Punk learning

By 1977, punk music had emerged as a creative force to be reckoned with. It was a form of music that was furiously loud, aggressively energetic and full of discordant anger.

Some were outraged by the audacious behaviour of the punk rockers. Their clothes and hairstyles were bizarre and their demeanour was antagonistic and aggressive.

Others were energised and inspired by punk rock - some enough to take up a guitar or microphone and give it a go themselves. You see, at the heart of the punk movement was the belief that you could do-it-yourself. To release a record you didn't have to bow and scrape to the multi-national music publishers and labels.

Anyone could take part. Audiences and bands often merged. Many punk bands created their own labels and fanzines, promoting their music to new audiences by subverting the rules, challenging the established way of doing things and creating a new and vibrant culture of creativity.

Punks cared nothing for authority or tradition. The only thing they respected was authenticity. Essentially, punks spat in the face of 'the establishment' and went off to do things their own way.  



Punk learning (some would call it Edupunk) reflects that seventies music ethos. For some time, educators have been subverting established methods and turning their backs on institutional tools and technologies such as the managed learning environment (also known as LMS or VLE). I would argue that these are 'punk' educators, whether they realise it or not. Some educators have at some time openly identified themselves as edupunk, including Amy Burvall (who created a series of history teacher videos for YouTube), Jim Groom (pictured top, considered the originator of Edupunk) and Pam Nelmes (who has transformed communication across her large cohorts of nursing students and with the general public through creative use of social media).

Many punk educators are finding viable and for them, more acceptable alternatives to proprietary software, structured courses and closed journals, and instead are devoting their energy to creating new approaches including open software, open courses (including the original C-MOOCs) and open publishing with free tools. The C-MOOC or Connectivist Massive Open Online Course was a free at the point of delivery online learning experience with no limits to the numbers who participated, and where 'students' could choose how, where and when they learnt. Some of the early MOOCs also allowed students to choose their own preferred method of assessment, and spawned many creative outcomes such as global radio with #ds106.

There is also a lot of energy being directed into transforming the education experience. Some go as far as to argue that autodidacticism - or self-teaching - is an important part of contemporary learning. Learning by watching YouTube or participation in social media discussions are certainly methods that are gaining traction. For example, 2015 world champion Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego claims he owes his prowess to watching YouTube videos. Even professional teacher development through social media is gaining great impetus, evidenced by the large numbers of participants on education Twitter chats such as #edchat, #AussieEd and #ukedchat as well as global online events such as the Reform Symposium.



In this digital age some are changing their opinions about what we think education is and should be. Punk educators have a lot to do with this - it's not just the disruptive nature of social media and personal technologies. It's also the energy and commitment they have to making a difference in a new way. But punk educators need to be wary of a precedent. What happened to the original punk rock movement? It was compromised and commercialised - becoming the very thing it was trying to avoid in the first place. The contrast between the raw late-70s punk rock of The Clash and The Sex Pistols and the more polished post-punk (or 'new wave') commercial sounds of the early-80s from U2 and Blondie is stark.

Fast forward to today, and we see signs that the early dynamic MOOCs and other punk learning approaches are being adulterated. The recent offerings of the so called xMOOCs which use Coursera and other bespoke developed platforms is returning the MOOC to the traditional online delivery and it is now hard to tell the difference. But a hard core of punk educators remains who are determined to do things differently. Whatever pressures the commercial world throws at education, and whatever the criticism thrown at them by traditional educationalists, edupunks will still continue regardless, practising their own particular brands of pedagogical anarchy and will answer with a: 'WE DON'T CARE.'

Graphic image courtesy of Jim Groom


Punk learning by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Selfie number 3

In this series of short posts, I'm writing about my top ten selfies (including elsies and photobombs) with people who have inspired me or have influenced my thinking. Previous selfie posts can also be viewed on this blog.

This is me with Sugata Mitra in Oslo, in 2013, just after I had interviewed him for the EDEN Conference television channel. I first heard him speak at Online Educa in Berlin, Germany about 10 years ago. There, he presented his seminal (and many would say controversial) work on minimally invasive education. He set up computers with tracker balls in holes in walls in the slums of India and observed how the children taught themselves in small groups, in what became known as the 'Hole in the Wall' project. The results of this research led to his belief that children can learn independently of adults or experts if they have a) the tools, b) the support of peers, and c) the motivation.

At the time, when I first heard about this project, I was quite excited by the idea that education does not have to be content led, or expert led, but that learners can lead their own learning. This chimed with the work of a number of theorists I had studied during my teacher training, including Carl Rogers, Paulo Freire and John Dewey. But Sugata's approach added technology into the equation, and located self directed learning within a digital context, which interested me the most. Several questions entered my mind. Could the pedagogical role of the educator be redefined? How could school be transformed into a minimally invasive environment? What role might technology play in the future to support autodidacticism?

I have subsequently worked alongside Sugata in many contexts, and am fascinated by his concept of the 'School in the Cloud' where retired people who have some spare time can connect remotely through video tools to children in place where teachers cannot, or will not go. Sugata Mitra has been criticised and praised in equal measure and his ideas polarise the education community. He has received the brickbats as well as the bouquets. Some are quite vehement in their attacks on his reputation and work, and conversely, others are equally aggressive in their defence of his ideas. Many a heated exchange has been observed in recent years on social media and in the mainstream press about this controversial and catalytic academic. Just like many influential scientists in the past, he has upset the applecart, and now everyone has an opinion about his work, his premises, his conclusions. He certainly has us all talking.

I have to say on a personal note that whatever you think about Sugata Mitra or conclude about his research, I have found he is genuinely open and approachable, always has plenty of time for people, and he has inspired me to think differently about education, learning and technology.

Photo courtesy of the European Distance and E-learning Network


Selfie number 3 by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.