Here’s what I got up to this week…

Ownpower invited me to a workshop. Nosakhere was also present. The aim of this workshop was to come up with a new paradigm of learning, or a new business model for online learning. 

We used integrative thinking and causal loops to get to the heart of the subject. We looked at two lens views, to create the business models. 

Ontology

We used the Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire. It is a book based on the teacher student relationship. Freire, speaks of traditional education working on a linear bases he calls it the ”banking model” because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. He offers a solution, to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge.

This fits onto Nosakere’s dreamocrat model. The model points out for every learner/dreamer there is an equivalent educator/dreamer. At the moment traditional education is  working on a vertical axis, where the educator treats the student as an empty vessel and the student in turn accepts knowledge as a passive learner. The horizontal axis is where we witness subject, objective unity. Where Learning how to receive knowledge creates the Co-dream. It’s not about one role, it’s about making the world a better place form both sides. The ideal spot to be for all, is a balanced central position, the Dreamocrat.

Epistomology

We worked with Disclosing new worlds – By Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores and Hubert L. Dreyfus I have not read it yet, so I will quote a section from this website. However, I’m sure there will be a future blog post on this book.

Disclosing New Worlds calls for a recovery of a way of being that has always characterized human life at its best. The book argues that human beings are at their best not when they are engaged in abstract reflection, but when they are intensely involved in changing the taken-for-granted, everyday practices in some domain of their culture—that is, when they are making history. History-making, in this account, refers not to wars and transfers of political power, but to changes in the way we understand and deal with ourselves.

Disclosing new worlds diagram

I then got taken through the ridiculously, awesome process of causal loops. A causal loop is used to understand complex systems. A causal loop is a visualisation method, where we map out all the possible variables in a system, to understand how they are interrelated.  This is the LMS causal loop.

Then, we used Integrative thinking. It is a method or discipline, in which one can solve complex problems. It was originated by Graham Douglas.

All these methodologies and techniques have been used to create business models for the LMS. Here is our first business model on formal learning.