New Places To Learn - Flexible Learning and Online Residency

Horia Varlan - http://flic.kr/p/7vALKt

It has to be said that the Said Business School is a great place to visit, why? Because a) it's directly opposite the Oxford train station which is really handy seeing as the weather was not playing ball that day, and b) the architecture of the building itself is a wonder to explore, all be it looking at the little model archetype of the building :) I was here anyway for the New places to learn - Flexible Learning and Online Residency gathering, looking at how people 'reside' online and how institutions can adapt to an ever changing online environment.

I would normally go through the steps of who spoke and when, however I think the main points of the day will be lost in translation so I will instead ramble on about what I thought of the day and what I've taken away from the event.. Ok so I may name a couple of people along the way. The terminology of Visitor Resident was a major element of the day, classifying online learners as either visitors or residents, it was said quite aptly that a learner who is a 'visitor' is someone who sees the online space as a toolbox (I think Dave White was to thank for this), the learner simply opens the toolbox, uses the appropriate tool for the job.. when
finished, puts the tool back in the box and closes the lid. An incredible analogy of the kind of model I think a lot of institutions currently adopt, including our own where a rich set of 'tools' are provided, VLEs, e-Portfolios, e-assessment etc So what is a 'Resident'? It was discussed that an online resident is someone who has their whole or part of their life in the online domain.. such as myself, my photos, work, blogs, social networks, my gaming all reside in the cloud, that's part of my life, part of what I do.

Lindsay Jordan mentioned that residency is a place where a user feels at home, safe, secure and feels in control. Ok, that's fine but how can institutions cater for this type of persona in a learning context? We know we can do the visitor thing, it's embedded, students use the tools because they have to for their courses. It was stressed that there is nothing wrong with a learner being a visitor or a resident, they are both different, this wasn't a battle royale to distinguish which one was better or shift learners from being visitors and transmogrifying them into residents, which brings me to someones (The name eludes me.. apologies) quite valid point of 'There is no manual or instruction booklet' for being a resident. You just are, you are naturally good at 'it' and have adapted to being surrounded by this type of technology and have grown with it. 

Where was I? As yes, what can we do to better understand this type of leaner? Bring in more tools?.. oh wait, aren't we then just catering for the visitors again? I personally think it's a hard one to crack, I would be inclined to think that someone who already resides online would rather have their 'learning' separate from their personal space, seeing as their personal space is that residency online, I know I wouldn't want that crossover. 

I may have just nullified the term resident for myself :/ Maybe it's about an institution being more open with it's learning, maybe shifting from a 'jump through hoops' very linear modal to a modal where both lecturer and students share knowledge in that public domain, discuss, reflect, collaborate etc outside the walls of any VLE, supported by the institution of course.

I feel this would contribute greatly to supporting the sway of learners, visitors can still use the 'tools' they need for the module and residents can let that learning in if they feel comfortable. I'm not pushing this as any sort of fanfare resolution to what I see as a quite a complex aspect of teaching and learning.. just an idea :)