[Fle3-users] New Learning Diary thiking type -set

[Teemu Leinonen]

Hi,

We have designed a new knowledge type set for Fle3, called "Learning 
Diary". The set was  made to support short, workshop kind of courses and 
learning events. The new set is available as a zip-package in the 
download page of the fle3-web site:

http://fle3.uiah.fi/download.html

You can download the zip-package and import it in your own Fle3.

Learning Diary is a knowledge type set designed for writing learning 
diaries which will be shared and commented within the study group. The 
type set was developed and tested in the "Design Thinking" -summer 
course of UIAH Media Lab & Helsinki Summer School 2002, 2003, 2004.

The idea of the Learning Diary knowledge type set is to help students in 
an intensive short study courses and workshops to reflect on and 
document their own learning. Furthermore the set supports students to 
raise up new topics for discussion in the course.

The idea is simple. with the Learning diary set, all students are asked 
to write "I have learned"-notes after each day of the course/workshop. 
Within the "I have learned" -notes students can "raise-up" questions and 
present "suggestion of an answer" -notes. The tutor(s) always start the 
discussion by presenting "starting point" -note with a short summary of 
the themes of the day in the course/workshop.

In a course/workshop it is good if you also dedicate some time and space 
when and where your students will write their notes to Fle3. You should 
not expect that they will do it at night from home (well some will, 
anyway)!

We have noticed that the learning diary set works as a soft introduction 
to Fle3 and knowledge building. For many people (both students and 
teachers) "Progressive Inquiry" is very demanding method and with the 
learning diaries one can make the first step to the right direction: 
reflective and progressive inquiry learning.

The types used in the Learning Diary set are:

* Starting point
This is the note which starts an entry to the learning diaries and 
begging the discussion of them. With this note type you can bring a new 
topic to the discussion and ask participants to write to their diaries 
about it. Usually the teacher of the course writes the starting point 
note by making a summary of the day's activities.

* I have learned
With this note type you can present what you feel that you have learned 
- understood in a new way. Beaware of your learning, that which takes 
place everywhere and all the time. All the learning experiences you 
write here do not necessarly have to do with the topic of the course.

* Raised-up question
With the question note you can point out something you would like to 
know more about. The question can be related to lectures, group works, 
discussions etc. Feel free to ask questions. Remeber that in order to 
learn you need problems.

* Suggestion of an answer
With this note type you may provide your sugestion of an answer to some 
question note. It can be just your own proposal or something you have 
heard, read or experienced somewhere.

if you want to translate the set to other languages, please use the 
"Duplicate and edit knowledge type set" -tool in the Fle3, do the 
translation in there, export the ready-made set and send the zip-package 
to us. We will then make it available for other Fle3 users, as well.

We will soon release a Finnish version of the set, as well.

Best regards,

        - Teemu