The Wales-Wide Web

This is in danger of turning into a travel blog.

Am on 14th floor of some bloody hotel in Istanbul. And I have flu. And it is cold and wet. Had thought with a Monday meeting in Athens and a Friday meeting in Istanbul that there was little point in returning north and that I would enjoy a few days in the sun. Sitting out in cafes and doing a little sightseeing.

Since I arrived in Athens on Sunday the weather it has not stopped raining. And I have a hole in my shoe. And I have flu. Ah well - am feeling a bit better this evening and at least the hotel has a free ethernet (unlike the place we were in in Utrecht last week which in addition to the 120 Euro overnight cost wanted 5 Euro per for for access to their wireless network). (I will name name and shame - its just I've forgotten the name at the moment).

I am in Istanbul for the start up meeting of the TOSSAD project on Open Source Software. Funded the the European Union, the following summary is taken from the project application.

From Scott Wilson's Workblog:

Bit of a throw away remark by Scott in his work web log but one I think is immensely important.

“First of all, I'm afraid I'm going to have to introduce a new bit of terminology. From now on instead of courses I'm going to talk about shared learning contexts (SLCs). Courses are a good word to describe a lot of things in formal education, but isn't broad enough to cover similar groups of functionality in informal settings, so this is a new term to cover anything that provides a space where a group of people engage in learning, whether informal or formal, and wether (sic) or not there is any sort of assessed outcome.”

EducationGuardian.co.uk | News crumb | Software glitches hit hundreds of schools:

Oh dear, oh dear. Here's me plodding along, really thinking that the use of ICT for learning can be a tool for personal liberation and enrichment. And here is the UK ******* government, issuing edicts on the use of ICT to police students. ID numbers, checks on homework, up to the hour reports on punctuality and all the rest. And I thought it was about pedagogy and learning.

The Education Guardian report says:

"The strategy also says that every pupil should have their own webspace to publish examples of their work so that employers, universities and their parents can check on their progress. The "electronic portfolio" would document all their achievements at school or college and provide examples of their work.

An online portal will be created as a one-stop shop for information for pupils, their parents, and people working in schools to gain access to information about education and training.

Ministers are also considering how data on pupils could be streamlined so each has an identification number throughout their school, college and university career which would allow them to keep a record of their schooling, as they change institution or slip in and out of education.

The document tries to draw together what it says has been a "haphazard" growth of the use of "e-learning" in schools and to set new standards for schools to work towards.

While some schools are now ploughing ahead with online submissions of homework and up-to-the-hour reports on pupil attendance and punctuality for parents, others are still failing to provide good basic lessons in information communication technology."

Last week I was in San Sebastian for a meeting of the ERNACT Network.

According to the Ernact web site, "Derry City Council and Donegal County Council established ERNACT EEIG (European Economic Interest Grouping) in 1990 as a joint crossborder subsidiary of both local authorities. Its objectives were to enable both council areas to co-operate on the theme of communications technology and the emerging information society.

Since then ERNACT has evolved into a network of regions comprising the Province of Zeeland (NL), Region of Cantabria (E), City of San Sebastian (E), Region of Olomouc (Cz) Borough of Wirral (UK) and City of Derry, County Donegal and County Galway (IRL)" although I think there are now more regions involved.

"At 1999's Interregional Management Committee Meeting the ERNACT Regions agreed on a new mission statement: 'The ERNACT regions have a pretentious mission statement I won't embarrass them by printing but lets say they are committed to providing information services through local government regions.

It seems that at each meeting of the network they organise a seminar around a key theme in the use of ICT. This meeting the them was e-learning and I was one of there invited speakers, together with Sergio Abramovich from the Catalonia Open University and Josu Aramberri form the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain.

Having been to a series of difficult and dull events lately, I was not bursting with joy at the thought of yet another meeting. Still Ihad promised I woul.d go. And it was even 12 degrees and the sun was shining plus the hotel was sup[reb and I had a great room overlooking the beach. So things were looking up. Perhaps my luck had changed.

And to be truthful it turned to one of the more interesting and thought provoking meetings I have been to in some time. I had agreed to speak on something around pedagogy and e-learning - although the title was "From a tool for the few to availability for all". And likewise - although the other speakers also had long designated titles - they tended to focus on the pedagogic aspects of the use of ICT.

So much so that I wonder if on the one hand we are fast moving to some kind of consensus in direction for e-learning development amongst researchers - based on new pedagogic approaches, on standards based modular software applications etc - but at the same time are moving ever further from the vendors and implementations in major institutions.

So what was so good about the seminar (apart from the hotel and the weather)?

First the vision and commitment of the participants. But even more their approach - coming from ways to provide learning opportunities in their regions. It seems to me that we are seeing different emergent forms of organising learning. How much this is down to the influence of e-learning I am not sure - or how much it is due to the very real pressures for more extended access to learning throughout peoples life-cycles and throughout the community.

local governments are very well placed to coordinate the new and emergent networks. Additionally local governments can bring together the 'learning' and the 'cultural' agendas- and the 'cultural is particularly important in developing e-learning materials.

Finally - and this may be my own political bias showing here - but I think that the effective privatization of much of e-learning - through private companies, corporate universities etc. - has contributed to the poor learning experiences so often reported. Local governments have some claims to representing communities and to democracy - I think a healthy dose of local democracy could be very good for e-learning.

I could go on...but I have already been writing this post for ten days - below I list a summary of the findings of the short group work sessions - they are interesting in reflecting the concerns of many at the meeting. Also at the bottom of this post I attach my two presentations to the conference - the first on pedagogy and e-learning and the second on new networks for the organisation of (e)-learning.