University of Art and Design Helsinki
Media Lab http://mlab.taik.fi

Networked Learning and Knowledge Building

Context


We were originally intending to meet with Teemu Leinonen, who is the research group leader for learning environments. We were actually briefed by Tarmo Toikkanen, Senior Researcher within the Media Lab- [email protected]. A particular research group within the Lab - the "Learning Environments Research Group"- is part of a worldwide network that is looking at online learning environments. They involve themselves in research, study research from other countries, and develop and complete action research with software tools and sites.

Tarmo gave some brief examples of worldwide research and activity:
• Research in Australia (John Sweller, sp?) revealing the poor use of Powerpoints as a teaching Learning tool, particularly the practice of using large amounts of text. Diagrams and graphs are ok, but it's better to either use either spoken word or written text, but not both.
• IMS Learning Design (IMSLD) is a standard for the development of learning environments. However it is not currently adequate to deal with learning beyond the course-delivery model.
• James Dalziel from Macquarie University in Australia (MELCOE) is at the cutting edge of developments in IMSLD standards. This is evidenced through the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS). This web-based virtual learning environment is being deployed in the Northern Territory and trialled in Britain and other education systems. (James was also previously involved in the COLIS project in Australia which attempted to demonstrate single sign on integration between a Directory, a Content Management System, a Digital Content Exchange and an LMS.
• Tarmo referenced Moodle as an example of open-source development of online learning environment. (Moodle was established in WA as a LMS for tertiary course delivery. Widely used internationally in tertiary corporate and increasingly K-12 contexts. Currently used by Lismore CEO to deliver remote courses to students from 3-4 country dioceses in NSW).

Future Learning Environment http://Fle3uiah.fi

This is a tool to implement "Progressive Enquiry" as a pedagogical model to assist "Knowledge Building". Students work in small groups, developing knowledge building tools. Basic premise is that the most progressive learning occurs when you are creating something new for yourself. Not suitable for every situation, but useful where you are building knowledge. Tool and theory tested in 20 countries over 3 years.

This particular future learning environment that they are building is being looked at by another group: The Centre for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge Building: www.helsinki.fi/science/networkedlearning/eng/publications.html

The tool is being developed using a wide range of open-source technologies and following open standards - SCORM, DublinCORE, Shibboleth, QTI, LOM, and interestingly, OpenID.


LeMill: sharing research and teacher professional learning http://lemill.net/

LeMill (the learning mill) - is a collaborative platform produced by the Lab to enable teachers to develop content and collaborate with other teachers. It's a learning environment for teachers. It is an interactive place where they share and collaborate with each other, in a fashion that he called "trialogical" learning. LeMill now has 1000 members, and is available in English and other languages. Estonia is going to take their national learning depository onto LeMill as their basic teacher Professional Learning tool. Also Georgia is using it extensively.

LeMill supports teachers in opening up their content and methods of working in a real way to de-privatize practice. (Tarmo admitted that for some teachers, LeMill is too simple - they use blogs and wikis).

Tarmo saw LeMill as a way to accelerate the transfer away from Teacher-centric methods that do not have a bright future. The teacher needs to remain part of the collaboration, and s/he is the expert on learning.

The site is structured into four areas: Content, interaction, Tools and … (look at the site)

http://Lemill.net/content/future-learning-models-and-the-impact-of-visual-culture


Underlying Theory: The Three Metaphors of learning

The underlying theory of both FLE3 and LeMill

The Learning Environments Research group focuses on the way in which ICT affects learning. They base their work on social constructivist psychology (Vygotzky et al.).

Learning can be described using 3 Metaphors-

Metaphor 1: Learning is knowledge acquisition, with individual cognitive process

Metaphor 2: Learning is Participation. Learning is a socio-cultural process - you learn the culture and the processes

Metaphor 3: Learning is Knowledge Creation. In this metaphor, learning is seen as a socio-cultural process with an intention to produce artefacts.

All three metaphors are needed, and the danger is if one comes to dominate over all the others. Memorizing, Acting, Cultivating: for meaningful learning all these should be employed appropriately.

For example, the three metaphors could be expressed as:
• Memorizing - using wikipedia?
• Acting - say in Second Life?
• Cultivating - say by creating a webpage.

Theory in practice

The grand vision of the whole project is to give teachers tools, and then support them as they upgrade their pedagogy. Tarmo believes that we are headed towards the creation of Personalised Learning Environments (PLE). The British have already made strategic decisions regarding PLEs. They intend to replace all their schools with 'learning centres' by 2020. The county of Moseley declares that they will achieve this by 2012. They will do this by use of tools such as FLE3.
OFSTED advised the development of PLEs in their last report - Birmingham schools trials have been positive. Stephen Downes & George Seimans are two of the networked learning theorists they are referencing in the process.

Tarmo explained that we currently have a structure we call 'school', but 'progressive enquiry' is how we do learning naturally in the real world as 0-5 year olds and as adults. Schools throw away the practice in many ways and potentially hinder real learning. The idea of PLEs is to make what is currently the hidden curriculum the espoused and used real curriculum. Ivan Illich wrote about this years ago.

Tarmo argued that the centre of the learning environment is not the tool (Moodle) or the student (the individual) but the group that the learner is a member of. The learning environment is the combination of physical, social, technological and cultural environments that are beneficial to learning. We could probably add cognitive to that list as well.
An example of the wrong emphasis is the current focus on Mobile Learning which by definition focuses on the nature of the device and not the nature of the learning that would take place. (This was a brave thing to say given that Finland is the home of Nokia!)

Cf http://mobiled.uiah.fi


Key Learnings

• LeMill is evidence of teachers actively sharing content, within an environment that they "own" and are able to collaborate with others. There was a question in the group regarding the degree to which the majority teachers are really sharing at all. It looks like a useful way to break some silo walls.
• Rather than concentrating on the groups as the centre of learning, we could potentially come up with an "learning-event-centred" model. Any learner will be involved in a series of learning events, and these will be in multiple modes: some instructional, some collaborational, etc
• Teachers teach as they are learning. If we are trying to help teachers move from teaching as they were taught, then a tool like LeMill can give a good basis where they see and use successful collaboration as a requirement of the process, rather than merely having the opportunity (and mostly not taking it up) to collaborate in the development of a LMS. LeMill appears to be a good framework for getting teacher to collaborate and is similar to the Knowledge Bank project in Vic DET.