I have spent most of the day working on the Mature project. The project, funded by the European Commission, is developing services for knowledge maturing in organisations, including the introduction of Personal Learning and Management Systems and Organisational Learning and Management Systems. Of course, before we can develop or implement such systems we have to work out what they are. For me that is half of the attraction of the project.
This morning we had an on-line meeting for one of the work groups, this afternoon I had a long talk with Tobias Nelker from Paderborn University and in-between I started writing up overdue reports.
here are just a few thoughts following our discussions.
One of the attractions of the project, which is relatively well funded, it it brings together an interdisciplinary research team including researchers from sociology, computer sciences, education and work sciences. We are struggling still to find a common language. sometimes I do not understand what the computer scientists are talking about – and I am quite sure they have similar problems with me. More problematic is the development of a shared research approach and methodology for the project – different disciplines have different approaches to similar issues. We need to find ways of using this as a strength for the project.
With reference to knowledge sharing, I think we have some tensions between those who view knowledge through artefacts and others of us who see knowledge development and maturing as a process. I am by no means convinced we can measure or even understand knowledge maturing in the progressive iteration of a document or artefact – to me it is the social use of such artefacts which matures.
The project is through the technology programme of the European Commission and oart of the work involves the development and testing of tools. There seem to be two tensions. How can we marry together research into how people learn and how knowledge is developed with actual practice within organisations?
And how can we design tools which help people in their everyday work and lives based on their practice – rather than saying – here is a cool wizzy tool which we would like you to try out.
I am increasingly aware of the importance of context in learning and in knowledge development – especially in work based learning and in informal learning. there are multiple contextual variables of which I feel the most important is work organisation. It is not only an issue of opportunities for learning but an issue of the autonomy to use such learning in practice. This cannot be reduced to merely adopting to the work environment but the ability to shape that work environment based on individual and collective or organsiation knowledge.
This in turn requires change processes. But any project such as Mature is acting as a change agent in the very processes it studies.
All in all this is complex. But I am convinced that we can use technology based tools to open opportunities and support learning in the workplace – not just to courses – but for individual and peerr group learning from everyday working experience. This can not only lead to individual learning but can enrich work environments and lead to enhanced quality of goods and services. And in many ways I think this may be the real impact and potential of what we have called e-learning – rather than trying to use technology to implement traditional classroom based learning at a distance.
NB I am increasingly convinced of the potential of microblogging systems for knowledge exchange and development. This was what I taled to Tobias about this afternoon. Will write something more on this over the weekend.

There have been a number of reports in the wake of the failure of public services to prevent the tragic death of child in London. The story below from the Guardian looks at the impact of the introduction of Management Information Services in social services in the UK. What it reveals is that professional workers are forced to spend increasing amounts of time completing tick box tracking report forms on computers. The result is not increased efficiency and effectivenesss but a failure to sharing information with those that need it. The MIS becmes the centre of attention, not the task – in this case the protecion of vulnerable children.

This is not limited to social wok. Studies we have carried out in the eduction sphere reveal the same tendency. Professional wokers are being diverted away from what they see as their job in the requirement to fill in tracking reports on ill designed Management Information Systems. The inormation held by the MIS is seen as primarily for tracking and funding pruposes. raher than helping with the work. Littlle attention is paid to how an MIS might assist in developing and maturing knowledge. Natural knowledge sharing and development processes, through dialogue and networking are left behind. Often staff develop their own informal systems, to exchange the knowledge that they need, in parallel to official procedures.

We need to review the purpose of such systems. Do we develop systems to help professional wokrers in their job or merely to collect infomation? What is the purpose of the information being collected? Who is it for and why? How can we design systems based on the abilities of ‘knowledge workers’, rather than relying on the number crunching outputs of the machine? And what approaches are need to the design of such human oriented systems? These are not just academic questions, as the report below tragically reveals.

I have been working with Cristina Costa to write a review paper on Personal Learning and Working Environments. The paper is now avaiable online on the Research section of this web site.

This review paper part of a series of papers commissioned by the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick under the title of ‘Beyond Current Horizons – Working and Employment Challenge’. In turn, in forms part of a larger programme of work under the banner of Beyond Current Horizons that is being managed by FutureLab on behalf of the UK Department for Schools, Children and Families. The brief was to cover:

• The main trends and issues in the area concerned;
• Any possible discontinuities looking forward to 2025 and beyond;
• Uncertainties and any big tensions;
• Conclusions on what the key issues will be in the future and initial reflections on any general implications for education.

We had also agreed that we would produce such a paper to inform the work of the European Union Mature project which is looking at knowldge maturing and developing Personal and Organisational Learning and Management Environments.

It is a longish paper and covers such issues as:

• new ways of learning using Web 2.0 schools
• deschooling society
• workbased learning and the social shaping of work and technology
• organisational networks and communities of practice
• Personal Learning Emvironments
• the future of universties
• informal learning
• knowledge development and sharing

We were given a wide brief to look at what might happen up to 2025 and what developments we thought were likely and what were desireable. We have used the opportunity to think a little more freely than is often possible within the scope of traditional academic papers.

Annotate this paper

We would be very interested in your views on the ideas in this paper. We invite you to use Diigo tools to annotae the paper. If you have not used Diigo before for annotating and leaving comments here is a short introductory video. We invite you also to join the Diigo e-learning 2.0 group and to share your bookmarks through the group.

But we knw some people still prefer paper publications. So you can download an Open Office and a PDF version of the paper below.

workandlearning – PDF vesrion

workandlearning – Open Office version

Last weeks Emerging Mondays seminar was on the topic of MOOCs and Open Course Models. The speaker was Dave Cormier from the University of Prince Edward Island.

Dave spoke about his experiences, so far, of the CCK MOOC on Connectivism and Connected Knowledge, the technological platforms being used to support participants, the tensions that exist within the course design and the peer support models that are being embraced.  Dave’s introduction led to a wide ranging discussion including the nature and furture of courses and communities, issues of scale, how to support learners, open accreditation and the future of open education – and …Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Wonderland!

If you missed the session – or would like to hear it again – we are providing you with three different versions. You can watch a replay of the event in Elluminate. This provides you with access to the sidebar chat discussion as well as to the audio.

Or – if you are short of time you can listen to an MP3 podcast of Dave’s introduction.

Or you can listen to the full session inline or on your MP3 player.

This is the link to the Elluminate version.

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OK – the summer break from the airwaves is over. Next week we will broadcast the first of the autumn series of Sound of the Bazaar LIVE – details tomorrow but put Tuesday 1820, CEST, 1720 BST in your diaries now. And here as a warm up is a new podcast produced by the wonderful Andreas Auwarter from the Bildung in Dialog site (English monoglots – don’t be put off by the the German language introduction – the discussion is in English. As Andeas says in this programme notes: “Steve Wheeler in an interview with Patrick Vetter and Christian Czarnowske. Finally Graham Attwell joins the dialog and this interview brings up to an interesting and short discussion about Web 2.0, Adult Education, Web 3.0 and their meanings of those terms.

Soundpainted with podsafe music from http://www.Jamendo.com.”

This was recorded on a beautiful summers day on the terrace of St Virgil’s conference centre in Salzburg at the EdMedia2008 Conference. To be honest, its chats like this outside the official programme which make conferences worth their while.

Once more my thanks to Andreas – and do join us on the terrace and try to imagine the sun.

Sadly I can’t seem to get the stream to play in my blog. But just head on over to Bildung in Dialog to hear this recording.

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Last week I undertook two days of interviews with staff from a large educational service company in the UK. The interviews formed part of a series of enthnographic studies being undertaken by the Mature project to look at how information and knowledge are developed within organisations. Obviously communciation is a key part of this and we talked to workers at all levels of the organisation how they communictaed, about what and with who.

I suppose I should not have been surprised by the results but I was. The main means of communication is email. Everone used email on a daily basis for communciating about all kinds of things – including when soemone brought cake into a district office. There appeared to be no policy on what should be communicated – it being left up to individuals to decide what should be emailed to who. And although most epople said they found i quite hard keeping up with the volume of emails all were adamant that it was critical to their work.

I guess it would be possible to move a lot of this traffic to another platform – an intranet or wiki – although there is a temptation not to tinker with soemthing which is not broken. But n or discussions on learning platforms, PLEs and the rest, I think we have fogotten how important email is to peoples’ informal learning and work.

Lots of fun at the Edumedia conference in Salzburg. Somehow managed to speak at the same session as Jay Cross. With the two of us on the attack I think some participants thought they had strayed into a meeting of dangerous revolutionaries.

And I just about managed to get something going with twemes. Twemes is an aggregator of twitter, delicious and flickr working on a unique tag. The tag for the conference is #edumedia08. OK there was not enough bandwidth for accessing the web and both my phone and camera ran out of power.

But I could connect to skype and the ever knowledgeable Cristina Costa told me of a skype-twitter interface and it worked. Some eight of us at the conference have been using the tag. You can follow the tweme at http://twemes.com/edumedia08. I must say I like the mix of languages.

On the train this morning I read ta new paper by Dave Cormier entitled “Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum (note – free access but you will have to create an account). thsi is a great article and I will return to some of the ideas Dave raises later this week. But I like very much the idea of community as curriculum. Dave says

“In the rhizomatic model of learning, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process. This community acts as the curriculum, spontaneously shaping, constructing, and reconstructing itself and the subject of its learning..”

And that is what I am trying to do in Salzburg.

I am blogging ‘live’ from the Scil conference at St Gallen. Quite interesting in that the conference is very much geared at the HRD and business world – ‘communities’ I do not venture too far into often. The conference is entitled “The Changing Face of Learning – getting the right balance.” So is learning changing in the business world?

The first speaker up is Erlan Joergensen from Shell. I can’t say much sounds new. His slogan is Ask-Learn-Share. He is very much at pains to say that all learning has to be related to the needs of the business. This seems a step back to me. What he is saying that is new is to integrate – on a business basis – the informal and workplace learning together with formal learning within “global networks”. All courses will have a workplace component.

Certainly Shell do seem to using networking tools – wikis and bookmarks – and have embraced the idea that global networks can link tacit and explicit knowledge through peer assisted problem solving. The wiki, he says, provides the ‘business operational knowledge’ for the whole company. Interesting too, that he calls it “a wikipedia”! Shell are also looking at the use of Second Life.

The wikis are being used to develop communities on different topics with 27000 active users and 2500 new entries in the last month.

OK – time to make my mind up – what do I think? Certainly bringing access to knowledge sharing tools looks impressive. It is not quite clear how such tools and activities are being integrated into the blended courses. That there is a new focus on work based learning – and that supervisors are seen as important in this is not new but does represent a shift of emphasis. However, the relation between individual learning and organisational learning seems unclear. And there are still too many business buzz words for my liking.

I am continuing my series of postings to update the big picture of European VET research. So far I have made some analyses on the topics “European dimension” and “interdisciplinarity”. Now I want to discuss the issue “innovations” in European VET-related cooperation. This issue is closely linked to the question, what role can VET research play in promoting transfer of innovations across Europe. As the earlier ones, this blog entry discussesa change in the European cooperation climate and how the VET researchers could prepare themselves for future cooperation activities.

Different aspects of “European innovations” in European VET-related cooperation

In this context it is worthwhile to giver a rough overview on,

– what kind of “European innovations” have been promoted in European cooperation programmes and on

– the different roles that VET researchers may have played in innovation projects.

Regarding the subject matter of innovation projects it is possible to make a distinction between

a) Educational innovation projects that can be related to systemic & curricular macro-innovations or pedagogic micro-innovations and

b) Domain-specific innovation projects that can be related technological and ICT-related innovation concepts or to different user-needs and contexts of utilisation.

Regarding the roles of VET researchers in such projects it is worthwhile to note that

i) pilot projects have been shaped as primarily developmental projects without strong research components;

ii) reference material projects have been shaped to conceptualise developmental work in certain pilot area (with the support of research-based analyses);

iii) transfer projects have been shaped to support wider dissemination of innovations (without strong research-supported facilitation).

Changing expectations on “European innovations” at diverse phases of European cooperation

In a similar way as with the previous topics I find it necessary to have a closer look at different expections on promoting “European innovations” at different phases of European cooperation. In this respect the picture is somewhat more complex than with the previous topics.

The period 1995-2000 (the early Leonardo: thematic stock-taking, ad hoc pilot measures, orientation to rapid transfer)

Looking at different types of innovation projects and the role of research, it appears that the work with educational innovation concepts was characterised by thematic explorations and stock-taking. Thus, VET researchers were needed to get an overview of different starting positions and dynamics of innovation. For such projects there was a clear policy-based demand.

Parallel to this, domain-specific pilot projects were working with rather limited research involvement and with expectations on rapid transfer measures. The results of such projects were expected to be directly usable by the sectoral stakeholders and practitioners. (The CD-ROMs were expected to sell themselves once they were ready.)

The period after 2000 (The attainment of Lisbon goals, the shaping of European LLL area)

As we know, the Lisbon summit 2000 formulated new goal-settings to making Europe the most competitive innovation area by the year 2010. And as we also know, the educational response to this challenge was provided by the framework processes that try to create a European Higher Education Area and the European Area for Lifelong Leaning). Thus, the systemic & curricular macro-innovation projects were expected to be linked to the making of the European Areas. Furthermore, the European Areas were expected to provide a natural basis for transferring pedagogic micro-innovations across Europe.

However, the debate before Lisbon summit was influenced by general concern on the poor competitiveness of European ICT industries and of ICT-related skill gaps of the European workforce. Therefore, regarding the technological and ICT-related innovations, specific measures were taken by launching quickly the separate e-Europe programmes (including the e-Learning programme which latterly was merged to the integrated LLP programme). From the perspective of VET it is worthwhile to note that these rapid measures were pushing forward new strategic alliances with European ICT industries and their internal training concepts (“Career space”) and with commercial e-learing providers. (Europe was considered as backbencher in e-learning and this position was to be changed with the help of ICT industries and commercial e-learning provisions.)

Contradictions and critical issues

In the light of the above it is interesteting to note that shaping of the European Area of Lifelong Learning (including the European Qualification Framework- EQF, the European Credit Transfer for VET – ECVET and related measures) has become project area of its own. At the same time the Commission Communication on e-Skills (2007) gives a picture of growing gaps (between industrial needs and educational measures or between formal training and informal learning). It is interesting to note that the criticism is similar as before the Lisbon summit in spite of all post-Lisbon activities that were launched to overcome such gaps.

Obviously, the landscape of technological and ICT-related innovations (and of related challenges for learning) has changed immensely since 2000. In particular, the shift from heavy and costly proprietary software to Open Source and to Social Software has changed the picture dramatically. Thus, the big picture of ICT-related learning (or learning and working with web resources) has moved towards user-applications and networked services. In this context the expertise on web-supported learning is far more distributed and draws upon diverse (real and virtual) piloting contexts. Yet, there is a real concern that there are very few explicitly VET-related initiatives among the cutting edge pilots with digital media and social software.

How to develop an intergrative approach to European innovations?

It seems that the European policies (for education and training) and specific innovation agendas (for e-Skills) have led to fragmenatary developments. It strikes me that both the educational framework processes and the measures to promote e-Skills have followed the logic of ‘big package’ solutions – to be adopted throughout Europe. Yet, in particular the innovation dynamics in ICT-related learning bring forward the concept of active interactivity (and iterative processes between developer-communities and user-communities). The big question to me is, what has happened (and what can be done) regarding the interactivity between vocational learning processes and workplace-related learning opportunities.

At an earlier stage I have tried to introduce the term ‘integrative learning concepts’ as a format for bringing into discussion innovative curricular/pedagogic support structures and innovative approaches to technologies, digital meadia and self-organised leaning. Maybe there is a need to put more emphasis on the interactivity between the diverse poles.

However, before going any further with this thread and with this level of abstraction) it is appropriate to make a break. At this point it is approapriate to raise the issue of ‘contextuality ‘and ‘trans-nationality‘ of European innovations. Moreover, it is worthwhile to ask, what European VET researchers have learned of these issues during their active years in European cooperation.

I have started a series of postings to update the big picture of European VET research. My first posting outlined a set of questions (for the subsequent blog entries). In the previous posting I discussed changing views on the “European dimension”. I also raised the question of “European dimension after the Lisbon follow-up”. But, before continuing on that the other questions are pending. This posting is about interdisciplinarity in European VET research.

Different aspects on interdisciplinarity in European VET research

From the early years of European VET-related research cooperation on there has been a common understanding that there are no strong institutional infrastructures for VET-related research. Instead, in many countries VET-related research has been a sub-activity that has been promoted by interested researchers who may represent different research disciplines. In some countries VET research has been linked to special research institutes with an interdisciplinary profile and with an orientation to closely related research areas (e.g. research on VET, work and technology, transition to labour market and learning in organisational contexts. Only in few countries (notably in Germany) there are institutional frameworks that establish VET research (Berufspädagogik, Wirtschaftspädagogik, Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik) as academic disciplines due to the academisation of vocational teacher education.

Therefore, it has been one of the preconditions for European research cooperation in VET to accept the diversity of academic backgrounds and methodological orientations. Thus, at the least, everyone has agreed that the field of VET has to be considered as a multi-disciplinary area of research. However, in the course of time the VET-oriented researches have found it necessary to broaden their range of expertise in VET-related research (beyond their original academic specialisation) and to commit themselves more closely to dialogue between VET policies and practitioners. This brought into picture a stronger concept of interdisciplinarity that characterises the community development in European VET research.

In addition to the above mentioned aspects it is worthwhile to note different interests of knowledge and respective methodological orientations within VET research:

a) Academic research approaches that explain specific phenomena related to VET with reference to concepts and theoretical constructs of established research disciplines (“Observatories on VET”);

b) Cultural research approaches that explore different meaning structures and specific patterns related to VET to make them transparent vis-à-vis the underlying cultural conventions (“Anthropologies on VET”);

c) Co-developmental research approaches that promote knowledge development related to expertise on teaching and training in the field of VET (“Pedagogics of VET”).

Interdisciplinarity, knowledge enrichment and European research cooperation

In the light of the above, it is essential to note how the European cooperation programmes have promoted capacity-building, knowledge enrichment and dialogue across conceptual and cultural barriers.

The period 1995-2000 (The early Leonardo, TSER and the era of complementarity)

It is worthwhile to note that during the preparation of the action programme Leonardo da Vinci there were efforts to create a research strand (latterly named as ‘surveys and analyses’). Parallel to this, the 4th Framework Programme of Research of the EU included a Targeted Socio-Economic Research Programme (TSER). Both programmes were expected to develop complemetary relations with each other. Thus, the Leonardo strand S&A could be used for pioneering project designs whereas the projects and networks for TSER aimed at more comprehensive knowledge development. At best, these funding opportunities were at place when European VET researchers were looking for funding that would provide support for community-based and thematic knowledge development.

The period after 2000: The 6th Framework programme – polarisation and mainstreaming

The change from the 4th to the 5th Framework programme was not perceived as very dramatic although the TSER programme was no longer continued. Yet, the presence of VET-related research priorities und the heading “Developing Human Potential” was clear. Thus, there was some continuity between research work started under the Leonardo or TSER funding and successor activities under the 5th Framework programme. However, the transition into the 6th Framework programme (soon after the Lisbon Summit) had clear marks of a cultural change. In this context research was to be funded via networks of excellence or via integrated projects that were to be based on sufficient critical mass. For the relatively small VET research community either the quantity of participating institutions or the coherence of project designs (with a large number of partners) turned out be critical factors. Due to the lack of successful projects the role of VET-lated research in the future research priorities became even more peripheral.

Parallel to this the role of (independent) research in the European action programme started become more marginal and the polarisation between (policy-oriented) research and (policy-supporting) consultancy started to become more manisfest. At the same time the evaluation boom in the universities started to raise questions on the status of interdisciplinary research institutes and their publication forums. This led gradually to polarisation between merged institutes (that were closer to faculties, academic teaching and mainstream disciplines) and external institutes (that were privatised and maintained informal relations with the universities.

What has happened to joint knowledge development: research in work-related learning

In this blog posting it is not possible to give an overview on the institutional repositioning of European VET researchers and related conceptual and methodological consequences. However, it possible to mention an exemplary case that illustrates these developments. In the years 1998-2002 several European and national projects had been engaged in studying work-related learning. Some of the projects had educationalist starting points and examined the educational value of workplace learning, some were focusing on learning in organisational contexts (with an emphasis on ‘work process knowledge’) and a third set of projects was focusing on reshaping occupational profiles and related learnng arrangements. In the years 2001-2002 there was some support for cross-project dialogue across these approaches. However, at the end of this interim period all parties were pursuing their separate agendas: the seemingly similar research topics and overlapping contexts of research were not enough to stimulate boundary-crossing dialogue. At the same time the researchers and their institutes were facing different challenges to stregthen their research profiles – at the expense of interdisciplinary dialogue and European knowledge enrichment.

How to make interdisciplinary research and European knowledge development attractive?

As I have indicated, the fascination of interdisciplinary research has been in the learning potentials and in the opportunities for boundary-crossing cooperation (both at the national level and in European contexts). To what extent this has promoted knowledge development, is dependent on the working contexts and on the maturity of research. In this respect the critical change in European research funding narrowed down the possibilities to harvest the results of an active explorative period. Therefore, the subsequent cooperation projects have not contributed strongly to the big picture of growth of knowledge in European VET research.

This has gradually led to retreat from European cooperation arenas and to individual research work. Therefore, parallel to the previously posed question on the future nature of “European dimension” of VET research, there is a need to ask, what is the futue role of ‘interdisciplinarity’ in VET research. And, here again, I do have some thoughts on this. However, it would not be appropriate to continue the discussion at this abstract level. As I have indicated, there are other pending issues that are related to this question. In particular, the relations between VET research and innovations in VET is of crucial importance.