In spite of our best efforts at incorporating public transportation and, in the warmer months, serious commuter bike mileage, I spend an alarming amount of time ferrying offspring hither and yon. This precludes a lot of other activities, including any consistent writing for such things as open courses. But, depending on the traffic level and the weather, the drive time does foster opportunities to muse upon the events and information of the day.

So in musing about my brief, once-over-lightly, tip-of-the-iceberg foray into learning analytics descriptions and commentary, I found myself reflecting on my agreement with Viplav Baxi‘s response to George Siemens’ question about learning analytics critiques: the potential and actualization of learning and knowledge analytics will make our current systems of assessment and other learning processes look like a horse and buggy before the invention of the wheel.

OK, so I’ve rephrased this a bit, caught up as I am in the role of transportation jockey. But I’ve just spent the past week driving a most modern horseless carriage.  And it struck me as I inched along in a fresh three inches of chemically-converted slush that the vehicle comes equipped with a rudimentary form of “learning analytics,” especially in terms of feedback mechanisms. And here I’ve become acutely aware of the persistent discrepancies between the ideal and the reality from the learner/driver end of the equation as the technologies – and maybe even our psychological processes – undergo developmental and adaptive changes.

True, my car and I agree on the big picture. The point is to get from location A to location B in a safe manner while consuming as few fossil fuels as possible. It was ever thus. (Well, at least in this house, since we have never understood why one would drive vehicles insouciantly named after the landscapes they’re destroying… tundra, sequoia, etc.).

But now my car has taken on the role of data provider and driving analyst in ways that the venerable Small Outdoorsy Wagon has never done. It “responds” to my driving through various signals and signs. It’s a bit trying, at least in this initial phase.

For example, in the name of safety, the car is equipped with numerous bells and whistles, and yes, I mean this literally.  The one most perplexing to me is the Mack-truck-in-reverse beeping that occurs when I put this considerably less intimidating vehicle into reverse. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Every. Damn. Time…. I leave the garage. It’s not even outside the car. This I could see as a reasonable warning to others that the vehicle and a driver of indeterminate skill are on the move. But it’s inside the car. There’s no override. There’s no volume control. And I’m wondering what research has shown that such vast numbers of drivers are so confused about whether they are coming or going while piloting this car that all drivers need to be warned that they’re going backward.

Or how about the orange “slipping tires” warning light that blinks if there are…well, slipping tires? Which is about, oh, every quarter mile with our current road conditions. My peripheral vision is constantly caught by the flash of Threat Level Orange just off to the left, behind the steering wheel. What’s going to happen over time? I’m going to learn to ignore it, I suspect, which probably wasn’t the intent. And as an experienced driver, believe me, I know if I’m spinning my wheels and need to change tactics. Flashing lights at me just increases the number of things vying for my attention under already problematic circumstances.

I’m also feeling a bit ambiguous about the sheer volume of data that is suddenly available to me as a driver. True, dashboards (and I’ll point out my laptop has one, too) through the ages have provided drivers with all sorts of information. Speed being of most interest, I suppose, both when it was hard to come by and now, when it’s hard to keep down. Fuel gauge. Engine temperature. Oil level. Add some trip mileage. A clock. The radio controls.

What strikes me now, however, is that the degree of precision in this information has increased tremendously. True, it’s my choice (or is it?) to react to the data, but I’m finding a digital readout of 54, 55, 56, 57 (oops) to be a more exhaustive and rigid taskmaster than a needle quivering around the 55 mph mark on a dial. This is also true for the second set of feedback mechanisms that have suddenly appeared: the Hybrid System Indicator. All of a sudden, I know not only my exact trip mileage, but also have second-by-second information on battery power. And on how far I can travel on the remaining fuel at the current rate of speed (as if I could maintain that speed in rush hour traffic). And on exactly how many gallons are left in the tank. And on whether I’m pulling from the battery, from the gas, from both, or whether and how much I’m charging the battery (available as a scaled readout or as an animated illustration that reminds me of those movies of blood flowing through the heart chambers). And even more addictive: I can know the average number of miles I’m getting per gallon every single moment, to one place behind the decimal point. I’m not much of a gamer, but we’ve already developed a friendly household competition to see who comes back to the garage with the highest score.

So one question from a learning perspective is: has this information and analysis (provided partly by the car, and partly through my interpretations) somehow changed my behavior or knowledge as a driver? In this “getting to know you period,” I’d say yes. It’s easy, for example, to use the power monitoring to make minor adjustments to the acceleration rate when pulling away from a stop sign, especially if you’ve developed an aversion to seeing the little indicator zoom into the brown (cleverly equaling “yucky”) fossil fuels zone.

But the other thing that concerns me is how much time I spend looking at these gauges, drawn in by the hobgoblins of consistency and accuracy and constant feedback, and the mixed-motive enticements of low fuel consumption/less pollution/economic savings. The speedometer checks are actually more essential, as the quietness of the high tech engine makes it hard to recognize the speed at which I’m travelling; in other words, I have more potentially “useful” information and thus greater potential control over my “results,” but I am receiving fewer environmental cues. (And how much precision does one really need? Do I really need to know that the car’s interior is 67 degrees, and will my driving experience be all that much cozier if I set it to 69? And finding out that my life behind the wheel averages 23 miles per hour? I think I’d have rather not known.)

I’ve also become acutely aware that consistent monitoring and making use of all this information means… less time looking at the road. Paying less attention to the other cars. Pretty much ignoring the scenery. I might have more safety warnings, but my new, information-rich processes aren’t necessarily contributing to more safe or enjoyable procedures. And all of this information and the constant adjustments I make in response create, I can attest, a more mentally fatiguing driving experience. (Something I, three months into a snowy, x-hundred-rush-hour-miles-a-week winter, wouldn’t have thought possible).

So how much of this new wealth of information and responsive feedback will I simply begin to incorporate without this extra refelection over time? To what degree will I assert my autonomy as a driver and simply ignore what I see as bothersome analysis, fuel consumption results be damned?  How soon will all of this be old hat, whereby the constant exposure to the technology will gradually wear me down into unreflective compliance with those digital measuring sticks, and I’ll likely forget the initial dissonance of these changes? And what about the household’s driver-in-training, whose arcane, state-required  “driver’s education” tells new drivers to honk at bicyclists ahead of them as a warning (wtf?) and preaches about the dangers of cell phones behind the wheel, but doesn’t begin to recognize the new cognitive demands of driving such a technically advanced vehicle, with four screens worth of data accessible via a steering wheel control?

On the other side: does this discussion really capture the full potential of– or any reasonable hesitation about– the sophisticated complexity of learning analytics?  It’s more about an interim or introductory stage in driving analytics, to be sure. Already, there are cars that do far more than mine. Some remember, for example, the preferred interior settings of each individual driver. Some, like the Google car, even drive themselves. Ultimately, it’s clear that I’ll be adjusting to the vehicle, not the other way around, which seems indeed to be the most rudimentary of “responsive” systems.

I also recognize that this conversation is still all about driving, and that’s a paradigm problem. I can get pretty excited about 47.7 miles per gallon when I’d gotten used to a (mentally calculated) 28 mpg. But these new numbers, no matter how improved, aren’t a seriously effective response to the larger implications of fossil fuel consumption in a shifting climate. Better mileage is insufficient for the leap we need to make. So I’m hoping this, too, reflects an interim, rather than ultimate, solution. I’d say the very act of driving needs to be scrutinized as well, along with a whole host of other forms of consumption. (Teleportation, anyone?)

And finally, I’d note that the seductive power of the oversimplified analogy can create a misleading but unfortunately persistent picture. So I suspect I’d best spend more time surveying the route maps and take these musings for another drive… and thoughtfully prepare to cross some fancy new bridges as I come to them. 

How do you approach a party where you know few people, if any? Chat with anyone? Loiter near the potted plants? Maybe the hosts can offer some initial introductions, circulate, and foster conversational ease, but they can’t be everywhere at once. They’re not really there to entertain you; instead, the event is simply an end in itself. And there’s almost always food. Maybe the hosts kindly provide snacks, but in Minnesota, it’s often the guests who bring hotdishes.

A variety of party preferences

Inevitably, some people leave the party earlier than others. Some people hang around for the “after party.” Some people gather to play strange instruments in the den. Me? If I have a good conversation somewhere along the line with two or three people, it’s been a successful evening—usually for all three or four of us. Hosts or other guests may choose to drink merrily, play strip poker, or sing with the karaoke machine; if these excitations become expectations, people might be disappointed in me. I understand if they don’t invite me again… but it probably isn’t an event I’d attend again, anyway.

This party-oriented digression is really a follow-up to what I wrote two years ago about my thoughts on participating in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). While find my thinking at this point is roughly the same, I would offer one newer observation: that a MOOC designation might cause unnecessary concern among new participants and lead to an expectation of differentness or magnitude that distracts from the small, cumulative learning moments that such opportunities create.

I have begun to wonder if a MOOC creates AIA, or Acronym Induced Anxiety. With the MOOC known as PLENK (Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge) steeped in examination of PLEs and PLNs, maybe the desire to capture complex concepts by catchphrase and abbreviation—the desire to create an identifiable banner around which people might rally– might interfere with the very concepts being promoted. Might these terms be OBN (OverBurdened Nomenclature)? Learning in a massive open online course sounds…big and scary. How about learning as an open, online salon, or an open, online party… with an abundant buffet (on)line? Might take some pressure off of everyone.

In a similar vein of trying to communicate a vision of the MOOC concept, Stephen Downes recently sounded a call that those with experience in these courses/parties/buffests should take responsibility for assisting newer learners, rather than leaving this to the “teachers.” In other words, perhaps, he’d like guests to share more hotdishes.

“…my thinking was that more experienced people should be creating introductory content to help people new to the material… traditional learning … leads to a selfishness in learning, as you are encouraged to focus only on your own learning (even when you are working in groups) and not on helping other people (that’s “teacher’s job”)…”

One thing I know after years of hotdish exposure: they’re not always to everyone’s taste, and nothing distracts from an elegant buffet more than tater-tot topping framed in Corningware. And while I agree that unique understandings contribute to the overall whole, given the bountiful smorgasboard available to everyone in PLENK, I’m not inclined to presume I have any recipe of helpfulness in this environment that others cannot– or perhaps would better– arrive at on their own, following paths that are more meaningful to them and their own circumstances. In understanding various communication styles, it has been helpful for me to recognize that an expression of concern or frustration or confusion or annoyance is not (necessarily) the same as a request for help. And often as not, one person’s “helpfulness” can be another’s “interference.”

Choosing a personally meaningful path to learning

Along the lines of putting on one’s own oxygen mask before assisting others, I’m pretty sure that an emphasis on one’s own learning is not really an obstruction to helping others’ learning. Far from the idea that “personal learning” or a personal focus embodies a selfish approach to learning (since this seems to be the underlying concern), the “personal” in learning for me recognizes, among other things, the imperative of taking personal responsibility for learning, as opposed to externalizing the responsibility for learning (or the blame for not learning) to a course, an institution, a delivery style, a system, another person, or even a network.

I agree that this should not result in focused development of “my” learning, and my learning only, forever and ever. I would, however, gently observe that just because learners’ outreach and artifacts are not visible in one community or network at a given time does not mean they do not exist in another. Quid pro quo is a problematic calculation in a temporally and geographically dispersed and diverse world (and in recognizing the diverse agendas brought to a MOOC), and technology is not always the answer. Additionally, I am inclined toward heutagogical views that suggest effective adult learning is largely achieved through challenging and understanding the self, and suggest that the act of self-challenge, more than any resulting artifact, is a useful and empowering model for others. (True,”ROI” or “assessment” folks aren’t going to find enough nourishment here.)

In this potluck environment, I do think a note of caution is needed here. I have been concerned when ideas about support and connection and openness and separateness and independence and learning that is personal (in any context) are placed into boxes of mutual exclusiveness or opposition. While the approaches of mapped, quantitative, “show me the openness” social connections are considered to be social visions based in positive community development and generosity, I could also see the elevation of these values as an effort to address fears about loneliness or isolation. In a related vein, I am concerned that too great an emphasis on the communal and a rejection of the personal and the idea of the independent self in connective learning may not respect developmental processes, including those related to adult learning. While it is not necessary to swallow such concepts wholesale, I would be reluctant to ignore theories related to individuation and psychological differentiation, and am led to wonder if the insistently communal prevents us or allows us to avoid peeking into the conceptual existential abyss of aloneness – a process which has been posited as a necessity for adult maturation. I continue to consider whether or how connective learning theory might need to recognize quieter and qualitative connective intimacy (or resonance) and self-efficacy.

Like all learners, adults have developmental and affective–dare one say "personal"– learning needs

(As a side note: George Siemens observed in an Elluminate session last week that advances in neuroscience are providing groundbreaking new understandings about learning psychology. Much of this work addresses so-called “abnormal” mental functions in learning and decision-making, but this work, Rifkin notwithstanding, is relatively new – and is controversial-  in its approach to empathy, mindfulness, and other tenets of the humanistic psychology referenced here.)

Ultimately, I believe the concepts of support, connection, independence and the personal are not so much ends of spectrums or dichotomies as they are ingredients in the worldview stew of complexity and ambiguity we are attempting to pin down (perhaps too narrowly?) through the alphabet soup of learning referenced above.

By the same token, since we all have different seats around the living room, I can see where a host might see the benefit of more or different fare to expand the party buffet and atmosphere. So I will share here three recipes I have used in my learning– MOOC or no MOOC– that have provided some nourishment.

Play

A playful mindset has been a pretty important element not only for its own sake and for enhancing learning in unconventional ways, but also as a way of leavening some of the deeper and darker considerations that learning about learning brings forth.

What’s your problem?

I find myself inclined to look at new ideas not as a totally separate land, as a topic to be mastered, or as a simple disciplinary expansion, but as a set of concepts and approaches to be sorted through, applied, adapted and/or discarded in order to solve a problem. Indeed, without the existence of a problem, conundrum, issue, or puzzlement to apply new learning to, I’m not sure I’d see the point in pursuing a MOOC—or any course, for that matter.

This might sound like a slippery slope to anti-intellectualism—bypassing learning for learning’s sake, and all that—but as far as I’m concerned, life’s busy and I’ve got important things to do—including nurturing others in learning. In this context, I’m willing to entertain all ideas, no matter how initially bizarre, as long as I can ultimately subject them to a rather ruthless evaluation of what works at this moment in time for a given set of particular circumstances. That I am also filing away ideas that don’t work for future reference, knowing that time and circumstances change, is both a bonus and an essential part of any creative process, contributing to the incubation of further ideas.

Incubation doesn't create a lot of "artifacts"

And, should it be helpful to other learners, I will defend the quiet and slow process of incubation as a known and legitimate stage of learning, intuition and creativity. (I suspect that creativity and wisdom are potentially states that both result from and go beyond connective learning, but that’s a different conversation.) While I cannot guarantee that the bigger and less easily captured/more complex/ill-defined/wicked any given problem is, the more incubation it takes, I do know that producing artifacts for the short term can take away time from the longer-term processes related to creative development. (See also: “one good thought a week.”)

And to the immediate objections that a “problem” not discussed in an open environment is cutting off its nose to spite its face, let me counter that complex, creative and even social problem solving draws on elements well beyond the metrics of sharing and connecting. I don’t think that sophisticated thinkers in this area are claiming otherwise, but I do think we have a gap in how this is being communicated to broader publics. I’d suggest that any complex problem includes the qualitative, the affective and even the psychological within a community, and that process evaluations based on openness/not open or connected/insufficiently connected are overly-simplistic measures when working with human beings.

Working in translation

A third approach I take to learning is related to the first in instigating a problem scenario, and is an oldie-but-goodie: make a commitment to communicate or “teach” what I’m learning. This doesn’t necessarily mean hashing out my developing view of the fine points among the like-minded or similarly curious within the MOOC. Rather, testing and translating new concepts among more diverse and less familiar communities and contexts offers a different set of emergent challenges. Yes, few of us are “experts” in the acronymic concepts here. But I’ve found no better reality check than taking even the basics to the local street corner.

While I appreciate the idea of learning from the modeling of masters and in conversation with similar peers, I also find much of my learning occurs in trying to understand others’ not-understanding, and in trying articulate my understandings in the face of reasonable skepticism (but preferably stopping well short of evangelism). Relocating to another’s viewpoint, adopting the beginner’s mind, and working to understand how and why people think about, believe, and react affectively to new ideas helps me understand what essential elements or worldviews might inhibit or incapacitate shifting conceptions of learning, and perhaps to discover some unexpected conceptual compatibility.

That said, discussing my learning in relation to others’ learning efforts and conversations in any detail offers an ongoing ethical conundrum, inherent in the ambiguous dance of qualitative, participant-observer situations. So ultimately, I do more listening at parties than talking. As noted in a previous post, this “silence” is not necessarily demonstrating a lack of participation or support.

And to return to the OBN of the MOOC: as far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t really mattered if the party is massive or not. If the party is small, I may have more conversations as those fewer people maneuver around the room, but might find less resonance as the array of ideas and expression is usually quantitatively smaller. Among bigger events, it’s always entertaining to hear the range of conversation, and the statistical chances of finding resonance are often higher, but it takes time and persistence to filter through the ambient noise… or to adequately sample the buffet.

So, whether PLE, PLN or OBN, here’s my hotdish buffet approach to a MOOC like PLENK:

Play…

Work a puzzle…

Translate…

…and party on.

“Play, which is more prevalent during the periods of most rapid brain development after birth (childhood), seems to continue the process of neural evolution, taking it even one step farther. Play also promotes the creation of new connections that didn’t exist before, new connections between neurons and between disparate brain centers. It is activated from and organizes what I call “divinely superfluous neurons.” These are neural connections that don’t seem to have an immediate function but when fired up by play are, in fact, essential to continued brain organization…

"...don't seem to have an immediate function..."

In playing we foster the creation of those new circuits and test them by running signals through them. Because play is a nonessential activity, this testing is done safely, when survival is not at stake….

Play isn’t the enemy of learning, it’s learning’s counterpart. Play is like fertilizer for brain growth. It’s crazy not to use it. As we grow older, we are taught that learning should be serious, that subjects are complicated. These serious subjects take serious study, we are told, and play only trivializes them… [But] sometimes the best way to get a feel of a complicated subject is to just play with it…

"... we are taught that learning must be serious..."

When play arises out of innate motivations it is also likely timed to occur when we are primed for the most synaptic neural growth. That is when we are embracing the issues that grab us most, the ones we may not even be able to voice logically…

Play is nature’s greatest tool for creating new neural networks and for reconciling cognitive difficulties… Stepping out of a normal routine, finding novelty, being open to serendipity, enjoying the unexpected, embracing a little risk, and finding pleasure in the heightened vividness of life. These are all qualities of a state of play…

"... stepping out of a normal routine..."

The world needs play because it enables each person to live a good life…”

From: Brown, Stuart and Vaughn, Christopher (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York: Avery.