The social shaping of technology: learners take control of their own learning environments

06-January-2006

[ ICT and learning , e-learning in Small and Medium Enterprises , social software , Non Formal Learning ]
Despite the political discourse of commodification and consumerisation shaping the development of e-learning, workers and students are using everyday software tools - and increasingly social software - to develop and control their own learning spaces.

Ok - Stuart Yeates thinks my blog on Commodification and the Shaping of e-learning was pessimistic. It may appear so but was not intended as such.

It is the opening excerpt from a paper I have written for a book to be called (I think)

"Die 'Wissensgesellschaft": Mythos, Ideologie oder Realität".

The whole argument goes something like this.

e-Learning has been shaped by dominant political discourses in education - namely consumerisation and privatisation. However implementing those discourses is not so simple. Whilst the consumer driven approach to e-learning may have some sway in the corporate market, the values run counter to the natural values of the education system. This is why we see so much debate and controversy over e-learning in education. Where they have tried to introduce the model and values per se - eg the UK e-Learning University it has failed. In contrast the traditional distance universities like the Dutch and UK Open Universities have been much more successful because they already had a strong ethos and value system based not on consumerism but on distance education.

In vocational education and in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) ICT based learning has made little impact. the value systems and the pedagogic approaches based on technology centred development stand in total contradiction to how people learn.

Whilst there is little evidence of any take up of 'official' e-learning in the SME sector, there is much evidence that people are using computers and ICT to learn - through informal learning. This is happening through participation in distributed communities of practice. the major 'learning programme' is Google. This is in line with writings from Lave and Wenger about communities of practice and with Vygotsky's theory of Legitimate Peripheral Integration.

I predict that social software will increasingly be used for learning in the future. Social software allows learners to develop and control their own learning environment, outside the control freakery of institutional LMS, VLEs and portals

Thus, although existing e-learning products have been shaped through political discourses, the future of e-learning may come to be shaped by people taking software tools and application and shaping them for their own learning.

Not so pessimistic!

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Graham Attwell; 06-January-2006 14:54:44;