this manner as being what should (morality?) be done. Power is thus maintained by promoting a worldview that protects the establishment, even while on the surface claiming to challenge it. There is no more certain way to challenge a social system than by challenging both the content as well as the methodology of its educational establishment.
It is no wonder why many in society complain about our current state of education, yet it seems nearly impossible to fundamentally change the system itself. That would disrupt many whose careers are built around promoting the very thing that they claim is wrong. I wonder, in a psychoanalytic way, if this is a veiled form of self-hatred?
Technorati Tags: Paulo Freire, SCoPE, banking education
Today I used Action Reflection Learning in a developing leaders class. This methodology is similar to action learning (the knowledge is already within the participants within a real-life situation), with the addition of a learning coach (me as the instructor) who, among other things, poses reflective questions, sets a tone for team learning, encourages appreciative inquiry, and promotes aspects of a learning journal to help with the individual processing and debriefing of the learning experience.
This makes a lot of sense to me, being a formally trained adult educator, yet it is very challenging for some people who approach learning in a more prescriptive and performance-based manner. I know; I used to be like that once, too.
Technorati Tags: Action Reflection Learning, appreciative inquiry, ARL, developing leaders, learning journal, learning coach
I am looking forward to attending George Siemens' newest project that he so graciiously opens and supports to the larger world of education, The Future of Education Online Conference.
The site itself describes this as:
The Future of Education is an online conference exploring trends impacting education - K-12, higher education, and corporation training.
An international panel of leading thinkers and visionaries will present on topics such as knowledge and authority, technology and art, and complexity science. Daily live discussions (which will be recorded) will be held June 4 - 8. Keynote presenters are listed below. In addition to daily keynote presentations, a series of excellent 20 - 30 minute presentations will address how various experts perceive tomorrow’s education system and processes. View the Schedule of Presentations for correct times.
To extend the live presentations, we will hold ongoing discussion in Moodle - allowing conference attendees to participate actively in the conference.
For anybody who is interested in this workshop, as well as experiencing the Moodle platform, I can only encourage you to look into this. I know I am already beginning to enjoy it.
I have been working on a paper about some of the high-level philosophical thoughts of Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse. Foucault’s concept of discipline and
punishment, in light of power residing within a judge of normality, and Marcuse’s work of repressive tolerance and how tolerance often represses diversity rather than increases and supports it.
Both of these thinkers have struck me recently, and I am now just trying to understand them enough to be able to explain their contributions. 
I have read some of both of their works, and will have to read and re-read them more, since on the surface
they are both easy, yet their words in fact challenge much of our contemporary society.
Technorati Tags: Michel Foucault, Herbert Marcuse
I am currently working on some documentation that requires certain readability best practices. Wilie there are a number of instruments to measure this (including the one built into Word), I personally like the Fry Readability Graph. This counts the number of syllables, words, and sentences in 3 100-word passages. To help with this process, I just found a simple way to count this online, at the Fry Readability Program. If you ever need to measure readability, I recommend this simple website to assist with the process.
Thanks to Chris Lott for pointing out, via Twitter, that my link to my syllabus that I mentioned in yesterday's post was not working. It should now be fine. I thought I tested it before I posted it, but these things happen.
Nice to know I have some blog readers!
Tomorrow begins the next class I am teaching–Foundations of Training I. I wrote the syllabus for this course, which is offered through New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, in the Center for Instructional Design and Corporate Training. This is the second time the course has been offered, and I am excited to teach it again.
I just updated the syllabus, and thought it may be interesting to share it here. While this copy will most certainly be revised and tweaked over the next four weeks, I am musing about the objectives.
I am an instructional designer, so my daily work often is in and around learning objectives. However, as a result of the class I just took with Stephen Brookfield, I am musing about the concept of objectives themselves, especially whose objectives those are on the syllabus (mine), and how I am going to expect my students to meet those objectives (though I have not discussed this with them nor yet received their buy-in). While this is common educational practice, we often use objectives to demonstrate what was learned, as if learning in all its complexity can be easily measured. While I hope this technical training and workplace learning and performance content gets learned, how will I know who will learn what in the class? I can only hope the subject matter on my syllabus is among the learnings my students walk away with, but I believe learning is complex and often occurs in unexpected ways and at times and places that can never be fully planned for nor directed.
Robin Yap posted a link to some great (and free!) resources about the presentations at the Training 2007 conference. I particularly like the "Using Process Maps to Link Performance to Training" that Mildred Brooks is presenting. This stuff if great for us visual learners!
Lee and Sachi created the best intro to RSS I have seen. Amazingly, they even did it in a relatively low-tech way using simple video without spending a fortune on bells and whistles that look nice but add nothing. They have taught and engaged without any waste or want, which is nice from a technologist and instructional design and social media perspective (look at the comments about this!).
There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.
There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start. Nice job, CommonCraft!
I just read Beth's blog post on NetSquared about Stop Cyberbullying Day, a concept that was created by Andy Carvin. Given what happened this week with Kathy Sierra, I think this is a great way of making a statement.
I like Scott McLeod's graphics he created for this:
While this hurts, bandages only help us heal and do not confront the cause of the injury. That is what standing up for what we believe in is all about. Bullying does not stop until a bully loses power. When he or she is no longer effective at intimidation.
Don't allow bullies to silence you, Kathy. And Robert Scoble, that goes for you too — consider using your voice and your following to help affect change. I am not sure what strategic benefit being silent has, which may make a bully perceive he or she has won. While this is not a wished for or hoped for challenge, be strong and show them that you will not change your life because of others and their threats.
I know, this is easy for me to say when I am not the one who has been threatened.
