We're Managing Learning, not Facilitating It

[Stevie Rocco]

Graham Attwell's video (in videos section), goes over what Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are, along with their premise and promise. One thing he said really struck me: "Most educational technology is designed to help manage learning, not to facilitate learning, and not to help us share that learning. And most of that educational technology ignores the informal learning that occurs every day."

Good thoughts.

[Roxanne]

I'd like to share some stray thoughts related to two aspects of this thread:
First is the idea of managing learning vs. facilitating learning. One could ask are we intending to manage learning or to make learning easier . This would define if we are managing (directing) or facilitating (making easier) learning. I might be inclined to (in this case) argue for facilitating learning - especially if we are talking about both formal and informal learning.

Design is both and art and a science. Science in that we adhere to and apply 'rules', 'conditions' etc. that stack the deck in a sense to help predict positive learning interactions and outcomes. It is an art in that we can not predict or foresee all outcomes or learning that occurs. A wise woman once explained to me that what we do is provide a script of sorts but the learners/students become the actors/players who breathe life into the designs we create. The 'room' Stevie describes is created when we afford for the ability of the learners to breathe life into the designs.

This brings me to the second point related to allowing room within the institutional structure to accommodate both formal and informal learning. My guess would be that room occurs within not only the design - but in the assessment of the learning that is occurring. We already assess the formal/intentional ... perhaps we need to look for (and assess) the informal learning that occurs too.

As for how we design for that at a distance - my guess is as good as anyone's. My first thought would be to ask what was learned besides the actual content. Another thought would be that learners at a distance informally learn how to communicate, interact, i.e. the whole social presence thing from how we design and set up the learning environment. Maybe designing for informal learning is actually easier at a distance that F2F instruction because we are more aware of what we are 'assuming' in the design of the instruction and we pay more conscious attention to it than we do in face to face instruction..... Just some stray thoughts.

[Stevie Rocco]

So how do we create/embrace personal learning environments such that there's room for informal learning, and allow for that within our institutional structures? Doing it in the classroom might be easier than doing it at a distance, but if you were offering a course at a distance, how do you design for that?

[Jen Berghage]

These are good thoughts. I work hard with my authors to create exercises and assignments that facilitate learning--meaning they're designed to invite the students' participation and engagement with each other and the content such that learning happens, but is not necessarily totally predictable in how it'll come about. In other words, what the students get out of it is personal to their own perspective and experience, as well as application. Discussion forums, wikis, and blogs can help us not only to share learning, but to create it as we go along.

When my kids were little I tried to always be open to the "informal learning that occurs every day," and take the opportunity to help the kids learn whenever the opportunity arose, which was definitely not always planned or predictable. Courses can be that way too : )