A silly term, a fad, middle aged white male educational technologists at play? Edupunk has been called all of those but it won’t go away. Why is that? Because edupunk defined by Jim Groom as ” An approach to teaching and learning practices that results from a do it yourself attitude….inventive teaching and inventive learning” sums up the direction in which many of us which to see technology used in education.

This week saw the final of the spring series of open web based seminars organised jointly by the UK Jisc funded Evolve network and the German EduCamp organisation. And, appropriately enough the subject was edupunk.

There were two very different takes on the edupunk movement by the presenters. Martin Ebner from Graz Univeristy started by quoting Antonio Fumero who said “It’s not about matching traditional models with existing tools any more; it’s about developing a brand new pedagogical modal and implementing the next generation web environment upon it. He contrasted the goals of creativity, individuality and collaboration to the “closed castle of the university.”

Martin said universities need edupunks. But rather than radical preaching, Graz has adopted a practical strategy of trying to open up the university VLE and learning support systems to allow students and staff to use their own tools for creating and consuming content. Martin said the “learning environment of the future has to support the individual learning needs of the learners….has to  support the lecturers as well and …has to consider the web as [a] communication and collaboration environment.”

Steven Wheeler from Plymouth University had a more radical approach – or at least he would have if his university network hadn’t closed him out of the Elluminate platform used for the seminar. On his blog he explained what he would have said:

1. “Edupunk is a philosophy deeply rooted in the belief that educators can ‘do it themselves’, and use tools that are open, ‘free’ and non-proprietary. It’s a movement against the commoditization of learning and against corporate profiteering. It is not just about selecting open tools and technologies. It is also about the freedom to choose the methods of teaching that are open and student centred. I would even go as far as to claim that Edupunk teachers should be challenging the curricula they are required to teach, and especially the assessment methods that are imposed from on high. These are the structures that constrain education and stop learners from achieving their full potential.
2. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and in particular Learning Management Systems (LMSs) contribute toward restrictive practices in education and constrain both learner and teacher to operate within a model of learning that is institutionally beneficial, but does little for the learner themselves. VLEs are generally difficult to use, with far too much effort needed to be put into understanding how the system works, to the detriment of the time and effort spent actually learning.
3. An exemplification of Edupunk philosophy is the rise of the personal learning environment (PLE) in which the learner selects his/her own tools and technologies to apply in formal and informal learning. Typical PLEs will incorporate a social networking service, reflective and collaborative tools, e-mail and a mobile device. I use a mashup of wiki (shell to aggregate all tools and provide a collaborative space), blogs (reflective tool and mind amplification space) and Twitter (microblog to update and inform and also to receive ideas and contact from others with a similar interest to me). I also use my wireless laptop and iPhone as communication/end tools.
4. Edupunk is more than ‘do it yourself’. It is also a counterculture against corporate control and exploitation of learning, and brings the punk band (the teacher) closer to the audience (learner group). It is unashamedly anarchic and harks back to the concept of ‘deschooling society’ first proposed by Ivan Illich in the 1970s. Illich famously argued that we don’t need funnels (directional learning through institutional control) but webs (multi-directional, hyperlinked learning that can be tailored by the individual to her/his own needs). Rhizomatic approaches to learning fall into this kind of philosophy.”

This is interesting. Both Martin and Steve embrace the idea of edupunk. Both are supporting the introduction of Personal Learning Environments. But whilst Steve sees edupunk ” bricolage, anarchy and subversion and a challenge to the establishment” and the VLE as contributing to restrictive practices,  Martin is seeking to open up the VLE and apply the ideas of edupunk in an institutional context. He does not appear to see it as subversive or a challenge to the establishment but rather as a way of enhancing the teaching and learning environment.

Could it just be that the idea of edupunk is now becoming part of the mainstream and as it does different strategies will emerge? Is it also possible that edupunk is becoming a (valuable) concept in itself without the need to be viewed as an analogy to the punk music scene of the 1970s. I hope so.

If you want to listen to the debate the Elluminate replay of the seminar is available on line.

I am speaking at the Plymouth elearning conference on 23 and 24 April. Steve Wheeler asked me to produce a summary of my presentation for the conference publication.

This was a problem. Firstly, I am bad at writing summaries. Secondly, I never know quite what I will say until I say it. But finally I have sat down and written it. I quite like it. I think it provides a summary of the different ideas around which we are centring our work at Pontydysgu.

Social software, personal learning environment and the future of education

The presentation  will look at the impact of recent developments in social software and the possible impact on education.

The origins of the word curricula, coming from the Latin word    ‘currere’ – a running race, a course or career can be contrasted to the origins of the word learning coming from the old Gothic word ‘Gleis’, meaning to tack, to follow and to find a path, the Gothic ‘leis’ which means to know and the the old English ‘learnien’ – to get knowledge.

Our education systems and institutions have been based around the original idea of curriculum, with winners and losers, the
same starting point and same finish point for all participants and with progression being seen as
a straight line between the two. Above all our educational institutions have been developed around the idea of homogeneity.

Such an idea of homogeneity was reinforced by the first industrial revolutions which led to the expansion of a schooling system to develop the skills needed by the workforce in a production economy.

The introduction of social software allows the exploration of different  learning pathways, and learning through exploring, wandering and funding the way.  Social networking tools allow learners to make connections, to  take individual choices about the direction of their learning within personal learning networks. Learning is based on bricolage – on making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand, regardless of their original purpose.

Teachers and trainers have a new role as mentors and guides to scaffold and support learning.

In terms of the future development of educational technology we need tools to help explore pathways, develop connections and to take control of own learning. This is turn requires a greater degree of engagement between developers, educational technologists and practitioners.

Education systems need greater flexibility to provide learners with their own space, to work at their own speed and at their own level, to define their own knowledge areas and make their own connections. Institutions can take the first steps in this by unlocking their resources and opening up their VLEs, by providing more and different ways of accessing services and by focusing IT support on services rather than systems.

The emergence of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is an important  step in this respect. PLEs can provide tools to help learners make and sustain connections, to help learners organise, scaffold and take responsibility for their learning and to manage and handle learning content. PLEs can also provide tools for recording and representing and sharing the learning ‘bricolage’
.

The emergence of new patterns and forms of learning based on social software provide a great opportunity to extend learning opportunities and to embed learning in every day work and living. At the same time it poses a challenge to educations systems and institutions who no longer have a monopoly on knowledge development and transmission.

Great discussions on learning and communities at a workshop hosted by IPTS in Seville. I particularly enjoyed the contribution by Ettiene Wenger this morning (see Wordle of twitterstream above).  I have been twittering the event and will write a longer post when i have 20 minutes to spare. In the meantime Grainne Conole has set up an excellent Cloudworks site for the event and you can also follow the twitter traffic by searching on the #ipts09 tag.

This is my favourite site of this year. In fact I could see me wasting so much time on blip.fm that i have limited my access to after seven in the evening (may have to fit kid proof software to reinforce my will).

For the initiated what is blip.fm? It is a site which allows you to search for music, play music and share it through a 150 character message. Integration with twitter means what you are playing is automatically posted to your twitter friends (although there is an easy override if you feel embarrassed about your musical tastes. You can follow people and their music appears on your home page. And friends can send you ‘props’ as an acknowledgement of a track they like, which you can in turn pass on to others. That’s about it.

Why does it work so well? Partly because it features an attractive interface, it works every time and it is a very short learning curve. But above all because it enables something we all like to do – to play music and share it with our friends. And it makes that just a little bit easier. I have spent many happy evenings sharing utube and Last.fm tracks over skype. But this is just so much better. And why am i going on about it? Not i assure you because i am looking for more listeners – although if you want to check out my cool grooves my user name is GrahamAttwell.

Over the past few weeks i have been restling with use cases and requirements for a Personal Learning and Maturing Environment (and in the enxt two days I will try to tell you want differentiates a PLME form a PLE). But it seems to me that blip.fm shows the way forward in helping people do something they want to do in a social environemnt. When we can design sowfatre for learning as good as this we will be making progress.

NB many thanks to CosmoCat and MariaPerif for encouraging my new career as a DJ!

Last nights rant against the idea of digital natives seems to have caused a bit of a stir.
My frustration with the term is not just because it is bad research. It is because we need models and concepts for understanding the profound changes emanating for the ways in which we are using technologies for communicating, sharing and learning. I work both as a part time researcher and a part time developer / implementer (and part time administrator and part time office cleaner! Research is important for us in helping design applications to support learning and working. Of course ideally we would do it ourselves but time and work pressure precludes the in-depth studies I would like to undertake (to say nothing of shortage of funding). So research findings and models are important in informing design and development. And Prensky’s model of the digital native is just wrong. It leads us down a blind alley and diverts us away from an understanding of the real world.

Anyway the rant followedthe joint Jisc Emerge project / Educamp open online seminar on Enterprise 2.0. If you missed the seminar you can watch the recording on the Jisc Elluminate site.

And here is a few of the many tweets I received in answer to my 140 character version of the post – Lets stop taking about digital natives – it is such a useless term – http://tinyurl.com/caemd3

jamesclay @GrahamAttwell and let’s stop talking about the Google Generation while we’re at it.

jurijmlotman @GrahamAttwell  you are right, but maybe the term is useful for tactical reasons #changemanagement

kevhickeyuk @GrahamAttwell Have you read Prenskys paper where even he is moving away from these terms?

darkone @GrahamAttwell Agreed! After careful consideration, we have concluded the ‘digital natives, beloved of the mee-ja, are merely early-adopters

dianadell @josiefraser @GrahamAttwell What term should we use to replace “digital natives” … do we need a label at all? Millennial learners

jpallis001 @GrahamAttwell    learners, the environment and experiences are different, their expectations are different  but

cspannagel @GrahamAttwell I fully agree with you. This would change the focus from “generation” to “competence”

josiefraser @GrahamAttwell hope you can make the digital literacy discussion on the 27th http://icanhaz.com/dldebate

hwilliamson @GrahamAttwell the isthmus project agrees, see http://tinyurl.com/4hxvfe

tmartinowen @GrahamAttwell  I think Vygotsky and Leont’ev have a fairly good framework on how mediation changes our being in the world

tmartinowen @GrahamAttwell  Activity Theory http://is.gd/nG6M

CosmoCat RT @GrahamAttwell Change(s in) how we think, how we learn. ..is also situated in diversity rather than dichotomy http://tinyurl.com/d2u38z

Just finished our latest Jisc Evolve / Educamp online seminar. This one was on the topic of Enterprise 2.0 and featured presentations by Pat Parslow and Willms Buhse. I thoroughly enjoyed Pat’s presentation which should be online tomorrow.
But Willms’ presentation and the subsequent discussion became bogged down over the issue of digital natives (which he defined as anyone born after 1980) although he later agreed that the term was possibly not too useful.
I would go further than that. The term was dreamed up with no research to support it but became popular in the media. OK – these things happen. But it is totally useless for trying to discuss any real development and use of new technologies.
Repeated research has shown that age is not the only or even the main determinate in patterns of uptake and use of technologies for learning and exchange of knowledge. My own modest research into the use of ICT for learning based on case studies in 106 enterprises in Europe suggested that older workers were more likely to use social software for developing and exchanging learning and knowledge. This, we hypothesised, was because they often had more autonomy in undertaking their work and in using learning in the workplace. If that is true, then work organisation would seem to be the most important factor in introducing social software in enterprises. Amd that has nothing to do with digital natives!

Another great edition of Emerging Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE from Loughborough. This show was broadcast from the Jisc Users and Innovations programme Next Generation Technologies in Practice Conference.

The show was presented by Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser.

It features George Roberts talking about the development of the JISC Emerge community, about building sustainable communities of practice in general and about Open Space technologies.

George is followed by Mark Van Harmelen talking with Graham Attwell about Personal Learning Environments. Mark reflects on the stage of development of PLEs and whether or not it is possible to prescribe the use of an institutional PLE. He goes on to describe the so called Manchester PLE that he is developing with support from the Users and Innovation programme.

Nicola Whitton and Rosie Jones talk to Josie Fraser about the potential of Augmented Reality Games for enhanced learning based on their work for Jisc on the Argosi project.

And Bob Rotherham from the Sounds Good project talks about the use of audio and MP3 recordings for giving feedback to students on their work.

Many thanks to everyone who helped out with the programme, including Steven Warburton who hosted the chatroom, Joe Roso who acted as producer and Dirk Stieglitz for sorting out the technical set up.

Music is by the Drunk Souls from the On Verra Plus Tard album from the Craetive Commons supported Jamendo web site.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Back to the blog after far too long travelling around England and Wales. Amongst a series of meetings, I have been at the fantastic #Thoughtfest09 workshop in Salford and at the Jisc Users and Innovations programme Next Technologies in Practice Conference in Loughborough. there were so many ideas and so many great people I met I really do not know where to start.

#Thoughfest09 was particularly good in that we got to do and try things. Doing things included sessions on podcasting and mixing music, on producing digital cartoons and playing the wonderful Argosi game (my group came last 🙂 ). And great project demos including the Jisc Users and Innovations funded Awesome and (as it is now called) the Manchester PLE project. The other factor was size. The venue limited us to 30 or so participants and that allowed everyone to actively contribute to the workshop.

The Next Technologies in Practice Conference had perhaps less interactivity but once more featured an array of excellent projects. The Users and Innovations programme projects are now coming to maturity and the focus on user centred development can be seen in the imagination and creativity of the projects.

A number of common themes are emerging. Firstly, we are now seeing the emergence of mature and lightweight user centred Web 2.0 and social software applications for learning.  These applications break the mode of traditional approaches to e-learning. In short they are disruptive. This Wordle based on tweets from from the second day of the Jisc conference provides a pretty accurate illustration of the issues.

And whilst the edupunk approach remains attractive for small scale implementation and trialling, there is an increasing discussion on approaches to institutional innovation and change.

Gwen van der Velden, Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the University of Bath in a presentation entitled “Engaging the sector: An institutional perspective on raising awareness to embedding new and emerging technologies” provided an overview of many of the issues to do with institutional change. Institutions, she said, are “devolved, centralised, bicameral, hierarchical, collegiate, managerial, entrepreneurial, bureaucratic, research intensive, teaching minded, ‘customer focused.'”

Popular pitfalls in project development were

• We need to train staff before they use it
• It doesn’t talk to the student data system/ staff data system/ etc
• Depending on middle managers
• Resource hungry development
• Nefarious proposals
• Solving non-existent problems

The issue of staff training raised considerable discussion on Twitter. If true, it probably condemns most e-Portfolio applications to the dustbin!

Gwen posed the following questions for project developers

• What is your strap line?
• Why would I support you?
• What problem do you solve for me?
• What evidence do you have to show me that your solution works?

Whilst this list might be seen as coming from an intsitional management perspective, it is not bad as a rubric for rapid and innovative project development.

Probably the biggest hit of the two events was the presentation by Carlos Santos and Luis Pedro from the University of Aveiro in Portugal. As Josie Fraser reported they “are moving away from the managed learning system model and providing a supported Personal Learning Environment (PLE) service linking in University functionality with member selected and supported web 2.0 distributed activity.” As Josie says “Why is this amazing? The global edtech community have been talking about how institutions can engage with learner-centered PLEs for a while now, but Aveiro and the SAPO team are putting it into practice. Campus wide. In September.”

This will definitely be one to watch. But right across education things are getting interesting as innovation and social software allied to new approaches to learning challenges the old ways of doing things,

I thoroughly enjoyed today’s session as part of Buth’s workshop. There were very though provoking questions there! It is great to connect to new people all the time…it’s just brilliant to be challenged by people’s ideas and experiences. It makes me think, it helps me reflect, and most important it helps me see things from […]

We have been running monthly online seminars for almost a year now through the Jisc Users and Innovations Evolve project. This spring the seminars are being run in conjunction with the German Educamp organisation.

Yesterdays session on Careers and the Internet was one of the best yet. There were two excellent and complementary  presentations by Mario Grobholz, creative director of the myON-ID Media Corporation, and Steven Warburton from Kings College London who is working on the Rhizomes project. Almost as good was the participation in the chat room with many questions and ideas emerging.

Steven focused on what he called our ‘fractured digital identities.He focused in particular on on the tensions between online personal and professional identities and public and private identities and how these were changing. Mario looked at reputation management and introduced a platform his company has developed to help people manage their reputation online.

Great stuff. The full recording is available on the Jisc Support, Synthesis and Benefits Realisation Elluminate site (no log in required). If you missed the session and are interested in these issues it is well worth watching.