Foundations of a philosophy for online learning – views of technology

In his paper, Foundations of educational theory for online learning, Mohamed Ally begins by unpicking how on-line learning may benefit a learner. The suggestion is that the effectiveness of online learning is more to do with the instructional strategy built in to the technology, rather than the technological medium itself (Ally 2004).  This places the professional instructor/teacher/tutor in the position of responsibility for ensuring that the learning is beneficial.

Much of the literature on online learning begins by outlining perceived benefits. Ally refers to the benefits of the asynchronous nature of online learning – where both time and space are ‘collapsed’ and the learner can access the learning space any time day or night (Ally 2004). Learner motivation and the prerequisite skills needed to learn autonomously are missing from this ideal picture. There is also an assumption that the technology is assimilated into the learner’s life already and that there are no issues with access or ownership of the hardware. Not all homes have internet access: in 2012, 80% of homes had some form of access – that’s roughly 350, 000 households with any form of internet access (see here for stats). A fewer percentage of homes have smart phones or tablets (see here).  

Heather Kanuka begins her paper by outlining perceived advantages and disadvantages of e-learning.  She describes a series of perceived advantages that includes just-in-time learning, increased access, cost effectiveness, greater accountability and increased interaction.    The disadvantages include the prioritisation of techno-centric models of discourse, the centralisation of decision-making, increased uniformity, greater surveillance and concerns about the digital divide. (Kanuka 2008). It is interesting to note that the advantages described are practical in scope while the disadvantages are highly political. It is almost as if positive commentary is coming from practitioners while a more critical stance is taken by sociologists. Kanuka goes on to point out that these perceptions of e-learning are based on philosophies-in-practice and that by examining these philosophies we can better understand the nature of the disagreement.

The paper goes on to peel back the debate to uncover a set of philosophical orientations: three views of technology and six views of teaching. Much of the description of the views of teaching is taken from James Draper’s chapter Valuing what we do as practitioners in The Craft of Teaching Adults (Barer-Stein, T., & Draper, J. A. 1993). This in turn is taken from Elias and Merriam’s outline of five philosophies in Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education (1984). Draper characterises philosophy as our “values, assumptions, beliefs and attitudes which guide us” (Draper 1993, p.57) and states that by articulating our own personal philosophy we come to a greater understanding of why we behave and think the way we do.

For a not-so-brief summary of Kanuka's paper click here
 

Three view of technology

In terms of our views of technology, Kanuka posits three philosophical orientations, all of which are labelled determinisms. A deterministic view is one in which outcomes are pre-determined, or follow a given law. In other words, determinism posits a world in which any event occurs only as part of some law of nature (Urmson & Ree 1993).

The first view of technology described by Kanuka is ‘Uses Determinism’. Here, technology is reduced to a neutral tool that allows us to extend our capabilities and is free of any social, cultural or political burden. It is merely a means to an end. Torin Monahan captures the essence of this thinking (Monahan 2005) in the opening quote of his paper:

“‘Computers are tools, just like pencils.’ This is the statement echoed on the lips of most technologists, teachers, administrators, and policymakers…” (Monahan 2004, p.272)

Kunuka asserts that this perspective is not new and tries to place it in an evolution of thinking about technology: she states that it emerged as a response to the Frankfurt school. This seems highly unlikely, given that it can better be characterised as an unthinking response to technology, or rather the taken-for-granted attitude. 

The second view of technology is characterised as ‘Social Determinism’. This view positions technology as integrated into social and cultural structures. Educators who hold this view take an interest in how those structures then shape the discourses of the subject matter and the method of instruction. The deterministic aspect of this view is that technology is inextricably a part of the underlying ‘law’ that states humans cannot create tools independent of a historically-situated culture and society.

The third view is that of ‘Technological Determinism’. Kanuka describes this view as positioning technology as the causal agent that determines the form in which it is used and which itself brings about change in society.  She states that the origin of this view is from a Marxist analysis of class structure. Many proponents hold the view that technology is eroding freedoms and serving the interest of a minority group. This view is characterised as negative, but seems to be made up of left wing political critiques on the uses that technology may be put to – rather than any inherently deterministic view of technology itself. 

Considered together, these views of technology are based wholly on what Malcolm Knowles describes as the ‘Elemental model’ of the world (Knowles, Holton & Swanson 2005). This is characterised as understanding the world as composed of discrete elements that operate in a chain-like system where prediction of outcomes is possible. What is missing is the ‘Holistic model’, where for the purposes of this discussion, human technology is part of a unified, interactive and developing organism (Knowles, Holton & Swanson 2005). In this view, there would be no determinism, but an understanding of an integrated view of technology comparable to the gestalt view of human psychology and learning.

Ally, M (2004). Foundations of educational theory for online learning. Theory and practice of online learning, 2, pp. 15-44.

Draper, J. (1993) Valuing what we do as practitioners. In Barer-Stein, T., & Draper, J. (eds.) The craft of teaching adults. Pp. 55-67 Culture Concepts: Toronto

Kanuka, H. (2008). Understanding e-learning technologies-in-practice through philosophies-in-practice. The theory and practice of online learning, pp.91–118.

Knowles, M., Holton, E., Swanson, R. eds. (2005) The adult learner Elsevier: San Diego

Monahan, T (2005) Just another tool? IT pedagogy and the commodification of education. The urban review 36 (4) pp 271-292

Urmson, J & Ree, J. eds (1993) The concise encyclopaedia of western philosophy and philosophers Unwin: London

A brief outline of a philosophy

Foundations for a philosophy of on-line learning - views of teaching

Having outlined the salient features of the landscape in which a philosophy of teaching and learning will fit, I will now sketch the rudiments of a philosophy-in-the-raw. Once this is achieved, I will begin to use the language common to the discourses that we find in literature relating to on-line learning in an attempt to more clearly define my philosophy.

In his chapter Life as Narrative, Jerome Bruner explores the notion of how we structure experience. For Bruner, narrative underpins how we interpret experience and provides a means of coding that experience into a replicable structure that may be exchanged with others (Bruner 1994). He takes a constructivist view of narrative, where making the world is a central function of the mind, so that stories are constructed in people’s minds and do not occur in the real world. This idea is embedded in my rough philosophy of teaching and learning, which is itself taken from narratives that were used to create worlds.

The role-playing metaphor

As a young teenager in the early 80s, I played role-playing games with my friends. These were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, before computing caught up with imagination and was able to replicate the worlds we created in our minds. The most popular title was Dungeons and Dragons, based on Tolkien’s now ubiquitous mythos, yet then denigrated by the American Christian Right as a dangerous cult that led young people into insanity and devil-worship (see http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105 ). 

Role-playing games involve a group of people sitting in a room with paper, pens and some dice , a rule book and a pre-designed game (with maps, descriptions of people, places and events). All but one of the people in the room creates characters whose strengths and weaknesses are based on a series of rolls of the dice and by choosing a moral viewpoint. These characters are recorded on paper, given a name and a back-story. Throughout the game, the players assume the role of their character – very good practice for budding actors – and try to work their way through the game to achieve goals. They may have their own goals, or choose to submit to a group’s goals: players have free will and make decisions in real time. The remaining person in the room is the dungeon-master – he, or she, is privy to the information in the pre-designed game, describes the scene, plays all other (non-player) characters, referees and keeps the narrative going.

I stopped playing RPGs when I was around fourteen and for a long time forgot all about them. However, in my early thirties I was working as a TEFL trainer in Ireland, training graduates on short, intensive methodology courses. We were discussing detailed lesson planning and the nerves of the first lesson and how it was that experienced teachers seemed to be able to let a class flow. Many of the graduates were having trouble with too-strict adherence to their planned lesson. I needed a metaphor to describe my view and all of a sudden I found myself talking about when I was the dungeon-master.

When I was a dungeon-master, I was the only one in the room who could see the whole narrative before we had played it through. I knew which rooms were dangerous, where the special treasure was hidden, who to talk to and who to avoid. I knew all this but didn’t know what route the players would take and what unique events would happen on the way. It was my job to describe what things looked like wherever the players were, but I never made the choice to turn left or right. I knew the rules better than all the people in the room and by knowing them didn’t have to keep looking things up, so the game would run smoothly with few interruptions and fewer arguments. Despite all this, the real key to being a dungeon master was that I played the game too. I took on the roles of all the other characters and engaged with the players as though I was that character.

What has this got to do with teaching and learning? 

The role-playing metaphor can be applied to a learning environment: learners come with narratives of themselves, back-stories created and re-created; they have different strengths and weaknesses and adopt moral viewpoints. They have different goals, which may or may not correspond to the aims of the teacher or the other learners. The curriculum is the pre-designed game – the final outcome is a shared objective but the passage to get there is still unknown. The teacher is the dungeon-master and so is the narrator, the referee, the role-player (friend, enemy, teacher, figure of authority, fool etc.), the content-expert and the methodology (rules) expert. 

Successful game playing takes place when all the participants suspend their disbelief and are engaged in the narrative process. Successful learning outcomes are the result of that same willingness to have your narrative-building facilitated by others and thereby engage your world making function of mind.

Bruner, J (1994) Life as Narrative. In Dyson, A. & Genishi, C. (eds) The need for story: cultural diversity in classroom and community pp.28-37 Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English

Plotting the landscape

I am writing a blog in order to investigate my own teaching and learning philosophy and in particular my attitude towards on-line learning. This is a hermeneutic exercise, one in which I need to interpret my own responses to on-line learning and compare them with the literature left behind by others who have undertaken a similar exercise. Before I can do this though, I need to sketch an outline of my philosophy as it stands. 

This will at first be hazy, perhaps more of a mirage with only certain shapes taking definite form. I will certainly have to use metaphors, as a philosophy is something intangible and in flux. Firstly, though, I will need to describe the landscape that my philosophy is part of  - in other words define the parameters of my philosophy (as it is not a philosophy about life, but only that part of life spent teaching and learning).

There are two main parts to what must be investigated if I am to describe my philosophy fully: teaching and learning. These are not the same. Here is my first assumption, and one that may in fact be part of my philosophical viewpoint, but one that I cannot do without. I must separate teaching from learning because concerns about the two fields occupy different places in any planned approach to education. For example, a new teacher starting their first day on the job will have a keen awareness of the methods they can employ (freshly taught at training college) in order to facilitate a part of the lesson. This awareness is not the same as their awareness of the learners in the class and the various ways in which they respond to the new teacher and the new subject.  Their awareness is something separate from the milieu of the classroom and all the activity that takes place in a single lesson. In reality teaching and learning are not separable, but in our awareness and analysis of them they are discrete. 

If we consider teaching, then we have several fields of concern: how we teach – or the methodology; what we teach – the outcomes; and why we teach – the motivation. Each of these must be considered if the exegesis is to be complete and a personal philosophy about learning and teaching online is to be developed. In terms of learning, it will be important to investigate theories about how we learn as well as models of the types of learner. Once these areas have been mapped I can apply my discoveries to the condition of learning on-line.

Throughout the exercise I must make sure that I remain aware of James Draper’s caution that a practitioner’s language may not always be genuine: that there may be terminology that is in vogue but not really understood (Draper 1993). This is especially true when trying to get to grips with a philosophy of teaching and learning.

Draper, J. (1993) Valuing what we do as practitioners. In Barer-Stein, T., & Draper, J. (eds.) The craft of teaching adults. Pp. 55-67 Culture Concepts: Toronto

Hello and welcome to Teaching in the Age of Digital Reproduction. My name is Martin Tanner and this is my third and final year on the Masters of Adult Literacy and Numeracy Education.

I have been working in adult education since 1996, when I moved to China to take up a post in a teacher training college. My interest in andragogy stems from those two years of struggling to teach methodology while learning how to teach on the job.

I have since worked in Cambodia, on capacity building programmes with rural teachers, in London as an assistant director of studies in a large ESOL college, in Ireland training on TEFL courses to recent graduates and, since 2008, in workplace literacy and numeracy here in NZ.

Throughout these years I have always felt that the effectiveness of the learning experience is derived from the interaction of the teacher and the learner. In some ways, I have always been suspicious of digital technologies in learning. Perhaps there is an element of protectionism here - jealously guarding the role of the human being in the construction and transmission of knowledge at the point where it seems to matter most: face-to-face. 

I aim to put aside any dystopian fears and develop my understanding of the role of on-line teaching for adult literacy and numeracy education. I will use this blog as a means to that end.

The title of this blog refers to Walter Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
I have re-instated this blog as part of my MAdLit coursework at AUT