Only What I Know: My Learning Process and What I Learned From It

My Achievements

I was successful in a number of ways. I got a guitar. I learned to string it. I learned to tune it. I got a metronome. I got a tuner. I got a pick. I got a book. I bought lessons. I found online resources. I used those resources and participated in guitar talk with people I don’t know. I practiced each week. Still, I fell short in a number of ways. Most notably I did not learn in time a beginner’s song as I’d originally hoped. I can strum and I can remember finger placement for three chords and four notes well enough, I suppose, but I think I’m a couple of weeks off from properly playing my song. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised to find I could use online resources to get better at the sort of task that has in the past required me to learn almost exclusively from a teacher in a face-to-face setting.

My Experience as a Learner

This learning experience was for me a successful one in many ways, perhaps mostly because I’ve had to articulate my process by way of this blog. By writing out my thoughts and my steps on this blog, I’ve had to think and express myself clearly on how I learn, what has worked, what hasn’t, and what I’d do differently next time in order to learn more effectively and efficiently. Writing things out has been good for me, that is. I was motivated to practice each week because I set a goal and because I am writing publicly in this blog about how I am making (and not making) progress toward my goal. Perhaps the thing that frustrated or discouraged me most was the realization that I would not be able to timely achieve my goal as originally hoped and that I should have set a less ambitious goal. Maybe I should have just tried to learn how to do the Dougie. The whole point of the song is to teach a dance. How hard could it be?

My Process as a Learner

I had three main resources to support my learning process: a book, a teacher, and the internet. In the past, I would have leaned most heavily on the teacher followed by the book with the internet in last place. However, this time the order was reversed. That’s because I was most helped by the questions I asked at the guitar fora and the answers I received from helpful yet anonymous people on those websites. The conversations I had on these websites and the collaboration I experienced as a result of these conversations was really my first experience with web-based participatory learning outside of my courses in this program. These conversations required a form of communication -- a digital literacy -- that I was not familiar with at first but now feel comfortable in using.

Specifically, web forum speak -- a language I think I’ve now picked up -- provided me access to an awful lot of information on a wide variety of guitar topics that I would not otherwise have had access to.  The great thing about web fora interaction is that it is anonymous and it is understood that the basis for association is nothing other than the common interest in the subject under discussion. This means it is fine to walk away from people who offer unhelpful interaction. That’s not always possible in a face-to-face interaction where identities are fully disclosed and there is a person who can react in an unpredictable way.

Implications for Instructional Practice

This experience has taught me the importance of project based learning and of the importance in allowing students to choose the subject and goals of a project based learning assignment. My inability to achieve the goal I set for myself implies that I will need to engage with students early and often during the course of project formulation and milestone achievement in order to help students determine whether they are making adequate progress toward the goal they’ve set and, if not, then allow modification of the project and its goal or perhaps even a complete revision and restart. What I’ve seen is that goals initially set are not necessarily informed by experience so much as hope, and that that is an insufficient basis in some cases for determining milestones and expectations.

Implications for Teaching 21st Century Literacies

My engagement in participatory learning required what I’ve referred to above as forum speak, a literacy skill. There is an anonymous exchange of information that takes place in web fora. This exchange follows a set of rules. These rules are partly expressed in FAQs on the website but they are mostly embedded (without announcing themselves as rules) in the way that people on the fora address one another. This manner of exchange is not like the way that teacher and student relate to one another in a face-to-face context. The relationship online is between equals. There is no designated teacher and learner. Anyone in the fora can play either role in any conversation. Everyone is anonymous. There is little harm in saying the “wrong” thing as no bad reputation can attach to an online identity that is made up simply for the purpose of participating in the forum. This fact allows people to exchange ideas and information more freely than they would otherwise. There are some dangers associated with this fact too.

Literacy instruction in the classroom must be designed to account for both the quick accessibility of anonymously offered and potentially expert information and the danger of potentially abusive interaction created by the same anonymity. Research or skill building projects that make use of online fora must include guidance about what students are likely to learn from such resources in addition to the sort of risks involved in seeking it out, to say nothing of parental involvement, which may be key in minimizing risk of student exposure to abusive language.