Category: Ideas and thoughts

Castanyada i panellets

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Who I am and what I think

Today we are celebrating “La castanyada” a Catalan tradition. The translation would be something like “The chestnut party”. Like other regions, countries and cultures today and tomorrow are important days to celebrate: Halloween, El dia de los muertos, Samhain or Todos los santos.

In Catalonia we have our particular party to celebrate the Autumn and be warm. Like any other celebration food it is so important, and we eat cooked chestnuts and Panellets. You can buy panellets, but the best ones are the ones you make at home. We could say that each family has its own recipe and bake the favourite flavours. The traditional ones are made of pine nuts, almond, coconut or lemon, but nowadays you can find so many different ones and everyone will tell you that theirs ARE the original ones!

This year, I have made panellets with my son for the first time, he is only one and I was sure that making panallets would be difficult, but I wanted him to participate at his level and get familiar with the tradition.

Two weeks ago we went to the library and took some books that talk about chestnuts, La castanyada and La castanyera (traditionally an old woman who sells chestnuts and baked sweet potato), and of course a book about panellets. We have been reading and observing the books for the last two weeks, singing songs about this party and getting familiar with all the elements.

Finally, yesterday was the big moment, the moment where we are ready to make panellets and let them ready to eat today. As I said, I knew Blai was too young to follow the whole process, so I adapted the way he will be involved. I considered his materials, the ingredients he was using, the place where he will be placed and what I would be doing. I actually, spent a lot of time thinking WHERE he would be doing the panallets. And of course, I related all the process to this week’s topic.

I thought that all of this was a great metaphor of a learning space. Starting from the concept I had in mind, how I planned the information, how I prepared the space to do the activity and selected the materials and the final moment: where Blai connects all the dots and realises what we are doing!

This blog reflexes my opinion about education, and as a reader, you know that I think that learning can happen everywhere, not only with a very directed instructor, and I believe in promoting daily activities and make connections from there. However, I recognise when I consider a “learning space”  I think in a specific time-space. I think in a specific goal, at least a specific concept/idea. What is a learning space then, shared space and time? Is the environment that, as teachers, we recreate in order to guide students to conquer the concept we had in mind? In my case, I think the learning space are all the steps I have taken (going to the library, reading the books, signing the songs, buying ingredients together, prepare the materials, etc… ) in order to have this “aha” moment where my son listens “panellets” and looks at the camera making the sign I have been doing every single day for the last two weeks. So, learning space are all the elements we use and recreate in order to help students to get to our idea/knowledge?

Poseur vs. Impostor syndrom

s1690803/ / Answering comments, Ideas and thoughts, Is that the future?

Thanks for transforming my impostor syndrome to something interesting and worthy to connect with the programme! , I have been thinking about your comment on my “In a rush!” post.

“Perhaps it’s a feature of online and predominantly asynchronous learning, however, I wonder whether it is easier to get the feeling that everyone is more productive? Is it may be the case that you’ll notice other members of the group who are posting more regularly, but without knowing what is happening in their blogs or whether they have circumstances that particularly allow them to do more reading, and so on?”

I made this picture half an hour ago, that is the reality of the majority of the time I am checking the platform. Online user: me and myself! Sometimes there are a couple of people, but I have never interacted. I never thought of opening a direct message and say “hi, how are you doing?” Maybe because the functionality is one to one? It could be cool to have an open general chat where you can comment without sending a direct message?. If we were sharing a physical space I would say something for sure, at least waving everyone being in the space. I cannot imagine myself entering a class or study room and don’t say hello to my classmates. I am sure that we would have started a conversation about the readings, the activities and maybe some personal topic. Is this expected on online learning? Is this something cultural? The fact that we are a cohort based around the world make this interaction more difficult?
“Maybe in the physical campus, it would become apparent through corridor conversation that, in fact, lots of people are in the same position as ourselves? You’ve made me wonder whether there is any existing research around this – the idea that online we are more inclined to inflate or be intimidated by the output or energy of our peers? Fascinating!”Thanks again, what I am finding fascinating the capacity you have to see the potential of a paragraph I wrote when I was tired and overwhelmed after a long week! Maybe you made me see a great example of what a teacher can do and not a simple facilitator ;).

After your comment, I did a quick search about the topic, very quick! I end up finding many articles that talk about the impact of social media in the perception/satisfaction of the students.  I feel this could answer some of the questions are formulated. When I read your comment I connected the context and feeling with something it is a hot topic now: the impact of the social media and how it seems that we live in the era of poseur culture. So, maybe these articles could give us some clues? Saddly, I was not able to read many, because were not free (also, lack of time!) and I got stuck in the abstract. Find some examples underneath.

Overall, what I have seen is that studies talk about the benefits of using social media, and how this improve engagement and communication among students.  Here, though, we can read the summury of the authors and they conclude that: The study finds that: (1) perceived usefulness of social media has positive effect on the use of social media in student learning; (2) perceived risk of using social media discourages the use of the tool, and (3) SMU has positive effect on student satisfaction.

Without reading the full article, I suspect the authors found out that the students are afraid to use social media in terms that usually this expose to much of their personal life, maybe something they don’t want to share and want to keep it private because they are more aware of the consequences?. Maybe we are having a generation of students really aware of the importance of projecting themselves in one direction when they are using social media, or when interacting in a digital environment. Actually, I found some articles, like this one that highlights the idea that “Socially, millennials are indeed more risk-averse than older Americans, perhaps because of the reputation-damaging potential of social media.” Everyday, there are more studies that show the difference between the lack of risks taken by new generation compared with older ones. Also, what are the impact of insatisfaction, lack of realism and depression because of the use of social media. Can this be translated to online learning platforms?

The fact that we have students (and I include myself here) that grow up socialising and having a concrete realitionship with social media, (again, poseur culture, influencers, and all he superficiality that involves social media) maybe we are having the same actitud when we are learning online. Exposing only what we want to show and never show the complete picture…

Is this something that can be prevented? how? the teacher has a responsibility here? (if we narrow our questions to higher education)… Many questions a no answers…. yet!

I love this Ig account, showing all the strategis that advertising and social media use to modify reality and show something that is difficult to achieve!

 

 

 

 

 

References

  • Mahdiuon, R., Salimi, R. and Raeisy, L (2019). Effect of social media on academic engagement and perfomance: Perspective of graduate students. Link here.
  • Waleed Mugahe AL-Rahmi and Mohd Shahizan Othman (2013) Evaluating student’s satisfaction using social media through collaborative learning in higher education. Link here.

 

Thoughts about my bot

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Trying tools, Weekly task

I have spent too much time deciding what kind of bot I would like to prototype. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was considering different ideas (FQA, math problems, grammar helper…). I realized that I was considering two types of bots, based on two different approaches.

One scenario would be “building” ca bot similar to the ones we have checked on Twitter. These kinds of bots don’t have a real bidirectional interaction. These bots are based on a code that tweets something every X time. For example, the one I talked about in the other post from the museum. We can see how this kind of bots are exposing a topic, publishing tweets with a concrete topic and there is no interaction with people that reads it. The majority of bots we have found as a class are in that direction, probably because the Twitter platform stimulates this particular use of bots.

Considering this approach, I liked the idea of having a bot that tweets problems that students would solve. Maybe instead of mathematical problems itself, the bot would tweet riddles where the knowledge of mathematics is needed, to make it more playful and nicer than a typical mathematical problem. Students could check the message – riddle and use a hashtag to expose their ideas and possible solutions.

 

A second scenario I have been thinking is a more interactive bot, where students can ask and get answers. Maybe this bot is more sophisticated and would need more code knowledge behind, but also are probably richer and can be really considerate a teacher bot*, as we see in the article of Bayne S. (2015). Teacherbot: interventions in automated teaching, and their “botty”. In these bots we see how a student or, the bot itself, can start a short conversation tha will trigger a level of learning.

In my idea of having a grammar helper bot (to support the learning of a second language), we can imagine how a student would ask a question related to a grammar doubt,  for example: Tell me what is the conjugation of past simple for the verb to sign. The chatbot will understand the query and will give a correct answer. Therefore, the bot we could offer a sentence as an example of the use of this conjugation. Also, we can be more ambitious and the student would ask the bot to check the grammar of a short sentence.

 

Considering these two broad types of chatbots I wonder if there is (or it will helpful to have) a categorization that defines the complixity of the bot, how is the interaction between student-teacher-bot, and how this has a real impact o enhanceing the role’s teacher.

 

 

Many questions, no answers

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Is that the future?

With the level of technology we have nowadays, a reality where teachers are replaced by robots or an AI  seems very close. In the article of Neil Selwyn: Robots in the Classroom? Preparing for the automation of teaching he opens the debate to see if classrooms are ready to incorporate robots.

However, my question is: do teachers need to be replaced? Are teachers actually needed any more? I mean, do we want to use the new technology and automated artificial intelligence to replace the traditional teacher’s role? What is the point of that?

In my opinion, the traditional teacher figure that focuses on delivering content, which is sadly the most common kind of teacher we find, is not actually offering anything interesting in the teaching-learning process. I would say that the teachers that enter into a class and spend their time only explaining a bunch of details, dates, or concepts, are not the “good ones”. We all could agree that this kind of teachers can actually be replaced by books and readings, there is no need for robots or high-level AI. So, what do we want to automate exactly?

In my opinion, the elements that describe a good teacher cannot be replaced by any machine. I think that a good educator is the one that guides the process of learning, not the one who actually delivers anything. I believe that teachers are facilitators. They are responsible for creating an environment where the learning process can be developed, respecting the pace and motivations of each student. Can this be done by a robot?

Also, why would we use AI to teach something in particular? Let’s say, history for example. Why do we want to use the latest technology to explain when an important event happened? This information is already available for the students in seconds, in their hands. Are we actually using the new resources to improve and make a change in the way we learn and what we learn?

Trying to answer these questions, I was happy to read Selwyn’s article (2017) and how he explores the differents Models of how teachers can integrate technology. The first pages of the article helped me to know and organise concepts and ideas.

“ While some teachers are clearly able to effortlessly ‘assimilate’ and incorporate digital technologies into their teaching, others achieve only a  pragmatic ‘accommodation’ of technology into their established modes of working”

As Selwyn’s points out there are some teachers who assimilate tech very well, while others are just using the basics. I guess we should avoid creating the idea that using tech “correctly” makes you a better teacher. After last week readings where we focused on understanding the necessity to have a constructivist and critique view, I think this should not be about if the teachers use it or not and if they are “better” teachers if they do it correctly. As usual, this is a much complex debate about the role of teachers. Then, what is the teacher’s role?

When I visualise a good teacher I see a person willing to improve their practise. Taking time to learn, observe and develop their skills. In that sense getting familiar with technology that will enhance their job, it is necessary, as well as learning new estrategies of communciation, engangement, it is part of the pack. A good teacher will understand that the use of technology will not make their class better or more interesting perse, but it will give them the opportunity to subtitute or transform what is needed in order to improve their job, and help the with the learning process of their students.

“In this sense, technology ‘integration’ is perhaps something that teachers achieve through experience and increased mindfulness.”

“As Mishra and Koehler put it, it is not enough to be either a good teacher, or a  subject specialist or a  skilled user of technology –  ‘merely knowing how to use a technology is not the same as knowing how to teach with it’ (p. 1033).”

Considering all of this, as I said in one of my privious posts, if a teacher can be replaced by a robot (or video, AI, book, etc.) it should be.

Contradictions?

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Who I am and what I think

I wanted to do a visual post this week, so I decided to experiment with Canva to create a week mood poster that shows some of the ideas I have been thinking this week after a forum threat that Huw initiated.

This is actually something that has been bugging me forever (well, at least since I was in uni and working in the education system). What is education for? What is the role of the school as an educational institution? Why do we need a structured education? Can we compare what is education for primary/elementary school or high education?

I have to admit, that since I am a mother this question resonates even more than before. Maybe because of my personal experience with structured education, or maybe because of my professional background, or maybe because my studies… every day I am more convinced that the education given by school is not necessary. I believe that what children need is play and experiment with their real life, not living in an artificial bubble of learning where they “only” interact with their peers (aged group) and have a curated random content that needs to learn in some specific path. Sorry, I know I can be very critical and pessimist with structured education, but I am being very general and taking a very radical side here – just to make the exercise -.

In that way, my first quick answer when asking what is education for? (elementary ed.) is saying that basically, is a place where parents can leave their children while they are working. That way children can learn what is needed to become future workers that will maintain the (wheel) system. If I have to answer what is higher education for? I would say that is the place where a tame citizen will go in order to learn more specific skills and get a certificate of course! it will allow developing their professional life.  Is this pure instrumentalism,  isn’t it?

 

If I consider myself as a feminist anti-capitalism activist, can I be part of this (educational) system that collaborates to perpetuate this system that I don’t believe? This is a very short post about all my contradictions and internal dilemmas.

  • Being an outsider of the structured system (practicing unschooling) is a true way to battle the instrumentalism of the education?
  • The constructivist that Hamilton & Friesen (2013) propose, can be implemented in the current system? degrees/evaluations/tests/structure, etc.
  • Are these thoughts coming from privilege? I know I can afford to unschool my son, I have the resources/knowledge to give him the skills he will need in the future. Is a school, then, the only way to offer equality? Equality means homogenization?

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) has to date

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Weekly task

Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), has to date, been limited by perspectives employed by various research studies in the field.  As we have seen in the Hamilton and Freisen’s (2013) article, essentialism and instrumentalism are critiqued as problematic because they pass over the social aspect of learning. We see the same tendency on Bayne’s article (2015) where is highlighted the fact that relation between education and tech tools are not well defined. Definition of technology is poorly and leads to a digital “black box”. I found interesting that in the forum it has been a conversation about what is considered technology, and how should be described. Clearly there is on going issue when defining technology.

Both articles claim for more critical understanding of TEL. Assuming that technology develops and evolves in response to a social and educational needs. Education,  is also about the social context and experience, like Baynes points out (p. 10). It is an outcome and enjoyment of, networks and relationships (p. 11). We don’t necessarily want or need to ‘remove human limitations’ (p. 13).

For Bayne is important to define “enhancement”, what is the real meaning? I found this very important and the key question. First of all we need a definition agreement, if not discussion is quite useless.  I found common to start a discussion where the subject of the discussion is not well defined and people have different understanding. What do we mean when we are talking of enhancement education? Making it better? what’s better? Better as a definition of making easier for more people? or faster? more equitable? better in terms that everyone can achieve similar goals?

From a Transhumanist perspective we can understand better as a synonym of improving the human body and brain. We could just upload a system to our brain or maybe take a pill and be able to speak another language in a few seconds. Or at least have more potential in our brain to learn everything we can faster. That is another question for me, Is “enhancement” the obtaining the max potentially of our brain? or is adding an extra plus of capacity?

I want to think that the main of education is not getting a particularly result. Of course, there are exams, tests, degree and titles, but this is another story. I like to think that the main goal of education is learning, that is the goal by itself. Each individual has their own path and riches their own learning achievements. I want to think that education is more than just having some knowledge and specific skill, otherwise is pure instrumental view, isn’t it?

As it has been raised in the forum and also the collaboration session, maybe we need more real world examples in order to make a clear idea. I have tried to think in real world exemples, but my mind goes directly to movies and books, I actually found that there is a wikipedia page dedicate to Transhumanist literature )

Enchancment means better performance? Are these the correct questions? We should be discussing about good/bad or better? As Bayen pointed there is a need to go farther, where transhumanism search for making humans and humanity better and more dominant, critical posthumanism asks us to think again about what is problematic in essentialising and what it means to be human and how we understand the world.

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Hamilton, C.E. & Friesen, N. (2013). Online Education: A Science and Technology Studies Perspective. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 39 (2): 1 – 21

Bayne, S. (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20.

Peach, H.G. Jr & Bieber, J.P. (2015). Faculty and Online Education as a Mechanism of Power. Distance Learning.

Technological choices? What kind of future do we want?

s1690803/ / Ideas and thoughts, Is that the future?

I am writing this post suggested just for the introduction of this week. I wanted to write my first ideas and thoughts before digging to the articles and the task, forum and the up coming virtual conversation.

I am the kind of person that wants to think that tools are not good or bad per se. I believe that it is what you decide to do with these tools that defines if an action is correct and the outcome is positive or not. Also, we should debate what is positive and good before that, any ways…

We are in the digital era. At this point, the debate about weather technology is good or bad is just too simplistic, and it does not have much value any more. I think the debate should go beyond whether the technology is helping or improving the learning process, at the end of the day we don’t have a choice. Technology is everywhere and it is here to stay.

As a society, we have achieved a level of technology where robots and AI are part of our routine. It is not science fiction any more. Because of that, teachers and professionals of education should be discussing what to do with that. What is the development we want to see in the field? To what extend can this development be enforced when things are changing dramatically.

I feel that there is a strong link between technology and privatisation of education. The truth is that new technologies and technological discoveries are coming from private companies. How will this affect education? This is a question that I want to open to my classmates in the forum. Even if I have had some thoughts about it, I don’t have a clear position, and I would love to read different opinions about it.

For a long time I thought that a public system was the solution to avoid biased practices and malicious interests. However, coming from a country with a high level of political corruption I am not sure about this any more. From the perspective of society,what is education trying to achieve? Is the school a place to prepare students to be ready for the future market. If that is the case, who knows better the market that big companies?

Or in the other hand, primary and secondary education are the place where students learn to socialize and interact? In that case, is the use of latest technologies actually necessary?

Are private interests more “obscure or immoral” than the public ones?

All these ideas reminded me one episode of The Simpsons, where a future alternative classroom is presented. In this scene we can see how “new technologies” are introduced in a classroom and are sponsored by a well known soda company . I find this reality terrifying!

Do are we ready to let private tech companies to take a big part of the education?