apcampbell

The EVO Weblogging in ESL/EFL chat with James Farmer this morning at Alado on communication dynamics in OLEs was very stimulating. Graham, Cleve, and Tuchodi provide us with live summaries.

One of the main themes running through James’ presentation today was
that the type of online learning environments that we create and
implement in the classroom will affect the type of communication that
takes place.  It is clear to me that if we adopt a social
constructivist view of learning, then we must strive to create learning
environments that will faciltate meaningful social encounters of a
dialogic, discursive, or conversational nature - hopefully a
combination of all three when each is appropriate.  James showed
that blogs facilitate social, cognitive, and teacher presence in a way
that discussion board models cannot.  And it is a combination of
these three forms of presence that  create a community of inquiry
in which successful, meaningful, and shared learning exeriences can take place (see diagram).

One question that still remains with me, however, and this goes back to
the discussion over technology and pedagogy with Barbara and Will, is
that I can easily see how the structure of learning environments will
influence the patterns of communicative behavior, but to what extent
does that change in outward behavior affect one’s inner mindset? 
Being conditioned to depend upon institutions with heirarchical power
structures for their formal education, students may inevitiably see
blogging behavior as yet another activity to which they are being
coerced into doing for a grade.  Actions, although identical in
outward appearance, do not necessarily reflect the same intentions, nor
will they necessarily lead to changes in a learner’s worldview, no
matter how much the learning environment encourages it.  But they
might!  And this is what is so exciting.  There is no doubt a relationship between the way in which
one interprets reality and the environment in which that interpretation
takes place.  It will be wonderful to see specific examples of
teachers implementing the type of OLEs that James is advocating and
observe how they affect the students who are communicating in such
spaces as part of their learning.  Are they feeling a greater
sense of enjoyment in the learning process?  Are they experiencing
a greater sense of freedom and self control?  Are such activities
leading to greater levels of learner autonomy and self-direction? 
Perhaps some well designed qualitative studies can provide us with some
intial answers.

Based on my personal experience, I suspect that these questions can be
anwsered in the affirmative.  Yet, I don’t think that the learning
environment - the technology, that is - is enough.  There needs to
be a
pardigm shift in the way educators and adminstrators view the
institutions of which they are a part, followed by direct action to
change them.  Perhaps this is too much to ask?  Maybe the
upcoming
revolution in education will arise from the bottom of the power
structure: the students.  If they take control of their learning
through the help of these liberative technologies (assuming that these
technologies are indeed liberative), then perhaps all that is needed is
a critical mass of learners to spark rapid change in the way education
is viewed and practiced in society.   If we, as educators,
can seed students with these loosely structured learning environments,
give them the freedom within the classroom to use them, and model the
type of self directed learning behaviors typical of an autonomous
learner, we too can play a key role in facilitating what I hope to be
the inevitable outcome of increased learner use of these
technologies: widespread liberation from the control of authoritarian
educational structures, and with that, the freedom to grow and learn
cooperatively in a self directed way.