When you are on a sailing trip, as I have been for the past week or so, you learn to do things differently out of necessity … space onboard a 33-foot sailboat simply doesn’t permit the usual manner for doing simple everyday things.  

For example, how I go about cooking (if you can call it that) is very different. I do not prepare food in the same way. Fresh water is in limited supply so I use bottled water to wash fruits and vegetables when I’m making something as basic as a salad for our dinner. Instead of washing the lettuce or tomatoes under a streaming facet like I do at home, I’ll place a portion of a bag of precut lettuce pieces in a small Tupperware container, add a few cherry tomatoes, pour a little bottled water over it all, seal the container and shake. Then I carefully drain the wash water from my nice clean veggies, pat it all with a paper towel, add a little dressing, replace the plastic lid and shake again … and viola! Salad, ready to eat.

Salad in my home kitchen is a much more elaborate production of cutting, chopping, seasoning, and tossing.  In the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, my simple salad tastes just as good as the fancier variety at home, maybe better. The same simplified existence can be applied to taking a bath on board (what my mother used to call a “sponge bath” instead of a relaxing tub soak) and myriad other everyday acts of living that are stripped to their essentials (no pun intended), and made do-able in the most frugal of living spaces – probably less than 200 square feet, including sleeping quarters, the galley (kitchen), head (bathroom) and salon (living and dining area).  

Doing Things Differently with Web 2.0

If anything, this past year’s experience in using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom has taught me anew that a similar heuristic applies to teaching with technology: the technology  cannot be grafted onto whatever practices are already in place – it simply doesn’t work that way!  It requires a new mindset, a different way of approaching the teaching and learning interaction.  I found that I had to re-think my syllabus, my activities, and my assignments when I began to teach with wikis and blogs and other tools.  They didn’t work as “add-ons” because they weren’t substitutes for what I was already doing. These tools represented a whole new way of thinking: for me, for the learners, and for the learning we sought to happen in our time together.

This “different” way involves much more than learning to set up a Wetpaint wiki or adopt a blog format for reflective practice.  It is as much of a perspective shift as I’ve had in learning in how to get back to the basics in living aboard a sailboat.  This new mindset  strips the teaching interaction to its essentials which, for me, involves a philosophy of how adults learn so that the learning is meaningful, deep, and lasting.  What teacher doesn’t want this?  It’s doing it that seems to be so hard, because it requires giving up control. Marvin Weisbord expresses this idea perfectly in his new book, Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! I’ve discovered that less intervention from me really can mean more learning for them, but it’s a struggle each and every time I enter the classroom. Chris Argyris called this the difference between espoused values and beliefs and theories-in-use.  Doing what we espouse seems ever so much more challenging!

This evolving philosophy about teaching, learning, collaborating, and my role as a facilitator has emerged over time through more than 20 years of working with adult learners, and more than 5 years of teaching in higher education.  I won’t go so far as to say that I am “there” yet, wherever “there” is,  but I can see the road my thinking has traveled through the years. I am also convinced that no one can travel this road for another… we must each explore its terrain for ourselves if we are to experience this shift in thinking. 

I was startled into this realization a couple of weeks ago when I was working with a new adjunct who will be teaching for us this summer at VCU. He is very enthusiastic but his graduate teaching experience is just beginning. I had shared my syllabus with him and the Blackboard site I developed last year when I taught the same class. He admitted that he had never really used Blackboard before, but he was intrigued, and when we met he said, “I want to do this class exactly as you did it last year … with the wikis and blogs and concept maps.”  

Suddenly, this seemed  overwhelming. We’re talking about a five-week summer course, and it begins in less than three weeks.  Very quickly, I saw the difference between learning to use the tools (a matter of showing him how to set up a wiki, establish a blog, or create a concept map) and sharing a philosophy of practice so that he could do it “exactly” as I did last year. 

With time, energy, and interest invested on his part, the first task can be accomplished readily (although it would probably take more than three weeks to become adept in the use of any of these Web 2.0 tools), but I was at a loss how to convey the second, which is a deeply engrained attitude that says when I exercise less (expertise/authority/ control/ guidance), the learners have the opportunity to create more (innovation/ motivation,/ownership/accomplishment).  This is anarchy to some, a relinquishing of the role of sharing what you know.  I do believe that there is a time to share what you know so that my learners may learn from whatever knowledge and experience I’ve acquired,  but I’ve discovered this works best when it comes after they have created their own learning experiences so that we have something to share with each other as we make meaning of the learning that has occurred.

It seems to me that the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom will always reflect the underlying philosophy of the teacher-as-user, but their power lies in their ability to also shape and modify that philosophy as well.  My evidence of this is my participation in what our Center for Teaching Excellence has offered in the way of institutes, workshops, faculty learning communities, and more when it comes to learning how to use technology in teaching.  I’ve seen my own appetite grow with learning how, which is where we all have to start, but it really began to flourish when grappling with the what and why. Processing this deeply takes time, experimentation, and reflection, something our adjunct will need to do for himself.  In the end, it’s a simple salad, one that is back to the basics of why we teach and what we hope our learners learn. 

Bon appétit!


 

In this situation, the organization (unbeknowst to the employee / M.Ed. student) uses Internet tracking software or a tracking service so that they are notified anytime their company name appears on the net. It appears to be an effort to manage the organization’s image and the public perceptions of them by seeing what is out there. The student had criticized a company training session that was less than well-designed.  His hope is to be in a position one day to influence the type of training offered … to make it more learner-centered and a better use of employee time. I sincerely hope he will have that opportunity because I know he wants the best for his company.

It’s a good reminder to all of us that we are writing in a public space, visible to anyone. ANYONE.  So, perhaps now is a good time to reiterate options that our M.Ed. students have for publishing in this Web 2.0 world. 

On Edublogs, you can

• Opt for private posts (publish them so you can see them, but no one else can) when you have things to “get off your chest.”
• Choose a pseudonym for your name on your blog (yes, send it to me and we’ll make sure that Dr. Muth and I update our sites and ask others in the program to use your pseudonym instead of your name if they list you in their Blogroll, as well).
• Refer to your organization with initials, a pseudonym, or as “my organization,”  if you are concerned about naming your place of employment when you relate what you are learning to your experiences in the workplace.
• If you feel it necessary, create an alternate blog with a domain name that is not your personal name. http://comingabout.edublogs.org is an example of a domain name that does not identify the user.
• Put a disclosure on your About Page that asserts the ideas in your blog as your own, and not representative of your organization. 

To my way of thinking, this is not an occasion for “retreat” – or a reason to abandon the blogging. The web is here to stay. The lines between our public and private lives have become increasingly blurred in the 21st century.  We all have a presence on the web already — just Google your name and find out on how many website you already appear: organizations, clubs, high school reunion pages, facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The question, as my colleague and friend Jeff Nugent at the Center for Teaching Excellence at VCU says, is how to take charge of and manage our reputation on the web. If we don’t, then the web will manage our reputation for us.

So, lessons learned: take precautions, use care, write authentically but safeguard your own reputation and that of others with whom we are associated. It’s a brave new world.  Your thoughts?

I’m also experimenting with publishing a “private” blog entry: we want to know if this is feasible in Edublogs before we tell our students that they can do it. We anticipate that there may be times when our students want to record their innermost thoughts in a private entry and have them as part of their reflective journal, but without the scrutiny of professors or fellow learners. 

I do hope, though, that we can encourage the kind of shared collaboration and dialogue that is emerging in my ADLT 620 class wiki. I’ve been really struck by the authenticity of voice, the elegance in writing, and the compelling ideas expressed by the 8 students in this class. Perhaps they are simply an exceptional group — I prefer to think, however, that they are representative of the quality of students we have in the program: mature, engaged, and increasingly thoughful about adult learning as a discipline worthy of study.

What my colleague Bill Muth and I would like to do is explore our Adult Learning students use of blogging to reflect on content as well as to examine the changes in perspective that result from their personal and professional growth during the time that they are earning a master’s degree. In fall 2008, we plan to introduce the use of Edublog as the blogging tool that will replace the very static and cumbersome e-portfolio Blackboard tool that we have been using since Fall 2006 for reflective journaling.

Here’s where my literature search has taken me: I’ve searched ERIC and ABIInform (business database), and PsychInfo for the terms “blog” or “weblog” in combination with terms “reflection,” “reflective practice,” “reflection in action,”  “reflection on action,” “knowing in action.”  I’ve also searched these databases for terms “narrative”  and “identity”  and “narrative”  and “identity construction.”  For all articles I’ve reviewed as pertinent to our inquiry, I’ve reviewed the references for each article, and I have expanded our sources to include selected books and articles from these reference lists.  The majority of these, with the exception of some resources on reflection / reflective practice, and those related to narrative and identity construction, have been written since 2000.  This is, indeed, a relatively new field of inquiry as soon as the medium of blogging is introduced into the search.  I’ve gone to the Educause database (the Educause Learning Initiative) to locate articles and newsletters that write about blogs, and I’ve located the Pew study on the American Life Project which examines the role of these changing technologies in our society.

Here’s What I’ve Learned About Blogs

A Socially Constructed Knowledge Format

 Blogs have an inherent capacity for collaboration and communication, unlike a traditional reflective journal which is written by the learner and shared (only) with the instructor.  Because blogs exist as web pages, accessible to anyone with an internet connection, they are meant to be read, commented upon by interested readers, and linked (through the hyperlink capacity) to other sites. This creates a naturally occurring social network for communication and dialogue. It is this capacity which makes the blog a place for knowledge construction (and co-construction); the blogger can easily become part of a community of practice with others who read, share, and exchange ideas.  This may not seem like a big deal at first, but for those who adhere to the view that knowledge is socially constructed and situated in context, the blog takes on pedagogical qualities congruent with this learning paradigm.

Blogs, and Other Web 2.0 Tools (Like Wikis) are Transforming the Internet

The best description I’ve found so far about the transformative potential of Web 2.0 tools for changing us as a society comes from Will Richardson’s book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom (2006).  Richardson writes, 

We are at the beginning of a radically different relationship with the Internet, one that has long-standing implications for educators and students. The coming years will be marked by a flood of new innovation and ideas in teaching, most born from the idea that we can now publish and interact in ways never before possible.  In reality, we now have a Read/Reflect/Write/Participate Web, one that will continue to evolve and grow in ways not yet thought of, spurred by the efforts of creative teachers who recognize the potential to improve student learning. 

Technorati’s Feb 11, 2008 blog count exceeded 185 million blogs worldwide, with 175,000 being created each day.  The implications for a knowledge-connected and knowlege constructing society are huge, particularly when we consider how fast the half-life of current knowledge is shrinking. In some professional knowledge domains (like medicine), what today’s graduates learn will be out of date within 2-3 years. By necessity, we must all become continuous learners just to stay current!

Blogs are part of a new media literacy

Blogs, and their Web 2.0 counterparts, are part of a new, and necessary, type of literacy for all adults — media literacy.  Educators have asserted that blogs can enhance critical thinking (Oravec, 2002), enable people to become more thoughful and critical observers of the world around them (Blood, 2002), and enhance basic reading and writing literacy skills (Godwin-Jones, 2003). They are vehicles that can empower individuals to exercise authentic “voice” in writing about their experiences and making sense of them. It makes sense to me that no student in the Adult Learning program at VCU should graduate without having some degree of comfort and competence in media literacy. To do that, those of us who teach in the program will have to create time and space in our classes for modeling these new literacies.

References

Blood, R. (2002). Weblogs: A history and perspective. In J. Rodzvilla (Ed.), We’ve got blog: How weblogs are changing our culture (pp. 7-16). New York: Basic Books.

Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Emerging technologies: Blogs and wikis: Environments for online collaboration. Language, Learning & Technology, 7(12), 12-16.

Oravec, J. A. (2002). Bookmarking the world: Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(5), 616-621.

“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.” J. Rohn

HELLO WORLD!

Welcome to my blog, Coming About: Reflections on Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century.  “Coming about” is a sailing term for taking a new tack by adjusting the sails to catch the wind and travel in the intended direction. In my blog, it’s the metaphor I’m using for adopting new technologies to explore the possibilities for enhancing the learning experience in a Web 2.0 world.

Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the Teaching with Technology Insitute offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University where I teach masters and doctoral students in Adult Learning. In subsequent posts, I’ll be describing the trials and tribulations of putting these freshly acquired Web 2.0 skills in practice, but I also intend this space to be a reflective place for journaling about my experiences in teaching, the sense I’m making of the teaching and learning interaction, and what I am learning from my students along the way. You can read more about my background, experiences in teaching, and teaching philosophy in the About Me page of this site.