Some time in the mid 1990s I can remember writing my first project web site – for a project called DETOP, I think. It was pretty crude – I got myself a teach yourself HTML book and away I went. Now of course very project has its own web site – and many have more than one. Content management Systems like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla have made the technical process pretty easy.

But that hasn’t done much for the quality of the content. In particular, most research projects are pretty dull stuff. The aims and objectives, a list of partners with their logos, various reports downloadable in Word or PDF format, a news page usually showing a picture of project partners at their last meeting and sometimes (but too rarely a blog).

These sites are basically a formality – to fulfil funding conditions rather than to involve users. We have been thinking about how to change this for the EU funded Learning Layers project. The project is researching and developing the use of technology for informal learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. And one of our targets is to engage with significant numbers of users – initially in two ‘industrial clusters’, a health cluster in north east England and a construction industry cluster in north Germany.

To help in this task we are developing a User Engagement Model. And of course, we have to develop a dissemination plan. I have been doing some literature searches around user engagement models. Surprisingly, not much came up. Most of it is either promotional materials offering (for a price) to help you gain users or ideas social software providers can fi9nd out more about their users. Changing the search string to Stakeholder Engagement, though, provides much richer results. Although many of the ideas have been written by NGOs or charities written from the viewpoint of engaging with stakeholders in their various projects or from local authorities and other organisations wishing to consult with service users, their is much which is relevant and well though through.

One research paper which particularly interests me is ‘An Organizational Stakeholder Model of Change Implementation Communication‘ by Laurie K. Lewis.

Implementation is seen as ‘‘the translation of any tool or technique, process, or method of doing, from knowledge to practice’’ (Tornatzky and Johnson, 1982 p. 193) and the authors quote Real and Poole (2005) who argue that ‘‘without implementation, the most brilliant and potentially far-reaching innovation remains just that—potential’’ (p. 64).

The paper argues that change models and processes need to be linked to communication strategies towards different stakeholders. They advance four dimensions of communication strategy choices:

Diagramme: @lee74 (some rights reserved) http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee8/7164889790/

One of the issues driving the adoption of technology for learning in organisations – particularly in sectors and occupations such as teaching and the medial sector – is the need to show continuing professional development as a requirement for continuing registration.

Many organisations are looking to some form of e-Portfolio to meet this need. Yet there is a tension between the use of e-portfolios to record and reflect on learning, as a tools for learning itself and as a means to assessment.

A recently published study, (lif)e-Portfolio: a framework for implementation (PDF downlaod) by Lee D Ballantyne, from Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (ESOL) , examines some of these issues.

Ballantyne says:

There has been much recent discussion (e.g. Barrett, 2009; JISC, 2012d) concerning the dichotomy of e-portfolios which have the primary purpose of learning versus those which have the primary purpose of assessment. E-portfolio systems developed specifically for assessment purposes often forgo key elements of the learner-centred e-portfolio: social tools, longevity, and personalisation. By contrast, e- portfolios primarily for learning often lack the award-specific structure and reporting tools required for assessment (see Appendix II). A suitable e-portfolio solution must take into consideration the backwash of assessment and that ―from the students‘ point of view assessment always defines the actual curriculum‖ (Ramsden, 1992, p 187), and when the purpose of an e-portfolio changes from a learning tool to summative assessment it becomes ―something that is done to them rather than something they WANT to maintain as a lifelong learning tool‖ (Barrett, 2004a). There is a clear link between an assessment purpose and lack of engagement (Tosh et al., 2005) and yet CIE and ESOL both have stakeholder groups (teachers and trainee teachers) who straddle both learner (professional development) and candidate (teaching awards). The main challenge is to convey the value of the whole e-portfolio to all stakeholders; to find the right balance between assessment-driven (institution-centric) requirements and learner-driven (user-centric) requirements; and to achieve a level of standardisation yet allow for personalisation and creativity (Barrett, 2009). This unprecedented link between teaching, learning and high stakes assessment is fundamentally disruptive: pedagogically, organisationally and technologically (Baume cited Taylor & Gill, 2006, p 4; Cambridge, 2012; Eynon cited Shada et al., 2011. p 75), and planning for successful implementation is critical (JISC, 2012e; Joyes et al., 2010; Meyer & Latham, 2008; Shada at el., 2011).

More on work based mobile learning.

One of the major problems with Technology Enhanced Mobile Learning has been the split between the digital and analogue worlds. The digital world enables all kinds of personal interactions and interactions with digital artefacts. Some things are easier to digitalise than others. So books, diagrammes, audio, video can all easily be transmitted through digital media. But some artefacts are more difficult to capture in digital media – for instance a hammer, a saw, an earthmover. Of course it is possible to simulate some of these things – for instance flying an aircraft.

It is much more problematic to capture the haptics of using a hammer. Thus Technology Enhanced Learning has tended to focus on cognitive processes of learning. When it comes to practice we tell learners they should use their computers to assist in the process of reflection. That is fine but it is not enough. Many areas of work require real world interactions with both people and with physical artefacts. And I think that is why Technology Enhanced Learning has made only a limited inroad into work based learning and for that matter into learning in Small and Medium Enterprises.

The importance of tools and physical artefacts should not be underestimated. Artefacts are closely linked to practice. Wenger (1998) points out that amongst other features a Community of Practice is defined by “what capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artefacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.”

There are different approaches we can take to integrating physical artefacts with applications and technology for learning (and in a further post I will outline some ideas). At a more abstract level I think we have to progress beyond seeing technology (like Learning Management Systems) as a container for learning into using mobile technologies as a tool for working and learning. In other words mobile technologies themselves become an artefact, on the same level as other work tools. We also need to look at integrating learning with the increasingly sophisticated data that many machines and artefacts produce – data that at the moment often exists in a silo.  Of course that means integrating learning in the work process, and bringing together digital work tools with digital learning tools. That learning needs to be scaffolded seems obvious. But the scaffolding should move seamlessly between the use of digital devices and interactions with real life objects.

And that again requires co-design approaches, involving potential suers from the start in designing and developing learning processes and applications. Learning layers is making good progress with this and I am increasingly confident that the project can transcend the divide between the physical and digital worlds.

My colleague Pekka from the University of Bremen has posted a series of useful reports on this site about the Application Partner Days, held as part of the Learning Layers project, funded by the European Commission IST programme.

Learning layers is aiming to increase the use of technology for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe, particularly through the use of mobile devices for informal learning in two ‘industry clusters, in the north German construction industry and in the medical sector in north east England.

Obviously such a project faces a number of challenges, given the slow take up of technology enhanced learning in SMEs. The Application Partner Days are designed to bring developers and researchers together with potential end users in organisations in the two sectors. And prior to the Application partner Days in north Germany, we also spent two days visiting companies and organisations in the sector responsible for education and training and for policy development in this area.

Rather than repeat Pekka’s excellent summary of the proceedings, I will offer a few observations, based on my own attempts to make sense of all we saw and of our discussions.

Firstly there is a perception that there are barriers to introducing technology for learning in small enterprises. But most people we spoke to were overwhelmingly positive about the potential especially of mobile devices. Although it was felt there may be some individual resistance, due to lack of familiarity or fears over privacy, in general it was felt that mobile devices would be easily accepted, especially by younger workers. Indeed, some people we talked to felt that introducing technology could make the construction industry more attractive and help overcome recruitment problems. The big driver for this seems to be the increasing everyday use of internet enabled phones. And  flat rate data contracts mean more workers are prepared to use the ir own device for work purposes.

The issue of sharing between enterprises is more problematic. Some seem willing to share data, others less so. My impression is that this is a new situation where companies are undecided on the implications of sharing. And, of course there are worries over privacy and security, particularly and understandably in the medical sector. Interestingly, I was talking last weekend with someone responsible for the introduction of mobile devices in a major agency in the UK. One of their key requirements is that data is not held in the USA, due to fears over US security policies.

During the different workshop and focus group sessions we held in the Application Partner Days, we sought to gather ideas for applications which could be useful within the SMEs. A number of these =focused on better communication and information flows. The boundary between applications that support learning and those supporting communication and information exchange is becoming blurred. Better information provision can support informal learning but this may not be an automatic process.

Even though the Learning Layers project has relatively generous funding support from the European Commission, there are of course limits to what we can do. Even with the increasing functionality of Software Development Kits and frameworks, development takes time and resources. How do we decide what developments we wish to prioritise. And at the same time there is an avalanche of commercial applications being made available for both Apple and Android operating systems.

One answer may be to develop interlinked physical and on-line ‘Demonstration Centres’ which can bring together both relevant commercial Applications with apps produced through the Layers project.

A second approach may to to focus on boundary points. Obviously the medical and construction sectors both contain workers from different occupations organised through various structures and networks. These I would characterise as Communities of Practice. It is where innovations – both technical and social – occur that innovation occurs and new cluster emerge transcending the boundaries between traditional Communities of Practice and occupations and challenging existing occupational practices. It may be that it is at these points that the need for learning and new forms of collaborative working are at there greatest. Of course much of this learning is informal. And if the boundary points offer opportunities for the emergence of new innovation clusters, they may also serve to frustrate innovation where learning is impeded by existing organisational and occupational practices.

Lets try and provide a couple of examples to make this discussion a little less abstract! In the construction industry we can see a series of emergent innovation networks in the area of green or ecological construction. these involve collaboration by workers from different occupations using new materials, or old materials in new ways and developing new practices. Similarly, the use of Programmable Logic Controllers is crossing boundaries between programming and electrical installation. In the medical industry, we are looking at new practices and forms of organisation for supporting those with diabetes.

If we focus resources on such emergent practices, the result might be both to stimulate economic and social sustainability for small enterprises, to promote sustainable growth and the generation of new employment and at the same time support the development of knowledge maturing and informal learning within and between Communities of Practice.

Lastly but not least. The Learning layers project will run for four years and is keen to involve organisations and researchers interested in our work. You can sign up on the Layers website to become part of a Stakeholder Network, giving enhanced access to the work and to the applications being developed.

I.ve been looking at literture on mobile learning as part of the :earning Layers project. Although there has been much literature published in the last couple of years, there is still very little focusing on informal learning in the workplace.

Christoph Pimmer and Norbert Pachler have published a new paper which has been submitted for review. The paper called ‘Mobile learning in the workplace. Unlocking the value of mobile technology for work-based education‘ (PDF download) is scheduled for publication in  M. Ally & A. Tsinakos (Eds.), Mobile Learning Development for Flexible Learning: Athabasca University Press.

Not only does the paper provide a very useful discussion on how to use mobile devices to support learning in different contexts in the workplace, but it also provides number of useful examples – most from the healthcare sector.

The main conclusion is the:

affordances of mobile devices allow the realisation of the following rich pedagogical strategies that can enhance work-based education: (1) creating and sharing of content such as multimedia materials and digital stories in the form of audio, text, images and video; (2) connecting learning for work and learning “just-in-time” by supporting competence development directly in the processes of work; (3) bridging individual learning and problem solving with social interaction, for example by means of social mobile networking, or tagging and locating of experienced colleagues; (4) facilitating learning across formal and informal contexts, for example by documenting on-the-job learning experiences by means of e-portfolios or reflective questions and discussing them in (more formal) classroom or mentoring settings. By applying these strategies, (5) the underlying educational paradigm is shifted from cognitive to situated, socio-cognitive, cultural and constructivist perspectives of learning, moving the learner away from a passive consumer to an active producer and distributor and co- creator of learning processes.

At the moment several contributors to Learning Layers project (from Pontydysgu, ITB, CIMNE, Bau ABC and Agentur) are participating in Online Educa Berlin. Pontydysgu will keep us updated on their contributions via live radio program (Sounds of the Bazaar),  podcasts and via Graham’s blogs on Wales-Wide Web.

While the travel team is busy over there, the home team is doing some stock-taking on lessons to be learned from prior projects. As a first contribution I have collected some links to video interviews that I produced as the ITB partner for another European project (Coop-PBL in VET).  As you see from the list below, the interview partners (from Pontydysgu and ITB) discussed issues that are relevant for the Learning Layers project as well:

• The interviews with Graham Attwell (four videos) focused on the development of European projects on ICT, Web and learning (in SMEs).
• The interviews with Jenny Hughes (two videos) focused on the experiences of two TACCLE projects in supporting teachers to create and share user-generated web contents.
• The interviews with Joanna Burchert and Sven Schulte (three videos in English, parallel versions in German) focused on the experiences with the German project expertAzubi that developed an interactive online platform for apprentices, workplace trainers and vocational teachers in the Bremen region.
• The interviews with Ludger Deitmer (four videos in English) focused on regional cooperation between vocational education providers, partner enterprises and different innovation programs since the early 1990s to present day.

It is not our intention to dwell in the past. But we do understand ourselves as part of a living tradition of innovation research and part of that ‘living’ is the ability to look back how certain ideas and cooperation patterns have developed. It is interesting to see new issues coming up in Graham’s and Ludger’s overviews. Moreover, it is interesting to see, how dynamic cooperation culture has developed in rather short-lived projects (as Jenny and Joanna & Sven tell in their reports of recent projects).

The story goes on …

Acknowledgements. This work is supported by the European Commission under the FP7 project LAYERS (no. 318209), http://www.learning-layers.eu.

Pontydysgu staff are busy planning their annual outing to Online Educa Berlin. And as well as our usual radio shows, we have organised a symposium for the recently launched Learning Layers project. If you are coming to Berlin we would love to meet up with you. Better still, come and discuss your ideas on one of our radio programmes. And if you can’t make it to Berlin you can still catch a flavour of the conference through our daily Sounds of the Bazaar magazine programmes and our Question Time panel show.

Here are the details.

Thursday November 29

Time: 16:30 to 17:30 CET

Location: Charlottenburg III

Question Time

Join Graham Attwell in a topical debate which follows the popular BBC Radio 4 format for sharp analysis, up-to-date knowledge, insight and a fresh view on education 2.0. Please send your questions to these speakers in advance to QuestionTime [at] OEB [dot] com

The panel for this session is:

• Paul Glader – Wiredacademic.com and European Journalism Fellow at Frei Universitat in Berlin.
• Kirsten Winkler – educational blogger
• Melanie Campbell – Bau ABC
• Nick Kearny – Andamio Education and Technology

You can listen to this session live on Internet radio from 1645 CET at http://uk2.internet-radio.com:31022/live.m3u

The stream will open in your MP3 player of choice

Sounds of the Bazaar

“Sounds of the Bazaar” broadcaster Graham Attwell will host a forty minute show live from OEB on Thursday and Friday at 11:00. Each show will feature a mix of interviews with speakers and live debates on issues emerging from the conference. The programmes will be streamed live and can be tuned into using any MP3 application at http://uk2.internet-radio.com:31022/live.m3u

They will also be available after the conference as a podcast at www.online-educa/audio-video

Friday 30 November

Time: 11.45 – 1300

Location: Tegel

Symposium

Using Technology for Informal Learning and knowledge Sharing in Small and Medium Enterprises

This session, around the EU Learning layers project, will challenge our existing thinking about building the skills which are critical for small business success. It will uncover ideas to engage busy business managers and improve performance.

Speakers:

• Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu
• Ludger Deitmer, ITB, University of Bremen
• Melanie Campbell, Bau ABC
• Tobias Funke, Agentur für nachhaltiges Bauen

If you would like to come on one of the radio shows – or just meet up for a chat and a beer – email or skype Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com

Last week Dirk, Jenny and I attended the first meeting of the European Commission IST programme Learning layers project. You are going to be hearing much more about the project on this blog, but here is a quick summary in the project’s first press release.

“With significant co-funding from the European Community, the Learning Layers project has recently started to research the role of information technologies in informal learning at the workplace. “It has been known for a long time that most learning that happens at the workplace is informal in nature”, says Tobias Ley, Professor at Tallinn University and scientific coordinator of the project, “but if we look at the learning technologies that are employed today, then most follow a very traditional model that mirrors course-based classroom learning.”

At the same time, mobile and social information and communication technologies have entered all parts of our lives. Nowadays we use them naturally to keep in contact with our friends, to seek information, to buy things and to work. There is now a realization that these emerging technologies are a key enabler to refocus efforts on informal learning, but  few companies have taken these technologies up in a systematic way to include them into their learning strategy.

So why is this? “One of the reasons is that, although informal interactions, like asking your colleague across the room for help, are very effective, they don’t scale very well beyond the immediate context”, says Tobias Ley. While the help is effective, not many others can benefit from it. Could our personal technologies provide a key for scaling up these interactions? This is what the project has set out to discover, and a number of technological solutions will be developed that should help to make this endeavor a reality. First of all, technologies need to be where informal learning really takes place. “In many prior projects, we have concentrated on people sitting at their computer desktops. In contrast, the Learning Layers Project will look at workplaces that are inherently mobile,” says Stefanie Lindstaedt, Professor at Graz University of Technology in Austria, who will be one of the main project partners for developing technologies for these settings.

The European Commission has specifically asked for proposals that benefit Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in sectors that have been less inclined in the past to take up technologies for learning. The Learning Layers project has therefore selected two very challenging application areas, the building and construction industry and the healthcare sector. Informal learning has traditionally played an important role in these sectors, but both have been hesitant to embrace learning technologies for different reasons. “With people using their personal devices, we now see a great opportunity in the building industry to connect our course offering much more directly with what people are experiencing at the workplace”, says Melanie Campbell who is representing a regional training center for the building and construction industry in Northern Germany. “Doctors work in interprofessional teams and have often learned from colleagues, technology could provide us with a way of sharing, enhancing and recording this informal learning”, says Tamsin Treasure-Jones from the Leeds Institute of Medical Education at the University of Leeds.

“Understanding the current situation in these two sectors, how they work, learn and share their knowledge, is a key priority in the project”, says Ronald Maier, Professor at the University of Innsbruck, “we will therefore conduct in-depth studies and use our findings to help improve the way people work and learn.” Based on these insights, the project will design interaction technologies to ensure that they are firmly embedded in the daily work practices, and to create new knowledge, learning and work practices that fit to the existing ones.

Apart from direct person to person interactions, such as asking colleagues, the Learning Layers project will also look at how learning materials are created informally and then increasingly shared, improved and used on a wider scale. And because people’s experiences with physical objects, like machines or materials, is crucial in the two sectors, the project will also consider how these experiences can be better exploited for learning purposes. For example, it is nowadays quite easy to make short video sequences and share them to explain how to use a certain tool.

“In order to scale up the use of these technologies, we really need to show take up in large user groups”, says Graham Attwell, Director of Pontydysgu and responsible for the project’s outreach strategy. One of the key measures the project will take is to make use of existing regional economic clusters in which enterprises are already collaborating on a whole range of activities. The project has proposed a roll-out strategy through which technologies would become part of the regional innovation and learning system, thereby reaching out to 1000 end users within the lifetime of the project.

The Learning Layers project started on 01 November 2012 with a total budget of over 12 million Euros over a four-year lifetime. Seventeen partners from Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the UK have teamed up for what will be an intense research collaboration. The project is jointly coordinated by CIMNE, a research institute in Barcelona/Spain and Tallinn University in Estonia. More information is available at http://www.learning-layers.eu.”

As explained in my previous post, last week I visited the Hub Westminster in central London. The Hub is located on the first floor of New Zealand house, the New Zealand embassy near Piccadily.

The hub website explains

We believe there is no shortage of good ideas to solve the issues of our time. But there is an acute lack of collaboration and support structures to help make them happen. The HUB was founded to address this need.

We set out to create spaces that combine the best of a trusted community, innovation lab, business incubator and the comforts of home. Spaces with all the tools and trimmings needed to grow and develop innovative ventures for the world. But above all, spaces for meaningful encounters, exchange and inspiration, full of diverse people doing amazing things.

The idea has been spreading like wildfire and resulted in the emergence of a global movement. To date, there are 25+ open HUBs and many more in the making, from London to San Francisco, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Sao Paulo and Milan.

Not withstanding the hype, the Hub was impressive. It consists of a large open working space, with different small work areas, and different meeting areas. there must have been some 60 or 70 people there last Friday. some spaces seemed to be for particular teams, others were hot desking areas.

True, the tech area is very different to more traditional industrial and craft sectors. But it illustrated to me how work is changing. And although European Commission policy recognises the centrality of small enterprises for future employment and economic growth, I think they have been slower to think through the implications of this in social and education policy terms.

Probably the biggest problem for micro and small businesses remains access to capital. and for micro businesses without fixed assets, and with a business plan that is yet to show profits, banks may be even more unwilling to lend that to start ups in more traditional areas of the economy.

Equally such start up businesses are heavily reliant of skills and knowledge. yet the traditional education and training systems seem slow to adapt to new and growing areas of the economy and to the needs for higher level continuing learning than traditional qualifications structures provide.

If SMEs are to play such a key role they are going to need state support. The present EU policy seems to be based on reducing legislation and providing targeted help. Yet the ‘system for targeted help may be to inflexible and slow to meet real needs on the ground. I am also unconvinced that merely exempting SMEs from employment legislation is the right answer. Germany has some of the toughest employment legislation in Europe, yet has a record of thriving SMEs.

One of the issues may be the level of decision making and the forms that decision making takes. More transparency and social involvement in decision making processes could improve the quality of support for SMEs. equally there is a need for more localised economic planning. This, in turn, means better access to data and ideas for those responsible for such planning.

I am not arguing against private sector initiatives to support SMEs and job creation. But I would argue that the public sector has a key role to play and that we need more democratic and open processes if that support is to be effective.

Similarly, we need to re-look at social systems to see how they can be adapted to changing patterns fo work including access to food and recreation systems, transport, nursery provision and education and training.

Pontydysgu is pleased to support the Digital Learning Congress being held in Warsaw on 9th November. Maria Perifanou will be presenting our work in the Webquest2.0 project. The following press release explains what the conference is about.

Touch technologies, interactive mobile devices, extended reality, gamification and social media not only change the dimension of business communication, but also the approach to conveying and managing knowledge in a firm. The manner of acquiring information, sharing it and accumulating it has also undergone change. The time has come for business organisations to reflect on what modifications need to be introduced in the area of training and personnel development. How can we educate a new generation of employees who often work in scattered or mobile teams? How can we build a learning environment in an organisation? How can we effectively include new technological solutions for conveying and managing digital knowledge in a company?

You will find out the answers to these questions by participating in the Digital Learning Congress. The first Central European meeting of the technology-supported training industry will be held on 9 November 2012 in the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw. Leading experts from European countries in the field of conveying and managing digital knowledge in companies will present the latest trends in development and practical application.

During the congress four thematic tracks (two of which will be transmitted online), meetings and displays will be held, during which it will be possible to get to know the practical application of technologies and techniques supporting the teaching process. By taking part in the event, you will be able to find out the results of implementing Knowledge Pills Methodology in companies, and of e-teaching of scattered teams (on the basis of the Collective Blended Learning Methodology).

The Congress’ leading themes will be education and knowledge management in companies by:

• social interaction in e-learning,
• using audio/video transmissions and recordings,
• applying gamification in education,
• using mobile devices.

The full Digital Learning Congress programme is available at http://dlcongress.pl.

Special guests include Steeve Weeler (Associate Professor of Learning Technology, UK), Gerry Griffin (Skill Pill, UK), Sebastian Walker (SlidePresenter, Germany), Filipe Carrera (Prestin, Portugal) and Allison Rossett – a leading American consultant in teaching, whom we shall be meeting in the form of an interactive webinar.

Among Polish experts, you will be able to meet Marek Hyla of the XY Learning Team, Igor Bielobradek of Deloitte, Piotr Drac of Way2learn, Sebastian Starzyński of PromoPlan, Krzysztof Kuczkowski of eHRP and many other “evangelists” of technology-supported training.

Participation in the event is free of charge. Registration takes place online at http://dlcongress.pl. The starting date for accepting registrations is 12 September 2012.

The organisers of the Digital Learning Congress are Nowoczesna Firma SA, the Management Observatory Foundation and partners of the Knowledge Pills Methodology and WebQuest for HRM projects. The congress came into being with the European Commission’s financial support under the Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme.