Ken Carroll

This week was an exciting one for us - ChinesePod published lesson number 1,000.  Around all these learning objects we have had tens of thousands of conversation threads, questions, answers, and comments. There are some serious connections getting formed out there.

Meanwhile, there is some real energy in the edublogosphere concerning this course in connectivism.  So, what about ChinesePod from a connectivist perspective? As it happens, connectivist theory and ChinesePod practice are surprisingly consistent. Let me point to some examples.  

 Connectivist principles

Central to connectivism is the primacy of the connection, the belief that more connections lead to more learning. ChinesePod started out with a similar idea: to maximize the interconnectedness between the people, the content, and the system on the platform. At this point, I think it is self-evidently true that (connectivist) theory squares with (our particular) practice. More connections on a network simply do enable more learning, though there are other factors involved.

And where you get connections, you also get networks. George Siemens distinguishes 3 types of networks that enable learning. These are slightly more tricky to assess but I think they also square with our experience.  Let’s look at them:

1. Neural networks. No one can really know what goes on in learners’ synapses, but we all know that it is possible to induce learners to mobilize their cognitive faculties to a greater or lesser extent. More cognitive and affective experiences lead to more thinking, more synaptic connections, and more learning. To this end, we have sought to leverage guesswork,  repetition, stories, context, in-depth discussion, etc, to offer what Siemens might call  ’frequency, diversity, and depth of exposure’ to the content. I’ve always maintained that learning is multi-dimensional, and deepened when you approach the subject from different angles. The connections around the subject should be many and varied, a position consistent with connectivism: ’The act of knowing is to be in a particular manner of connectedness’. 

2. Social/external networks.  Learning has an undeniable social dimension, and on the network there are many ways to exploit the fact.  For us, the starting point was Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (reinforced by Krashen’s more cognitivist input theory). Hence the ethos of the community of practice, the specialized groups, etc, on ChinesePod.  These things were designed to bring together teachers, practitioners, and learners and increase learning opportunites. Most  learning in life happens when we connect with someone who knows more about a subject than we do.  There’s no reason why that would be any different on the network, or on ChinesePod, and so the community, an the connections they are allowed to make, play a central role.

3. Conceptual connections.  To me, language learning must subordinate the structures (grammar) to meaning, concepts, conversations, and events. Concepts provide the basis for discussion, reflection, and cross-referencing from the learner’s own life experience and existing knowledge. We start with the concepts and try to relate specific language items to them by using those items for what they are designed to do: to describe concepts. The language learning is almost as a bi-product of the conversation, the reflection, etc.  I am convinced that there is such a thing as conceptual networks and that they are crucial to learning. We hang the language onto the concepts, not the other way round. It is also very clear that learners are far more willing to engage with real concepts that connect with their lives than with grammatical abstractions that do not.

Seeing the patterns

Connectivism clashes with one of dominant concepts in ESL for the last 20 years - second language acquisition.  Stephen Downes asserts, I think convincingly, that we do not acquire linguistic items in the sense of holding or possessing pieces of knowleledge, wrapped in language forms. Instead, we come to recogize meaning as an epiphenomenon of distributed patterns. I can actually live with both notions but as it happens I think we have taken a course that is consistent, once again, with the connectivists.

Example: The teachers and practitioners on ChinesePod do not see ourselves as lecturers or teachers who impart knowledge in the old sense. Instead, we are connectors, or resources who point learners at key patterns or elements that help strengthen their connection to a piece of information (and emphasize the skill of being able to identify patterns).  One example is the focus on lexis, rather than grammar. Grammar offers a set of abstractions to be used, theoretically, in a deductive way to generate accurate sentences. In reality, however, it suffers from the humpty-dumpty effect: good for breaking language down, but not for putting it back together again. By contrast, lexical patterns, chunks, and collocations reflect how the language is actually spoken. It shows how certain words are more likely to consort with certain other words (like clusters or even networks).  At the level of comprehension and of production, language learners do well to get good at identifying the patterns of the target language.

What are the differences? 

All in all, I think there is a good deal of consistency here. Looking at the differences would require a new post, but such differences as there are emerge from perspective rather than philosophy.  As a content provider we have to be very mindful of the motivational, humanistic, and affective dimensions of learning. (Carl Rogers had a permanent effect on me, personally.) We also need to ensure the learning is as relevant as possible - relevance is something that we have to strive for on a daily basis, to paraphrase John Pasden.  

Most edubloggers are concerned with the broader question of education as a system. That is a huge challenge and a noble undertaking. We approach it from a very different perspective and a narrower focus. I think this explains the differences in perspective but again, this is one for another day. In the meantime I salute the people behind the connectivism course and I will continue to follow it as closely as time permits.  After all, we have much in common.

 Ken Carroll

 There are lots of blogs on the subject of learning 2.0. They tend to focus on what is theoretically or pedagogically desirable in the New Learning, as well as the new understandings that emerge from our experience of learning on the network. This discussion remains theoretical because mainstream business and education  have been slow to embrace the New Learning. Examples of these theories in an integrated format, in practice  are not common.

Except, I would argue, with a couple of exceptions. I believe  ChinesePod and SpanishPod are actually rather good case studies of putting these concepts to work.

 An integrated learning 2.0 scenario

There is a general agreement about the need for learning environments, learnscapes, or learning eco-systems, that enable participation, collaboration, and user-input, etc. The central organizing principle should, of course, be the network, with all the attendant network qualities and the right social software. The key thing about a network is that everything is connected to everything else. Connecting the people and all the bits enables the sharing, the discussion, the dissemination of good learning practices, as well as the self-expression, the debate, and all the other things that make human learning possible. 

In this scenario, the learners are necessarily in control because networks  break down hierarchies. The role of the instructor (or practitioner) is that of modelling and demonstrating, rather than as arbiters or controllers.  

Learners are then free to select content on a self-service basis, and at the times that they, themselves choose, preferably from an input-rich environment, with a variety of ways to consume it. (Learning is multi-dimensional.) It also needs to be self-directed and happen through direct experience and personal decisions, rather than through instruction and vicarious decisions.

Within this adaptive, de-centralized, recursive, and exploratory learning environment, content needs to be cognitive, and engaging. An inductive approach that allows learners to participate, to discover meaning, to reflect, and identify patterns, takes precedence over lectures because learning is individualistic, and subjective. All the while, members of the community can communicate on various issues, and threads to pursue their own goals with practitioners and other learners.

 Sounds familiar

In fact, the scenario I’ve just described is pretty much how ChinesePod and SpanishPod actually work. Almost every feature I mentioned exists there. The approach we took has certainly been organic. Lesson topics and other resources (and therefore the curriculum) are generally informed by learner request and not complete without their comments. The environment is dynamic, evolving in collaboration with the needs and behaviors of the learners. Ultimately it functions as an online community of practice.

 Other features include the use of modular learning objects (check) that can be tagged (check) and delivered as an RSS flow (check) when needed (check). This means that the learning is just in time (check) rather than just in case. Meanwhile, the future apparently will be learner-centered (check) immersive (check) mobile (check) democratic (check)  designed for the medium (check) and the environment in which it will be consumed (check). All these elements exist on ChinesePod.

I guess I’ve made my point.

 Was all of this planned in advance? No, it was not. It emerged as we went along  - which is consistent with what network learning theories, such as connectivism, might suggest. 

 ChinesePod and social networks

I believe ChinesePod points to a distinctive type of social network, and one that will become more prevalent once it becomes more widely recognized for what it is. I would distinguish (for the sake of argument) three types of social network. First, you have Facebook, Linked In, etc, where the social object is to connect with people and serve some social purpose (finding a job, making new friends, etc).  

The second type of social network is what we might call the content communities. The social object here involves sharing information, photos, music, or something else - examples, Delicious, Flckr,  Youtube, etc. As with the first type of social network, you register, get your own page, and get on with it.

I believe we may define a third category -  the social network as an online Community of Practice that exploits the learning-friendly qualities of the network. (This can extend beyond the internet itself, for example, into the mobile context.)  The social object is learning a language, a process that requires very high levels of participation.  

The Big Bang of 2005  yielded Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and so on. In terms of learning, the results were more patchy.  The ’small pieces loosely joined’ approach has led to new ideas about personal learning environments in the manner that Stephen Downes has described. That has more to do with managing for the individual. I would argue, however, that we are the clearest example of an integrated approach to what the participative web has to offer in learning in specific subject area. I beleive the community of practice is a powerful way to do that.

Our goal now is to set the standards for the online language learning industry. This is just the beginning, but I hope we’ve taken the first steps.  

 Ken Carroll

 The subject of online language learning has been in the news, particularly since Live Mocha received funding some weeks ago. Yesterday, my company, Praxis Language  appeared alongside them, in the New York Times (the same story appeared in the International Herald Tribune today). 

There is a deeper undercurrent to this story. It concerns how the future of online language learning is being played out.  After a career in the industry I know change when I see it: After a somewhat slow start, Moore’s Law and the internet are starting to rattle its foundations. This will result in change - change in how, where, and with whom we learn languages - and it will reach all corners of the industry, including those who may now feel immune to it, Berlitz, Rosetta Stone, the language schools, and universities.  

I have no idea who will dominate the new landscape, but some things strike me as inevitable. Web 2.0 has yielded  new learning insights and practices that will almost certainly be widely adopted going forward. The whole nature v nurture (technology v pedagogy) debate has been opened up again and it is proving fertile ground for innovation. I cannot imagine, for example, any online learning system that failed to use RSS going forward. On ChinesePod and SpanishPod, that technology has created a whole new conception of  what a lesson is. RSS turns the daily lessons into learning events, something you don’t want to miss, rather than a chore you have to do, and a place where your community of learners hang out an work to the same beat.  (This is also described as pull v push by Charlie Gillette in this excellent article.) This type of learning as an event was impossible just a few years ago, but I believe it will prove itself indispensable for any future developers.

And while we’re on the subject of community, it’s clear that social software, though still in its infancy,  has a huge role to play in learning.  Learning alone from a black box will no longer cut it,  because now there is an alternative: the community of practice, with a clear social object, a purposethat everyone in the learning ecosystem shares. 

Things are going to look different, three years from now. Mark my words!

I also refer you to this excellent overview of some interesting trends/developments by my friend, the excellent  Dr Curt Bonk. 

Ken Carroll