I commented on the web-based Real World Learning [RWL] model a couple of months ago, and I wasn't impressed. I said:
"Too clever by half, would be a kind judgement. More muddle than model, another. A pity, as there might just be something interesting in all the turmoil."
I'm now sitting looking at a huge poster produced by RWL to see if this makes more sense. My first observation is that what my poster says is not quite the same as the web-version, which is either curious or careless. My money's on the latter.
My second point would be that, although this is supposed to be about outdoor learning for sustainability, there is very little here that is specific to the outdoors. In fact, on the side of the poster with the model writ large (there's a big blue hand in the middle), the word outdoor is used once, and there is nothing here that is exclusively about the outdoors. In fact most of it is about learning in authentic settings which might be in or out, or even under or over for that matter. As such, it is a potentially interesting model of learning related to sustainability. What a pity it wasn't flagged up as such or explained.
But it's still a muddle. The hand at the heart of the model is, it seems, a "metaphor for outdoor learning for sustainability", although why this is the case is neither explained nor clear.
The hand has 5 fingers, each of which is labelled, though what these labels represent is never revealed. The palm is about 'frames'. Where the fingers touch the water they cause ripples which "find synergy with each other" and provide a "whole that's greater than the parts". In this whole (or hole, perhaps) you find, they say, "interconnected learning". I fear it's all babble.
The useless poster is already shredded and in the compost.
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