CALIBRATED LEARNER AUTONOMY.

                         

Learner autonomy turned out to be quite a thorny issue. Researchers mention motivation as factor for a successful academic performance, but also local, cultural political policies and regulations. Distance learning relies namely on this skill, acquired quality, trait of being able to assume responsibility, to make decisions, manage time, organize activities, undertake, subject oneself to evaluation. In the case of distance learning students should be able to successfully merge and manage the Virtual Learning Environment and the Personal Learning Environment. This skill should be developed since early childhood.

In my contribution on the group padlet I posted a presentation by Richard Davidson an alumni at Edutopia.org on "The Heart-Brain Connection - The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning", in which he refers to the psychological and biological/neural aspect of academic learning process; the detracting role of anxiety for example on the normal functioning of working memory. In these respects and then regarding the so-called sensitive periods of memory plasticity the conclusions of the researcher are encouraging, he asserts that "Qualities such as patience, calmness cooperation and kindness are all best regarded as skills that can be trained"! These in their turn would create a physiological, psychological balance and equilibrium that would foster a good working memory functioning and a successful learning performance in any conditions, at any age “the doors would not be closed”. So – lifelong practice, practice and again training as intensive intervention.

The technological progress and ready availability makes it possible to create a continuum between the in-class and the out-of-class learning process which should review, consolidate and enhance learned in the class material. The richness of resources and possibilities have a double implications for the teachers: technology and gadgets bring variety and support but the instructor must spend more time with the careful selection of widgets that he would embed into his lesson, the ones that would meet the requirements of  relevance and appropriateness, that would fit his objectives and lesson aims.

In my first in the week post on Nicenet, I referred to the one computer classroom strategy and possible adapted activities. That one looked as an almost purely theoretical post, rehearsal of my studied materials, some 4 articles. I learned very much during this week, I must admit, I have tried to apply, check functioning, in order to make a decision about how adequate and useful a tool can be, whether and how I could apply it in the future and for all my groups as well.

In the second part of the week I experimented with the second aspect of learner autonomy besides computer the mobile possibilities for fostering learning.  First of all I have studied in more detail the Rich Internet Applications from CLEAR (Center for Language Education and Research) from Michigan State University, the SMILE test maker using RIA, the Conversations, Audio Dropbox and Video Dropbox in particular captured my interest. The last two I have embedded in the wikispaces.com site for the group with which I work on my project. The students have already an assignment that required the audiodropbox installed.

I was very enthusiastic about the socrative.com, that is another perfect educational tool for visualizing student understanding, evaluation and having results reports in real time. It has the possibilities of multiple choice MC, True/False and Short answer types of quizzes but that have the possibility of uploading a picture, diagram, and looks very modern and colourful indeed. I tried on the Quick Answer a sort of blitz survey with some groups and I appreciated it highly. It could I think be done with a mobile as well.

The PollEverywhere is another super modern and very rich in possibilities educational site that requires creating an account. Socrative gives some reports about results, but this one is a wonder - different types of reports in the form of graphics and diagrams which is perfect for the case someone wants to draw some other types of conclusions, apply for some other types of studies, more expanded, profound ones. Only, I did not test it yet, I am afraid about its limited applicability in my region for free. This is another tester that looks like an opinion poll, again very rapid that could be done 5min before the end of the lesson or even with the mobiles from everywhere, at any time.

Evernote is another powerful tool for both education and personal development, also like a personal performance and activity organizer and a collaborative instrument. This utility can be embedded into the Google browser for bookmarking and copying notes, pages, screenshots, photographs, video cam snaps. Everything can be stored into blocknotes and processed with the adnotation tools, then compiled into a presentation very interactive and modern looking, including audio notes made by the user, video and everything. It has the cloud repository and may be readily accessed from everywhere from any gadget.

I enriched considerably my educational and development repertoire during the current week.