Back to the Idea of a university

We encapsulate learning into courses and modules, quite often prescribed via SLO's etc. However if you look back to early universities, it was not courses but your accumulated learning experience which counted. Maybe with online learning and learning on demand we can move away from unitizing learning and get back to rewarding people for their time on task.

Simple learning

Steps to varnishing a floor.
1) Open can of varnish.
2) Move lid of can to exit point of room.

Omitting 2) generates a simple example of experiential learning.

A side bar on Gardner

Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) The classic text on multiple intelligence’s. Where Gardner differed from previous authors who sought to develop multidimensional models of intelligence was in the precision with which he defined what constitutes intelligence. I particularly note his distinction that an intelligence should be an ability, which can be lost due to brain injury. Thus, to my mind, by establishing an organic differentiation Gardner enables us to bound the levels of distinction involved here.
This is actually quite a profound distinction, as we normally think of subject categories or areas of learning as being very clearly culturally determined. By collocating what we assume are cultural distinctions with biological functions, Gardner is making a quite interesting connection between culture and biological determinism.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind : the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Ethics in research on the internet

This is a series of questions in an area where I'm trying to work out what my position should be. These questions arise from asking whether we should view the internet as a collection of public and private documents, or as a collection of interations between people when it comes to doing research with the material we find there.
First Question Can I use posts to an online comunity of practice as objects of research without the consent of all people concerned? Probably not. Unles all posts are pubicly visible and are made in the expectationnthat there is a large body of public lurkers following the postings, I dont think one can. In this circumastance I think there is an expectation that this is a shared but not nescescariy public conversation and that materail posted is for the purpose of contiuing the conversation.
Exceptions to this expectation of privacy, would be overwhelming public interest i.e. it is for the public good, or where respecting the privacy of the context would be tantamount to coluding in a criminal act.
An example of this type of interaction maght make this clearer. There exist online discusion boards for profesionals in the drilling industry, While members of the press might join such boards to get deep background on a drilling rig acident, it would be inapropriate to quote statements made in such a context with atribution. The public interest here is that profesionals need a forum for rapid and open discusion of technical issues, impeding such discusions is not in the general public interest.
Second Question Can I use material from a freely available newspaper article, displayed on the web for academic research? I think I'm on safe ground here in saying yes, and no further permision is required, unless there is an issue of either plaigarism or copyright. I.e. I cant misapropriate the ideas without atribution, and I cant quote the material to such an extent that it becomes tantamount to republishing. (This is the 10% editorial use rule).
Third question, and this involves the issue of informed consent. Supose I join a racist organization and become part of a private online discusion, the content of which I consider as being of acedemic interest. Here I think there is not a hard and fast line. If there are criminal matters invoved, then I think my duty to avoid colusion in crime alows me to break confidentiality. However I think as we move away from the criminal context, the distinction becomes less and less clear cut.In general here is where we get the distinction between thetwo modles. The "A collection of Documents" view point tending to allow, while the interations between individual people is significantly less liberal.
Any thoughts?

Too many Wrappers

I'm checking out the online maths modules in the Blackboard VLE in DIT. I've just clicked on a module on integration, and I get to read the module about three lines at a time. Why? Well the first piece of wraping paper is my browser, Firefox. There is a top line with the page tittle, then a row of drop down menus, then the address bar, then the tab bar.
Next were in the VLE, Blackboard. Here many more menu's and buttons are used to wrap up a document viewer, which looks suspiciously like an adobe product in its look and feel. This also has menus, a little preview copy of the page in miniture on the left and more buttons. Finaly, in the lower right hand side of the page we get to the document on learning maths, which apears to be just a static text document.
This takes up, literaly 1/4 of the total page space.

I supose my point here is that my screen space on a laptop is limited, and on a mobile device it is even tighter. Most curent VLE's just dont know when its polite to get out of the way.

Games and education, whats the difference?

The more I think about "Education" and "Games", the more ambiguous I find the distinction. Typically both are abstract systems with an imposed set of rules based loosely on some subset of reality. The number of players can vary from 1 to indeterminate, and we often have an abstract value system, which is used to rate players/students on their performance.
I’m just finding it hard to come up with a unique distinguishing feature for which I cannot find a counter example.

Game based learning: Risks and benefits.

Game based learning
Risks and benefits.

In today’s Sunday times magazine there was quite a scary article on games addiction. It described, among other cases, gamers who ended up starving their child to death while looking after their virtual baby in an internet cafe, Gamers who stayed at their screens for days at a time with disgusting consequences, Gamers whose educational careers were destroyed by their adiction etc. It also described some of the rehab facilities which are starting to apear for these adicts, and identified gaming adiction as being a growing social problem. This provoked the following thoughts about using games as an educational tool.

The argument in favour of using games seems to be that games increase student engagement and mean that we are teaching within the space that students inhabit.

Considering Games as being akin to drug use, its worth quoting a former Harvard professor:
Leary argued that psychedelics, used with the right dosage, set and setting could, with the guidance of psychology professionals, alter behavior in unprecedented and beneficial ways. The goals of Leary's research included discovering better methods for treating alcoholism and to reform convicted criminals. Many of Leary's research participants reported profound mystical and spiritual experiences, which they claim permanently altered their lives in a very positive manner.

If I substitute “Games” for “psychodelics” I find many of these claims are now being made by the US Army, which is a major player in the adoption of games for achieving mission goals across the board from recruitment through training to rehab.
Games can be very useful. There is a role for limited scope simulations, i.e. what to do when you engine fails.
However, arguably, 9-11 would have been a less effective gesture without Microsoft flight simulator.
In more complex scenario’s there are two major problems,
1) how do we ensure that the learner has encountered all the learning scenario’s in the system, without breaking out of the immersive nature of the gaming encounter, which is its most cogent role, and
2) Authority. If, for instance in the flood control game I choose the alternative of planting trees and digging ditches as a flood control measure, and the game play says it worked, what level of credulity should I use in absorbing that learning?
Just some initial thoughts
Larry