So on my thought processes about teaching using N&GL I had a quick look at what others have written. Rebecca White published an interesting blog that got me thinking about the use of technology and how I use technology in my teaching. The particular blog of Rebecca's that I found interesting was the one around the article by Neil Welwyn (2014) Technology and education - why it's crucial to be critical. It connected well with the questions by Siemens 2008 found in https://netgl.wordpress.com/study-schedule-2/week-6-knowing-learning-and-teaching-in-ngl/ :
What is my role as teacher and facilitator in all this? I would like to say that I guide and direct and students learn through exploring and doing, but this is not always the case. Some of my students are self-directed, but many are not and it does take a phenomenal amount of push to get them to complete. When I think about N&GL my course does not really connect with my idea of N&GL and I wonder how I would even attempt to push it in that direction.
In regards to the other questions posed by Siemens (2008), in particular the questions revolving around roles of university and what would education look like if it was N&GL this made me think about my discussion around owning education, accreditation and digital badging. For another course I wrote a paper about the uses of digital badging in my short course. I wanted to use digital badges to micro-credential some learning that was occurring in my course. Students could then house their digital badges in their portfolio's or LinkedIn profiles to show others what they had achieved in regards to skills, rather than having a piece of paper (certificate) that sits in a filing cabinet somewhere. I was trying to take a different approach to 'learning', and 'awards'. I actually investigated how to do this, had meetings with teaching and learning staff at work, created my own badging site and my own badges. Then I kind of got roadblocked and chose not to go down this path.
The whole idea around who awards or acknowledges that someone has achieved the credential was a discussion that came up in the research around digital badging. I think this is the same argument around education in N&GL, institutions are hesitant to truly go down this path for several reasons: they would lose money if education was free, how would it be accredited and your piece of paper that says you achieved x is the same as my piece of paper that says that I also achieved x but from somewhere else, and how do we track students if we don't have an LMS to do this? This is where I am stuck and can't answer these questions, because my IT capacity in this space or knowledge of it doesn't go any further than asking these questions.
- What is the role of the educator? How would we teach?
- What would be the role of the learner? Self-directed?
- How would curriculum be created? Shared?
- How would research be conducted?
- What would be the role of the university in society?
- What would education 'look like'? How would we mark it? Accredit?
What is my role as teacher and facilitator in all this? I would like to say that I guide and direct and students learn through exploring and doing, but this is not always the case. Some of my students are self-directed, but many are not and it does take a phenomenal amount of push to get them to complete. When I think about N&GL my course does not really connect with my idea of N&GL and I wonder how I would even attempt to push it in that direction.
In regards to the other questions posed by Siemens (2008), in particular the questions revolving around roles of university and what would education look like if it was N&GL this made me think about my discussion around owning education, accreditation and digital badging. For another course I wrote a paper about the uses of digital badging in my short course. I wanted to use digital badges to micro-credential some learning that was occurring in my course. Students could then house their digital badges in their portfolio's or LinkedIn profiles to show others what they had achieved in regards to skills, rather than having a piece of paper (certificate) that sits in a filing cabinet somewhere. I was trying to take a different approach to 'learning', and 'awards'. I actually investigated how to do this, had meetings with teaching and learning staff at work, created my own badging site and my own badges. Then I kind of got roadblocked and chose not to go down this path.
The whole idea around who awards or acknowledges that someone has achieved the credential was a discussion that came up in the research around digital badging. I think this is the same argument around education in N&GL, institutions are hesitant to truly go down this path for several reasons: they would lose money if education was free, how would it be accredited and your piece of paper that says you achieved x is the same as my piece of paper that says that I also achieved x but from somewhere else, and how do we track students if we don't have an LMS to do this? This is where I am stuck and can't answer these questions, because my IT capacity in this space or knowledge of it doesn't go any further than asking these questions.