Two Faces of Integrative Learning

1
Two Faces of Integrative Learning

• Darren Cambridge Computers WritingDetroit, MI

2
Contexts

• Emergent findings of campuses involved in the
  Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio
  Research
• Interest in Computers Writing community in both
  electronic portfolios and social software How do
  they connect, or not?
• Informal learning discussion on the blogs
• Integrative learning as a key theme in discourse
  of higher education reform

3
Two Faces

• What kinds of selves do our digital portfolios
  models invite from students? (Yancey 2004)
• Two dimensions of integrative learning parallel
  two types of selves

4
Networked and Symphonic Selves

• Network Self
• Creating intentional connections
• Symphonic Self
• Achieving integrity of the whole

5
Distinctions

• Symphonic most consonant to the tradition of
  portfolio pedagogy in the United States
• Network most consonant to recent integrative
  learning discourse
• Cant be (and isnt) either/or
• Differ in values, activities, genre
  characteristics, technologies, and impacts

6
Values

• Play, emergence, entrepreneurialism, flexibility,
  agility
• Analysis
• Liberalism
• Student engagement

• Integrity, commitment, intellectual engagement,
  balance
• Creativity
• Humanism
• Personal engagement

7
Activities

• Folio thinking
• Ease, speed, low cost integration
• Embedded in day-to-day
• Connection
• Aggregation, association
• Collection
• Reflection-in-action, constructive reflection
• Revision
• Continual learning

• Matrix thinking
• Time, effort, high cost integration (author,
  context, and audience)
• Stepping out of daily work
• Articulation, reframing
• Synthesis, symphony
• Selections, projection
• Reflection-in-presentation
• Iteration
• Moments of mastery, accomplishment, celebration

8
Genre Characteristics

• Space
• Openings
• Relationships as end, heuristic, invention
• Relationships between things
• Atomized, aggregated
• Collection, list, link, datum, snapshot

• Text, composition
• Boundaries
• Relationships as organization
• Relationships between relationships
• Holistic, integral, systemic
• Theory, story, interpretation, map

9
Technologies

• Web 2.0 tools, social software, Identity 2.0
  providers, PLEs and other aggregators,
  MyLifeBits. ELGG
• Atom, RSS, FOAF, Flikr API, Open ID, etc.

• ePortfolio systems
• Concept mapping systems
• IMS ePortfolio, Topic Maps, RDF

10
Impacts

• Low yield incremental and by accretion
• Greater connectedness and intentionality
• Learning in the network

• High yield occasional and intensive
• Synthesis, coherence, feeling of integrity
• Learning in the individual

11
Living Both

• Bi-stable equilibrium
• Learning in layers