Artichoke

Learning communities as cryptoforests

Wilfried Houjebek’s Cryptoforestry blog looks for “forests in cities” and for “cities in forests” – a purpose I want to adopt as I travel around different places working with schools in New Zealand. 

He describes cryptoforests as a “cultural and not a biological way to classify nature”.

And claims that “the recognition of a cryptoforest is a visionary act, not a mechanical operation: there is no machine vision here.”

1) Feral forests (Planted tree zones, for instance along motorways, that have been allowed to become wild to the point that their wildness is outgrowing their manmadeness.)

2) In limbo forests (Tree-covered plots that feel like forests but technically probably aren't; states of vegetation for which lay-language has no name.)

3) Incognito Forests (Forests that have gone cryptic and are almost invisible, forests in camouflage, forests with a talent for being ignored.)

4) Precognitive forests (Lands that are on the brink of becoming forested, a future forest fata morgana.)

5) Unappreciated forests (Forests regarded as zones of waste and weed, forests shaming planners, developers, and the neighbourhood. NIMBY forestry.)  

It is a lovely way of looking at forests – one that allows us to more widely imagine what the connection between human systems and natural ecosystems might be.

And it makes me want to look at "learning" and “learning communities/networks” in a similarly "visionary" way.

1) Feral learning communities (Learning communities, for instance associated with a prior event or a conference, that have been allowed to become wild to the point that their wildness is outgrowing their manmadeness.)

2) In limbo learning communities (Imposed or artificially populated teacher learning communities that feel like learning communities/networks but technically probably aren't; communities formed to meet a contract outcome; states of networking for which lay-language has no name.)

3) Incognito learning communities (Learning communities that have gone cryptic and are almost invisible, communities in camouflage, communities with a talent for being ignored.)

4) Precognitive learning communities (Communities that are on the brink of becoming learning communities, a future learning community fata morgana.)

5) Unappreciated learning communities (Learning communities regarded as zones of extremism, immaturity, irresponsibility, belligerence, anecdote, and romanticism; communities embarrassing those with institutional authority, policy writers, politicians and curriculum developers, and the neighbourhood. NIMBY learning communities.)

I can identify examples of each but it is likely I will not understand these learning communities fully until I find a way to join them.

Houjebek uses this lovely extract in his post A forager's critique of the 'Anthropocene' to argue that the Western mind misunderstands wilderness.  It comes from Nelson's 'Make Prayers to the Raven'

This apparently untrodden forest and tundra country is thoroughly known by a people whose entire lives and cultural ancestry are inextricably associated with it. The lakes, hills, river bends, sloughs, and creeks are named and imbued with personal or cultural meanings. Indeed to the Koyukon these lands are no more a wilderness than are farmlands to a farmer or streets to a city dweller. At best we can call them a wildland. 

The fact that Westerners identify this remote country as wilderness reflects their inability to conceive of occupying and utilizing an environment without fundamentally altering its natural state. But the Koyukon people and their ancestors have done precisely this over a protracted span of time. From this viewpoint, they have made a highly effective adjustment to living as members of an ecosystem, pursuing a form of adaptation that fosters the successful coexistence of humanity and nature within a single community.  

 In a society where teachers have always worked for institutions perhaps we are similarly blind to the many learning communities that exist amongst the un-schooled, the ex-schooled, the après-schooled and the post-schooled.

E. M. Forster captured this blindness from a different angle -

As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take this examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one would be a penny the stupider.

Is it possible that we fail to recognise embedded learning communities? – those that occupy and utilise micro-environments and cracks in the surfaces – those that do not need kilometres of corridors, acres of IWB covered walls and square metres of tarmac covered parking spaces?   

Houjebek goes on to cite Ellis and Ramankutty who argue that we have reached a period of geological time (Anthropocene) where it is “we who decide what nature is and what it will be”.  They claim that nowadays we “live in human systems with natural ecosystems embedded within them” rather than the flip.

So “Culture” embeds “Nature”, and “Society” embeds “Ecosystems”.

Furthermore Ellis and Ramankutty argue that our decisions on “what nature is and what it will be” are predicated on economic reasoning. 

“Where wilderness remains, it’s often only because exploitation is still unprofitable.”

They reduce the role of conservation management to “My Little Pony” like species domestication …

“Conservation management turns wild animals into a new form of pets.” 

This seems similar to our interest as educators in taking over/capturing/embedding “unappreciated learning communities” if we think they might add authenticity to our “in limbo learning communities”.  For instance, look at our renewed interest in the learning communities of MMORPG gamers and FAN fiction writers.

“what learning  is and what it will be” is much like “what nature is and what nature will be”  -  both are embedded within society – both are things that society decides.

The recent events in Japan (and for that matter Christchurch) might cause a re-appraisal of these culture embedding nature arguments as hubris and vainglorious ambition.

Camille Paglia would most likely reject them … In Sexual Personae she sees nature prominent - in the driving seat – the embedder rather than the embedded.

"Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements. To this day, communities are few in regions scorched by heat or shackled by ice. Civilized man conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. The grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorbs his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug, and all is in ruin. Fire, flood, lightning, tornado, hurricane, volcano, earthquake - anywhere at anytime. Disaster falls upon the good and the bad. Civilised life requires a state of illusion. The idea of the ultimate benevolence of nature and God is the most potent of man's survival mechanisms. Without it, culture would revert to fear and despair."  Sexual Personae 1991 Chapter 1 “Sex and Violence, or Nature and Art"

Perhaps learning needs to shrug a little.

On limiting learning and impairing comprehension with mobile technologies

I’d guess there aren’t too many educators who are unaware of the research suggesting that using marijuana or drinking alcohol may limit learning outcomes.  Using marijuana can impair short term memory and concentration and blood alcohol content (BAC) readings between 0.09 and 0.25% are associated with impaired memory and comprehension.

The ways in which alcohol and drug use can limit learning and comprehension are common knowledge amongst educators.   Any proposal to introduce marijuana and or alcohol for student use at school is likely to be rejected by governments, parents, educators or students.

The research that suggests reading from a screen is different from reading from print resources seems less well known. 

The ways in which reading from a screen can limit learning and comprehension is not common knowledge for governments, parents, educators, students or sales representatives.  Any caveat over readability issues and the betrayal of learning outcomes is largely ignored.

Educators have instead focused their attention on the research that suggests the personal use of mobile devices is on the rise, and on the growing resource of educational resources available for students to access on mobile devices.  Refer Horizon 2011 Report pdf

For example, notable New Zealand e-learning  conferences like ULearn and Learning at School   widely cite the future trendiness and ubiquity of mobile technologies - I have yet to nudge up against a keynote speaker who references readability issues when reading online.

Indeed it is the ubiquitous nature of mobile technologies that provides the rationale behind many educational proposals to increase student access to mobile devices. At the start of the school year in NZ the edu Twitter stream was awash with primary school teachers announcing the arrival of class sets of mobile devices (IPads and iPods) for student use in schools.

In embracing ubiquity as a rationale for implementation we neglect to ask about the stuff that matters most – learning outcomes.    

How many discussions around the introduction of mobile technologies to primary schools sees BOT, principals and senior management, educators, parents, students and sales representatives discussing the implications for student learning outcomes before the decision is made to purchase and introduce a mobile screen?  

Neil Postman alerted us to the importance of looking at what is enhanced and what is betrayed when we adopt technological solutions a long time ago – check out his essay on the five things we need to know about technological change.

So why aren’t we more curious about how learning outcomes might be betrayed by the use of mobile technologies?

Why don’t we look for the research findings around learning outcomes when students read from a desktop screen or from a mobile device and how these might compare with reading from print?

Anne Mangen’s 2008 exploration into reading with new technologies asks the question that more of us should be exploring as we introduce mobile technologies into classrooms. 

How does digital technology change the way we read?

You can access her thinking here in  Hypertext fiction reading: haptics and immersion Journal of Research in Reading, Volume 31, Issue 4, 2008, pp 404–419 pdf

Do we neglect to look at the learning outcomes because of the din from the advertising and media narratives? Or are we naively seduced by the e-marketeers?

“We approach our technologies through a battery of advertising and media narratives; it is hard to think above the din.” Turkle, Sherry. (Ed.). The inner history of devices. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. p4

For whatever the reason we cannot ignore that print reading is different from screen reading – and Dr Jacob Nielsen’s  research into web usability is the perfect place for curious educators to find out why

Exploring the research around readability issues leads me to raise many questions about the introduction of mobile technologies for primary and secondary students with varying levels of literacy.

For example

What does it mean for primary and secondary students using mobile technologies in schools if a quick exploration of the research on reader usability shows that;

1. Text comprehension drops when we read on mobile devices.  The ability to comprehend complex web content drops by more than half if adults are asked to do this on an iPhone sized screen.

Research using a Cloze test shows that comprehension scores for adults reading complex web content on an iPhone-sized screen is 48% comprehension scores obtained when reading from a desktop monitor.   

Singh, R. I., Sumeeth, M., & Miller, J. (2011). Evaluating the Readability of Privacy Policies in Mobile Environments. International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction (IJMHCI), 3(1), 55-78. doi:10.4018/jmhci.2011010104

If we assume that this research can be generalised to primary and secondary students we can ask

How will the readability issues of online texts on mobile technologies with smaller screen sizes – reduced comprehension -  affect the learning outcomes of students?

2.  Reading text (long-form) is slower on tablets (iPad, Kindle) than reading print text for adults (with at least high school levels of literacy).

Research on reading speeds (July 2010) suggests that reading on paper is between 10% to 30% faster than reading online. (For recent reserach try Jakob Nielsen  and from the past - try Kurniawan, S., and P Zaphiris (2001) Reading Online or on Paper: Which is Faster? In Proceedings of the 9 th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction.)

If we assume that this research can be generalised to primary and secondary students we can ask …

How will the readability issues of online texts on mobile technologies - reduced reading speeds – affect the learning outcomes of students?

3.  Adults with low literacy levels show markedly different reading behaviours when reading on the screen than high literacy users.  

Research conducted for Pizer describes how adults with low literacy levels “plow text rather than scan it, and they miss page elements due to a narrower field of view”.  Jacob Nielsen 2005 

The most notable difference between lower- and higher-literacy users is that lower-literacy users can't understand a text by glancing at it. They must read word for word and often spend considerable time trying to understand multi-syllabic words.Lower-literacy users focus exclusively on each word and slowly move their eyes across each line of text. In other words, they "plow" the text, line by line. This gives them a narrow field of view and they therefore miss objects outside the main flow of the text they're reading. Unlike higher-literacy users, lower-literacy users don't scan text. As a result, for example, they can't quickly glance at a list of navigation options to select the one they want. They must read each word in each option carefully. Their only other choice is to completely skip over large amounts of information, which they often do when things become too complicated. Lower-literacy users tend to satisfice -- accept something as "good enough" -- based on very little information because digging deeper requires too much reading, which is both challenging and time consuming. As soon as text becomes too dense, lower-literacy users start skipping, usually looking for the next link. In doing so, they often overlook important information. In addition, having to scroll breaks lower-literacy users' visual concentration because they can't use scanning to find the place they left off. Finally, search creates problems for lower-literacy users for two reasons. First, they often have difficulty spelling the query terms. Second, they have difficulty processing search results, which typically show weird, out-of-context snippets of text. As a result, lower-literacy users often simply pick the first hit on the list, even if it's not the most appropriate for their needs.

Nielsen provides some interesting webpage usability metrics comparing low literacy and high literacy outcomes for success rate (whether people could perform the task), time needed to complete tasks and user satisfaction (subjective)

Success rate	46 %	68 %
Time needed	22.3 minutes	14.3 minutes
User satisfaction	3.3	3.7

If we assume that this research can be generalised to primary and secondary students we can ask

How will the readability issues of online texts on mobile technologies affect the learning outcomes of students with low literacy?

How will the time needed to complete tasks by students with low literacy be affected by the introduction of mobile technologies?

I was interested to see that although adult low literacy readers took significantly longer to complete the tasks and had a significantly lower success rate – they self-rated their satisfaction at similar levels to adult high literacy users.

This research on low literacy adults learning outcomes when reading from the web align well with the outcomes recorded in Keryn Pratt’s research on primary students learning outcomes when searching online.  As Pratt explains – internet searching is done a lot in schools – and students are confident even optimistic about how well they search.

One of the most common uses of information and communication technology (ICT) in schools is using the Internet for research (see Becker, 1999; Lai & Pratt, 2003; Lai, Pratt & Trewern, 2001; Smerdon et al., 2000), yet only limited information is available regarding children’s Internet searching behaviour (Kuiper, Volman & Terwel, 2005). What is clear from the research that has been done is that children are generally not very successful in doing this ( Bilal, 2000; Schacter, Chung & Dorr, 1998), and that they use only limited search strategies (Bilal, 2000; 2001; 2002; Large & Beheshti 2000; Shacter et al 1998; Wallace & Kuperman, 1997). A review by Hsieh-Yee (2001) of children and adults’ search behaviour found that:

Children could interact with the Internet; they did not search systematically; they preferred browsing; and they had difficulty typing search terms, formulating search statements and judging the quality of Web pages. However, all the children felt confident about their Web searches (e.g. Kafai & Bates, 1997; Large et al 1999; Schacter et al., 1998) (p. 172).  

From Children’s Internet searching: Where do they go wrong? Keryn Pratt University of Otago CINZS Vol 21 No 1 2009 

4.  Children are not very good at doing internet research.

Although the usefulness of mobile technologies is often framed in terms of the ease of access to information – anywhere, anytime etc -  Pratt’s research with NZ students confirms that of many others – students may appear, confident, connected and engaged but they do not get good learning outcomes when researching online.

Pratt describes how Year 4 and Year 8 students in Dunedin schools did not get good learning outcomes when using the internet to search for information (both well-defined and ill-defined searching).  One of the problems seems to lie in their inability to comprehend (think critically about) the content they access.

In line with previous research, students did not perform particularly well on these searching tasks. However, examination of the results shows that it was not the mechanics of searching that seemed to be the problem. All but one student at either year level had navigated to a page containing the information for which they were looking (either a website they visited or a results page for one of their searches), which suggests they were able to identify appropriate search terms. Instead, the problem these students had was identifying the correct information within the site. This would seem to fit Lazonder’s (2000) model, which divided searching into two stages: locating the site and locating the information. However, many of the students did have trouble with locating the site, albeit not with the mechanics, but rather with the identification of it as the correct site. Children’s Internet Searching: Where do they go wrong 

If we assume that this research can be generalised to other primary and secondary students we can ask

How will the learning outcomes of students be affected when they are encouraged to use mobile technologies for researching and reading content online?

It all makes me wonder why we do not look out for the ways that mobile technologies might undermine and compromise student learning outcomes before we rush to adopt them. 

What is our professional responsibility in looking for strengths and weaknesses when introducing a screen reading technology that can limiting learning outcomes?

It is hard to imagine a future when home-school communication might read like this …

Dear Parents,

We are determined to take education at [insert school name here] truly into the 21^st century. We want to reinvent our school to meet the needs of the 21^st century and we need your help to shift a few paradigms.

Select one of the following to insert

1.  We’d like your approval to introduce a technology to classrooms that research shows will slow the rate at which high literacy students will be able to read and comprehend text.

2.  We need your help to fund the introduction of a technology that research shows will most likely compromise and limit learning outcomes for low literacy students at our school BUT will leave all students feeling optimistic and confident about their learning outcomes.

3.  We can offer special placement options for your student to learn in a digital classroom where they can have ready access to the internet for researching content – something research shows will result in naff learning outcomes in the locating relevant information bit and the finding the important ideas bit. 

We want [insert name of school her] to be bold. We want [insert name of school her] to break the mould.  We want to be flexible, creative, challenging, and complex.  We need mobile technologies to be all these things for your children. 

Regards  ….   

On taking the pandas out of the NZ Curriculum

The young man with the oversized WWF panda on his jacket was not in the least surprised by my response.

I didn’t know that the NZ Government had taken “wildlife” out of the curriculum.  

“Not many people do”, he answered conspiratorially. “What’s more your neighbours don’t think “wildlife” should be taken out of the curriculum, and nor do we …. we all want children to learn about “wildlife”.

Mr WWF was voluble, enormously sincere and quite compelling. Misunderstanding my initial reaction (to the audacity of his claim) as belief in its truthiness, he was emboldened to make wilder and wilder claims. 

Apparently the NZ government had not been content with deleting all mention of “wildlife” from the curriculum – it had gone further and expunged anything relating to “the environment” as well.

“The NZ government doesn’t think our children need to know about our clean green environment”. His eyes widened in genuine distress.  “… so what do you think of that?”

I let him continue without once letting on that his arrival had dragged me away from the NZ curriculum document where I had been critiquing some teacher planning featuring both “wildlife” and “the environment”.

Sometimes in life it is best not to spoil the moment – this was suburban street theatre and quite the most entertaining interruption of a day spent writing resources and answering email. 

And all too soon we got to the kicker – the need for a generous donation of my money to get the “wildlife” back in the curriculum.  I still regret that I did not press him for detail at this point – a curriculum is a political document and if a global multinational can buy space for their product placement it would be good to know.

It must have been the newness of my black T-shirt because I got the double donation offer - I could make an additional donation and help fund teams of people to clean up “the environment” – the one that our government and curriculum documents so neglect.

At that point I explained (as gently as I could) that I did not want to pay to put “wildlife” back in the curriculum or for that matter for teams of people to clean up “the environment”.  Perhaps there would be others more caring than I further down the street.  We parted on good terms.  The man in the panda jacket took his script and his clip board and went to find another audience - I returned to the NZ Curriculum document. 

The interesting thing about the whole exchange was that contrary to the WWF script playing out on doorsteps in my neighbourhood, “wildlife” and “the environment” have not gone anywhere – they remain strong players in the NZ curriculum documents. 

I can find places for learning about pandas and the environment in all curriculum learning areas - English, The Arts, Health and Physical education, Learning languages,  Mathematics and statistics, Science, Social sciences and in Technology.

To take something obvious - the achievement objectives in Learning Area > Science> Living World> Ecology have many opportunities for learning about “wildlife”.

Living World

Ecology

Level One and Level Two

- Recognise that living things are suited to their particular habitat.

Level Three and Level Four

 - Explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to environmental changes, both natural and human-induced.

Level Five

 - Investigate the interdependence of living things (including humans) in an ecosystem.

Level Six

 - Investigate the impact of natural events and human actions on a New Zealand ecosystem.

Level Seven

 - Explore ecological distribution patterns and explain possible causes for these patterns.

 - Explain how the interaction between ecological factors and natural selection leads to genetic changes within populations.

Level Eight

 - Understand the relationship between organisms and their environment.

 - Explore the evolutionary processes that have resulted in the diversity of life on Earth and appreciate the place and impact of humans within these processes.

 - Understand how humans manipulate the transfer of genetic information from one generation to the next and make informed judgments about the social, ethical, and biological implications relating to this manipulation.

In truth if I had my way I’d be voting to limit the amount of panda and enviro - study that goes on in NZ schools and balance it with explorations of the material and physical world and the nature of science – which do seem to be underrepresented in curriculum overviews. 

It made me wonder if the WWF really does believe that “wildlife” and “the environment” have been deleted from the curriculum or if it was just some kind of cynical WWF spin to extract funds from those who live in the suburbs - the middleclasses with their identified weakness for celebrity wildlife - the photogenic pandas and their ilk.

Perhaps it is all about how we interpret and understand words. A situation where "wildlife" is not seen as a subset of living thing.  Ecosystems and habitat are not seen as being connected to "the environment".

Perhaps it is that learning is seen as being far more tightly scripted than it is in New Zealand classrooms.

Words are funny things – so many educational conversations seem simply an exchange of slogans – we are careless with meaning – failing to elaborate on what we mean by what we claim – which in turn limits our progress in making any real change to the outcomes that bother us most.  

A study that clearly shows the perils of using words in education without carefully teasing out their meaning is this one by Westby and Dawson which found that whilst elementary school teachers claimed to value creativity in classrooms - they reported distaste for students demonstrating personality traits associated with creativity. I don't know if the results are generalisable - the sample size is small - but it is disturbing nonetheless.

As Jonah Lehrer opines in this post  creativity is complicated.

Everybody wants a creative child - in theory. The reality of creativity, however, is a little more complicated, as creative thoughts tend to emerge when we're distracted, daydreaming, disinhibited and not following the rules. In other words, the most imaginative kids are often the trouble-makers.

Reference: Erik L. Westby; V. L. Dawson (1995) Creativity: Asset or burden in the classroom? Creativity Research Journal, Volume 8, Issue 1 January, pages 1 – 10 pdf