Cocept and practices of expanded Education

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 Despite being a relatively unknown term in its general lines, Expanded Education starts from many already known concepts, frequently treated from this same blog. And it is that strictly speaking, expanded education in the field in which many of the principles of formal education are related, in a complementary and interdependent way, with others of informal education.

An approach to the idea of ​​education itself, and not so much a specific methodology, which has among its most important pillars the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) through the Internet as a method to bring together these two forms sometimes antagonistic to conceiving teaching and learning, thus questioning the boundaries between study and learning.

A mixed education

In 2012, the collective Zemos98 popularized the term Expanded Education without claiming its authorship entirely, arguing instead that they only recorded the confluence of parallel learning methods such as media (or digital) literacy, the Common Banks of Knowledge (BCC), or the so-called Invisible Learning, which takes root in a combination of formal and informal learning very much in line with the principles of later Expanded Education. Learning and educational trends that, to a great extent, also drew from previous pedagogical theories in time such as those of the modern School, the unschooling promulgated by Ivan Illich, Free Pedagogy, Slow Pedagogy or, above all, the theory of connectivism contemplated from an educational perspective.

Officially developed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, the connectivist theory starts from other theories of thought and education such as those of cognitivism and constructivism to explain the way in which ICTs have influenced how we relate to each other and, also, with the knowledge to which these technologies give us access. According to this theory of knowledge, learning occurs in numerous environments that are often beyond the control of those who develop it, ranging from organizations to databases such as those that can be found, although not exclusively, on the Internet.

But, despite the amalgamation of educational theories and methods that make it up, conceiving expanded Education starts from a contradiction, posed by the Zemos group itself98: its nature, capable of bringing together the formal and informal educationally, makes it impossible to limit it into the closed definition. Which does not mean that its fundamental pillars cannot be outlined and that we propose below:

Mentioned above, the main characteristic of expanded Education is the dissolution that it poses between the borders of learning considered formal and informal. According to this methodology, learning is a ubiquitous phenomenon, which can occur anywhere and at any time, whether within or, above all, outside schools.

The exchange of information promoted by the Internet and the rise of ICT, which exemplifies the way in which expanded Education understands access to knowledge, is only one of the forms of cooperation and teamwork inherent in this conception of education, despite including within it pedagogical tendencies arising from a more individualistic vision of education.

For the reasons mentioned so far, Expanded Education requires a high degree of responsibility on the part of the learners towards their own training process. A commitment to self-training as the engine of the educational process that, however, does not invalidate the figure of the teacher as manager of at least a part of the education of the learners.

An expanded teaching

Any change in the way in which learning takes place implies, in turn, a change in the way in which it is taught. And the case of expanded Education is not an exception, because what role can teachers occupy in a context such as that raised in the previous lines? Well, the manager, not only of learning, but of the context or contexts in which it can be generated, and either through learning units and/or own and other resources, often accessible through ICT and the Internet, and training parallel to that of its students, capable of covering the following aspects:

Critical digital literacy, with the aim of transmitting this knowledge to students, empowering them in their digital life in their search for information and socialization processes on the Internet.

Knowledge and skills in ICT-based methodologies, such as mobile learning, flipped classroom or others derived from distance learning and mediated through these technologies. Without training in this regard, the possibility of students being able to train outside the classroom (and under relative tutelage by teachers) is reduced considerably.

Continuous and lifelong learning, considering not only education but also its exercise as something changing, depending on the context in which it is intended to intervene to manage it.

Do you apply some of the principles of Expanded Education? Which have been the results? Share your impressions with us and with all your contacts.

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