Summary

This project builds on previous work undertaken by MirandaNet to explore the possibilities of teacher continuing professional development (CPD) in a time of increased workload, budget constraints and the need for professional change. The importance of work based learning, and the emerging informal processes by which theory can be transformed into practice by education practitioners themselves, (‘praxis’: Freire, 1970) has become more important as teachers respond to the twin drivers of personalised learning and technology integration. Traditional CPD offerings are not positioned to respond to such demands: one-day general courses struggle to provide the transformational elements that today’s education professionals need. (Daly, Pachler & Pelletier, 2009a; 2009b; Pachler, Preston, Cuthell, Allen, 2010)
The Becta-funded 2009-10 project explored mobile learning from a range of perspectives in eight MirandaMods . These involved simultaneous virtual and face-to-face debates between professional educators in a global context. Resources were then made available to the wider community through reports, video recordings and interactive concept maps. Multidimensional concept mapping was developed as the data collection method because this medium stimulates the creation and dissemination of collaborative knowledge within the profession (Preston 2009a, 2009b).

The 2009-10 project collected research data about the relationship between work-based learning and praxis; developed new knowledge and practice on concept mapping methodology; disseminated professional work-based practice in mobile learning to an emerging global community; provided online resources for practitioners; developed strategies for practitioners to implement change and built an online support community. The project was informed by the work of Pachler and Cook (2009), whose approach moved professional development from the model referred to as ‘from theory to practice’ to one in which different forms of knowledge are “… contextualised and ‘recontextualised’ as people move between different sites of learning in colleges and workplaces. (It) … encapsulates the ways in which learners mediate between these contexts and as a result personalise their learning, and develop a professional and/or vocational identity.” (Pachler & Cook, 2009)

This project explored such mediation between the contexts of a face-to-face seminar together with the virtual collaborative affordances of FlashMeeting, an interactive collaborative concept map, a broadcast video stream through TwitCam and blip.tv and Twitter streams. The project developed the ways in which communities of practice create knowledge collaboratively and, more importantly, looked at the ways in which such knowledge can be applied both within, and between, classrooms – snd its implementation in teaching and learning.

The project further developed the liminal spaces where collaborative knowledge creation is now taking place. Its findings are intended to facilitate bridging the gap between the creation of professional theory and its implementation in teaching and learning – the development of “a professional and/or vocational identity.” (Pachler & Cook)

The term “liminal space” is a term drawn from anthropology that describes a rite of passage, in which a person moves from one state to another. Turner (1982) appropriates the concept to apply to drama, whereas Meyer and Land (2005) see it in terms of individuals’ ICT use. The anthropological view sees the liminal state as involving a period of time in which an individual may oscillate between old and new states, involve a range of emotions including anticipation, difficulty and anxiety, and at times require the mimicry of the new state until it becomes ‘natural’. ICT users are transformed in the liminal space by acquiring new knowledge, a new status and a new identity in the community.
This is of critical importance if ICT CPD is to be successful.

From practice to praxis

Overview

This evaluation was produced by John Cuthell, of MirandaNet, for Interactive Education Ltd. The aim of the evaluation was to gauge the views of teacher and pupil users of its Genee Vision Visualiser, and the ways in which it has impacted on their teaching, learning and work practice.

This research collected data from the Genee Vision user base provided by Interactive Education to investigate the perceptions of teachers of the impact of the visualiser on learning, teaching and workflow.

Data was collected through email contact, online questionnaires and personal interviews.

Download the report.

Visualiser Evaluation

International comparisons:
the Promethean Ambassadors Project, 2004 – 7.

Ambassadors for ACTIVlearning

Tools for Transformation: The Impact of Interactive Whiteboards in a range of contexts

The Impact of Interactive Whiteboards on Teaching, Learning and Attainment

It’s a Vision Thing

Case studies from the classroom: the 2003 project

New tools, new pedagogies, new learning?

Interactive Whiteboards in the Primary School

An approach to an effective methodology

How do visual display technologies enhance learning?

2003 Promethean – MirandaNet ACTIVboard Practice-based Research Project: Case studies

ACTIVboards and Mathematics: student feedback

Ben Franklin, Sir Charles Lucas Arts College
Students comment on the ways in which interactive whiteboards have changed their learning.

Breaking Barriers to Literacy
Marion Scott-Baker, Cheam School

Hit the Road, Jack …
Tony McNally, Castle View School, Sunderland

Journey into Visual Teaching and Learning
Dai Thomas, Ringmer Community College, Sussex

Raising achievement with under-achieving boys
Kirsten Lowe, Castle View School, Sunderland

Switching on switched-off children
Karen Graham, St. Giles C. E. Primary School, Shrewsbury

Using Inter-ACTIVboards for teaching Interactive Maths Lessons
Jonathan Wood, Ringmer Community College, Sussex

Evidence from other studies

IWB: What the research shows
What the research says about interactive whiteboards. A Becta research paper, from the ICT in Research Network.

Interactive whiteboards survey: report
During 2003 teachers from schools, colleges and universities responded to an online questionnaire on the MirandaNorth and Virtual Learning websites and posted information about their uses of interactive whiteboards, and the effects that they had experienced in their teaching and their students’ learning. John Cuthell wrote the summary.

The Review Project
Ros Walker was the project manager: The Review Project was based at Hull University and was supported by NESTA and Promethean, Ltd. The aim of the project was to identify and disseminate best practice in the use of interactive whiteboards.

Interactive whiteboards: case studies

As more schools were fitted with interactive whiteboards and display technologies it was apparent that there was a real need for teachers to play an active role in specifying the ways in which this extremely powerful tool was installed and used. The technology can effect profound changes in the ways in which our students learn, the ways in which we teach and, more fundamentally, the ways in which we organise the curriculum and our schools.

This resource was developed by John Cuthell. It reflects research projects that he ran from 1999 to 2007 in the United Kingdom, China, Mexico and South Africa. Much of the research was funded by MirandaNet Ltd, Promethean Ltd, and Steljes Ltd.

This resource is subtitled “Seeing the Meaning”, and is an opportunity to draw together the common threads and identify the key issues of visual learning, its technologies and its pedagogies for the profession.

This online resource explores:

• the relationship between technology, theory, pedagogy and learning;
• the relationship between work, learning and professional practice;
• the relationship between pedagogy, assessment and visual learning.

This project has been devised to meet the needs of academics, teachers and other stakeholders for a resource that draws together existing work into Visual Learning and its related technologies. ‘Seeing the Meaning’ provides free access to all those wishing to use findings and information on the subject of visual learning and its technologies to further their own professional development, or to implement it in the workplace.

The fully indexed and searchable online resource consists of summaries of, and links to:

• The literature, original papers and findings;
• Case studies;
• Pedagogical models to implement and support visual learning;
• Visual learning technologies;
• Video case studies and interviews.

Visual Learning is a section of MirandaNet. It has developed from a project funded by the WLE Centre, Institute of Education, University of London.

“Seeing the Meaning” has been edited by John Cuthell.

You can download a PDF document (60KB) giving a theoretical background to the topic of Visual Learning. Towards a Theory of Visual Learning (PDF, 60KB)

Learning can be seen as a mental function that relies on the acquisition of knowledge (of different types and range) that is grounded in information – whether specific or perceived. What is learned is used as the basis of further learning, skills, values, belief systems, ideologies and competences. The visual learning process is one that can be seen to underpin others (cf. Ostensiveness: Piaget, 1953.) The assumptions that follow are drawn from current thinking about the relationships between what we see, what we remember and what we know. They help to explain why visual learning may be important, and how a range of technologies may contribute to these processes.

What Science suggests

Connections in the brain are constantly changing: they are not hardwired (Greenfield, 2003). The synapses relating to vision peak at around 10 months. The density of these synapses then declines and stabilises around 10 years of age. It is the pattern, however, rather than the number of connections that is most important. In terms of cognitive development there are ‘windows of time’ in the developing brain: critical periods for neural connections and pathways (Hubel & Weisel, 1981). The concept of plasticity is relevant here, in terms of the ways in which organisms adapt to environmental stimulus – in particular the brain, and the ways in which it adapts to stimuli (Maturana & Varela, 1981.) Plasticity refers to the ways in which brain structures can change to better cope with the environment: neurons or synapses can change their internal parameters in response to inputs and stimuli. The theory of neuroplasticity (Shaw & McEachern, 2001) describes the ways in which thinking, learning, and acting actually change both the brain’s physical structure and functional organization from top to bottom.

Within the cortex, one region looks different from another, not because the function is different, but because of what it is connected to. However, all cortical regions perform a common function or algorithm (Mountcastle, 1978). Vision is no different from hearing, which is no different from motor output. Cortical connections across the different regions of the cortex are genetically determined.

What does this mean for Visual Learning?

The stimuli that come from the senses of sight and hearing are not the same, although there is a similarity in the way in which the cortex processes the signals. Therefore the cortex is dividing itself into task-specific functional areas long into childhood. The importance of plasticity is that the wiring of the neurocortex can change and rewire itself. The brain regions develop specialised functions based on information flowing in during the process of development.

The sequence can be simplified as:

Visual information à optic nerve fibres à thalamus à primary visual cortex

These inputs from visual information are converted: the inputs become neural signals. These neural signals act as ‘action potentials’, or spikes, and are partly chemical and partly electrical.

Each set of patterns is experienced differently, but the input to the brain is no different for visual, aural, sensual, motor signals or stimuli.

Is Visual Learning more powerful?

Vision relies on both spatial and temporal patterns, which are constantly changing over time, unless we simply look at unmoving object, with no change in either the lighting or our own position. The visual input is more likely, therefore, to generate a greater number of ‘action potentials’ than other stimuli.

The processes through which memory leads to recall are based on pattern sequences and temporal or spatial patterns recreated from partial versions of pattern sequences known as invariance. These invariant forms are stored in the cortical memory and reconstructed.

Cortical memory

The reconstruction of visual memory within the cortex can be represented as:

Storing sequences à auto-associative recall à predictive ability à Invariant representations

Interactivity

Changes in input            à            increases in range of predictive ability

(Cf. Visual technologies in classrooms)

Predictive behaviours and abilities are based on prior behaviour and experience – for example, the progression from Concrete through to Abstract thinking (Piaget). These can be termed invariant representations.

Imagination

If we consider that way in which imagination works – “… seeing pictures in my head …” as one child said – then the process that we use for making predictions is reversed to produce neural inputs.

Predictive output            à            reversed            =            inputs

In this way the visualisation process is used for performative preparation, for example, by athletes, technicians, craft workers, artists and so on.

The Mind

And as for the Mind, it’s what the Brain does …

Changing performance: the role of Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons are a class of nerve cells in areas of the brain. They relay signals for planning movement and carrying it out. The mirror system is activated when specific actions are watched, even concentrating on a separate task (Muthukumaraswamy, 2007). Motor systems in the brain are activated when a person observes an action being performed: it suggests that we understand and learn to imitate the actions of others through these brain mechanisms. Mirror neurons therefore reveal how children learn.

Mirror neurons fire in response to chains of actions linked to intentions. They then provide a template for the individual to replicate, a model for analysis of others and for prediction.

Mirror neurons provide clues to how children learn: they are active from birth (Meltzoff, 2007). This suggests that human children are ‘hard-wired’ to learn through imitation, with their mirror neurons involved in observing, and then practicing. Earlier studies – the theory of Observational Learning (Bandura, 1986) suggest that an observer’s behaviour changes after viewing the behaviour of a model. Findings from research into mirror neurons provides additional support for the Observational Learning hypothesis, which was often typified as simply constructed from causal connections. In fact, observation directly improves muscle performance via mirror neurons. By watching a game, a performer will be better able to predict what will happen next.

Re-defining interactivity

For the past ten years the term ’interactive whiteboard’ has produced discussion and dissent, with a significant group of educationalists and researchers expressing concern that the technology did not, in fact, appear to lead to a shift in pedagogy on the part of users – and that the technology seemed to reinforce traditional modes of pedagogy, rather than those considered ‘interactive’ (Moss et al, 2007).

It may be helpful, however, to reconsider the notion of interactivity in the context of technology use, and see it in terms of the interaction between the visual objects and the ways in which these are processed. Changes in input, the ways in which mirror neurons process the inputs and the impact on memory and imagination, may be more significant than the preferred pedagogical approach of a teacher.

Implications for Education: why Visual Learning is powerful

Vision relies on both spatial and temporal patterns. These patterns are constantly changing over time. This visual input therefore generates a greater number of ‘action potentials’ than other stimuli (e.g., aural).

The use of visual display technologies provides an easy focus for learners. By the visual sequencing a learning process mirror neurons can be fired and the sequence then replicated, modelled and applied to other contexts – a powerful reinforcement in mathematics education, for example (Averis et al, 2005).

When we talk about interactivity (as, for example, with interactive whiteboards), the concept of interactivity should not necessarily be predicated solely in terms of the human actors. It is much more between the learner and the display – and the ways in which there are constantly changing visual inputs, and therefore more ‘action potentials’.

These changes in input produce increases in the range of visual memory, predictive ability and in the visualisation process, with mirror neurons an integral part of the process.

It should be stressed, however, that there are innate differences in perception: whilst a number of observers witness the same events, neither the ‘action potentials’ or the outcomes are necessarily identical.

References

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Cuthell, J., & Preston, C. (2012). Tracking the stages of learning: concept maps as representations of liminal space. Themes in Science and Technology Education, 5(1/2), 79-94.  Available online.

Preston, C.; Cuthell, J. P. (2012) MirandaMods: From Practice to Praxis in Informal Professional Learning Contexts. In C. Jimoyiannis (Ed.) Research on e-Learning and ICT in Education, pp 17-28. Springer, London.

Cuthell, J. P.; L.Cych; Preston, C. (2011) Learning in Liminal Spaces. Paper presented at Mobile learning: Crossing boundaries in convergent environments Conference, University of Bremen. Available online.

Pachler, N.; Cuthell, J. P.; Preston, C.; Allen, A; Pinheiro-Torres, C. (2010) ICT CPD Landscape Review: Final report. Becta ICT CPD Research Reports. Available online.

Cuthell, J. P. (2010). Classroom as Crucible and Catalyst. Case studies in pedagogy and praxis developing and supporting visual learning. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2010 (pp. 1406-1411). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Cuthell, J. P.; C. Preston (2009) The Use of Concept Maps for Collaborative Knowledge Construction.  Available online.

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Cuthell, J. P. (2009) Thinking Things Through – Collaborative Online Professional Development. In: Lindberg, J. O & Olofsson, A. D. Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery. Hershey, IGI Global

Cuthell, J. P. (2009) Integrating technology, pedagogy and theory: a resource for Visual Learning. In: Carlsen, R., McFerrin, K., Weber, R., Willis, D. A.  (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2009 (pp. 3074 – 3078) Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education

Cuthell, J. P. (2009) Thinking and Changing Practice: Collaborative Online Professional Development. In: Carlsen, R., McFerrin, K., Weber, R., Willis, D. A.  (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2009 (pp. 2264 – 2269) Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education

Cuthell, J. P. (2008) The Role of a Web-based Community in Teacher Professional Development. International Journal of Web Based Communities, Vol. 2, No. 8 2008, pp. 115 – 139. Geneva, Inderscience

Cuthell, J. P.; Preston, C. (2008) Expert ICT advisers considering their own ICT CPD experiences. In: Carlsen, R., McFerrin, K., Weber, R., Willis, D. A.  (Eds.), Proceedings of SITE 2008 (pp. 3247 – 3250) Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education

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Cuthell, J. P. (2008) Online forums as a resource for teacher professional development: lessons from a web-based community of practice and influence. International Journal of Web Based Communities, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2008, pp. 359 – 365

Cuthell, J. P.; Preston, C. (2007) Braided Learning: Developments In An Online Community Of Practice. In: Kinshuk, Sampson, D. G., Spector, J. M., Isaias, P. (Eds.), Proceedings Of The IADIS International Conference On Cognition And Exploratory Learning In Digital Age (CELDA 2007) pp.79-84 IADIS Press

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Cuthell, J. P. (2006) Ms. Chips and her Battle Against the Cyborgs. Embedding ICT in Educational Practice. In: O Murchu, D. & Sorensen, E. ‘Enhancing Learning Through Technology’. Hershey, Idea Group

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Virtual Learning

The Impact of ICT on the Way Young People Work

J. P. Cuthell PhD

Referencing details: Cuthell, J. P. (2002) Virtual Learning Ashgate Aldershot

00 Introduction
01 The context to the research
02 Methodologies
03 Some Research Perspectives
04 Research into patterns of computer use
05 What Teachers Think About ICT
06 Multi-tasking cyborgs
07 Concepts of Mind
08 Students’ Minds
09 Towards a New Theory of Mind
10 Why can’t teachers?
11 The Autonomous Learner
12 Methodology
13 Conclusion
14 Personal epilogue
15 Appendix 1
16 Appendix 2
17 Appendix 3
18 Bibliography

---

This paper is a shortened version of the book, and has been published in various iterations by a number of journals over the years.

Virtual Learning

Introduction

For almost than thirty years successive British governments have proclaimed the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for education and made significant investment in schools. Initiatives such as visual learning technologies, online learning, curriculum resources for both teachers and students and Life Long Learning have all had an impact on education. School communities – students, their parents and their teachers – have struggled to manage technological change when resources, particularly those of time, have been stretched by the curricular and administrative changes they have had to implement.

The impact of ICT in the classroom transforms management, organisation and conventional pedagogical approaches. Many teachers still struggle with integrating ICT into teaching and learning, even though the ICT training programme provided by the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) aimed to provide the skills and theoretical framework within which educational praxis can absorb these changes. ICT is seen as an integral part of each strand of the National Curriculum, and the performance of teachers is to be judged on their ability to integrate ICT within their teaching and their students’ learning.

Over the past 15 years, however, a significant number of students have access to computer facilities of one kind or another at home. The ways in which they have learned to use these devices, and the uses to which they are put, are shaped more by personal experience and input from their peers than by their schools. The programs they use, the ways in which they learn and the work they create mean that the education system struggles to meet the demands and expectations of these young people. What follows, of course, is that those who do not have this technology at home are doubly disadvantaged if their schools and teachers cannot compensate.

From 1995 to 2000 these issues were investigated by the author, and this book is based on several years’ research into patterns of computer ownership and use among young people. A six-year longitudinal study by John Cuthell of some 1800 students at a comprehensive school in West Yorkshire provided the data from which the results were drawn. Student work was examined during this period, and students themselves commented on the ways in which computers had changed their work. Teacher use and teacher attitudes were also examined. The results clearly demonstrate the disparity between student computer ownership and use and that of their teachers. Further studies have only confirmed this.

The citizens of the twenty first century are being taught in classrooms of the twentieth century whose praxis is shaped by the 1870 Education Act.
Digital technologies present students with powerful tools for learning. Young people who use them have been set free from conventional expectations of learning. This raises profound issues for the educational system of the new century.