George Siemens has written a blog post about Blackboard’s take over of Elluminate and Wimbla.I agree with him in saying this is an astute move by Blackboard – however I am not quite sure what he means when he talks about integration allowing mangers to buy the educational process. OK – so Blackboard moves beyond being just a VLE. But the educational process is still dependent on pedagogy, whatever tools are integrated in a single application.

I am also very dubious about his view on the evolution of online learning environments. George says:

Over the last eight years, the market has experience enormous change (web 2.0, virtual worlds, social media, networked learning). But many things have settled in the process. Some universities are beginning to focus on a big-picture view of technology: making learning resources available in multimedia, integrating technology from design to delivery, using mobile technologies, and increased focus on network pedagogy. Blackboard (and LMS’ in general) have been able to present the message that “you need an LMS to do blended and online learning”.

To counter this view, the edupunk/DIY approach to learning has produced an emphasis on personal learning environments and networks. To date, this movement has generated a following from a small passionate group of educators, but has not really made much of an impact on traditional education. I don’t suspect it will until, sadly, it can be commoditized and scaled to fit into existing systemic models of education. Perhaps Downes’ Plearn research project, or OU’s SocialLearn project will prove me wrong (I really hope they do!!). For the purposes of this post, however, the brave new world of online learning will be dominated by LMS like Moodle, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and regional players like Fronter.

I have never seen edupunk being a movement which would move in and takeover the traditional education system. What edupunk does provide is an alternative to traditional pedagogy as well as showing there are other routes than commercialisation of education through technology. I don’t expect any institutional manager to announce a new policy based on edupunk? But what we are seeing is increasing numbers of teachers using social software for tecahing and learning. The impact of that is far harder to measure than the number of VLEs adopted by different educational institutions. It will also probably have a far more profound impact of tecahing and learning and pedagogic approaches to using technology.

The second impact of PLEs, edupunk and social software is in the developing ideas and practice around Open Learning. Knowledge and learning is escaping from the institution. And long term that will be the greatest impact of all.

The last week saw some interesting posts on Open Education – see  Richard Hall’s recent blog post Open education: the need for critique, Terry Wassall on Open education, people, content,  process . This debate will not go away and although it is progressing at a frustratingly slow speed it is central to attempts to use technology for changing tecahing and learning, rather than replicating and managing the present educational systems.

I also suspect that one of the drivers of such a debate is the increasing pressures on education – on the one hand cutbacks in funding, on the other hand increasing pressure for higher levels of education and for lifelong learning.

Having said that it is perfectly legitimate to advocate open educational resources as improving existing institutional provision. But even at that level, OERs challenge ideas around the ownership of knowledge and the use of that knowledge.

It is also striking that we are developing a linked set of ideas – Open Educational Resources, Personal Learning Environments, Personal Learning Networks. I share some of Richard Hill’s concerns over individualisation. At the end of the day learning is a social process. And indeed there are risks, if PLEs and PLNs are merely seen as different ways of pursuing learning within educational institutions. It is striking that the right wing English education minister, Michael Grove, has been promoting private profit driven universities as a means of increasing the use of distance learning and educational technology. However, there is an alternative discourse within the PLE / PLN development looking to promote social and community based learning to reach outside the educational institutions, very much as posed by Illich in his ground breaking treatise on deschooling society.

Whilst I agree with Terry Wassall in placing the act of tecahing and learning at the centre of debates over critical pedagogy, I also think that the widening contexts and domains of learning also could play a key role in such a critique. It has been the very narrowing down of what has been seen as legitimate in terms of learning practice and domains that has led to the hierarchical systems of education and knowledge that we see today and to the devaluing of both certain forms of learning – such as vocational education – and the disregarding of different learning domains – especially the workplace and community.

In that respect, a critical pedagogy needs to reach back and link with older traditions of workers self education as well as embrace the potentials of technology/

To be continued……..

As regular readers will know I have been thinking a lot about learning contexts lately. And having some interesting onversatio0ns in different media with Fred Garnett. When I was looking for something else this afternoon I found an email from him sent in April which I had somehow overlooked. I am not quite sure what the email says. For some reason the text is not wrapping. However he does say “you should get it together on your blog.” So I will and here is a section of the short (apparently unpublished) paper attached to the email which I find very interesting.

“Cumulatively we can draw these “Learner-Generated Contexts” points together to conceptualise a new, adaptive model of the relationships between informal, non-formal and formal learning

1. In an era of social networks where users have both the tools and the experience to self-organise, and with learning being a social process, the informal dimension of learning is better defined as that domain within the learning process where people organise themselves, either to meet self-determined goals or to meet the pre-determined goals of an institution; people are how we scaffold the organisation of learning

2. In an era where an ever greater amount of learning content is on offer and new ways of providing learning resources, as objects, tools and templates, are made available then the non-formal dimension of learning could be defined as those resources used for learning; resources are how we scaffold the process of learning

3. In an era where traditional learning is being subverted by new forms of collaboration and knowledge construction, crowd-sourcing wikipedia, participatory science, then formal learning could be defined as providing reliable sources of accreditation; institutions are how we scaffold the accreditation of learning.”

For some time, I have been working at developing a Technology Enhanced Boundary Object (TEBO) to help Careers Advisers (PAs) understand Labour Market Information (LMI). But I am increasingly interested in how we can access and visualise live LMI as part of the careers advice process. These are notes I have written about the idea.

What is linked data?

The Web enables us to link related documents (from linkeddata.org). Similarly it enables us to link related data. The term Linked Data refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. Key technologies that support Linked Data are URIs (a generic means to identify entities or concepts in the world), HTTP (a simple yet universal mechanism for retrieving resources, or descriptions of resources), and RDF (a generic graph-based data model with which to structure and link data that describes things in the world).(Tom Heath, including excerpts from Bizer, Heath and Berners-Lee (in press))

What is the relationship between Linked Data and the Semantic Web?

Opinions on this topic differ somewhat, however a widely held view is that the Semantic Web is made up of Linked Data; i.e. the Semantic Web is the whole, while Linked Data is the parts. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web and the person credited with coining the terms Semantic Web and Linked Data has frequently described Linked Data as “the Semantic Web done right.”

Using Linked data with Careers PAs in the UK

Though the MATURE project we have undertaken extensive research and consultation with PAs in different Connexions companies including in England and Wales around the use of Labour Market Information in Careers Advice, Information and Guidance. Work undertaken through the project has aimed to allow research and easy access to documentation around different careers including LMI. We are also aware that all LMI requires interpretation – s stage of knowledge maturing – and one aim has been to allow easy forms of interpretation though tagging etc. A second aim has been to allow the development of an organisational knowledge base through sharing the results of LMI research. LMI is based on various data, collected by different government agencies and by for example the sector skills councils. In the past access to this data has been restricted. Additionally it requires considerable knowledge and skills to be able to manipulate and interpret large data sets. Inevitably much of the interpetation is over generalised and is frequently out of date.

Open Data

In autumn of 2009, a new web site was launched in the UK based on an initiative by Tim Berners Lee and Nick Shadbolt. Data.gov.uk seeks to give a way into the wealth of government data. As highlighted by the Power of Information Taskforce, this means it needs to be:

• easy to find;
• easy to license; and
• easy to re-use.

The aim is to publish government data as RDF – enabling data to be linked together. The web site says their approach is based on:

• Working with the web;
• Keeping things simple: we aim to make the smallest possible changes that will make the web work better;
• Working with the grain: we are not looking to rebuild the world. We appreciate that some things take time; others can be done relatively quickly. Everything has it’s own time and pace;
• Using open standards, open source and open data: these are the core elements of a modular, sustainable system; and
• Building communities, and working with and through them (both inside government and outside).

The new UK government has committed itself to backing this initiative and increasingly local government organisations are providing open access to data. Many of the key data sets for LMI are available through the data.gov.uk site including time series data on employment in different occupations, average earnings, job centre vacancies (at fine grained local office level and over a 10 year time series), qualifications, graduate destinations etc. along with more generalised but critical data such as post codes. All data can be queried in real time through a SPARQL interface.

Thus there is considerable potential to run queries and provide linked data providing valuable Labour Market and Careers information.

For instance:

A post code or location based query around a particular occupation could reveal:

• the average pay for that job
• job centre vacancies in that job over the past at a local level

By querying external databases this could be extended to include:

• iCould videos about that career (there are something like 1000 high quality videos available)
• Job description along with required qualifications

Where xcri course information data is available the app could provide information on local courses related to that career (Note – xcri data standard compliance is patchy in the UK).

Maturing Knowledge – the role of the PA

Whilst this system would be a great advance on anything presently available, it is not perfect. LMI data still requires interpretation. For instance job centre data has a known bias towards public sector employment, lower paid jobs and short term employment. The search only covers past data and may not reveal longer term labour market trends. Thus ideally following such a search the PA would be able to add brief notes before saving the search. These overall results could then be packaged to sent to a client as well as stored within the organisational system. To use the new information and knowledge sources being made available through the Careers Project requires new interpretation skills on behalf of the PAs. Thus the development of a linked data app would also be accompanied by the development of the TEBO which aims to provide informal learning for PAs around using LMI

Visualisations

Although a early version of the system might well be text based, it would enhance data interpretation to provide visualisations of the data.It may be possible to do this dynamically using for instance APIs to the IBM Open Source Many Eyes application.

Multi media was very much in evidence at the PLE conference in Barcelona earlier this month. Besides the live streaming and a dazzling array of ipads and other handheld devices, we were able to use CitiLab’s own wonderfully appointed multimedia studio. Joyce Seitzinger interviewed a number of organisers, unkeynote speakers and participants as part of her “What my PLN means to me” project. There is some good stuff here, well worth viewing.

More videos to follow

The definition of digital literacy is constantly evolving with a steady movement away from technical competences to an understanding based on social interactions. I like this latest interpretation from the Futurelab Handbook: Digital literacy across the curriculum (via Matt Lingard). However I wonder if there aren’t a couple of things missing. First is the issue of digital identities. Of course you could say that digital identities is all of the above. Bu8t I think that at the present time the ability to manage digital identities is one of the most critical issues facing young people. And I wonder if sharing should also be there. Sharing is a little differejnt than collaboration. Knowing what to share with who and for why is key to understanding the use of the social web.

Finally I wonder how long we can persist with the term digital literacy. The use of technologies is becoming so intertwined with young people’s daily life that it may be said to be just a part of literacy. Perhaps the only reason to persist with the distinction is to help the education system catch up in their understanding of this.

Photo Samscam

Its been a week off from the blog. Following the PLE2010 conference in Barcelona I took a short holiday. And since I have been back I have been fighting (unsuccessfully) a power failure in my office. So now I am squatting in a friend’s house and using my laptop.

I have much to say about the PLE2010 conference – I am not quite sure where to start.

Firstly it was a truly social conference – social in the both face to face and distant participants were involved in the different sessions. Social too, in the way the pre-conference discussions ran into the conference proper and then into the discussions at coffee breaks and in the evening. The formal conference was just one part of the whole event. And social in the use of media. Besides the live streaming of many sessions, it woudl appear the conference generated over 5000 tweets on the first day (the tweets are archived here).Indeed, for many of us it was the first chance to meet face to face people we have been collaborating with on line for a long time.

Much of this was down to the design of the conference. the pre-conference publicity and discuxxiosn had been focused on social media and in particualr twitter. And the programme design, from unkeynotes to cafe style sessions, debates amnd workshops, was signed to facilitate social interaction and participation. And it is encouraging that many have said they will relook at how they are organising conferences and draw on our ideas.

But what about the ideas? Firstly it was very heartening to see that we seemed to have moved beyond the stage of defining a PLE by what it is not i.e. not a VLE. Instead participants were looking outwards, at how to support learning. I am not sure how much we shared common understandings and meanings around PLEs (sadly I cannot find a record of the session which tried to arrive at such a common definition) but there seemed sufficient understanding for common debates.

One controversial issue was how far it was possible to provide an institutional PLE. This debate was driven by the folks from SAPO Campus in Portugal who are trying to do just that (and still managing to find time for late night and in depth analysis of the failings of the Portugese football team!). My own take is that I do not mind where the tools for a PLE come from as long as the leaner is in control.

Two ‘discourses’ particularly heartened me. The first was between educational researchers and practitioners and software and technical developers. This is an oft troubled discourse in the ed tech community. It may be that the common understandings around the idea of a PLE are allowing these different groups to work together in new ways. I particularly enjoyed the session on using Google Wave as a PLE and was impressed by the Talkingabout video sharing site. But what charatcterised these ideas – as in others I could not attend but heard from others about – was the innovation in appropriating technologies for pedagogic innovation.

Another – and more problematic but recurrent discourse was the issue of motivation. Participants were trying to develop PLEs with students inside the schooling and university systems. But surveys and anecdotal evidence suggests students are wary being overly focused on what work they need to do to pass exams, rather than exploring ideas and learning. And most students view direct didactic teaching as the best approach to passing their exams. As such they have little time for reflection or indeed little understanding as to why they should engage in such activity. This is problematic. We may consider their longer term learning important and thus view the development of meta-cognition and problem solving a priority. But perhaps inevitably under the present education systems their major concern is just to jump the next hurdle in the education race.

My only personal disappointment was that the major focus for PLE development and implementation for the vast majority of participants was for learners within schools and universities. There was limited interest in work based learning or in learning outside teh existing systems – the very areas where I think PLEs have the greatest potential.

Indeed, I think we have to consider the wider issue of where to locate the PLE debate. Clearly it is not just another instance of educational technology. But neither can it be easily subsumed in considerations of pedagogic approaches to the use of ICT for learning. I increasingly feel that the whole issue of PLEs is closely related to the ongoing discussions around open education. The very promise of PLEs is to understand the use of technology for learning in a new way, in a context where learning becomes part of society and is free and open to all.

But now there is a lot of work to be done. We have over 70 papers and many offers of publications. Most participants seemed to assume that PLE2011 was already on the cards (watch this blog for more news on that). And the bigger question is how we can use the ideas and networks generated by the conference to build a collective community of practice based on networking and sharing. Any thoughts or ideas  very welcome.

This morning I met face to face with Alec Couros together with whom I am delivering the unKeynote presentation to the PLE2010 conference in Barcelonatomorrow morning.

We have crowd sourced the presentation. In response to the nine questions we posted 10 days ago, we have received over 25 replies, including slides, text, audio and video content. We have put all the slides together which will be the basis for the unKeynote tomorrow. You are all invited to take part. We will have roving microphones for those of you lucky enough to be with us in Barcelona. And for those of you who cannot be her face to face, just ask your comments or ask questions using the #PLE_BCN hash tag. Cristina Costa and Joyce Seitzinger (better known to the Twitterati as Catspyjamasnz) will be monitoring the twitterfeed and bringing to our attention your tweets. We are going to work with three screens – one for the crowd sourced slides, one for twitter and a third for our skrbl boards. For each of the key questions we have set up an open Scrbl board for participants. And if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow – you can contribute your ideas on the skrbl boards now. Here are the questions and the urls for the scrbl boards. The unKeynote runs from 9.15 to 1015 CET tomorrow (Thursday morning) and there are rumours it will be streamed (watch the hashtag tweets for details).

UPDATE – you can watch live stream from here – http://eventv.projectescitilab.eu/index.html

1. With all of the available Web 2.0 tools, is there a need for “educational technology”? – http://skrbl.com/142175278
2. What are the implications of PLEs/PL on traditional modes/structures of education? – http://skrbl.com/142176866
3. What are the key attributes of a healthy PLE/PLN? – http://skrbl.com/142177071
4. What pedagogies are inspired by PLEs (e.g., networked learning, connected learning)? Give examples of where PLEs/PLNs have transformed practice.- http://skrbl.com/142177180
5. What are the implications of PLEs/PLNs beyond bringing educational technology into the classroom, and specifically toward workplace/professional learning? – http://skrbl.com/142177251
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)?- http://skrbl.com/142177326
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? – http://skrbl.com/142177391
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?) – http://skrbl.com/142177468

And after the presentation we will be publishing our works and yours – together!

In Monday’s edition of weeks series of blog posts around the PLE2010 conference being held in Barcelona, I commented on the use of social media. Indeed, from the level of on-line activity the conference has already started! You can pick up on what is happening through following the #PLE_2010 hash tag. And the #PLE_BCN daily newspaper – http://paper.li/tag/PLE_BCN provides a surprisingly rich picture of what is going on. But here are a few posts which have caught my eye.

Firstly George Couros has blogged that he is “honoured to be asked to moderate a session at the PLE Conference in Barcelona (#PLE_BCN on Twitter) to talk about what exactly is a Personal Learning Environment.  In this session, myself and 3 other educators (Cristina Costa, Ilona Buchem and Wolfgang Reinhardt) that are located all over the world, will work with participants to figure out a definition for the PLE term. ” George has posted the following diagramme to start the discussion.

Sia Vogel has contributed the following Prezi towards Alec Couros’s and my joint unkeynote presentation.

PLE_BCN Conference Jordi Adell from epdrntr on Vimeo.

Jordi will be doing a joint keynote with Ismael Pena Lopez. Here is his contribution.

That is all I have time for today. More tomorrow – live from Barcelona.

Well it is PLE2010 Conference week so no apologies is that is the theme of the week. And in pre-conference reflection mood I wanted to reflect on some of the things we have done well and some we have done less well.

Fist of all, PLE2010 has some 70 or so presentations and over 100 delegates. Considering we set out with no large organisations or associations backing the conference I think this is pretty good. The conference has been put together through the hard work of a fairly inexperienced organising committee backed by the experience and enthusiasm of the community – edupunk working at its best!

And most of the publicity has been generated not through traditional media but through the4 us eof social media especially Twitter – just look at #PLE_BCN for proof. There are still barriers to the do it yourself cvonference model – we had big problems setting up payments systems that worked> And whilst the opens ource EasyChair system is sort of OK it does have its quirks (it would be very useful if someone could do some more work on the software).

As I told yesterday, I am very happy about our mix of traditional calls fo contribution (needed for researchers to gain travel grants form institutions with more unconferencing formats for presentation. I am sure the event is going to be a lot of fun.

The issue I think we have not paid sufficient attention to is what we do with the outcomes of the conference. True all the papers etc. are available as on-line proceedings. But how do we represent the outcomes of the different sessions to the wider community? How can we capture ideas and use such ideas in practice and in future research? How can we use the conference as a live event in our community generating new shared knowledge and experience?

Face to face events are valuable, not just for the participants, but for the community as a whole. But I am not sure we make best use of them at the moment. Your ideas would as ever be very welcome.

Looking forward to seeing some of you in Barcelona. 🙂