The Wales-Wide Web

This is the introduction to a new paper I have written for a forthcoming book. The paper is mainly focused on how employees in SMEs are using ICT technologies for informal learning in totally unexpected ways. This excerpt looks at different policy discourses in learning and suggests these policy discourses have shaped the form of e-learning as it is presently developed.

E-learning is a young technology and the study of e-learning is equally in its infancy. Despite this there is by now an extensive literature on the subject and learning technology is increasingly recognised as a discipline in itself. However the overwhelming majority of these studies, from both proponents and sceptics, have been technologically determinist, based on the potentials and effects of technologies on education and learning, rather than looking at the influence of learning and teaching on technology (Attwell et al).

The hypothesis which this paper is based on is that the forms and uses of technologies are shaped by political and social processes (Rauner, Heidegger). If learning is a social process (Young), then any consideration of the development and impact of e-learning and e-learning technologies needs to examine the wider social, economic and cultural processes and discourses involved in the development and implementation of new technologies in education.

Technorati Tags: education and training research, informal_learning, knowledge development, pedagogy

Regular readers of this web log will know that I am somewhat obsessed with informal learning and have been wrestling in my mind once more over definitions and meanings.

Definitions of informal and non formal learning are problematic and contested. Helen Colley, Phil Hodkinson and Janice Malcom have undertaken an extensive review of literature on this subject. In the review they identified eight different theoretical models of informal or non formal learning. They suggest the following factors as being common in many if not all of the definitions:

• “Process. This includes learner activity, pedagogical styles and issues of assessment: that is, the learning practices, and the relationships between learner and others (tutors, teachers, trainers, mentors, guides).
• Location and setting. Is the location of the learning within a setting that is primarily education, community or workplace? Does the learning take place in the context of: fixed or open time frames; is there specified curriculum, objectives, certification; etc.
• Purposes. Is the learning secondary to other prime purposes, or the main purpose of itself? Whose purposes are dominant – the learner’s, or others’?
• Content. This covers issues about the nature of what is being learned. Is this the acquisition of established expert knowledge/understanding/practices, or the development of something new? Is the focus on propositional knowledge or situated practice? Is the focus on high status knowledge or not?”

In reality the debate seems overly academic and driven by dominant discourses in education and training policy. The distinctions between formal and non formal learning seem more often driven by finding regime requirements than by the nature of the learning itself. However there is a very big political interest in informal learning. If informal learning could be systematised it could be a cost effective route to increasing training. However in order to do this it is felt necessary to be able to measure the learning taken place - in other words to formalise that learning. Much of the political thrust is not - as it claims to be about recognised learning - but to controlling learning through a system of accreditation. In other words the concern is to develop an exchange value to learning which at present is seen only as having use value. That is not to say that exchange values are only in the interests of employers and policy makers. In an insecure labour market exchange values are important for workers. However present proposals and mechanisms to establishing exchange value are based on identifying equivalents within frameworks linking informal learning to formally acquired qualifications seem more likely to constrain rather than advantage the use and status of informal learning. A better approach might be to recognise the use value of informal learning through profiling learning in non-constrained (e)-portfolios. Such an approach would provide a major move to leaner driven learning where all learning is valid rather than only recognising that learning supported by qualification frameworks.
There is a major issue in distinguishing between information seeking and learning. Assessment or testing has traditionally been seen as a means of assuring that learning has taken place. How effective assessment is as a measurement of learning may be contested. It may be more fruitful to examine the nature of activities resulting from informal learning as a means of validation. Activities identified in a series of recent case studies of the use of ICT for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises were:

a)Purposeful
b)Heavily influenced by context
c) Often resulted in changes in behaviour
d) Were sequenced in terms of developing a personal knowledge base
e) Problem driven or driven by personal interest
f) Social – in that they often involved recourse to shared community knowledge bases through the internet and / or shared with others in the workplace.

To me this proves that learning was taking place, even if there was no teacher or trainer, no tests and no certificates!

Technorati Tags: e-learning, e-portfolios, informal_learning, non formal learning, nonformal_leaarning

Don't know how I missed this one. Even if I am more interested in informal learning than in institutionally driven courses, and even if I am expecting Personal Learning Environments to take over form institutionally driven portal and VLEs it is important to know what is going on in the real world.

VLE Surveys : A longitudinal perspective between March 2001, March 2003 and March 2005 for Higher Education in the United Kingdom is written by Martin Jenkins, Tom Browne and Richard Walker was released in December.

It is a wonderfully detailed piece of work with much in depth analysis. (For those of you unfamiliar with UK education-speak pre 92 institutions are the 'old' universities with post 92 institutions being the old Polytechnics and Higher Education colleges that were upgraded to university status.)

The main conclusions are:

1. Uptake of VLEs has continued to increase, with HE colleges now on a par with pre- and
post-92 institutions.

2. The number of VLEs in use at a given institution is beginning to decrease, but with pre-92
universities still displaying the greatest diversity.

3. Blackboard and WebCT continue to dominate. Other proprietary software is declining but
there is an increase in in-house and open source approaches.

4. Post-92 universities demonstrate the biggest increases in use by both students and staff.

5. Access to course material continues to account for the greatest VLE usage, but particularly in post-92 universities, there is increasing usage that is not merely supplementary (i.e. optional for students). Usage is conspicuous across a very wide range of subjects.

6. Central IT continues to dominate technical support. Elsewhere, dedicated VLE units appear to be absorbing the support previously provided more diversely.

7. The integration of VLEs with MLEs has increased both in range of activities and in depth. In particular, there is a substantial increase in the creation of student account files for transfer to a VLE. But there is limited progress in integration with portal development and e-portfolios.

8. Strategy and decision making are becoming ever more consolidated centrally and are being substantially informed by external agencies. But there is also an increase in local
consultation. E-learning and VLEs are increasingly being cited in strategy documents.

9. Learning and teaching activities are consolidated as the primary drivers for considering
using a VLE. Specialised support such as that required for distance learners and students
with special needs are identified as significant factors but have as yet had little impact on the
character of resource provision.

10. Availability of funding is now the primary stimulant to VLE development, and a small
percentage of this is still as project funding, though assured institutional funding now
dominates.

11. Perceptions regarding the use of career enhancement as a means of encouraging VLE usage are very low, but there is an increase in expectation that VLEs will be used by staff.

12. Standards are neither seen as supportive nor as barriers, indeed, they have negligible
influence.

13. Most institutions are not yet using innovative technologies such as wireless and mobile
phones, though post-92 universities are most active in this area.

14. The requirement to implement Personal Development Planning is beginning to have a small but noticeable impact on VLE usage. The development of e-portfolio capabilities is an
emerging concern for HEIs.

I must say I am quite surprised and heartened by the increase in institutions reporting in-house development and deployment of VLEs. It seems to me that this is what could really drive innovation. Also interesting to see the number of institutions citing student expectations as a major stimulus to development. And very interesting that VLEs now seem to be well integrated within institutional strategies although I am less sure that the centralisation of decision making and planning is such a good thing.

OH and very heartening to see Boddington and Moodle making an impression

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!

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, e-learning, informal_learning, knowledge development, non formal learning, nonformal_leaarning, Small and Medium Enterprises, social software

The fourth paradigm:

Ah ha - someone else has got it. Quote form Clive on Learning at some length not only because he is saying what I have been ranting on about for the last six months but also because he says it so much more eloquently than me.

"The fourth e-learning paradigm is learners doing it for themselves.

I say 'learners' but it's hard to identify them as such - they don't wear school uniforms and sit neatly in rows behind their desks. Learners in this context are just people looking to get things done and using their initiative to overcome any obstacles in the way (like being short of information or not knowing how to go about doing something). They can do this because they have been empowered by software tools that are incredibly easy to use yet awe-inspiring in their potential. First port of call is of course Google - not a new phenomenon, but one that plays an increasingly important role in everyday life. You will buy books, watch TV documentaries, consult with experts, even go on training courses, but only if you can't find what you need on Google.

But Google's not enough, because with Google you're still essentially a passive recipient; you are not in a position to challenge or debate. More importantly, you don't have the opportunity to publish your own thoughts and opinions, to become a provider as well as a recipient. With the new tools, everyone's a publisher, everyone's a teacher. As we enter 2006, there are something like 30 million blogs like this one, with more than 30 thousand being discovered daily. Blogs allow people like you and me to publish our thoughts and experiences to whoever will take notice. They allow us to make contact with others who are facing similar challenges and who may be able to provide us with help. They expose us to the broadest possible range of views and perspectives, often in stark contrast to the 'official view' or the hysterical outpourings of the mass media."

Technorati Tags: e-learning, non formal learning, work based learning

Great quote in a post by Konrad Glogowski on the Blog of Proximal Development. The post called Tools Interiorized quotes Walter J. from Orality and Literacy. (pp. 82-83) in saying:

"Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life but on the contrary enhances it. The fact is that by using a mechanical contrivance, a violinist or an organist can express something poignantly human that cannot be expressed without the mechanical contrivance. To achieve such expression of course the violinist or organist had to have interiorized the technology, made the tool or machine a second nature, a psychological part of himself or herself. … Such shaping of a tool to oneself, learning a technological skill, is hardly dehumanizing. The use of a technology can enrich the human psyche, enlarge the human spirit, intensify its interior life."

Konrad goes on to say "I believe in 'shaping of a tool to oneself.' I believe that learning is tools interiorized and thoughts made visible. I believe that blogging classrooms are helping us get there."

He is right. But it is not just a question of individual shaping. It is a question of communities shaping and controlling the tools they use. In the case of education, its is for the entire community to shape the development of educational technology. And that is not so easy. Much as brilliant and innovative teachers like Konrad work to provide tools for their students to shape for expressing their ideas, the politicians and the e-learning industry has different ideas.

Their idea is to develop managed and standardised environments where learning is consumed not created.

So what we see is contradictory developments and pressures. Most educators claim that they are implementing constructivist pedagogies. In reality constructivism is limited. reports on digital literacy talk of the importance of creativity whilst systems administrators block access to blogs. We all talk of interoperability but interoperability is largely a dream.

Having said all this I remain optimistic. But we need to think about this issue of how communities can shape elearning more.

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, knowledge development, technology

Last post for the day - I deserve a beer.

Just has an interesting chat on the phone with Dave Tosh. He was saying one of the problems with blogs is the isolation. Many people get few readers and even less comments or track backs.

That is fine if the idea of the blog is as a personal diary or a place to record ideas - essentially for yourself. But many people start blogs with a more social intention - of joining the blogging community. The problem is that the community is not so easy to join.

This may explain why initiatives like EduCause, Edublogs and Elgg have been so successful - because they provide a community as well as blogging tools.

I am more than ever convinced that learning often takes place through integration in communities of practice. The sites above are not yet communities if practice as such. But they point towards how we might use social software to support communities of practice.

Moer to come on this...

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, e-learning, edublogs, informal_learning, non formal learning, pedagogy

There are all kinds of difficulties in defining what is 'suitable' content for children and what 'child friendly' means.

My friends at my local Welsh club in Pontypridd - Clwb-y-Bont seem to have it cracked. they have sent me a message about the first of the annual rugby internationals - always a popular afternoon at the Clwb.

"Also the front bar, for the first game at least will be 'child friendly' to this end there will be no smoking and no swearing 1hr before the game and half an hour after."

So now you know

I have spent a lot of time arguing that the debate over differences between informal and formal learning is overly academic and misses the reality that all is learning (see previous post).

I am particularly interested in how to support informal learning using Information and Communciation technology. In this regard it is important to identify differences and and how they might effect the development of educational technology.

Four differences stand out for me.

The first is the importance of context. Although some formal learning is context dependent to a degree - particularly occupational or vocational learning - much education is virtually context free. Informal learning, on the other hand is heavily contextual - why I am learning something, where I am learning something, with whom I am learning it, when I am learning it and where I will apply it.

Secondly, whilst formal learning remains largely structured by traditional subject or disciplinary boundaries, informal learning does not in general respect such borders.

Similarly, formal learning tends to be scaffolded by well worked progression routes, building on previous learning. Informal learning may build on previous knowledge, but will often proceed in different ways. rather than build blocks of learning. Learners may acquire higher level learning and then fill in the gaps.

Finally, whilst formal learning is generally sequenced through course times and structures informal learning appears to be episodic with period of intense activity punctuated by periods of inactivity.

Will write another post on what this means for designing and developing educational software

Technorati Tags: e-learning, education and training research, informal_learning, non formal learning, work based learning

Wilfred has replied to my previous post on Blogging and Communities. I said "Learning is a social activity. Blogging does not, on its own, support the social aspect of learning - neither does it support communities of practice...initiatives like EduCause, Edublogs and Elgg have been so successful - because they provide a community as well as blogging tools. " (See also Dave's comments on this post)

Wilfred goes on to say: "the problem with traditional communities of practices is imho the lack of ownership. A network of weblogs of people with a common interest could be a good alternative.

Furthermore you could argue that weblogs are great tools for individual reflection which is necessary for learning as a social activity...... If our communities shall succeed, we need to create ownership, passion and a sense of urgency."

This raises many more questions about the nature of communities of practice and issues we need to resolve in a practical and applied sense.

Ettiene Wenger defines Communities of practice as follows:

"Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly."

He goes on to qualify this with three further 'critical characteristics".

"The domain: A community of practice ... has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.

The community: In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. A website in itself is not a community of practice.

The practice: Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction."

Firstly, I do not understand what wilfred means when he talks about a problem with lack of ownership of communities if practice. Of course lots of management consultants have jumped on the bandwagon and are claiming to build communities of practice 'for' the practitioners. But if you accept Ettienne Wenger's definition these are not really communities of practice as such.

Now back to the blogging question. Yes - I am sure blogging can provide the passion. But are trackback, categories and tagging enough for a "shared competence" and "shared practice'". Remember the blogging is not the practice - it is just a means of communication. I really don't think networks of blogs, on their own, are enough.. I think we have to go far further in developing tools which allow people to communicate in a way which expresses elements of the nature of the practice. Blogging standards will, I suspect, play a big part. But we are not there yet.

More to come.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, edublogs, education and training research, eportfolio, European_projects, Small and Medium Enterprises, social

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Inside IT: Breaking down class barriers:

Interesting snippet from the Guardian (shame they do not reference the studies):

"At this feast, there is a skeleton: the lack of solid evidence showing that IT actually improves education. Some international research suggests the opposite. A University of Munich study of secondary pupils in 32 countries reported in 2004 that, while at first sight students with access to computers at school and at home do better than those without, this advantage disappears when other factors such as family income are taken into account.

The study also found that while students who used computers occasionally did better than those who did not, those who used them several times a week generally performed worse. The study followed earlier Israeli research showing that IT did not improve test scores."

Gets even more interesting when you look at the wording of a recent Becta job advert: "You will manage research projects to determine how ICT has improved management and raised young people's attainment levels."

It seems Becta has already made up its mind!

The problem is largely political but it has very real repercussions. At least in the UK, the Government wishes to justify the growing expenditure on IT infrastructure in schools on improving attainment, somewhat narrowly defined as test results.

There is little evidence that ICT alone does this. The wider benefits of educational technology, in term of students learning how to used and shape information technology is ignored. So too is the pedagogy of ICT based learning. Meanwhile as the Guardian suggests the real winners may be suppliers rather than pupils.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, pedagogy

Auricle:
Interesting interview by Derek Morrison with oleg Liber. Well worth listening to the podcast.

I agree with most of what Oleg says. But I think he still gets it wrong in focusing on the impact of Personal Learning environments from an institutional point of view. To me the big potential is for PLEs to reach the learning other applications have failed to - including work based learning and informal learning.

Derek says: 'Despite years of development, the current generation of VLEs provide tools primarily for teachers, administrators, and system lords, not students. That doesn't fit easily with our protestations of concern with the student experience and in being student centred."

He goes on: "The Liber analogy of the supermarket is an interesting one, i.e. as 'customers' we can choose to shop in many shops so that when one doesn't meet our needs we can move to another one. Of course the problem may be that we don't really view students as customers at all, but more as the 'product' to be managed, and so we increasingly tend towards building a monopoly Wal-Mart and closing down the smaller competition. The alternative of giving students tools which interoperate to manage their own learning may just be too uncomfortable, just too disruptive of the status quo."

I think all the analogies are wrong here. We do not want more commodifcation of learning but less. Learner centred learning does not have to be tied to competition. PLE's have the potential to allow learners to control their own learning. the point is not competition between institutions but allowing learners to shape their own interactions and learning to suit their needs.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, Personal_Learning_Environments

The debate on personal learning environments is taking off. See this contribution by Terry Anderson.

But, like Oleg, Terry misses miss the point. he is right to see PLEs as a disruptive technology, as a technology which threatens formal learning ...entrenched in Learning management Systems.

Counterpoising PLEs to LMS systems is interesting - at least form a management ands curricular point of view.Still as Oleg makes clear the two can live side by side.

There are three main reasons for the importance of PLEs.

the first is in providing learning systems for the vast majority of people who are not enrolled on formal learning programmes.

The second is in recognising and helping learners organise informal learning. I read somewhere recently - I cannot remember where and I have no evidence it is true - that 90 or so per cent of funding is spent on formal learning - whilst 90 per cent or so of learning is informal. It feels about right. PLEs can help people recognise their own informal learning and organise that learning.

PLEs also allow people to form their own (transitory) networks for learning. Learning is a social activity and takes place in communities of interest and communities of practice. Wilfred points out rightly that in many on-line learning communities learners have too weak a sense of ownership. PLEs can provide that ownership.

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, e-learning, e-portfolios, eportfolio, informal_learning, Personal_Learning_Environments

I am writing a proposal for the European Leonardo da Vinci programme which is why there are few posts of late. Proposal writing deadens the brain.

As you would expect there are endless documents to plough through - guides for proposers, administrative handbooks and so son. There is also something called "Labour Cost by profile per day, selection 2006 - Euro".

This provides the maximum allowable day rate per country.

It's pretty revealing stuff - given all the hot air about a social Europe.

The maximum for a a manager in Sweden is 480 Euro, in the UK 408 Euro. IN Romania it is 72 Euro and in Bulgaria just 28 euro. In ireland an administrative worker can claim 328 Euro - in estonia 30 and Bulgaria 13 Euro.

This is not right. How can we build communities of practice which include such gross inequalities?

Technorati Tags: European_projects, polictics of education

Sorry if any of you have been getting stupid spam instead of this blog for the last few days. The domain registration body, registerfly, made a total mess of the domain renewal and took three days to correct what they admitted was their own mistake.

Any of you who are thinking about what domain registration organisation to use, draw your own conclusions

Stephen says this has been listed throughout the edublogosphere. I do not care. I will also list it. First, the edublogosphere is a small world - second the long tail is indeed long.

So check it out - a rare example of social software + learning + creativity. Love it.

Q&A: Keri Facer, Director of Learning Research, Nesta Futurelab | eGov monitor

I've been meaning to post this for some time. this is a great interview with Keri Facer from NestaFutureLab in Bristol. Keri sets out a vision of the future development of ICT for learning.

She concludes "I'd love to see an education sector that was open to new ideas, to asking hard questions about its practice in local settings, to learning with others in their communities and subject specialisms, to sharing their learning freely across all schools and to rigorously evaluating how these ideas played out in practice. This means that teachers and heads would be able to innovate and act as designers and researchers of learning in their own schools and classrooms and confident in sharing this with others - they would then be able to adapt to changing social, technical and economic contexts in ways that meet the needs of children in their communities."

The question keri avoids, though, is how we get from here to there. UK schools have one of the most centralised and restrictive curriculums in Europe. there is limited freedom for teachers to experiment. Learners have little control over their own learning.

Keri appeals for a "mature and much wider public debate". Fine - but is this enough?

The schooling system will change - the pressures are building up and something will have to give. But what and how and how to manage that process is becoming one of the most pressing questions for those concerned with the future of education and the future use of educational technology.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, pedagogy, people,, polictics of education