Podcast+Text


 * The [|text of an episode on my Podcast site (20/5/07]):

NEW TECHNOLOGIES = NEW LEARNING** The sub-title for the event in Nagoya was ‘are we wireless ready’? Given that the mobile or cell phone is omnipresent almost everywhere these days – my son stayed in guest houses in Borneo last summer with no electricity but never lost contact with the world via his phone; a friend traveled through Tibet and found the same thing; payphone ladies in Africa are an important hub for local commerce – there’s not much doubt that much of the world is wireless ready. Whether teachers anywhere are ‘wireless ready’ enough to effectively exploit this permanent global connection is another question.

However, rather than focus on the specific activities a teacher may employ to utilize wireless technologies via phone or Internet, I’d like to focus on a larger and I think more important question. Are we sociologically ready? media type="custom" key="84031" media type="custom" key="84041" While I was preparing my presentation for Nagoya a dreadful thing happened in a small town near where I live. A 15 yr old girl was murdered by a 48 yr old man she met on MySpace. Schools and colleges throughout the world, with a few notable exceptions, are banning access to social software sites like MySpace. Rather than face the fact that an army of young people are using these new tools to create identity and form relationships (it is estimated 25% of women in Japan in their teens and 20's have blogs; in the US 55% of online kids (51% of all teens) ages 12 to 17 have a social networking site and 64% of online teens ages 15 to 17 have one.), educational institutions are turning a blind eye to these sites on the grounds that they have nothing to do with education, and contain content that is not appropriate for use on campus or at school.

The consequence of this is that we have thousands of young people in our midst dabbling in an exciting new world that is both liberating and fraught with potential dangers, with no guidance or support from their elders – parents and teachers - about how to behave online or protect themselves. Sociologically, as a society, we have not yet accepted that there is a world on the Internet that is occupying the hearts and minds of many young people, and it has no rules, and that we have an ethical responsibility to provide leadership in managing these new forms of behaviour. We collectively have not yet understood that there is a quiet revolution going on where people are creating content and communicating with each other in a world where the traditional gatekeepers of content – schools, teachers, publishers, record companies, TV stations - are largely irrelevant.

I’d like too to situate this discussion of mobile or wireless learning within a larger arena. In an exchange in an online in Australia in March of this year Stephen Downes and Leonard Low of CIT wrote thus:

Stephen Downes: “Leonard Low clarifies his thoughts on the definition of 'mobile learning', concentrating more on social factors (ubiquity, ease of use, appropriateness of use in public places, cost) rather than on the device itself.” Leonard Low: (Mar 7, 2007) “Mobile learning is, after all, about the mobility of //learning//, and not merely the mobility of technology….. how we achieve that mobility of learning must consider the context of the learning, and not just the use of mobile technology, if it is to achieve its full potential.”

Janet Fraser of Monash University was infers a similar perspective when she suggests that we have arrived at a time of ubiquitous learning, and suggests that e-learning + m-learning =u or ubiquitous learning. E + M= U. Ubiquitous learning reflects the fact that learning is also taking place outside of formal learning arrangements, and is a constant in a world where many are ‘always on’. (Oblinger). Much of this is happening via personal devices, and in social software spaces like MySpace and the like.

Aside from the issue of not providing guidance to this ‘always-on’ generation, there are tales of young Japanese men never leaving their bedrooms, and even among the Boomer generation there is evidence that the world of work never stops. One is on call 24/7 and you don’t go long these days without hearing ‘I’m so busy’, or people complaining that they never have down or reflection time. It has become more or less a stamp of modern life that we are over committed, and we accept that that is what you do if you want to be successful. Is it time to model another alternative way of living? It may be just constant excitement for an always-on 20 yr old with no responsibilities other than to themselves, but I’d hate young people to get the message that you have to be always-on to be successful. "It is going to become very fashionable at some point to be disconnected," Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo predicts. "There are going to be people who wear their disconnectivity like a badge." http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070111/1a_tech-noxx.art.htm I hope to see that time. But don’t get me wrong. I love being always-on. It’s enriching and addictive (yes I believe it’s addictive), but by definition the more time you spend connected to others via phone or Net means you are not connecting with those who are near sharing the same physical space. This may or may not be a significant issue, but the networked generation may well be suspicious of educators who’d like to hijack space and time on their mobile devices for formal learning purposes.

Let’s accept then that we are technologically ready, that few of us are educationally ready, and we are definitely not as a society sociologically ready. In a world characterized by mobile or ubiquitous learning, we need to find a balance where


 * Students and knowledge workers of the 21st century
 * accept that their mobile personal devices are going to be used as formal learning tools occasionally
 * find that the blurring of boundaries between work and play occasioned by networking tools is a liberation that allows greater flexibility (eg you may not have to be always in a class to receive, process, and transmit educational content)

Educators (and employers) need to
 * know that if someone chooses to be always-on that does not mean they are willing to do study or work tasks at a moment’s notice
 * model down time and reflection time, and stress the importance of having time where no //new information coming in// (or is this an old paradigm that will not fit a newer generation?)
 * accept that we have a responsibility to bring the new social networking tools into the classroom, and engage students in discussion about what is appropriate behaviour on those spaces. It may not only save lives, it will give them skills that will apply lifelong as we move further into a world where creation and distribution of online presence will become a primary means of expressing identity.

This will vary somewhat depending on your local context, but certainly in many developed nations the profile of the student is changing considerably. No longer can we assume that the typical student is just out of school and studying full time. Diane Oblinger as early as 2004 highlighted the profile of a new student that is mature aged, studying part time, and has a part time job(s).
 * WHO ARE THE STUDENTS?**

Where I work in the Australian vocational and education training sector, this was the situation in 2004:


 * The average age of a … student has been about 31 for the last three years. The largest group of … students is aged between 20 and 29 but the fastest growing group of students is aged between 40 and 49. The number of students aged 50 to 64 has also grown quickly and this trend is expected to continue.

Mature age students then are going to constitute a growing percentage of the student body, so we cannot assume that we will always be delivering to a younger cohort that are wedded to mobile technologies and happy to work with 5cm square screens.


 * NEW LEARNING?**

So what are the implications of all of this for the classroom? A Pew report from Lee Rainie in 2006 wrote of a series of realities that need to be taken into account by employers in the world of work, and by teachers in the modern classroom. Prensky argues that Generation Y have, because of their lifelong exposure to technology, are wired differently. That is, that they receive and process information differently. While others argue that there is no proof of this new wiring, what can’t be disputed is that there are now different ways of learning, and so therefore, there should be different ways of teaching. The most relevant of Rainie’s realities relevant to this discussion of new learning are:

While many Gen Y may be adept at using the Internet and mobile devices, they often lack an ability to verify the accuracy and reliability of resources. They need guidance in assessing the worth of information they find on Google, and perhaps too in collecting and comparing a series of resources on a given topic. They are very good in gathering information in a horizontal skim across a topic, but have little desire or training to look in depth at the same topic – to take what I call a more vertical look at an issue. Students and knowledge workers on the Internet create media rich blogs, wikis, digital stories, movies, podcasts – and inevitably the content they create is a mix of their own thoughts and the work of others. In a spirit of ‘rip, mix, and feed’ they take the content of others and repurpose and republish it for their own ends, with scant regard for notions of intellectual property and copyright. All content on the Internet is there for the taking. While traditionalists may object to this blatant plundering of resources that are not yours, what is happening is an explosion of creativity that is empowering, and which can be a powerful motivating tool in the hands of a teacher willing to let students create media for assessment and collaborative tasks. And it is an excellent teaching opportunity to discuss notions of copyright, attribution via creative commons licensing, and cross referencing for the creation and promotion of a significant online presence.
 * Reality 2 –They are technologically literate, but that does not necessarily make them**
 * media literate.**
 * Reality 3 – They are content creators and that shapes their notions about privacy and property.**


 * Reality 5 – They are multi-taskers often living in a state of "continuous partial attention" and that means the boundary between work and leisure is quite permeable//.//**

This may be where we can see evidence of Prensky’s belief that the Internet generation is wired differently. I personally have found this blurring between work and play quite liberating. And I find that I too, a 52 yr old digital native, lives in this zone of ‘continuous partial attention.’ With so much information on hand from a variety of sources, much of it media rich and as entertaining as any good TV show or movie, it is hard to remain focused on the one task. In the past, I remember weeks spent on collecting resources and reading and writing on a single topic for a university assignment. Which is better: an in-depth vertical grasp, or a horizontal command of multiple resources on your phone, on the Net, or within your personal network? A lot more work has to be done on this. Other factors that need to be taken into account as part of new teaching and learning: ¨ Knowledge is no longer static – in the world of the printed text we tend to see it as such; in the media rich world of the Net knowledge, or at least information, is increasing at an ever increasing rate ¨ It is therefore no longer possible for an individual to ‘know’ a body of content, and people need to rely on personal networks to keep abreast of their field. (This is the heart of George Siemen’s theory of Connectivism) ¨ The dynamic nature of modern workplaces eg problem solving; just in time learning; emphasis on communication skills - Participants need to share decision making about what is learned ¨ Students need to be given opportunities for self-expression. The proliferation of personal learning spaces (or PKMs – personal knowledge management (Siemens) means that it is happening anyway in students’ lives. Incorporating these spaces into formal study may result in students being more engaged in the formal learning process ¨ Acknowledge the existence of Multiliteracies


 * SPECIFIC RELEVANCE FOR THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM?**

Many language teachers will consider what I have said here as irrelevant. They may

¨ Teach students at an elementary level ¨ Teach students who are not interested in blogging, or don’t have the language skills to blog, for example (but remember: 25% of Japanese women in their teens and 20's have blogs.) ¨ Teach students who are not technologically literate ¨ Argue that the lexicon and grammar rules they teach are a static body of content, and the last thing a student needs to do is go looking for examples of how the English language is changing ¨ Teach students who are not interested in sharing content with peers and global networks ¨ Teach students who cannot and will not collaborate (perhaps because of a cultural view that the teacher is the sole authority, or that student opinions should not be expressed, or where it involves losing face if you say something wrong or incorrect)

I can’t take issue on any of these particular sets of conditions. I know in many cases teachers saying these things are just stating what is the case. But if the ultimate goal of teaching students English is to have them take their place in the world of work, where employees want

¨ Confident communicators ¨ Negotiators and problem solvers ¨ People who are good collaborators and know how to share decision making ¨ People who show initiative,

then English teachers, indeed all educators, need to start incorporating these new approaches – new ways of teaching and learning - in to their classrooms. In fact, bring the outside world into the classroom (or take the classroom to the world).

Part of this process is to exploit the wireless technologies that many students already have and use – smart phones, moblogging, audioblogging, podcasting, SMS communications – but all of these exciting endeavours sit within a wider framework of U - or ubiquitous learning that raise significant issues relating to our ethical responsibilities as educators – to lead, guide, and protect, and model patterns of behaviour that are sustainable in the long term. We, teachers and students, need to be sociologically prepared.

=**REFERENCES**= = = =Cooke, Dewi; From Google to MySpace, the internet clicks in a world of change 15 years on; Melbourne Age, 26/8/06; [|http://www.theage.com.au/news/ technology/internet-clicks-in-a-world-of-change-15-years-on/ 2006/08/25/1156012741499.html] ; accessed May 30, 2007=

Dede, Chris; Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles; Educause Quaterly, vol 28, No 1, 2005; http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/eqm05/eqm0511.asp; accessed May 30, 2007

Fraser, Janet; U-learning = e-learning + M-learning; http://www.infotech.monash.edu/promotion/coolcampus/workshop/3rdworkshop/walkaboutlearning.pdf ; accessed May 30, 2007

Grossman, Lev; Time's Person of the Year: You; Time Magazine, Dec 13, 2006; http://tinyurl.com/yuttfq; accessed may 30, 2007

Impress 2005 Internet White Paper; Some Japan Internet stats; June 14, 2005 http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/14/some_japan_internet_stats.html; accessed May 30, 2007

Kaufman, Steve; The ideal ESL podcast; http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2007/01/the_ideal_esl_p.html; accessed 30 May, 2007


 * Kerr, Bill; A Challenge to Connectivism; http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/kerr;** accessed May 30, 2007


 * Kerr, Bill; The School 2.0 Wiki; http://school20.wikispaces.com/;** accessed May 30, 2007

Kornblum, Janet; No cellphone? No BlackBerry? No e-mail? No way? (It's true.); USA Today, 1/11/07 http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070111/1a_tech-noxx.art.htm ; accessed May 30, 2007

Low, Leonard; [|Does Mobile Technology equate with Mobile Learning?]; March 6, 2007; http://mlearning.edublogs.org/2007/03/06/does-mobile-technology-equate-with-mobile-learning/; accessed May 30, 2007

Rainie, Lee; Digital ‘Natives’ Invade the Workplace - Young people may be newcomers to the world of work, but it’s their bosses who are immigrants into the digital world; Pew Internet & American Life Project; September 27, 2006 http://www.pewinternet.org/ppt/New%20Workers%20--%20pewresearch.org%20version%20_final_.pdf ; accessed May 30, 2007


 * __Rao, Prerna__**; Skype as a language-learning tool; The GW Hatchet Online;29 Jan, 2007; http://www.tiny.cc/j0n2Y ; accessed 30 May, 2007

Sessums, Christopher D.; Read, Write, Mix, Rip, and… Burn, Baby, Burn: Notes on How Social Media Affects Conventional Teaching and Learning Practices; from Thoughts on learning, teaching, and computing blog, Feb 6, 2007; http://elgg.net/csessums/weblog/151698.html; accessed May 30, 2007