Here is a quick update on some current work at Pontydysgu. With funding from the European Lifelong Learning Programme G8WAY project and the European Research Framework Mature-IP project, and working with a growing community of partners, we have been developing a series of Web 2.0 tools to support careers guidance. At the moment we are developing a  new web site which will give full access to these tools and applications, as well as to research about the use of Web 2.0 and social software for careers information, advice and guidance. Below is a summary of these tools. If you are interested in finding out more about any of these tools or about our approach to using technology to support careers guidance please get in touch.

Labour Market Visualisation Tools

We are developing tools and applications for visualising Labour Market Information in order to provide young people with an informed basis for decision making around career directions and to support the careers guidance professionals who advise young people. This work has been undertaken in conjunction with the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick and Careers Wales.

RadioActive

RadioActive is a project using internet radio to assist young people, particularly those from a NEETS (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) background in developing decision making and communication skills. This approach focuses on informal learning and the development of communities of practice through the use of new technologies. The approach is being piloted in conjunction with the University of East London, Yoh, a Hackney based youth agency, and Inspire!, the Education Business Partnership for the London Borough of Hackney.

Storiboard

Storiboard is a Web 2.0 tool for storytelling. In the first year of the G8WAY project we found that storytelling is a powerful tool for developing and reflection on careers biographies. Storiboard allows young people to use multimedia including video, audio and graphics to tell their careers stories and aspirations. It is initially being tested  through using the original stories collected in year one of the project and will then be piloted with UK based careers services.

Webquests

We are developing a series of Web 2.0 webquests designed to support professional development for Careers Guidance professionals. The first two are on the use of the internet for Careers Guidance and on careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Along with our technical partners, Raycom, we are developing a lightweight repository which combined with the Storiboard interface, will provide for easy editing and development of Webquests.

Just a few quick comments about the Mobile Learning Conference Bremen, which took place last week. By all accounts it was a big success – at least if the feedback from participants is to be believed. And I enjoyed it greatly.We had about one hundred delegates – from 19 different countries according to Judith Seipold. What were the lessons for the future?

1. The conference theme – ‘Mobile Learning: Crossing boundaries in convergent environments; allowed us to look at learning from a  number of different perspectives including from pedagogy, the arts and entertainment as well as from technology. As learning is embedded in ever wider contexts these perspectives can provide us with a richer and wider perspective on our work.

2. The venue is important. Although it raised some eyebrows when we said we were holding the conference in a youth hostel – the deign and location of the building – allowing different interlinked spaces with lots of light and right by the river (with a sun terrace) – facilitated informal discussions and learning linking the formal presentations and workshops with that valued ‘out of conference’ time.

3. Conferences do not need to be so expensive. We only charged 50 Euro per delegate and provided free access to students. How did we do it? Firstly the youth hostel gave us an excellent deal – considerably cheaper, I suspect, than we would have been charged by purpose built conference venues or by universities. And it was a no frills conference – no gala dinner and no free iPads. We managed all the administration ourselves using free or open source software – EasyChair, Twitter, Google forms etc. (The most tricky bit was negotiating with PayPal which took for ever).We begged and borrowed equipment.

Ok it was a bit touch and go – we haven’t paid everything yet but my guess is we will make a profit of about 45 Euro. But if we can do it so can others – the cost of conferences at the moment excludes many people resulting in a poorer discussion.

3. We encouraged multiple formats including workshops and demonstrations. the poster sessions was particularly good. And although the multiple strands meant some of the sessions were quite small it was those sessions which in my experience were the most interesting.

I think we still have some way to go in integrating unconferencing sessions properly in the agenda. Unconferencing takes a lot of organization and facilitation. But perhaps we should stop thinking about a dichotomy between conferencing and unconferencing and look at how we can encourage the maximum involvement and participation in all of our work.

4. We have got some sort of record of our conference on Cloudworks. But that took a lot of work and we need to look again at how we can pull together diverse information sources from the different places – slideshare, twitter, blogs etc which people use to show their work and ideas. This links back to the idea of how we amplify conferences and events.

5. We had a relatively small local organising committee. This has pros and cons. On the good side this allowed us to work together informally and intensely. On the down side it resulted in a few individuals ending up with a lot of work. We also had recruited a lot of reviewers prior to the conference which spread out the time consuming work of reviewing proposals. And we were extremely lucky to be able to draw on support from students from the local university who did this work for free as part of their studies.

And people are already asking about next years conference. I think we should do it again. But one suggestion is we might stick with the Crossing Boundaries theme but move on with the technology. After all mobiles are not alone in crossing those boundaries!

It is always sad when lovers break up. especially close lovers with a growing relationship who suddenly fall out with each other. And the educational technology community has certainly has a long love in with Twitter. Twitter for teaching, Twitter for learning, Twitter for developing projects, twitter for maintaining communities and twitter just for nattering with each other. But I foresee a more tempestuous relationship ahead. Why? As the Guardian newspaper reports: “Twitter has amazed and outraged developers by warning them that it will severely curtail their ability to build apps that use its output.” The Guardian quotes Ryan Sarver, the head of platform and API at Twitter as saying:

Twitter will provide the primary mainstream consumer client experience on phones, computers, and other devices by which millions of people access Twitter content (tweets, trends, profiles, etc), and send tweets. If there are too many ways to use Twitter that are inconsistent with one another, we risk diffusing the user experience.

It was just because Twitter opened up its API to third party developers and applications which led to such rapid innovation and experimentation – in education as much as elsewhere. This looks to be over. Sarver might claim this is due to the desire to guarantee the user experience but few will believe that. fairly obviously Twitter want to make money out of their loss making application.  I suspect it is not so much apps they want to make money out of but advertising. and to control advertising they want to control the app market.

As Dave Winer (who has seen all this a few times before) says: “The Internet remains the best place to develop because it is the Platform With No Platform Vendor.” Winer goes on to say:

Facebook may have a huge installed base, but it’s dead to me. I can’t get there. The platform vendor is too active. Same with Twitter, same with Apple. Give me a void, something I can develop for, where I can follow the idea where ever it leads. Maybe there are only a few thousand users. Maybe only a few million. Hey, you can’t be friends with everyone.

And that I guess is the lesson for education. Follow our ideas. See where they lead. Don’t worry about how many users there are. And above all lets work on the platform with no vendor. Education is a public good, not a vendor platform.

But it was good whilst it lasted, Twitter.

I am ever more interested in how we can use technologies for knowledge development and sharing. In terms of research I think we need to bring together ideas and insights from different academic and research communities. Although there has been a traditional of discourse between those working in education and technology developers, this is less so when it comes to ideas about organisational learning and different forms of knowledge.

I have just read an interesting paper by Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Palle Rasmussen and Edward Lorenz on ‘Education in the Learning Economy: a European Perspective’. Let me first say I have always been sceptical about such terms as ‘learning economy’ and ‘knowledge economy ‘which seem to be too often bandied about as a mantra, rather than with any exact meaning. But I would agree with the authors observation that knowledge is becoming obsolete more rapidly than before so that employees have to learn and acquire new competencies. the authors say “It makes a major difference whether economic growth is seen as being fuelled by investments in codified scientific and technological knowledge, or whether it is seen as being driven by learning processes resulting in a combination of codified and tacit knowledge.”

International comparisons tend to focus on the first measure,. looking, for example at expenditure on research and development (R&D) and at the number of science and technology graduates. The latter perspective – captured by the term the learning economy –they say,  “can be seen in work focusing on the way informal networking relations, practical problem-solving on the job, and investments in lifelong learning contribute to competence building.”

At the heart of their argument is the nature of different forms of knowledge. They propose “a taxonomy of knowledge where it is divided into four categories (Lundvall & Johnson, 1994):

Know-what refers to knowledge about ‘facts’. Here, knowledge is close to what is normally called information – it can be broken down into bits and communicated as data.

Know-why refers to knowledge about causality nature, in the human mind and in society. This kind of knowledge is important for technological development in science-based industries.

Know-how refers to the ability to do something. It may be related to the skills of artisans and workers. But actually it plays a role in all economic activities, including science and management.

Know-who involves information about who knows what and who knows what to do as well as the social ability to cooperate and communicate with different kinds of people and experts.

Lundvall, Rasmussen and Edward Lorenz point to important differences in the degree to which these four categories of knowledge can be codified and in how education systems are affected by the degree of codification. the main point of their paper is to look at how traditional schoolings systems have become isolated from society and how the organisation into subjects and disciplines fails to maestro the needs of how we are developing and using knowledge. they also point to dramatic difference sin work organisation and opportunities for work based learning in different countries in Europe concluding that “Educational principles and cultures focusing on collaboration, interdisciplinarity and engagement with real-life problems are needed to prepare people for flexible and innovative participation in the economy and society.”

They do not deal with the issues of how we are using technology for learning  and knowledge development although they acknowledge that “data bases can bring together know-what in a more or less user friendly form”. Interestingly they piontyt0 to “the failure of IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard to develop management information systems that could substitute for ‘the art of managing’ ” despite considerable investment and incentives to do so,
Traditional, Technology Enhanced Learning has focused on the know what and know-why. There has been little attention on the know how. yet it is this form of knowledge which is perhaps the most important within many enterprises and is changing most rapidly.  True, we have access to increasing numbers of know-how videos. yet we have possibly failed to develop pedagogical and learning approaches to how to use video and audio in an active sense. We tend to use it in the old English pedagogic sense of ‘watching Nellie’ rather than in any thought through way. and even though the web allows us to find people, their is only limited linkages to knowing who does what well, and even less to “the social ability to cooperate and communicate with different kinds of people and experts.”

Can social networking fill such a gap? Once more my feeling is that it can, but only to a limited extent. Social networki9ng allows us to tell what we are doing and what we are thinking. recommender systems allow the development of patterns. Yet they lack the idea of purpose and intent.

There are many instances of exchange of knowledge through different platforms in communities of practice. equally companies like CISCO or IBM have set up platforms to promote the process of turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge though for example podcasts and other companies such as Shell-BP have established extensive wikis for the same purpose. However these initiatives fail to ‘scale=down’ for use in smaller enterprises. One of the issues may be that of fragmentary knowledge and the difficulty of how we can scaffold fragments of knowledge gained through practice – or know how = into wider knowledge bases, which necessarily have to build on purpose and context.

Furthermore, looking at practice in smaller enterprises, the nature of collaboration and social exchange becomes critical, Lundvall, Rasmussen and Lorenz cite the work of Marshall (1923), “who was concerned to explain the real-world phenomenon of industrial districts, (and) emphasised the local character of knowledge. He found that specific specialised industries were concentrated in certain regions and that such industrial districts remained competitive for long historical periods.”

So another issue is how to support that local character of knowledge – and indeed to rethink what local might mean in a connected world.

(More to come in a later post)

First a warning. This is the beginning of an idea but by no means fully tho0ught out.It comes from a discussion with Jenny Hughes last week, when we were talking about the future direction of work on Personal Learning Environments.

Jenny came up with three ‘dimensions’ of a PLE – intra-personal, inter-personal and extra personal which I presented at the #TICEDUCA2010 conference in Lisbon

The first – intra-personal – describes the spaces we use to work on our own. This includes the different software we use and the different physical spaces we work in. It is possibel that our intra personal spaces will look quite different – reflecting both our ways of thinking and our preferred ways of working. one interesting aspect of the intra personal learning environment is the importance of aesthetics – including the look and ‘feel’ of the environment. And whilst many of the3 developers I work with undertake usability standards, I do not think they really ever consider aesthetics.

The third dimension – extra personal – refers to the things we do out in the web – to our publications, to blogs like this, to the videos we post – to the things we share with others.

But perhaps the most interesting is dimension is the intra-personal learning environment. This is the shared spaces we use to collaborate and work with others. All too often such spaces are imposed – by teachers or by project coordinators or those responsible for web site development. And all too often they fail – because users have no ownership of those spaces. In other words the spaces are not seen or felt of as part of a PLE. How can this be overcome? Quite simply the inter-personal space needs to be negotiated – to develop spaces and ways of working that everyone can feel comfortable with. Of course this may mean compromises but it is through the process of negotiation that such compromises will emerge.

The problem may be that the PLE has come to be overly associated with personalisation rather than negotiation and ownership and too little attention has been paid to collaboration and social learning. I think it would also be interesting to look at how ideas and knowledge emerge – or as the Mature project would say – how Knowledge matures. In developing ideas and knowledge I suspect we use all three dimensions of our Personal Learning Environment – with new ideas emerging say from reading something in the extra PLE, moving ideas back to the intra PLE for thinking and working and developing and then sharing and working with others in the (negotiated) inter Personal Learning Environment. Of course in practice it will be more complex than this. But i would like to see how these processes work in the real world – although I suspect it would be a methodologically challenging piece of research to carry out. Anyone any ideas?

A quick summary of some of the recent research on mobile learning.

Mobile devices are becoming ever more important due in main to their ubiquity. The number of mobile phone subscribers will increase to five billion people this year thanks to the growth of smartphones in developed nations and mobile services in poor nations, according to the United Nations (2010).

Industry predictions are that the sales of smart phones, able to access internet services, will surpass that of ;ordinary’ mobile phones by March, 2011. Added to this is the rapid development and take up of all kinds of different mobile devices, ranging from tablets such as the iPad and book readers such as the Kindle.

Although in an early phase, the potential of these devices for teaching and learning is being recognised (indeed so much is being written, it is hard to keep up to date with the research)
Alan Livingston, writing in Educause Quarterly (2009) says:

“The past decade has witnessed two revolutions in comunication technology. The first — the Internet revolution — has changed everything in higher education. The second — the mobile phone revolution — has changed nothing. We’re vaguely aware that our students have mobile phones (and annoyed when they forget to turn them off in class), but it hasn’t occurred to us that the fact they have these devices might have anything to do with our effort to provide them with educational experiences and services.

HELLO? as our students sometimes say when trying to communicate with someone who’s being particularly obtuse. Mobile phone usage among our students has become virtually universal. Isn’t it time for us to stop ignoring and start taking advantage of this fact?”

The definition and scope of mobile learning is central to the debate over the pedagogic use of such devices.
According to MoLeNet, mobile learning can be broadly defined as “the exploitation of ubiquitous handheld technologies, together with wireless and mobile phone networks, to facilitate, support, enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning.”

The London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) have been working on conceptualising pedagogies for mobile learning.

“Mobile learning – as we understand it is not about delivering content to mobile devices but instead about the processes of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in and across, new and ever changing contexts and learning spaces.m And, if it is about understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces. Therefore in case it needs to be stated explicitly, mobile learning is not primarily about technology (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010, p6)

The London Mobile Learning group have developed the idea of a “social-cultural ecology of mobile devices” based on the  triangular relationship between structures, cultural practices ad the agency within which they conceptualise the use of mobile devices.

In this approach they say “learning is understood as the process of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in and across ever changing contexts and learning spaces as well as understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life worlds as learning spaces. It is viewed as a process of meaning making through communication / conversation across multiple contexts among people within a triangle of social structures, cultural practices and agency as well as an augmentation of the inner, conceptual and outer semiotic resources – increasingly with and through mobile devices.” (Pachler, 2010)

Socio-semantic tools including language, material artefacts and technology mediate the actions of learners as they seek to augment their conceptual resources.

John Cook (UK) develops the idea of mobile phones as mediating tools within augmented contexts for development further through a re-conceptualisation of Vygotsky’s notion of a zone for proximal development as “responsive situations for development’ in recognition of the socio-cultural, economic and technological conditions of the early 21st century.” (Cook, 2010)

Other writers have looked at mobile devices as offering a pedagogy for the social inclusion of at risk groups or people socially marginalised.. Margrit Boeck (2010) says mobile devices are:

• making learners mobile so that they are able to expand their horizons
• engaging learners on their own ground and addressing them as people who are learners already and as knowledge makers;
• according them full recognition in their position and achievements in their lives; as well as of their position as learners and makers of knowledge. In this context,learning means being mobile, being able to change.

Reporting on a symposium on m-learning, Laurillard (2007) reports Geoff Stead as arguing that mobile learning is important for access, personalisation, engagement and inclusion providing learners with control over learning, ownership, and the ability to demand things, and thus meeting the rights of the learner.

Naeve (2005) points to the ability of mobile learning to support more learner centric interest oriented and knowledge pulling types of learning architectures. The traditional educational architectures are based on teacher-centric, curriculum-oriented, knowledge-push. The new demands are largely concerned with a shift along all of these. (Naeve, 2010).

Diana Laurillard (2007) has highlighted the mobility of digital technologies in providing “opportunities for new forms of learning because they change the nature of the physical relations between teachers, learners, and the objects of learning.”  (p1).

Nial Winters (2007) suggests we have to address three mobilities in mobile learning – learners, technology objects, and information – and the objects can be differentiated by being in:

• regional space – 3-dimensional physical space;
• network space – the social space of participants and technologies; or
• fluid space – learners, relations, and the object of learning.

At a practical level there are many discussions, often in social media such as community web sites or blogs suggesting how mobile devices can be used in teaching and learning (see for example Hughes, (2010, a). Hughes (2010, b) also provides a useful summary of the arguments for and against the use of mobile devices in the classroom.

The presenters at a 2006 Kaleidoscope Convergence Workshop on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, entitled ‘Inquiry Learning and Mobile Learning’ collectively offered a wide range of learning activities that could be supported through mobile digital tools and environments (Laurillard, 2007):

• exploring – real physical environments linked to digital guides;
• investigating – real physical environments linked to digital guides;
• discussing – with peers, synchronously or asynchronously, audio or text;
• recording, capturing data – sounds, images, videos, text, locations;
• building, making, modelling – using captured data and digital tools;
• sharing – captured data, digital products of building and modelling;
• testing – the products built, against others’ products, others’ comments or real physical environments;
• adapting – the products developed, in light of feedback from tests or comments; and
• reflecting – guided by digital collaborative software, using shared products, test results, and comments

There is a growing body of research over the use of mobile devices for work based learning. Sharples et al, (2005) say “Just as learning is now regarded as a situated and collaborative activity (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), occurring wherever people, individually or collectively, have problems to solve or knowledge to share, so mobile networked technology enables people to communicate regardless of their location.” (p5).

Liz Kolb (2010) links the use of technologies for learning to the way we communicate, not just in education but in the world of work: “…many are still shying away from this new literacy (even dismissing it as a negative form of communication). Knowing that text messaging is fast becoming the #1 form of communication reminds me that it will also be an important literacy for the 21st century job force.”

Winters, (2007) points to the potential of mobile devices for learning in the workplace to: enable knowledge building by learners in different contexts. and to enable learners to construct understandings. Mobile technology, he says often changes the pattern of learning and work activity.

Naeve (2010) also points out that mobile devices can link learning to knowledge management.

“At the same time, within most organisations, new demands are being placed on effective and efficient knowledge management. Promoting the creation and sharing of knowledge in order to assure the right person with the right knowledge in the right place at the right time for the right cost is the overall aim of these demands.” (Naeve, 2010).
Attwell (2010) has pointed to the potential of mobile devices for developmental learning in the workplace. This allows the bringing together of learning from different context and domains, including the informal learning which is developed through work processes. He outlines the design of a “Work Based Mobile Learning Environment” (WoMBLE).

Perhaps the greatest impact of mobile devices may be in changing the relationship between institutional or classroom based learning and learning in a wider society. Steve Wheeler, in his presentation on Web 3.0. The Way Forward? (2010) says that whilst in the past we have brought the world into the classroom in the future we will bring the classroom into the world.

References

Attwell, G. (2010). Work0based mobile learning environments: contributing to a socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Boeck, M. (2010). Mobile Learning, digital literacies, information habitus and at risk social groups, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Cook, J. (2010). Mobile phones as mediating tools within augmented contexts for development. in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Kolb, L. (2010). From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning. http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/.
Laurillard, D. (2007). Pedagogical forms for mobile learning, in: Pachler, N. (ed) (2007) Mobile learning: towards a research agenda. London: WLE Centre, IoE

Livingston, A. (2009). The Revolution No One Noticed: Mobile Phones and Multimobile Services in Higher Education. Educause Quarterly, 32(1).

Naeve, A. (2010). Opportunistic (l)earning in the mobile knowledge society, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., & Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning. Structures, Agency, Practices. New York USA: Springer.

Pachler, N. (2010). Guest editorial, in Pachler, N. (ed) Mobile learning in the context of transformation. Special Issue of International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning

Sharples, M. Taylor, J. Vavoula, G. (2005). Towards a Theory of Mobile Learning

Winters, N. (2007) What is mobile learning? In M. Sharples (Ed.), Big issues in mobile learning (pp. 7–11): LSRI University of Nottingham

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.

I have been invited to deliver a keynote presentation at the PLE 2010 conference in July in Barcelona. And the organising committee has asked each of the keynote speakers – the others are Alec Couros, Ismael Peña Lopez and Jordi  Adell to make a short video or slidecast about their presentation. So here is my contribution – hope you like it.

Yesterday saw the expected announcement by the UK DemCon Coalition government of the closure of Becta, the British Educational Communication and Technology Agency, as part of a massive cut back in public services.

In many ways this was an easy hit for the government. Becta has always had a mixed reputation in the educational technology community; although much of its work was respected, particularly the research, other policies especially around procurement and its alleged bias against open source were less popular.

However, there is no doubt that the closure signals the end of an era in technology development and implementation in UK education. Educational technologists in many European countries have long looked at the UK in envy. Reliant on either centralised government led initiatives, or local support and projects, there has been far less opportunities for developing and implementing effective programmes and strategies for technology in learning. Germany today continues to languish far behind many other counties in the use of technology in schools. Arguably one of the reasons for this is the lack of ability of the regional Lander governments who are responsible for education to develop coherent programmes to support educational technology development. There are of course exceptions, often driven by innovative regional governments, including the Extramadura programme around open source software. But nevertheless, and despite the dubious obsession of the previous UK Labour government with output driven targets, the last ten years has seen sustained support for developing educational technology in schools which has enabled a movement beyond isolated islands of effective practice to the more mainstream adoption of education technology for learning. Becta has played an important part in this.

As Becta themselves have pointed out, the closure may well not save money with the ending of the technology procurement support for schools.

The closure  probably reflects wider ConDem policies. One is the conservative myth that somehow if we return to old fashioned rote learning and traditional pedagogies allied to stronger school discipline, rigid school uniform policies etc. then somehow school standards will improve. Naturally technology plays no part in a chalk and talk view of learning. And the end result of such policies will be the further alienation of many students from the schooling system, an increase in the already growing class nature of the educational system and a widening of the reality gap between the way young learn and the practice of schools.

The second is a movement towards privatising education. According to the Guardian newspaper, the government will announce tomorrow their intention to allow “500 secondary schools and 1,700 primary schools have the freedom of city academy status by the summer.” The Guardian explains “Academies have greater freedom to set their curriculum, pay rates and admissions policies.” Such a move heralds selective admission policies which are set to benefit students from richer families and the breaking up of collective pay bargaining for teachers. But central to the policy of City Academies, which were introduced by the previous Labour Government, was the desire to introduce private funding for schools. Academies  receive state funds but are privately sponsored and run independently of local authorities. As Fiona Miller explains they are “independently owned, run by sponsors and loosely governed by “funding agreements” – confidential commercial contracts that don’t necessarily give pupils and parents the same protection under the law in areas like admissions, special needs and exclusions.Their governing bodies are controlled by the sponsors, who are often based miles away from where the school is situated. In the Conservative free schools model, private sector companies based in other parts of the world are being groomed to take over English schools.”

Such a policy is hidden behind an rhetoric of protecting direct services. In other words money is taken from an agency such as Becta with a remit to support learning for all students and given to private organisations to spend as they wish, all under the guise of greater accountability and democracy.

The problem with Becta was not that its policy on this or that was right or wrong, or even its perceived lack of support for open source. The issue was that as a government controlled agency, or quango, it often seemed to remote from the practice and everyday experience of teachers and learners. Whilst schools in the UK have traditionally been run by elected local governments, the previous Labour government set about a policy of centralisation, introducing a relatively rigid national curriculum, setting endless performance targets and national testing and giving increased powers to central agencies. The ConDem government is set to build on that beginning by the progressive and creeping privatisation of education. Becta is but one victim of that process. Of course there will be continued development of educational technology. But expect to see less emphasis on research. Expect to see less concern over the learner experience. Expect to see less concern over support for lower achieving students.  Expect to see contracts placed with the friends of Academy directors in this brave new free world. And expect to see a widening of the class division in the provision of education.

Wiecie juz na pewno, ze chcemy na Paradygmacie 2.0 eksperymentowac z roznymi formami blogowania. Nasz pierwszy wpis mial forme rozmowy, dyskusji na temat poczatkow i podstaw PLE. Dzisiaj dla odmiany  wywiad. Czym rozniy sie od rozmowy? Wlasciwie najbardziej tym, ze zadajacy pytania nie duzo o sobie informuje. Kilka dni temu rozmawialam na Skypie z Piotrem Peszko, autorem bloga eLearning 2.0 i moderatorem forum elearningu na goldenline.pl, o tym, jak wyglada elearning w firmach, tzn. czy stosuje sie rozwiazania 1.0 czy 2.0, w jaki sposob wprowadza sie siec spoleczna, jakie czynniki wplywaja na to, czy uda sie wprowadzic wiki, blogi, twittera itd itp. … Oto pierwsza czesc zapisu naszej rozmowy.

Ilona: Ok, zacznijmy od ogolow – czym sie zajmujesz?

Piotr: Aktualnie projektuję rozwiązania e-learningowe dla produktu o nazwie GetThere. Właśnie uruchomiłem II edycję projektu dla osób 45 +, w którym jest dużo elearningu, a także zajmuję się wdrożeniem rozwiązania do zarządzania dokumentacją w modelu single-sourcing i połączeniu go z elearningiem.

Ilona: Co to jest single-sourcing model?

Piotr: Model zarządzania treścią  – kontentem w różnej formie – online, offline itd. Jest oparty na xml-u i pozwala na wielokrotne wykorzystywanie treści i jej konfigurowanie.

Ilona: Masz przyklad?

Piotr: Załóżmy, że masz bloga, piszesz różne treści, tagujesz … i nagle chcesz zrobić z niego książkę. Lipa – nie da się szybko i sprawnie. Single sourcing to podejście, które pozwala na edytowanie treści w jednym miejscu i eksportowanie jej do różnych – zdefiniowanych uprzednio formatów, np. elearningu, wiki, html-a, htmla dla urządzeń mobilnych, pdf, doc itd. itp. i wykorzystania tagów oraz tzw. conditionals zależnych od formatu wyjściowego

Ilona: Aha, ciekawe, a masz moze linka do jakiejs aplikacji opartej na tym modelu?

Piotr: Polecam DocBook na początek. To już trzeci taki project. Każdy inny, ale założenia podobne – po co pisać internal/external reference tutorial + online help + elearning, jeśli każdy z nich korzysta z tej samej treści. Trzeba zdefiniować źródło, procesy i ogień – niech się samo robi 🙂

Ilona: Dzieki, to ciekawe. A co Ty robisz na AGH?

Piotr: Na AGH juz nie wiele, ponieważ  od marca pracuję w Sabre Holdings Polska, pożegnałem się  z uczelnią 🙂

Ilona: To ciekawe, a to co firmy robia w Polsce to bardziej elearning 1.0 czy 2.0?

Piotr: Korporacje po prostu przenoszą swoje wypróbowane rozwiązania na nowy grunt. Posiadają LMS-y wielkie bazy szkoleń, dostęp do niemal wszystkich książek online, wiki, sociale itd. E-learning 1.0 istnieje jako pewna warstwa materialów odniesienia, a profile funkcjonują w wewnętrznych systemach społecznościowych. Także elearning 1.0, elearning 2.0 i workplace learning to chleb powszedni.

Ilona: A jak laczycie elearning 1.0 i 2.0? Na przyklad, w jaki sposob wprowadzacie i stosujecie wiki, blogi? Slyszala, ze wie niektorych korporacjach wprowadza sie wiki w taki sposowb, ze kazdy pracownik musi napisac iles tam stron i iles tam stron skomentowac I to wszystko w scisle okreslonym czasie.

Piotr: Hmm… no nie wiem czy przymus to najlepsze rozwiązanie. Wdrażałem kiedyć taki social w korporacji i wymuszanie okazało się fiaskiem, dopiero danie czegoś w zamian, np.  szybki dostęp do informacji poprzez wewnętrzny twitter, okazało się skuteczne. Problem jest taki, że ta firma jest bardzo nie-polska, a bardzo amerykańska, dlatego pewne rozwiązania są i funkcjonują globalnie.

Ilona: Czyli co w tym przypadku wplywa na udane wprowadzanie sieci spolecznych w firmach?

Piotr: Z mojego doświadczenia wynika, że musi zostać przekroczona pewna masa krytyczna, która pozwala społeczności uczącej się funkcjonować. Równiez pewien stopień anonimowości. On jest ważny w socialach. Zawsze są opory przed odsłonięciem swojej niewiedzy. To tak jak z tłumem zadającym pytania, albo dyskutującym. W grupie raźniej, stadne z nas zwierzę i lepiej się czujemy jeśli możemy zadać pytanie albo zasięgnać rady anonimowo nie narażając się na jakieś uwagi, czy docinki. Social network nie wypali w grupie 20 osob, ale np. w polskim klonie twittera – blipie bardzo często pojawiają się pytania kierowane “w eter” z tagiem #drogiblipie.

Ilona: No to opowiedz, jak to bylo z tym twitterem w twojej firmie? Byla masa krytyczna? Odpowiedni stopien anonimowosci? Wszystko poszlo gladko?

Piotr: To było jakieś 2-3 lata temu – facebook raczkował. Pracowników było około 200, twitter był, blip był, ale raczej jako eksperymenty. Okazało się jednak, że za wcześnie…

Ilona: Dlaczego za wczesnie?

Piotr: Bo nikt nie znał tych narzędzi i nie wiedział po co one są, jak z nich korzystać i co to daje. Dopiero jak okazało się, że ktoś to robi i to daje efekty zaczęto się tym interesować. To takie troszkę małpowanie. Z mojej perspektywy to mało one mają wspólnego z uczeniem się, raczej zabawa i zabijanie czasu – pracy 🙂 Tak to niestety wygląda. Społeczności takie jak linkedin czy goldenline to głównie źródło potencjalnych pracowników / zleceniodawców + wymiana informacji ekspertów.

Ilona: Czy w firmach w Polsce mozna ogolnie uzywac twittera? W Niemczech jest coraz wiecej firm, ktore to ograniczaja, wlasnie z tego powodu, ze nie sa uzywane do pracy, tylko do “zabawy”.

Piotr: W wielu firmach nie ma przeszkód. To zależy od modelu pracy, ja na przykład nie wyobrażam sobie pracy bez 1) Google, 2) last.fm i kilku innych

Ilona: Czyli nie ma zadnych problemow z eLearningiem 2.0?

Piotr: cóż… z elearningiem 2.0 jest problem, bo nawet “specjaliści” dużo mówią na jego temat, a sami nie sa w stanie stworzyć we własnym miejscu pracy takiego środowiska, które byłoby chociażby namiastką 2.0. Moim zdaniem tez i w w firmach elearning 2.0 potrzebuje pewnej masy krytycznej zapaleńców, wtedy nie ma przeszkód i nie uczenie sie nie zależy od środków miejsca, czasu…

Ilona: A sa jakies dobre przyklady PLE w Polsce?

Piotr: Szczerze powiem, że się nie spotkałem. Może za mało szukam :), albo nic nie wystaje ponad dno.

Ilona: Nawet u Ciebie w firmie ;)?

Piotr: No to co teraz robimy to jest eLearning 2.0. Ja np. zarządzam projektem korzystając z Wiki. Wrzucam tam zasoby, uczestnicy komentują, dokładają swoje. Mam przygotowany szablon projektu, kopiuje go i zaczynamy.

Ilona: Na zasadzie samoorganizacji – kto co da, czy masz jakas strategie zarzadzania?

Piotr: Przewaznie stosuje SCRUM w standardowych, typowych projektach, a na wyższym poziomie sprawdza się PRINCE2. Bardzo dobre w Wiki jest to, że nie ma konieczności przygotowywania raportów, generowania dokumentów itd. Wszystko jest online – transparentne dla wszystkich. Wiadomo co się dzieje, kiedy i jak. No i właśnie tutaj wszyscy się uczą, bo nie ma innego wyjścia. Jesteś w projekcie = działasz na wiki.

Ilona: Ok,a wady?

Piotr: 1. Wypada zrezygnować z załączania plików; 2. Trzeba nauczyć konsekwencji stosowania Wiki; 3. muszą być jasne reguły – kto co może.

Piotr: No i hmmm… trzeba umieć korzystać z wiki. A to czasami największy problem. Chociaż, nie wyobrażam sobie projektu, w którym nie korzysta sie z jakiegoś narzędzia współpracy online.

Ilona: Jakie sa krytyczne punkty korzystania z wiki?

Piotr: Rozmiar projektu, poziom digital literacy, sposób organizacji,  simplicity matters – łatwość obsługi produktu rozwiązującego istniejący problem to najlepiej sprzedawalna rzecz.

Ilona: Czyli jakie uzasadnienie biznesowe ma uzywanie sieci spolecznych w korporacjach?

Piotr: 1. Szybkość komunikacji, 2. Budowanie bazy wiedzy

Piotr: chociaż… najważniejsze moim zdaniem jest umożliwienie przekazania informacji – wiedzy – od super-specjalistów wewnątrz firmy do klientów, lub przynajmniej sprzedawców. Bo sprzedawca jest ze swoją wiedzą nt. produktu bliżej klienta

Ilona: Z tym przekazywaniem wiedzy w korporacjach to tez taki kij co ma dwa konce. jedej strony jest motywacja, zeby pokazac sie jako ekspert. Z drugiej nie moge odkryc wszystkich kart, bo ewentualnie nie bede juz ekspertem.

Piotr: To zależy od struktury organizacji i tego w jaki sposób takie aktywności są wspierane – nie wymuszane. Jesli się jest ekspertem to zawsze jest co pokazywać. Cooper dobrze o tym napisał w “Wariaci rządzą domem wariatów” – polecam,

Ilona: Dzieki. Ale czesto przeciez jest tak, ze ludzie w firmach nie zdradzaja takich informacji, ktore stanowia podsawe ich USP (unique selling proposition).

Piotr: No trochę tak, ale np. jeśli ja projektuje rozwiązania elearningowe to nie mam problemów ze zrobieniem szkolenia na temat wersjonowania i jego znaczenia. Moim zdaniem wiedza eksperta jest tak szeroka, że zawsze jest się czym dzielić

Ilona: I zdradzasz wszystkie twoje sztuczki?

Piotr: Oczywiście, że nie. Ale nie mam oporów ze zdradzaniem szczegółów warsztatu. Np. w tamtym tygodniu prowadziłem warsztaty na temat screencastów i dokładnie mówiłem jak i czym to robię.

Ilona: A gdzie byly te warsztaty? W waszej firmie?

Piotr: Nie na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym, dla nauczycieli 🙂

Ilona: Ho ho, i co beda stosowac?

Piotr: No nie wiem, raczej ciężko

Ilona: Dlaczego?

Piotr: Nie ma zapotrzebowania…

Ilona: No co ty?

Piotr: Wiesz to tak jak seks z filozofem: ma czym, ma gdzie, ale po co…

Ilona: (rofl)

No tak, ale to juz inny rozdzial. Druga czesc rozmowy z Piotrem Peszko na tema eLearningu 2.0 w szkolnictwie wyzszym juz w krotce 😉  Ciekawa jestem, czy Wasze doswiadczenia z eLearningiem 2.0 w firmach sa podobe. Czy wszedzie jest problem z brakiem krytycznej masy? Co myslicie na temat anonimowosci w spolecznych sieciach w firmie? Przeciez anonimowosci moze oznaczac tez problemy … Moze ktos z Was ma ochote podzielic sie swoimi doswiadczeniami z perspektywy uzytkownika eLearningu w firmie? To byloby super ciekawe. Czekam na Wasze komentarze!