In my previous posts I have reported on the preparation for the Design Conference of the Learning Layers (LL) project. Last week this conference took place in Espoo (at the Otaniemi campus of the Aalto University in the special building “Design Factory”). Now it is time to summarise the results and draw conclusions for the forthcoming work. Below I try to give a picture of the main sessions and the key results:

1. Building upon the Critical Path Analysis

This was the first joint event of the consortium after we had finalised the Critical Path Analysis (CPA) that was required by our reviewers. We could now see that it was an exercise worth doing. Instead of building upon separate tools and dispersed design teams we were now focusing on more integrative “tool arrangements”. We could now see better the tool arrangements responding to the ‘learning stories’ that addressed different developmental challenges (working with documents, physical artefacts, learning episodes, complex working & learning challenges).

2. Co-Design of the Learning Toolbox is taking further steps

Concerning the co-design sessions, I was mainly participating sessions that focused on the development of the Learning Toolbox (LTB). To me, these sessions were characterised by a new reunion of developers, co-designers and users in a live situation. Last year we had had an interruption of live workshops and face-to-face meetings due to administrative reasons. Then, when these were getting removed, new developers entered the stage and ‘interim managers’ had to hand over the tasks and bring them into cooperation with other developers. At the same time the application partners and other co-designers were tied up with other duties. Therefore, we only now got a chance to update each other on the results of the Alpha Beta Camp as well as on the plans for the forthcoming Field Workshops in Bau-ABC. In this respect it was important to make agreements on joint working meetings, to draw a timeline for the spring activities and to tune ourselves into the DevOps-culture of co-development during operative activities. Also, it was important that Raymond Elferink could give us a clear insight into the current phases of technical development and how the workshops can be linked to it.

3. Bringing different evaluation approaches into mutually complementing ‘package’

During the preparatory phase we had had some conversations in which consortium-wide efforts to shape an overarching evaluation approach had not met local efforts to evaluate the implementation and impact of tools. Although I did not attend many of the sessions on the evaluation issues, I got an impression that important progress was made. Crucial for the consensus was the point made by Jenny Hughes (Pontydysgu): “The results of local evaluation measures (on the implementation/impact of tools) are input for the consortium-wide evaluation of our achievements.” This gave us the clue, how to work together regarding the collection of data and reagarding the timing of evaluation measures.

4. Working with multiple roles and tasks in the exploitation activities

Third major element in the Design Conference were the group sessions on exploitation activities. Gilbert Peffer and Raymond Elferink had prepared a game-like exercise for drafting exploitation activities. Some of the groups were based on tool arrangements (Learning Toolbox, Healthcare tool arrangements, AchSo!), some on joint services (Social semantic server) and some on collaborative groupings (LL Centre of expertise). Thus, some of these groups were very strongly grounded on the co-design work whilst others had to look forward with a bit more phantasy.

I do not wish to go into details of this exercise – partly because I was in a group that mainly focused on the healthcare sector (which gave me the role of an interested observer), partly because we had too little time to wrap up the results. However, it is worthwhile to emphasise that this exercise pushed us stronger to think about the transformation from project work (fulfilling our duties as project partners) to sustaining the results and achievements beyond the life-time of our current project (with new resources and groupings of interested parties). During this exercise I noticed that we had here and there some controversies of the roles that we are playing (owners of tools/innovations, partners, proto-customers, mediators, customers …). Some of the differences were settled in a short while, some needed more time. To me, the striking point was that this exercise helped us to think of our changing roles more thoroughly than the similar exercises in previous consortium meetings. Moreover, after drawing conclusions from this exercise we are in a better position to work further with the Business Model Canvases (with which we started working in Tallinn). Also, this exercise gave us a better perspective to work with consortium-wide and project-based follow-up initiatives (for which we have to get ourselves prepared alongside the project tasks).

 5. “Datenschutz” – Policies for Data privacy/ Data protection/ Confidentiality …

Whilst the above mentioned issues were the cross-cutting themes that shaped the whole event, this is clearly a corollary issue – not to be forgotten. We agreed that during the pilot phase we need a minimum amount of documents to clarify these issues for ourselves and our counterparts (organisations and indidividual users). Partly these issues have been covered in the Ethical clearance processes that our healthcare partners have gone through (under the auspices of the University of Leeds and the NHS). Partly these issues can be covered by adapting the respective light-weight documents of other similar organisations (like the FutureLearn consortium for organising MOOCs). However, the main thing is that we can address these issues alread in the pilot phase. Furthermore, we need to prepare ourselves for the transformation to follow-up phase, when we need legally well-grounded policy documents for the successor-organisations and/or follow-up projects that take our tools and services further.

Altogether, we got a lot of food for thought for preparing our forthcoming field activities. Also, we got some new coordinates for sectoral coordination and planning meetings. And finally, we got some inspirations to learn more from the neighbouring tool arrangements. Let us see what all is emerging out of this!

More blogs to come …

My previous posts have focused on the forthcoming Y3 Design Conference of the Learning Layers (LL) project. In the first post I compared the situation of the project before the Y1 Design conference (two years ago) and before the Y3 Design Conference (currently).  In the second post I gave an overview how we have been working with the Learning Toolbox (LTB). This third post focuses (with reference to the LTB) to a general issue for the whole LL project and for all pilot activities. In English there several parallel concepts that refer to this problem context – data protection, data privacy, confidentiality …. I German this is all covered with one word: “Datenschutz”.

When discussing the next steps in the piloting with the Learning Toolbox we noticed that we do not have a coherent policy for Datenschutz. In this respect I wrote the following paragraph in the input on LTB to a wiki page of the LL Design Conference:

” (…) we need to develop a clear policy for data protection/ data security (Datenschutz) that covers the Layers Box (LB), the Learning Toolbox (LTB), the social semantic server (SSS) and linked platforms (Baubildung.net). Firstly, we need urgently a brief Users’ Guide for the pilot phase. This is necessary to assure our pilot partners that they have control of their own data when using the LL tools and related services. Secondly, we need to develop the policy for the continuation phase beyond the funding period of the LL project. This is an essential element of the exploitation plans.”

As a response to this apparent need Graham Attwell started looking for documents that could be helpful for us. We all agreed that we need to pay attention to the legal aspects (with sufficiently detailed documents) but we also need to prepare short user-friendly documents that we can use with our pilot partners. From this perspective we started looking at the  Datenschutz policy documents of FutureLearn (a consortium of British universities that organises MOOCs). FutureLearn has developed the following set of documents:

• Terms – the overarching framework agreement that covers in detail all possible policy issues.
• Openness – A short list of openness principles.
• Privacy – Privacy policy declared by the organisation FutureLearn.
• Cookies – Policy for using different type of cookies.
• Accessibility – Accessibility policy (including the responsibilities of different parties).
• Code of Conduct – A short list of principles as the commitments of users to which they agree when signing up.
• Data protection – A short document declaring the policy for data control, data collection and responsibilities of different parties.

We are most certainly aware of the fact that the policies of a provider of MOOCs are different from the ones that the LL project needs to develop. So, there is no prospect for easy one-to-one translations. BUT what inspires us is the nicely differentiated set of coherent documents – some for ordinary users, some for experts – within a common framework. Also, what inspires us, is the fact that FutureLearn – like the LL project – is committed to Open Source software. So, there is a lot in common to work with.

More blogs to come …

With my previous post I started a series of blogs that focus on the forthcoming Y3 Design Conference of the Learning Layers (LL) project. In the first post I compared the situation of the project before the Y1 Design conference (two years ago) and before the Y3 Design Conference (currently). I also presented my interpretation, how the project has worked forward from the results and groupings that were achieved in the Y1 Design Conference. In this second post I will focus on the tool (or set of tools and apps ) with which we are working with our construction sector partners – the Learning Toolbox (LTB).

As a part of the preparation of the Design Conference the host organisation (Aalto University) set up a wiki page to collect information on the development of our main sets of tools and of current pilot activities. I got the task to submit the information on LTB and found interesting to give a compressed situation assessment, where we are and what we are fecing next. Therefore, I want to share this information (questions and answers) via this blog:

1) What has been done?

The development of the Learning Toolbox (LTB) was started in January/February 2014 as a second iteration of the design theme “Sharing Turbine”. The approach shifted from digitization of training/learning materials (the White Folder of Bau-ABC) to a framework of mobile tools and apps for apprentices, skilled workers and professionals in construction sector. This second iteration has been carried out as ‘development project’ with co-design workshops (in Bau-ABC) parallel to Multimedia Training (in Bau-ABC) and stakeholder engagement activities (hosted/supported by Bau-ABC).

2) Who has done?

The technical development of LTB has been initially led by Pontydysgu (Pont) and supported by CIMNE. Once the administrative processes of replacing the software house Tribal by RayCom had been completed, RayCom took the lead of the Learning Toolbox development group. The Multimedia Training and the Co-design workshops have been run jointly by ITB and Pont with shifting responsibilities. The stakeholder engagement activities have been organised by ITB, Pont, CIMNE and Bau-ABC.

3) When? and 4) How has been done?

The technical development proceeded from the initial phase in Spring 2014 (wireframes, power points, mock ups on mobile devices) to a phase of integration meetings in Summer 2014 (Bremen in May, Graz in August). In the Autumn 2014 there have been smaller design sprints in Utrecht that have contributed to the more integrative Alpha Beta Camp in February 2014. The Multimedia Training was started in September 2013 and was continued as series of hands-on workshops from November 2013 to July 2014. During this period the training became capacity-building for using/developing the LTB and the platform Baubildung.net.

Parallel to this and partly integrated into the training sessions there have been co-design sessions with focus on LTB. The stakeholder engagement activities have been partly intensive discussions with company representatives (Brunnenbauertage, pilot workshops) and groups of trainers & apprentices (the Demo Camp in Bau-ABC). Partly they have served the purpose of getting wider range of companies and stakeholders involved in forthcoming pilot activities (the visit at NordBau trade fair, visit at Ostfalia FH etc.). Finally, as a support for the development of LTB, Bau-ABC produced a set of videos to highlight potential uses and benefits of LTB.

5) Why in this way?

Originally the Sharing Turbine design team was expecting support for software development from the software house Tribal. However, in a short while the contact persons left the organisation and were not replaced. After some time Tribal announced its withdrawal from the consortium. Then, after a relatively quick process of finding the replacement, the contracting process of RayCom was delayed several months. Therefore, the technical development was brought further by substitutes (with limited resources).

Thus, the integration meetings, design sprints and the Alpha Beta Camp have been catching-up events to bring the development process further. In spite of backlog in the technical development, ITB and Bau-ABC have continued the dialogue with stakeholders/ potential users has been continued to get feedback and impulses for further development. Yet, this kind of dialogue has reached its limits and can only be continued with a prototype version of the LTB (which is due to the Design Conference).

6) What are initial findings?

The purpose of this document is to collect background information and interim results of Y3 field activities. In the case of the LTB these have not yet been started. Some links to documents from earlier activities, to the Bau-ABC videos and to working documents for preparing the forthcoming Field Workshops are given below:

• Google Drive folder for documenting Year 2 Stakeholder engagement activities: [1]
• Introduction to articles and Bau-ABC videos published on the LL website: [2]
• Working documents (EN and DE versions) for preparing the Y3 Field Workshops [3]

7) What are key issues at the moment?

At the moment the main issue is to bring the recent technical development work, the parallel plans for exploitation actions and the parallel plans for real-time evaluative measures into a coherent piloting approach. This requires also decisions on the role of complementary tools (AchSo! etc.), platforms (Baubildung.net) and services (Recommender service?) in the forthcoming pilot activities.

(…)

8) What are key insights at the moment?

The pilot activities will be started immediately after the Design Conference in Bau-ABC with an introductory workshop with the trainers. This is followed by Field Workshops in the training areas of different trades with an aim to integrate the use of LTB to apprentices’ projects in their training in Bau-ABC. Once the first results have been achieved, bilateral/trilateral talks will be started with companies that have been contacted last year and who have agreed to start such pilots.

So, with this situation assessment we are heading towards the Y3 Design Conference. Let us see what all we can bring forward with our working days in Espoo, Finland.

More blogs to come …

As i have indicated earlier, the Learning Layers (LL) project is preparing itself for the Design Conference of the Year 3. This time the venue is the main Campus of the Aalto University in Espoo, next to Helsinki. This gives a chance to compare our current situation in the project with the one two years ago, when we had the Year 1 Design Conference in the Arabia Campus of the Aalto University in Helsinki. Here some thoughts of the changes between the early days and the current phase of our project.

1. What has happened in the fieldwork?

When preparing ourselves for the Y1 Design Conference we were in a very initial stage with our fieldwork, Speaking for our part – the work with the Construction sector in North Germany – we had only manged to complete in a rapid tempo the first round of stakeholder interviews and draft initial User Stories in Bau-ABC, in the Agentur and in some craft trade companies. Based on this, we organised the Application Partner Day visits in Bau-ABC and in Agentur to see the huge training area of the training centre and to see the construction site of the merging exhibition building. Altogether, we could at best destill some design issues but we were not sure, to what directions the project could move.

Now, two years later, we see that we worked out the ways forward to participative design processes, to progressive tool development and to promising pilot concepts. In the construction sector this has required several iterations and modifications of the initial design ideas but we have kept the processes going on. In Bau-ABC we have had several series of co-design workshops, capacity building workshops and stakeholder engagement events that have brought us forward. With Agentur we have had somewhat different process dynamic but nevertheless the impulses we have got from different encounters and partcipative events have pushed our tool development further as well.

2. How have we found the way to design ideas?

Looking back, we did not necessarily anticipate in the Y1 Design Conference workshops that the four parallel round tables would produce The Design Ideas and The Design Teams for the next one year plus perhaps longer. At that point we just seemed to be working with some exemplary needs raised by our application partners and tried to look for design processes that could respond to them. The dynamic of the event nevertheless gave the results of these parallel group processes a higher status than we may have expected. Moreover, when we started giving catchy names for the Design Ideas and creating a collective identity for the teams to continue, we had shaped the project in a new way.

So, we came out of Y1 Design Conference regrouped into four parallel Design Teams with more or less sectoral focus and perspective to tool development for particular needs:

• “Sharing Turbine” based on the idea of digitising the instruction and learning materials of Bau-ABC (“the White Folder“) into digital learning resource to be shared and used across learning venues (training centre, company and vocational school);
• “Captus” based on the idea to support the “Learning exhibition” of the Agentur for ecological construction work with the help of tools that capture knowledge and support experience-based learning in informal contexts;
• “Pandora” based on the idea to work with local and regional interpretation of healthcare sector guidelines and support reflection on training contents and mutual advice in problem cases;
• “Bits and Pieces” based on the idea to support real-time documentation and archiving of episodes and instances of learning, sensemaking on these elements and rearranging the them for further reflection (based on the original example of medical doctors archiving paper notes into cardboard boxes for further reflection).

Now, coming back to the current situation, we have clearly come out of these rather particularistic groupings and moved towards more scalable sets of tools and implementation scenarios.

3. How have we proceeded with co-design, tool development and piloting?

Here it is possible to give only rough outlines of the dynamic, iterative and reorienting processes that had led to the current sets of tools, frameworks and services with which we are working. In a nutshell they can be characterised in the following ways:

• The design process that was started as digitisation of instruction and learning materials (the White Folder) got transformed into shaping of a framework (“the Learning Toolbox”) to manage mobile apps and tools for working and learning processes. Parallel to this the Multimedia Training helped the trainers to create domain-specific blogs for delivering instruction materials and learning resources. These are hosted by the common platform “Baubildung.net”.
• The design process that was started as specific support for the forthcoming exhibition turned into more general piloting with video annotation tools and augmented reality. For some of these pilots alternative fields and counterparts were found from other contexts.
• The initial design idea of “Pandora” was differentiated into development of parallel tools, apps and services (“Living Documents”, “Reflect App”, “Help Seeking”). Whilst these were firstly, developed and piloted in different contexts in the same pilot region, the current work is bringing them closer to each other.
• The work with “Bits and Pieces” has focused on different aspects and phases of the collection, sensemaking and reinterpretation processes with particular tools and software solutions . The current phase is looking for integrative approach (with links to other LL tools).

I leave my comparisons here. I may have given a somewhat idealised picture of the more complex and ‘messy’ process in which we have been working our ways forward. Yet, I believe that this picture helps to see from where we are coming and via what kind of efforts. Now we are gathering to take further steps ahead.

More blogs to come …

Some time ago we received the sad news that David Raffe, professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Edinburgh had died unexpectedly. For us David was a colleague who had been very strongly present during the early years of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) and the early phase of the VETNET network (for research in Vocational Education and Training). Also, many of us had worked together with him in European projects and conferences. For us he was not just one of the colleagues but a person from whom we learned a lot in many respects. Therefore, it is appropriate stop for a moment to remember David.

We have already prepared a joint text in the name of the VETNET network and sent it to the University of Edinburgh to be included in their condolence book and we have sent it out via the VETNET mailing list. In this process the veterans of VETNET who had known David for years (like Sabine, Johanna, Martin, Graham and Karen) shared views with those who joined VETNET later and had less chances get acquainted with him. We all were hit by the news and we felt that we want to share our memories with the community. During this process several personal memories came to my mind. Here I would like to share some of them shortly.

My first encounter with David was at the pilot-ECER in Enschede, the Netherlands, in June 1992. I was participating as a relatively young researcher, just entering the European arenas. David was there as a well-known scholar and as one of the keynote speakers of the whole conference. He put into discussion the issue :”Is modularisation becoming a common currency in European education and training?” I still remember the way he started to explore different concepts of flexibility that were attached to modularisation as well as different prospects for progression and growth of knowledge. He also drew our attention to main effects and side effects of reforms and alerted us of one-sided views (affirmation vs. rejection). Altogether, he gave us a lesson, how to avoid easy answers and how to get deeper into the complexity of reform processes.

Later on I had the chance to observe the work of a European project (“Post-16 strategies”) in which England and Scotland were participating as different countries. This project avoided the pitfall of getting different systems into competition with each other. Instead, the partners tried to identify, what kind of strategies for promoting parity of esteem (between general and vocational learning) have success chances in their countries – and how they can learn from each other. To me it was striking that the ‘big names’ assembled in this project accepted the role of contributors instead of claiming the leadership for themselves. Here, David was a good contributor. As an annexed event I had the chance to witness a session of an Anglo-Scottish comparative project in which English and Scottish researchers were in genuine dialogue on recent developments in their respective countries.

A third memory is related to my former employer Cedefop (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) shortly after it had moved from Berlin to Thessaloniki. Cedefop was in the process of new start and repositioning and was re-establishing its contacts to different stakeholders. The Management Board had a special session in which Commissioner Edith Cresson was attending. David was invited as a representative of the research community to discuss the development policies in vocational education and training (VET) and the role of Cedefop. To me it seemed that David’s speech was very helpful in creating an air of listening to and learning from research (rather than assigning researchers as sub-contractors to promote given policy priorities).

Later on we realised that David was putting priority on working in Scotland – or on comparisons between England & Wales, Scotland, North Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Here again, he could surprise us with findings on unexpected diversity – brought together with common language and seemingly common vocabulary.

Now that we have shared the news of David’s death we have received several reactions from colleagues of old from different parts of Europe – Alan from England, Eduardo from Portugal, Georg from Germany, Jose Luis from Spain, Sören from Denmark … We all have come together with our thoughts to remember David and to respect his life work.

Rest in peace, David

My recent posts have been reports on my efforts to catch up with debates in EdTech communities and with recent pilots with MOOCs. I made use of a relatively quiet period in our work for the Learning Layers (LL) project to read what Graham Attwell has recently written on these issues. (With quiet I don’t mean that we would have had nothing to do. My point was that we have been more occupied with preparatory tasks – not much to blog about them.)

Now it seems that I have to move on to the actual preparation of the forthcoming Design Conference. Therefore, I have to postpone my further reading to some other time. At this point I make only few comments and notes for myself what to read next.

1. Changing concepts – changing perspectives

It strikes me that in the long run several changes in terminology in EdTech (and before EdTech became a big number) have paved the way from teaching-centred to learning-oriented approaches. Just thinking the changes from ‘distance teaching’ to ‘distance learning’, ‘remote learning’ and finally to ‘open distance learning’. In the beginning phase ‘eLearning’ was hyped as an alternative paradigm – the new promising mainstream to push into periphery the traditional academic teaching and learning culture. Gradually the initiatives with ‘eLearning in practice’ have brought into picture far more realistic approaches (with emphasis on technology enhanced learning TEL).

A similar transition seems to have taken place in the debates on Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) vs. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). As Graham put it a quote that I have picked from his earlier blog: “At a development level, there is little point in trying to develop a new PLE to replace the VLE. Instead we need to provide flexible tools which can enhance existing technologies and learning provision, be it formal courses and curricula or informal learning in the workplace or in the community.”

To me, the above repeated quote might be also the key to understand adequately the potential of MOOCs. I have the impression that the early phase of the MOOCs has been misused or misinterpreted to create a picture of a renaissance of e-teaching (by global missionaries) in the form of massively open online courses. What I see coming up in the newer blogs is increasingly a picture of scalable learning opportunities via which professional communities reach new dimensions. If I have understood it correctly, the initiative LangMOOC is looking for opportunities to develop language support practices for transnational cooperation activities. To me, the pilots in the employment services point to a similar direction. But I am eager to learn from those who are involved.

2. What should I/we look more closely

Even with the risk that I will not have that much time I will list some blog articles that I should try to go through in the coming time. I have sadly neglected a most valuable resource – the blog Wilfred Rubens over Technology Enhanced Learning – but with these issues I must catch up with some topics. My priority issues will be the following ones (published quite recently but to the very point I want to catch up with):

Vormen van e-learning (February 25th 2015)

Here Wilfred gives a differentiated view on different forms of e-learning (I think he identifies 11 variants).

Nieuwe EMMA MOOCS van start #EUMOOCS (February 27th 2015)

Here Wilfred gives insights into European cooperation intiatives to develop MOOCs.

Hoe lerenden binnen MOOCS opereren? (March 2nd 2015)

Here Wilfred reports on a study that has analysed the activities of learners of MOOCs.

So let us see when I get to deepen my understanding of MOOCs and similar learning arrangements that transform the perspective from ‘courses’ to social learning in professional communities.

More blogs to come …

As I told in my previous post, our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project is preparing itself for the Design Conference of the Year 2, which will take place in March in Espoo (next to Helsinki) in Finland. And as I also told, I have looked over the fence and explored, what our colleague Graham Attwell has been writing recently. In my previous post I was looking at the points he has made in debates on VLEs, PLEs and MOOCs.

Now I am trying get an idea, what Graham and his colleagues have been experiencing with the pilot activities of the neighbouring EU-funded project Employ-ID (that focuses on Employment services in Europe). As I understand it, they have started as learners in MOOCs, then to develop a medium-scale pilot arrangement, and now they are harvesting their first results. I am not trying to tell the news myself, but I am fascinated by the way that Graham has worked his way in this pilot (and covered it with his blogs).

 1. Stepping in as a participant of MOOC (Graham’s report May 13th 2014)

“We are planning to run a series of MOCCs as part of this project (Employ-ID) and the project partners have agreed themselves to do a MOOC as part of our own learning project. So why did I choose to do a course of digital curation? I have spent a lot of time working on the development of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Open Educational Resources are resources for learning and teaching that are open to use. But resources means not only content and materials but also tools for content creation and sharing as well as intellectual property licenses for using these resources freely and openly.” (…)

“It strikes me that many of the digital objects being grated by participants in this course could be a very rick source of learning. more than that it also seems that many of the issues in digital curation are very similar to those round OERs – for example

• how do we classify and structure resources
• how do we ensure digital resources are discoverable
• how do we measure the quality of resources
• how can we encourage people to interact with resources.

And finally I think that the best answers to these questions may come through an interdisciplinary dialogue.”

2. Heading to pilot with adapted MOOC (Graham’s comment April 29th 2014)

“Within the European Employ-ID project, (which is researching employment adaptability and the use of technology for supporting coaching and continuing professional development for Public Employment workers in Europe), we have promised, for better or worse, to organise a MOOC. In fact, I think this was promised for the final year of thee project, which has only just started, but with plenty of enthusiasm from the public employment services and from project partners, we are planning to bring it forward to next year.”

As Graham has reported it several months ago, the idea to organise an adapted MOOC – not necessarily massively open and not yet so open, but based on the same pattern – was well received by their counterparts. As I hear from the echos, it appears that this pilot experience helps us to overcome the EdTech perspective on MOOCs and to turn the concept back on its feet. Instead of putting the design issues into centre, Graham has pushed us to think about the social learning in organisational and professional communities. We are looking forward to hear more on this.

More blogs to come …

Currently our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project is preparing itself for the Design Conference of the Year 2, which will take place in March in Espoo (next to Helsinki) in Finland. We will be discussing issues of Co-Design, Evaluation and Exploitation. Surely, our work with the Learning Toolbox will be high on the agenda. But, as the name of the event says, we should consider, what is important regarding design, transfer of innovations and scaling up of innovations.

From this perspective I have looked over the fence and explored, what our colleague Graham Attwell has been writing recently on the debates on Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), and Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on his blog Wales-Wide-Web. Of course, his blog articles are available on this same Pontydysgu site. But sometimes it is worthwhile to highlight some points that we may pass too quickly when reading his flow of posts. Here some of the highlights that I have picked as lessons from the debates:

1. Graham’s comment on the optimistic prediction on the impact of mobile technologies on workplace learning (July 6th 2014)

Prediction (formulated by Graham): “the workplace becomes part of the Personal Learning Environment and conversely the PLE becomes part of the work process. At the same time, such an approach can bring together both formal and informal learning.”

Comment (by Graham): “It hasn’t happened yet and it is worth thinking about why. One reason maybe that only recently has seen the spread of sufficiently powerful mobile devices and applications. Another is the suspicion of employers about the uses of such devices in the workplace. Most importantly may be the failure to develop pedagogic approaches for mobile learning.”

2. Graham’s comments on trends and fashions in Educational Technology (June 15th /April 29th 2014)

What is floating, what is sustaining: ” Ideas and trends emerge, peak and die away as attention moves to the latest new thing. At the time of writing MOOCs dominate the discourse. Yet the developments around Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have not gone away.  It could be argued that the development and adoption of PLEs is not so much driven the educational technology (…) but by the way people (…)  are using technology for learning in their everyday lives.”

Managerism/Consumerism/Prosumerism: “Even when Learning Management Systems were in their prime, there was evidence of serious issues in their use. Teachers tended to use such environments as an extended file storage system; forums and discussion spaces were frequently under populated. In other words such systems were used for managing learning, rather than for learning itself.  Learners expropriated and adapted consumer and productivity applications for their learning.”

Contrast between VLEs/PLEs: “At a development level, there is little point in trying to develop a new PLE to replace the VLE. Instead we need to provide flexible tools which can enhance existing technologies and learning provision, be it formal courses and curricula or informal learning in the workplace or in the community. It can be argued that whilst most educational technology development has focused on supporting learners already engaged in educational programmes and institutions, the major potential of technology and particularly of Personal Learning Environments is for the majority of people not enrolled on formal educational programmes.”

Open learning/Open Educational Resources/ MOOCs: “Such changes are reflected in the growing movement towards open learning, be it in the form of MOOCs or in the increasing availability of Open Educational Resources. The popularity of MOOCs has revealed a vast pent up demand for learning and at least in the form of the c-MOOCs has speeded the adoption of PLEs. MOOCs are in their infancy and we can expect the rapid emergence of other forms of open learning or open education in the next few years.”

MOOCs – only hype?: “MOOCs are now set on the downside of the hype cycle and it is not difficult to find critics – or even those predicting their immanent end. I can’t see much sign of them going away = if anything there seems to be more and more MOOCs appearing – although that may be just a result of better discoverability. However there does seem to be huge variation in design, duration and above all quality although we do not really have any agreed criteria for measuring quality.”

So what: “Despite the issues of design and quality, the sheer numbers of learners signing up for MOOCs deserves some reflection. I interpret it as a vast pent up demand for opportunities for learning. (…) MOOCs have enabled a massive expansion in the scope of subjects on offer as Open Education. So, even though I sympathise with the critics, particularly as to the quality of pedagogy, I think we should see MOOCs in that light. MOOCs are one iteration in the use of technology to greatly expand Open Education and to make that education available to everyone.”

OK, here I have picked some thoughts that Graham has brought forward in the course of debates and as candidates for ‘lessons from the debates’. However, these are still at the level of educational debates. What we in the Learning Layers are looking for, is something to put into practice and something that sustains in the hard test of practice. I think Graham has something more to say in this respect – I will continue my reading.

More blogs to come …

Last Thursday Ludger Deitmer and I visited the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in the context of the Learning Layers (LL) project. For us this was a follow-up of the talks we had had during the Brunnenbauertage conference last year and a planning meeting for the forthcoming pilot activities. The representatives of Ostfalia had already at that time expressed their interest to learn more of the Learning Toolbox. Now that we had promising progress reports from the Alpüha Beta Camp in Aachen, it was high time to take further steps.

Our host organisation, the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences is a merged university colleges with four campuses in the Easten part of the federal state Lower Saxony (near the former border of the two German states). Our hosts from the faculty “Bau-Wasser-Boden”, professor Elfriede Ott (Geo-engineering) and Albrecht Meißner  (Informatics, dean of the faculty) are working in the campus of Suderburg, the most rural campus of the four. As we experienced it in our talks, this university college cannot profile itself with the attractions of urban city life – therefore, it has to profile itself with a strong emphasis on practice-based learning, collaboration with enterprises and creative pedagogy.

Our hosts firstly informed us of their study programs for construction engineers with different areas of specialisation (in particular building the grounds, water supply solutions and tunneling). Here, as well as in other areas of specialisation, Ostfalia was actively developing the model of Dual Stdudies (combination of Higher Education degree with apprentice training that delivered initial vocational qualification). And, due to the regulations of the training in construction sector, the workplace training included several presence periods in the intermediate training centre Bau-ABC. As we understood it, the cooperation between Ostfalia and Bau-ABC had already reached a relatively mature phase – they had learned to combine their strengths and developed a culture of mutual exchanges.

Concerning their pedagogic interests, our hosts told us of their experiences with stimulating collaborative group and self-organised learning. In this context they also noted the need to overcome some resistance and anxieties. Moreover, they informed us of their experiments with gamification – facilitating learning in geo-engineering by playing cards that make transparent the basic facts and the necessary measures – essentials on which you need to have an overview. Finally, they informed of their university-wide pedagogic support services and pilots with pedagogic counseling (Lerncoaching).

From the LL perspective the Ostfalia study programs – in particular the dual studies provide an interesting field for piloting with the Learning Toolbox. As we discussed it, the students are challenged to get awareness of the limits of desk engineering and to take into account the practical reality of construction work on the grounds. Our hosts could give us several examples of possible mismatches and how they are detected when the engineering students get insights into the work processes of skilled workers. From this perspective they were interested in becoming involved in the pilot testing of the Learning Toolbox. Furthermore, given the fact that their students gather experiences in multiple learning venues – college, training centre, enterprise – they were interested in getting the students reflect on their learning experiences and making the connections between theory and practice. This issue was also discussed in the context of a separate funding programme “Erfahrbares Lernen” that seeks to bring new innovation-oriented and experiential insights into studies in higher education.

Altogether, we covered a lot of topics and reached an agreement to continue our cooperation in the next phase when the recent results of the developers are prepared for field workshops. We are looking forward to the next steps.

More blogs to come …

The Learning Layers (LL) project has been launched to promote and scale up innovations – on work-related learning supported by web tools and mobile technologies – in SME clusters. From the very beginning our project has taken it as a serious challenge to get a good understanding on cluster policies (as instruments for national and European policies) and on managed clusters (as vehicles for promoting and scaling up innovations).

In the beginning the issue ‘clusters’ was perceived mainly a particular area to be explored by few specialists (to get a big pictNowure). The insights and lessons were then supposed to be fed back to the pilot regions (in our case North Germany as the pilot region for construction sector). And – accordingly – our ‘cluster explorers’ gathered information and made contacts. Sometimes it appeared that there might be cases for regional ‘twinnings’ – clusters/networks in our regions appeared to have functional equivalents in other countries.

However, in the Norwegian landscape of managed clusters and in the Norwegian funding of cluster-driven innovation policies our explorers have detected a special laboratory for promoting innovations. The glimpses that I have got from the talks of our colleagues have given an impression of highly dynamic, interactive and sustainable approaches to regional and sectoral innovations. The earlier concepts of networks and groupings do not reveal the richness of the work.

Now I am pleased to note that our colleagues Gilbert Peffer and Tor-Arne Bellika have started blogging on their work. The Cluster Performance Blog informs us of the forthcoming interface event ‘Layers meets Agder’. In this context we can explore, how the services and patterns of networking in the Agder cluster region can support our sectoral pilots and/or pilot regions in scaling up the innovations. Parallel to this, the blog informs us of the ongoing European cooperation  between different cluster initiatives.

I am looking forward to learning more from managed clusters, their evolution, collaboration and expansion. Also, I am interested to find out, how knowledge alliances or strategic partnerships are being shaped in cluster regions.

More blogs to come (both here and in the Cluster Performance Blog) …