The concept of learning anything from a networked approach, I thought was foreign to me. I am not the sort of person who poses questions to a crowd of people online (such as Facebook) and waits for a response. Nor do I learn a lot of the information I need to learn in an online approach. Mostly in the past I thought that I gleaned most of my information from speaking to people in person. However, having to be forced to sit and think about how I have learnt things in the past, or solved problems to my conundrums I have to admit that I had used a Networked and Global learning approach. For example, when I needed recipes for a baby shower that I was throwing, I went to Pinterest to find these recipes and cooked from these recipes. When I wanted to find a holistic way to treat my son’s eczema I went online to Pinterest again, which then lead me to a parents’ blog that spoke about a few different methods that she had tried to treat her child’s eczema. When I needed to practice my son’s singing for a school performance, I Googled this and found a Youtube clip that both my son and myself could watch and sing together.
So what was different about my online learning from the past and my learning now? Why did I struggle to complete the task at hand this time around? I have to think that there were several reasons for this, but my main reasoning I think revolved around my motivation to learn. This time around, my motivation to learn was not intrinsically motivated. I did not have a burning need to answer a question or solve a problem, nor did I really pose questions about my learning to a community of learners and ask or seek answers. Maher (2014) agrees with this notion stating that, “Intrinsically motivated learners are more likely to complete their e-learning”. In his blog post, Maher (2014) focuses on the work of Schunk et al. (2008) who suggest that there are four sources of intrinsic motivation, “these consist of challenge, curiosity, control and fantasy”. Maher (2014) also suggests another source, adding community as another mechanism to facilitate intrinsic motivation, making the assertion that sharing learning online in a community “foster(s) peer interaction” which then allows you as a learner to reflect on your learning (Schunk et al., 2008, p.204). So after reading this blog I asked myself the following questions:
Challenge – was there challenge or intermediate difficulty associated with my task of learning to run 5km in a Networked or Global environment?
Curiosity – was I curious to seek understanding to a problem and want to solve it?
Control – did I have control over my own learning process? Was I self-regulating my learning experience?
Fantasy/ simulation – did I chose an authentic reason to apply what I had learnt online to the real world?
Community – did I provide opportunities or welcome others to provide feedback or comment on my learning?
The answer to some of these questions would be no. The task I chose was not a challenge, whilst running 5km is a challenge the idea of learning this is not a challenge. I know how to run, so I was not really learning something new when it came to this challenge. This then leads to curiosity, as I already know how to run, I was not really curious to want to learn more about something that I already knew about, there was not problem solving attached to the task I chose. I generally had control over my learning, except in the instance of actually doing the task at hand. Being time poor meant that I didn’t set time aside to complete the task. Some of this problem is in my control, but a large portion of this is out of my control, however I did have control over my motivation to learn, my emotions, behaviour and how, what and when I learnt. I believe that my reason for wanting to learn to run 5km was authentic and I tried to apply it to a real task at hand, but I just didn’t organize my time properly to do this. Blogging my learning experience provided some opportunities for others to provide feedback about my progress, but my lack of blogging about my lack of doing the running led to little or no feedback about the task at hand, hence there was not ‘community’ problem solving occurring.
I don’t believe I was truly using a networked approach to my learning. Kehrwald (n.d.) defines networked learning as, “Networked learning combines online (networked) delivery with a participative, collaborative and situated approach to learning. The emphasis in networked learning is on connection within the networked community: connection between learners, between learners and teachers and between learners and resources” (p. 3). I believe that the connection between myself and the other learners in my learning community was not there, nor did I put much effort into finding and cultivating that community either. Hence, the outcome of learning something in a networked and global learning approach was not achieved in this case due to my effort.
What would I do differently next time? Choose a topic I want to know and learn more about, as past experience has taught me that having a problem to solve that is impacting on my life, generally gives me more impetus to want to solve that problem. I would also use a more community approach to feed my enthusiasm and prompt me to question and reflect more on what I am truly trying to learn through a networked approach.
References
Kehrwald, B. (n.d.). Learner support in networked learning communities: opportunities and challenges. Retrieved from https://eprints.usq.edu.au/819/1/Kehrwald_LearnerSupport.pdf
Maher, T. (2014, May 21). Intrinsic motivation in adult e-learning [Web log post]. Retrieved September 24, 2015, from http://elearningindustry.com/intrinsic-motivation-in-adult-e-learning
Rabin, H. (2013, July 13). Taba Naba [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/QDv8rJ7IJjc
Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2008). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
So what was different about my online learning from the past and my learning now? Why did I struggle to complete the task at hand this time around? I have to think that there were several reasons for this, but my main reasoning I think revolved around my motivation to learn. This time around, my motivation to learn was not intrinsically motivated. I did not have a burning need to answer a question or solve a problem, nor did I really pose questions about my learning to a community of learners and ask or seek answers. Maher (2014) agrees with this notion stating that, “Intrinsically motivated learners are more likely to complete their e-learning”. In his blog post, Maher (2014) focuses on the work of Schunk et al. (2008) who suggest that there are four sources of intrinsic motivation, “these consist of challenge, curiosity, control and fantasy”. Maher (2014) also suggests another source, adding community as another mechanism to facilitate intrinsic motivation, making the assertion that sharing learning online in a community “foster(s) peer interaction” which then allows you as a learner to reflect on your learning (Schunk et al., 2008, p.204). So after reading this blog I asked myself the following questions:
Challenge – was there challenge or intermediate difficulty associated with my task of learning to run 5km in a Networked or Global environment?
Curiosity – was I curious to seek understanding to a problem and want to solve it?
Control – did I have control over my own learning process? Was I self-regulating my learning experience?
Fantasy/ simulation – did I chose an authentic reason to apply what I had learnt online to the real world?
Community – did I provide opportunities or welcome others to provide feedback or comment on my learning?
The answer to some of these questions would be no. The task I chose was not a challenge, whilst running 5km is a challenge the idea of learning this is not a challenge. I know how to run, so I was not really learning something new when it came to this challenge. This then leads to curiosity, as I already know how to run, I was not really curious to want to learn more about something that I already knew about, there was not problem solving attached to the task I chose. I generally had control over my learning, except in the instance of actually doing the task at hand. Being time poor meant that I didn’t set time aside to complete the task. Some of this problem is in my control, but a large portion of this is out of my control, however I did have control over my motivation to learn, my emotions, behaviour and how, what and when I learnt. I believe that my reason for wanting to learn to run 5km was authentic and I tried to apply it to a real task at hand, but I just didn’t organize my time properly to do this. Blogging my learning experience provided some opportunities for others to provide feedback about my progress, but my lack of blogging about my lack of doing the running led to little or no feedback about the task at hand, hence there was not ‘community’ problem solving occurring.
I don’t believe I was truly using a networked approach to my learning. Kehrwald (n.d.) defines networked learning as, “Networked learning combines online (networked) delivery with a participative, collaborative and situated approach to learning. The emphasis in networked learning is on connection within the networked community: connection between learners, between learners and teachers and between learners and resources” (p. 3). I believe that the connection between myself and the other learners in my learning community was not there, nor did I put much effort into finding and cultivating that community either. Hence, the outcome of learning something in a networked and global learning approach was not achieved in this case due to my effort.
What would I do differently next time? Choose a topic I want to know and learn more about, as past experience has taught me that having a problem to solve that is impacting on my life, generally gives me more impetus to want to solve that problem. I would also use a more community approach to feed my enthusiasm and prompt me to question and reflect more on what I am truly trying to learn through a networked approach.
References
Kehrwald, B. (n.d.). Learner support in networked learning communities: opportunities and challenges. Retrieved from https://eprints.usq.edu.au/819/1/Kehrwald_LearnerSupport.pdf
Maher, T. (2014, May 21). Intrinsic motivation in adult e-learning [Web log post]. Retrieved September 24, 2015, from http://elearningindustry.com/intrinsic-motivation-in-adult-e-learning
Rabin, H. (2013, July 13). Taba Naba [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/QDv8rJ7IJjc
Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2008). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.