You know nothing, John Snow

This week I completed my Network Learning Project! For those of you who are just tuning in, the NLP was assigned as part of my master’s in ed tech class – I was to choose something I had always wanted to learn, and then I would track my progress of learning that thing, but ONLY with resources from the web – blogs, affinity spaces, social networks, videos, etc.

I had the bright idea of “learning” how to play violin. Or, as I stated in my learning goal, I would learn to “play a song on the violin.” I kind of did! Feel free to watch my video of the learning process.

Now, before this project, I had the general mentality of “I can learn everything I ever need to know from YouTube.” In fact, in a previous course in the program, I wrote a paper that made the case that you don’t need a teacher to learn, you just need the internet (I later revised my theory – and paper – quite a bit). But to some extent, I still feel it’s true, the web is this vast ocean of knowledge where you can learn so. much.

You could think of this online learning experience as interacting virtually with a worldwide assortment of teachers and fellow students. YouTube and other video hosting sites (Violinspiration.com, for example) act as this infinite source of teachers, diverse in culture, thought, and skill, who can provide expertise in myriad subjects (in this case, violin). And affinity spaces (I used Reddit) and help forums and social media (e.g. the Adult Starters – Violin/Fiddle Facebook group) offer group learning opportunities with students from all over the world who can share tips, tricks, and suggestions.

So remember, my learning objective was “learn a song on the violin.” I had my heart set on the Game of Thrones theme. Spoiler alert: John Snow didn’t become Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and I didn’t learn this song.

But right off the bat I started learning other stuff I didn’t expect. First, I had to actually buy a violin. So I had to investigate decent budget violins. Once I finally got the violin, I had to learn about how to get it to sound good. This requires several steps, including tightening and rosining the bow, tuning the violin, and knowing how to hold everything. Finally, I was able to start playing songs.

So here’s where my critique of this learning process comes in (mind you, I still thing online self-learning is awesome and will continue to use it as a resource for the rest of my life – but this experience brought up some of the shortcomings).

Think about all the steps I just described that I had to complete before I could ever start playing. If I was taking an in-person class, I could have learned all those steps in maybe an hour with a good teacher, likely an expert who could advise me of all of these steps (Bransford et al, 2000) rather than having to discover the issues myself and then investigate solutions. Not only this, but the teacher could conduct formative assessment to determine my current knowledge and adjust the lessons based on their present understanding (Shepard, 2000). Not so with online learning – I was in charge of the learning process from start to finish and had to self-assess and act metacognitively to determine next steps in learning.

Beyond that, consider how in-person collaboration with fellow students could provide instantaneous, organic feedback. As I’ve brought up multiple times in previous posts, the idea of modeling 21st century classrooms like online affinity spaces (Gee, 2004) is incredibly appealing – but if you think about it, this form of collaboration already happens to some extent in traditional classrooms – just in the 5 minutes before and after class, when students compare notes, ask questions, and offer solutions (“pssst, you’re holding the bow wrong...”).

In summary – online learning is awesome, and so is learning the violin. But if anything, learning how to play the violin from online sources has motivated me to take the next step: take in-person lessons. I better start Googling for a good tutor.

References:

Bransford, J. L., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (pp.31-50). (Expanded Edition). National Academy Press. https://www.nap.edu/read/9853/chapter/5 - 49

Elmer, Stephen. (October 18, 2021). "Learning Violin NLP" [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbO3zV-9XWA

Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (pp. 70-81). Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/michstate-ebooks/detail.action?docID=200413

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X029007004