"Mercy, mercy me ... the ecology" - Marvin Gaye
Should we conceptualize learners as tourists in zoologicalgardens curated by educators or as explorers in open environments fraught with danger and reward? In other words do we see ourseves as Johnny Morris or our learners as Steve Irwin?
Rose Luckin and her colleagues Jon Akass, John Cook, Peter Day, Nigel Ecclesfield, Fred Garnett, Matt Gould, Tom Hamilton, Andrew Whitworth have published some interesting and much needed theoretical work to frame discussions of education and web 2.0 grounded in ideas of self-organization and ecology. I think they would opt for Steve Irwin!
In 'Learner-Generated Contexts: Sustainable Learning Pathways Through Open Content' they write: "The proposal of a Learner Generated Context arose initially from the suggestion that an educational context can be described as a learner-centric ecology of resources and that a learner-generated context is one in which a user or group of users collaboratively marshal the available resources to create an ecology that meets their needs (see Luckin, R. 2006; Luckin, du Boulay, Smith, Underwood, Fitzpatrick, Holmberg, Kerawalla, Tunley, Brewster & Pearce, 2005; Luckin, Shurville & Browne, 2007 for more detail on the learnercentric ecology of resources framework and for more detailed examples). Through the discussions of the Learner Generated Context group fresh perspectives on thiscontention have developed. For example, both spatial and process issues emerge. These could be described as Changing the learning context and generating learning spaces, and Changing the learning process and the learning context.” (Luckin et al, 2007 p 90).
Elsewhere writing as the The Learner Generated Contexts Group, Luckin et al provide a nice pithy definition: "“A Learner Generated Context can be defined as a context created by people interacting together with a common, self-defined or negotiated learning goal. The key aspect of Learner Generated Contexts is that they are generated through the enterprise of those who would previously have been consumers in a context created for them." You can find out more and add to discussion at the wiki.
I think that the concept of a Learner-Generated Context helps us to start thinking about personal learning environments from a learning and teaching perspective rather than a purely technical one. Supporting approaches like mode two, participative action learning / research and enquiry-based learning with web 2.0 will require its own ecology of models and frameworks. For example, second order cybernetics becomes a useful tool to study and reflect upon Learner-Generated Contexts once we start to view learners as conscious modelers of their own learnings and learning environments. As educators we can teach reflective practice, perhaps using some form of scaffolding, to help learners to become second order cyberneticians in their own right.
Turning to materiality, I think that the ecological metaphor helps to make it clear that virtual learning environments, personal learning environments and other forms of technology mediated learning are part of a wider and more tangible world of books, museums and coffee bar conversations etc that learners inhabit and animate. Sometimes ‘hidden learning environments’ are only hiding in plain sight. Perhaps learning technologisits should get out more ...
Further reading: You can download a great powerpoint on learner-generated contexts. A smart addition to anyone's ecology.
References
- Luckin, R.; du Boulay, B.; Smith, H.; Underwood, J.; Fitzpatrick, G.; Holmberg, J.; Kerawalla, L.; Tunley, H.; Brewster, D. and Pearce, D. (2005). Using Mobile Technology to Create Flexible Learning Contexts, Journal of Interactive Media in Education, Special Issue on Portable Learning .
- Luckin, R. (2006). Understanding Learning Contexts as Ecologies of Resources: From the Zone of Proximal Development to Learner Generated Contexts. In T. Reeves & S. Yamashita (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Elearning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006 (pp. 2195–2202). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
- Luckin, R., Shurville, S. and Browne, T. (2007) Initiating elearning by stealth, participation and consultation in a late majority institution, Organisational Transformation and Social Change Volume 3 Number 3 and Volume 4 Number 1 pp. 317–332.
Further reading
I came across The Design-Based Research Collective through Jan Herrington's excellent keynote at AARE 2007. They are "... a small group of researchers who engage in design-based research, often in technology enhanced learning environments. In our own work, we have come to recognize the need to better define the nature, methods, and outcomes of design-based research so that we may more easily share our own research and build on the work of others." You can read more at their excellent web site. You can read more about design-based research, "which blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environments, [and] is an important methodology for understanding how, when, and why educational innovations work in practice." in their paper "Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry".
