Open communication networks > social based learning processes > creating knowledge

Fundamental ideas about how knowledge truly occurs; why delivery and storage of information should not be confused with knowledge; what’s the critical importance of communities of practice in helping learners “to be” real practitioners (e.g. a physicist, social scientist, historian, etc.) rather than people just knowing about such professions...all are essential concepts in a John Seely Brown’s article: "Learning in the Digital Age" [1].

I can’t find the original date from this paper, but I guess is about 6 years ago or so (!!). Therefore, here there are the underpinning ideas of what is now a hype new organizational field such as Knowledge Management and its linked strategies on e-Learning.

Seely Brown is enthusiastic about opportunities ICT brings about in changing education system from a very constructivist approach: learning as a situated action. He defines the features of digital learners, the way today kids learn to manage new contents and multimedia possibilities, and some pioneer directions observed in higher education.

Essential literature.

[Tag]Seely Brown: Learning in digital age

The mobile learner

One of the main features of technology affecting life is mobility. Today more than ever human beings are nomads, not only physical nomads but mental ones as well. Change is not only inherent to activities, places and work practices, but it also relates to lifestyles and therefore the way we organize our mind according to uncertainty. Technology determines, but also facilitates this: the fast and ubiquitous human being, the quick change and therefore, the way we approach to the world.

Young people can tell us a lot about this: new generations learn quickly since their early years, they are hyper-connected and don’t stay for long time on one fixed issue. This is not an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (although it could seem), they just solve problems in a quicker fashion. They write fast, shorting words and messages, encoding languages and creating new ones. They have shortcuts of thinking.

I don’t intend at all to go into psychology or neurosciences. Just to give a thought over the new way we are, some different from our parents and their traditional way to learn and communicate. Technology is fostering this deep difference. From the personal computer, until mobile phones or GPS and the intelligence behind these gadgets (the communication networks), all together is affecting our understanding and elaboration of the world.

m-learning

Mobility. Ubiquity. I think the acronym “m-learning” shouldn’t be a simple trademark from the mobile phones market. It’s not at all. It is to me an interesting approach to understand learning. But learning for working, problem solving, for life.

Although it is originally inspired on the given possibilities of mobiles phones, I think m-learning could be extensive to every electronic device which makes possible creating knowledge and understanding anytime, anyplace. I’m not talking about delivering information and reproducing old-fashioned traditional teaching. The key aspect is on cognitive processes that help people to take useful advantage from communication networks, and therefore, for building their own knowledge.

I recently found out an inspiring quote by M.I.T. researcher, Seymour Papert, who thought educational technologies should be more like Brazilian samba schools than traditional teaching machines [1]. He meant that in samba schools, "a community of participants gather daily to have fun and teach each other steps and costume-making skills in preparation for Carnival. The samba schools are social centers, where people go to socialize, and they are environments in which novices and professionals mingle". Here is the original idea behind Papert’s constructionist learning theory, where people learn their best from a social based approach, constructing something meaningful to them.

It would be interesting today if we’d have the opinion of Papert about new technologies which are extraordinarily enhancing human being possibilities for mobility and connection. I think an underlying principle will prevail: mobile new technologies should help people to explore and discover knowledge on real scenarios and above all, they could be powerful cognitive tools for problem solving in a collaborative manner. It means a situated and contextual learning, outside any classroom or any scholar center. And new teachers behind so expanded communication network are experts (more experienced people) and novices as well, sharing their own pathways of knowledge. The "laboratory" is now outside, in the real world.

The circumstances of learning

I think the most interesting approach on m-learning are the possibilities of co-operative problem solving methodologies. How and where learning occurs is key, not only "what" is to be learned. Can we imagine "the circumstances" of learning, more than the subjects themselves?

Following this approach, teachers (or instructional designers) should think about devising situations for helping learning to happen, exploiting the opportunities given on mobile devices for co-discover knowledge and co-operate in problem solving.

The way we organize our minds to understand the world could be in this way quite influenced by ubiquitous interconnection and networking, and therefore, reciprocal help and collaborative work.

[Tags] Seymour Papert website, ”Building Fun Online Learning Communities” on Howard Rheingold’s website, Lifelong-Learning Support by M-learning: Example Scenarios , Proyecto Wapeduc: la escuela nómade