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I'm currently working on a project that requires me to document and evaluate a literacy program being offered in a low-income housing development. I'm also designing a 100-hour online ESL teacher training program, while teaching/developing a blended Program Planning in Adult Education course. Each of these projects are being hugely influenced by the Emerging Technologies course I'm taking, because my ideas about curriculum development and educational practice are being tossed around like a paddle-less canoe in a thunderstorm. (I love it!).

The first project, in which I'm working with strong, interesting and learning-hungry women who have been battered around by life and society, is in some ways restricted by an outdated view of "literacy". This outdated definition of literacy is focused on "autonomous" (disconnected) skill development. There are lists of things that represent "being literate", lists that are used to determine "progress" in reading and writing. Nice things with tick-boxes beside them if accomplished and demonstrated to an 'educated' person from another socio-economic world. Things that result in another document if properly achieved, one that is said to open new doors for them.

But the documents associated with these lists seem to me to be loaded with subtle messages that keep literacy learners in a subservient and marginalized position. The definition of literacy reflected in them is, in effect, a white, middle-class list of what "should" be known. It does not reflect critical aspects of "situated literacy" that could show how much these women DO know. It is more likely, inadvertently perhaps, to measure what they DON'T know. In addition, even if they could do all the things on the list perfectly, the acquired literacy would not give them access to all that we promise them if they achieve those things .... nor have we even asked them what THEY want to be able to do with their newly-developed literacy skills. It may be understanding parole paperwork or medical info about ADHD for their kids, or writing letters to complain about bed bug infestations, or understanding why their tax rebate isn't as high as they expected. Shouldn't we be asking them what they want?

How is this related to connectivism? When we see things in isolation instead of in their dynamic and ever-changing context, we lose the life of the thing. We need to see these women and their skills in the context of their community ... capable, connected, vibrant, growing. We need to allow that they know things that we don't. We need to support every effort they make to reach out and connect beyond whatever curriculum or skills we expose them to in the classroom. We need to support them in their independent thinking and acting. EVERYTHING about our teaching needs to be about reaching out and beyond, especially when we're talking about people who haven't had equal access to the privileges of middle-class life. This means giving up control, not trying to create lists and ticky-boxes that presume to encapsulate what "should" be. It means listening, being aware of personal biases and presumptions, allowing learning to emerge, describing instead of prescribing. This is situated literacy, literacy as social practice not just technical skill development.

But what to do when a course needs to be certified by someone (like the ESL one) or needs to fit into an expected curriculum (like the Program Planning one)? Then we may not be able to allow for emergent curriculum the same way, but we still need to find ways of engaging students' minds fully and creatively. The difference between a "learning management system", (even a more enlightened or open one) and something like the software "Twine" or "Diigo", which sorts but doesn't pre-chew, is remarkable. One is linear, teacher-led, didactic; the other is open, chaotic, exploratory. This open, chaotic, exploratory approach engages the mind and is propelled forward by "joy" or "rapture". Each time I go online and discover a new software (as an embodiment of a way of thinking about ideas and information and connections), I want to re-write the modules I've completed. I know I need to meet certain standards and expectations, but - like the literacy checklist - these standards are so painfully dry! They too are "autonomous", disconnected from engaged learning. I know that we (I) can do better.

I found a great article on "New Literacy Studies", which talks about literacy as social practice. I'm going to pull out of it the implications for curriculum development. I'm sure they will reflect the values of the Web 2 world and connectivism (learning is located in the community, in the way it is lived out). I'm hopeful that it'll let me more accurately show all the kinds of learning, skill development and social impacts going on in the housing development as a result of the literacy program. I'm also hoping that I can get closer to a list of "best practices" for the courses I'm developing/teaching.

Affordances

In the course on emerging technologies, we've been learning about different types of technologies, but also new ways of inspiring, evaluating, sharing and organizing learning. While the realization of what's possible (and what will be possible) in the 2.0/3.0/4.0 world is breath-taking, I've been disappointed with the same old deification of technology that I so often experience in conversations with techies. It's as if the glitter and shimmer of possibility blinds people who are too close to the technology. There are many "affordances", yes. However, if we're going to buy into the dream that computers can make learning more accessible to all, then we better take a good look at who's got computers ... and computer skills ... and who doesn't, and we better start correcting that massive imbalance. At the very least, we need to recognize the "costs" that technology has on society, information and learning too. No, not to suggest that the Ludite way of life is preferable, but to keep our eyes open about who and what we're leaving behind if we rush too quickly towards the glitter and shimmer. It's taboo to question anything too sexy and prevalent, but when I look around, I see the impact of all sorts of decisions that were made in the name of progress that don't seem so progressive in retrospect. Let's at least, as we incorporate more and more technology into learning, have the courage to look, to really look, at the downsides. Not so that we don't move forward, but rather than we move forward with sure feet and so that we don't have to turn around and mop up our messes because we didn't stop to think.

The "costs" to me are situated mainly in the exclusion of those very people who need access to real, deep and independent learning the most. These people may be marginalized by language, literacy, education, poverty ... those things that are usually called part of "social capital". Another "cost" is in the realm of artful, sophisticated use of language. My generation was taught how to read extensive and narrative texts, complicated novels and research documents. We were taught to write in a variety of styles. It involves a certain mental engagement with ideas that cannot be fed nor expressed in Twitter-land. My children have not learned the same skills, and while their global access to people and places and Facebook "friends" may have increased, their access to old great literature, and the embedded archetypes and wisdoms, is greatly reduced because they can't persevere in taking in or producing written thought. The "all things quick and easy" mentality that is "afforded" us by technology may yet return to bite us in the rump.

At the same time, I am more and more convinced of the incredible value of underlying principles of the 2.0 world. Once the course is done, I aim to take all the technologies I've been exposed to and see which I can use for the courses I'm designing. I'm also going to spend some time to see how I can combine inquiry-based learning (for adults) and online learning, using the principles of connectivism. Also, I want to bring the principles of connectivism into a classroom version of a course on emergent curriculum for adults. Mostly, emergent curriculum is created for children, but the 2.0 world seems ideal for bringing it into the adult learning world as well.

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This slideshow was created for the Emerging Technologies course at U of M.

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Moving Towards revisions on the PLE

Paint and words ... that's how the PLE started. I had tried a number of technological tools (CMAP, Inspiration), but the focus on getting the arrows to go to the right boxes in the right order was clearly not a true reflection of how my learning happens. And it's clearly not how I design curriculum, all in tidy boxes, no matter how many arrows I send off to run between them.

Really, the metaphor of wet paint with superimposed action words is more accurate. The vaguely overlapping puddles of "known or believed things" - where certain ideas have gelled a little more or a little less - make more sense to me than a flowchart of boxes with little fences around them. And it makes more sense to me that there is a foundational layer that is part of my identity and a surface layer at which I am taking in new information, meeting new people, trying new things, agreeing and disagreeing.

My foundational "learning landscape", the wet paint under the words, has been painted by the many learning experiences of my life. It's changeable to some degree, but unlikely to move into vastly different colour schemes at this point. I like that there are no clear boundaries between some of the understandings I've gained and put into this landscape (could I say exactly how I've come to certain conclusions about things?), and I like that in some places, my understanding is incomplete. At the same time, there are definitely places where new knowledge is causing a stirring and a ripple effect that may well influence previous understandings about things, or may fill in some of the gaps I currently feel.

However, having read other people's ideas about PLEs and technology in learning, I feel as though I need to add a third layer to my PLE, a layer of "tools" or, more aptly perhaps, "seeds". At this point, I've mentioned some of the tools or seeds on the "action words" layer of the PLE, but it's not enough.

The reason I need to think about this further is that I want to transfer this idea to curriculum development. I'm thinking of my PLE as a model of not only how I learn, but how content can be arranged, and also how learning can be at once orderly and non-linear. The orderly is important to me because I want to encourage deep thinking (which can then contribute to learners' foundational landscapes) but I want to allow for what Czichsentmihaly calls "flow", which presumes that learners can get into a learning 'zone' because they have control over pace and content.

The "seeds", I suspect, will turn out to be a real range of media. If I were working in a non-technological age, I would see myself leaving folders with provocative, interesting, contradictory, visually-stimulating information around a room and letting students (courageous ones!) figure out how to move towards the completion of a project. Online however, I could use all sorts of websites and links and documents. Now, if only I could find a program that would letter me "scatter" the seeds where I needed them.