A break from Digital Technologies for Language Teaching Week 7

We are now, more or less, halfway through the first module of the MA, which is basically a week off. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to put a post together with links to all the posts so far. This is to organise my thoughts and for anyone who wants to to dip in and out of areas that interest them.

Preparing for the course

Before we started the course I read a couple of introductory books on the subject of digital technologies in education. Here is my initial introduction on why I am writing this blog and the first book I read about the roles computers can take.

Introduction and Language, Learners and Computers by John Higgins 

The second book was about M-Learning, which led me on to the idea of increased spontaneity in class.

Going Mobile by Hockly. N, Dudeney. G,

The third book made me reflect on how and why the music industry changed due to an economy of abundance and granul

The Digital Scholar by Weller. M,

Inspired by the same book I extracted some advice and features of blogs.

Blogging

The fourth book focussed on the role of computer games in language learning.

Digital Play by Mawer. K, Stanley. G,

Back to Weller again, this post reflects on the open web and privacy.

Sharing

Week 1 Induction 

Then finally the course began! The first post is about my hopes and expectations.

Week 1

My first experience with SCMC.

SCMC

Week 2 Let’s get started

Week 2 and my drivers for using technology.

Drivers

Some thoughts on personalisation.

Personalisation

Defining facilitators and learner agency.

Facilitator

A bit more on learner agency.

Learner agency

Week 3 SLA & technology

My response to Blake’s four myths.

Myths

My first experiences with Padlet, Voice recording and Edmodo.

Trying stuff out

Week 4 The digital natives debate

Discussion on Digital natives, immigrants and wisdom.

Wisdom

Experimenting with Quizlet, Popplet and Wikis.

Trying more stuff out

Week 5 CALL applications

Talking about the normalisation of technology.

Normalisation

Thinking about how to go about action research.

SIG

Getting my head round the idea of digital technology as an environment.

Change

Week 6 PLEs and VLEs

Criticisms of virtual learning environments. 

VLEs

My first impressions of personal learning environments.

PLEs

Memes, Roles in PLEs and the evolution of education.

Roles

Do we need universities or just knowledge?

Introduction

When I was reading this book I felt as if I was reading it from three different perspectives. The first was the student about to start a distance learning course who was looking for a study guide. The second was the music enthusiast who had worked in a recording studio, a record shop and regularly composed music, (Here’s a link to my latest album). And yes, I’m still attached to the idea of the album. The third was the English teacher looking for ways to enhance the world of English language teaching.

This is the first of two blogs on ‘The Digital Scholar’ by Martin Weller. The first will focus on the pedagogy of abundance. (This struck a chord with the musician in me;) The second will draw out practical advice for blogs. (Blogging is part of the first module in the MA in digital technologies for language teaching).

A lesson from the music industry

‘The Digital Scholar’ (Weller, M. Bloomsbury Plc 2011) looks at the effect digital technologies are having specifically on higher education. However, Weller suggests that there are valuable lessons to be learnt from recent upheavals in other sectors, such as the music, film and publishing industries. He argues that the failure of the music industry to adapt to change was partly due to an outdated business model based on ‘scarcity (i.e., Music and talent was only available from limited sources and difficult to copy and share). With the advent of mp3 files and peer2peer networks we were thrust into an ‘economy of abundance’, which the music industry failed to capitalise on initially, (Weller, M. 2011). Weller suggests that a similar change is now happening in education, and universities and educational providers will need to adopt a ‘pedagogy of abundance’ if they intend to remain relevant in today’s digital age.

Pedagogy of abundance

Weller outlines the underlying features that a pedagogy of abundance will need to take into consideration.

• content is free
• content is abundant
• content is not only in the form of text
• sharing content is easy
• learning is social
• connections between individuals are weak
• organisation is cheap
• generative system based on unpredictability and freedom
• user generated content

(Weller, M. 2011).

The book looks to existing pedagogy such as resource based (RBL), problem based learning (PBL), Constructivism, Communities of practice and Connectivism which might align to this these features.

Granularity

Another concept that I found very interesting was granularity and the distinction between form and function. Again Weller uses changes in the music industry to get his point across mentioning the preference for individual tracks over albums. His suggestion is that the physical form music was sold in (i.e. the record or CD) was just a convenient and temporary package. This meant that artists were obliged to bundle ten songs together. However, we didn’t need the physical CD, just the music, and maybe only one or two tracks. Weller makes further examples with Newspapers and articles, books and ideas. Without being held back by physical form, intellectual content can be unpacked into its basic units. Weller refers to this phenomenon as ‘granularity’ where blogs and short videos are used to spread ideas rather than books and films, (Weller, M. 2011). Is the same true for education?

Do we need schools and universities or just knowledge?

And does this affect language learning to the same degree as other more content based subjects?

References

‘The Digital Scholar’ (Weller, M. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2011)