The educational techies are getting interested in competence. Why? I’m not sure – I suspect it might be a funding thing.

But last week I was at an EU IST programme funded Ten Competence project meeting in Manchester. It was a pretty good conference with some thought provoking contributions. But i was fairly horrified at the lack of understanding of what competence was. It ranged from “well we aren’t really interested but we had to say we were to get the money’ to the ‘we found this thing called Blooms taxonomy – thats what all educationalists use’.

Now i am not particularly worried that people have different conceptions of competence (more on that in a moment). But i am seriously concerned if educational technologists and particularly systems designers think competence can easily be reduced to a simple hierarchically defined taxonomy. It reminds me of all those developers who claimed that their applications were pedagogically neutral.

One of the problems is that many of the education technology developers, in Europe at least, come from Higher Education. One of them actually said in manchester that the idea of competence in new in education. Well, new it might be for universities. But in vocational education and training we have been working with concepts about competence for many years,

Anyway, I am in Luxembourg at the moment for a review meeting of the IST programme iCamp project (I.m one of the reviewers). Although I must admit I don’t follow exactly what the project is trying to develop, it is very impressive in that it does have a strong pedagogic underpinning. And in the first project deliverable, by Sebastian Fiedler and Barbara Kieslinger (2006) I found an excellent discussion around the nature and meaning of competence.

“It is important to note”, they say,

that the concept of competence is a theoretical construct that refers to a human potentiality for action or its underlying dispositions. Theoretical constructs of this kind can, and indeed are, used for a variety of descriptive and/or explanatory purposes. This variability is clearly reflected in the current literature on competencies and its apparent lack of coherence and precision.

Competencies acquisition and advancement | iCamp

They go on to say:

Like the more traditional concept of ability, competence conceptualizations are generally referring to an individual’s potentiality for action in a range of challenging situations. It is thus a concept that foremost indicates a precondition for future problem solving and coping (including the use of adequate tools) in a particular area of action…….This is where the old notion of qualification that is based on requirements analysis oriented in the past and on the acquisition and performance of standardized procedural skills and factual knowledge clearly shows its limits.

Competencies acquisition and advancement | iCamp

The problem in their formulation seems to be that they divide the potentiality to act from subject based learning. In part that is just because of the problematic nature of the traditional taxonomies of learning based on subject disciplines and their increasing irrelevance to how we apply and structure knowledge in the modern world. Nevertheless it provides a good starting point for considering how competence might be encapsulated in learning software. I would contend that it cannot be codified through a hierarchical taxonomy, but rather requires the provision of tools to enable learners to themselves scaffold their learning and reflexively discover and describe their own competence.

Technorati Tags: e-learning

I read a lot of journal and conference papers – its part of my job. And just occasionally, you read one and think ‘wow, this is so cool’.

So, I am recommending the following paper to you – ‘Authenticity in Learning: Transactional Learning in Virtual Communities‘ by Karen Barton, Patricia McKellar and Paul Maharg.

The context for their work is law education but the ideas in the paper apply to any sphere of learning. The first part of the paper looks at the idea of authenticity. I was particularly taken by a quote from Barab, Squire & Dueber (2000) who say “authenticity lies ‘not in the learner, the task or the environment, but in the dynamic interactions among these various components […] authenticity is manifest in the flow itself, and is not an objective feature of any one component in isolation”.

They go on to describe the environment they have designed for providing simulations of legal practice.

They suggest that “if we focus on creating carefully-designed simulation tasks along the lines of what I shall call ‘transactional learning’ and create flexible, sensitive software instruments by which students can express themselves and carry out that task-based learning, then we become involved in creating an environment where students can begin to comprehend through active learning the complexity of a professional legal task or transaction.

They also define transactional learning based on their practice as:

• Transactional learning is active learning
  
  Transactional learning is based on doing legal transactions.
  
  Transactional learning involves reflection on learning.
  
  Transactional learning is based on collaborative learning.
  
  Transactional learning requires holistic or process learning.

Students work in groups of four, forming virtual legal companies. Particularly important is that assessment is based on the performance of the company, not of individual students, with members of the company responsible for agreeing on the work to be submitted.

The only slight disappointment with the paper is the conclusion, which talks about change management. I’m not saying change management is not important, but it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the paper.

Great stuff – make sure you read this. And thanks to Al Harris who forwarded me a copy.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, simulations

I’ve submitted a paper for the Ten Competence project Conference to be held in Manchester in January.

The paper brings together previous work on Personal Learning Environments with research into the use of ICt for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. The following extract is from the summary and the full paper can be downloaded below.

“In terms of the development of ICT for supporting lifelong competence development there is the need for a fundamental policy revue. Past models have focused on the extension of the largely consumer driven model of developing standardised learning materials and component qualifications to be delivered through a Learning Management System or Virtual Learning Environment and of targeted marketing campaigns towards enterprises. This model is not only costly but has made little impact and is unsustainable. If learning is best developed through communities of practice then the focus for programmes and projects seeking to provide e-learning for SMEs should be refocused on the provision of applications and support for distributed communities of practice for SMEs.

In terms of software applications this requires the use of social software rather than more traditional e-learning programmes and applications. Rather than subsidise the development of professional learning materials the emphasis could be on the sharing of peer group learning materials through networks. Aggregator applications allow advanced searching and the bringing together of materials from different sources. The refocusing of programmes and projects in this way allow the vision of an ecology of learning materials, rather than the present unsustainable pilot applications.

Thus the development and implementation of Personal Learning Environments for lifelong competence development requires not just a new approach to learning software and architectures, welcome though the Services Oriented Approach is, but the shaping of technology and the co-development of enterprises and business development policies, new pedagogies as well as educational services to facilitate learning and knowledge development.”

LLLandple.rtf

Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, Personal_Learning_Environments

I’m in Odense in Denmark for a conference organised by the Danish Universities Knowledge Lab on the future of digital technologies and learning. The title of my presentation is ‘Learning Landscapes’ – charting the move from the ‘walled garden’ of the institutional Virtual Learning Environment to Personal Learning Environments.

At the end of the presentation I will be taking participants for a quick spin around the ELGG application.

It’s a long presentation – fifty minutes. I wrote it on the plane from Barcelona yesterday – sadly I don’t have any photos on my new computer so have reverted to my old style of a lot of slides with (hopefully) not too many words on each slide (and white text on a black background.

You can download the presentation here in Powerpoint (3.1Mb) or PDF (black on white if you really do want to print it) – curiously also 3Mb.

odensedec06.ppt

Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, Personal_Learning_Environments

I’ve been in berlin since Tuesday for the annual Educa On-line conference. Pretty hectic but I’ve sneaked off for a few minutes to write a quick blog entry.

Educa On-line is a funny conference. the main reason people go to to meet other people and others go for the same reason. About 2000 delegates – it is a great social occasion. Having said that with so many people it is not so easy to find people – I chaired a workshop on Communities of Practice on Wednesday and haven’t managed to find the other participants since the event.

Educa is not really an research conference – it is more of a corporate event. Having said that I have attended some great presentations of which two stand out. The first is Peter Rees Jones’ presentation on e-Portfolios and Service Oriented Architectures in education. At last – someone has broken down the ‘wall’ of different services and shown what services mean form a practice point of view. If you can find it – watch this presentation. And I went to a session entitled “A conversation with George Siemens’. Great session – george just sat on the table and answered questions for an hour and a half. Thoroughly enjoyable and a great e-learning experience.

It is encouraging to see much more attention being paid to learning taking place outside the formal learning environment and context – be it school or work. There is a minor buzz over informal learning and communities of practice and signs of some progress in this area.

The second trend is a bit harder to read. All the big companies are embracing in rhetoric web 2 and e-l;earning 2.0. Blackboard even had teh cheek to cite Stephen Downes (and to wrongly attribute Scott Wilson’s well known diagramme to Stephen!).

Fronter have in their promo material that their produce is ‘e-leanring 2.0 ready’, whatever that might possibly mean. This is just bullshit. The reality is that they are incorporating blogs and wikis as part of their software but their is no change in the overall approach to learning, or indeed in the overall functionality. Then of course they will be able to go along to institutional policy makers and say you do not need social software because we already do it.

Fronter themselves even claim to be Open Source, when it is patently obvious that by any normal definition they are not. Still, this represents a sea change in that it is now seen that being open source is a positive marketing feature!

Technorati Tags: e-learning, e-portfolios, Open source

I spent a tedious morning yesterday subtitling a video into five different languages (and in the course of it discovering every bug in i-Movie). To entertain myself I was listening to BBC Radio 5 – mainly because I’m thinking about chat show formats and their applicability to simultaneous on-line teaching and learning.

And on came this fascinating report.

“Five Live Report: ‘Bullied Teachers’

Teachers have always had to face cruel gossip from kids, but until very recently the trouble has usually been contained within the school building. Now – with the advent of the video mobile phone and websites like Bebo.com and ratemyteacher.com, they are finding themselves publicly humiliated and even falsely accused of sexual impropriety. Reporter James Silver looks at the internet phenomenon encouraging school children to grade their teachers and talks to those in the profession at the receiving end of malicious comments and allegations.”

The big discussion was over the web site, ratemyteacher.com. Students create their accounts and are able to rate their teacher. There is a flag for alerting to inappropriate content which the site managers say will then be taken down and investigating. One cause of controversy is whether this does happen and if so, how long it takes. Clearly the process is not as effective as the service claims.

The second, and here the teachers unions in the UK were most unhappy, was over the stress it can cause to teachers. My fear is that students are probably quite fair – teachers are unlikely to be stressed by unwarranted invective but may well get stressed by learning the truth of how students perceive their teaching.

There appears little effort by the (commercial) service developers to educate students in providing constructive feedback, neither is their a mechanism for discourse between teachers and students.

Given that such services will flourish in the future, education providers are going to have to rethink how students can be involved in the development, design and management to teaching and learning. It is only by giving learners a voice (and by listening to that voice) that constructive and inclusive approaches to quality (for this is – albeit crude) a quality system) can be developed.

NB. The programme is available to listen to over the internet for the next six days. But you will have to listen tot he whole programme and I think this report occurs about half way through. What a pity that the BBC does not make this sort of content available as a download for remixing – this would be a great piece of content for starting a discussion with learners over the use of the internet and quality systems.

Technorati Tags: quality2.0, social software

The Open Content Community is going from strength to strength. On Thursday, Patrick Mc Andrew presented the new UK Open University open content site – OpenLearn at the OECD project seminar on Open Educational Resources . The site had been launched the previous evening.

On Friday, before the meeting had ended, I received an email from
Tony Hirst

‘Hi Graham’, he said ‘this may interest you – proof of concept openlearn content via rss – string’n’glue learning environment. Go to learning materials, living with the internet (rss derivation described in passing here).’

Interest me it certainly does and impress me also. OK – so Tony probably sat up half the night making this. But in a previous post
I was impressed that the OU were making tools available to help remising. But this mash up shows the real potential for repurposing and reusing open resources in new ways. I love it!

Technorati Tags: e-learning, multimedia, OER, opencontent

The Bazaar project, in which I am a partner, is organising a seminar next week on the theme of ‘Hey, Dude, Where’s my Data?’.

This text, taken form the introductory flyer explains some of the themes of the seminar.

“Seminar Theme: Hey Dude, Where’s My Data?”

With Web 2.0, more and more people have their documents, products, personal details and photos stashed all over the internet – what issues does this raise for education?

The rise of commercial services

With the use of free, commercial, centrally hosted, social software services growing in education, some important issues arise; Who controls this data? Do users care that commercial services are mining their usage patterns and selling this to marketing companies? Is the nature of these ‘free’ services understood – yes, users can come in and use the base system for free but often, in return, they are bombarded with advertising and their details/usage habits are sold. However, does anyone really care? Perhaps the convenience of service outweighs the perceived downsides.”

We have asked the participants to prepare a short position paper. This is mine.

The issue of how data is stored, what is shared, who has access to it and who provides services is becoming an urgent question for education. That it has received little attention is probably a reflection of the limited understanding just what is going on by policy makers and educational managers. In some ways this is understandable. Firstly, the growth of distributed on-lien services is a recent phenomenon. Secondly, there is a digital divide in that it is younger generation who are making most use of these services.

The knee-jerk reaction of policy makers, where they have acted, is to ban such services. This is unfortunate and unsustainable. Banning access to such sites as YouTube and MySpace form schools and colleges will not make them go away. Indeed it could be seen as a dereliction of the so called ‘duty of care’ in failing to provide learners with the new and changing skills and knowledge of digital literacy.

What are the issues regarding distributed data and services?

1. Longevity.

Will it be there in the future? Internet companies come and go – especially at the moment. Services which are presently free may not be in the future. Even where services do continue it is easy to eradicate your own data. I was accessing my Google account on a new computer and was (stupidly) using a Spanish language interface. Instead of ticking to agree to the conditions, I clicked not to agree. Google instantly wiped my previously uploaded videos from their server. Of course I could upload them again but now they have new urls meaning all previous links are broken.

2. Security.

Other contributers to the Bazaar seminar have already said much on this so I will be brief. It is fairly obvious that service providers are struggling to provide secure services and ass the services grow it may be that security will be difficult to maintain.

3. Ethics.

Once more other contributers have pointed out the potential clash of ethics between education and learning and the shareholder / venture capitalist driven interest of many of the commercial service providers.

Of course it would be easy to say that the answer lies in only using locally installed services and blocking access for education institutions to the commercial services and social community sites. However the point and great attraction of many of these services is that they are social and community sites. Moreover it is through the user base and access to data form other users that they acquire their utility. Even blogging loses much of its attractions in a walled community.

What are the potential answers?

1. Some form of regulation or code of practice for service providers. The problem here is that the web has proved notoriously difficult to regulate. However it could be possible to provide some kind of kitemarking for approved sites if they adopt approved practices. This has happened to some extent with self policing by the internet chat providers. However, it is difficult to see how the regulation could be extended given the border free nature of the internet.
2. The provision of national services for education as a service infrastructure. But this would be expensive, large scale internet projects are prone to failure and it could become as much an infringement on privacy as privately provided services. National services may lack the agility of the present explosion in web 2.0 services.
3. The provision of services through more localized public infrastructure – for instance local education organisations or the public library infrastructure. This already exists to some extent and has some attractions – I will return to this idea further on in the position paper.
4. Learners taking more responsibility for their data through the provision of an extended portfolio or Personal Learning Environment. Learners would remain free to use external services accessed through their PLE. However important data would be held on local repository.

This is my preferred solution. The extent of the present problem suggests to me that we need to speed up the implementation of portfolios and PLEs. In some countries this is happening rapidly but in others it lags behind.

Of course it still begs the question of where data is held. I would suggest that all education institutions should install a lightweight standards compliant repository. Standards will, be important for allowing data to be transferred between different institutional providers. The systems should also allow users to download and store their own data – preferably on a potable memory device.

Also standards will be important for allowing federated search between institutions and allowing communities to be developed between different institutions and applications. Whilst the data storage is local if users wish, they should be capable of sharing that data outside institutional boundaries.

This still leaves open the question of provision for those not engaged in education. What happens when a student finishes at university, for example? Some universities are already proposing to continue providing services but to charge for them. I do not believe this is the right answer. There is a strong case for Adult Education providers to have a new role in providing an PLE / Portfolio service for all adults within their geographical area. This would obviously require funding but could be of immense benefit in stimulating lifelong learning.

Regardless of what answer is adopted, perhaps the most urgent issue to to extend the idea of digital literacy to include the issue of data. Learners will have to take more responsibility for their own data in future. We should be assisting them in judging what to disclose, to who, in what contexts and how to use services sensibly. That in turn require further professional development for teachers and trainers.

Technorati Tags: bazaar