This post continues this weeks mini series on new pedagogies for tecahing and learning. This is based on work I am doing for a literature review.

I have been particularly interested in some of the work on digital literacies. The notion of digital literacies has been around for some time, but, at least in an Anglo Saxon context, has tended to be dominated by narrow skill set definitions. Such thinking has not gone away – Learn Direct offer a entry level Digital Literacy certificate based on

• Computer Basics
• The Internet and World Wide Web
• Productivity Programmes
• Computer Security and Privacy
• Digital Lifestyles

And Microsoft’s First Course Toward Digital Literacy claims to  teach absolute beginners to computing about what a valuable tool computers can be in society today, and the basics of using the mouse and the keyboard. The interactive, hands-on lessons will help novices feel comfortable manipulating the mouse and typing on the keyboard (is this what Bill Gates is referring to when he says the Internet will displace the traditional University in 5 years).

But at the same time there has been some more advanced thinking on the meaning of digital literacy, based in part on new understandings of the mulitmodality affordances of Web 2.0 and in part on research into the way young people are using the web.  There is growing evidence that young people have difficulties in interpreting and making judgements and meanings about online materials, be they text, hypertext or multi media. A third influence on this wok is the expanded idea of the importance of design as a means of communication in the wider social environment of Web 2.0.

The wider understandings of Digital Literacies is leading in terms to a move away from narrowly defined skills training towards an exploration of pedagogies in teaching and learning using technologies. I am particularly interested in a pedagogic model developed by the New London Group as long ago as 2000 and represented in the UK Teaching and Learning Programme’s recent publication entitled Digital Literacies (although sometimes a little dense this is well worth reading). The New London Group put forward four components of pedagogy:

• Situated Practice, which draws on the experience of meaning-making in everyday life, the public realm and workplaces;
• Overt Instruction, through which students develop an explicit metalanguage of design;
• Critical Framing, which interprets the social context and purpose of Designs of meaning; and
• Transformed Practice, in which students, as meaning -makers, become designers of social futures.

(Cope and Kalantzis, 2000, p. 7)

What is missing from this model is a social dimension around collaboration. But the model is strong in  its focus on the new social realities engendered by technologies. It is the need to be able to understand and critique those social realities which should inform the development of new pedagogies.

I am doing a literature review at the moment focused primarily on pedagogic processes for using technology for learning in vocational education and training and in adult education. In particular I am interested in how we can provide both initial training and continuing professional development for teachers and trainers in teaching and learning with technology. I think such a study is apposite – whilst previously teachers have been often seen as a barrier to the introduction of Technology Enhanced Learning because of their perceived lack of skills in using such technologies, we are now coming to realise that the need for new pedagogic approaches is perhaps the biggest challenge, especially since most new teachers are confident in their own use of computers.

Here are some of the issues I am looking at:

• Teacher training and continuing professional development
• eLearning and pedagogic approaches to the use of technology for learning
• The development and use of social software and web 2.0 technologies and its impact on education and learning
• Future technologies and trends and their possible impact within education

Specific issues to be examined may include (but will not be limited to):

• Pedagogic theories of use of technologies for learning and implications
• Effective Pedagogic practices of use of technologies for learning and implications
• Effective Practices in different sectors / subject areas
• Use of technology for initial training of teachers and CPD
• Impact of technologies on pedagogy in practice
• Digital literacies and digital identities for teachers
• Present qualifications for teachers and approaches to pedagogy and use of technology for learning
• Effective practices in initial teacher training and CPD in use of technology for learning
• e-Assessment and evaluation

I would be very grateful for any references, reports or other materials you think I should include in such a review. I would be particularly grateful for references to studies or reports on the training of teachers in other countries than the UK. All help will be gratefully acknowledged and in due course I will publish the results of the review on the Pontydysgu web site.

Neat video introduction to Critical Pedagogy from the Freire Project.

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.

Apologies to those of you who have been unable to access the Pontydysgu web site over the past couple of days. We have some issues with our Apache server which we are trying to track down. Hopefully we should get a permanent fix soon (may thanks to Raymond Elferink for all his efforts to help us).

Some more quick notes on pedagogy – an issue that is somewhat obsessing me at the moment.

One of the issue which is constantly arising is that of reflection. Reflection is seen by many as a powerful tool for learning and especially for metacognition. Yet reflection is seen as problematic. As teachers we cannot force learners to reflect. And many teachers – especially in the upper school systems and in universities complain that students do not want to reflect – they want just to be told what they have to learn to pass their exams.

I have taught in many sectors (or domains) in the education system. I have worked as a detached youth worker, in adult education, as  as a teacher trainer and as a trainer for continuing educational development. I have also (occasionally) taught undergraduate students in university. And what strikes me is  very different approaches to reflection and to pedagogy in those different domains.

We seldom talked about reflection when I was working as a youth worker or  trainer. We often talked about reflection when i worked as a university teacher. Yet despite this, there were far higher levels of refection in training courses I have run than on university courses I have taught on. Why?

University courses are geared around a subject based curriculum. Essentially we are involved in dividing up that curriculum into chunks and providing lectures, seminars and assessed assignments to ensure the curriculum is fully covered in a semester or module.

In contrast trainers – be it in professional development or in youth work have a very different starting point and pedagogic focus. Essentially trainers are concerned above all with designing learning. This includes

• A focus on the needs of the learners, rather than the demands of a syllabus
• The development of aims and objectives for learner achievement
• The design of the learning environment
• The design of learning activities
• Formative assessment for learners to measure their own (both individual and collective) progress
• Mechanisms for evaluation, feedback and iterative programme development

In terms of activities we were often looking for active and authentic learning activities – activities designed to help learners develop their own ideas. And we would build in methods for discussion and exchange of ideas. Programme planning and design used to take much longer – in professional development we had a rule of thumb which said two days development time for each days delivery. Of course this is resource intensive. But would a change to focus on the needs of the learners and to design authentic learning activities not facilitate the kind of reflective learning to which we aspire. That might mean tearing up rigid curricula. It might mean developing new learning environments outside a classroom. It might mean moving away from individual assessment. But it might be worth it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued……..

Stephen Downes wrote last night that national programs supporting open educational resources (OERs) are springing up. He noted the publication of a Green Paper describing and making recommendations for OER initiatives in Brazil. Also, in Holland, he said, the government has launched the Wikiwijs project (literally: Wiki Wise), which “is an open, internet-based platform, where teachers can find, download, (further) develop and share educational resources. The whole project is based on open source software, open content and open standards.” Meanwhile the Washington State colleges board has passed a resolution saying “All digital software, educational resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants, offered through and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License.”

To these initiatives can be added the launch of JISC OER Infokit (interestingly developed on a PBWorks wiki site) aiming to explore a range of considerations from specific technical issues to barriers and enablers to institutional adoption. They say “This infoKit aims to both inform and explain OERs and the issues surrounding them for managers, academics and those in learning support. It is aimed at senior managers, learning technologists, technical staff and educators with an interest in releasing OERs to the educational community.”

Stephen Downes quotes the Brazil Green Paper saying: “Education policy and projects that combine infrastructure investment with a coherent ‘network’ approach to content are the most likely to have significant positive impact and realize the goals of the policy. The ability of the Internet to create radical increases in innovation is not an accident – but it is also not guaranteed to happen simply through putting computers and courses onto the network. This ‘generative’ effect of networks comes from the combination of open technologies, software platforms that allow creative programming, the right to make creative and experimental re-use of content, and the widespread democratization of the skills and tools required to exercise all of those rights.”

The issue of democratisation is taken up in an excellent blog post entitled “Open Education: the need for critique” by Richard Hall. Richard says ” democratic practices in education are critical in enhancing our broader socio-educational life, and underpin radical re-conceptualisations of educational practice, for example mass intellectuality, a pedagogy of excess and student-as-producer.” He goes on to say: “To use the term learning revolution demands a critique of the political economics of education, and the social relations that exist therein. This cannot be done in terms of OERs without an engagement with critical pedagogy.”

Richard points to risks in present discussions about PLEs, OERs and informal learning.

That the role/importance of individual rather than social empowerment is laid bare, and that within a libertarian educational structure, the focus becomes techno-determinist. The risk here is that, accepting the position of others in meaningful, socially-constructed tasks, technology is the driver for individual emancipation [although we rarely ask “emancipation for or from what?”]. Moreover, we believe that without constant innovation in technology and technological practices we cannot emancipate/empower ever more diverse groups of learners.

That we deliver practices that we claim are radical, but which simply replicate or re-produce a dominant political economy, in-line with the ideology of accepted business models. So that which we claim as innovatory becomes subservient to a dominant mode of production and merely enables institutions to have power-over our products and labour, rather than it being a shared project [witness the desire for HE to become more business-like].

That we fetishise the outcomes/products of our labour as a form of currency. This is especially true in the case of open educations resources, which risk being disconnected from a critique of open education or critical pedagogy, and PLEs which risk being disconnected from a critique of their relationship to our wider social relations.

That we fetishise the learner as an autonomous agent, able to engage in an environment, using specific tools and interacting with specific OERs, so that she becomes an economic actor, rather than seeing her engagement as socially emergent and negotiated.

He puts forward a number of questions around iopen education and OERs.

How do we prioritise engagement with the broader, open context of learning and education, with trusted peers? How do we raise our own literacy around openness, in order to legitimise sharing as social practice and as social process, and not as a response to a target of OER-production-as-SMART-objective?

Is the production of OERs a means of furthering control over our means of production and our labour? Is there a risk that the alleged transparency of production of OERs is used to further control and power-over, for example, teachers and teaching by impacting contracts of employment?

Though education, how do we enable the types of participatory engagement and re-production of groups like the Autonomous Geographies Collective or Trapese, where the production of OERs is a secondary outcome to the re-fashioning of social relationships that it enables? By so doing, we might just enable groups to engage with the activity-areas that Harvey highlights as a process of production, rather than fetishising the production of things.

How do we resist the increasing discourse of cost-effectiveness, monetisation, economic value, efficiency that afflicts our discussion of open education? How do we move the argument around sustainability and open education away from a focus on economic value? Too often our discussion of open education is reduced to a discussion of OERs and this, in turn, is reduced to a discourse of cost and consumption. As a result, our role in education is commodified and objectified.

Do we ask who is margnalised in the production of OERs or in open education? Are non-Western cultures engaging in open education and the production of OERs through the languages of colonialism or by focusing on native socio-cultural forms? At what point do OERs and open education become part of a post-colonial discourse focused upon new markets?

How do we utilise OERs to open-up trans-disciplinary approaches to global crises, like peak oil and climate change? How do we enable the emerging array of open subject resources to be utilised across boundaries (be they personal, subject, programme, course, institutional or national), in order to challenge sites of power in the University and beyond? These resources enable ways of challenging hegemonic, mental conceptions of the world and framing new social relations. This requires curriculum leadership. These crises require socio-educational leadership.

These questions challenge us to reconceptualise what we mean by open education. More than that they force us to start exploring a critical pedagogy and what that implies in terms of meanings and our actions as educators and educational researchers and developers I hope Richards blog post gets the attention from the community it deserves. I will be trying to answer some of the questions on this blog in the next few days.

Photo Samscam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participants at the PLe2010 conference have been invited to make their own conference badges. These have been shared on TwitPic

When we launched the PLe2010 conference way back last September we were determined it would not be just another conference. Twenty minute paper presentations, endless slides with bullet points, limited discussion. Yes, we wanted people to have a good time in the evenings but how could we move those evening knowledge sharing sessions inside the conference.

Unconferencing formats such as BarCamps or TeachMeets have generated much enthusiasm and creativity. But for researchers, especially young or emergent researchers, to secure funding for attending international conferences and events, many institutions demand the presentation of an academic paper.

So, we tried to get the best of both worlds. We appointed an academic board and all papers were subjected to a two person blind review process. We then grouped the various contributions by theme and language and went on to appoint chairs for each session. We wrote to each chair asking them to contact the presenters in their session and to agree a format for the session. We left the final format to the chair and presenters but indicated we wished for the sessions to involve all participants in as far as was possible. And we got some great proposals. Here is a selection of some of the formats which have been proposed for the different sessions at PLE20010.

Speed Learning Cafe (Jane Challinor)

1. Chair starts with brief introduction to the process and asks audience to divide into three groups /tables
2. There is then a 10 minute presentation  by each of three presenters (Chair keeps time with stopwatch throughout!!)
3. Each presenter then goes to sit with a group at one of the three tables, which are  covered in blank paper & supplied with marker pens
4. The presenters begin a conversation with their table using a single SPECIFIC – but not CLOSED – question relating to their specific research/interest. The aim is to gather some additional thoughts/learning or questions from the group on the theme of the workshop.
5. Audience and presenters write notes on the table based on the conversation in the form of further questions/ thoughts
6. Groups change to second table/ presenter after 5 minutes. Repeat steps 5 & 6
7. Groups change to third table/ presenter after 5 minutes. Repeat steps 5 & 6
8. Each presenter in turn summarises the conversations (3 – 5 key learning points from the session)
9. Thank you & goodbye!! – Chair

Poster Session (Graham Attwell)

We will provide participants 10 minutes to look at the posters

Each of you will be invited to introduce your poster for 5 minutes

There will be space for participants to ask questions..

Participants will be invited to write down issues arising from your posters on a sticky note.

We will then group the issues and depending on the number of groups rate the importance.

We will then form groups for discussing those issues and hold a brief plenary at the end

Speed / learning café (Cristina Costa)

What does that mean?

It means that you will have 7 minutes to present your paper, focusing on the main key points (only 1 slide is allowed!… that is if you are using slides at all. You can use whatever you want!) It may sound a bit mad, but the fact is that short presentations are more focused and therefore more appealing to the listener.

The presentations will be followed by rotating groups discussions, as delegates will take turns participating in the discussions started by your presentations (hence the importance of making your presentation thought provoking).

Each discussion will last for 10 minutes. Every 10 minutes delegates will move to the next table. In each table there will be a laptop (please bring one along if you have one!) so that participants can annotate their discussions in a wiki page.

The session will end with a short presentation (3 minutes) by each group about the conclusions they have reached.

Paper Session (Maria Perifanou)

Time available for the session: 75min

Introduction of the presenters: 2min

Presentation of the findings of your research: 15min

Conclusion of the presentation with some questions for the audience asking for their feedback ( possible problems that you have faced during your research, future research questions….): 10min

Questions from the audience: 10min

Time for work for the participants: 20 min. The participants will be divided in groups. Each group will have to do a quick reasearch regarding the integration of technology in the education (and in everyday life) in their countries with a focus on the PLE concept. Are students on the way for the development of their PLEs or is it something that looks like a “dream” for the future
based on the findings of their research?

Presentation of the groups work findings – comparison of them with the findings of your research: 15min

End of the session: Conclusions 3min

Paper Session (Isamel Pena Lopez)

I see the common denominator of the session is _support_ in the sense of “let’s tell our ‘supportees’ what does work so they can put it into practice”. Which means:

1.- there are some problems in my learning process that need being addressed

2.- solutions to fix these problems that do not work

3.- solutions that do

4.- (and likely) an assessment on how these solutions that work were

4a.—— put into practice

4b.—— their performance evaluated

My proposal.

GOAL: Instead of everyone telling their story, let’s try to end up with a shared one.
GOAL: let’s have it written so people can take it away with them

15:45 I would begin with an über-short presentation of everyone of you. That is not more than 6 minutes (2 per presenting group). And a presentation of how we will proceed. Total, 10′. I sit up with a blank powerpoint.

15:55 Each group has 3′ to explain what problems (point 1 aforementioned) they are addressing. I put them on the powerpoint without attribution, so I can merge them, rephrase them, avoid repetitions, etc.

16:04 Same with point 2.

16:13 Same with point 3.

16:22 Same with point 4a.

16:31 Same with point 4b.

16:40 We review the (now) shared presentation, let everyone in the room speak out their thoughts, add things, delete others, etc.

17:00 End of session.

Paper Session (Maria Perifanou)

4 presentations,  8min each (32min total) + 3 min (12min total) for the conclusion of each presentation with a presenter’s question to the audience for feedback  (maybe a research question for the future, something that troubles him/her in his research).

Participants write sticky notes at the same time -5min participants to add sticky notes (also
presenters can add issues for their feedback) -3min for 4 groups division  (12min in total)
-15min groups work -4min each group to report back (16min in total) -2min for presenters’ feedback to the 4 groups:  (8min in total)

Part two of my new paper on Personal Learning environments, focusing on context, and written for the PLE2010 conference in Barcelona next week.

How can the idea of context help us in designing work based Personal Learning Environments? First, given the varied definitions, it might be apposite to explain what we mean by a PLE. PLEs can be seen as the spaces in which people interact and communicate and whose ultimate result is learning and the development of collective know-how. In terms of technology, PLEs are made-up of a collection of loosely coupled tools, including Web 2.0 technologies, used for working, learning, reflection and collaboration with others.

As such, PLEs offer some solutions to the issue of the fluid and relational nature of context. PLEs, unlike traditional educational technology are mobile, flexible and not context dependent. They can move from one domain to another and make connections between them. Secondly PLEs can support and facilitate a greater variety of relationships than traditional educational media. These include relationships within and between networks and communities of practice and support for collaborative working. PLEs shift the axis of control from the teacher to the learners and thus alter balance of power within learning discourses. And, perhaps critically, PLEs support a greater range of learning discourses than traditional educational technology.

PLEs are able to link knowledge assets with people, communities and informal knowledge (Agostini et al, 2003) and support the development of social networks for learning (Fischer, 1995). Razavi and Iverson (2006) suggest integrating weblogs, ePortfolios, and social networking functionality both for enhanced e-learning and knowledge management, and for developing communities of practice. A PLE can use social software for informal learning which is learner driven, problem-based and motivated by interest – not as a process triggered by a single learning provider, but as a continuing activity.

So far we have stressed the utility of PLEs in being flexible and adaptable to different contexts. In a work based context, the ‘Learning in Process’ project (Schmidt, 2005) and the APOSDLE project (Lindstaedt, and Mayer, 2006) have attempted to develop embedded, or work-integrated, learning support where learning opportunities (learning objects, documents, checklists and also colleagues) are recommended based on a virtual understanding of the learner’s context.

However, while these development activities acknowledge the importance of collaboration, community engagement and of embedding learning into working and living processes, they have not so far addressed the linkage of individual learning processes and the further development of both individual and collective understanding as the knowledge and learning processes (Attwell. Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, 2008). In order to achieve that transition (to what we term a ‘community of innovation’), processes of reflection and formative assessment have a critical role to play.

Personal Learning Environments are by definition individual. However it is possible to provide tools and services to support individuals in developing their own environment. In looking at the needs of careers guidance advisors for learning Attwell, Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, (2008) say a PLE should be based on a set of tools to allow personal access to resources from multiple sources, and to support knowledge creation and communication. Based on an scoping of knowledge development needs, an initial list of possible functions for a PLE have been suggested, including: access/search for information and knowledge; aggregate and scaffold by combining information and knowledge; manipulate, rearrange and repurpose knowledge artefacts; analyse information to develop knowledge; reflect, question, challenge, seek clarification, form and defend opinions; present ideas, learning and knowledge in different ways and for different purposes; represent the underpinning knowledge structures of different artefacts and support the dynamic re-rendering of such structures; share by supporting individuals in their learning and knowledge; networking by creating a collaborative learning environment.

People tagging

However, rather than seeking to build a monolithic application which can meet all these needs, a better approach may be to seek to develop tools and services which can meet learning needs related to particular aspects of such needs. And in developing such a tool, it is useful to reflect on the different aspects of context involved in the potential use of such tools.  The European Commission supported Mature project is seeking to research and develop Personal Learning and Maturing Environments and Organisation Learning and Maturing Environments to support knowledge development and ‘maturing’ in organisations. The project has developed a number of use cases and demonstrators, following a participatory design process and aiming at supporting learning in context for careers guidance advisors.

One such demonstrator is a ‘people tagging’ application (Braun, Kunzmann and Schmidt, 2010). According to the project report “Knowing-who is an essential element for efficient knowledge maturing processes, e.g. for finding the right person to talk to. Take the scenario of where a novice Personal Adviser (P.A.) needs to respond to a client query. The P.A. does not feel sufficiently confident to respond adequately, so needs to contact a colleague who is more knowledgeable, for support. The key problems would be:

• How does the P.A. find the right person to contact
• How can the P.A. find people inside, and even outside, the employing organisation?
• How can colleagues who might be able to support the P.A. be identified and contacted quickly and efficiently?

Typically, employee directories, which simply list staff and their areas of expertise, are insufficient. One reason is that information contained in the directories is outdated; or it is not described in an appropriate manner; or it focuses too much on ‘experts’; and they often do not include external contacts (Schmidt & Kunzmann 2007).

Also Human Resource Development needs to have sufficient information about the needs and current capabilities of current employees to make the right decisions. In service delivery contexts that must be responsive to the changing needs of clients, like Connexions services, it is necessary to establish precisely what additional skills and competencies are required to keep up with new developments. The people tagging tool would provide a clear indication of:

• What type of expertise is needed?
• How much of the requisite expertise already exists within the organisation?”

At a technical level the demonstrator includes:

• A bookmarking widget for annotating persons, which can be invoked as a bookmarklet
• A browsing component for navigating annotated people based on the vocabulary
• An employee list and profile visualization of annotated people
• A search component for searching for people
• A collaborative real-time editor of the shared vocabulary that allows for consolidating tags and introducing hierarchical relationships
• An analysis component for displaying trends based on search and tagging behaviour.

The application seeks to meet the challenge of aligning the maturing of ontological knowledge with the development of the knowledge about people in the organization (and possibly beyond).

Early evaluation results suggest that people tagging is accepted by employees in general, and that they view it as beneficial on average. The evaluation “has also revealed that we have to be careful when designing such a people tagging system and need to consider affective barriers, the organizational context, and other motivational aspects so that it can become successful and sustainable. Therefore we need to develop a design framework (and respective technical enablement) for people tagging systems as socio-technical systems that covers aspects like control, transparency, scope etc. This design framework needs to be backed by a flexible implementation.”

Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects

A further approach to supporting Personal Learning environments for careers guidance professional is based on the development of Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects (TEBOs). Mazzoni and Gaffuri (2009) consider that PLEs as such may be seen as boundary objects in acting to support transitions within a Zone of Proximal Development between knowledge acquired in formal educational contexts and knowledge required for performance or practice within the workplace. Alan Brown (2009) refers to an approach to designing technologically enhanced boundary objects that promote boundary crossing for careers practitioners.

Careers practitioners use labour market information in their practice of advising clients about potential career options. Much of this labour Markey information is gathered from official statistics, providing, for example, details of numbers employed in different professionals at varying degree of granularity, job centre vacancies in time series data at a fine granular level and pay levels in different occupations at a regional level, as well as information about education and training routes, job descriptions and future career predictions. However much of this data is produced as part of the various governmental departments statistical services and is difficult to search for and above all to interpret. Most problematic is the issue of meaning making when related to providing careers advice, information and guidance. The data sits in the boundaries of practice of careers workers and equally at the ordinary of the practice of collating and providing data. Our intention is to develop technology enhanced boundary objects as a series of infographs, dynamic graphical displays, visualisations and simulations to scaffold careers guidance workers in the process of meaning making of such data.

Whilst we are presently working with static data, much of the data is now being provided online with an API to a SPARQL query interface, allowing interrogation of live data. This is part of the open data initiative, led by Nick Shabolt and Tim Berners Lee in the UK. Berners Lee (2010) has recently said that linked data lies at the heart of the semantic web. Our aim is to connect the TEBO to live data through the SPARQL interface and to visualise and represent that data in forms which would allow careers guidance workers and clients to make intelligent meaning of that data in terms of the shared practice of providing and acting on guidance. Such a TEBO could form a key element in a Personal Learning environment for careers guidance practitioners. A further step in exploring PLE services and applications would be to link the TEBO to people tagging services allowing careers practitioners to find those with particular expertise and experience in interpreting labour market data and relating this to careers opportunities at a local level.

There has been considerable interest in the potential of Mash Up Personal Learning Environments (Wild, Mödritscher and Sigurdarson, 2008). as a means of providing flexible access to different tools. Other commentators have focused on the use of social software for learners to develop their own PLEs. Our research into PLEs and knowledge maturing in organisations does not contradict either of these approaches. However, it suggests that PLE tools need to take into account the contexts in which learning takes place, including knowledge assets, people and communities and especially the context of practice. In reality a PLE may be comprised of both general communication and knowledge sharing tools as well as specialist tools designed to meet the particular needs of a community.

Conclusions

In seeking to design a work based PLE it is necessary to understand the contexts in which learning take place and the different discourses associated with that learning. A PLE is both able to transpose the different contexts in which learning takes place and can move from one domain to another and make connections between them. support and facilitate a greater variety of relationships than traditional educational media. At them same time a PLE is able to support a range of learning discourses including discourses taking place within and between different communities if practice. An understanding of the contexts in which learning takes place and of those different learning discourses provides that basis for designing key tools which can form the centre of a work based PLE. Above all a PLE can respond to the demands of fluid and relational discourses in providing scaffolding for meaning making related to practice.

References

Attwell G. Barnes S.A., Bimrose J. and Brown A, (2008), Maturing Learning: Mashup Personal Learning Environments, CEUR Workshops proceedings, Aachen, Germany

Berners Lee T. (2010) Open Linked Data for a Global Community, presentation at Gov 2.0 Expo 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1aSJXCFe0&feature=player_embedded, accessed June 25, 2010

Braun S. Kunzmann C. Schmidt A. (2010) People Tagging & Ontology Maturing: Towards Collaborative Competence Management, In: David Randall and Pascal Salembier (eds.): From CSCW to Web2.0: European Developments in Collaborative Design Selected Papers from COOP08, Computer Supported Cooperative Work Springer,

Brown A. (2009) Boundary crossing and boundary objects – ‘Technologically Enhanced Boundary Objects’. Unpublished paper for the Mature IP Project

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Schmidt A., Kunzmann C. (2007) Sustainable Competency-Oriented Human Resource Development with Ontology-Based Competency Catalogs, In: Miriam Cunningham and Paul Cunningham (eds.): eChallenges 2007, 2007, http://publications.professional-learning.eu/schmidt_kunzmann_sustainable-competence-management_eChallenges07.pdf, accessed 27 June, 2010

Schmidt, A. (2005) Knowledge Maturing and the Continuity of Context as a Unifying Concept for Integrating Knowledge Management and ELearning. In: Proceedings I-KNOW ’05, Graz, 2005.

Wild, F., Mödritscher, F., & Sigurdarson, S. (2008). Designing for Change: Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments. elearning papers, 9. 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.elearningeuropa.info/out/?doc_id=15055&rsr_id=15972

Wilson, S., Liber, O., Johnson, M., Beauvoir, P., Sharples, P., & Milligan, C. (2006). Personal learning environments challenging the dominant design of educational systems. Paper presented at the ECTEL Workshops 2006, Heraklion, Crete (1-4 October 2006