Category: Who I am and what I think

The end of the beginning

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

Here I am, after 12 weeks and 35 posts later, here I am, writing the last post of this blog. It is Sunday night, and like the last 3 months, my plan for today is a date with my laptop, some snacks and a post to write. However, it feels different this time, I feel calmer than usual, more confident and even I would be bold and say I feel proud of myself.

When IDEL started I felt insecure, ashamed because the last time I was not able to continue, and even though I was ready for the challenge I was scared of not being able to finish. I had doubts about my ability to follow the course, doubts about my tenacity and my capacity to persevere and not get lost in excuses and thoughts to allow me to drop it out again… I basically didn’t trust myself, or my skills to follow the demanding pace of the course. But, here I am,  many things have changed since my first post, and I am writing this last one from another (better) position. I am writing it from the serenity and peace that you have after conquering the top of a mountain. Looking back to the last 12 weeks, I can say that I feel more comfortable in many labels.

First of all, I can identify how I have improved organising the workflow of the week. The first weeks I felt overwhelmed and stressed about the number of articles to read and the pressure to write. The fact that each week or each fortnight was focused on a different topic, it has been interesting and difficult at the same time. Sometimes, I felt that I was not able to go deeper to the topic, having the feeling that when I was immersed I needed to stop and starting another thing from scratch. After some weeks, I felt more comfortable with the dynamic and I enjoyed the transition and learned how to connect one theme with the other.

Week after week I have been learning how to organise myself, managing my IDEL time in a more efficient way and learning how to prioritise tasks in order to deliver on time and with the expected standards. I have to say that not all weeks I was happy with my posts. But, this has been a learning experience as well because I have had to accept the reality where I don’t have the time to dedicate and dig deeper. I have learned how to condense ideas and thoughts, and above all, how to show and express my thoughts in an efficient way. During the course, I needed to show the most relevant reflections and proof of my progress. In that way, I needed to be careful with the content I was generating, being aware of choosing my battles,  and accepting that probably some of the reflections I had during the week were not very visible or as well represented as I would have liked.

Despite this, I feel I have been able to show my reflections, I have shown that I was following the course connecting the post with the content of each week and I have linked my personal and professional experience with the syllabus.

Furthermore, and thanks to my tutor guidance and support, I have felt confident to try and experiment with different technologies. Analysing my old posts I can see my progress using different tools and betting on multimodality formats like video, sound, image or creative presentations. At the beginning of the course my tutor wrote to me: “What I really hope is that this blog becomes a place where you feel comfortable exploring ideas, challenging your preconceptions, reflecting on your experiences and scrutinising the different theories and concepts we encounter across and beyond the readings“.

I am happy to say that yes, I think the blog has become a personal playground where I have felt safe to investigate and comfortable to challenge my skills, knowledge and pre-thoughts. Thanks to the constant and good feedback and support from my tutor I can say I have developed my confidence. As well as noticing the pressure to deliver. James feedback it has served as the perfect accountability I needed in order to keep motivated with the course. I knew each Monday he would read what I wrote and I felt the responsibility to fulfill the task and the expectations.

Moreover, recovering more ideas from my first post, highlight this sentence where I said: “I am willing to read, research, and learn. I want to be a new version of me that is actually a good student.” I am very aware that I could have done much more. Some weeks I only have time to read the mandatory readings, and as I said I was not always happy with the final post, I do autocritique. Even though I am aware that I can improve and be more ambitious in the next courses, overall I am satisfied and happy with my work in the blog. I feel I can have some redemption from my previous enrollment in the course and I feel that I am a better student version of me. 

In summary, I can say that IDEL has been a great challenge to face. I have seen IDEL as an introduction to the masters as a whole and it has been the perfect presentation to Digital Education. IDEL has not only allowed me to learn new concepts and question myself. The design of the course also has offered me the space to be critical, disagree and take a personal position when discussing the content. And of course, discussions with classmates (on formal and informal spaces) have been the perfect combination to enrich my personal learning path. IDEL course it has been a nice journey to challenge previous ideas and build the fundamentals to keep growing and specialise in future modules.

This is the structure of the Abaceria market, in the Gracia neighbourhood, where I live. They are cleaning the old asbestos and rebuilt it. I thought it is a great image to represent the IDEL journey. Reviewing and rebuilding to have a good base to follow the Digital Education programme.
This is the structure of the Abaceria market, in the Gracia neighbourhood, where I live. They are cleaning the old asbestos and rebuilding it. I thought it is a great image to represent the IDEL journey. Reviewing and rebuilding to have a good base to follow the Digital Education programme.

Pre- thoughts about badges

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

I would say that I like badges, I actually use several apps that use badges in order to show improvement or just the fact that you have earnt what kind of achievement. However, when it comes to the use of badges in education I have some questions and doubts.

I am quite familiar with the use of badges for different contexts, I could say that I am a user/fan, and I don’t miss the chance to win one if I have the option. I see the effect they have on me and the satisfaction I have when I get one. I definitely see the engagement power they have.

One of my favourite ones, and probably the first one I started using is Swarm. I actually started using this app, a long time ago when all the company was under Foursquare. Now they are split into two different apps, Swarm kept the social and gamification aspect, earning badges, while Foursquare,  it become a rating app, similar to Yelp.

I confess that I have the secret routine of checking in places and earn coins and badges for my unlocked places, like you have been in 5 Thai restaurants, here you have the Thai restaurant badge!

Inspired in this app, in 2011 I worked designing and creating the education proposal Agora: Citizen participation activities. (Everything is in Catalan, sorry). I did the educational foundation and methodology for children aged 8 to 12 years old. I designed the methodology and some activities as an inspiration to the teachers who will use the guideline.  The main idea of the proposal was that students needed to create their own city using the elements and values they wanted. In order to do that they needed to pass some activities. For example, if they wanted to have a green area in their city, they needed to pass the “green area activity”, then they earned the proper badge, and they were allowed to build a green area. The idea was that they had the virtual and the physical city in their classroom. I didn’t have many resources and clearly, the badges handmade, you can check the website I did for this programme here.

All the proposal was website based, all the instructions and activities were placed in WordPress and basically, the kids just needed to read an do it, in real life. I think I created something blended without knowing… Also, my plan was that all the classes shared their results: how many badges they have earned, pictures of their cities and everyone would be able to see what others were doing, share ideas and get inspired by others. Everything with the Open spirit on.

It was quite sad because the proposal was not very successful. Many teachers found that kids were already spending too much time in front of the computer (at home!), and they didn’t want to encourage the use of the blog as a guideline of the activities… Surprising, right? Also, another complaint was the fact of earning badges. Many educators considered that this was not the best way to motivate students. They argued that they should learn and that is the real reward, learning! The majority of the professors considered that giving the badge or points was not a really good way to measure their motivation. I have to say that at that point I shared part of the arguments, and I knew the proposal was quite risky.

A year after that, I moved to San Francisco, and I started teaching Spanish to young children and teenagers. Teaching in a different country I had many shock cultural moments, but one that makes sense to mention is the fact that part of my kit tool class they gave me, was a lot of stickers and an ink buffer (star shaped). I was supposed to give stickers every day and at least use the ink buffer with a couple of kids… Many days I forgot, and when my manager noticed told me that I was not motivating enough the kids because I was not giving enough stickers. The stickers were the motivation? It is true that students were clearly into stickers, but I thought it was quite sad.

In my experience, badge culture is something Anglo-Saxon. It is clear than the UK and US have more tradition on badging and there is a clear influence on other countries. Is it for the better or for the worst? Are there any viable or credible alternatives at the moment? Gamification it’s a very interesting approach, however, doesn’t undervalue what is really important (the learning for the pleasure of learning)? Or is that really important?

At the end of the day, we all go to work because we know that we will have a salary at the end of the month, and if we do good, even better than expected, we will be able to ask for more rewards…

Learning from informal conversations

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

This week I have discovered that there is a Whatsapp group of the IDEL cohort, as well as a Facebook group! I joined both of them and it has been nice to share thoughts and know people from the course beyond the University platform. This week I feel quite different than other weeks where I felt overwhelmed, intimidated and alone. being part of this informal context has allowed me to see that we are all in the same boat, struggling with the readings, time and blog post.

We have crossed the equator of the course and people are experiencing the pressure and tiredness. Probably because of that, we organised a Zoom call to comment on the MOOC task and share some ideas. I guess we all had the need to share and get ideas from others because our brains are starting to get dreined, I am sure we have been able to produce better individual ideas and blog post after that videocall.

 

In my opinion, I think we were being very critical with MOOCs, embracing the attitude learned from this week articles. At some point, I felt the need to take part in the positive side and here are some of my optimistic way of analysing open education.

  • We have to work with what we have. Reality is that the world is not fair, there are so inequalities, however, I believe that OER and MOOCs, in particular, are a good way to lower some high walls.
  • I think we were all having an education bias here when evaluating MOOCs, in general, everyone in the group comes from a similar professional background (working in education), and probably MOOCs don’t have a good offer here. However, I think they make a change when we are talking about technical skills like coding and programming. I have learned python and some coding thanks to Coursera and other platforms. That makes me positive considering the value of a MOOC and seeing the potential to improve my CV for example.
  • I don’t see MOOCs as the “fast food” of education, I think the conversation is more nuanced. Using the food metaphor I would say that MOOCs are the GMO products. It is not easy to take an extreme side when we are talking of GMO. Many people would argue that are bad because are genetically modified food, or maybe because there is a huge economic empire behind and it the food sovereignty is in danger. However, it cannot be denied the arguments that claim that GMO products are offering developing countries to sustain themselves and reduce worldwide hunger.

For me is difficult to have a strong opinion against MOOCs, because even though I am aware and acknowledge all the limitations and problems, I think they are not a bad idea per se. I think they can be a good ally to minimise the world inequalities.

 

MOOC critical activity

s1690803/ / Trying tools, Weekly task, Who I am and what I think

First of all, I wanted to use some open-source programmes to do the video, I was playing a little with OpenShot and Kazam, sadly my laptop died finally this week, and I needed to find other ways to record last minute. You will see in the video that appears the name of my husband… Long story short, I used his work laptop and an internal tool to record and his name is everywhere… sorry about.

Click the image to go to the video
        Click the image to go to the video

Find here the summary of the main ideas of the video, and the questions I wanted to raise. I know that 16 minutes of a not very fluid video are difficult to swallow 🙂

Structure, design elements:

  • It has all the ingredients you can expect from a MOOC
  • Overall, the platform has all the requisites to make good usability, even though I found some elements that bothered me. Constant notifications are visible that I am not able to close.
  • It has a free and certification option, but I am disappointed by the fact that audit access expires. When I enrol to a MOOC is because I want to check the information, and kind of keep it, like a book, something that is in my “virtual library” and I am able to check it when needed.
  • Content is correct, there is a clear lineal structure and video content is clear enough.
  • I am missing more clear objectives and information about the topics that you will be focused on during the course.
  • Information about the teacher and staff + Requirements of the programme, very helpful before enrolling to the course.

 

Thoughts and questions:

  • What is the framework that institutions work with?
  • Different institutions have access to different frameworks? more resources are given by the platform?
  • Is the data collected really useful and used to design and create the course?
  • By definition MOOCs has a massive audience, building a community and social network is not something expected, isn’t it? This probably clashed with part of the philosophy behind “open”.
  • How and Who is marking the quality baseline? in big platforms like edX or Coursera, are the courses being tested/rated by someone before going online?
  • Ideas of why people enrol to a MOOC: have access to resources, information and materials? curiosity?, check options to find areas of interest?, first step to making a career change, find a community?
  • Value of the programme. In order to get a certification sometimes is enough paying by the course. There a diverse kind of evaluations, some courses offer a better way to check progress. True/False or more complex questionaries, Peer review or just click to checkmark. How can we be sure that someone that has taken the course has the knowledge? Is the credibility of the platform enough?

 

On the other hand, I found the post I wrote last year when I was attempting to do the course for the first time. Find the text here, in case you are interested, I realise now it was not a deep analysis…

Knox, J. (2013). The limitations of access alone: moving towards open processes in education. Open Praxis, 5(1), pp. 21-29.

 

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?

Learning space – first thought

s1690803/ / Weekly task, Who I am and what I think

A learning space is a prepared environment where the student can interact, play and learn from it. We can find a learning space in real life, however, I am thinking in a place that is designed, it pretends to simulate the real world in a challenging but also no-threatening way. It is a safe space of not judgment and where the student can feel free to investigate and challenge their abilities with the support of materials and knowledge.

I like the Reggio Emilia view that considers the physical space as the third teacher. I could try to say it with my own words, but I think this quote of Loris Malaguzzi is a perfect description of what I understand for a learning space, what should have and be.

We value space for its power to organize, promote pleasant relationships between people of different ages, create a beautiful environment, bring change, promote options and activities, and its potential to unleash all kinds of social, affective and cognitive learning. All of this contributes to a feeling of well-being and security in children. We also think that, as has been said, the space has to be a kind of aquarium that reflects the ideas, values, attitudes and cultures of the people who live in it.