Climbing frames and confusa-grids

[imogenbertin]

My first reaction was to reject the EduTech wiki categorisation of six learning types. When I think about my learning, I don’t see it as a hierarchical process. Also, what’s the purpose of designing activities? I think probably:

 
– Constructing knowledge in forms that can be transferred easily.

 
– Staying employed.

 
– Peer learning – different perspectives.

 
– Formative assessment. Finding out what’s been understood and what needs more work.

 
I learn things all the time, every day and they are a mixture of the 6 descriptions offered by the Eduwiki structure. I fit new facts and design tiny experiments into what I already know. At the moment I’m reading a detailed manual about Mac OSX which is helping me “connect the dots” of what I was taught face to face and through self-guided learning training. Probably 85% is irrelevant, or else I already know that I know about it and can easily retrieve the details when I need it. I’m taking notes of about 10% of the book, and maybe 5% I share with my team-mates if I think it would also be useful for them. If I don’t quite get something from reading the book, I try it out on my Mac to figure it out. My colleagues also add their thoughts to what I send them, and I incorporate those. I do this between other duties in short slabs of 5 or 10 minutes on my iPad but I can access the notes from any web browser.

 
I learn every day about my garden and what works or does not. Because of the complex interplay of weather, insect and plant ecosystems this varies every year and I adapt my activities. New plants are introduced, others have to be removed due to disease or age, and I also have to adapt what I do to my age and lack of time. I can no longer remember anything, so arranging information using technology so that I can re-find it is an important part of my learning. That makes my garden notebook crucial – I don’t use technology in the garden in case I lose it or it gets wet.

 
Eduwiki IIa Reasoning and procedures: inferences, deductions, etc. + procedure application. This is all about doing things very fast these days so it has to be tied into practical effect – I discard information that I cannot use and archive it if I think it might be useful. I think that process may be under-represented in learning theories.

 
Trying now to be good and “do” the assignment, I can report back on two pieces of conventional business learning last autumn. I did a three-day project management course which was face to face, mainly instructor-led powerpoint, but with a lot of room for sharing experiences and some very good group exercises. This is IIa and IIb in the typology. I took detailed notes and feel I could apply what I learned next time I have to project manage.

 
But the only thing I can actually remember from the three days was the excellent practical expertise of the tutor and my delight that he did not trot out the usual “communications” business training misrepresentation of Albert Mehrabian’s work regarding visual and verbal learning. Instead, he did a great take-down using a video of someone talking in an obscure language to make the point that communication is almost always, at base, verbal.

 
I also did an advanced Excel course which just consisted of following the instructor through various examples and introductions of technique. I have lots of sample spreadsheets, but all I can remember is that it was very rushed, I know I have all the examples on a memory stick when I need them, and it was quite depressing – I think it was Ia in the typology.

 
I’ve also tried two MOOCs this year. #edcmooc was interesting, but not what it said on the tin, and I was constantly lost and confused and felt the content was repetitive and often irrelevant to the course title. It was a bit III and a bit IV. #LAK13 was just completely confusing – I couldn’t find the basic knowledge I needed to even start the content. I’d say that was probably III.

 
Have I learned anything from categorising my learning using this framework? It’s kind of put me off instructional design straight away, because I know I don’t learn in those kind of categories and I’m not sure how to use them. Yet I know instructional design is a big gap in my knowledge and something I need to work on. Hmmm.

 
I liked the Napier 3E framework better – it made more sense to me and the webinar was really good! Must ask Martin how they did the bit where Elluminate takes over your browser… I floundered with Helen Walmesley’s framework because there was too much detail. I found Grainne Conole’s 7Cs  something I think I would use. The Absorb-Do-Connect idea was great for teeny learning activities like the one we were asked to construct although I wonder should it be Connect-Absorb-Do. So frameworks that I can simply use to try to provide learning pathways yes, but the EduTechwiki one, not so much…

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