Issues of access and moving on from week 3

In the past week, those two great institutions of BT and Sky have conspire against, resulting in no use of internet access at home (and not for another week – help!!). Never mind, thought I; there is always the trusty local library; wrong! This institution is also beset by technology problems and is down to two slow-running PCs for the entire local community. Increased internet access in the UK? The evidence suggests not, for the ‘man/woman in the street’.
This is also the point where I also realised that I should store a list of ‘My favourites’ not just on my PC, but by using a web-based source.
Due to these little hurdles, I have not managed to carry out any of the tasks, which I have required access and downloading; for example, Google Scholar or creating lists with RefWorks. I will have to catch up on these tasks next week, along with viewing other’s blogs and comments.
Good to know I can go back to the old fashioned method of printing articles, reading them and highlighting/making notes by hand (is this perhaps what I should have done earlier?).

Now, on to the main point at this time – the Oliver et al reading.
I found this to be an interesting paper, as I have studied some of the theoretical issues raised, such as constructivism, on previous courses.
I was interested to review the approaches to knowledge, as well as approaches to learning; this seemed to set the context well for the discussion on methodological approaches and it may be difficult to separate these aspects. For example, if we were to discuss ‘positivism’ as an approach to knowledge, this may assume that we ‘see things’ ‘out there’ and can investigate and discuss these clearly when viewing the external actions or behaviours, to agree what is ‘true’. However, this makes the assumption of similar values and held beliefs and doesn’t explain the ‘in your head’ reasons behind the actions; nor the assumption that repetition makes something true for all cases. This approach to knowledge may indicate the associative and cogititive approaches to learning, to which Beetham (2005) refers, are most applicable. If this is the case, the methodologies which involved measuring behaviour and practices – ‘technical in action’ research – are likely to be most suitable, as the evaluation of the findings will be dictated by a set of values (theories and models) applied to the practice occurring. This research could then be posited as ‘true’, with an awareness of the limitations.
If the approach taken to knowledge is a social perspective, whether constructivism or critical theory, then this may lead to assumptions that the social constructivist and situativist approach to learning should be dominant. The methodologies likely to be used here would necessarily be leaning towards interactions and/or the evidence of interactions that have already taken place; for example, interviews and focus group feedback sessions. The use of activity theory would also sit well with these approaches, as an analysis could be made which was dependent on the situation and its occurrences.

One aspect of this paper I should further consider is the issue of ‘…tacit communitarian or post-theoretical perspectives…’ (Roberts and Huggins, 2004), as I feel this may relate to the subject of management teaching and learning; so much is ‘in the heads’ of mangers, which needs to be more explicit, in order to link theory and practice.

I feel this paper sums up a number of the ‘big questions’ I have in relation to e-learning and its possible use; one needs to be clear of ‘where you’re coming from’ in relation to approaches to knowledge and learning (as well as - as I personally feel strongly on this - approaches to assessment). One thought which strikes me is a thought from a previously read book by Patricia Murphy, related to collaboration – ‘…learning to collaborate versus learning through collaboration…’ – how will it be possible to achieve on-line collaboration of unconnected managers? How will they learn to do this?

I must read on…