Visitors & Residents: The Video
Last month I gave a presentation on the ‘Visitors & Residents’ principle at the ALT-C conference which was well received so I thought it would be worth videoing the talk under laboratory conditions…
A larger format video can be viewed here.
Just a few notes to go with the video:
The original ‘Prezi’ presentation is here: http://prezi.com/x0nxciep_mlt/
The tinyURL that is supposed to link to Andy Powell’s ‘Twitter for Idiots’ post is incorrect. Please follow this link instead.
At points I use the term ‘real life’ which seems to imply that anything which is online is somehow not part of ‘real life’. A better phrase would have been ‘offline’. Language in this area is difficult at best…
The quote “…just knowing how to use particular technologies makes one no wiser than just knowing how to read words” is a quote from Prensky’s recent paper on ‘Digital Wisdom’. In the journal ‘Innovate’. In other versions of the talk I refer to Prensky directly but seem to have omitted it when I was in front of the camera. All other non-attributed quotes are anonymised statements from our students.
The images I used are under the Creative Commons license:
‘Tourist Trap’ visitor image http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharpshutter/232909207/
‘Rusholme’ resident image http://www.flickr.com/photos/raver_mikey/2224048987
‘Sunny Park’ web as a space image http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhudson/2504679411
‘Tool Box’ web as a toolbox image http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardstrong/3238293371
October 15th, 2009 at 11:23 am
hi
very interesting video, i think the general principles are useful and very portable. I’m not sure the example at the end really captures the point though. What i hear here is 2 different pedagogical appoarches. in the case of leaturer 1, would this not be the same in real space. That students that work together and create a stong community become more questioning of authority?
October 16th, 2009 at 9:35 am
[...] suggested by the system because they are in my twitter network. However, very very few of them are resident in twitter (@daveowhite has a lot to answer for in my massive overuse of that word, but it is oh so [...]
November 1st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Agree with Jim… on an aside, I’ve just read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” – highly recommended as a very intelligent read. One of his deductions is that success can be predicted based on a childs learning patterns, and children that “question authority” become more successful..
November 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Davo – excellent enunciation of the online world and peoples approaches to it. I think the point is – if i may be so bold is this.
If you believe that the sociocultural approach is useful and productive way of learning and that it has equal or if not more value than transmission mode and/or self directed autonomous learning then as an educator you have the duty/right to encourage communication/collaboration/co-operation/ interaction i.e participation.
As you correctly pointed out a student will not appreciate the value of social media until they USE it. It’s the teachers job to facilitate this potential pathway to educational gain. The teacher has the right to set the educational context and that to me includes stating that this program, course module is run in a participative way. If the teacher explains constructively and leads by example i think the students will follow, but having said that i would give marks for participation to give a bit of backbone to the approach.
What it all means is that massive emphasis should be given in supporting teachers to understand the pedagogic benefits of learning by adopting a sociocultural approach i.e its enjoyable for both students and teachers and similarly students should be encouraged and supported in the early days to realize the benefits.
Some discussion of digital footprints and online behavior would probably be good to include in an induction – The distinction between personal and educational lives can also be emphasized to make it clear that you can use these tools just for educational or business/work purposes.
From a batch of students there will be many different personalities and learning styles and a different educational approach may seem strange at first but with the right encouragement students will see the obvious benefits – i think it’s a bit like dancing at a wedding, initially you are a bit reluctant, but once you are finally dragged up you damn well enjoy it.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Just to add i mentioned enjoyment as a pedagogic benefit. I could mention a few other things like for example serendipitous learning, but my main point was that teachers will enjoy it, they will find out more about their students and be rewarded in being able to help their students more. Of course for the students if they are enjoying their learning, ‘things’ are more likely to stick