Learning in Waves

Nope not google wave,

The concept is old but I thought I would do a bit of reflectiveness on the subject for my own benefit.  In the old classroom when a student would learn a bit of information, the wave of retention would begin.  Reinforcement would start the process again, in the old days and still to now this would be achieved via homework.  This would carry on until either it dissipated or the barrier broke and it entered the long term memory.

Nowadays people are thinking about how they can support the student to create their own wave.  Formally this occurs using groupwork or now socially.using social network sites.  We can support this by creating social learning tools or by creating social learning areas (SEA) within our learning centres.

E-learning can be seen to strengthen the wave by creating bursts at different intervals.

Constructivism occurs in a similar method, by planting the idea or item of knowledge within the subject the item can grow and change according to how the subject views and changes much like a tree with branches.

Google Shmidt Gone mad

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_suggests_you_change_your_name_to_escape.php#comments-open

So the best the CEO of Google could come up with was for teenagers to change their name, in order to escape the openness of the web.

Instead of spouting stuff like that, why not add more privacy to the web instead.... its like shouting heads or tails and turning the coin over if you lost.

If biometrics, identifiable dna etc is all planned for the future, a person should be able to link data to themselves and then choose to delete whatever information they want... except maybe criminal records.  To think that everyone has to change for the web is ludicrous thinking and if that's what the people steering the web are thinking then god help us.

Encouraging Formal Informal Learning

Choice.....

That after all is what drives us an enables us to do the things we do.  Today we had Interviews for the new Dean of 'Learning Education and Innovation' department.  Almost all of them were focused on Students Learning 21st Century skills.  When asked what how we could support that as a department they talked about us working closely with Academics.

Here's my idea .... With all these informal learning learning spaces, we could utilise them better.  Having workshops, ran by academics and training staff on technology throughout the semester could prove valuable.  Students could pick n chose what workshop they wanted to attend.  Having them certified would be even better!

We talk about getting students to use web 2.0 technologies etc, but what are we doing to encourage the use.  We push stuff out to academics all the time, but what are the odds of it filtering through?

I think having informal workshops now and again would not prove too difficult, would enable students to feel in control of their teaching and help towards there PDP.