If you are interested in the ideas behind my presentation at Online Educa Berlin, I have written several papers around the theme of Web 2.0 and Personal Learning Environments.

One was posted in a previous entry on the Wales Wide Web here.

A more in depth exposition of the ideas is contained in a paper called ‘E-Learning und die soziale Gestaltung der Technik’ – “e-Learning and the Social Shaping of Technology”. I am trying to find an English version of this paper. for those of you who can read German here is the introduction to the paper and a link to a download for the full paper.

Der Diskurs um die “Wissensgesellschaft”, so wie er seit mittlerweile vier Jahrzehnten in der wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit geführt wird, war von Beginn an mit technikoptimistischen Annahmen verknüpft. Dabei haben in der Frühphase des Wissensgesellschaftsdiskurses die Sozialwissenschaften und die technisch ausgerichteten Wissenschaften wie Ingenieurswissenschaften oder Maschinenbau eine zentrale Rolle gespielt (Bell 1973). Während die technischen Anwendungswissenschaften mühelos nahezu jede Idee in die Praxis umzusetzen schienen, versprach man sich von den Sozialwissenschaften die Expertise, Gesamtgesellschaften so effizient steuern und planen zu können, dass selbst die kapitalistische oder real-sozialistische Verfasstheit der sozialen Einheiten eine untergeordnete Rolle spielte (Richta & Kollektiv 1972; Touraine 1972). Dieser technikoptimistische Zug hat sich bis heute gehalten, allerdings in stark modifizierter Form. Es sind nunmehr weniger die Wissenschaften selbst als die Potenziale der technisch vermittelten Medien, die die Fortschrittsprojektionen nachhaltig anregen. Eine überragende Bedeutung besitzt die Schlüsseltechnologie Computer im Zusammenhang mit dem Medium Internet. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag soll es um eine besondere Variante der Fortschrittsprojektionen gehen, die mit dem Computer und dem Internet verbunden werden: um das elektronisch gestützte oder elektronisch basierte Lernen, das so genannte E-Learning.
E-Learning ist eine relativ neue Technologie, und daher steckt auch die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Thema noch in den Kinderschuhen. Dennoch gibt es mittlerweile eine umfangreiche Literatur zum Thema, und Lernen mittels neuer Medien wird zunehmend als eigenständige Disziplin anerkannt. Die überwältigende Mehrheit der einschlägigen Studien, und zwar sowohl die affirmativen/optimistischen wie die skeptischen, ist jedoch, bezogen auf die Technologie selbst, deterministisch, d.h. befasst sich nur mit deren Potentialen und Auswirkungen auf Bildung und Lernen, anstatt auch umgekehrt die Einflüsse des Lernens und Lehrens auf die Technik ins Auge zu fassen.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht von der Annahme aus, dass sowohl die Technologien selbst als auch ihre Anwendungen durch politische und soziale Prozesse geformt werden. Wenn Lernen ein sozialer Prozess ist, dann muss jede Überlegung über die Entwicklung und die Auswirkungen des E-Learning und seiner Technologien auch die sozialen, ökonomischen und kulturellen Prozesse und Diskurse mit einbeziehen, welche an der Entwicklung und Implementierung der neuen Technologien im Bildungsprozess beteiligt sind.

Dieser Aufsatzgeht davon aus, dass drei dominante Diskurse die Entwicklung und Implementierung des E-Learning geprägt haben, nämlich zunehmende Warenförmigkeit und Privatisierung von Bildung sowie drittens ein verkürzter Diskurs über lebenslanges Lernen, welche ihrerseits wieder auf allgemeineren Diskursen rund um Globalisierung und die Privatisierung des Wissens basieren.
Der Artikel beinhaltet zum einen eine Auseinandersetzung mit verschiedenen Konzepten des E-learning, aber auch mit Konzepten des informellen Lernens, so wie sie sich im Diskurs über E-learning finden lassen. Ferner wird auf Ergebnisse empirischer Forschung zurückgegriffen, die im Rahmen internationaler, EU-finanzierter Projekte erfolgte. Diese Diskurse werden im folgenden nachgezeichnet um anschließend an einigen Beispielen zu zeigen,wie sie die Entwicklung und Anwendung von E-Learning-Technologien in den jeweiligen Anwendungsfeldern beeinflußt haben.
Die Entwicklung des Kapitalismus und kapitalistischer Gesellschaften jedoch stellt sich widersprüchlich dar, nämlich als dialektischer Entwicklungsprozess und als (Klassen-)Kampf. Obwohl also bestimmte Diskurse die derzeitige Periode des Kapitalismus sehr wohl dominieren und auch die Entwicklung der E-Learning-Technologien geprägt haben, gibt es alternative und widersprüchliche Trends. Einige Kommentatoren verweisen etwa auf das E-Learning als eine Technologie mit potentieller (sozialer) Sprengkraft. Außerdem mehren sich die Hinweise darauf, dass die Lernenden selber die Technologien in anderer Weise und für andere Zwecke als die ursprünglich vorgesehenen benutzen. Zur Illustration dieser Entwicklung werde ich auf die Ergebnisse einer von der EU-Kommission finanzierten Studie über den Gebrauch von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien beim Lernen in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen zurückgreifen. Abschließend wird der Aufsatz der Frage nachgehen, wie sich diese neuen Gebrauchsweisen von Technologie auf Bildung im digitalen Zeitalter und Möglichkeiten des Engagements in einer zivilen Gesellschaft auswirken könnten.

E-Learning und die soziale Gestaltung der Technik

OK – I screwed up on the export with the title. But still – I think – some useful ideas in this presentation on Personal Learning Environments.

plugin by rob

This may not be entirely new to readers of the old World Wide Web, I think I posted an early draft of this paper. Indeed, it has been six months in revsion. And now I have missed the deadline for publication. The paper was originally intended as part of an special edition of a soemwhat posha cademic journal. I thought they might protest at the content ideas. But no, the big problem was the referencing. One reviewer said: “I did, however, miss proper referencing in the first few parts of the paper. For example, the author is unlikely to have come up with the link between the societal demands of the industrial revolution and the organisational structure of the education system, but it looks as if that is what he claims.” Well I did. Honestly. But I am sure I am not the only one to have that idea and if anyone can come up with refercnces for me I would be very grateful. And also for any other feedback.

I have included the full text of ther paper in the extension to this post. But I have also linked it as an RTF file if you would prefer to download it.

The Social impact of Personal Learning Environments

1. Personal Learning Environments – cause and effect

Although the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a very new term, (van Harmalen (2006) argues the first recorded use of the term is November 4, 2004) the concept represents the latest step in an alternative approach to e-learning which can trace its origins to earlier systems such as Colloquia (reference) , the first peer-to-peer learning system (released as Learning Landscapes in 2000), and to more recent phenomena such as the Elgg system released in 2003 (reference). The PLE approach is based on a learner-centred view of learning and differs fundamentally from the alternative Learning Management Systems or Virtual Learning Environments approach both of which are based on an institution- or course-centred view of learning. Van Harmelen describes Personal Learning Environments as “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to

• set their own learning goals
• manage their learning; managing both content and process
• communicate with others in the process of learning
• and thereby achieve learning goals.”

He goes on to say: “a PLE may be composed of one or more subsystems: As such it may be a desktop application, or composed of one or more web-based services.”

Downes (2006) says “the heart of the concept of the PLE is that it is a tool that allows a learner (or anyone) to engage in a distributed environment consisting of a network of people, services and resources. It is not just Web 2.0, but it is certainly Web 2.0 in the sense that it is (in the broadest sense possible) a read-write application.” Important concepts in PLEs include the integration of both formal and informal learning episodes into a single experience, the use of social networks that can cross institutional boundaries and the use of networking protocols (Peer-to-Peer, web services, syndication) to connect a range of resources and systems within a personally-managed space. The ‘pedagogy’ behind the PLE – if it could be still called that – is that it offers a portal to the world through which learners can explore and create, according to their own interests and directions, interacting as they choose, with their friends and learning community. Seely Brown (1999) has drawn attention to the social nature of learning: “Learning becomes as much social as cognitive, as much concrete as abstract, and becomes intertwined with judgement and exploration.”

This paper examines the social impact of Personal Learning Environments. In so doing, it is difficult to separate cause and effect. Personal Learning Environments can be expected to have a profound effect on systems for teaching and learning, on pedagogic approaches to learning and on knowledge development and sharing. Conversely, the emergence of PLEs and the widespread interest in PLEs may be seen as a reaction to the changing ways in which people are using technology for learning, to new societal demands for education and to changing forms of knowledge usage within society.

Download rtf version of full paper

(more…)

Some people seem best with text, some with diagrammes. Me, I am a text person. I find it hard to understand the graphic representations. But, when I was working on a progress report on the development of Freefolio, I did adapt (or repurpose) an activity diagramme (originally produced by George Roberts for the Emerge project) to show the ideas behind Freefolio. If you are a visual kind of person, this may make sense to you.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have spent a lot of time over the last year working on e-Portfolios and Personal Learning Environments. And I get bored just talking about things, I like to do them.

So I jumped at the chance to develop and test an e-Portfolio system. This is the result – Freefolio. The development work has been undertaken by my friend Ray Elferink from Raycom in partnership with Pontydysgu.

Why didn’t we work with an existing system? We thought very hard about it. It seemed that many of the dedicated e-Portfolio systems were too restrictive. They started from an institutional definitions of what learning would be represents through the e-Portfolio. Others – like Mahara – seemed geared towards particular sectors in education. On the other hand many people were using blogging and social networking systems for e-Portfolio development. that was nearer my idea. However, we were concerned that the basic structure of a blog entry did not provide another support for reflecting on learning.

And so we came up with Freefolio. Freefolio is based on WordPress. Within this we have implemented structured blogging, allowing XML templates to be added to the dashboard for particular kinds of post.

The system also features:

a) A space of aggregating community posts – ‘Community Central’
b) An integrated discussion forum
c) A resource area – based on integration of media wiki
d) A learner profile area
e) Learner based access controls
f) User based sidebars through widgets
g) A standards compliant (Europass) CV with different formats for export

There is more work to do – isn’t there always – and we know this version may not support everything you want of an e-Portfolio. But it is Open Source and easily extendable.

Want to have a look? Go to http://demo.freefolio.net and set yourself up with an account (don’t worry if you get a rather strange name on the from field on the confirmation email – we will sort that as soon as Ray gets access to the server).

I have tried to populate the site with a little content. Please add some of your own. And tell us what you think.

We are planning to host Freefolio installations in the future for organisations who want this. And of course, we can build new features and customised versions.

But, if you want to install Freefolio yourself, we will be releasing the code in the very near future. And we will be developing a web site around the demo install. I will write more about Freefolio over the coming days. But now is the time to put it out, I think. Release often, they say.

Technorati Tags: e-portfolios, Open source, social software

plugin by rob

This presentation looks at the issues involved in the development of Personal Learning Environments.

Last month I spoke at a conference on Web 2.0 and learning organised by the Danish Knowledge Laboratory in Odense. And a great onfernce it was too. Made some good new friends and hope we will stay in touch.

I made a presentation on Personal Learning Environments and e-Portfolios. Anyway, they had a film crew at the conference and at lunchtime they interviewed me. They asked some hard questions – very good questions. And they have published the results on the web. You can watch the video here. Like the way they have done it with access to sections – anyone know how that is done?

This is a longish paper – about 7000 words – too long to post all off it in the blog. So I am posting here an exrpt with access to an RTF download of the full paper (perhaps I will post another excerpt tomorrow.

Have chosen to post the section on reflection – just because this issue seems to give everyone trying to work with e-Portfolios so many problems.

One curiosity about the paper is the references. I didn’t set out to do this but found in the course of reading for the paper that most of the interesting things I was reading were from blog posts. Is it juts the subject, is it me – or are things changing? Anyway the references include a couple of books, a good few conference papers, a video and a lot of blogs. And by the way – how do you reference someones comment on an Excite Comment Wall?

As always any feedback very welcome.

Facilitating Reflection

In projects and at conferences about e-portfolios, at some point the discussion seems always to turn to the issue of how to facilitate meaningful reflection.

Typical is the following blog entry by a teacher, John Pallister (2007a).Â

“We have begun work trying to encourage our students, 11- 18 year olds, to reflect on their learning and achievements. We are also encouraging them to record their thoughts and reflections as part of the review/reflection process. The review stage is informing the Action Planning stage, which again we are trying to get students to record.

It seems to me to be a Logical process, having done something, to review what you have done then to revise your original plan or create a new plan.

Early attempts have focussed on printed materials providing students with a number of prompts/questions which focus students on the review process. We have experimented with text based and audio/video formats for recording reviews/reflections. Early stages, not managed to find much help in terms of approaches that help/encourage/support students to reflect and record their reflections – still looking??

Although I am sure that having done something, all students will informally think or form some personal evaluation of their performance, I suspect that the review/reflection is at a very superficial level, perhaps enjoyed it, not going to do that again, did not do that very well, too difficult etc. If students walk away only having reflected at this level they will not have made the most of the learning opportunity.

The challenge is to somehow encourage students to spend more time on this reflection stage, exploring more what they have done/achieved. I suspect that this would help them to design more useful plans and, by thinking about their learning, become that elusive better learner.”

The problem may be that to move beyond the superficial requires intrinsic motivation. As such it is not possible to ‘teach’ someone how to reflect. However, it is possible provide learners with the skills required for reflection and to practice those skills and equally to provide a stimulus to encourage reflection (Buchberger, 2007)

Buchberger goes on to say: “I have my doubts about the usefulness of written reflection following certain prompts or guiding questions. We have been ‘forcing’ our teacher trainees to hand in written reflections on their performance in class each semester, which hasn’t proved very successful. It’s turned out to make much more sense if trainees, their mentors and the teaching practice supervisor (what a terrible word !) meet after class and in a very relaxed atmosphere analyse the lessons as “critical friends” (with a strong focus on friend !!). This is what we do regularly and trainees find it much more helpful than their written reflection papers. Perhaps – from time to time – a few notes summarizing such a talk might be a reminder and starting point for further student reflection. But again it should make sense for the student, not just to satisfy the teacher/trainer.

Stephen Warbuton (2007) attended a presentation given by a group at the University of the Pacific on ‘Dialogical Reflection in the Digital Age’. “Like many educators”, he says, “Jim Phillips and Erick Marmolejo, grappled with the nature of reflection – a term that often eludes definition. Their use of what they called ‘dialogic reflection’ was focussed around reflective activities based on a play between the academic vs. professional portfolios, the production of artefacts and samples accompanied by reflective statement with a summative assessment process slotted in right at the end. They identified general problems with the reflective process when situated within an educational context in that opinion-laden task lists do not get at the heart of the strength of reflection, feedback loops can be slow and not enough time is allocated to reflection which results in very little reflective speak (there is only play around reflective dialogue). As Kathleen Yancey points out in her book “Reflection in the writing classroom” – reflection is always a fiction where students write specifically to the needs of the tutor.

The key philosophy behind their methodology to reinvigorate the process of reflection lies in pushing tutors to unlearn traditional approaches to writing instruction paralleled with the use of reflection as a means to individualise instruction and personalise learning. “

Jenny Hughes has adopted a similar approach. In a video of a workshop she takes a group of adult learners through a process of providing constructive feedback to each other. Indeed, it is quite remarkable that adult teachers are not used to this process (Hughes, 2007). Her key point is that there are forms and structure and skills o providing feedback and in a similar way forms and structure to reflection. For learners these skills include:

•    Forming an opinion

•    Expressing and opinion

•    Articulating and opinion

•    Justifying an opinion

•    Defending an opinion

•    Supporting opinions of other

•    Challenging others’ opinions

•    Questioning others

•    Seeking clarification

•    Representing others opinions

•    Building on others’ opinions

•    Sorting fact from opinion

Each of these processes can be structured and supported within the e-portfolio development process. However, they also require skills on the part of the teacher or facilitator. These might include:

•    Facilitator skills

•    Active listening skills

•    Feedback skills

•    Intervention skills

•    Evaluation skills

Yet the practising of such skills or competencies or the embedding of such practice within everyday learning activities has implications for both pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning and to curriculum design and organisation. Facilitating reflection is not simple within a largely ‘input based’ curriculum where the main goal is to pass a series of prescribed examinations. The danger is that reflection is simply seen as irrelevant to the qualification driven motivation of many students within their school based learning (as opposed to outside school). Case studies undertaken through the MOSEP project suggest that development of reflection through e-Portfolios may work best in project-based learning and when reflection is linked to activities. It is interesting that in the Kit Car project case study (Attwell and Brandsma, 2006), the project was developed as an extra curriculum project and was not subject to the normal confines of curriculum and assessment rules.

It may also be that reflection is constrained by the dominant written form of evidencing within e-Portfolios. The widespread use of multi media is a feature of many of the social networking sites referred to earlier. Yet despite some attempts to encourage more use of multi media, most e-Portfolios remain text based, probably once more due to the demands of assessment policies. The issue of assessment will be explored further in the next section.

Firstly, apologies to those of you who have emailed me about different entries in this blog and have not yet had a reply. I am struggling with a mountain of work and will try to get back to everyone by the end of next week.

Over the weekend a worked on editing the paper I produced on Personal Learning Environments for the TenCompetence conference in Manchester in January. It is going to be published somewhere – not quite sure where. I had a bit of a struggle with the review notes.

The reviewer said “. The call was for papers of 2000 words, and while some degree of flexibility is acceptable, your paper is well over the limit. Please reduce the word count to 2500 excluding abstract and references.”

Hm – the original was 8000 words so certainly was over the limit.

But then she or he went on to say:”In making this revision please give greater prominence to the SME study, and discuss it in greater depth. If there are empirical findings, please present these in a well organised form, as they may provide a basis for defining the new pedagogy, activities and policies which you are seeking to define.”

A little tricky. But in the end quite helpful as it forced me to consider which were the really important arguments for the PLE. And my conclusion was that “The most compelling argument for the PLE is to develop educational technology which can respond to the way people are using technology for learning and which allows them to themselves shape their own learning spaces, to form and join communities and to create, consume, remix, and share material. ”

I’m copying the whole paper into this blog. Despite the blog software getting a bit creaky these days the print view does work quite sweetly. If you read the original there is not really anything new (although I have all the references properly done now) – if you didn’t (shame on you) then I would love to hear your comments.

Introduction

A recent article in Wired (Andrews, 2007) talked of “a shift from aging, top-down classroom technologies like Blackboard to what e-learning practitioners call personal learning environments – mashup spaces comprising del.icio.us feeds, blog posts, podcast widgets – whatever resources students need to document, consume or communicate their learning across disciplines.’

The article reflects the growing interest in the educational technology community in Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) as the next wave of innovation in Technology Enhanced Learning.

In previous papers I have sought to explain PLEs as a concept rather than as a technology based application. Such a concept is rooted in social and pedagogic development. In this paper I will briefly explore some of these developments and focus on the changing ways in which we are using technology for learning. This, I will argue, is the main driving force which should inform the shaping of next generation learning environments.

(more…)

In January I published an artcile entitled ‘Personal Learning Environments – the future of eLearning?‘ in the second edition of e-Learning Papers, a new journal published by elearningeuropa.

The online journal subsequently invited readers to ask me questions about the paper. Very fine questions they were too. I have just got round to answering the answers will no doubt appear on the elearningeuropa portal shortly.

But if you impatient here are the questions and the answers. Seriously – I think some of the issues are worthy of further discussion – although I am not quite sure of the best forum for this. Anyway – feel free to add your comments here.

Question: Michael Feldstein, author of eLiterate weblog, writes about e-learning predictions for this year 2007 and says: “…despite a ton of buzz in the edu-blogosphere and some merit, ‘e-Learning 2.0’ will only see limited success in terms of widespread diffusion.” Do you think this is realistic or pessimistic? Do you agree or disagree with him?

ma_moreau (France)

 

Answer: I’m not really sure what e-Learning 2.0 is or indeed if it a useful concept. But if he is referring to the use of social networking and social software applications for learning then I think he is most certainly wrong.

2007 will see increased adoption, experimentation and implementation of all manner of different software applications – most not designed for learning – to enable creativity and sharing. This includes the use of blogs, wikis, e-portfolios and social networking software.

True – the diffusion will probably be limited at institutional level. Institutions have invested a great deal of resource in Virtual Learning Environments. But we increasingly see not only students but teacher as well bypassing institutional systems to experiment with new applications for learning.

 

 

Question: You say “PLEs are not an application”. So, how can we actually set up our own PLE? And you, do you have your own PLE? If yes, could you explain how is it organized?

antonf (Italy)

 

Answer: As Jan Lai says in the question below: “PLEs are more a methodology or an approach to technology enhanced learning than an application.” However they do imply a movement away from seeing e-learning taking place within external spaces – e.g. institutional Virtual Learning Environments – to an understanding of learning taking place in wider contexts – both on and off line – and including the home and work as well as institutional courses. So rather than go to institutionally controlled spaces to record and reflect on learning, the learner will establish and manage their own space. Access to that space and interchanges that take place will be under the control of the learner rather than the institution.

Yes, I do have my own PLE, comprised of a ‘mash up’ of different desktop and web based applications I use for my everyday work and increasingly reliant on local and web based services. It isn’t particularly efficient and it has some pretty big gaps at the moment – but I hope to develop it further over the next year. Central to my PLE is the people I work with and the applications I use for communication with those people.

Question: Hello Graham. I’m involved in company training and in one of your presentations you claimed that social software can be used in workplaces for informal learning. Could you tell about this more in detail? What application you would recommend and how this kind of learning could be integrated to the formal training that the company carries out? Many thanks for your time!

jennyli (Norway)

 

 Answer: There are two approaches to this. One is to use social software attempt to encourage and facilitate informal learning in the workplace. regardless of curricula. The second is to use social software to extend the present formal training. And of course both approaches could be combined. Which approach is adopted does have implications for pedagogy and learning arrangements. If employees are encouraged to take part in informal learning – outside the context of formal programmes – and if the company wishes to recognise or certify that learning – then some form of Accreditation of Prior Learning will be needed.

Anyway, coming back to the software, wikis are being extensively used for collaborative documentation and exchange of ideas. My favourite is MediaWiki. Many companies are introducing social networking software for developing communication and facilitating the formation of Communities of Practice.  ELGG is a great application for this.

Web logs are another applications which can be used for individual to reflect on their learning from everyday experience. Web logs can also be extended to develop an e-portfolio, although this will require some support.

I read somewhere that IBM are encouraging employees to make podcasts and are excited by the wealth of informal knowledge being shared through the podcasts.

Question: Hi Graham, I would like to have your point of view on the effort by Bolton University to create a “all inclusive” PLE software. I have personally a very skeptical position towards the desire to transform an informal approach to e-learning (that’s how I see PLE: a methodology and not a software) into a “platform”. Do you see any future for such kinds of “formalization” of PLE?

Thanks a lot, Jan

Jan Lai (Italy)

 

Answer: Hi Jan, there is always a space for innovative, well thought out experiments in developing new applications. And who knows, PLEX may turn out to be a great tool. I suspect, though, it is more a proof of concept and research tool, than an application designed for mass use. As such I think this is fine, as long as it is seen as an application developed to support the idea of the PLE, rather than a tool which is the PLE.

Question: Dear Prof. Attwell, we are using a PLE (a mash up of ELGG, wiki and social bookmarking) for sharing knowledge inside my organization (a research center).  Do you think that PLE could be considered suitable in every context (schools, universities, workplace) and for all kind of competences? In which way do you think that PLE will affect the learning and training evaluation?

epanto (Italy)

Answer: It is interesting that you say you are using such a mash up for sharing knowledge. I think one of the developments which is inherent in my concept of the Personal Learning Environment is to close the gap between Knowledge Management and learning. It seems a little absurd that such a big gap has been allowed to develop in the first place. But as to your question – could a PLE be considered suitable for every context – I think that the key ideas behind the PLE – of user controlled learning – is suitable for every context. Of course how it is introduced, the form and organisation of the PLE and the amount fo help that learners will require will differ greatly. And yes, I think it is suitable for all kinds of competences. However, once more, we have to recognise that the pedagogic approach and the form of the PLE may well differ according to subject or competence. A PLE could be used very differently for studying history or for learning to become a carpenter. But the principles are the same.

Question: Hi Graham. Today many elearning experts are talking about Immersive Learning Simulations, Rapid Interactivity tools,  Games, learning interactions, etc. How would you relate these with Personal Learning Environment?

sarus (Germany)

 

Answer: In much the same way as I see anything else working as part of a Personal Learning Environment. I don’t really understand why people are getting so excited about the use of games. After all we have always used games in learning – quizzes and competitions are hardly new. true – we are only just beginning to develop the use of on-line games and environments. But that is just because we have been very slow in developing new pedagogic approaches to e-learning. I have said before that I think the introduction of e-learning led to a reverse in pedagogic innovation. We are just getting back on track now. As for immersive environments, I think there is considerable potential. But if I look at much of what is being developed in Second Life, it is not very inspiring. We are in danger of recreating the traditional lecture theatre – the only difference being that our avatar attends instead of us in person. I also worry a little about who is managing these environments and for what purpose. I do not think that MTV, for example, has a great interest in learning. And many of these environments require considerable bandwidth and modern computers with a  fast graphic card. Nevertheless the developments here are definitely worth following.

Question: Dear professor Attwell, I’m involved in the “Personal EU” organisation concept: www.personaleu.eu. How do you see the challenges of the initiative as a step towards an European “dream team” society?

takapiru (Finland)

 

Answer: Hi – I certainly like your ideas around developing intercultural networks and I appreciate the variety of different social software tools that you are using to do it. However, I am not quite sure I understand the idea of the Personal EU.  

I tend to think that knowledge is best shared and developed through communities of practice. Communities of practice as Etienne Wenger says are based on a shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artefacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

Whilst the EU may style itself as a community it most certainly is not a community of practice. As such I am slightly sceptical about developing the kind of people based portal you appear to envisage. Of course it may be that I have misunderstood your ideas.

For me a dream team society would be one that rather than seeking the highest levels of implementation of information technology sought to eradicate poverty and inequality. But perhaps I am just old fashioned!