The Wales-Wide Web

There's an interesting (sort of) and confusing discussion going on on one of the Becta mailing lists.

Ray Tolley asked of anyone could tell him the total spend On ICT in education in the UK.

The most useful of the responses, he says, "came from Richard Selwyn, Project Manager, Becta ... which, when adding all the separate figures together points up a total spend this next year of £860m for 2007-2008. As a proportion of the
£34bn total education budget reported in the Guardian that makes a 2.53% spend on ICT. This compares with the US in 1998 when the figure was identified by Anderson and Becker as 2.7% ..".

It has been suggested in later posts that the Becta figures may only be spend in england and so for the UK as a whole the percentage would be higher.

My question is what does it mean? How important is the total (and percentage) invested in ICT? Of course computers are useful for computer supported learning. But investment in professional development for teachers may pay a higher dividend for learning than investment in more machines.

I am much taken by a comment by Scott last week: "...we have entered an era of connected media. Connected media does not contain interaction; instead content items are nodes in a network of connections that are the focus of interaction. The content is inside-out. The hot content today is not interactive - Flickr/Photobucket, YouTube, iTunes, RSS feeds all feature non-interactive content, yet the content is highly connected via layers of interlinked metadata (del.icio.us, technorati, recommendations, hyperlinks, comments...)."

Of course he is right. And it is pretty easy to understand the implications in terms of how we work and learn and in how we develop e-learning content. It is less easy to work out how it effects how we report on our work. On the one hand our work will not be in one place - it will be scattered across different media and on different web sites. Last year we started looking at some of the implications of this in a seminar called 'How Dude, where's my Data'. NB I have finally got together a wiki documenting at least some of the outcomes of that seminar.

But students are still assessed largely on the outcome of their learning and in terms of their competence. Not - here are my connections - but here is something I have done and here is something I claim I can do. This is far less easy to document in terms of network nodes.

It may be that the e-Portfolios of the future will have to be based far more on process than merely outcomes - more here is something I claim I am competent to do and here is the interactions I have made which allows me to say this - rather than here is a thing I have made which allows me to claim I am competent.

I still feel that competence is a difficult concept pedagogically and am worried that educational technologists will see competence as a mere unproblematic taxonomy. This matters. If we are to develop and implement e-Portfolios - let alone Personal Learning environments - we have to get clear on these issues.

In the discussions I am having over e-Portfolios there is increasing agreement of the use of blogging type applications as a way of recording learning progress. There is also an awareness of the power of personal networks for peer feedback as an aid to reflection. BUT - and it is a big but - institutions and e-Portfolio providers still (naturally) want some way of representing achievement. How can we do this dynamically? Perhaps competence looks more like a tag cloud or a mind map than a 'skills journal'.

One of the reasons I like blogging is the opportunity to share work in progress. In this case it really is work in progress. I am writing a paper on Open Content and Open Educational Resources for the CODATA conference to be held in Beijing later this month.
One of my issues with the Open Content / Open Knowledge debate is that it is hardly new. So what is innovative about the whole idea. This is what I have juts written. Be interested in any comments.
"Open Content, or Open Educational Resources, is hardly a new idea. Indeed it could be said that everyday teaching involves the open sharing of knowledge ideas and content. Furthermore, much of scientific development through publicly funded universities has been premised on the sharing of research and research outcomes with often elaborated cultural and social processes for both assuring the quality of those outcomes and for regulating the exchange of knowledge. It may be that rather than seeing Open Content as a new phenomenon we should rather look at changing forms of cultural exchange and regulation, based on changes in production processes, new forms and organisation of innovation, new understandings of knowledge production and, of course, rapid changes in technologies."

Technorati Tags: open content

I am in Salzburg for the kick off meeting of the European funded MOSEP project. Unusual timing for a meeting but as you can seed the weather and scenario are beautiful.

I am pretty excited about MOSEP - it is a project researching and piloting the sue of e-Portfolios in vocational education and training. I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time and am sure we are going to have a lot of fun.

better still, tonight I have been invited to make a presentation on e-Portfolios in a traditional Austrian Beer House - wonderful.

For those who come to the show and for anyone else interested This post has attached my slides and a short paper. The presentation is based on one I did for the European Portfolio conference in cambridge last year - but with some development and movement on. I will make series of posts in the next few days with some new thoughts on e-Portfolio. I am particularly intrigued by how Portfolios can contribute to knowledge development. The diagramme below was originally thought up by Jenny Hughes a good few years ago - but I think deserves some new attention.

What is so exciting about this. For some time I have been puzzling how informal learning results in the development of a personal knowledge base. I think this diagramme begins to explain that process. In converting data and information to knowledge, both self reflection and feedback from teachers, peers and more generally form the community of practice play critical roles.

As ever, feedback will be welcome. Will try to provide an audio file of my talk at the weekend.

Salzburgaug06.ppt

Presentation slides

Paper

Technorati Tags: e-portfolios, PLEs

I got an email form Jacqueline Hall earlier this week.

"Dear Graham", she said, "I am currently undertaking a piece of research examining the supply and demand side of competency (frameworks, mapping, assessment services and associated technology platforms.)

"It struck me that you mentioned this German word 'beruf ' at the Steering group, which was more a synthesis between knowledge and skills, rather than the UK perspective, where we make a clear division, evidenced within for example our NVQ frameworks and other vocational qualifications. I am aiming to try to provide a definition of competency and how it might be interpreted differently across countries such as France, Netherlands, Ireland, UK, Germany, Scandinavia and wonder if you have any links/information/papers which might make useful reading and attempt to provide some clarity. My colleague in the US is attempting to do the same for the States but are further behind us in terms of using competency frameworks or aligning them to business strategy."

What a good question. And there has been very limited work in this area. It would seem that the European Commission, in their obsession with producing common qualification frameworks, have, like national research organisations, failed to consider the different cultural ways in which we view skills and qualification.

there has been some limited work on the subject. I wrote a paper a few years ago on the cultural meaning of VET. I think it was published by the Portuguese curriculum research organisation but has no doubt long time subsided into obscurity. Over the week-end I will try to produce a couple of excerpts for this blog.

My great friend Pekka Kamarienen has produced some excellent work on the subject which was published in a book entitled "Transformation of learning in education and training Key qualifications revisited", which, along with Pekka and Alan Brown, I edited. Whilst this still appears to be available for purchase (25 Euros) from Cedefop.

Sadly Cedefop have not chosen to make the book available for download. I have a copy on my computer of course and if you would like to read any of it (you can find a list of the contents here) email me and I will send you the chapters as a file attachment (hope that doesn't upset Cedefop too much - knowledge being freely available- whatever next?).

By coincidence, Pekka pointed me today to a new wiki launched by the Institut Technik und Bildung at the University of Bremen.

The aim of the wiki is " to create a support-space for intercultural understanding of terms and concepts of technical and vocational education and training (TVET)."

The main page goes on to say: "In international co-operation - when using different languages - it is often hard to communicate concepts, which are specific to certain countries. Those concepts were developed using the individual country's language, and the development also affected the language by either creating new terms or assigning new meanings to existing terms. Thus it is usually hard to find equivalent terms in a language, which was not the native language of the concept.

This wiki intends to develop translations of such terms of TVET. In order to tackle the problem of environment- and development-related meanings of terms complex cross-cultural and inter-lingual webs will have to be created, comprising explanations of and references to the backgrounds and their processes that led to the existance of the terms.

Everybody with knowledge on TVET is invited to contribute to the development of this encyclopaedia of TVET terms. "

Sadly the front page appears to be locked at the moment but I am hopeful such teething problems are sorted out soon. Looks a good initiative and at least it is in the public domain. I

Technorati Tags: education and training research, knowledge development

The second post on the Social Skills - Social Software conference.

I was trying to work out why I enjoyed this event so much.one thing was great people and great conversations- hi to Sebastion - both of them, John, Wilfred, Siegfried, Wolgang, Helen, Lee, Cecile and Veronica and her colleagues from Salzburg research. Sorry if I missed anyone out.

The food was good and the beer was free, that always helps.

But most important I think was a sense of community and common purpose which is missing at the big educational technology conferences. Sebastion and me talked about this. he said he now only goes to the small conferences. Why pay ridiculous amounts of money for events like Educa Berlin when you can gain eral ideas form events such as Salzburg.

The second point was the buzz about social software. Yes, I know there are some interesting pilot applications in the UK. But in Austria they seem to have taken social software to heart. Austria, like Germany, has been slow in implementing educational technology. The theory of uneven and combined development says that hen a country does adopt a technology is bypasses previous stages of development and jumps in at the cutting edge. Could it be that Austria is going to bypass those dire years of Learning management Systems and focus on new pedagogies using social software? It certainly looks possible.

One last point about the Salzburg conference. It was amazingly well organised. And Veronica seemed so calm. I wish I could do that.

Technorati Tags: describing knowledge, e-portfolios, social software

I have only read the abstract for this paper but am sufficently interested to have printed the whole paper for weekend reading (curious that I still prefer reading on paper to on-screen for anything but shortish newspaper articles).

However I think there is a very important point made here. I fear that the so called open access movement for journals - which effectively switches who pays - but not the fundamental economic relations - is doing a disservice to the wider open content movement. Scientific content should be freely available and can be through electronic publishing.

Jean Valsiner says:

I claim that what is called "open access" is actually a transformed form of traditional ("closed") access, and is "open" only by its obviously appealing label. As a re-organizational move of institutionalized kind, it benefits the economically powerful—usually "first world" based—research groups and corporations, and leads to new economic limits for the publication of innovative research emanating from less affluent researchers and laboratories. By shifting the costs of scientific publication from the recipients (journal subscribers) to the authors of published articles, "open access" creates a social scenario of one-sided information flow rather than a new form of "openness" in scholarly communication. By monopolizing the sources of scientific communication the "open access" initiative defeats its stated purpose.

Jaan Valsiner: "Open Access" and its Social Context: New Colonialism in the Making? in FQS 7(2)(Review Essay)

Technorati Tags: Open content

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

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

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | How the web will link us all:

Nice short article in the Guardian introducing social software. Also gets the point around communities establishing their own rules and hierarchies - which is why social software has so much to offer to the development of communities of practice.

"The communities that emerge from social software create their own norms, hierarchies and rules. They reflect what we know offline and connect people online. Importantly, social software encourages collaboration. It is the social in the software which will bring communities together, building upon the success of its technological predecessors and enhancing, rather than replacing, human interaction."

Technorati Tags: communities of practice, knowledge development, social software

I've been traveling and in meetings for the last week. Was in Stuttgart last Wednesday for a seminar with IBM. Thursday I spoke at the European e-portfolio conference in Cambridge. Friday I met with members of the management team of the UK JISC e-Learning programme. The meetings together provided a fair reality check on where e-learning is at and where it is going, what are the issues and what we need to sort out. I have enough material for a series of posts over the next few days although whether I have the energy to write them is another question.

In this post I provide a summary of those issues, drawn from all of the meetings last week. Together I think they provide something of an agenda for work for the next few months:

1. An old issue this. With increasing access to information through the internet how do users and especially younger learners decide what information and knowledge is reliable and to be trusted. In the past, it was said at one of my meetings, this was through a process of scientific enquiry within the academic community. This is an extension of that old debate over whether Wikipedia is reliable and can be safely cited as an authority. Do we need new curricula in schools to deal with this question?

2. Another question form one of my sessions (and one that I get quite a lot). Why should anyone want to share their thoughts and ideas through social software and blogs? My friend Jenny argues she does not want her personal profile available to all on the web. Moreover, why should anyone want to read this stuff when they can access journals and other print materials which has been edited and reviewed?

3. A third issue is specific to my presentation on portfolios where, as regular readers of this blog will know, I have argued that there are seven (or more) different pedagogic processes in developing portfolios. One person asked whether it is really possible to divide such things as recording learning, reflecting on learning and presenting learning. I will certainly come back to this - I think I may need to refine my argument a little!

4. A recurrent them in many quick conversations was something like "Loved your presentation Graham. A real breadth of fresh air. I totally agree with what you say. But (and there always is a but after such nice comments) - how do I persuade my colleagues / boss / employers / clients to go down this road? They don't want to know about such experimental stuff. They just want to play it safe."

5. One eye opener to me was how little most people know about social software. At one of my presentation, where I conducted a couple of quick straw polls, only a third of the audience (who all worked in some context in information technology) had heard of blogs, few had heard of wikis (and if they had it was juts of wikipedia) and no-one knew what Web 2 was. A sharp reality check.

6. This for me is the big issue. the increasing use of ICt for learning is in the context of lifelong leaning and is leaner centred - driven often, as I have written before, by need to know or by self interest. Yet e-learning is predominantly being developed for and implemented by educational institutions within the education and training systems. There is a conflict in these two approaches. This is very apparent when you look at applications like Elgg or at the work Scott Wilson is doing on Personal Learning Environments, compared to existing and planned practice in the institutions. How do we resolve this tension. Personally, I think the education systems will have to change or will be in dire trouble - but I guess this is another post.

7. One emerging issue is different attitudes and approaches to privacy - and hence data security - in different countries and cultures. At the risk of stereotyping - in the Anglo Saxon cultures - we are more interested in the potential of data trace and ubiquitous computing than we are concerned at the risk to privacy. In mainland continental Europe - best epitomised perhaps by the Germanic cultures - concern over privacy overrides excitement at the potential of the new technologies.

8. I'm a bit out of my depth here. But it seems to me there is an emerging tension between 'lightweight' computing languages and architectures (e.g.REST, RSS, FOAF) - as used in web 2.0 approaches - and heavyweight standards (LISP, LOM etc) and languages - Java and C*. Can anyone help me out on this?

9. The last point on this list. many ICT training companies would like to get into the open source market. What is the potential in training clients in the use of open source. Can courses in Open Office replace the standard European Computer Driving License things like Word and Excel?

OK - thats all for now - I will try to write more about some of these issues in the next few days.

1

Technorati Tags: big brother, e-learning, e-portfolios, education and training research, eportfolio, pedagogy, social software

I've posted this because I think it is an excellent illustration of the way people are using ICT for learning. It is a message posted to the UK based, BECTA ICT Research Network which operates through a list server.

Firstly, the 'learning' is problem based - the message is inspired by a practical problem, rather than a research hypothesis.

Secondly, it is posted to a list which represents a distributed community of practice.

The practitioner is hoping to gain ideas, knowledge and ultimately learning from a more experienced member or members of the community of practice.

This matches perfectly the way in which we have found non formal learning to take place in Small and Medium Enterprises using ICT.

"Hello all!

I was wondering if anyone had any experience or references as to how to
set up moblogs for young learners. Is there any way that you can have
e.g. a class run their own private moblogs that are not available to the
public but at the same time have them be able to respond to one
another's blogs?

My wish is to set up an experiment where students aged ca. 16 are given
free reign to make their own blog using texting and pictures from camera
phones and thereby creating a kind of community around the blogs. My
problem is that my funding is pretty much nonexistent (surprise...). Any
ideas on how this can be done on free software?"

Technorati Tags: e-learning, non formal learning

Part 3 in my series on e-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. In the last part ,I said that to fully understand the uses of ICT for non formal learning in SMEs we need more detailed understandings of the different type of knowledge being acquired and developed.

Jenny Hughes (unpublished text) has produced an analysis of different forms of knowledge based on the Welsh language. Whilst English has few words to differentiate knowledge, in Welsh there are at least six different terms for knowledge processes and six different terms for different types of knowledge, each with their own distinct meaning.

The general word for knowledge in Welsh – the translation from the English word knowledge is Gwybodaeth. Even this is not an exact translation. Gwybodaeth means something like ‘knowing-ness’, rather than knowledge.

However, the word Gwybodaeth – or knowing-ness comes in different forms defining different types of knowledge.

The first six words would appear to relate to knowledge processes. They can, in turn be divided in two – the first three possibly dealing with Knowledge ‘absorption’ and the following three referring to knowledge generation:

1. Cynnull (gwybodaeth) – to gather knowledge (as in acquisition) ‘along life’s way’
2. Cynhaeaf (gwybodaeth) – to harvest (purposefully) knowledge– or set up systems for harnessing knowledge or organise knowledge
3. Cymrodedd (gwybodaeth) - to compromise what you know to accommodate the unknown
4. Cynnau (gwybodaeth) - to light or kindle knowledge (in someone else) – can also be used to ‘share knowledge’ but implicit is that it is an active process not simply an exchange of information, which is an entirely different concept.
5. Cynllunplas (gwybodaeth) - to design (new) knowledge, paradigm shift
6. Cynyddu (gwybodaeth) - to increase or grow (existing) knowledge

The second six terms deal with different types of knowledge. The first three are arguably internal and the second three external.

1. (Gwybodaeth) cynhenid - original, congenital knowledge
2. (Gwybodaeth) cynhwynol - innate knowledge (collective)
3. (Gwybodaeth) cymrodeddol - compromised knowledge – knowledge adjusted to cope with the unexpected or unknown
4. (Gwybodaeth) cymdeithasol - sociable knowledge – not ‘social skills’ but knowledge about the social context in which the knowledge is used and the appropriate way of using it
5. (Gwybodaeth) cynefin - shared and passed on knowledge – implies usual, accustomed knowledge
6. (Gwybodaeth) Cynddelw - archetype /model / exemplary knowledge

These distinctions are very important and could prove extremely powerful in analysing non formal learning and knowledge development processes in Small and Medium Enterprise. For instance both ‘Cynnull (gwybodaeth) – to gather knowledge (as in acquisition) along life’s way’ and ‘Cynhaeaf (gwybodaeth) – to harvest (purposefully) knowledge – or set up systems for harnessing knowledge or organise knowledge’ take place in SMEs. But there is a very different quality to the different processes and the implications in terms of learning are quite distinct. It would be very interesting to go back to some of the SMEs we have studies and to analyse which of these processes in taking place.

In a similar vein the idea of ‘Cynnau (gwybodaeth) - to light or kindle knowledge as an active process” as opposed to passing on information is a very useful distinction.

Most valuable of all may be the distinction between ‘Cynyddu (gwybodaeth) - to increase or grow (existing) knowledge’ and ‘Cymrodedd (gwybodaeth) - to compromise what you know to accommodate the unknown’. As a quick hypothesis I would suggest that much of formal learning is ‘Cynyddu’ – increasing and building on existing knowledge. Much of the non formal learning using ICT that we have observed falls in the definition of ‘Cymrodedd (gwybodaeth) - to compromise what you know to accommodate the unknown’. This may be why non formal learning using ICT can be so powerful.

I also particularly like the idea of ‘(Gwybodaeth) cymdeithasol - sociable knowledge – not ‘social skills’ but knowledge about the social context in which the knowledge is used and the appropriate way of using it’ as a way of explaining the social contexts to which knowledge is used in SMEs.

Technorati Tags: describing knowledge, knowledge development, non formal learning, Small and Medium Enterprises, welsh langauge, work based learning

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Free' Danish beer makes a splash:

Shortened version of article on the BBC web site. I love it. The students have made something useful and have published it. Great pedagogy, great learning, great outcomes!

"Students from the Information Technology University in Copenhagen" have released "what they are calling the world's first open source beer recipe.

Rasmus Nielsen, who runs a Copenhagen-based artist collective called Superflex, wanted to challenge the idea of 'proprietary' beer.

Mr Nielsen asked his students to think about applying open source ideas to the non-digital world.

"Why not take those ideas back to the old world, and try to apply them to other things as well?" asks Nielsen.

Why beer? As the Vores Oel website says, why not?

"It's a universal commodity that we like to think of as free, but unfortunately it isn't," says Mr Nielsen. "So, I thought it was an appropriate medium to confront these issues."

The students also created a label for the beer, and a website that comes complete with catchy, open source music and sound effects.

Most important, the students released the recipe under what is called a Creative Commons licence.

"You're free to change it," says Mr Nielsen. "But if you use our recipe as the basis for your beer, you have to be open with your recipe as well. That's the legal framework that follows the beer."

You can even sell your own version, as long as you credit Our Beer for the recipe.

The tipple has proved a hit. The Our Beer website has been a busy place, says Mr Nielsen.

"We got loads of questions from small beer brewers in Mexico, Brazil, and even Afghanistan," he says. "Afghanistan, that was weird."

One smaller Danish brewer is even planning on brewing up some of Our Beer to sell in the autumn.

Both Mr Nielsen and his students hope that what people take away from the Our Beer project is that open source is not just for the digital world.

Mr Nielsen says there is no reason that developing countries could not use the idea to manufacture, for example, their own HIV/AIDS drugs."

Mike has made a very sweet TagCloud for my blog. only problem is I have no idea what use it is!

Its a hot day and I've skived off work for half an hour to have a play. Downloaded a new "next generation" newsreader called Shrook.

Up to now I've been using sage as a newsreader - never really got to grips with Netnewsreader and safari seems not to pick up a lot of feeds.

I love Shrook - but more importantly this is the first programme I have seen which seems to me to be a real e-learning application. It:

• allows me to select where I want to learn from
• to bring togther different sources of knowledge and ideas
• to create my own summaries in the form of a crapbook
• to bring togther different media - downloaded documents, web pages, blogs and audio (podcast) files - which is neatly downloads into i-tunes and will sync with an i-pod
• to track and manage my learning

In short - a personal learning environment!

There have been many rules and rubrics published regarding the development of e-learning environments. I stumbled on this one the other day in a book I helped edit (can't find the book on line - must put it there but related papers can be found here) . Interestingly it was developed for work based learning - and pre-dates the advent of e-learning. Nevertheless I think it stands up pretty well in the e-learning age.

A powerful teaching and learning environment occurs where :

• it is based on the provision of direct experience rather than indirect experience and use of representational systems

• it is based on learning through action in the contexts in which the learning is to be applied
• learning takes place in the presence of experts practising in the contexts in which the learning is to be applied

• experiences challenge the learner

• individuals become conscious of their implicit theories about learning

• individuals view learning as under their control and as intrinsically rewarding

• learners become conscious of their thinking and learning strategies
• there are the conditions of collaborative teamwork which provide experience for the learner in the form of modelling, feedback and encouragement to reflect

• facilitators of learning such as mentor or coach themselves engage in learning to learn, facing problems, adapting to these in the practical context and reflecting on problem formulation and problem solving strategies

• learners gain conscious cognition of unconscious learning through strategies such as meditation, spontaneity, reflection, intuition, imagination and fantasy (Murphy, 1975).
  
  The list is adapted from De Corte (1990)

Picked up this quote from the GURTEEN Knowledge web site.

Since there is no single set of abilities running throughout human nature, there is no single curriculum which all should undergo. Rather, the schools should teach everything that anyone is interested in learning."

John Dewey (1859-1952) American philosopher & educator

If there is no single curriculum which all should undergo then there can be no single way of representing and recording learning that all should undergo. Rather, the portfolio should include everything that anyone is interested in including.

Hi - thanks to all of you who have asked where I am - been traveling for last ten days - hence lack of blog entries - now have to get my thoughts together and report on some of the meetings I have been at. In the meantime, thought this Education Guardian article is interesting. Is it that the UK mass degree policy is devaluing degrees? Or could it just be that learning is becoming more valuable than formal academic qualifications?

"The financial value of a university degree has fallen sharply in the past decade as more graduates enter the job market, research shows.

The study by academics at the University of Swansea shows that graduates can now expect to earn £150,000 more over the course of their careers than those who do not go to university, rather than the £400,000 ministers claimed during the debate last year on university top-up fees, which will be introduced in September 2006. The National Union of Students said it was not surprised by the findings."

Doing a lot of thinking but not much posting at the moment. Want to try to get more substantial pieces on this blog - but when to find the time to write? So more half thought out ideas, notes etc.

Some stray (and perhaps connected thoughts)...

Was struck this comment on the Flosse Posse site "Even though the CC-concept is ideal for passing and sharing materials freely within ethical rights, the concept of transferring generations of knowledge via the form of cc-information seems still kinda ideal as saving the "legacy" at this point. This not so black and white issue relates also the to the pedagogical orientation of the teachers..."

Well I'm not so sure it is kinda ideal. It remains information. It is of little use without the ideas and 'feeling' of the creator plus something about its use in practice. We have failed to capture this so far. This is why I am so obsessed with the idea of distributed metadata - about being able to track to an object is used and add to that metadata trail through use.

On the subject of metadata (and connected I think) - read Jyri Engestrom's blog last week on "Why some social network services work and others don't — Or: the case for object-centered sociality". Interesting stuff - Jyri says:

"the term 'social networking' makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people......social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object."

Lets substitute the word e-learning for social networking. It gets us close to the true nature of e-learning. And it raises some interesting questions. Like - what is the object? Is the object the learning materials or or it the learning application. Me - I go for the second. I think learning materials are part of the subject of learning. Its the application which mediates the ties between people (and so in my book qualifies for the title of a learning object!).

It also starts explaining why some e-learning works and some doesn't. If we just have 'learning objects' as classically defined, there is nothing to mediate the learning.

OK - that was the second stray thought. And the third? Am a little puzzled by Stephen Downes' attack on tagging. Seems to me that while tagging is of some limitations it still has much potential - especially in allowing people to ascribe their own meaning to an object. Of course the object plays a role in mediation of different meanings - the meanings of the initial person who tags it and the person who uses it and of course the meanings will not be the same but there is meaning none the less.

Will return to all three of these issues at more length I hope.