Finding The Ties That Bind

Harold Edgerton, the inventor of the strobe light, once explained:

'when he wanted to to find something out, first he would ask around to see whether anybody knew the answer, then he would try it out in the lab himself, and only then would he try looking the information up in a book or library.'

There are many similarities to today's networked communities to the networked labs of the past. Today we use our social electronic networks to connect, learn and share with others. Children are using this technology at home to find answers to their homework by first asking someone through MSN. If unsuccessful they 'google' it. Only when these methods fail do they revert to the textbooks. It is not just youngsters who are using the technology to get instant answers but adults too. I can't remember the last time I looked up a book to source the information I am looking for. It is not just the electronic aspect that appeals to me but the now anytime. anywhere aspect the many of our mobile devices are offering. When travelling to work with my colleague, she drives, we have many discussions and many times questions arise that we don't have the answers to, rather than wait until we get to school I 'google' the question with my iPhone. If this does not work, depending on the nature of the question, I email or text someone who I know will respond fairly quickly.

Knowledge building through communities is not a new concept as humans have collaborated over the past centuries to achieve tasks that any one person could not achieve alone. In the world of business and education, in the past, the process of collective action was primarily a 'top down control structure' with management giving orders at the top and the floor workers working! This style was also the 'teaching of the past' style where the teacher is the 'manager' telling the children what they are going to learn with the children being the 'workers' where they produced the completed textbook tasks. This 'top down' approach to teaching is still evident in many schools today as it is secure, gets results and is in a comfort zone. There are also times when this approach is the best suited for the learning environment but is it the best for every lesson? Should children be subjected to didactic teaching the majority of their learning week?

The 'top down' model, in business, moved towards flatter organisational structures developing management information system (MIS) where everyone worked together to collate and store information. Although this system was more favourable than the 'top down' approach the end product was merely a collaborative database system. Nothing really wrong with that, look at wikipedia, the on-line collaborative encyclopedia which has a mass of information due to the collaborative efforts of many across boundaries. Where MIS approaches fall down is where data is churned in by individuals to create a vast database of information without acquiring any knowledge of the subject due to purely inputting information.

There are similarities to this approach in many of the aspects of schooling that children undertake, and I for one am guilty of this approach. Take for example how I used to teach children how to create an interactive map using Google Maps. Thinking I was doing well linking it to a context, the children either created an interactive map of Mark Beaumont's journey around the world or located where all the schools for our global project, Voices Of The World, were from.

On reflection of the MIS model where:

'Until information has been comprehended and interpreted to the point that it can be applied to a situation, it is not knowledge.'

This led me to re-address how I taught interactive maps with more looking at the locations in comparison to where we live and places we know on the map than simply searching information and placing placemarks on the map.

Learning and collaboration are not just about sharing information but about building communities that bind us together. In the project Voices Of The World, there are two sides to the coin: a sub-bread of the MIS system and COP (Community Of Practice) (Lave Wenger. 1991). The Voices Of The World area is the MIS system where schools have worked on a task that will be part of a global outcome in that their children's voices will represent their school and location from the world. This wikispace where the final products are hosted each month could be classes as an Internet page as their is no live collaboration happening on the site; it is just an area to share and display to the naked eye.

For those that manage to get past the 'show and display' aspect of the Voices Of The World wikispace, they will question how these schools manage to unite each month over time and space. This is where the COP comes into being through the teachers' network. Here you will find teachers collaborating, sharing and working together to unite our children together. The community is vibrant where 'learning how to learn is the price of entry into this knowledge-building community' where tools, activities and people constitute the three elements as defined by Activity Theory. These three elements are interdependent where a change to one affects the others, for example, when a new social media tool is introduced each month, participants need to learn and adjust to the new tools as they implement them into their new activity.

Finding the ties that bind is not always that easy. Take for example, a ning network I set up for teachers involved in bear exchanges with my school. This was created to enable the teachers to communicate and collaborate with one another. A place where I could hopefully answer many teachers' questions just once rather than privately in emails. A place to learn from one another and make more connections with other. If you look you will see this did not happen due to no leadership, no desire and no commitment. This community were not ready for this collaborative technology preferring to communicate through the closed walls of their emails as this is the technology that they are accustomed to. Children, on the other hand, have no problems with collaborative technologies and willing embrace it.

Sometimes if you believe something is worth building and the only way to be part is through the community you build the perseverance is all that is needed. The teachers' network for Voices Of The World started with 5 active participants and now has just under 60. Many teachers who joined initially communicated with me through email. However, through using the network to constantly place my communications to the community, the network is a vibrant area for like-minded educationalist to work together.

Radio Show - Successful Learners

A Curriculum For Excellence advocates that children should develop in the four capacities: successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Creating a radio show with children addresses these four capacities with a heavy emphasis on 'successful learners' as detailed below:

Enthusiasm and motivation for learning: creating a radio show with children is an exciting medium to engage children in the learning process. By providing a goal, audience and purpose, children will become motivated to participate in a role that suits their learning style and capability.
Determination to reach high standards of achievement: providing an audience for a radio show, whether this be another class, whole school or a global audience, places importance on the standard that the children’s work must reach. Children want others to listen and praise their shows, they want people to come back and tune in again. This will only occur if their radio shows meet a specific standard.
Openess to new thinking and ideas: radio shows are not static they must adapt to news and events as they happen. Children need to be adaptable to their listeners’ needs. There is no point in doing the same show every week as listeners would soon tune out. To keep the show interesting children need to listen to each others ideas and also the views of their audience.
Use literacy, communication and numeracy skills: these three skills are addressed through the radio show in different aspects. Children develop their literacy skills as they create scripts for each show where different styles of writing are taking into consideration; informal for the DJS and formal for the news reporters. A radio show is all about communicating news, views and entertaining the listeners. Children have to learn how to use the tools to communicate and create a show that is not just a talking narrative but an entertaining auditory medium. Although numeracy skills are not as prominent as the other two skills, they are still apparent through the use of the technology where timing and percentages are important aspects as children edit recordings and work out specific timings of various parts of the show to ensure it stays within a specific time limit.
Use technology for learning: creating a radio show requires the use of various technologies from digital voice recorders, microphones, recording and editing software, music making software and Web 2.0 tools. Once the skills in using the various technology has been developed, the technology then becomes learning tools rather than technical ones.
Think creatively and independently: creativity is at the heart of a radio show. Children need to ‘create’ a show incorporating new ideas, music, interviews, questions etc… through taking on different roles. Withing these roles children may be required to work independently to create an aspect of the show where they will record and edit their contribution.
Learn independently and as part of a group: although children have individual roles to undertake, for example, DJ, news reporter, music maker etc… they are all working towards one goal: a collaborative radio show.
Make reasoned evaluations: the whole process of creating a radio show requires continual evaluation from discussion what aspects to include at the planning stage to which aspects to remove at the editing stage.
Link and apply different learning in new situations: there are many aspects of a radio show that enable new learning and skills to develop. Children can change roles with each show to develop new skills or can learn new concepts as the theme of each show changes. Radio shows are not static learning environments but active ones.