Alec Couros and Graham Attwell have been paired together as co-keynotes at the PLE Conference in Barcelona, Spain, July 8-9. The organizers have asked us to do something different than a typical keynote, so we have been thinking about an unKeynote format. In keeping with the theme of the conference (PLEs), we’re hoping that individuals in our network would be willing to help us frame what this might look like.

How the Session is Going to Work:
We have put together a  a list of questions (see below) and are inviting your responses. We will put together a joint presentation based on your slides.

We will present the ‘keynote’ together but will be encouraging participants – both face to face and remotely – to contribute to the keynote as it develops.

Where We Need Help:

1. We’d like you to respond to one or more of these ‘key questions’ found below. We suggest responding through the creation of a (PowerPoint) slide, or creating a very short video (less than 1 minute?). Or, if you can think of another way of representing your ideas, please be creative.
2. We’d like you to provide questions for us. What did we miss? What are some of the important questions for consideration when exploring PLEs/PLNs in teaching & learning.
3. Please send your responses to graham10 [at] mac [dot] com (and you may cc: couros [at] gmail [dot] com) by July 6/10.

Key Questions:

1. With all of the available Web 2.0 tools, is there a need for “educational technology”?
2. What are the implications of PLEs/PLNs on traditional modes/structures of education?
3. What are the key attributes of a healthy PLE/PLN?
4. What pedagogies are inspired by PLEs (e.g., networked learning, connected learning)? Give examples of where PLEs/PLNs have transformed practice.
5. What are the implications of PLEs/PLNs beyond bringing educational technology into the classroom, and specifically toward workplace/professional learning?
6. If PLEs/PLNs are becoming the norm, what does it mean for teachers/trainers (or the extension: what does it mean for training teachers & trainers)?
7. As our networks continue to grow, what strategies should we have in managing our contacts, our connections, and our attention? Or, extension, how scalable are PLEs/PLNs?
8. Can we start thinking beyond PLEs/PLNs as models? Are we simply at a transitional stage? What will be the next, new model for learning in society? (e.g., where are we headed?)

Sorry for lack of regular posts but I am at the JTEL summer school in Ohrid, Macedonia this week. It is an interesting event with some 50 students and 30 teachers taking part and bringing together researchers from technology and from education around a common theme. As usual I think there is too much emphasis on ‘chalk and talk’ (or rather Powerpoint and Talk), but changing that is a long term effort.

Listening to student presentations of their Doctoral research, I am struck by how much focus there is now on social networking and participation. This is a big change from even two years ago when there was much more focus on the use of Learning Management Systems and Virtual Learning Environments. But, I also wonder how much of this research links to the actual practice of learning. Some of the researchers seem unaware of the barrier to using social networks especially in school. And there seems limited awareness in the issues related to changing practice. I talked about this with one of the senior researchers who is teaching at the summer school. I said that whilst I was impressed with the degree of attention being paid to research methodologies, I was concerned the research projects were not being located the wider society. He disagreed with me. Her was concerned that not enough attention was paid to methodologies and felt that research should stand back from those wider societal concerns.

Research is important for Technology Enhnaced Learning. But I still feel it has to be linked to practice. I will return to this issue later this week.

Czy nauczyciele w Polsce są dobrze przygotowani na pokolenie cyfrowych tubylców? Opdowiedzi na to pytanie szukałam w rozmowie z Lechosławem Hojnackim – nauczycielem i konsultantem, zajmującym się implementacją nowoczesnych technologii informacyjnych w procesie kształcenia dorosłych, przede wszystkim nauczycieli.

IB: Ten kto zajrzy na Pana stronę internetową  http://www.hojnacki.net odkryje szybko, że jest Pan aktywny na wielu serwisach internetowych. Czym się Pan aktualnie zajmuje zawodowo?

LH: W tej chwili pracuję jako wykładowca w  Kolegium Nauczycielskim w Bielsku-Białej. To taki niszowy w Polsce system kształcenia nauczycieli na poziomie trzyletnich studiów zawodowych, zbliżony bardziej do szkoły (niewielka liczba studentów, sporo praktyk) niż uniwersytetu. Jednocześnie pracuję jako konsultant w Regionalnym Ośrodku Metodyczno-Edukacyjnym “Metis” w Katowicach i zajmuję się implementacją tzw. nowych technologii w procesie dydaktycznym.

IB: Ma Pan więc szerokie spojrzenie na zastosowanie TIK (technologii informacyjno – komunikacyjnej) w edukacji. Czy szkolenia nauczycieli w Polsce obejmują standardowo  tematy e-pedagogiczne? W jakim zakresie szkoleni są nauczyciele w temacie e-learningu 2.0? Jak to wygląda w przypadku czynnych nauczycieli,  a jak w przypadku studentów-adeptów?

LH: Czynni nauczyciele w pewnych okresie swojego rozwoju zawodowego muszą się wylegitymować dowodami opanowania TIK. Na poziomie awansu zawodowego na nauczyciela mianowanego są to “umiejętności wykorzystywania w pracy technologii informacyjnej i komunikacyjnej;” natomiast na poziomie nauczyciela dyplomowanego (najwyższym) – „podejmowanie działań mających na celu doskonalenie warsztatu i metod pracy, w tym doskonalenie umiejętności stosowania technologii informacyjnej i komunikacyjnej”. Od nauczyciela stażysty i kontraktowego (najniższe) nie wymaga się w tym zakresie niczego. Nie ma jednak sztywnych reguł, co to znaczy “wylegitymować się” i duża część nauczycieli korzysta w tym celu ze szkoleń prowadzonych przez ośrodki doskonalenia nauczycieli lub inne instytucje, m.in. w ramach projektów unijnych. W praktyce posiadanie pewnej liczby zaświadczeń o ukończeniu szkoleń, ocenianych częściej w kategorii liczby godzin niż treści i poziomu – jest wystarczającym dowodem posiadania stosownych umiejętności. Członkowie komisji oceniają tylko dostarczone dokumenty określające umiejętności związane z TIK w warsztacie dydaktycznym i czynią to przez pryzmat własnej wiedzy i świadomości.

Są to najczęściej spotykane źródła systemowej motywacji zewnętrznej dla nauczycieli. Jak widać nie ma tu miejsca na rozróżnienia dotyczące stosowania konkretnych metod, konkretnych typów serwisów, sposobów komunikowania się, w tym e-learningu 2.0. Ponadto, idąc dalej tropem systemowych uregulowań, komisje powoływane dla oceniania dokonań nauczycieli na kolejne stopnie awansu zawodowego nie tylko nie mają wytycznych, ale nawet możliwości kompetentnego oceniania metodycznych aspektów TIK – nie muszą mieć w swoim składzie ekspertów w tej dziedzinie.

Są też uwarunkowania hamujące rozwój e-learningu 2.0 w szkołach:

1. Organy nadzoru pedagogicznego (kuratorzy oświaty)  otrzymali wytyczne, aby czynnie zapobiegać ujemnym zjawiskom takim jak cyfrowa agresja i inne niebezpieczeństwa ze strony Internetu, dlatego dyrektorzy szkół (notabene w Polsce posiadający bardzo mały w stosunku do wielu krajów rozwiniętych zakres samodzielności) często uznają –  bardzo racjonalnie – że większym zagrożeniem dla ich interesów służbowych jest nadmiar kontaktu uczniów z Siecią, niż wielostronne jego obwarowania, a w praktyce – ograniczenia.

2. Chyba większość polskich szkół dysponuje pracowniami otrzymanymi z, nazwijmy to, centralnego przydziału. Zdecydowana ich większość jest oparta na Windows oraz serwerach SBS o specyficznej konfiguracji. Konfiguracja ta opiera się na tzw. “filtrach treści niepożądanych” oraz kontrolowaniu i analizowaniu całego ruchu sieciowego przez serwer, który w efekcie, w standardowej konfiguracji blokuje nie tylko niepożądane strony, słowa i złośliwe skrypty, ale także wiele pożądanych stron, nieszkodliwych słów oraz bardzo potrzebnych skryptów. W praktyce w wielu szkołach używa się w związku z powyższym komputerów, na których nie da się uruchomić np. większości serwisów z epoki Web 2.0, ponieważ poprawnie działają tylko stare, statyczne strony nie zawierające żadnych skryptów (np. osadzonych filmików, edytorów online etc.). Takie pracownie skutecznie chronią szkołę przed Web 2.0. W związku z czynnikami opisanymi w punkcie 1. oraz z braku stosownych umiejętności, a często i świadomości, ta bardzo zła z punktu widzenia nowoczesnego korzystania z Sieci konfiguracja nie jest modyfikowana.

IB: Wnioskuję z tego, że sieć społeczna jest przez szerokie grono ludzi traktowana jako zagrożenie?

LH: To niestety powszechna postawa. Czasem artykułowana dość wprost np. w kategoriach zagrożeń, agresji, groźby uzależnienia lub jako bezwartościowy strumień śmieciowej informacji. Czasem świadomie lub częściej nieświadomie ta postawa ukrywana pod poglądami typu “nic nie zastąpi książki”, “skoro ONI używają ciągle Sieci to ktoś wreszcie musi ich nauczyć obywać się bez niej lub posługiwać się innymi narzędziami”, “a jak nie będzie komputera, kalkulatora, a jak braknie prądu, to będzie katastrofa”.

IB: Muszę przyznać, że w Niemczech sytuacja wygląda jednak lepiej, ponieważ osiągnieto poziom, na którym przeważa już pragmatyczne pytanie „jak?“, np. „Jak możemy wporowadzić elementy sieci społecznej w szkołach?“. A jakie sa pozostałe wyzwania związane z kształceniem nauczycieli w tematyce e-learningu 2.0? Jakie strategie pedagogiczno-dydaktyczne sprawdzają się w praktyce? W jaki sposób wprowadza Pan nauczycieli w świat sieci społecznych?

LH: Dziś wyraźnie widać, gdzie wiekowo przebiega granica między typowymi cyfrowcami, a bardziej tradycyjnie ukształtowanym pokoleniem uczniów. Nauczyciele szkół podstawowych zapoznani z faktami, zestawieniami, wynikami badań, naturą ważniejszych zjawisk – dość gremialnie dają się łatwo przekonać, iż jest to problem, z którym muszą się zmierzyć, bo po prostu otrzymują obraz sytuacji dobrze wyjaśniający obserwowane przez nich u uczniów zjawisk społecznych wywołanych  Web 2.0. Dla odmiany statystycznie zdecydowanie najtrudniej jest pracować z nauczycielami szkół ponadgimnazjalnych. W tej grupie nauczycieli najczęściej spotykam się z odmową, obrazą nawet. Nie widzą jeszcze konieczności zmiany metod pracy, populacja ich uczniów jeszcze nie jest w pełni cyfrowymi tubylcami i jeszcze da się próbować pracować po staremu. To smutne zjawisko, bo rozsądek wskazuje, że młodzież licealna byłaby najwdzięczniejszą grupą uczniów do metod i form pracy epoki Web 2.0.

Czynnych nauczycieli zatem staram się na początku przekonać, że ich “klienci” zmienili się i będą się zmieniać dalej, w związku z czym oni muszą starać się podążać za zmianami (uwaga) wbrew ustrojowi organizacyjnemu szkoły, który rzeczywiście niesłychanie utrudnia postęp (uwaga: także w aspektach przeze mnie wcześniej tu nie wymienionych). Staram się także zaczynać od najprostszych technologicznie rozwiązań, które dają maksimum efektu przy minimalnych umiejętnościach, ale jakoś przynależnych do Web 2.0. Na przykład na początek wprowadzamam bloga na Bloggerze jako tablicę ogłoszeniową. Zaczynam więc od przekazu jednokierunkowe, ale z łatwością podejmowania dalszych kroków.

Studentów traktuję zgoła inaczej, ponieważ tu jestem w stanie ustalić bardziej drastyczne reguły. Niezależnie od treści programowych, specjalności, roku i trybu studiów, wprowadzam jako obowiązującą metodę grupowy projekt oparty (przynajmniej  technicznie) na serwisach Web 2.0. Treści merytoryczne stawiam na drugim planie za zasadami współpracy, samozarządzania, angażowania ekspertów z zewnątrz, publikowania efektów, autoprezentacji w Sieci itd. Moje podejście wynika z tego, że zdecydowana większość studentów po raz pierwszy w życiu spotyka się z faktyczną metodą konstruktywistycznego projektu grupowego dopiero po maturze! Wielu z nich wykazuje także zasadnicze braki w podstawowych umiejętnościach komunikacyjnych związanych z TIK, wbrew kilkuletniemu cyklowi nauki tego przedmiotu w poprzednich etapach kształcenia.

IB: Tak ten deficyt mają też studenci w Niemczech. Wynika to często z tego, że większości nauczycieli/wykładowców brakuje po prostu doświadczenia i umiejętności w wirtualnej współpracy, kooperacyjnych technikach, samoorganizacji na poziomie grupowym. A czy Pana zdaniem szersze kompetencje, lepsze zrozumienie mają uczniowie lub studenci? Kto rozumie zalety wirtualnej pracy grupowej i potrafi pracować/uczyć się w zdecentralizowanych, nieuporządkowanych hierarchicznie, wirtualnych grupach?

LH: TAK, dzieci i młodzież żyją w Sieci bardziej i głębiej, niż sami to widzą, bo dla nich Sieć jest  przezroczysta. To zjawisko jest podobne w swojej naturze do szczerej deklaracji uczniów, że nie PISZĄ tylko esemesują, czatują. Oni nie nazywają tego pisaniem, traktują tak, jak my rozmowę. Natomiast dość powszechnie oddzielają tego rodzaju aktywności od szkoły, nie tylko ze względu na uwarunkowania, o których mówiłem wyżej lub takie jak powszechny zakaz używania komórek w szkole. To zjawisko tzw. “gry w szkołę” oznacza, że obie strony procesu (nauczyciel i uczeń) w szkole  używają reguł, których nie traktują jako przekładalne na świat zewnętrzny. Ani nauczyciele nie mają motywacji do uczenia np. komunikowania się w Sieci, ani uczniowie tego od nich nie oczekują.

IB: Wspomniał Pan, że dzieci i młodzież nie piszą tylko esemesują i czatują. Na pewno często spotyka się Pan z pytaniem, czy takie praktyki nie zagrażają podstawowym kompetencjom pisania i czytania? Jak odpowiada Pan na takie pytania?

LH: Jeżeli uznać, że taki rodzaj kompetencji, do którego przyzwyczaiły nas doświadczenia poprzednich pokoleń i nasze własne, to kompetencje prawdziwe, jedynie słuszne, stosowalne w przyszłości, albo nawet tylko “potencjalnie akceptowalne dla większości populacji cyfrowców”, to oczywiście czaty i esemesy stanowią zagrożenie.  Przy całym moim osobistym przywiązaniu do sztuki pisania i czytania oraz wielkiej literatury (proszę zauważyć, odruchowo zacząłem odpowiedź od zasygnalizowania, że stoję po tej samej stronie barykady, co inni imigranci cyfrowi), widzę wyraźną analogię do skądinąd bardzo słusznego twierdzenia, że rozwój motoryzacji zagraża zdrowym nawykom długich spacerów oraz kompetencjom jazdy konnej. Sam jeżdżę konno dobrze i od zawsze. Jednak na codzień poruszam się samochodem, a koń jest tylko moim hobby, ukłonem w stronę tradycji, zdrowym spędzaniem wolnego czasu i gimnastyką. To samo spotyka dziś tradycyjne formy przekazu tekstowego.

IB: I na tym moglibyśmy już właściwie zakończyć naszą rozmowę, ale zadam jeszcze jedno pytanie: Czy udało się już Panu zarazić swoim entuzjazmem dla nowych technologii wielu nauczycieli?

LH: Uchodzę za skutecznie zarażającego. Jeżeli ktoś mnie personalnie do czegoś wynajmuje, to znacznie częsciej do zarażania, inicjowania, uświadamiania niż np. do późniejszego systematycznego szkolenia. Niestety ciągle szkoła w Polsce obfituje w czynniki zrażające bardziej niż zarażające, ale w ciągu ostatnich dwóch lat widzę bardzo wyraźną zmianę nastawienia nauczycieli – na lepsze.

Jakie są Wasze/Państwa doświadczenia i opinie na temat wprowadzania e-learningu 2.0 w szkołach? Dziękujemy za komentarze!

Yesterday’s OLDaily included excellent coverage by Stephen Downes of the growing Facebook privacy row. Personally I particularly enjoyed Danah Boyds rant:

What pisses me off the most are the numbers of people who feel trapped. Not because they don’t have another choice. (Technically, they do.) But because they feel like they don’t. They have invested time, energy, resources, into building Facebook what it is. They don’t trust the service, are concerned about it, and are just hoping the problems will go away. It pains me how many people are living like ostriches. If we don’t look, it doesn’t exist, right?? This isn’t good for society. Forcing people into being exposed isn’t good for society. Outting people isn’t good for society, turning people into mini-celebrities isn’t good for society.

And I very much like Frances Bell’s comment citing Tony Hirst, “Ah, but you’re not Facebook’s customer. Advertisers are their customers. You are the product they’re selling.”

My Facebook account is still hanging on, but it is getting very close to disappearing (and all I use it for is forwarding my Twitter feed anyway. I have at least 20 friendship requests ending from people who I have no idea who are!).

Of course Stephen Downes is right when he says the answer is learning to manage our digital identities. But I am not sure digital literacy alone is enough. I think young people should be able to understand why they need to manage their identities on Facebook as well as how. And this goes way beyond internet safety. They should be able to understand the reasons why Facebook is making such drastic changes to its privacy policies and what such changes mean. Of course this involves judgement. I am prepared to accept the Google Buzz balls up on privacy was just that – a balls up.

The Facebook privacy issues are not the result of bad planning or even evangelical thinking on behalf of the Facebook directors. They are driven purely by the desire to make more profit for shareholders, regardless of the opinion or interests of users. And young people need to be able to understand this: to understand the motives driving different web developments and to understand the use of the internet within wider society.

Digital literacy is not enough. Young people need to understand the  politics and economics of the web. And soon!

Sometimes it it is hard to see anything stopping Facebook ruling the world. But a few years ago it was hard to see anyone ever challenging My Space. And some of us can still remember Friends Reunited. Now the tide may be beginning to change against Facebook. It is Facebook’s own financial greed and their willingness to run roughshod over privacy rights which is threatening their hold.

A new generation of entrepreneurs are emerging with a very different vision and different technologies.

A report in today’s New York Times explains: “A few months back, four geeky college students, living on pizza in a computer lab downtown on Mercer Street, decided to build a social network that wouldn’t force people to surrender their privacy to a big business.” They go onto say: “They have called their project Diaspora* and intend to distribute the software free, and to make the code openly available so that other programmers can build on it. As they describe it, the Diaspora* software will let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, create their own hubs and fully control the information they share. Mr. Sofaer says that centralized networks like Facebook are not necessary. “In our real lives, we talk to each other,” he said. “We don’t need to hand our messages to a hub. What Facebook gives you as a user isn’t all that hard to do. All the little games, the little walls, the little chat, aren’t really rare things. The technology already exists.”

Meanwhile Facebook itself is showing some signs of recognising the danger.  Nick O’Neill on the All Facebook web site says: “Facing increasing pressure from the media and users, Facebook has called an all hands meeting tomorrow afternoon, at 4 PM Pacific, to discuss the company’s overall privacy strategy according to sources inside the company……..While it’s unknown what Facebook will announce during the meeting, it’s pretty obvious that changes will need to be made if Facebook is going to regain users’ trust. The most likely change will come in the form of a temporary removal of the “Instant Personalization” service, or at the least, a shift to “opt-in”, something many privacy advocates have been calling for.”

Interview with WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg

I am in Bremen all week for the annual review meeting for the European Commission funded Mature project. More about the review in the next day or so.

Today, another quick post about WordPress and Buddypress. As I guess most of you realise this web site is powered by WordPress. However, when we first developed the web site only the Single User version was available. And although there were websites using WordPress as a Content management System, WordPress was seen primarily as a blogging system. Dirk Stieglitz, who runs the site, originally based the site on an exiting theme but quickly customised it to suit our needs. And, in general it works very well. the only problem is that with 110 categories or so, some controlling the CMS and some the tagging of posts, it is easy to make mistakes! Of course later versions of WordPress introduced a distinction between categories and tags but we are now faced with converting legacy posts to a new system.

More recently we have been excited the development of BuddyPress and have two sites underdevelopment. BuddyPress extends WordPress into a fully fledged social networking application. Matt Mullenweg’s interview is interesting in that he focuses on Buddypress and the use of WordPress as a CMS. But -at least to a non coder – there seems to be some interesting changes in the way that BuddyPress is evolving. Whilst there have always been many plug-ins to extend WordPress and also multiple themes, many of which were available for free, there is now a growing market for premium BuddyPress themes. Perhaps, that is a reflection of the idea of the app store and the growing willingness of users to pay modest fees for applications which extend Open Source Software. But it may also reflect changes in the WordPress architecture (not sure that is the right word).  Themes now do much.much more than just change the appearance of a blog. New BuddyPress themes come complete with CSS and AJAX which can change the functionality and design of a web site. Ultimately this may put considerable capacity in the hands of local developers and increase the ability for co-design of sites between users and developers. And that can be no bad thing.

Social Media in Higher Education and Beyond
New forms of collaborating and developing team work
A presentation for the interdisciplinary seminar “Future Social Learning Networks” at the University of Paderborn and the Knowledge Media Research Center in Augsburg.
Tag for this event is #fsln10
Below is a voicethread with some ideas about Social Media for collaboration […]

Here is the other part of the paper on the future of learning environments which I serialised on this web site last week. In truth it is the section I am least happy with. My point is that young people (and not just young people) are using social software and Web 2.0 technologies for work, play and learning outside institutions. Furthermore the pedagogic approaches to such (self-directed) learning are very different than the pedagogic approaches generally adopted in schools and educational institutions. Social networking is increasingly being used to support informal learning in work. The issue is how to show this. there are a wealth of studies and reports – which ones should I cite. And I am aware that there is a danger of just choosing reports which back up my own ideas. Anyway, as always, your comments are very welcome.

Web 2.0 and Bricolage

Web 2.0 applications and social software mark a change in our use of computers from consumption to creation. A series of studies and reports have provided rich evidence of the ways young people are using technology and the internet for socialising, communicating and for learning. Young people are increasingly using technology for creating and sharing multi media objects and for social networking. A Pew Research study (Lenhart and Madden, 2005) found that 56 per cent of young people in America were using computers for ‘creative activities, writing and posting of the internet, mixing and constructing multimedia and developing their own content. Twelve to 17-year-olds look to web tools to share what they think and do online. One in five who use the net said they used other people’s images, audio or text to help make their own creations. According to Raine (BBC, 2005), “These teens were born into a digital world where they expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share material with each other and lots of strangers.”

Such a process of creation, remixing and sharing is similar to Levi Struass’s idea of bricolage as a functioning of the logic of the concrete. In their book ‘Introducing Levi Strauus and Structural Anthropology’, Boris Wiseman and Judy Groves explains the work of the bricoleur:

“Unlike the engineer who creates specialised tools and materials for each new project that he embarks upon, the bricoleur work with materials that are always second hand.

In as much as he must make do with whatever is at hand, an element of chance always enters into the work of the bricoleur……

The bricoleur is in possession of a stock of objects (a “treasure”). These possess “meaning” in as much as they are bound together by a set of possible relationships, one of which is concretized by the bricoleur’s choice”.

Young people today are collecting their treasure to make their own meanings of objects they discover on the web. In contrast our education systems are based on specialised tools and materials.

Social networking

It is not only young people who are using social networks for communication, content sharing and learning. A further survey by Pew Internet (Lenhart, 2009) on adults use of social networking sites found:

• 79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 2005
• 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
• 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
• As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.
• 10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com?

Lest this be thought to be a north American phenomena, Ewan McIntosh (2008) has provided a summary of a series of studies undertaken in the UK (Ofcom Social Networking Research, the Oxford Internet Institute’s Internet Surveys, Ofcom Media Literacy Audit).

The main use of the internet by young people, by far, is for learning: 57% use the net for homework, saying it provides more information than books. 15% use it for learning that is not ’school’. 40% use it to stay in touch with friends, 9% for entertainment such as YouTube.

Most users of the net are using it at home (94%), then at work (34%), another persons house (30%) or at school (16%). Only 12% use public libraries and 9% internet cafés. Most people’s first exposure to the web is at home.

A further survey into the use of technology for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises found few instances of the use of formal educational technologies (Attwell, 2007). But the study found the widespread everyday use of internet technologies for informal learning, utilizing a wide range of business and social software applications. This finding is confirmed by a recent study on the adoption of social networking in the workplace and Enterprise 2.0 (Oliver Young G, 2009). The study found almost two-thirds of those responding (65%) said that social networks had increased either their efficiency at work, or the efficiency of their colleagues. 63% of respondents who said that using them had enabled them to do something that they hadn’t been able to do before. The survey of based on 2500 interviews in five European countries found the following percentage of respondents reported adoption of social networks in the workplace:

• Germany – 72%
• Netherlands – 67%
• Belgium – 65%
• France – 62%
• UK – 59%

Of course such studies beg the question of the nature and purpose of the use of social software in the workplace. The findings of the ICT and SME project, which was based on 106 case studies in six European countries (Attwell, 2007) focused on the use of technologies for informal learning. The study suggested that although social software was used for information seeking and for social and communication purposes it was also being widely used for informal learning. In such a context:

• Learning takes place in response to problems or issues or is driven by the interests of the learner
• Learning is sequenced by the learner
• Learning is episodic
• Learning is controlled by the learner in terms of pace and time
• Learning is heavily contextual in terms of time, place and use
• Learning is cross disciplinary or cross subject
• Learning is interactive with practice
• Learning builds on often idiosyncratic and personal knowledge bases
• Learning takes place in communities of practice

It is also worth considering the growing use of mobile devices. A recent Pew Internet survey (Lenhart et al, 2010) found that of the 75% of teens who own cell phones in the USA, 87% use text messaging at least occasionally. Among those texters:

• Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.
• 15% of teens who are texters send more than 200 texts a day, or more than 6,000 texts a month.
• Boys typically send and receive 30 texts a day; girls typically send and receive 80 messages per day.
• Teen texters ages 12-13 typically send and receive 20 texts a day.
• 14-17 year-old texters typically send and receive 60 text messages a day.
• Older girls who text are the most active, with 14-17 year-old girls typically sending 100 or more messages a day or more than 3,000 texts a month
• However, while many teens are avid texters, a substantial minority are not. One-fifth of teen texters (22%) send and receive just 1-10 texts a day or 30-300 a month.

Once more, of those who owned mobile phones:

• 83% use their phones to take pictures.
• 64% share pictures with others.
• 60% play music on their phones.
• 46% play games on their phones.
• 32% exchange videos on their phones.
• 31% exchange instant messages on their phones.
• 27% go online for general purposes on their phones.
• 23% access social network sites on their phones.
• 21% use email on their phones.
• 11% purchase things via their phones.

It is not just the material and functional character of the technologies which is important but the potential of the use of mobile devices to contribute to a new “participatory culture” (Jenkins at al). Jenkins at al define such a culture as one “with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices… Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.”

Thus we can see the ways in which technology and the internet is being used for constructing knowledge and meaning through bricolage and through developing and sharing content. This takes place through extended social networks which both serve for staying in touch with friends but also for seeking information and for learning in a participatory culture.

Another section of my new paper, now entitled ‘The Future of Learning Environments. The section looks at Personal Learning Environments and Vygotsky.

The emergence of Personal Learning Environments

Dave Wiley, in a paper entitled ‘Open for learning: the CMS and the Open Learning Network‘ and co-written with Jon Mott, explains the failure of Technology Enhanced Education as being due to the way technology has been used to maintain existing practices:

“by perpetuating the Industrial Era-inspired, assembly line notion that the semester-bound course is the naturally appropriate unit of instruction (Reigeluth, 1999).”

The paper quotes Herrington, Reeves, and Oliver (2005) who argue that course management software leads universities to “think they are in the information industry”. In contrast to”the authentic learning environments prompted by advances in cognitive and constructivist learning theories”:

“the industrial, course management model has its center of gravity in teachers generating content, teachers gathering resources, teachers grouping and sequencing information, and teachers giving the information to students.”

In contrast, socio-cultural theories of knowledge acquisition stress the importance of collaborative learning and ‘learning communities’. Agostini et al. (2003) complain about the lack of support offered by many virtual learning environments (VLEs) for emerging communities of interest and the need to link with official organisational structures within which individuals are working. Ideally, VLEs should link knowledge assets with people, communities and informal knowledge (Agostini et al, 2003) and support the development of social networks for learning (Fischer, 1995). The idea of a personal learning space is taken further by Razavi and Iverson (2006) who suggest integrating weblogs, ePortfolios, and social networking functionality in this environment both for enhanced e-learning and knowledge management, and for developing communities of practice.

Based on these ideas of collaborative learning and social networks within communities of practice, the notion of Personal Learning Environments is being put forward as a new approach to the development of e-learning tools (Wilson et al, 2006) that are no longer focused on integrated learning platforms such as VLEs or course management systems. In contrast, these PLEs are made-up of a collection of loosely coupled tools, including Web 2.0 technologies, used for working, learning, reflection and collaboration with others. PLEs can be seen as the spaces in which people interact and communicate and whose ultimate result is learning and the development of collective know-how. A PLE can use social software for informal learning which is learner driven, problem-based and motivated by interest – not as a process triggered by a single learning provider, but as a continuing activity.

Personal Learning Environments are by definition individual. However it is possible to provide tools and services to support individuals in developing their own environment. In looking at the needs of careers guidance advisors for learning Attwell. Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, (2008) say a PLE should be based on a set of tools to allow personal access to resources from multiple sources, and to support knowledge creation and communication. Based on an initial scoping of knowledge development needs, a list of possible functions for a PLE have been suggested, including: access/search for information and knowledge; aggregate and scaffold by combining information and knowledge; manipulate, rearrange and repurpose knowledge artefacts; analyse information to develop knowledge; reflect, question, challenge, seek clarification, form and defend opinions; present ideas, learning and knowledge in different ways and for different purposes; represent the underpinning knowledge structures of different artefacts and support the dynamic re-rendering of such structures; share by supporting individuals in their learning and knowledge; networking by creating a collaborative learning environment.

Whilst PLEs may be represented as technology, including applications and services, more important is the idea of supporting individual and group based learning in multiple contexts and of promoting learner autonomy and control. Conole (2008) suggests a personal working environment and mixture of institutional and self selected tools are increasingly becoming the norm. She says: “Research looking at how students are appropriating technologies points to similar changes in practice: students are mixing and matching different tools to meet their personal needs and preferences, not just relying on institutionally provided tools and indeed in some instances shunning them in favour of their own personal tools.”

Vygotsky and Personal Learning Environments

A Personal Learning Environment is developed from tools or artefacts. Vygotsky (1978) considered that all artefacts are culturally, historically and institutionally situated. “In a sense, then, there is no way not to be socioculturally situated when carrying out an action. Conversely there is no tool that is adequate to all tasks, and there is no universally appropriate form of cultural mediation. Even language, the ‘tool of tools’ is no exception to this rule” (Cole and Wertsch, 2006). Social networking tools are culturally situated artefacts. Jyri Engestrom (2005) says “the term ‘social networking’ makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people. Think about the object as the reason why people affiliate with each specific other and not just anyone. For instance, if the object is a job, it will connect me to one set of people whereas a date will link me to a radically different group. This is common sense but unfortunately it’s not included in the image of the network diagram that most people imagine when they hear the term ‘social network.’ The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They’re not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object.”

Vygotsky’s research focused on school based learning. He developed the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which is the gap between “actual developmental level” which children can accomplish independently and the “potential developmental level” which children can accomplish when they are interacting with others who are more capable peers or adults.

In Vygotsky’s view, interactions with the social environment, including peer interaction and/or scaffolding, are important ways to facilitate individual cognitive growth and knowledge acquisition. Therefore, learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them. Vygotsky said that learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his (sic) environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the child’s independent developmental achievement (Vygotsky, 1978).

Vygotsky also emphasized the importance of the social nature of imagination play for development. He saw the imaginary situations created in play as zones of proximal development that operate as mental support system (Fleer, 2008).

Vykotsky called teachers – or peers – who supported learning in the ZDP as the More Knowledgeable Other. “The MKO is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the leaner particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process. Traditionally the MKO is thought of as a teacher, an older adult or a peer” (Dahms et al, 2007). But the MKO can also be viewed as a learning object or social software which embodies and mediates learning at higher levels of knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner presently possesses.

The role of a Personal Learning Environment may be not only that of a tool to provide access to ‘More Knowledgeable Others’ but as part of a system to allow learners to link learning to performance in practice, though work processes. And taking a wider view of artefacts as including information or knowledge accessed through a PLE, reflection on action or performance may in turn generate new artefacts for others to use within a ZPD.

Dahms et all (2007) say that Vygotsky’s findings suggest methodological procedures for the classroom. “In Vygotskian perspective, the ideal role of the teacher is that of providing scaffolding (collaborative dialogue) to assist students on tasks within their zones of proximal development”(Hamilton and Ghatala, 1994). ”During scaffolding the first step is to build interest and engage the learner. Once the learner is actively participating, the given task should be simplified by breaking it into smaller sub-tasks. During this task, the teacher needs to keep the learner focused, while concentrating on the most important ideas of the assignment. One of the most integral steps in scaffolding consists of keeping the learner from becoming frustrated. The final task associated with scaffolding involves the teacher modelling possible ways of completing tasks, which the learner can then imitate and eventually internalise” (Dahms et al., 2007).

Social media and particularly video present rich opportunities for the modelling of ways of completing a task, especially given the ability of using social networking software to support communities of practice. However, imitation alone may not be sufficient in the context of advanced knowledge work. Rather, refection is required both to understand more abstract models and at the same time to reapply models to particular contexts and instances of application in practice. Thus PLE tools need to be able to support the visualisation or representation of models and to promote reflection on their relevance and meaning in context. Although Vygotsky saw a process whereby children could learn to solve novel problems “on the basis of a model he [sic] has been shown in class”, in this case the model is embodied in technological artefacts (although still provided by a ‘teacher’ through the creation of the artefact).

Within this perspective a Personal Learning Environment could be seen as allowing the representation of knowledge, skills and prior learning and a set of tools for interaction with peers to accomplish further tasks. The PLE would be dynamic in that it would allow reflection on those task and further assist in the representation of prior knowledge, skills and experiences. In this context experiences are seen as representing performance or practice. Through access to external symbol systems (Clark, 1997) such as metadata, ontologies and taxonomies the internal learning can be transformed into externalised knowledge and become part of the scaffolding for others as a representation of a MKO within a Zone of Proximal Development. Such an approach to the design of a Personal Learning Environment can bring together the everyday evolving uses of social networks and social media with pedagogic theories to learning.

References

Agostini, A., Albolino, S., Michelis, G. D., Paoli, F. D., & Dondi, R. (2003). Stimulating knowledge discovery and sharing. Paper presented at the 2003 International ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA.

Attwell G. Barnes S.A., Bimrose J. and Brown A, (2008), Maturing Learning: Mashup Personal Learning Environments, CEUR Workshops proceedings, Aachen, Germany

Clark, Andy. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, Massachusetts: A Bradford Book, The MIT Press, 1997.

Cole M. and Werstch J. (1996), Beyond the Individual-Social Antimony in Discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky. Michael Cole, University of California, San Diego

Conole G. (2008), New Schemas for Mapping Pedagogies and Technologies, Ariadne Issue 56 , http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/conole/

Dahms M, Geonnotti K, Passalacqua. D Schilk,N.J. Wetzel, A and Zulkowsky M The Educational Theory of Lev Vygotsky: an analysis http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Vygotsky.html

Engestrom J (2005) Why some social network services work and others don’t — Or: the case for object-centered sociality, http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2005/04/why_some_social.html

Fischer, M. D. (1995). Using computers in ethnographic fieldwork. In R. M. Lee (Ed.), Information Technology for the Social Scientist (pp. 110-128). London: UCL Press

Fleer M and Pramling Samuelsson I, (2008), Play and Learning in Early Childhood Settings: International Perspectives, Springer

Hamilton R and Ghatala E, (1994) Learning and Instruction, New York: McGraw-Hill, 277.

Herrington, J., Reeves, T., and Oliver, R. (2005). Online learning as information delivery: Digital myopia. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 16(4): 353-67.

Vygotsky L.(1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Wiley D. and Mott J. (2009), Open for learning: the CMS and the Open Learning Network, in education, issue 15 (2), http://www.ineducation.ca/article/open-learning-cms-and-open-learning-network

Wilson, S., Liber, O., Johnson, M., Beauvoir, P., Sharples, P., & Milligan, C. (2006). Personal learning environments challenging the dominant design of educational systems. Paper presented at the ECTEL Workshops 2006, Heraklion, Crete (1-4 October 2006).

One of the big stories in educational technology over the last few days has been the decision of Ning to cease providing free network sites. Many educationalists have been attracted to Ning by the ease of setting up and customising community sites and the use friendliness of the application.

Ning says the reason behind the decision is business: “Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators need and will pay for many more services and features from us.

So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity. We will phase out our free service.”

OK, it is sad and traumatic for those who have invested heavily in building communities based on Ning and cannot afford to apy for the premium service. But is it surprising?

We have all become used to using free social software services. But, at the end of the day we live in a capitalist society. Yes, the software industry is evolving new business models. But are they in the long term sustainable. Ning, like many other services such as PBwiki, has based its economic model on providing a free ‘basic’ service and an enhanced premium service. Providing free services for education could be seen as having two benefits. the first is in publicising and popularising a particular service in the hope it will then attract sufficient premium business customers to justify the cost of the free service. The second is to hope that sufficient education customers will see the benefit of upgrading to the free service. I suspect there are three problems with this. The first is that in the present economic climate educational institutions and projects are looking to reduce expenditure on technology. The second is the increasing availability of competing services, making it difficult for any one company to dominate a market (unless the name is Google). And then there is the long tail – as the Ning press statements suggest, many of these network sites drive very little traffic. I myself have 43 PBwiki sites – many of them created for a short period of interaction with a limited number of colleagues.

The main model to support free services is advertising. Advertising is what drives Facebook’s relentless, aggressive and often unpopular innovations in their site design and functionality (and associated reduction in rights to privacy). I am not an economist but cannot understand how this market can continue to expand indefinitely. Surely there is a finite limit to the amount fo advertising the web market can absorb. Of course, it can continue to expand rapidly as long as web traffic continues to grow at a fast rate, but one day it must and will tail off. And as more players enter the market and attempt to challenge Google’s domination (Google is above all, an advertising company) the cost of advertising and therefore the returns will fall. Apple are set to enter the mobile advertising market with the release of version 4 of the iPhone software. Will companies invest yet more in advertising or will Apple’s share of the market be at the expense of someone else. In the long run this cannot be a sustainable business model.

Of course there are other ways of sustaining development. I am particularly impressed with Forio, an online application for creating simulations. Forio is free to use and the company encourages users to share their code under a Creative Commons license. The business appears to be supported by offering a service creating simulations for those without the time of ability and by providing training in how to use their application.

For education this raises issues – besides the long running issue of whether it is appropriate to provide educational sites carrying prominent advertising. Is it wise to rely on services which can be withdrawn at any time. Of course it is possible to undertake a risk assessment and I guess many large institutions do this. But for many of us working in teh long tail of education, even this may be beyond our knowledge and resources.

A major issue for me, and one which influenced me against using Ning, is that there was no obvious way of extracting my data from the site. It is good to see that Ning have said they will work to help users extract their data if they choose not to upgrade to the premium service. But surely this service should have been provided all along.

Somewhere in all this there is some kind of ethical issue. Readers with long memories may remember my posts protesting at Elgg’s proposed closure of the Eduspaces blog site, something over two years ago. I do not feel so bitter about Ning;s decision. Elgg was part of our community, Ning has never pretended to be anything other than a commercial service. And yet, in offering a free service for education and for the community, should nt there be some element fo ethical responsibility. Should companies offer a service they are unlikely to be able to sustain. And can we afford to be reliant on business’s from outside our community, with no ethical attachment to our aims and purposes?

It is also good to see the discussion within the community on different options to Ning – see for example Seven Sexiest Alternatives to Ning. Many of these are smaller companies, offering much the same service as Ning has in the past and hoping to casg in on Ning’s withdrawal of free services. It is particularly heartening to see that Buddypress rates highly in many of the discussions (as also does Elgg). Buddypress, a social networking plug in for WordPress MultiUser is Open Source Software. Buddypress is not a hosted service, although there are some companies now offering hosted sites. This means it is not free. It requires a server to run it on and expertise and knowledge in configuring and maintaining the application. But firstly the data is your own and you can archive and export the data. Secondly you are free to extend or modify your site in any way you wish. And thirdly the costs incurred tend to go into local and community employment – to provide more technicians in educational establishments or to support local software administrators – many of them working in small or medium enterprises – rather than to large international companies, even if these costs are hidden through advertising or premium services.

This, in turn, builds the pool of skill and competences in our communities, be it educational or the wider geographically based community. And research suggest that small and community based enterprises are the major driving fore for innovation, rather than the large companies that dominate so much of our economies.