Today, I'd like to write about some of my 'online' work with my placement. Alongside going to fascinating events, I've been doing work behind the scenes too. As well as some proofreading and formatting for the Culture Step programme and emails, I helped to set up the facebook group (it's private unfortunately, just for participants!). Actually, I was surprised at how useful a tool this was in bringing people together. I have also been sharing some of my blog posts on this site for public reading. My post about the Estonishing Evenings event was even shared by the online publication Estonian World! This was a personal challenge for me, because I am not used to offering my reflective writing to a public readership. I feel insecure about what people might think about writing that is quite personal, but I want to challenge myself more, and I am already learning a lot from this process. I'm hoping I can learn more by opening myself up to the opinions of others. Thinking about this also gave me an idea for something new I can work with for culture step. I want to create a new blog that is not just my own, but that participants can submit entries to, whether it be written, images, music, film, etc. This is something I'm going to work on over the next week. It is great that Lea is very open to these ideas and allows me to work so independently! I like this style of working in Estonia, I love to be given so much freedom to work on projects! I have a complicated relationship with social media. I often feel anxious about posting my views on Facebook, and recently have used it very little. My mental health is notably improved when I minimise use of social media. However, I've realised that for me, social media is a necessary evil. Estonia is the fifth country that I've lived in (sixth if you could England and Scotland separately), I have friends and family all over the world. Facebook is the easiest way to keep in touch with those people. I can use it to 'drop in' on people who I might be crossing paths with soon. Apparently I should be posting my hours spent at placement. According to my Culture Step passport, which logs our hours spent at events through stickers, I have so far spent 18 hours at events. (Estonishing evenings, towers tour, launch and nature film, architecture museum, Lahemaa National park trip) I have also spent at least 10 hours working on my own time on proof-reading, online content development, writing this blog, etc. At the start of this project, Lea said she thought I would be spending more than my 60 hours, this will probably be the case, with more events this week and the Estonian language class! But I don't mind, even though I'm doing a lot, it's very fun too!
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This has been an exciting week for the organisers and participants of the Culture Step programme! I am in an interesting position, because I am helping to organise and arrange things but also getting to participate. If you're also a participant and reading this blog, I'd love to know some of your thoughts about your experience in the comments. This week we have had two events so far, and we'll have two more by the end of the week. First, we took a trip to the four ancient towers that form part of Kiek in de Kök Fortifications Museum. We met at Neitsitorn Tower (which dates back to 1370) and took a walk through the four towers that make up the museum. Kiek in de Kök is apparently the largest medieval tower in the Baltic countries. There are all sorts of ghost stories surrounding the fortifications, which reminded me of my hometown Norwich, which is also a medieval city like Tallinn, with plenty of spooky stories. Our guide, Kadi, had done some academic research into this subject, and she suggested that wherever you go in the world, people tell ghost stories! This certainly fits with my experiences of other cultures and I was reminded of a taxi driver in Singapore who spent twenty minutes warning me about the women with no legs he saw gliding around the modern city at night. When we are newcomers to a culture, it's comforting to see some familiarities (even spooky ones). Does this match with your own culture or cross-cultural encounters? Last night we had our official Culture Step launch party. We tried some traditional Estonian snacks and watched a new nature documentary called The Wind Sculpted Land. The movie has just won 'best cinematography' at Matsalu international film festival and shows the changing seasons across Estonia, documenting how this affects the wildlife's behaviour. I can see why it deserved the award, because each shot is a beautiful view of nature, some from traditional angles we are used to seeing, others providing a fresh perspective that frame the natural world like a beautiful painting. Some of the animals are familiar to me, we have foxes (rebane) and otters (sa oled) in England. But we do not have wolves (hunt), or moose (libu). Many Estonian people that I meet seem to have a deep connection with nature, with wild swimming and mushrooming trips to the forest a regular weekend activity for many. On my Estonian language apps, I was taught phrases like 'I'm going hiking in Lahemaa with my family' - 'Lähen perega Lahemaale matkama' and the word for mushrooming (seenele) very early on! Watching this film made me think about how nature can influence culture and the two can become entangled with one another. The land that we are brought up in can greatly impact the way that we view the world. Having a connection with nature changes the way that we go about our daily lives. Likewise, we impact nature, by filming it, taking walks within it, consuming (even man made things). The changing seasons here also have a big impact on how people act. Having lived in cities that do not have four seasons (Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Singapore), I can say that although winter can be sad, it means that we appreciate the warm weather of summer much more! People in those countries had not based their cultural events so much around the changing seasons, although in the case of Vietnam, and some Chinese Singaporeans, they focussed on the moon instead. Cyclical change that can be represented by the seasons or the moon is a big part of our lives, that sometimes we're more conscious of than others. Time is passing, but with the seasons it is moving in a circle, rather than a straight line. It's sad that summer is ending, but it has to if we are going to see the beautiful colours of autumn again. Actually we saw in the film that Estonia even has a fifth season, a natural flood that comes between winter and spring. We often perceive floods to be a disaster, but here it is a crucial part of the natural cycle. You can watch the trailer here. Finally, I want to think about how watching a nature documentary relates to adult education. Sitting down to watch a documentary (or any movie for that matter) is an example of informal learning that we are doing all the time. I learned a lot from this film, not only about Estonian wildlife, but also Estonian perspectives on nature. The Culture Step programme is providing different kinds of learning opportunities for participants than they may usually find in the formal space of a classroom, or in their workplace. The process of learning about Estonian culture is also opening up questions for me about my own culture, and what I might want to share with migrants about British culture (I don't want to get into that now though because I think it's a very different situation!). I hope to find out more about the cultures of the other participants too, perhaps bringing this multi-cultural dimension can be one of the ways I can help add further to the project as part of my placement. This week I read about some different learning theories. Some were familiar to me, such as behaviourism and social contructivism, but one was new, that of connectivism. What's connectivism? Connectivism is an attempt to come up with a learning theory for a digital age, with many learning theories developed before we had access to online learning tools. It has some key points:
Some of the principles reminded me of Vella's discussion of quantum thinking:'It is a shock for most of us to consider a universe composed of energy that is patterned and spontaneous, the certainty of uncertainty, “both/and” thinking, and the connectedness of everything.' (Vella, 2002, p.29) Digital storytelling This week we had the opportunity to work in a group to make a piece of digital content to discuss a learning theory that we chose. I worked with my classmate Mari to make a 'digital storybook' that helped to explain some of the theories in an accessible way. We used the website Storybird to create a picture book. This site provides access to illustrations by fantastic artists and the ability to easily construct a book that can be shared online. We chose an artist called Oya, who is a German and Turkish illustrator. If you'd like to see more of her art, you can find her profile on storybird here. I found this process to be fun and informative. There is a challenge involved by making an academic topic into a story book, because information has to be consolidated and written in a simple way. We also experimented with using dialogue between our two characters to give a sense of the real-life dialogue that we had around the subject. We also wanted to pose the reader some questions, which we did in a playful way at the end of the story. I like this format because I don't believe adult learning always has to be serious, and it's nice to have some fun while you learn! The platform of Storybird might not work for everyone, and it was a little limiting in that the user has to stick to only one set of pictures, and you do not get much choice in fonts or have the chance to use any other creative styles (animations, hyperlinks etc.). But as a traditional story-telling format it works well, and the selection of art is great. You can find our story here. References
Bell, F. (2011). Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(3), 98-118. Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), 3-10. Vella, J., (2002). Learning to listen, learning to teach: the power of dialogue in educating adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Last night I went to 'How to make Tallinn great again?', which was the first event on the culture step programme! It was an event organised by Estonishing Evenings, and there were local Estonians and people from all over the world, from Iran to Germany to the USA! This series has the aim of bringing Estonians together with those from other countries living in Estonia, to discuss local issues and share opinions and viewpoints with one another. The theme of this month's event was on how to improve Tallinn, through city planning on a government level and also what local people can do. There were talks by local speakers, and the opportunity to discuss in groups and share ideas. The facilitator in my group had brought lots of post-its to collect different people's thoughts. The venue was a place called Erinevate Tubade Klubi or 'the club of different rooms' in English, located in Telliskivi, Tallinn's exciting 'Creative city'. This room somehow manages to combine a comfortable, homely atmosphere with state of the art technology. When you arrive, you can remove your shoes and put on slippers, and there are comfortable sofas and chairs around tables. This is combined with screens throughout, and a green-screen stage. I felt like it was a really relaxed atmosphere, especially because high-tech venues are usually brightly lit and often feel uncomfortable to me. This space nurtured an informal environment for discussion and sharing ideas and enabled everyone to have a good view of the stage. Later in the evening, we had a talk from the founder and CEO of Telliskivi, Jaanus Juss. He shared some of the aims that he had in creating the spaces, and how they developed and built a successful artistic community. During the Soviet times, the buildings that now make up Telliskivi were railway warehouses and factories. They stood disused for many years, until they were bought by Jaanus and his partners. They rent the spaces primarily to creative enterprises, sometimes allowing in something more commercial to subsidise lower rents for artistic spaces. He attributes some of Telliskivi's success to the fact that they haven't accepted grants from outside investors, either from the private sector or any governments or the EU. He sees this as key to maintaining creative control over decision-making, that they do not have to answer to investors, and thus do not have to choose the biggest profits over the 'best fit' to the community. The city hosts practice spaces for bands, music venues, theatre, art galleries and much more, as well as many cool bars and restaurants. According to their website, they have nearly one million people going to events here each year. Having been involved myself with creative communities in the past, it is a truly impressive achievement, because I know there are huge physical, economic and bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. There are perhaps some compromises that have to be made in an endeavour like this, in terms of corporate events. Personally, I'm more in favour of a shared ownership model, and not totally averse to local government funding. One worry I have is that governments could use a success story like Telliskivi as an excuse not to fund culture, and leave it entirely up to free-market forces. Also, most decisions are made by Juss and his team, so the city relies on their taste and view points. I wonder what would happen if they opened up creative decisions to the wider community of people who go to Telliskivi? Could it be more democratic? I want to look more into how this creative city is benefitting the local community, but it does seem like a good example of how creativity can thrive given the right nurturing. I also think another key to its success is local knowledge. It was created by people who knew the area and were able to think about ways that they could improve it themselves. Juss stands in stark contrast to corporations and outside investors who know nothing about a locality and its needs. If you are reading this and you know something about Telliskivi, or I got something wrong, please leave your ideas in the comments! This event is a great example of adult learning that can be bottom up, and be beneficial for participants and wider society. These Estonishing Evening events have made a start in creating a dialogue and building communication between wider sections of the community living in Estonia. I hope that the team will continue to run and build upon these fantastic, collaborative events and I hope that more like it will spring up.
Last week I read about seamless learning. I had never heard of this kind of learning before, but it does combine learning theories that I am aware of.
What does 'Seamless' mean? The word 'seamless' implies learning that blends together and is smooth and without transition. This is part of seamless learning, and essentially it can be a combination of different learning, whether it be formal or informal that comes together to create a holistic, life-wide process for the learner. Technology plays a big part in the literature on seamless learning, with mobile and online learning facilitating learning, both inside and out of the classroom. This technology is how the learning can happen at any time, with smart phones allowing us to learn in a flexible way. Is it Blended Learning? At first I wondered, how is seamless learning different from blended learning? Particularly in English language teaching, blended learning is when formal educators use online resources to supplement classroom learning at home and thus combines face-to-face learning with technology (Hockley, 2018). It seems that seamless learning even goes beyond this. Although some of the literature suggests that it would still be linked to the formal classroom, seamless learning is not necessarily set by the teacher, and could involve learning that is more student-centred (Wong et al., 2015). My own experience of seamless learning Seamless learning, by its definition is happening all the time, across different contexts (Looi et al., 2012). It is even happening now, as I write this blog, which is a part of the learning process of an online class that I am taking. I read the materials assigned by the teacher. Next I posted some ideas and read my classmates ideas on a forum, I did a little of my own further research and then started writing this blog (while looking back at the reading and class discussions). And while we have new topics every week, I have found myself looking back at the older discussions and framing them in light of my new knowledge. It seeps into the other modules that I do, as my learning in an online environment reframes my perceptions of face to face discussions. If you, my readers leave a comment, we can even continue to build on this process through discussion of these ideas. Criticism My personal reservation, and one that cropped up from other classmates on the forum, about seamless learning, is that it works best when technology is involved, and is therefore exclusive. Although I think it could happen 'offline', certainly potential students of this course who did not have access to the internet would not be able to participate in the seamless learning that I have so far in this module. Perhaps because I have taught in contexts with poor internet access, I am wary about assuming that all learners have smart phones. References Hockly, N. (2018). Blended Learning. ELT Journal, 72(1), 97-101. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccx058 Looi, C. K., So, H. J., Chen, W., Zhang, B., Wong, L. H., & Seow, P. (2012). Seamless learning. In Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning (pp. 2975-2979). Springer. Wong, L. H., Milrad, M., & Specht, M. (Eds.). (2015). Seamless learning in the age of mobile connectivity. Singapore: Springer. Last week marked the start of our IMAESC module in teaching adult education online. We had some interesting materials, online discussion and 'met' our tutor through web-conferencing software. I'm definitely looking forward to this module.
I just got home from my first meeting with Lea, the English language organiser of the Culture Step project with the Estonian Institute. I am now even more excited about the time I will spend there!
Lea explained that there are many people living in Estonia who do not speak the language or know much about the culture. A large proportion of these people are Russians, who moved here from the Soviet Union. There are also many people from other countries who mostly moved here for jobs. The culture step programme has funding for 250 people to be able to take part in language classes, events and trips to help them to integrate and learn more about Estonian culture. They have had a massive amount of interest from people wanting to participate, which is fantastic! It looks like I will be able to help them in many ways. I will go to Estonian language classes and offer my perspectives as a language teacher, help out with some trips and events in Tallinn and around the country and do some content writing and proofreading for them. This is really great, because as well as learning a lot about Estonian culture, I hope that this means I can contribute something useful to this organisation. This is an area of adult education that I'm particularly interested in so I'm very excited to be able to be involved with these events and to see how they unfold. Lea gave me lots of resources, so I have been doing my own learning about Estonian culture. Did you know that Estonia is a 'singing nation' and had a 'singing revolution' during the 1980s to demand independence from Russia? Estonians gathered peacefully and sang patriotic songs. It goes to show that there is a huge variety of ways to instigate social change, and singing is one of them! I'd better start practicing my Estonian language skills too... Nägemist! This is a bit of a test to see if I can have a blog for two subjects at once here!
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LaurenI am an IMAESC student, English teacher and adult education researcher from the UK. Categories
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