BeyondLabels

I have enjoyed following these interviews and lots and interesting and important comments in the madness. It reminds me of a performance way back by Vivian Stanshall - some similarities lurking.... I appreciate Graham has been exploring storytelling and eLearning and great to see the direction it has gone. Hope it continues ....

The general focus for the talk is around ‘opening up’ education. My main area of multicultural education research is focused on pedagogy equity in the context of learning styles, education & identity and intercultural dialogue. In this talk I will explore some tensions and opportunities between multicultural education, learning styles and Web 2. Give you an insight into my experiences in integrating learning diagnostics into the teaching process and finally share some lessons I have learnt. Some broad but central questions for my collaborative research are: (1)How do you deal in an equitable way with the increased diversity in our classrooms? (2)How can we deal with discriminatory practice in our teaching and learning process? (3)And finally how can we use technology to enable pedagogy equity? Being a teacher in the University sector it is clear we have moved a long way in supporting diversity but as we all operate directly or indirectly in ever increasing globalised society/communities this has significantly influenced the form of the educational provision required. The diversity in our communities and institutions requires proactive responses towards equality and this has to be in-tune with our regional communities. With no change in educational practice the implications of diversity may be oppressive to many. Many policy documents from the EU also call for greater integration between informal to formal learning and it is viewed that technology has an instrumental role in widening opportunities for people and meeting regional priorities. In addition understanding the informal and formal learning process and supporting integration between them also offers the opportunity to increase understanding of the changing needs of business and the community. For my research specific to ethnic minority groups and social migrants, and as a teacher, I feel undertaking community based education offers provides knowledge to increase depth of understanding of changing society needs for marginalised groups with high risk of being disadvantaged in our communities and in the workplace Before moving into the education perspective we should also consider some important milestones in England that informs and influences my research perspective. •Scarman Report (1981) - Commission as a response to understanding what was termed the race riots across the England. Did not find evidence for institutional racism and rejected •Swann report (1985) – ‘Diversity within unity’ and the need to identify common values and norms. Racism was seen as a major barrier to education for all. •Stephen Lawrence (1999) Enquiry – A response to the death of an innocent man in the ‘hands’ of the police that led to the MacPherson report. Institutional racism accepted as being in our organisations and institutions The above states the driving questions for the research and the climate that re-enforces the need for multicultural education research to enable changes to pedagogy practice in our classrooms and workplaces. So why multicultural education and learning styles? The rationale is to directly deal with the balance between the teaching and learning process. Multicultural education is viewed as a pedagogic perspective (critical anti-discriminatory perspective) and based on teaching styles. Even though the learner is integral to the pedagogic practice this is clearly based, in most instances, on teaching style and approach. Learning styles is view as integral to multicultural education provision and there is a lack of research directly exploring multiculturalism and learning styles. This talk is about exploring learning styles through using learning diagnostics as an intervention to raising awareness of learner needs in the multicultural pedagogic design process. This has the potential to deal positively with increasing diversity and education for all.

I am fascinated by all the PLE's push but the part that works most for me is the distributed and uncontrolling edge to the moves in this area. But at the same time the individualist push may also be seen to be driven from a technology driven culture. As often happens I feel with learning environement apps developed by technical and tested with users who may be learners of some sort. Mike mentioned 'this is suttle stuff' and totally agree and how can we engage educators. Questions for me ... is this movement being driven by the current european constructivist type edge. In parts seems to be. What about educators more interested in intervension through education - positive actiion for social change. Clearly some of the tools ideal for this but 'sutble' is the word and how can we project this to educators and educators who are not coming with the view to learners as just get on with it type approach. Self organising groups with appropriate interventions based on collective choice is where I am keen to explore more... How do you manage the collectivity and diversity?

Complexities of cultural diversity are interwoven into the social fabric of regions, states and transnational communities, and this is viewed as one of the most significant socio-economic challenges of this decade. In some countries and regions today’s ethic minority groups will become the majority illustrating both the unprecedented rise in both social and economic migration. Despite initiatives to foster positive and productive relationships among culturally diverse learners there is a distinct gap between theory and practice and this is compounded when considering the use of information and communications technologies (ICT). This is evidenced by unequal access to educational technology and limited support for the educational development of the ethnic minority and migrant learners. ICT has enormous potential to address exclusion and inequality.