Norm Friesen - Part 8

Article for Handbook of Distance Education

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Norm Friesen

Alex Kuskis and I recently completed the final revisions to this article on “interaction” for the 3rd edition of the Handbook of Distance Education (proof version only). We worked on emphasizing the historical rooting of the concept in cybernetics and the work of its father, Norbert Wiener. Weiner initially conceived of interaction in terms of messages, communication and control, and like some in distance education, he did not see any qualitative difference between human-human and human-machine interaction:

To me, personally, the fact that the signal in its intermediate stages has gone through a machine rather than through a person is irrelevant and does not in any case greatly change my relation to the signal. Thus the theory of control in engineering, whether human animal or mechanical, is a chapter in the theory of messages. (Wiener, 1950, p. 25)

It is largely in this systematic and cybernetic form that the term “interaction” has been integrated into the discourses of distance education, lifelong learning, educational technology, and other educational sub-domains: “Much of learning theory and instructional systems design is founded in or explained by analogous reference to concepts borrowed from General Systems Theory” (Larsen, 1985, p.

When applied to engagement between student and teacher, student and content and among students. the term interaction clearly has a very broad semantic range. One recent factor that makes this range even broader (in perhaps a slightly worrisome way) is the increasing importance of analytics for education: The (automated) analysis of patterns of student interactions to individually customize their environment and (let’s face it) to monitor and evaluate their work. We make reference to Pariser’s “The Filter Bubble” to suggest some of the challenges presented by this “interaction as shaped through analytics.” Here’s what we write:

In his book The Filter Bubble (2011), Eli Pariser focuses at length on how services like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo use sophisticated and hidden algorithms to customize content (e.g., feeds items, search results, and advertising) according to users’ past behaviors and current inputs. Pariser argues that these mechanisms can lead to a kind of “information determinism,” a situation in which our past queries, selections and even evasions may “entirely decide” what is made available for selection and interaction in “our future” (p. 90).

Is the future of interaction in educational environments one of computerized surveillance and of customization of engagement according to user metrics? This would be ironic for a project (i.e.education) which is supposed to help learners become autonomous and accountable as decision makers and citizens.

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Where does "Blended" End & Virtual Begin?

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Norm Friesen

Just finished a paper that tries to draw a fine line between blended learning and fully online delivery.

Even though “blended learning” was coined in the run-up to the dot-com frenzy at the turn of the century, it didn’t acquire its present meaning until the middle of the last decade. Before this, it was understood as being a mix of just about anything, particularly in the training context: methods, technologies, pedagogies, tasks, etc.

But as the term became more popular in higher education, what was “blended” was increasingly seen as two common modes of delivery in higher ed : the college classroom and the online course.

More recently, there have been attempts to develop taxonomies of different types of blended learning arrangements and combinations. This paper examines some of these in order to create a “decision tree” for determining what’s blended and what ain’t.

It’s not a simple as it sounds!

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Reviews are in for: Place of the Classroom & Space of the Screen

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Norm Friesen

Just got a couple of excellent reviews for my 2011 book, one from the British Journal of Educational Technology, and the other from Erziehungswissenschaftliche Revue (Educational Studies Review).

First from BJET:

“Friesen argues, tenaciously and knowledgeably, in favour of a different view of e-learning from the empirical one they know well and usually adopt. He administers some heavy doses of debate based on European philosophical writings. His own text is not dry-as-dust, however, because he provides many examples, such as the excellent one of dissecting frogs in the laboratory and online. By getting away from simply considering text in class and online, he stimulates his readers to think about the many differences, and the pros and cons, of the two modes of learning.” (see the entire review from BJET)
Here’s a translation from the original German review, written by colleague Malte Brinkmann (soon to take a chair @ the Humboldt University in Berlin):

Friesen provides important grounds for a critical revaluation of experiences in E-Learning. The book is above all a valuable contribution to empirical phenomenological studies of education. Friesen undertakes, in an exemplary manner, the hermeneutic-phenomenological method of the van Manen school. Finally, he can, with the concept of relational and responsive pedagogy, reach far beyond his particular area of investigation, and provide impetus for an internationally-oriented philosophy of Bildung and Education that is truly “trans-continental.”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein and Klaus Mollenhauer’s Forgotten Connections

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Norm Friesen

A recently completed paper (.pdf):
Klaus Mollenhauer’s Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing is internationally regarded as a key post-war text in the philosophy of education. This paper introduces this text (translated by the presenter) by focusing on its highly original interpretation of the early and late Wittgenstein. Mollenhauer explicates “upbringing” (Erziehung) as the acquisition of language and of adult forms of life. He sees schooling, reading and writing as exemplified in the picture of (language) learning sharply critiqued in Philosophical Investigations: “as if the child came into a strange country… [with] a language, only not this one.” Turning to the Tractatus, Mollenhauer understands the unsayable (that which is to be “passed over in silence”) not as something beyond logic and language, but as coming before language, as a kind of “pure subjectivity” prior to speech. As such, it is a power and potentiality that animates both language and imagination, playing a central role in addressing the challenges of formal schooling and of upbringing generally.

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Credentialing for Open Education

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Norm Friesen

Just finished a co-authored piece with Christine Wihak on using PLAR (Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition) in the open education space.

It turns out that some of the more popular ideas and practices in open, personalized learning, such as badges, personal learning environments and/or the use of OER for self-study, are actually least compatible with PLAR assessment. On the other hand, emerging open course models and established standardized testing procedures actually present far greater possibilities for credentialing through PLAR.

This paper (available as a .pdf) uses a version of the diagram (right) to illustrate how three different options for the translation of open educational experiences into postsecondary credentials might work.

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Forget Twitchspeed & Twitter; Confronting “Boys’ Crisis” via Dance & Motion

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Norm Friesen

I’m a proud as heck of these two students, my thesis supervisees, whose excellent MEd research is featured in this article in the local paper. Jennifer Swan-Rogers (pictured here) and Tannis Tate (whose abstract is below) undertook case studies of autistic boys in their classes at an alternative school in Kamloops. Diagnoses on the autism spectrum have increased 20-fold in the last decade by some estimates. Computer technology (particularly gaming) has been touted as both the cause of and solution to the enormous challenges that these kids face. However, what is clear from the literature is that these kids need to be engaged socially and to be taken away from sedentary engagement typical of both classroom and computer interaction.Here’s the gist of the studies, as captured in T. Tate’s abstract:

This thesis is a narrative ethnographic case study that follows the experiences of an autistic boy who is given opportunities to learn curriculum through movement and dance in my Grade 5 class. The number of young boys who, like my subject, diagnosed on the autism spectrum in the early school years, has recently skyrocketed, creating what some have called a “boy crisis.” This study begins with a detailed, historical profile of the subject’s life both at home and at school. This profile uses data collected from a variety of sources, including official records, interviews with stakeholders, video recordings and observation. This data is used to produce multi-layered, thick descriptions of the subject in both conventional classroom settings and in contexts where he is learning standardized curriculum, but through collaborative movement and dance. Careful explication of these descriptions clearly show the manifold challenges facing the subject in undertaking conventional writing and organizational tasks at his desk. However, these descriptions also make clear that the subject is readily able to focus, demonstrate his learning and collaborate with peers when working with the curriculum through movement and dance. This is situated in the context of other, longer-term developments that are evident from official records. The thesis concludes by highlighting the promise presented by treatment of elementary school curricula through movement and dance, both for students diagnosed with autism and for young learners generally, and recommends directions for the substantiation of this promise through further research.

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Silence in the Classroom: One Student's Experience

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Norm Friesen

[slideshare id=13622450&doc=onestudentsexperienceof-120712192640-phpapp02]

Here’s the slides (above) and the text (download pdf) that I had the pleasure of presenting in support of one of my students, Merilee Hamelock.

In many classrooms, evaluation of learning relies on easily observable, easily measurable student actions and behaviors. Open any teaching strategies book today and you will find numerous recommendations for engaging the “active learner.” Activities such as “large group discussion,” “small group discussion,” and “think-pair-share” have become commonplace within the classroom.

In any classroom there will be students who spend much of their classroom time in silence. For learners who remain silent during such activities, do these methods of evaluation accurately reflect their level of learning or involvement within the classroom? What does silence have to do with learning? How do students experience silence in the classroom?

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Learning Theory as Instructional Technology – or "the Animal Method of Learning"

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Norm Friesen

Just got a paper accepted for a collection (edited by Neil Selwyn & Kari Facer) on The Politics of Education & Technology forthcoming from Palgrave. The focus of my contribution is on the technological, instrumentalist character of learning theories that are generally central to the way that the value of educational technology is conceptualized. Here’s the first paragraph:

Even the most rudimentary definitions of the term ‘technology’ indicate that its meaning extends far beyond artefacts and devices to include processes, methods, means and applied knowledge. It is therefore surprising how rarely instructional theories, methods and applications –e.g., learning theories learning designs or learning environments — are considered specifically as technologies in the relevant literature. This chapter focuses on the instrumental nature of the concept ‘learning’ and learning theory, which Gert Biesta and others have characterized as being manifest in a ‘new language of learning.’ This refers to a vocabulary or discourse that, for example, characterizes ‘‘teaching’ [as the] ‘facilitation of learning’ [and], ‘education’ [as the] ‘provision of learning opportunities’’ (Haugsbak & Nordkvelle, 2007, p. 2). The paper argues that this vocabulary represents a particular technologization or instrumentalization of education, a process that makes educational practices and priorities appear germane to, or even incomplete without, technological rationalization and reshaping. This paper traces how this vocabulary casts learning as a natural and universal process, and quite consistently accompanies the promotion of a range of technological artifacts in education. Running from the introduction of ‘teaching machines’ through to current visions of school reform, this theoretical lexicon will be shown to efface its cultural and ideological contingency through a quasi-scientific ‘neutrality’ and a biologically-based universality, and to limit the possibility for educational discourse and practice.

Download a draft version of this paper.

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Who was Klaus Mollenhauer?

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Norm Friesen

I’ve been working on the introduction for the translation of Klaus Mollenhauer’s Forgotten Connections (more info about the book here). Through the generous of Alex Aβmann, I’ve gotten a hold of some interviews and a photo (right). Some of the most interesting info is posted here:

We had a grand 8-room apartment… [and this] family household was at times overrun by escaped youth from [their imprisonment in] state “homes.” [While] my wife addressed some of their deeper insecurities, and answered their ongoing calls for breakfast, I would speak with student leaders about pedagogy and politics. [At other times, a young] Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin would carelessly burn holes in our upholstery with their cigarettes…[or] other young guests on LSD or hashish, lying around and listening to my music, would catch sight of me and ask: “What’s he doing here?”

Through this openness and activism, Mollenhauer would develop a favourable reputation among 1960’s activists as an engaged supporter of their sometimes radical attempts to throw off the shackles of previous generations. Indeed, the two troubled houseguests mentioned by Mollenhauer by name –Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin—were later to join Ulrike Meinhof (who Mollenhauer also knew) to form the militant Baader-Meinhof group or the Red Army Faction (RAF), which was later responsible for killings, bombings and a prominent political assassination in West Germany.

Mollenhauer’s thought and career is marked by a deep concern for social justice, and also by a profound tension between the inheritance from the past and the needs of the present..