Pedagogía

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Let's sit back and really reflect on the pedagogy that is at the core of what we, as online educators, are trying to do.

Definición de Pedagogía

Una definición de pedagogia en Wiktionary dice:

1. La profesión de enseñanza
2. Las actividades de educar, enseñar o instruir

Wikipedia tiene una página mucho mayor en Pedagogia. En un punto dice que la Pedagía es el arte o ciencia de ser profesor, normalmente referido a estrategias de instrucción, o un tipo de instrucción. La palabra viene del griego antiguo παιδαγωγέω (paidagōgeō; de παῖς (niño) y ἄγω (guiar)): literalmente, "guiar al niño".

Moodle en tres breves párrafos

El corazón de Moodle son los cursos que contienen actividades y recursos. Hay unas 20 actividades diferentes disponibles (foros, glosarios, wikis, tareas, cuestionarios, encuestas, etc.) y cada una de ellas puede ser personalizada al gusto del profesor. El poder principal de este modelo basado en actividades viene de la combinación de las actividades en secuencias y grupos, que puede ayudarte a guiar a los estudiantes a través de los caminos del aprendizaje. Así, cada actividades se puede crear sobre los resultados de las previas

Hay muchas herramientas que hace posible crear comunidades de enseñanza, tales como blogs, mensajería, listas de participantes, etc, así como herramientas útiles como el libro de calificaciones, registros, o integraciones con otros sistemas similares.

Para más información sobre Moodle, visita http://moodle.org, y en concreto el curso Using Moodle, donde está la principal comunidad de usuarios de Moodle. A estas alturas está lleno de información, con lo que buscando un poco encontrarás cosas muy interesantes. Los desarrolladores y los usuarios están obligados a usar los mismos foros deliberadamente. El otro sitio donde empezar es en nuestra documentación online, que es un wiki desarrollado por y para la comunidad.

El construccionismo social como referente

Tengo estos cinco puntos en una diapositiva que utilizo en cada presentación. Son referentes útiles tomados de la investigación , aplicados a la educación en general y reducidos a una lista sencilla que puedo llevar conmigo bajo el alias "construccionismo social"

1. Todos somos tanto profesores como alumnos potenciales - en un entorno verdaderamente colaborativo somos las dos cosas.
   
   ¡Reconocer y recordar esto es tan importante!
   
   Creo que esta perspectiva nos ayuda a conservar cierta humildad como profesores y combatir la (muy natural) tendencia a consolidar toda nuestra historia y asumir la reverenciada posición de "docta fuente de conocimiento".
   
   Eso nos ayuda a mantener los ojos abiertos a oportunidades para permitir que los demás participantes en nuestra situación de aprendizaje compartan sus ideas con nosotros y nos recuerden que hay que escuchar atentamente hacer buenas preguntas que saquen más de otros.
   
   Creo que necesito recordarme constantemente este punto, especialmente cuando las convenciones de una situación me arrojan al papel central.(como ahora!)
   
   
2. Aprendemos particularmente bien creando o expresando algo para que otros lo vean.
   
   Para la mayoría de nosotros esto es básicamente “learning by doing” y es bastante obvio, no obstante merece la pena que nos lo recordemos a nostros mismos.
   
   Es sorpendente cuánto aprendizaje en línea consiste aun simplemente en presentar información estática, dando a los estudiantes pocas oportunidades para practicar las actividades sobre las que están aprendiendo. Con frecuencia veo a profesores en línea que pasan gran parte del tiempo construyendo los recursos perfectos para su curso, lo que sin duda es una espléndida experiencia de aprendizaje para ellos, pero que por ello privan a sus estudiantes esa misma experiencia de aprendizaje. Incluso los libros de texto lo hacen mejor, con ejericios después de cada capítulo y cosas así.
   
   Ante todo, tal aprendizaje es mejor cuando te expresas y presentas posts, proyectos, tareas, construcciones, etcpara que otros lo vean. En esta situación tus "apuestas" son mucho mayores y tiene lugar mucha instrospección y reflexión que incrementa el aprendizaje. Seymour Papert (el inventor del logo) describió de forma conocida el proceso de construir algo para que otros lo vean como una experiencia muy poderosa y de hecho esta clase de pensamiento se remonta a Sócrates y más allá.
   
   
3. Aprendemos mucho simplemente observando la actividad de nuestros pares.
   
   Básicamente aquí se trata de “cultura del aula”, o aprendizaje por osmosis. Los humanos son buenos observándose mutuamente y aprendiendo qué hacer en una situación dada gracias a indicaciones de otros.
   
   Por ejemplo, si entras en una sala de conferencias donde todo el mundo está sentado mirando al frente y escuchando silenciosamente al profesor al frente y tomando notas; lo más probable será que te sientes también ¿verdad?
   
   Si estás en una clase menos rígida donde la gente está haciendo preguntas todo el tiempo, en ese caso es probable que te sientas más libre para actuar así también. De esta forma estarás aprendiendo sobre la materia en sí misma y la meta-materia de cómo sucede el aprendizaje de oír las discusiones de tus compañeros y los tipos de pregntas que se formulan, lo que lleva a una inmersión más viva y multi-dimensional en el aprendizaje.
   
   
4. Entendiendo el contexto de otros podemos enseñar de un modo más transformacional (constructivismo
   
   Como probablemente sabes por experiencia, el consejo de un mentor o amigo puede proporcionar una experiencia de aprendizaje mejor, más oportuna y más personalizada que el consejo de alguien que no te conoce y está hablando para cien personas.
   
   Si entendemos el bagaje de las personas a las que estamos hablando podemos adecuar nuestro lenguaje y las expesión de conceptos de formas que se adapte mejor al público. Podemos elegir metáforas con las que sabemos que la audiencia se sentirá relacionada. Podemos elegir metáforas. Podemos usar argot técnico donde ayude o evitarlo si estorba.
   
   De nuevo esta es una idea bastante elemental, cualquier guía para hablar en público habla de conocer a tu público, pero en el aprendizaje en línea necesitamos ser particularmente conscientes de ello porque a menudo no hemos conocido a esa gente en persona y no tenemos aceso a demasiadas pistas visuales y auditivas.
   
   
5. Un entorno de aprendizaje necesita ser flexible y adaptable para poder responder con rapidez a las necesidades de los participantes en su interior.
   
   Combinando todo lo anterior, si como facilitador de aprendizaje quieres sacar partido de tu creciente conocimiento de tus participantes, dándoles oportunidades a la medida para compartir ideas, hacer preguntas y expresar su conocimiento, necesitarás un entorno que sea flexible en tiempo y espacio.
   
   Si descubres que tienes que tirar tu programación por la ventana porque tus participantes saben bastante menos de los que esperabas cuando diseñaste el curos deberías ser capaz de reajustar el programa y añadir facilmente actividades nuevas para ayudar a todos (o solo a un grupo)a alcanzar el nivel. De forma análoga, grandes ideas para una simulación pueden haber surgido durante las discusiones, así que deberías poder añadirlas después en el curso.
   
   Con respecto al tiempo, tus participantes pueden estar distribuidos a lo largo de diferentes zonas horarias o quizá vivan en la misma franja horaria pero tengan horarios diferentes, así que deberías estar en situación de ofrecer actividades asíncronas en las que la gente pueda trabajar junta a horas diferentes.
   
   

Jason Cole de la Open University se refirió recientemente a esto como “las cinco leyes de Martin”,pero realmente son referentes: conceptos guía que encuentro útiles personalmente cuando tengo que tomar una decisión en cualquier situacion educativa. En particular los encuentro útiles para construir comunidades de aprendices.

Supongo que todo estó te resultará familiar, incluso si usas una terminología diferente.Si no, hay mucha investigación sobre construccionismo, constructivismo y construccionismo social que puedes encontrar en algunos mis artículos más académicos.

How Moodle tries to support a Social Constructionist view

I'm going to go through the earlier list again, this time pointing out existing features in Moodle. Pedagogy and software design are closely intertwined in online learning - the "shape" of the software can help or hinder the teacher in what they are trying to do.

1. All of us are potential teachers as well as learners - in a true collaborative environment we are both
   
   Many of the activities in Moodle are designed to allow students to control common content, such as forums, wikis, glossaries, databases, messaging and so on. This encourages students to add to the total course experience for others.
   
   In Moodle 1.7 we've made a huge step of a whole new Roles implementation which further breaks down the distinction of teachers and students, allowing Moodle system administrators and teachers to create new roles with any mix of capabilities they like. If you want students to be allowed to facilitate forums, create quiz questions or even control the course layout then you can. There is a very fine degree of control – for example you can allow students the ability to delete posts in just one single forum if you like.
   
   I hope that people will take these new features and experiment with control in their courses, allowing students more flexibility to do things that were previously thought of as something teachers should do.
   
   
2. We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for others to see
   
   Moodle has a wide range of ways in which people can create representations of their knowledge and share them.
   
   
   • The course structure itself is terrific way to construct a shared and active representation of the learning journey that everyone is going through.
   • Forums of course are the core of this, providing spaces for discussion and sharing of media and documents (using the media plugin filters, attachments or simply links).
   • Wikis are collaboratively-built pages useful for group work and other negotiations.
   • Glossaries are collaboratively-built lists of definitions that can then appear throughout the course.
   • Databases are an extension of this idea allowing participants to enter structured media of any type (for example a collection of digital photos or a library of references).
     
     
     
3. We learn a lot by just observing the activity of our peers
   
   The participants page is the main place where you can see everyone in your course. It shows a lot of information about your participants and how recently they've been there.
   
   An Online Users block is the best way to see everyone else who might be on right now.
   
   The Recent Activity block shows a great deal of information about what has happened recently, and via link you can see reports with more detail. Things that happened not only include changes to the course and forum posts, etc, but also things like assignment submissions and quiz attempts. Students can't see the results that other students got from these activities, but they do get some sense that everyone is submitting Assignment 1 now and this peer pressure hopefully helps those who need it.
   
   Finally, almost all the modules will "tag" an entry or change with the name of the user, so that you can see who did what and when. For example, wiki pages all have a history link with full details on every edit.
   
   
4. By understanding the contexts of others, we can teach in a more transformational way (constructivism)
   
   There are many different ways to find out about people. Access to these can be decided on a site basis (different sites have different privacy policies):
   
   
   • The user profile contains several fields where people can provide information about their background, etc. In particular there is a user profile photograph, which appears throughout Moodle whenever that person writes something. The photo links back to the profile page.
   • A compendium of forum posts (and discussion starters) by that person in that course (or across the site).
   • Individual blogs allow people to express things in a public but reflective way, often providing access to thinking that might not normally expressed in, say, a forum.
   • Overall activity reports show all the contributions from a user in a course, including assignment submissions, glossary entries, etc.
   • User log reports show detailed logs of every action taken by a person in Moodle, as well as graphs showing overall activity statistics.
   • The survey module provides a variety of proven questionnaire instruments for discovering interesting information about the state of mind of the group.
     
     
5. A learning environment needs to be flexible and adaptable, so that it can quickly respond to the needs of the participants within it
   
   
   • The course page itself is the main tool for a teacher, allowing them to add/remove and structure activities as necessary. Changing the course is one button click away at any time, so the teacher can change it on a whim. In Moodle 1.7 we have now added AJAX features, so that activities, sections and blocks can all be simply dragged-and-dropped.
   • The roles in Moodle 1.7 can be applied individually in every context across the site, and can be further tweaked with overrides. So if you want to create one single quiz where everyone has access to everybody's results, or allow parents of students to see parts of your course, then you can.
   • Navigation around the course and site is automatically generated.
   • The gradebook is automatically maintained, and reflects the activities in the course at any given time.
   • There are preferences for many aspects of appearance and behaviour, at site, course and activity levels, allowing educators to fine-tune the behaviour of Moodle in many ways.
   • External systems can be integrated easily, to maintain authentication, enrolments and other things, allowing Moodle to react smoothly as data in other systems is modified.
     

Finding a balance

Before I talk about about where we are going, let me talk a little about the balance that a Course Management System (aka VLE) like Moodle needs to achieve. One thing I found out quickly in a community like ours is that people have a wide range of expectations of online learning.

At the fascist extreme there are those who want students to be highly controlled: reading resources that are revealed at set times and later sitting quizzes to prove they read those resources. I call this the rat-in-the-maze approach, or dump-and-pump.

At the techno-hippy end of that spectrum there are those who want to devolve management completely, with every user running their own portfolio site, streaming blogs and files to each other using RSS and trackbacks. It's an interesting dream that really opens up thinking about education but I think the problems to be solved are many (such as security, accountability, the structure of institutions etc).

The vast majority of people that I meet fall somewhere between these two extremes. Many of them are new to online learning, and are looking for the next step beyond what they were being paid to do offline, while being accepting of gentle guidance to improving their online techniques. These people are on a steep learning curve already without facing the aggregation of 100 different blogs.

Moodle needs to be flexible to cater for a wide variety of needs while remaining simple enough for ordinary teachers to start making good use of the power of the internet for community building and collaborative learning. My hope is that Moodle can be seen as a toolbox where they can start simply and naturally, and then progress to more and more advanced community facilitation over time.

Where Moodle can do better and what we're doing about it

Keeping in mind the theme of this paper and the conference stream, here are a few of the upcoming plans for things that are more related to pedagogy:

Repository

Currently only teachers can upload and manage collections of files into Moodle, using the Files tool in each course. There is no easy way to share files between courses, and no way for ordinary users to keep a portfolio, say.

This is changing by early next year with the addition of a Repository API (developed by Open University) that will allow Moodle to use any external repository as a place to store, browse and view files. Special-purpose repositories are a growing area, and it means institutions can keep their valuable data where they want to, even if they switch front-end systems like VLEs.

Most importantly, this will make the development of e-Portfolios much easier, and these are something I think a lot of us really want to see as a very positive pedagogical enhancement.

Community Hubs

We want to improve the way teachers and users of Moodle communicate with each other, not only about e-learning and Moodle, but also in their subject areas. For example, imagine a Biology 101 teacher finding a "community" button in their course, taking them straight to a place where their peers are all discussing best practice for teaching Biology 101, sharing and browsing repositories of course materials and learning designs.

A major focus for Moodle 2.0 is the creation of networking between Moodles, allowing anyone to turn their Moodle site into a Moodle Community Hub. Login between Moodles will be transparent but secure and fully controlled by site administrators. The peer-to-peer nature of the design will allow all sorts of interesting scenarios to develop.

Better interaction between tools

Currently Moodle already sends an email as notification of a lot of different types of events, but it can be difficult to manage. By piping all the messaging from throughout the system via the Messaging module that we already have, users will have a much finer control over exactly what sorts of messages they want to see. We can also allow email to come back into Moodle.

Similarly, we'll be integrating the existing blogging much more tightly with the whole system, by adding "blog this" buttons everywhere that allow users to capture and comment on items of interest.

Metadata and outcome statements

Currently Moodle courses need to be manually connected to state learning standards. In many places of the world such reporting is mandatory, so it can take a lot of time.

The plan for Moodle 2.0 is to include a mechanism so that:

1. admins can import a long list of outcome statements (as tags)
2. teachers can relate a subset of these to their course
3. teachers can connect each activity to an even smaller subset

This helps course design by providing teachers with a tool to ensure the requirements for the course are being met, while also providing much better reporting for admins and students on what has been achieved.

Role-playing and scenario simulations

A popular and effective technique in face-to-face teaching is that of role-playing in scenarios, and this can be difficult to do online. You could imagine an Environmental Science course running a role-playing simulation where some students play the government, some as Greenpeace, some as industry for a particular scenario.

The plans for this have been around for a long time, but I hope it can be developed soon. It would be a module where people can be assigned roles within a simulated situation and appear to others anonymously in those roles, interacting in forums, wikis, and all the other tools in Moodle according to the rules of the simulation.

Accessibility

We've spent a lot of effort making Moodle work well for those with disabilities, but we still don't have full certification against international standards. This is the major focus for Moodle 1.8, to be released in very early 2007.

What else would you like to see?

I hope this has stimulated some thoughts about the sorts of things you would like to see in your ideal online learning environment. If so, please join in with the discussions on http://moodle.org and let's brainstorm them a bit. I hope we can come up with some new ideas to put in the Moodle Tracker, or at least some support or modifications for old ones.