Week Five: Naturally Social

This week we had three discussion sections under our group, but no one participated in the Expert Q & A. I wonder why that is. I participated in the other two, but was most intrigued and interested in the first. The first discussion, “Where’s the ‘social’ in self-paced instruction?,” really got me to thinking about what is social and how we can and should incorporate it into eLearning.

Our group stated out with a debate on if our learning experience stories were self-paced and what does self-paced mean. Even after this discussion, I believe if a student or learner is choosing there own deadlines and timing to work on the learning, then it is self-paced, although not all the rest of the group agreed, I think we could see each other’s points.

Since I was most familiar with my own story and I feel it is 100% self-paced, I wanted to get it out there and I it was my best contribution to the group.

"There is no schedule for us. And I do feel a lot of our learning experiences fit this…yes, there were goals of when it was to be don, but those time-constraints were chosen by the learner, no a teacher.”

This statement explained the thinking of our learning experiences being self-paced and gave Joni an opportunity to re-direct the conversation back to social. (Which I did notice Joni was more involved with our discussion this week and asked more questions to direct where we were going, but this made for a more involved discussion.)

We discussed if social can be a simulation of social or if it has to be true, human-human interaction. I think the majority of the people discussing eventually felt that as long as the person is having a social dialogue (whether that be on paper, computer, with themselves or others) it is social.

Phillip ended our conversation with what I thought was the best point of anyone. In a nut shell he said, we shouldn’t get too wrapped up in incorporating social interaction because most of the time it will happen naturally.

This really hit home for me because in all my schooling, teachers have tried to force me to be social. When it is forced I tend to resist and feel uncomfortable and remember more how I didn’t like the experience, than what I was actually learning. On the other hand, two subjects that I never thought I would enjoy – Nutrition (classroom based) and Meteorology (online based) – I found that my social interactions came from being excited about the content, being able to apply it to my life and then I shared it all the time with my family and friends. This was a positive social experience and had little do to with the instructor forcing it upon me.

Week Four: Philosophy vs. Theory

For our week four discussion we were given three loaded questions to answer:

• What is the connection between philosophy (including your own, as determined via the PAEI), theory, and our common values (derived over the last three weeks)?
• Which philosophical and theoretical position(s) best supports our common values? How?
• And, why should we care? In honor of Ms. Tina Turner, what’s philosophy got to do with the design of eLearning experiences?

The discussion for the week started off slow. If everyone else was like me, they went back everyday, reread the questions and thought some more about it before posting. We all stated our PAEI scores and discussed how our common values relate to philosophy. Some of us believe that our values create our philosophies, where others think that philosophies create our values. I almost believe it's a, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? type question. They are very inter-related. A few of us tried to state which philosophies our values fell into, but there was never a consensus and in fact, all five philosophies were named at one point.

My best contribution to the group was:

"I don't know if this answers the question, but last year in APS, we were told of this new "workshop" model for teaching English. Most of the teachers complain about it. It's not really teaching and anything else you can think of. In reading these few chapters I've decided that APS has changed there philosophy, while most of the teacher haven't and this is creating problems. If we don't recognize what our philosophies are and how those relate to the philosophies of companies or school districts we may work for, we may just be creating more headaches for ourselves. If we know the similarities and differences, we can kinda meld them together when needed to fit everyone’s needs. I think APS would have less resistance if they approached teachers about philosophies and the differences and even made them take the PAEI, then to just say do it."

I believe this was my most effective contribution, because it was the most concrete response to the “Why should we care?” question and based on the comments and discussion after, I think it was more stimulating than some of the others’ “Why we should care?” answers.

I think some of the most valuable parts of the discussion stemmed from questions brought up from others:

• What is the difference between philosophy and theory?
• How philosophies effect our teaching? Is it possible to teach using someone else’s philosophy?
• Can philosophies be flexible?
• How is technology changing education?

These were the main points in our discussion. I’d never thought about the difference between philosophy and theory, but when it was asked I realized most of us had similar ideas, but had just as had a time putting it into words. Essentially, philosophies are your beliefs that lead to which theory (practice) you will use.

Another key point, was the discussion of the changing philosophies or flexible philosophies. Many good points were made in this context and we all had a variety of opinions on this one. From no, your philosophy can not change, to it changes with every situation. I think when it comes down to it, there are aspects of our philosophies that are steadfast and will not change, but there are other parts that if we are to be effective need to change (or at least we need to be open-minded) to fit the situation.

I’ve held off on writing this blog, as this was a big discussion for me. I really see the value of philosophies and that we can have the same common value, and different philosophies to get there. I really wish I’d had this philosophy discussion before I taught last year, but then again, maybe I wasn’t in the right place and now this means something to me and last year it wouldn’t have. I’ve combated my teaching friends with philosophy discussions this week, trying to explain everything I’ve gotten from this discussion, but it’s not the lightest subject matter. :-)