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e-Learning Ecologies
e-Learning Ecologies explores transformations in the patterns of pedagogy that accompany e-learning―the use of computing devices that mediate or supplement the relationships between learners and teachers―to present and assess learnable content, to provide spaces where students do their work, and to mediate peer-to-peer interactions. Written by the members of the "new learning" research group, this textbook suggests that e-learning ecologies may play a key part in shifting the systems of modern education, even as technology itself is pedagogically neutral. The chapters in this book aim to create an analytical framework with which to differentiate those aspects of educational technology that reproduce old pedagogical relations from those that are genuinely innovative and generative of new kinds of learning. Featuring case studies from elementary schools, colleges, and universities on the practicalities of new learning environments, e-Learning Ecologies elucidates the role of new technologies of knowledge representation and communication in bringing about change to educational institutions.
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 2015
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July 1, 2017
E-Learning Ecologies: Principles for New Learning and Assessment by Bill Cope & Mary Kalantzis (eds,) (2017)
I expect a reasonable amount of accurate data, backed by a modicum of research, in a manuscript purported to inform or to illustrate an idea. E-Learning Ecologies meets this expectation and surpasses it several times over. With the quality and expertise of a university textbook, e-Learning Ecologies takes its reader into the world of education technology, not as a linear train ride through academia; rather, an interdimensional, multisensory transport takes you – to steal from Willy Wonka – frontways and backways and sideways and slantways through the technoverse from the perspective of education. If this sounds confusing, be not concerned. Cope & Kalantzis, editors and conductors of this train ride, carefully prepare you mentally with explanatory vernacular, academic vocabulary, and current academic jargon shared among active practitioners. So, fasten your cerebral seatbelts and prepare to learn about learning.
As I begin this review, I offer this caveat: Bill Cope is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, USA. Mary Kalantzis is Dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. E-Learning Ecologies is a collaborative work by members of the “’new learning’ research group” that is comprised of colleagues of Cope and Kalantzis, as well as postdoctoral students and graduate students at the University of Illinois. A project or product of this group is the Scholar platform, a program that puts into practice the fundamentals of e-learning. Scholar is featured throughout the book, an intentional promotion admitted by the editors (p. 2). With said advertising recognized, the information shared within this compilation is nonetheless valid and worth at least the perusal.
Cope & Kalantzis and fellow contributors contend that pedagogies, not technology, drive learning practices. Technology does not give birth to new pedagogy. In fact, Cope & Kalantzis make clear that “Technologies are pedagogically neutral” (p. 6). They divide pedagogies into two general camps, didactic pedagogy and reflexive pedagogy.
Didactic pedagogy offers the traditional practice that the teacher is the purveyor of knowledge while the students are the consumers of that knowledge. From that simple perspective, any means by which education imparts information, to be remembered or implied, among the consumers of knowledge nourishes that didactic pedagogy. Learning management systems, the flipped classroom, e-textbooks, intelligent tutors, and computer adaptive tests are all current technologies; however, when applied as sources of knowledge where students are expected to consume and store or apply, these become faster motors on the same single-track locomotive.
Reflexive pedagogy offers a different perspective. The knowledge is out there for the taking. However, students can both consume and produce that knowledge. With the teacher as guide, mentor, and collaborator, students become active participants and contributors to the learning. While this is not a new pedagogy, the authors contend, current technology offers new affordances in the e-learning environment. The authors invite the reader to “explore seven ‘new learning’ affordances opened up by digital media: ubiquitous learning, active knowledge production, multimodal knowledge representations, recursive feedback, collaborative intelligence, metacognitive reflection, and differentiated learning” (p. 13).
The first chapter continues, providing the reader with an introduction to each of the seven affordances. From here, the journey can become self-directed. While the affordances are presented in a logical sequence, that sequence is neither static nor linear. Each successive chapter offers a different team of contributors, and provides its own list of references. Cope & Kalantzis do well keeping the continuity of literary style and readability through the remaining chapters.
The affordance of ubiquitous learning invites the reader to think literally outside the box that is the classroom. Blogs, wikis, social network platforms are all accessible to today’s students. The idea of learning anywhere at any time is discussed at length. New e-learning ecology must encompass the global access students encounter and offer students the tools and means to sift through the potential global learning responsibly. Here is where the authors drive home the Scholar platform. Not so much as a “must buy” program, but as a model of potentially collaborative, recursive, and formative processes, afforded by technology.
“Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process, requiring them to do meaningful learning activities and think reflexively about what their knowledge processes” (p. 66).
This chapter on active knowledge making looks at well-established pedagogy like constructivism and frames it within 21st century learning. Collaboration, cooperation, and exploration inside and outside the classroom invite students to become active participants in their learning. The contributors of this chapter promote no specific pedagogy, but illustrate an ideology that learning involves contribution in any paradigm. This includes the utilization of workspaces.
Noteworthy is the fifth chapter on recursive feedback. Here, again, the contributors illustrate multimodal feedback that is formative, collaborative, and metacognitive using the Scholar platform. The teacher prepares an assignment complete with an accessible rubric, students participate in the online interactivity with full understanding that peer critiquing is happening throughout, and the teacher guides process and practice before the completed project is published. The chapter provides full details, illustrations, and references that demonstrate to the reader the intricacies of the academics. The contributors conclude recognizing that “Emerging composing and communication technologies and social practice have great potential for affording recursive feedback systems in educational spaces. These can be realized when e-learning environments are intentionally designed to provide learners with a widened range of formative feedback types and sources—from peers to machines.” (p. 138)
E-Learning Ecologies offers its reader a plethora of resources; however, one can glean enough information from this manuscript to advance one’s understanding that technology can open new and challenging practices within our educational environment, including k-12. I have taken from this bound, interdimensional, literary ride the understanding that reflexive pedagogy is the ecology of learning 21st century students experience, whereas technology is the dynamic vehicle gets them there.
This book is not a resource for specific hardware, devices, programs, or applications, Scholar notwithstanding. The emerging technology reflected within e-learning refers to the general practices and availabilities educational technology affords us pedagogues and academic practitioners. Readers of this book will enjoy learning from the pedagogical implications and promulgations ardently supported herein, and will no doubt seek more specific technology within the e-learning technoverse.
I expect a reasonable amount of accurate data, backed by a modicum of research, in a manuscript purported to inform or to illustrate an idea. E-Learning Ecologies meets this expectation and surpasses it several times over. With the quality and expertise of a university textbook, e-Learning Ecologies takes its reader into the world of education technology, not as a linear train ride through academia; rather, an interdimensional, multisensory transport takes you – to steal from Willy Wonka – frontways and backways and sideways and slantways through the technoverse from the perspective of education. If this sounds confusing, be not concerned. Cope & Kalantzis, editors and conductors of this train ride, carefully prepare you mentally with explanatory vernacular, academic vocabulary, and current academic jargon shared among active practitioners. So, fasten your cerebral seatbelts and prepare to learn about learning.
As I begin this review, I offer this caveat: Bill Cope is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, USA. Mary Kalantzis is Dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. E-Learning Ecologies is a collaborative work by members of the “’new learning’ research group” that is comprised of colleagues of Cope and Kalantzis, as well as postdoctoral students and graduate students at the University of Illinois. A project or product of this group is the Scholar platform, a program that puts into practice the fundamentals of e-learning. Scholar is featured throughout the book, an intentional promotion admitted by the editors (p. 2). With said advertising recognized, the information shared within this compilation is nonetheless valid and worth at least the perusal.
Cope & Kalantzis and fellow contributors contend that pedagogies, not technology, drive learning practices. Technology does not give birth to new pedagogy. In fact, Cope & Kalantzis make clear that “Technologies are pedagogically neutral” (p. 6). They divide pedagogies into two general camps, didactic pedagogy and reflexive pedagogy.
Didactic pedagogy offers the traditional practice that the teacher is the purveyor of knowledge while the students are the consumers of that knowledge. From that simple perspective, any means by which education imparts information, to be remembered or implied, among the consumers of knowledge nourishes that didactic pedagogy. Learning management systems, the flipped classroom, e-textbooks, intelligent tutors, and computer adaptive tests are all current technologies; however, when applied as sources of knowledge where students are expected to consume and store or apply, these become faster motors on the same single-track locomotive.
Reflexive pedagogy offers a different perspective. The knowledge is out there for the taking. However, students can both consume and produce that knowledge. With the teacher as guide, mentor, and collaborator, students become active participants and contributors to the learning. While this is not a new pedagogy, the authors contend, current technology offers new affordances in the e-learning environment. The authors invite the reader to “explore seven ‘new learning’ affordances opened up by digital media: ubiquitous learning, active knowledge production, multimodal knowledge representations, recursive feedback, collaborative intelligence, metacognitive reflection, and differentiated learning” (p. 13).
The first chapter continues, providing the reader with an introduction to each of the seven affordances. From here, the journey can become self-directed. While the affordances are presented in a logical sequence, that sequence is neither static nor linear. Each successive chapter offers a different team of contributors, and provides its own list of references. Cope & Kalantzis do well keeping the continuity of literary style and readability through the remaining chapters.
The affordance of ubiquitous learning invites the reader to think literally outside the box that is the classroom. Blogs, wikis, social network platforms are all accessible to today’s students. The idea of learning anywhere at any time is discussed at length. New e-learning ecology must encompass the global access students encounter and offer students the tools and means to sift through the potential global learning responsibly. Here is where the authors drive home the Scholar platform. Not so much as a “must buy” program, but as a model of potentially collaborative, recursive, and formative processes, afforded by technology.
“Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process, requiring them to do meaningful learning activities and think reflexively about what their knowledge processes” (p. 66).
This chapter on active knowledge making looks at well-established pedagogy like constructivism and frames it within 21st century learning. Collaboration, cooperation, and exploration inside and outside the classroom invite students to become active participants in their learning. The contributors of this chapter promote no specific pedagogy, but illustrate an ideology that learning involves contribution in any paradigm. This includes the utilization of workspaces.
Noteworthy is the fifth chapter on recursive feedback. Here, again, the contributors illustrate multimodal feedback that is formative, collaborative, and metacognitive using the Scholar platform. The teacher prepares an assignment complete with an accessible rubric, students participate in the online interactivity with full understanding that peer critiquing is happening throughout, and the teacher guides process and practice before the completed project is published. The chapter provides full details, illustrations, and references that demonstrate to the reader the intricacies of the academics. The contributors conclude recognizing that “Emerging composing and communication technologies and social practice have great potential for affording recursive feedback systems in educational spaces. These can be realized when e-learning environments are intentionally designed to provide learners with a widened range of formative feedback types and sources—from peers to machines.” (p. 138)
E-Learning Ecologies offers its reader a plethora of resources; however, one can glean enough information from this manuscript to advance one’s understanding that technology can open new and challenging practices within our educational environment, including k-12. I have taken from this bound, interdimensional, literary ride the understanding that reflexive pedagogy is the ecology of learning 21st century students experience, whereas technology is the dynamic vehicle gets them there.
This book is not a resource for specific hardware, devices, programs, or applications, Scholar notwithstanding. The emerging technology reflected within e-learning refers to the general practices and availabilities educational technology affords us pedagogues and academic practitioners. Readers of this book will enjoy learning from the pedagogical implications and promulgations ardently supported herein, and will no doubt seek more specific technology within the e-learning technoverse.
Displaying 1 of 1 review