Lots of fun at yesterdays debate on the future of the VLE at the Alt-C Conference in Manchester, UK.
James Clay, Nick Sharratt, Steve Wheeler and myself all were allowed to argue our position for five minutes and then we handed over to the audience.
Great fun and lots of interesting contributions. It is surprising how attached to their VLEs these ed techies are :).
For some time now I have been following the development of the Manchester Personal Learning Environment – now called the mPLE.
As Mark van Harmelen explains the “mPLE was first conceived of a response to a perceived lack of usable open source software to support communities and learning in those communities.
Informed by social constructivist and constructionist perspectives mPLE is designed to support individual and group learning activities. The intent is for mPLE to be used by self-directed and peer-assisting groups of learners (possibly teacher-led, but without any special status for teachers in the PLE). In order to support this vision of learning, mPLE combines a social software layer with advanced multi-user multi-media spaces where learners can meet and collaboratively perform learning activities in real time.
mPLE is close to the start of a release cycle, and will be released open source. mPLE is intended to be hosted either by an educational institution, a community group, or a less formal group of individuals. To facilitate easy hosting, one of the distribution media will be virtual machines for SUN’s free VirtualBox, making for a particularly easy install on Windows and Linux machines.”
You can read more about the mPLE on the Hedtek blog.
Hedtek Ltd will demonstrate and discuss the Manchester Personal Learning Environment (mPLE) at two fringe events during the ALT-C 2009 conference.
The Kilburn Building is next to the conference location.
The Evolve network seminars are back. We have planned a series of open seminars for the autumn in conjunction with the upcoming Educamp Event (November 6-7, in Austria). As the blurb says:
“Once again, the online sessions will be supported by the JISC sponsored EVOLVE Community. Graham Attwell and Cristina Costa, two of the co-founders of EVOLVE, will co-moderate the online events. Together with Martin Ebner they will organise these events. Three sessions will be offered prior to the face to face event in Graz, Austria.
The themes under discussion and the guest speakers of each event are listed below.
The online round tables will be in English and are open for the ‘worldwide’ audience. Elluminate will be the online conference platform used. (A tutorial on how to join the session is available here). The recording of the sessions will be made available afterwards on this website.
Further information about each session and speakers will be published one week prior to event to take place. So check this place often, and also follow the Evolve network on Facebook.
We look forward to the interesting discussions. Stay tuned and help us spread the word about it (when mentioning it on twitter, blogposts, your social networks, etc please use the following tags: #ecg09 #educamp09 #EduCampGraz #ort09).”
More Alt-C conference fun. The incomparable James Clay has organised a deabte at the Alt-C confernce entitled the VLE is dead! And I am speaking at it! Guess my view (in fact i seem to recall speaking on the same subject six years ago at a meeting in Denmark where my opponent was the CEO of a company producing a then little known VLE called Fronter!).
Here is the line up (as told by James):
“Josie introduces the session and the ways in which the audience can contribute. I would like to take a poll at this stage too and some initial comments from the audience.
The first panel member, Steve Wheeler, will argue that many VLEs are not fit for purpose, and masquerade as solutions for the management of online learning. Some are little more than glorified
e-mail systems. They will argue that VLEs provide a negative experience for learners.
The second member of the panel, Graham Attwell, believes that the VLE is dead and that the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is the solution to the needs of diverse learners. PLEs provide
opportunities for learners, offering users the ability to develop their own spaces in which to reflect on their learning.
The third panel member, James Clay, however, believes that the VLE is not yet dead as a concept, but can be the starting point of a journey for many learners. Creating an online environment involving multiple tools that provides for an enhanced experience for learners can involve a VLE as a hub or centre.
The fourth panel member, Nick Sharratt, argues for the concept of the institutional VLE as essentially sound. VLEs provide a stable, reliable, self-contained and safe environment in which all teaching and learning activities can be conducted. It provides the best environment for the variety of learners within institutions.
This then leaves forty minutes for discussion and online interaction.
Each member of the panel offers a final thought and we have a final vote.”
Th session takes place from 1340 – 1500 UK summer time on Tuesday 8 September. I bet you are all wishing you take part but cursing the Alt C fees. but you can, and for free. The whole event will be streamed live and you can take part through Twitter. As soon as I have details I will post them on this site But put it in your diary now.
And remember : the VLE is dead! Vote early and vote often.
It is heartening to see the increasing interest in Personal Learning Environments. Indeed, in terms of research into Technology Enhanced Learning, it is probably not going too far to say that PLEs have now mainstreamed.
However, with increasing research, and especially as developers and practitioners move towards implementing PLEs – or rather implementing an approach to learning based on Personal Learning Networks and PLEs, tensions are emerging.
One particular point of tension became very apparent at last weeks ROLE project expert workshop between an approach to personalisation based on a (corporate or institutional) VLE or Learning Management System providing more space for self supported learning and those wishing to empower learners in developing their own learning environment based on social software.
A related tension is between seeing learners essentially using PLEs to follow programmes of learning – be they courses or online learning – and those seeing PLEs as primarily a space to reflect on informal learning.
And yet a further tension is in the extent to which recommender systems can assist learners in developing their own learner systems. Or is the prime function of a PLE to enable individuals to develop their own networks for peer assisted learning?
All these approaches have their strengths and are not mutually incompatible. However with growing numbers of projects aiming to develop, test or implement PLEs, it is becoming important that project partners gain a shared understanding of both the meaning of a PLE and the particular objectives of any project development.
I am in Leicester in the UK at a “Personal Learning Environment Expert Workshop organised by the EU ROLE project.
In one group activity this morning they asked us to discuss three questions. I twittered the questions and was surprised by the number of replies i received. So I though I would share with you your collective expertise!
But first the questions:
And your replies (many thanks to all of you – these have been passed on to the ROLE project partners):
June is the month of meetings and i seem to have been in meetinsg for ever. Just a short few hours break before the next ones start so time for a quick bog entry.
This morning I received an email from Effie Law from the University of Leicester, UK/ ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
“Dear Graham,” she said, “I am now working … to develop an evaluation framework on widgets. In the meantime, we have identified several conceptual issues that your rich expertise and experience in widgets can help us resolve them.
May we ask you to kindly complete the following mini-survey for us.”
I love a flattering email as much as anyone else but I am afraid Effie seriously over rates my expertise. But she did conclude her email by saying “Please forward this message to those whom you think should respond to this survey as well”. So I am forwarding it to you, my blogreaders, in ther hope some of you can shine light on the questions Effie asks. Please just reply below and I will pass all answers on.
Here are the questions:
Q1. Questions about Portlets
1a) Please give your definition of portlets
1b) Please list specific characteristics (=attributes, properties) of portlets
1c) Please list specific features (=functionalities) of portlets
Q2. Questions about Widgets
2a) Please give your definition of widgets
2b) Please list specific characteristics (=attributes, properties) of widgets
2c) Please list specific features (=functionalities) of widgets
Q3. Please tell us, what do YOU consider as the major differentiator(s) between:
3a) Portlets and Widgets? (cf. Wikipedia on Web widget)
3b) Widgets and Java Applets? (cf. W3C Widget requirements)
Q4. Please share with us YOUR ideas how to evaluate:
4a) Portlets?
4b) Widgets?
I have many ideas floating around in my head at the moment. One is the notion of appropriation. Writing last weekend, Tony Hirst said the idea of appropriating technology could be important in at least two senses:
“Firstly, in the sense of us appropriating technologies that might have been designed for other purposes in order to use them in an educational context.
Secondly, in the sense of using appropriating technologies to sample, sequence and deliver education related performances,…..”
Interesting stuff. At a prgamatic level, I see little future outise institutions for purpose built educastiuonal technology. Such technology was developed essentially as platforms for consuming learning or knowledge. But the act of exproriation and repuposing technologies designed for other puposes could be seen as a active learning process in itself, overcoming the gap between the technologies and the content.
Last week Google annnounced Google Wave. It’s described as “a real-time communication platform which combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client”. John Naughton translates that as “a sophisticated set of tools enabling people to work collaboratively across the internet. And “real-time” means exactly that: in most cases what you type appears – as you type it – on other people’s screens.”
I can see Google Wave being rapidly appropriated for a future Personal Learning Environment.
I go through periods of having little new to say about Personal Learning Environments and times with many new ideas. I am at the moment in one of the latter periods – inspired by so many interesting talks at the European Technology Enhanced Summer School last week and at over the weekend at a meeting of the Mature-IP project partnership.
Here are a few of the things I have been thinking about (and will write about over the next two weeks):
Anyone care to add to this list?
Much as I enjoy doing presentations at conferences it does seem oh some Web 1.0 ish. So i am working on how to make such events a little more interactive. Twitter is great – if conference organisers can make available a second screen at events. At least then people can ask questions during the presentation (I always tell people they are free to interrupt me but they seldom do). I have messed with buzz groups during the presentation but this always seems a little artificial.
I like the presentation Dave Cormier did at the WIAOC conference last weekend. I wasn’t at it, neither have I watched the video but his community crowd sourced slides both provide a wealth of shared learning and give the impression the event was a lot of fun. For explanation of the idea behind it see his blog.
I am going to try doing something like that next week at the ProLearn Summer School in Zilina.
I have just been writing a long overdue abstract for my keynote presentation at the DFG Research Training Group E-Learning conference on Interdisciplinary approaches to technology-enhanced learning (IATEL) in Darmstadt in June.
I was not quite sure what to talk about – the overall theme I was given is Learning in Networks – from learning in the Network to the learning Network and back.
So I am crowdsourcing the abstract to blog readers. What have I missed out? What other ideas should I include? All contributors will get a citation on the final slide!
Abstract
Graham Attwell will look at the evolution of learning networks.
The presentation will also look at the development of educations systems and the spread of mass education through an industrial model with curriculum based on expert knowledge. He will go on to examine key issues including control at the level of content, institutions and curriculum.
The presentation will look at the changing ways people are learning and developing and sharing knowledge using Web 2.0 and social software tools. Such practice is facilitating the development of personal learning pathways and integration within dispersed communities if practice.
The presentation will examine recent ideas and theory about learning in networks including the idea of rhizomatic curricula and connectivism.
As learning networks become more important, the issue of digital identities is attracting more attention. How do individuals interact in learning networks and whet is the role of tools such as Twitter? How important is the idea of place within learning networks?
The presentation will consider how learning takes place in Personal Learning Environments drawing on the work of Levi Stauss on bricolage and Goffman’s dramatulurgical perspective.
Finally the presentation will consider the implication of ideas of learning in networks and Pe
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.
We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.