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Readings for Oct 21: Communities of Learners
Submitted by kbrennan on October 7, 2009 - 5:42pm.
Victoria, Kumiko, Florence, and Amos provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about communities of learners. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.
It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.
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During the first hour of class we will be discussing Ito et al's Living and Learning with New Media. Focus on the beginning (Executive Summary) and the Conclusions and Implications section (pp 35 - 40).
For your blog entry, tell us a story about an experience learning informally about something you were interested in. How did this differ from your experiences learning in more structured settings (i.e. school)?
What, if any, community resources did you use, and how did your community affect your learning process? How do you imagine these experiences would be different if you were coming of age today with the increased availability of new media?
A few years ago, a friend of mine wanting me to paint a design on his flight helmet. I had been interested in learning how to airbrush, but I didn't have a project in mind to motivate me to play. Now that I had a vision to play with, I started using online blogs, magazines, and websites to learn what supplies to start with. I started playing with the airbrush on paper to get used to using it - holding, control, paint flow, etc. The majority of my informal learning was done on my own exploring the new method of painting. I eventually got comfortable enough to take a crack at painting the helmet. With practice and play, I eventually completed a simple design.
I imagine if I had taken a class, my learning experience would have been drastically different. Typical art courses I've had involved structured exercises, mini projects, formal critiques, etc. I personally need a vision to shoot for - in this case it was the flight helmet. However, I enjoyed learning the airbrush by just playing at my own pace and free to explore in the directions that made sense at the time. Admittedly, a structured learning environment may have given me an expert's guidance. I also would have been around other students in a the same struggle.
My "community" was online. I frequently visited websites for feedback from experienced people. Streaming video sources provided visual instruction as well. Being my airbrush learning occurred only 5 years ago, I had a rich online resource which I frequented for information and depended upon. I consistently use websites and streaming video for instruction in learning/playing.
What you wrote about the need for a personal guiding vision in order to learn is interesting. I myself have very little experience in visual arts of any kind, be it drawing , painting or others [save as a child], and have no particular interest in them. However, just recently I found myself learning informally about airbrush technique too, as I was online searching and reading about airbrush paints and supplies for designing and decorating gourmet chocolate - a possible project for Pr. Neil Gershenfeld's class 'How to Build Almost Anything' that I am taking here at the Media Lab. I didn't go as far as reaching out to the online communities of designers of edible art, but might do so if my project gets the green light. Perhaps like you, I needed to have a motivating factor- a concrete chocolate project - in order to learn about airbrush. Only in my case, I had no initial interest in learning about the technique. Had it not been for my idea of a chocolate design class project, I would never have learned or even heard about airbrush.
This is what I call a case of 'accidental' learning, one that happens by chance, although one may also describe it as resulting naturally from a need or conditions in the course of work or play around a project. But as your case illustrates, this can also act as a powerful motivator if there is already an initial interest in learning something.
Thank you for sharing!
Florence Gallez
I agree, having a goal to work towards allows you to prioritize and trim the tree of possibilities that bog one down when they have no goals. This especially seems to be true when one is first learning about the craft. For instance, when I was a child I used to build the the picture on the box when I got the new lego kit, and afterward I would then experiment and build my own creations. The toy we played with in class last week used a locomotion challenge to guide our initial experimentation.
In your case, the online resources and community provided just the right method for learning how to airbrush at your own pace and the desire to freely explore. Also, the painting activity that is visually suitable for learning through streaming video makes the digital platform a great place to learn. In the case of figuring out a particular functionality of a computer software, however, I wonder if there is a way to make the digital learning cater towards the exact need of the user (ex. going directly to the problem and being instructed with the knowledge just around the context of what you want to know). In the case of learning how to operate the software with only a partial knowledge of the manual, it would be interesting to see what could replace the instant feedback from a real-life instructor or mentor. I guess a combination of video-streaming, video chatting, and a smart recognition algorithm that will instantly figure out what exactly you're stuck with.
Marie
Who would guess that an Easter egg is a great conduit for informal learning about technology—in ways that approach “geeking out?” Decorating Easter eggs was one of my favorite activities growing up, a chance to express myself using unusual and colorful materials. My sister, brother and I would wait eagerly through the year for the night to arrive when we would mix strange and unusual dyes, wax different parts of the egg so that we could dye it in layers, add pipe cleaners and magazine photos and all sorts of paraphernalia to create “The Quintessential Egg.” It was great fun, and we looked forward to that night of crazed creation every year.
A few years ago I informally sponsored a small competition within the fab lab network to make a cool, decorative Easter egg using fab lab tools and processes. In the interest of “eating my own dog food,” I too participated in the contest. The first year of the fab egg contest I decided the laser etch an egg. I never had laser cut an egg before, and neither had anyone I knew. But I was determined to do so and with great effort, through many iterations, and with lots of help from peers and experts, I figured it out. First I had to create a rotary tool for the laser cutter. While the lab had a rotary device for the cutter, it was definitely not made for holding fragile eggshells and none of the other labs had a rotary tool either so I had to start from scratch. Then I had to figure out how to etch a flat design on a round (ish) surface—which involved playing with the software a lot, and then playing with my makeshift rotary tool. There were lots and lots of iterations. Occasionally I would consult the local experts (John DiFrancesco, Amy Sun, Kenny Cheung, Manu Prakash, Amon Millner, etc.) as they passed by the laser. They didn’t have the answers, but they did have techniques based on experience that helped point the way forward. Eventually (after hyperventilating several times to the point of passing out while blowing the egg interiors out through tiny holes in the tops and bottoms of the eggs) I succeeded and created a basketful of eggs etched with the MIT logos and memorabilia. It was so much fun, and I learned so much about the laser cutter, the software, and the rotary device. It was terrific! And I was hooked.
The next year I upped the ante, so to speak, and made my egg a blinking light circuit. I appropriated a LED multiplexing circuit design from the HowToMakeAlmostAnything class, and rerouted it so that I could cut the circuit on the vinyl cutter with flexible copper foil, in one layer, and have it fit over the rounded surface of my egg. After that I had to actually solder all the components onto the surface of the egg. This was not an easy process, as eggshells are not the most cooperative substrate for soldering. Then I cracked into the program code and figured out how to make the 12 LEDs blink in a sequence that looked circular to the eye. Again, I got help from peers and experts around me (Amy Sun stayed up all night helping me with the programming). I was so intent on making the coolest egg that I would stop at nothing to make “The Quintessential Egg.” No one was grading me, but my project was going to be seen and critiqued by an international gathering of peers in the fab lab network. I finished up at about 8AM before the contest deadline, and I decorated my egg as a Vegas dance girl, complete with feathers and a sparkly crown. She was a hit. I won second prize.
It seems that this kind of the project-based, personally motivated choice of subject matter can be extremely powerful. The motivation for me was tremendous. I wanted to learn everything possible to make my eggs great and I would search far and wide to figure out how to do this. There was no online documentation to consult, but there was a community of fabricators, both online and physically present, who helped support and scaffold all of us through the process of making our eggs. Where there was no documentation before, now there is documentation for others to follow. As the participants shared our projects and processes with one another online (using VOIP tools), we learned from one another about different ways to handle the laser, the rotary, the electronics, etc. Judging and critique occurred between peers and experts who helped us along the way. And we continue to offer informal competitions every year or so, as motivation to others in the network, participating ourselves as both fabricators and advisors.
This kind of passionate but geeky pursuit of a silly idea would be very unlikely to happen in a school setting—the learning, though powerful, was too unstructured and difficult to measure according to state assessment mandates. The topic, on the surface, lacked content and validity. In a school setting, the critique would have been less meaningful for the right reasons (really wanting good feedback from others doing the same thing) but very meaningful for the wrong reasons (wanting that good grade, impressing the teacher). Wanting the grade and the teacher’s approval would have affected just about every decision I made in the process, including the subject matter. It seems that with online and new media resources, and especially the ability to socially network and to document with video online, the learning experience can be more personal and powerful, and one can truly participate as a peer in a community of practice in meaningful ways. This kind of project-based competition/collaboration with a network of peers would offer a great experience for a student to sample what it might be like to participate in professional societies in the future workplace. And the experience includes a much broader community than that of the local teacher and classmates, it includes experts from outside who can help scaffold learning and create a more powerful learning event.
This is a wonderful and inspiring example. I have to say it reminded me of the family tradition of decorating eggs during the Orthodox Easter celebrations in Russia, where I lived before coming to Boston. Everyone in the family takes part, although it is essentially seen as an activity for children. You can find all sorts of colorful egg-decorating kits in stores and supermarkets a few weeks before the holiday. They look attractive and deceptively easy to use, but as my own attempts at using them, this is an activity that requires time, patience and some skills using arts tools. I found it hard to believe these kits are marketed for children. It is true though, that this is something that Russian children always do with adult guidance, even though it is in the informal setting of the family, with parents, grandparents and siblings to help them. Schools also set a day for decorating eggs at Easter time, although this is a more structured activity.
I am curious to know what you all think about the learning scenario Sherry described which concluded with a contest. What is the role - if at all - of a competition, game with prizes, and the like, in such collaborative experiences as we are documenting here? Are we learning better, faster, with more motivation when we know we will be judged for the product of our learning activity, when we have competitors?
Florence Gallez
Tavareesh! Thanks for the great feedback. In reflecting on this activity, the contest was an important part of the process, but it was not so much the winning that interested me, as it was wanting to show off, and contributing to the general knowledge and creativity of the moment. Competitions are quite popular in high schools these days, and it seems with good reason. They are great motivators. However, it might have been just as effective if I had a public deadline, say for an exhibition. Anchoring activities around a pubic event or deadline might stimulate similar motivation. For me it really was about being able to show off to others who would appreciate the kind of work that went into it... much like the youth in the Ito paper, the fansubbers who weren't very interested in posting their videos on YouTube as the feedback wasn't as meaningful as feedback from their own community. For me it was the interactive audience that was compelling.
Lass,
This is a great story! Laser-cutting an egg, how cool!
I get really into crafty holiday projects as well (I just carved a rad godzilla jack-o-lantern), but my creative side doesn't really come out except around the times when I get to make things like that. Are you motivated to be crafty on your own during non-holidays?
I'm interested in hearing more about when people are really moved to pursue their own interests. I tend to do it only for special occasions. There's a great This American Life episode where David Rackoff, a craft hobbyist and one of the contributors to the show, visits Martha Stewart Living. The question posed on teaser is, "If his hobby became his job, he wonders, would it still be fun?" I won't ruin the piece by telling you the answer, but i"ll give you the link! http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=192
Thanks for sharing!
I too think special occasions inspire these spurts of creativity, including holidays, birthdays, and virtually any celebratory event. Unfortunately these spurts are harder and harder to wedge into our overfilled schedules. The resulting projects have always represented time carved out of the insane pace of regular life. And that's too bad. Why can't we find that satisfaction in the course of daily life? Why can't our kids find it in school? Creativity and learning can bring such joy into life. It is a great goal to work toward finding that magic in the everyday.
I can't wait to listen to the This American Life episode you link to above, it's one of my favorite shows. I'm going to bet this episode tracks to my own experience a bit-- in that if this hobby became a job, it could either become a deeper passion, or it could become a bore... but 99% of that is up to the protagonist to determine.
I absolutely adore holidays. I always look forward to cooking/baking seasonal foods and decorating, whether it's for Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc... I was especially spoiled in college living with international students, as I got to partake in many additional holidays, like Dia de los Muertos, Guy Fawkes Day, and Diwali.
I love crafting, and I'm definitely motivated to do it anytime (holiday or not). However, I think that one key reason that I love holidays so much is because I feel they give me an excuse to pursue these types of activities and feel validated in prioritizing them over other things. Despite my constant motivation, it can be hard for me to justify an afternoon of knitting when I have homework/research to be done.
I'm really intrigued by the consequences of a hobby becoming a job and it's something that's come up in our research group's discussions (though we've reached no concrete conclusions!) I think it will be interesting for me to reconsider this question in another year or two, since my research group here at the lab is so closely related to my hobbies (knitting, sewing, paper crafting). I just started in September, and so far it's been really wonderful - although, I have to admit that when I work on anything for a a continuous extended period of time, it loses some of its appeal. But as long as I periodically step back from my work, I think I can maintain the 'fun' perspective!
In The Teenage Liberation Handbook Grace Llewellyn describes a period of decompression that most Unschoolers experience after leaving school. The goal of this de-schooling stage is to authentically reconnect with personal interests so that the Unschooler can begin to create their own agenda for learning. The presence of these interests, and the resources and community necessary to support them, creates the distinction between Unschooling and just not going to school.
This entry is a beautiful illustration of how a narrow interest (decorating eggs) can stimulate a broad learning experience. These interests are something most Unschoolers I've met have in spades. It forms the basis for the exchange of ideas and sense of community that exists at Not Back to School Camp. And it is something I often find missing in young people who are schooled against their wishes.
I've always been surprised by the home schooled children I've met over the years. Most of them have been incredibly well-educated, well-adjusted, and very sharp. Most of these young people pursued projects of their own interest and choice, integrated their learning across disciplines, and had a deeper and more satisfying experience than the average students I've met from public and private schools. If feels like the teachers have been hijacked by State assessment mandates -- and that parents don't have to live by the same rules and constraints, and so have the freedom to allow the child to explore and discover on different time scales and using different techniques to accomplish the same educational goals. So maybe education would be better outside of standardized schools? How could you educate everyone in that scenario? How could you guarantee equal education and access for all?
Kathleen
I know homeschooling is often very effective and unschooling must feel very liberating, but I wonder if these alternatives to traditional schooling seem so attractive, in part, because they are unconventional options in a society in which most of us have options. I spent several years of my life living and working in developing countries in Africa and Asia, and I found more reverence for schools and teachers in those places than I'm finding in this ivory tower. The least advantaged people on our planet understand very well the life-changing power of formal education. They want to go school and they want to have good teachers, and they'll sacrifice a lot for the chance to go to school, as these two examples show:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20safrica.html
I became interested in nutrition as a child, and I'm not quite sure how it happened. My parents had a subscription to Reader's Digest, and I remember reading articles about diabetes and heart disease risk, boosting immunity, and the importance of exercise, and I took it to heart. Much to my parents' chagrin, I was probably the only 8-year-old who refused to eat sandwiches because she saw partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil on the ingredients list and worried about the repercussions of having too much trans-fat in her diet. Except when refusing to eat my parents' food, however, I never talked much about this interest. I knew it was a "nerdy" interest, and I worried that I would be judged as having some sort of problem. My sister was entering her teen years and a few of her friends had developed eating disorders; I worried that if other people found out how much I thought about food, I'd be categorized in the same way.
It's funny because, despite being a dedicated follower of health news (I always stole the health section of the newspaper from my parents), I never paid much attention in health class. My knowledge of fitness and nutrition went far beyond what they taught in school (this is more a reflection of my school system rather than my knowledge), and I got annoyed with my classmates for their lackadaisical attitude towards something that I took very seriously. I mostly felt like my peers were holding me back from learning things I wanted to know.
For the most part, I avoided community resources in my self-guided endeavor, but I wonder if things would have been different if I had some kind of like-minded web community. At the very least, I probably would have been less embarrassed by my interest. Perhaps I could have found a partner in crime instead of being a somewhat lonely child!
When I was little (maybe 7 years old), I fell in love with a family afghan and wanted to learn how it was made. My mum taught me basic knit and purl stitches and then I started making miniature blankets for my menagerie of stuffed animal friends. At the time, my mother felt more like a “co-conspirator” (Ito, et al, p. 39) than an instructor; she would help me select a yarn, estimate measurements, and then support me through project completion.
I eventually became bored of knitting mini-blankets and because my mother had not knitted in many years, she did not know what else to teach me. Throughout middle school and high school I all but abandoned knitting, mostly because I had no community in which to grow and because published material did not appeal to my demographic.
Fortunately, virtual knitting resources and communities developed while I was in college. The Stitch ‘n Bitch book series emerged, and so with it a new physical/digital community of young, hip knitters. Similarly, Ravelry came online as a place for knitters to share patterns and collective experience. Ravellers frequently remix projects much in the way that Scratchers do, documenting any modifications to patterns, yarns, and needle gauges for others to reference. These communities have drawn me back to knitting over the past couple of years, as I’ve found plenty of creativity and support in them. I imagine that if these had existed when I was younger, I would have continued knitting straight through middle school, high school, and college. I think these communities are particularly great because they use technology to augment the culture of a hands-on, social activity.
For me, this continuous learning process has been motivated by tangible project goals. While this can happen in the classroom as well, I have found knitting to be so engaging because I can pick whatever project I like and then learn the necessary missing skills along the way. Having been able to determine my own course of projects, I’ve naturally progressed from simple (yet practical) things like scarves all the way up to my first sweater (which I am working on right now).
I was selected to participate in a gallery show in 2005. It was a group show consisting of different artists designing the decks of surfboards, which were printed onto silk and glassed into actual boards. I wanted to make a large collaged image of interstellar particles but with images of headlamps as the planets. The only way to do this was by using Photoshop--which I had on my computer but didn't know how to use. I also only had 2 days to do the design. I basically bought a book and called a couple of intermediate Photoshop users to help me through the process.
With a program like Photoshop, even if one was to take a class for it, the best way to learn is by practicing and by learning from your peers. Others find so many shortcuts that would be difficult to teach in a classroom setting.
(see an image of the surfboard here: http://www.yotsky.com/index.php?/project/surfboard-design/)
April Lee
About ten years ago, I joined a group of people who studied fine arts together. The unique and common things among members was that there was no people who were actually majoring in fine arts. For me, I worked for a construction company and I was an architectural engineer. One of my close friends in the group was majoring library and information science who always wanted to study abstract painting. From Monday to Friday, from 6 PM to 10 PM, members gathered in a studio and did whatever they wanted. On weekend, we casually met at a bar and enjoyed chatting about our double lives with fine arts. Some people focused on oil painting, some people on sculpture and some people on croquies. I started with croques, developed my skills into dessins and changed my interests in medical illustration like anatomical drawings and skeletal sketches. Later, we could hire professional instructors and nude models biweekly together.
One major part of the group activity was sharing experience, exchanging our trials and errors and tutoring each other. Since all members were novices in fine arts and lacked in knowledge, any information and even a tiny little experience of using different materials was great help in improving each other's work. I learned about basic skills in sketching and collages; most of my foundation in painting was achieved by this group activity. On the other hand, I could teach architectural representation like perspectives and model making techniques. Since every member had different interests and various types of works, our tutorials and comments on each other’s works looked unorganized and even inappropriate sometimes. On the contrary, I remembered this multi-cultural and cross-genre(the truth was there was no genre at all) discussions were the best part of our activity. We discussed each other’s oil painting(from abstract to highly detailed drawing), water-color painting, mobile sculpture, self-portrait all the same time. We even compared an abstract oil painting and kinetic structure. I guessed that our amateurism - lacking in experience but passionate - allowed us to encourage to do something new regardless of the result, and to cheer each other up all the time. I guess this learning experience – always cheerful and enjoyable and educating in parallel – is the ideal structure for any kind of learning for children.
John Juhong Park
Juhong's experience, as the others posted so far, is a great example of community-supported learning: learning by sharing with others and mentoring one another, which is proving very effective.
Judging by this experience with painting, and Jennifer's here above and Sherry's egg decoration endeavors here below, as well as other comments in our previous discussions, it seems that fine arts and the arts generally lend themselves particularly well to cooperative learning. I would be curious to hear about experiences in other spheres, perhaps the more 'academic' or traditional ones from schools' curriculum, what is generally considered 'core subjects' like foreign languages or technical skills like programming. Admittedly, it takes more dedication and discipline to pursue these on a purely hobby-based level. Anyone with experience learning one of these subjects for themselves, for personal enjoyment, and with the help of other people, pooling resources and sharing knowledge?
Juhong also makes a very interesting comment regarding the 'fun' that resulted from his collaborative experience learning with amateurs and the support and camaraderie that developed. Although there is no doubt that such a safe, fun and optimistic atmosphere is conductive to effective learning, I would like to suggest that we look at the real world, in which conditions are not always optimal for acquiring and practicing new skills. Probably as our own experiences would attest, one's learning path in life is less than easy and without bumps along the way. I would think one of the core skills to learn in one's personal education is perseverance when the going gets tough, to stick with it even during the most arduous learning moments. Also, there are still plenty of areas of knowledge and practice, such as learning to play the violin, grammatical declensions in various foreign languages or all sorts of sports that require hours of arduous solitary practice. An athlete such as a figure skater still has to do daily stretching exercises and rehearse his moves on his/her own, often as part of a grueling regime if training at the competitive level. This is not especially 'fun'. Whether we like it or not, there are still plenty of spheres that by definition involve a boring routine of regular practice. Perhaps this is an area where educational innovation is needed!
But for now, wouldn't it be teaching children a valuable life skill to not be afraid of 'boring' or difficult, 'non-fun' learning activities? Life is not always fun, so learning how to deal with that productively seems to be a skill in itself in my opinion. And by the way, perhaps this can be done using human resources too.
To illustrate my point, I have to say I am slightly disappointed in my brother's decision to let his 7-year old son, Louis, who was up to now learning the violin, to switch to the cello on the basis that it is 'easier to learn' than the violin. Indeed, especially at the beginning, the violin can be very discouraging because it takes a long time for a novice to be able to play little tunes. The piano is kinder to first-time learners, as children can start playing something coherent much sooner. Same thing with the cello. Fair enough. But opting for what's 'easier' - what kind of life lesson is that for a child? What about personal love and appreciation of a particular instrument, questions of musical taste and style? These in my opinion should motivate our educational choices, not simply the 'ease' of learning them.
What do you all think?
Florence Gallez
In regards to the comment regarding technical learning, or something outside of arts and crafts (art was a core subject back in the day), I have taken the same approach to learning as I have with the airbrush. For instance, I enjoy learning new programming languages in order to determine what new things the languages allow me to do and how existing concepts are implemented. When I've picked up a new programming language, I tend to have a project in mind; something I want to implement or work towards. I access all resources possible: books, online tutorials, reference websites, etc.
The beauty about learning new programming languages is that I rarely need to actually talk to anyone else face to face. Online resources are more than sufficient for me to explore and play. This allows me to play whenever I have free time or general inspiration. I am not tied to any real physical source for learning (except for the obvious of needing a decent laptop).
I find computing related learning to be convenient in terms of resources available to help. Art is not so easy as there is a strong physical component. Other topics, such as anything mechanical, I have found myself in a mentoring type situation. For instance, learning to work on cars is something I don't typically tackle alone; I make use of resident experts willing to let me hang around and play.
i think learning together at the same level is very different from learning when you have some experienced ones in your group.
definitely, if there are some people you can always ask for, it will make your learning process more "efficient". But you also lost the chances to explore them by yourselves and the best part like you said: the discussion.
actually sometimes we do not care the final skill we get so much, but we do care the process, and what we get through the exploring.
I like your point of differentiating the level of learning. I guess it will be very useful and effective to divide students in various level of learning. My questions is then how to divide children, how to evaluate children.
I also like your comment of the purpose of the process rather than result. I guessed the feeling of satisfaction came frome the process in which people cared more on exploration than the result in my case(group study of fine arts). I know some shools have Pass/Fail grade system in which student can focus on learning itself without worry about grade.(For some students, even B+ means failure). I guess it is great to discuss together about what other ways for children to enjoy the learning rather than competition.
From childhood I've always had a deep interest in the sea and in sailing, an interest I developed from days at Jones Beach, reading about explorers, and viewing seascapes and marine paintings. You see, I was born and grew up in New York City, and didn't know any sailors. If there were opportunities for me to learn to sail as a child, my parents and I didn't know about them. So I decided to learn to sail as an adult. I joined Community Boating on the Charles River. The organization is run according to a very pragmatic philosophy. Anyone can join for a modest fee, and beginners are taught by more experienced members. There are a couple of very basic classes taught by volunteers in a classroom of sorts - how to rig a boat, the vocabulary of sailing, the "rules of the road" when sailing, that sort of thing. Once a new member has completed those classes, the learning becomes completely self-directed, self-motivated and self-paced. The learner leaps into a community of practice, and learns from those with more expertise.
Here's how it works: the person wanting to learn to sail goes to the dockhouse and signs his or her name on a list indicating a wish to go out on a sailboat to learn/practice sailing. More experienced members, who are willing to teach, or who want some company while out sailing, go to the dockhouse and sign another list. Staff in the dockhouse pair learners and teachers up as they appear. One never has to wait more than a few minutes to find a partner with whom to sail. Within one season, I had learned enough to pass several tests, and to be considered a very competent sailor.
This differs from the traditional way of learning in schools because there is no authority figure as teacher. The teaching is done by peers, and the learners follow the teachers' instructions not because they have to, but because they want to learn. They respect the teachers because they have more experience and knowledge, not because they have the power to give a grade. (One does take tests at Community Boating, to gain access to more sails and bigger boats, but the tests are administered by staff members, not by peer teachers. The tests are all about safety.)
The good news is that more and more teachers and schools are employing the techniques of creating communities of learners and helping students to help each other. Students who teach their fellow students gain self-esteem and a better understanding of the material they teach. It's not always about school versus learning in informal settings. We might want to think about bringing useful ideas from informal learning back into the schools. The best teachers are already doing that. The other good news (for me, at least), is that one of the people who taught me to sail at Community Boating is now my husband.
Kathleen
I am glad we are having a totally different application here than the cultural/arts-based one, with this case study of learning to sail. The arts ones are excellent, but a little diversity is nice and I am curious to explore our theories on reformed learning in other, more unusual areas.
Of note here I think is the support and nurturing that occurs naturally among the learning community, in this case thanks to a kind of informal hierarchy of learners and teachers, all contributing their part to the overall learning experience, as Kathleen described. It is safe to say that such nurturance rarely takes place in formal, rigid and/or traditional educational settings. When it does occur, it's a luxury that tends to occur accidentally, if at all I think. When it does, in some very traditional societies, it may even be considered an anomaly and a disruption, such as in the Russian educational system.
Florence Gallez
I think you are right on Kathleen, with regards to bringing successful techniques and methods from informal learning environments into the more formal classroom environment. There are many great lessons and lots of "low hanging fruit" educators can appropriate from informal learning experiences.
This is also helpful advice when developing online learning communities. The characteristics you describe in the sailing community of learners: expertise, mentoring, respect and knowledge transfer also emerge in successful online communities. In fact, the best online communities display these same characteristics. In the Ito paper, we see these characteristics in "geeking out" cultures (like the animé or the fabsub communities). In the Scratch community we see this as well: experts offering help and encouragement to the less experienced, respect and mentoring permeate the projects. And participants learn a great deal from one another, and build on the community's knowledge base. (And you can have terrific social interactions as well... ahem!)
Kathleen
I think you're right, Lass, about online communities. I've been "geeking out", trying to improve my Photoshop and Flash skills. I find the community of people who post helpful tips about how to achieve certain effects to be an amazing resource - no, more than a resource, more like a gift. Whether it's Scratch or some other area of knowledge, the fact that there are media and people online available to help one learn whatever one wants to learn - it's something to celebrate.
I'm an optimist and most of the learning that I do involves a lot more pain and suffering than I ever imagined. In fact, my friends and I have coined a term for this style of learning that we've dubbed "insta-expert". By severely underestimating the difficulty of the tasks and not even realizing, or having knowledge of, what the actual difficult parts will be, one can quickly get into a sink or swim learning style that I've found to be extremely successful, but very challenging.
Often times reflecting on a challenge, I realize that if I had known how difficult, time consuming, or painful it would be, I would never have done it. Through the process of the insta-expert all one needs to do is refuse to give up, go without food and sleep, and muscle through the pain. When I competed in cayuco race down the panama canal (ocean to ocean), I did not know anything about what would actually be involved. It turns out that not tipping over, bailing the boat, and getting back in after it capsizes were three challenges that we never considered, but the most surprising was the shear pain we experienced in our buttocks and the challenge of staying hydrated with no restroom facilities on our boat. During our preparation, and I use that word loosely, we thought that arm strength and synchronizing our paddling would be difficult -- that turned out to be non-issues.
On a kayak trip in Maine, we didn't realize the importance that tides would play in our trip. The difficulty of paddling and navigating in the fog, was also underestimated. The most serious problem we could of faced was averted at the last minute -- on our way up we stopped at an outfitter to pick up some more gear and purchased maps of the islands without which we would not have been able to navigate the maze of islands and rivers.
These two trips are just a few of the many I've underestimated the difficulty that I forced me to learn at an extremely rapid pace. Additionally, I find that when I write software I often pick up tasks that if I knew the complexity of I would never have started --- this is often termed the "weekend project"; where a developer postulates that could solve that problem in a weekend, which if tried often turns into months as the complexity involved unfolds.
Well, this proves my point that there can be, in fact there are many cases of painful learning situations, that it is not all easy and rosy - as I explained here earlier in response to Juhong's post. I love the 'realism' of this example, thanks for posting!
Florence Gallez
Your post got me thinking about the differences of formal and informal learning, and you've touched on a great point about how formal learning really sucks out a lot of the "uncertainty" in learning. With the way classroom activities/assignments/projects are structured in schools, students always know how difficult something would be because they know that teachers won't ask them about something they haven't learned in class. So kids are able to identify the limits of the "problem space" and work within that. But in real life, problems don't come neatly packaged, directing you to certain sections of your classroom notes for the answers.
Kathleen
Your idea about the limits of the problem space is very interesting. It's a shame the way so much of the content that's taught in school is compartmentalized into "units" that are often disassociated from the whole of the discipline from which they originate. You might enjoy David Perkins' book, Making Learning Whole. He offers theories about, and practical examples of, teaching and learning that are not so neatly packaged, and so more like real life problem-solving and discovery.
Thanks for the book suggestion. I have the book, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Just one more reason to start....
You bring up a couple of great examples and points here. First, the thirst for knowledge and the context motivates meaningful, just-in-time learning. This can be seen over and over again in project-based learning. Second, the insta-expert approach might work for some if they choose it knowingly, and clearly you have chosen this approach and it works for you. But if someone (a teacher or parent) imposes this approach on a student, it can be a deterrent to learning. You really have to want that knowledge badly to be willing to go through this kind of pain and iteration. When someone else is dictating the subject matter and the method of learning, this could be overwhelming, and the student might just give up. I've seen this happen from time to time and it breaks my heart. I can see that the student wants the knowledge and is willing to work hard for it, but is overwhelmed by the challenges and barriers and doesn't have enough scaffolding to support the learning. On the one hand, it is great to have complexity unfold over time, that's an ideal learning environment. But educators have to walk a fine line between supporting complexity and discovery, and offering complexity beyond the student's current capacity to learn and integrate knowledge.
When I was very young I took a trip to China and my cousins "taught" me how to play Chinese Chess. I learned by watching them play with each other and then playing them myself. At first I would make a bunch of illegal moves which they were sure to point out, but slowly I got the hang of it. Even when I knew how each piece moved, I was still terrible. It took time to pick up little tips and tricks before I became a worthy opponent. I learned how to place pieces to be on the defensive while advancing others to play offensively. What was different about learning how to play in an informal environment was that I had more opportunities to fail and learn from it. If I had learned to play in a structured setting I would've been taught the typical starting moves and where pieces should be placed for the best defensive strategies. However, I wouldn't have understood why. Additionally, in a structured setting I wouldn't have learned the importance of knowing your opponent because my opponent would be just as inexperienced and be continuously changing. Since I played the same cousins over and over again, I knew what strategies each one preferred and could therefore be more effective with my own strategies.
With the increased availability of new media, I would assume I could learn to play chess just as well today by reading about people's tactics on forums or by registering on an online site to play opponents. The site might even have a sense of community where people are willing to give you pointers when you lose to them, or have a competitive nature where you work hard to become better than everyone else and increase in some kind of rank. Both of these techniques would help one improve drastically.
Chess is something I've always thought I wanted to lear 'at some point in my life', but I never had a 'burning desire' to do so. I also, unlike you, never had someone 'who happened to be there [i.e. a family member or friend] to learn from. As a result, to this day I've still never sat down to learn chess. So your example highlights the difference that having human resources that happen to be in one's natural, everyday environment can make.
It is also useful to read about what you think of today's online resources for learning the game. I have to say that despite the Net's ease of access, I haven't been motivated enough to search and navigate these resources. So learning through the Net's vast resources and communities does take some time, effort and dedication in my opinion. It can all look deceptively easy and accessible sometimes.
Florence Gallez
Given that it is pumpkin season and I haven't worked with pumpkins before, I spent the weekend learning about pumpkins. I wanted to carve pumpkins and make pumpkin pie from real pumpkins. My learning took about 15 minutes--enough time for me to search online to see what types of pumpkins are best for carving and what are best for eating. Then found some advice as to how to prepare the pumpkin for carving and baking, and it was all smooth sailing from there.
I guess my point is that traditional views of "learning" tend to be viewed as something that takes a long time, and can only be acquire after many trials and tribulations (could this be why some teachers purposely make learning so boring and miserable?). But with the new media ecology, learning has taken on new connotations. We are able to learn things much faster and with much less effort than before.
I think you bring up some great points. I love that new media makes it easy to learn things on a whim. When I was younger I'd always see things that were cool and want to learn how to do it (tumbling for example), but I could never commit to classes or find someone to teach me. Now with the internet (especially YouTube videos) it's easy to quickly pick up tips and things to try whenever I feel the urge to learn something.
One thing I really want to mention here is the experience I have in Shanghai, where I live for twenty years. There is a place, called Mecooon, which used to be a factory loft but now it is a space for the contemporary drama performance. At Mecoon, it is always free for all the audience to watch the play. At the same time, it is also a place open to all the independent drama groups for practicing during the daytime. Moreover, they organize a lot of salons and lectures talking about the contemporary stage performance.
In fact, Mecooon play a main role in building such a community for the people who love contemporary drams, especially for those who are not professional drama groups.
Before “being a fan of Mecooon”, I think drama to me just a very normal hobby. Once the first time I went to Mecooon, I was deeply fascinated by the passion from all the participants and the amazing culture there. After that, I almost went to mecooon every week. Actually mecooon also attracts a large group of volunteers to run this space. I remembered that I was a volunteer for a series plays as a light controller. As a volunteer there, I learned a lot about the drama related knowledge and also some techniques like lighting control. More important is that I get so many chances to know people who have the same interests and I can exchange the ideas with them
And two years ago, Mecooon recommended me to assistant a French director who was making a documentary movie in China. That was also an amazing learning experience about making documentary movie to me.
Mecooon is far beyond a physical space for drama performance. And two years ago, Mecoon also built their online community. People can have very hot discussion through that. Two month ago, through its website, mecooon organized a competition, asking for new media drama works using video.
During my consulting internship with the San Francisco Symphony, I came across Ito et al's white paper, Living and Learning with New Media, and used his concepts last summer to give recommendations for the new version of kids' website the symphony was planning on building. What struck me most was the radical new model of learning- and consequently future schools- the digital media model was suggesting us. Thanks to the ability to:
1. Tinker around the pool of potential new skills and knowledge without the pressure of results and formality
2. Instantly communicate, collaborate, provide and receive feedbacks
3. Tap into the vast global community of geeks who encourage deeper learning through informal "mentorship"
The potential level of engagement that a new digital learning system could elicit from a child is very significant. However, what I also discovered is the complications in selectively introducing the most effective contents to the child and enforcing some constraints on the child's use of the contents so that some productive goals are met and the child's time with form of learning is balance with real-life learnings. Since openness and casualness could also means that adults are giving up some control over the "result" of the child's time (while tinkering around), it will be interesting to see how we figure out how to balance a reasonable control and productivity without overbearing the child's creativity and engagement.
Q1: For your blog entry, tell us a story about an experience learning informally about something you were interested in. How did this differ from your experiences learning in more structured settings (i.e. school)?
The first thing that comes to mind is learning how to design websites through iWeb. Apple's iWeb is a pretty intuitive tool for beginners to learn by "tinkering around", but figuring out all the different funtionalities, especially when I wanted to have specific tasks done in a tight deadline, was quite time consuming.
Q2: What, if any, community resources did you use, and how did your community affect your learning process? How do you imagine these experiences would be different if you were coming of age today with the increased availability of new media?
In my case, I could fall back on my sister, who is an industrial designer, whenever I was stuck with a particular function (such as hyperlinking, etc.). Having a mentor gave me instant access to the functionality, which in turn, provided me with opportunities to tinker around that particular functionality. Because of the quickness of interactions with a "person" as a reference to fall back on with questions, I still think the most efficient way to learn is human instruction. The ideal form would probably be the hybrid model, where either a human instructor points at useful starting points to tinker around and then the digital learning tools take on the next step, or vice versa.
Marie
Kathleen
I have experienced some of the complications you mention in my own website-building experience. There's a tension between allowing for maximum tinker-ability and actually employing some constraints to ensure the activity is fun, transfers some content knowledge and doesn't take hours and hours to realize any benefits to the user.
My mother was Brazilian and came to the United States in the late '50s with the intention of working for a few years to save up enough money to go to Europe. She met my father and her European trip was delayed for about 20 years!
Growing-up, my mother was completely immersed in American culture, speaking to me and my brother in English almost exclusively. It was only on our trips to Rio every couple of years that she would lapse into Portuguese for a few moments.
What little Portuguese we knew was mostly thanks to my grandmother who we'd visit in Brazil and would frequently spend 4 months out of the year with us in the US. Her English was basic so she would talk to us in Portuguese the entire time. I realize that these infrequent but intense Portuguese lessons were instrumental in giving me a solid foundation in the language. These informal lessons were very engaging; I was motivated to communicate with my grandmother and the rest of my relatives. As a result of my early exposure to Portuguese, I've been told by other Brazilians that I don't have an American accent when I speak.
When I later lived in Brazil for 3 years at the age of 15 and started taking Portuguese classes at the American school in Rio, my understanding of the language deepened significantly. In addition to living with my grandmother and being completely immersed in the language, the formal training at school improved my reading skills (which were quite basic) and taught me the mechanics of writing, grammar, etc. I discovered that aural, informal classes in a language can only take you so far. However, those same early "classes" with my grandmother provided me with a wonderful resource - I knew when something sounded right. This internalization is what's allowed me to feel quite comfortable in expressing myself in Portuguese.
I continue to work on my Portuguese as best I can: I speak to my daughters exclusively in Portuguese, both for their sake and mine! I also read several Brazilian periodicals on-line and am constantly looking words up. No longer being immersed in the culture makes it more challenging, but I still enjoy being able to communicate in another language that was given to me by my grandmother.
Great story Kent. You bring to mind that we don't need to think about education as a division between informal and formal learning, rather than the two can complement each other, very powerfully. Learning language skills can be greatly enhanced by online tools and new media. In online communities like iEarn, http://iearn.org/, a learner can acquire a pen pal from another country or collaborate on a project with foreign students and practice their language skills at the same time. Online video, produced by young people in different languages can create a cultural context and relevance for learning a language. Have you ever tried the Rosetta Stone language series on computer? A product like this, in an online environment, where you both learn and create content, would be a terrific boost to learning a language, and it would be fun too.
I definitely agree that formal and informal learning complement each other; there is a benefit to having structure at times. It seems as though the division between formal and informal fluctuates depending upon the topic at hand. I found learning a language strictly in a structured environment to be inhibiting to the actual speaking part; it was great for reading, as Kent says. I would have liked to have the informal aspect, such as talking over a meal, to reinforce speaking. I have not used the Rosetta Stone method, but others have told me they appreciate all aspects of the methodology.
Kathleen
Formal and informal learning can complement each other - I agree! For those of you who want to do a little informal language-learning or practice, here's another website, which I learned about in my Harvard Business School course on entrepreneurship:
http://www.myhappyplanet.com/
What a wonderful resource - thanks Kathleen.
This is an especially useful way of learning a language because it allows you to see the person's body language and stay current on idiomatic expressions, which is a difficult thing to keep up with once you're outside of the country. I found it interesting that many of the people offering Portuguese lessons are looking for reciprocal lessons in English, so it's more of a peer-to-peer rather than teacher-student relationship. I've looked up several Portuguese speakers and plan on giving it a try.
This touches on a theme that several people have posted on: learning that is motivated by interest and enthusiasm rather than obligation and grades. It doesn't get any better than that.
Great observation about the seamless division between formal and informal learning. I haven't used Rosetta Stone but like the idea of collaborating on projects that put newfound language skills to use. Wonderful way of reinforcing and enhancing one's command of a language.
In middle school, I always had an interest in arts and crafts. I loved to fuse color with materials to create fun and pretty art. I constructed many different things from roses made from paper party streamers to origami made out of dollar bills. I learned most of these techniques from friends or just by playing around with different materials myself. My friends would sit down with me to walk me through the steps; the experience was very one-to-one, as they would make sure I understood each step.
Unfortunately, people were the main resource for learning because the complicated techniques were very difficult to learn from a book. But once I knew everything my friends knew, my learning stopped. Since then, I have not advanced in arts and crafts as my resources were depleted. My community was limited to my friends that knew the different techniques. If I were coming of age today, I would use all the available websites that offer video tutorials! These video tutorials give you the real-time step-by-step procedure in making complicated pieces. I recently found a 3 part video instruction of how to make a koi fish out of dollar bills, and I am eagerly waiting to find time to learn.
For those who are interested: http://moneygami.blogspot.com/2009/06/money-origami-koi-carp-instruction...
I am an architect, and even though architecture schools maybe be defined as “informal” --if you compare the teaching with other disciplines-- there is still a great gap between what can be taught "formally" in a school/studio environment and what can be learned "informally" through real-world practice. In architecture school you learn how to “design” buildings by drawing and making physical model, yet you never built real buildings. Whatever you do it will be only a representation of something to be built in the real-world, later and through a process of translation.
I had the chance though to participate in a great learning experience. In Chile architecture can be practiced in more “informal ways” due to the lack of regulations and laws in certain regions of the country. I was still studying “formally” in school when I had the chance to learn “informally” through designing and building in-situ, in a collaborative experience, involving designers, artisans and builders. It was a large wooden structure: A roof and a shed for a Seafood Production Center (http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/arq/n60/art06.pdf). Even though we arrived to the construction site with drawing and models of what it has to be built, in site and through the active participation of artisans and builders (which have a deepest understanding of how to build than most architects do) the project was redefined. Was a great opportunity to practice trial and error, reflection-in-action, and collaborative feedback… in real time, with the physical materials at hand, and in-situ. Every actor was able to share their own expertise and therefore the outcome emerged as the result of a collaborative and unique experience. Independently of the “building” itself, for me this design experience was a great way to learn “informally” about architecture. That experience shaped me as the architect and researcher I am now: It gave meaning to the whole previous, abstract and disengaged “formal teaching” that I carried from architecture school.
Unfortunately my experience is not related to new media. I feel this is the missing dimension of most of the readings… I really liked, though, Fischer’s approach that gives a deeper insight to the problem (particularly “CoIs” and “boundary objects”). I think we should start from the processes of collaboration and creative learning, independently of the new media… and then ask ourselves how to engage and promote the new technologies in that direction. It is dangerous to get blinded by the “new technologies” without asking the right and deepest questions that concern “creative learning” processes.
*It will be nice to discuss Fischer text in the class as well... I think Facebook and my Space are not enough. Sorry.
AGNE
From an early age, building with my hands has been a large part of my life. Although the mediums have changed over the years, the act of building has not. One powerful memory I have involves learning to use a collection of tools with my grandfather at a young age - around six. The relationship between my grandfather and I, along with the common goal of creating, enabled an apprenticeship teaching method. What I remember from this experience is not a receipt or process, but rather his attention to detail, expert control of the various mediums, and most of all, his passion for creating. In more formal educational settings, with the goal of teaching fabrication or design, it has been common to find the subject taught as a process, as a list of steps to make a cake etc. Although the steps are important, to me it is what is read between the lines, the story the process tells that is critical to teaching, not the steps themselves. It is inspiring to see the DIY communities such as those that MAKE magazine create; not just a list of steps, but as a mechanism to preserve the context, passion and community that the steps are held in.
I thought I would jump in with a new comment:
Not sure if anyone saw this, but the front page of the MIT website on Oct 19 is frankly disgusting - a close-up of a rat, yuk! :) But it leads to an interesting article on 'Dream Reader' - on how by listening in on rat brains, Matt Wilson tries to understand the role of sleep in learning and memory.
Since this is about learning, I thought I would mention it here.
And maybe soon we will be able to engage in night-time learning in groups too! - A classmate in my MAS 863 class 'How to Make Almost Anything', Edwina Portocarrero, came up with an interesting idea for her final project: embedding audio recorders in bed pillows so that we can record our dreams as soon as we wake up, or thoughts that come up to our mind at bedtime. She envisions a system that would connect pillows in different rooms, houses, buildings, etc. so that they could 'talk' to each other and share these nocturnal observations.
24/7 learning is just around the corner. Stay tuned!
Here is the link to her project intro:
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/863.09/people/edwina/how_to_make_%28a...
What do you think: does the idea of learning at night in such a way, with such enabled devices, during time meant for rest, sound appealing to you - it's great for time management, etc., or on the contrary, is it taking it too far? [one needs breaks, time alone, etc]
Florence Gallez
The initial things that came to my mind when thinking of non formal learning experiences, were learning how to drive form my dad, starting to cook which I also somehow learned at home, to making remote controlled toys that I made with friends of mine. The story I want to talk about is however related to rebuilding a motorcycle. I was 14 and riding motorcycles in Germany at that time was only permitted for 16 year-olds. My friend who was 16 had purchased a 50 cc motorbike without having a driving permit and did this without his parent's knowledge. We lived in the outskirts of a small town and legal driving matters were not strictly enforced by police.
My friend came to my place and asked me to "store" the bike for him as it stopped working a few hours after he purchased it and he didn't want to take it home. I decided to try to repair it without knowing what a combustion engine was. My tools were not quite adequate and when I had completely disassembled the engine I had broken a few gaskets and other small parts. The dilemma was that I of course couldn't really talk about what I was doing to my parents and most of my friends thought that this was a hopeless project. Internet or any kind of digital medium did not exist, but I was driven to fix it so I started cruzing around and rode my bicycle from garage to garage and asked questions about how engines work and which kind of materials could be used to fix or mend cardboard gaskets (while trying to not sound too stupid). I gathered all the knowledge verbally and went back home to patch up what I thought might work. The engine was running within a few days better than it did before, but I couldn't celebrate my triumph as I was not supposed to do something like that anyway. My friend was very happy and rode it for a few weeks until his parents eventually found out and made him sell it again.
While going through the reading I was struck by frequent comments that parents can not engage in the way youth communicates today and tries to restrict access to the internet without knowing what is going on. Another striking fact was to hear that teens come up with work-arounds to "hang out" in situations that would not be detected as "hang out" places or activities. This reminded me of the power I was driven by "wanting to do something bad". I was thrilled by the fact that I was engaged in something I should not do and had to resort back to getting knowledge form experts without them knowing what I was doing. The learning part was purely based on verbal interactions with bicycle mechanics and motorcycle repair guys who were willing to talk to a 14 year old asking questions and me then trying to do it on my own.
I am not advocating illegal activities, but I would be interested to know how much teens try to bend rules or explore the boundaries of these peer observed networks. My story is not so much about a communal activity, but talks about the drive I had to finish my project that was entirely motivated by trying to do something I was not supposed to do. I wish we could learn about the limits, dangers and bad examples of such studies as I feel that mere enthusiasm will not help us to really understand what new developments young people might encounter.
"I am not advocating illegal activities, but I would be interested to know how much teens try to bend rules or explore the boundaries of these peer observed networks."
There's a fair amount of boundary testing in the Scratch community. Some new Scratchers share scatological or very violent projects, seemingly just because they can. A few very prominent members of the community have tested boundaries by posting inoffensive projects that include songs with inappropriate words towards the end. We've even seen a few projects that might be called "masterpieces" of the inappropriate genre - complex creations that I hate to have to censor, but feel compelled to for the sake of maintaining community standards.
I often wonder if boundary testing like this is motivated by frustration with authority figures in the child's day to day experience. Do children with less freedom test boundaries more often? Do those with more do it less?
a friend of mine rented the Animaniacs series from the library, hoping for a little nostalgia. Instead he was more or less horrified by how "annoying" the characters were. During our discussion, he concluded that kids love the obnoxiousness of the characters because being obnoxious or crazy is possibly the only means they have to assert control or power in their worlds. It seems totally plausible, but I don't have the same interactions with kids as you do. what do you think?
It seems that young people explore the boundaries of acceptable behavior as a natural part of learning to be civilized (or not). So it seems OK, within limits, to allow the kind of exploration Duks undertook as a youngster. And that behavior represents a little bit of delicious, harmless, anti-authoritarianism, much like Victoria mentions-- a way to exercise control over a tiny part of their world. I've met a number of home schooled children that don't seem to feel as out of control as many formally schooled children, and they don't act out in the same ways. I wonder if there are lessons there for us as mentors. Internet access is a huge issue in schools, as we've read, and much of the pressure to limit access at school comes from parents... often too disconnected to really understand the power that the internet provides. Parents don't always take the time to really learn about new media and the Internet, and they are fearful of online predators. Parents are so fearful of predatory behavior and access to inappropriate content like pornography, that they would rather block access than risk (even if the risk is extremely small) the dangers. So the problem may be with educating the parents, as much as with educating the children. More realistic, involved parents, might cede more control to their children in learning through new media and thus solve some of the anti-authoritarian, control issues that surface in learning environments.
Kathleen
Schools limit internet access to social networking sites because they're worried about student safety, bullying, and the school's own liability should something bad happen, and those are not unreasonable concerns. Personally, I found Ito, et al's paper to be somewhat condescending and ageist. I know plenty of parents who understand the benefits of their children developing the skills associated with online social networking and content creation. But they also know there are only so many hours in a day and they want their children and teens to get exercise, sufficient sleep, do their homework and live their real world, as well as their online, lives. I'm doing research on social networking sites for another course, and I've learned that Facebook is adding new members fastest among the 35+ demos. So I am not so convinced that adults "can't" understand what social networking sites, the internet and new media mean for kids. We all have the capacity to learn... even parents and teachers.
I think these are two excellent points - the first one on schools' responsibilities and parents' genuine concerns [even though I am myself extremely liberal and would not limit access at all], and the second one on the significant presence of adults online today. By now, the vast majority of workplaces require their employees at all levels to use the Net at least in some way. Many places have actually integrated social networking sites into their employees' duties. I know this is the case for journalism and the media in general since it is my sphere, but I'm sure it's happening in plenty of other areas too. Most news organizations [print, broadcast, et.] now require their reporters and editors to use Twitter, citizen journalists communities' online resources, ect. in their work.
One would need to live in a cave not to have some experience using the Net and its social/professional communities. So I agree that Ito might be too intensely focusing on youth. Adults today probably form the majority of people interacting online.
Florence Gallez
I completely understand how some illegal activities can foster intense interest. Remember the good days when peer-to-peer sharing was legal? And Napster was a wonderful source of free music? As the legal system worked out all the "rules", many different sites for peer-to-peer sharing began to pop up and then soon become shutdown as new laws unfolded. It was like a race against time trying to find a site that is still running and not yet caught by the law. I started to participate in forums in the search to find the next knew medium of free data! This new world of downloadable music and video also opened up doors to learn about all the different codecs and formats for audio/video files. I had to learn things like how to convert files to different extensions and extracting .iso using Alcohol or through virtual drives. It is amazing how constraints like legality can cause such increased interests!
Well, to answer the question of whether children brought up with less freedoms are more likely to 'revolt' and test the boundaries: I think it eventually depends on the child' s personality. But speaking for myself: I was brought up very strictly and with less freedom and access to youth resources than the average teen, and I can say that yes, it certainly has turned me an extreme liberal and freedom-fighter for all ages! And I am aware that I developed those traits partly in response to the stifling environment and restrictions I grew up with.
Florence Gallez
This week's article about the Scratch community mentioned Lave and Wenger's idea of "legitimate peripheral perception." This idea that simply "hanging around" folks who know better than you can be an educational experience resonated with some specific cases in my own learning history.
Last summer, a housemate of mine, an architecture student, was working with a professor on a project that involved an electronics component in addition to solving the design problem - they wanted to use a windmill to power LEDs such that their brightness was proportional to the wind speed. He didn't know much about electronics and felt very outside his comfort zone, so one day he was venting his frustration to me. Much to my own surprise, I was able to answer some of his questions, explain some things, and make suggestions. I have never taken a formal electronics class in my life, and at one point he stopped me to ask where I learned all that I was telling him. After some thought, I realized that I had picked up enough bits and pieces from overhearing conversations at MITERS, a student-run hackerspace, that I was familiar with some relevant terms and concepts for this particular project. Somehow I was able to explain why my friend needed to control the LEDs brightness with a PWM signal instead of simply varying the voltage, and I even came up with a scheme to do this.
Since coming to MIT, I have "hung around" MITERS for countless hours. It's a casual shop space that places tools for - and people interested in - electronics, software, and mechanical projects together. I began using the space because of its machine tools for working with metal, but as part of the community I also saw e-mails on the discussion list and witnessed informal tutorials about electronics. When people around me were working on cool projects that I didn't understand, I asked questions. I never learned a sequence of concepts that intentionally built upon each other and were designed as a "curriculum," but I had gained enough knowledge to have something useful to say about my housemate's proejct. Of course, I'm fairly certain my suggestions were not the best and my answers to his questions might not have been entirely correct as a result of my informal, casual learning of the material, but I had some idea of what was possible and which paths might be most helpful to follow. Overall, I believe that experiences of peripheral perception at MITERS or other spaces at MIT compromise the bulk of what I have truly learned since being here.