Critique to Some Papers | Community of Inquiry

• the CoI theoretical framework is essentially incompatible with traditional distance education approaches that value independence and autonomy over collaborative discourse in purposeful communities of inquiry (Garrison, 2009)
• the explanatory value of a CoI approach depends on the educational purpose and context
• it is very difficult to achieve deep understanding without discourse
• While this may be accomplished through Socratic dialogue or in a one-to-one tutorial with a qualified instructor, it is totally impractical in most educational contexts (especially scalable distance education)
• Discounting SP is to discount the importance of critical discourse in a connected, knowledge based society
• It is also difficult to see how one gains metacognitive awareness and ability without sustained discourse and feedback (Akyol & Garrison, 2011). This may well be one of the great weaknesses of independent study and didactic approaches.
• The CoI is a generic theoretical framework that must be viewed as a means to study collaborative constructivist educational transactions – be they in online, blended or face-to-face environments
• The validation of this framework would also suggest that it can also be used as a rubric to test for functioning communities of inquiry
• I think one of the main problems with CoI research is the tendency to consider every online/blended learning environment is a true community of inquiry design when, in fact, there is little teaching, cognitive or social presence (students are reliant on independent activities and tests)
• the categories of SP are open to refinement but are not necessarily compatible with independent (or informal) learning activities and should not be critiqued from this perspective
• revised definition of SP “as the ability of participants to identify with the group or course of study, communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop personal and affective relationships progressively by way of projecting their individual personalities” (Garrison, 2011, p.34)

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success – Anu Partanen – National – The Atlantic

• Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model — long hours of   exhaustive cramming and rote memorization — Finland’s success is especially  intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children  in more creative play
• Americans are consistently obsessed with certain questions: How can you keep track of students’ performance if you don’t test them  constantly? How can you improve teaching if you have no accountability for  bad teachers or merit pay for good teachers? How do you foster competition  and engage the private sector? How do you provide school choice
• The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything  America’s school reformers are trying to do
• For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is  what’s called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the   end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of  American high school
• Instead, the public school system’s teachers are trained to assess children   in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves.
• Periodically, the Ministry   of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across   a range of different schools.
• “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish,” he later told an audience  at the Teachers College of Columbia University. “Accountability is something   that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.
• what   matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given   prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility
• And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that   nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable
• “Real winners do not compete.”
• Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the  goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success   today, was never excellence. It was equity.
• Education   has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers,   but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
• this means that schools   should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the   basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health   care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance
• Finland’s dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from
• Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.

Education in Finland: smart, continuos development (a bit like agile software development) | FLOSSE Posse

• We need highly educated teachers, appreciation of the profession, empower teachers, have decision making in classroom and school level etc. When these are in place we may focus on education, instead of training children to tests.
• I think, however, that these stories are missing one important thing: smart, continuos development of the system
• So what is smart continuos development? It is a bit like agile software development.

• Here is my (agile) values for educational system development:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working class room / school / school district over comprehensive documentation
  • Stakeholder (administration, schools, teachers, researchers, parents etc.) collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

  Finally. There’s always room to be better.

With 4 New Products, Kno Finally Looks Like a Contender in the E-Textbook Industry

• This opens access up to students using any browser and any device, and sets Kno apart from other digital textbook providers who’ve focused on iOS and Android devices
• Kno’s app will now be available on the Web, not just on the iPad
• Kno is unveiling a Facebook app. Students will be able to access their textbooks while on the website where they’re already spending a large portion of their time
• students’ relationship with their textbooks isn’t simply about reading, it’s studying and (just as likely) cramming. Indeed, on the first day of class, says Rashid, a textbook is the most important tool a student has. But as the semester progresses, the value of the textbook diminishes; and the value of the student’s notes — the information the student has curated, highlighted, jotted down, annotated, and so on — surpasses it. So when it comes time to study for finals, the student’s notes — from class and from the textbook — are what matters. And to that end, the last product announced by Kno today is Journal. Like Quiz Me, this feature is now a standard part of the Kno iPad app. Journal automatically transfers all the images, text and media that a student highlights, along with annotations and notes (and eventually audio recordings from class too, says Rashid) from the textbook into a separate (but in-app) notebook for easy review

October 10, 2011 : The Daily Papert

• In the past, children may not have liked School, but they were persuaded to believe that it was the passport to success in life. To the extent that children reject School as out of touch with contemporary life, they become active agents in creating pressure for change. Like any other social structure, School needs to be accepted by its participants. It will not survive very long beyond the time when children can no longer be persuaded to accord it a degree of legitimation.

September 27, 2011 : The Daily Papert

• learning is action-oriented and gets its feedback not from the yes-no of adult authority but from the resistance and the guidance of reality. Some attempted actions do not produce the expected results. Some produce surprising results. The child comes to learn that it is not sufficient to want a result for it to happen. One must act in an appropriate way, and “appropriate” means based on understanding
• Children learn to think in quantities because they live in a world so constructed that quantities are important. But then what can we do to improve the way in which the world facilitates learning?