A. Kipta's Blog 07/15/2011 (a.m.)

• Learning with 'e's: Digital age learning

  "In my Learning is learning post yesterday, I started a debate about andragogy and pedagogy. I held the position that the theory of andragogy (Malcolm Knowles) adds very little to our understanding of learning. In some ways, I argued, andragogy theory seems outmoded in the light of recent rapid developments in new teaching methods, learning resources and digital media. Building on this position, I would like to examine two further concepts - namely heutagogy (Stewart Hase) and paragogy (Corneli and Danoff) - which may offer more appropriate ways of framing learning in the digital age. I would like to acknowledge Martin King, who set my thought processes going down this road when he commented on the 'Learning is learning' post. Although the two terms may be unfamiliar to some, most teachers will recognise how they actually work in authentic learning contexts. Heutagogy is a grand way of saying 'self directed or self determined learning'. Paragogy is another way of describing peer to peer learning, where students support each other's learning on an equal basis. Both are highly applicable when we consider the advance of learning technologies and the deep pervasion of social media into many learning spaces, formal and informal."

  tags: learning heutagogy paragogy connectivism

• Learning with 'e's: Learning is learning

  "I got embroiled in a Twitter discussion today with Mark Childs and Fred Garnett on whether the word andragogy is actually helpful to our understanding of learning. I'm not convinced. As ever, I like to promote argument, so here on this blog, I offer you my own views on what is quite an old debate. For the uninitiated, Andragogy (from the Greek Andros, meaning man) was a term made popular in the education world by Malcolm Knowles. It refers to learning strategies and experiences that are for adults rather than children. Knowles had made the distinction between children's learning and adult learning on the basis of adult motivation for learning being different from that of children. Pedagogy, another term used widely in education, derives from the time of the Roman slaves, known as pedagogs, who were tasked to either train their masters' children, or in many cases, to 'lead them to education'. Pedagogy is sometimes erroneously applied only to children's education, but is best applied to all forms of teacher directed learning. The main problem with Knowles's concept of andragogy is that it is intended to be different to pedagogy, which implies that adults learn differently to children. But is there any evidence for this? How does Knowles differentiate between adult and child learning?"

  tags: learning andragogy pedagogy

• Tech Learning TL Advisor Blog and Ed Tech Ticker Blogs from TL Blog Staff - TechLearning.com

  "Did you ever feel frustrated that in school you are supposed to spend all this time studying, taking tests, completing worksheets and handing in reports with no audience beyond the teacher and after years of that all your left with is a pile of tests and papers nobody cares about? School shouldn’t be preparing you for more school. Should be preparing students for the world, but unfortunately, the thing that is most important often falls through the cracks and is replaced by more and more testing and measuring. If you’ve decided to opt out of school and opt into the real world, you’ll have time to begin preparing your ePortfolio where you can share with everyone how great you are!"

  tags: e-portfolios

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