A Guide to Documenting Learning Read online

  Communicate New Knowledge

  Communication of new knowledge is not meant to be passive. It is meant to be active—mutually expressive and receptive. Documenting asks learners to formulate and articulate not only what will be shared, but how it will ask audiences to communicate their knowledge, thoughts, opinions, and perspectives. Thoughtful decision-making regarding media types (text, image, audio, video) and platforms that promote responsive communication (e.g., Twitter—hashtags and direct messages; blog posts, YouTube, SlideShare—comment threads; Snapchat geofilters—sharing one’s location) to reach the desired global audience need to be made.

  QR Code 2.16 Scan this QR code to view Obvious to You. Amazing to Others.

  http://langwitches.me/obvious

  It is not uncommon for learners of all ages to believe they do not have anything new or special enough to share. Sivers (2011), calls this phenomenon, “Obvious to you. Amazing to others” (scan QR Code 2.16). The belief that I do not have anything worth sharing is not an uncommon hurdle that needs to be overcome early on when learners are first asked to document their learning. This is true especially for older learners, given younger learners have not yet experienced non-acceptance, or created a personal fear of failure.

  Use Technologies to Spread New Knowledge

  When learners share and amplify their artifacts, the feedback and new knowledge and ideas gained create an added value to their documentation being meaningful and purposeful. Using text, images, and multimedia communication technologies to reach a worldwide audience supports action research and innovation. By sharing across the globe, as opposed to only with local classmates or colleagues, amplification degrees widened and often lead to deeper learning experiences.

  The imperative for sharing learning and discovery globally are becoming the norm. The Oxford Dictionary (2017a) defines crowdsourcing as obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people. Therefore, it is important to be aware and take advantage of crowdsourcing and the ability to learn from and with the world. The barriers of traditional publishing technologies have been removed by the accessibility to self-publishing devices and networking platforms that can reach millions.

  Information Literacy

  How does information literacy relate to documenting learning? Unfortunately, living in a digital age leads to the inability to

  determine meaningful materials and resources due to information overload,

  discern truth from false information due to fake news reports,

  comprehend and inference multimedia forms due to beyond-text communication, and

  create, re-mix, and disseminate new forms of information due to the implication that online users both consume and produce.

  These inabilities need to become abilities. To do so builds informational literacy, which consists of four abilities:

  Identify and search effectively for information.

  Locate, filter, discern, evaluate, and analyze the quality of information.

  Tag, categorize, re-mix, and create new types of information.

  Effectively use and communicate findings on a topic, theme, problem, or issue.

  Here are nine informational literacy characteristics that the documenting learning process fosters (see Image 2.4):

  Image 2.4

  Create Information

  Documenting involves looking for learning, capturing visual and auditory evidence, reflecting on the meaning of the captured evidence, and making that meaning visible, shareable, and amplified. As producers, learners are turning data into information and creating new knowledge based on that information. Documenting learning overall focuses on creating information about a learner, his or her learning process, and how the learning plays a role in a bigger picture of learning over time.

  Choose Useful Information

  Learners need to continually improve their capabilities to evaluate what information needs to be gathered: What characterizes useful and worthwhile information as evidence of learning at various stages of the learning? Documenting is about much more than snapping a photograph or recording a few moments in time. It involves being strategically selective about collecting the most useful information that captures evidence of the learning.

  The ability to make choices between useful and useless information is a learned art. Student and adult learners need multiple opportunities before they can make cognitive and metacognitive documenting decisions that are consistently useful. Likewise, learners need to gain insights into figuring out what is the most beneficial information during their learning experience. For example, if students are learning about how the common cold virus is spread in their community, this would not be the best time to reach out globally. What would be beneficial is contacting and interviewing local health agencies and learning about regulatory guidelines for their local public environments.

  Tag, Categorize, and Hashtag Information

  With the amount of information being created, shared, and amplified worldwide daily, it is paramount that learners know how to tag, categorize, and hashtag information to make their artifacts easily searchable and accessible for themselves and others. Students and teachers need to be consciously aware of how to best curate and catalog each artifact. By doing so they begin to see relationships across and among content and skill areas, as well as create connections to their stored artifacts that can be accessed during future learning opportunities.

  Manage Information

  Learners need to manage information created by others, as well as the information they create. Downes (2013) predicts that, “Increasingly in the future, students will be responsible for managing their own online learning records and creative products. . . . They will need to manage these resources, index them, and enable access to them.” For example, managing information and artifacts via cloud storage provides learners with experiences in using systems and platforms that facilitate the management of online resources. The ability to archive artifacts promotes the capability to track and document their learning over time. Another example of managing one’s learning evidence can be through the use of blogfolios. The blogging platform used will have management features, such as chronological posting, archiving, tagging, and categorizing capabilities.

  Make Sense of Information

  People are bombarded with information 24/7, without even asking. Think of the ads that pop up when searching that just so happen to reflect a search topic or website you visited just a few hours ago. With the capabilities of businesses and nonprofits to share, disseminate, re-mix, and create any type of information they wish, learners as consumers need to be cognizant of the critical thinking necessary when confronted with a constant stream of information.

  Given that documenting focuses on capturing and highlighting the learning process, not every image, audio, video, or text collected will be useful as evidence. Learning to discern and making sense of what is worthwhile is an important skill to practice. As learners gain fluency in information literacy, they will begin to make better and wiser choices about what and how to best capture and convey learning.

  Connect Information

  Information literacy involves how to filter the extraordinary amount of information available online and make connections between and among the worthwhile information. Learners need to be able to see patterns and trends in information gained as a consumer, as well as a producer when creating their artifacts. Documenting embraces learners articulating the connections and relationships evident and visible in their artifacts (e.g., annotexted video or image, hashtagged crowdsourced conversation, blog posts with embedded media collage).

  Curate Information

  Wikipedia defines digital curation as

  The selection, preservation, maintenance, collection, and archiving of digital assets . . . which establishes, maintains, and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use. This is often accomplished by archivists, librarians, scientists, historians, and schola
rs.

  An important aspect of being a digital curator is becoming a responsible information filter for others. Curating implies more than just collecting resources or artifacts. It requires organizing and articulating the importance of the information. Documenting develops and calibrates cognitive thought processing that goes beyond being simply collectors of information to being thoughtful curators. When students and teachers are expected to include reflections, recommendations, and relevant connections related to the learning, it adds value to the learning process. It also causes learners to be reflective about their evidence of learning, and how to make those reflections visible to others.

  Enable Access to Information

  Most likely you were a consumer of information in your formative education years wherein you read books, newspapers, articles, and magazines written, edited, and published by a select few. A mindset of privacy, protection of intellectual property, password-protected content, and copyright restricting licenses have all contributed to information being kept behind digital firewalls. This is changing due to society becoming prolific producers of information and enabling easy access to that information by others.

  When sharing and amplifying artifacts learners are producers who are allowing access to their work, thinking, reflections, failures, and successes, which is modernizing what teaching and learning looks like now and into the future. As students and teachers are contributing to the information available online, it is important that they understand the connection between digital citizenship and network literacy when preparing their artifacts to be accessed by a local and global community.

  Disseminate Information

  Disseminate means to spread information widely. Documenting involves disseminating through sharing and amplifying. Simply sharing artifacts by publishing the information online does not mean the learning is spreading like wildfire and reaching desired targeted audiences. The saying: If you build (share) it, they will come, does not necessarily hold true in this hyper-information age.

  Think of disseminating as scattering seeds widely. Who really knows where the seeds will land and if they will take root? Learners must strategically disseminate their artifacts in such a way so that they know they are connecting with their desired audience. Discernment in disseminating information requires a new set of skills that are tightly connected to both the network and media literacies.

  Network Literacy

  How does documenting learning embrace network literacy? Hellweg (2012) explains that network literacy consists of, “The abilities to [1] obtain a basic understanding of network technology, [2] being able to craft one’s own network identity, [3] understand network intelligence, and [4] understand network capabilities.” These four network abilities involve:

  Networking platforms—media that connect people and ideas synchronously or asynchronously without geographical restrictions or time limitations

  Network connectivity—person’s voice, tone, and expression of ideas through text, images, and multimedia that create a connection between self and his/her part in a network

  Network intelligence—person’s ability to identify, examine, and make connections among online interactions involving users, networks, platforms, applications, and protocols

  Network capabilities—focused on communities and networks and how the members can aid in gaining and/or creating content

  Here are four network literacy characteristics that the documenting learning process fosters:

  Obtaining a Basic Understanding of Network Platforms

  As more and more network communities are being birthed, evolving, and expanding, the more important it becomes for learners to be able to understand these platforms in terms of how each could possibly best convey the information being shared or amplified. For example: When would it be better to share artifacts via a blog post versus a Twitter post with a strategic hashtag? If wanting to gain insights into an aspect of game programming, would participating in a hashtag chat or following an expert on Twitter be the best given the project’s timeline?

  Posing network technology questions is a natural component of the documenting process, both as a consumer and producer. Contemplating what network technologies and communities would be the most beneficial for both gaining knowledge and obtaining feedback, push-back, collaboration opportunities, and curated resources are part of the decision-making process. When preparing to share and amplify artifacts, learners put into practice their network technology skills when considering audience possibilities based on their learning focuses and goals.

  Crafting a Network Connectivity

  To have a voice and tone that expresses his or her ideas and thoughts through text, image, and multimedia, a learner must move beyond passively lurking in network communities. A lurker is someone who reads the work of others and takes advantage of the resources that are being shared, but never contributes. All of the now literacies expect learners to be receptive and expressive.

  Establishing and building network connectivity that others choose to follow and learn from based on quality content takes time and strategic effort to develop. Being part of a network community also involves building trust among its members. What do you want others to know about you as a member of a particular community? What do you stand for and believe in? What niche do you fill informationally? What content represents your area of interest or expertise? What do you want to be known for in a particular network community?

  When purposefully documenting and developing an understanding of the value of sharing and amplifying learners are constantly in need of making cognitive and metacognitive decisions concerning

  what to share,

  whom to share it with,

  what message is going to be conveyed, and

  what type of feedback is desired.

  Someone’s network identity attracts specific types of followers based on what he or she is authentically producing, sharing, and amplifying for a connected and targeted audience.

  Understanding Network Intelligence

  One of the biggest shifts in recent years in terms of accessing learning information and networking is that restrictions have been removed regarding what and how information is accessed, and who is providing the information. Consider the networking possibilities during a conference breakout session. If someone asks, “Who is the smartest person in this room?” oftentimes the presenter would be indicated. The accurate answer is the collective room. This alludes to the power of network intelligence versus the mindset of standalone intelligence.

  It is hard to understand the positive impact of this shift if learners have never experienced the power of networking to gain, filter, create, and disseminate information. Learners of all ages need to have multiple experiences in taking advantage of crowdsourcing, a phenomenon impossible without participating in network communities.

  Leveraging Network Capabilities

  When involved in document learning over time, learners develop skills and strategies to best leverage network intelligence related to their learning. They become active researchers, applying their intelligence to aid in figuring out how their learning communities and networks can add leverage to their own and others’ learning. For example, a teacher helps out a colleague by posting a tweet containing a specific hashtag. She attaches her colleague’s student-created argument-based video and asks her network to post comments concerning the students’ claims. She reminds her network to post their tweets using the included hashtag.

  As in many of the other now literacies, in network communities its members are contributors, not just consumers. This is the heart of networking. If no one contributes, the network system ceases to function. When sharing and amplifying artifacts via networks to disseminate documentation strategically; chances of receiving feedback and push-back are leveraged. This capability transforms documenting OF learning into documenting FOR and AS learning. Networking capabilities embrace learning with others by contributing perspectives, voices, and reflections with like-minded
global audiences.

  Summing Up

  Documenting learning supports content curriculum and the application of the now literacies through the process of making learning and thinking visible, meaningful, shareable, and amplified. As learners embrace the now literacies and apply them thoughtfully in their documenting opportunities, students and teachers become strategic consumers and producers. They learn how to learn by applying contemporary mindsets that involve purposefully accessing, leveraging, and contributing online in meaningful ways through reaching and interacting with global audiences.