I pointed out recently that many of the older theories of pedagogy were formulated in a pre-digital age. I blogged about some of the new theories that seem appropriate as explanatory frameworks for learning in a digital age. These included heutagogy, which describes a self-determined approach to learning, a new model of peer-peer learning known as paragogy, a post modernist 'rhizomatic' learning explanation, distributed learning and connectivist theory, and also a short essay on the digital natives/immigrants discourse. I questioned whether the old models are anachronistic.

We learn best when we are fully involved in the process. John Dewey advocated 'learning by doing' and Seymour Papert called it 'learning by making'. These are theories that guide many educators today. Mindful of these theories, I have recently been working alongside students to encourage them to write for an audience. Nothing new in that, you may think. Normally, in higher education, students write for an audience of one.

Are you a meerkat or an ostrich? Why am I asking you this strange question? Read on...

Etienne Wenger recently declared: 'If any institutions are going to help learners with the real challenges they face...(they) will have to shift their focus from imparting curriculum to supporting the negotiation of productive identities through landscapes of practice' (Wenger, 2010).

Increasingly many of us are spending more of our time online, creating, repurposing and sharing content, searching and consuming content and communicating with others. All of these activities leave behind a trail, a digital footprint, a record of where we have been and what we have done. More significantly, in psychological terms, we are developing our personal digital presences, and modifying our digital profiles.

When the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development invited me to speak at their annual HRD event at London's Olympia I was delighted. I wasn't so keen when they asked me to supply my slides many weeks in advance. The organisers wanted them so they could produce delegate packs that included paper versions of my slide show. I could understand their eagerness, but I hesitated.

Sir Ken Robinson has a lot to say about creativity and learning. The two are, or should be, inextricably linked. One of his remarks is that  imagination needs to emerge as creativity, as a natural process. He goes on to argue that traditional school systems constrain or even negate this process. He argues that this is largely due to the mechanistic, industrialised approach schools have taken for many years.
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