The Wales-Wide Web

Back from holiday (I didn't look at a computer for a week!) and back to the blog. And what better start to the autumn season than this new report from the US National School Boards Association — a not-for-profit organization representing 95,000 school board members.

The study, funded by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon, found the internet isn't as dangerous as people think, and teachers should let students use social networks at school.

Tech. Blorge.com say the report warns that many fears about the internet are just overblown. "School district leaders seem to believe that negative experiences with social networking are more common than students and parents report," the study reports. For example, more than half the districts think sharing personal information has been "a significant problem" in their schools — "yet only 3% of students say they've ever given out their email addresses, instant messaging screen names or other personal information to strangers."

This chimes with my long held belief that in a risk adverse society educational institutions spend far more time worrying about potential dangers and 'what if' scenarios than they do in helping students learn how to use the internet safely and creatively.

I had an interesting exchange of emails this morning with Ben Scoble from Staffordshire University.

Ben had picked up on my list of different skills / competencies for reflection

• Forming an opinion
• Expressing an opinion
• Articulating an opinion
• Justifying an opinion
• Defending an opinion
• Supporting the opinions of others
• Challenging others opinions
• Questioning others opinions
• Seeking clarification of others opinions
• Representing other opinions
• Building on others opinions
• Sorting fact from fiction

Ben says: "Reflection is a particular concern - as it often plays a crucial role in eLearning and developing higher level (deeper) learning - is this an inherent 'feminine' skill [or a skill that is easier to hone]?"

He goes on to ask: "So would the lack of knowledge of and/or the inclusion of a framework for engaging in reflection activities - adversely affect male students engaging in eLearning?"

I'm not sure of the answer to this - but suspect that gender does make a difference. But of course it is not just gender. Many individuals do not take easily to reflection (my daughter would be a prime example!). Given the importance of reflection in learning (or at least I think it is) then the inclusion of a framework for reflection would benefit those learners who may be at a disadvantage in this form of learning.

Yesterday I was in Leicester for a training day for the launch of our new e-Portfolio system - Freefolio (lots more about that soon - it is fabulous).

In the morning we ran a hands on session for the e-Portfolio and in the afternoon I ran a workshop on reflection. It was a bit like being hoist with my own petard. For some time I have been berating e-Portfolio 'experts' who say how important reflection is in the e-Portfoliod development process - but then have nothing more to say on the subject. I was a little nervous about 'teaching' refection. But the workshop was a lot of fun and the participants seemed to enjoy it - and said, at least, they found it useful.

Now I would like to take this forward in tow ways:

a) To develop the framework Ben talks about
b) To develop on line tools / activities to develop competences in reflection.

The only problem is I need some funding - anyone any ideas?

I'm often being asked if I can show examples of effective e-Potrfolios. And that is not so easy.

So I was delighted when Cristina Costa sent me the url to 2007 Senior Portfolios. The e-Portfolios were produce through the Key Learning Community who explain their mission as to "research and develop innovative practices in teaching to celebrate diversity in our population and our communities and to personalize education by building upon each student's strengths in the following intellectual areas: Linguistic, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Naturalistic, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal."

As part of Key's graduation requirements, seniors must complete a portfolio documenting their growth over 4 years. This year, for the first time, the portfolios are web-based and available for viewing.

Its a great example of the creative use of e-Portfolios. And it neatly illustrates another dilemma in developing both e-Portfolios and Personal Learning environments. These e-Portfolio have been developed using Apple iLife software, which for all its limitations, is great for multimedia and is based on services layers between the different applications.

I am always caught by the dilemma between viewing the PLE as a collection of everyday software tools, and thus a process or approach, and the bundled (usually web) application seeking some sort of tool integration to make life easy for the user.

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). 
“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.

Sorry I've been so quiet lately. I have been traveling endlessly and then returned home to write a funding application (more on that tomorrow).

But at last today I've found a bit of time to return to doing some more creative work - blogging and writing an outline of a two day workshop. The workshop is for the EU funded MOSEP project (incidentally if you've been there before and were not impressed do take another look. The site has been completely redesigned and is beginning to look pretty cool). The MOSEP project is researching, developing and piloting e-Portfolios - designed for use by 14-19 year old socially disadvantaged young people. The main output of the work will be a handbook (I'm still struggling to complete the first draft of that) and a series of workshops for teachers and trainers about e-Portfolios. I am responsible for the main module. This is intended as a two day face to face workshop.

 I have written the a first draft of the Main Module on the project wiki. I have not done the timings yet but suspect I may have to reduce some of the activities slightly. I would love some feedback from you. The activities may not be quite transparent (there are some fairly oblique references to some of the activities which I will try and clarify int he next few days)- but you can get a feel for the issues I am covering. Is the balance about right? Have I missed out any important issues?

Thsi blog is currently syndicated on the JISC Community Emerge site. I wonder if anyone in that community is working on e-Portfolios and would like to collaborate with me. Whilst this version is written for workshop delivery it  would be quite simple to write another version intended for self learning - and very worthwhile i think. One issue is availability.  I would love to make it available through some of the Open Content sites - say Open Learn and Connexions. But this is where the standards issue comes into play. These sites use completely different standards. It will be a pain  writing different versions. Does anyone have any good ideas. I could produce a version in Learning Design - but am unconvinced how useful that would be. The workshop and all materials will be published under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license.

I know the comment function on the Wales Wide Web is not really working (sometimes comments do get through but most times they don't). If any of you do have comments or would like to work with me on this could you leave a comment on my Emerge bog or on my MOSEP project blog.

I am involved in a pretty lively discussion on the MOSEP project blog site. MOSEP is a project developing and piloting professional development for teachers on the use of e-Portfolios. It includes partners from six different European countries.

One issue above all has dominated the discussion on this site - that of reflection. Whilst everyone pays lip service to the importance of reflection in developing an e-portfolio - in reality there are limited ideas on how this might be done.

I am working on another project called Reflective Evaluation. This project is developing and testing tools to support adult education practitioners in reflecting on their practice as part of their continuing professional development.

This is an interesting project - much more interesting than it sounds! We have developed a lightweight editing tool which allows researchers, teachers and trainers to develop and edit short content ‘objects’ as the basis for reflection. The editor supports different question types and makes it easy to add multimedia type questions. These go into a database which now holds some 150 ‘learning objects’ in six different languages.

At present these are grouped into:

• Values
• Self evaluation and quality development
• Assessment and recognition
• Work conditions
• Collaboration and networking
• Teaching and learning

and have been developed at four different levels:

• practitioner
• team
• institution
• society

A further tool layer allows a facilitator to select a particular group  of questions for a particular user group and if desired, sequence those questions.

Practitioners work through the questions. Besides their own individual answer they are able to access others answers to the questions and to rate the answers. Practitioners can also themselves add questions into the database. The questions for reflection will be enhanced by a further reading and reference list being developed using a feed from Delicious.
I’m enjoying this project and am pretty confident it will work. The trick is that the ‘learning objects’ - the raw material for reflection need to be developed by practitioner and to reflect their experience. The key then to this, is the development of tools that are easy for practitioners to understand and use. And I think we are cracking  it. Besides myself there is only one other participant in the project with any background in Technology Enhanced Learning. Sometimes it is painful having toe explain basic concepts. But it is rewarding t o see how others are beginning to make use of the tools.

In May / June we will test the tools in anger with teachers and trainers. If you would be interested in joining the test  - or would juts like to know more about the Reflective Evaluation project and tools please get in touch.

Of course the smae tool could easily be used for posting materials for students - if anyone would like to give it a go just contact me.

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!

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'.

Not so many posts on this blog lately.

Well - for one thing I have been traveling a  lot and I find it difficult to blog whilst on the road.

For another thing the API for my ecto client is broken which means I have to use a web interface - this always takes longer.

But more significant is that I am doing quite a lot of things to support blogging. We have set up a MOSEP blog site using elgg spaces so that project participants can develop their own e-Portfolios. I am trying to support that process. Supporting and facilitating others in blogging is hugely rewarding. But it is difficult to be providing regular feedback and thinking up new tasks whilst keeping up the blogging on the main site at the same time. I guess its just another skill to learn.

As part of my work for the the European Bazaar project I am  running a seminar entitled Social Software and Web 2.0: a challenge to the future of schooling. You can find details about the seminar and how you can take part below. But first here is the topic of the seminar.
 
'In a recent blog post Rita Kop says: “There is currently a vast array of communications options available on the Internet. Especially young people have grasped the potential offered to them by blogs, web pages and increasingly personal spaces such as 'My Space' and 'youtube' to make links with like minded people and to invite comments and messages to their postings. The speed in which communities are being formed has surprised most observers. Participants in these developments, though, take them for granted as expressing themselves to the wider world has increasingly become part of their life style.

The education world has not grasped yet the revolution that is taking place outside the class room. The discrepancy in the way technology is being used inside and outside the class room seems to be growing.

The availability of blog and web authoring tools and their ease of use have made that a vast number of people are now engaged in interacting on the Internet. It has created a huge leap forward in moving people on from being consumers to becoming producers of information.

As educators know, the pace of change within institutions is a lot slower than outside the brick walls, which raises questions about the ability of formal education institutions to keep engaged the generation that lives in a technology saturated world and has grown up with technology.”

At the same time researchers have begun to explore the idea of Personal Learning environments or PLEs. Rather than access a single learning application or a walled institutional learning area, the idea of a PLE is that learners can configure different services and tools to develop their own learning environment, bringing together informal learning from the home, the workplace as well as more formal provision by education institutions. The PLE is controlled by the learner and as well as offering an environment for accessing different information and knowledge allows access to web based publishing and other opportunities for creating content and expressing and exchanging ideas.

The idea behind the PLE is to harness the power and potential of social software and web 2.0 applications for learning.

As Graham Attwell has pointed out PLEs may be a seriously disruptive development, challenging the present model of schooling. The seminar is intended to examine the changing ways in which we are using technology for learning, to look at the potential of Personal Learning Environments and to discuss the implications for the future of our education systems.

This could include (but is not limited to) the following issues:

• Young people are increasingly using social networking sites and social software applications - but are they learning?
• What does the new uses of technology for learning imply for pedagogy and the future role of teachers
• What is the role of school in the future of more and more learning takes place over the internet
• How can technology supported informal learning be recognised
• How disruptive are the new technologies to the education system - is it just a bubble?
• How can Personal Learning Environments be reconciled with the social nature of learning?
• What are the implications of technology supported learning and PLEs for social equity within education?
• What sort of technological infrastructure should the education system be providing for learning?
• If content is increasingly created by teachers an learners and is open for access, how will we guarantee quality?
• Does increasing learner control and autonomy spell the end of centralised curricula?

and

• How dude, where’s my data?'

Click 'more' to find out how you can take part.

I have just spent another week bogged down with administration.

But have taken a quick hour out to write down some thoughts on the European MOSEP e-Portfolio meeting in Wolsingham last week. If I don’t do it now I am going to forget some of the main points - and there was plenty to think about.

First a little background. The MOSEP project is researching, developing and piloting e-Portfolios with 14-18 year olds in six European countries. Our initial research suggests that whilst the idea of e-Portfolios is well developed - if in the early stages of implementation - in the UK - in other countries, such as Bulgaria and Lithuania it is little known. Thus one talks for the project is sharing expertise and experiences between the different countries and different partner organisations involved in the project.

Our research also suggest there are wide difference sin approach and purpose in introducing e-Portfolios. Roughly speaking the purpose of e-Portfolios can be seen as assessment - which tends to be the approach in the USA, for Personal Development or Careers Planning - the major approach in the UK, or for learning and for recording informal learning.

The MOSEP meeting was held in Wolsingham School and Community College (to give it its full name). Wolsingham is a small village in the Durham Dales in the north of England. The school caters for 11-18 year old students (apologies to John and the Wolsingham staff for any inaccuracies in this piece). It is a  comprehensive school providing both general and vocational education. It is slightly unusual in having a small 6th form - for students aged 16-18. In most cases in England, sixth form provision has been concentrated in larger schools or sixth form colleges, or in Further Education Colleges to allow wider subject provision. However, Wolsingham is in a rural area catering for students over a wide distance and as such is funded for smaller class provision at sixth form level. Obviously the issue of rurality is an important one in the organisation of the school - most students travels some distance by bus - and in the social life of the students (and teachers).

John Pallister - the head of IT at the  school - represents the school in the MOSEP project. He did a great job organising the meeting. On the first afternoon of the meeting he organised for about 15 students to come in and show us their portfolios - and gave us a brilliant opportunity just to chat with the students. And in the evening we had a meal and a post session drink with the staff from the school who are reviewing the use of the portfolio. This provided a lot of food for thought. So here goes - and if it seems overly critical believe me when I say they are doing a great job both in attempting to broaden the learning experience for the students and - in the course of it - providing much experience for others who will follow in their steps.  (It should also be said that I was greatly taken with the atmosphere in the school. I am not a great fan of schools - I always feel intimidated. But this place had a very nice open feel to it - and the students were themselves very open in putting forward their ideas).

First the achievement. The school is providing and supporting an e-Portfolio - called an E-Me for a considerable number of students and is aiming to provide an e-Portfolio for every student. The E-Me has a high profile in the school. Students appear to have taken ownership of the e-Portfolio, and although there are differences between individuals, are investing some time and effort int he design and maintenance of their e-Portfolio. The major issue I think was the purpose of the Portfolio. The portfolios had been introduced essentially for careers planning with the support of the IT department. This had tow consequences. Firstly they were not linked to the ‘normal’ subject lessons. Neither were they focused on reflection on informal learning form outside the school - although hobbies were included in so far as they were relevant for the careers planning. Secondly, they the e-Portfolio was largely a presentation portfolio - there was little functionality to make a selected presentation and students tended to see them as the finished goods. Given the lack of links to subject based learning, some of the students - and probably teachers - failed to see any great value, especially as the University entrance authorities do not presently accept e-Portfolios and there is little awareness amongst employers of the potential of e-Portfolios for employee recruitment.

Reflection was regarded as a problem by the staff. However its seems to me the major problem lay in the nature of the software being used. I cannot remember the name if the package, but Wolsingham are using a proprietary system. Nothing wrong with that I suppose (even if I do prefer open source). The major problem is that this is not an on-line portfolio -students are accessing their portfolio on the school network. And there is no opportunity to share the portfolio with anyone else. I talked about this to one student who was obviously (rightly) very proud of her portfolio. She told me she updates in several times a week in the lunchtimes. She said her mum and dad had seen it and she though t some of her teachers looked at it but sighed and said she had tried showing it to her friends. The lack of peer group (or wider) access to the portfolios was not only resulting in the lack of feedback fort the students but was conversely resulting in a lot of work for teachers in trying to make up for the lack of peer group interaction. And I think that it is the peer group feedback which probably forms the basis for reflection. We have tended to think of reflection as an internal process. Reflection may be far more powerful when considering another persons view of our work.

On the plus side the e-Portfolio software was easy to use and to style (unlike most on-line programmes) and it was clear that many of the students enjoyed designing the graphics. They were also encouraged to use multi media but it turned out that most of the multi media in the portfolios was actually produced by the teachers.

A number of the students were also concerned that they were not able to work on their portfolios at home. This turned out to be a misconception as the school license did cover home use but this had not been communicated to them (and would require yet more organizational effort by the staff). A number were also concerned that the materials would be lost after they left school because of the proprietary format. This also may not be true as we dug around and found at least an html export function which they were not aware of.

The commitment of the students - and indeed the level of student satisfaction - with the e-Portfolio seemed heavily predicative on when they had started the development process. Those students who moved from another school to enter the sixth form at Wolsingham could see little benefit from the Portfolio. They had come to the school to obtain their 'A' levels and the portfolio was at best a diversion. However those students who had already developed a Portfolio at Wolsingham prior to entering the sixth form were far more supportitive.

In the evening I did two interviews - one with a retired member of staff who chairs the Portfolio review group - and the second with Dorothy Parkin, Head of Sixth Form at Wolsingham school. I will try to get the audio recordings on line this weekend. Dorothy talked a lot about change management and how to get a critical mass of support amongst staff at the school. Whilst there is very active support from a number of staff, they probably remain a minority. To my mind the problem is that whilst the e-Portfolio plays little role in subject based teaching and learning, it will be difficult to persuade these teachers of the value of the e-Portfolios for their students. And of course - as with every UK teacher I have talked to in the last five years - she pointed to the burden of compliance with the hundreds of new initiatives the government had launched in education.

All in all a great learning experience for me - thanks to John and the other Wolsingham staff and students.

If you would liek to find out more John has published a paper entitled Implementing a multimedia e-portfolio to support learning

I'm in Odense in Denmark for a conference organised by the Danish Universities Knowledge Lab on the future of digital technologies and learning. The title of my presentation is 'Learning Landscapes' - charting the move from the 'walled garden' of the institutional Virtual Learning Environment to Personal Learning Environments.

At the end of the presentation I will be taking participants for a quick spin around the ELGG application.

It's a long presentation - fifty minutes. I wrote it on the plane from Barcelona yesterday - sadly I don't have any photos on my new computer so have reverted to my old style of a lot of slides with (hopefully) not too many words on each slide (and white text on a black background.

You can download the presentation here in Powerpoint (3.1Mb) or PDF (black on white if you really do want to print it) - curiously also 3Mb.

odensedec06.ppt

Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, Personal_Learning_Environments

I am increasingly interested in how we can use social bookmarks or tagging as a form of developing social networks based on content. We all know that social networking is a powerful tool for informal learning. But the friend of a friend type approach assumes a commonality of interest which does not always exist!

Tagging has the potential to generate similar social networks - based not on just friendship - however many steps renewed - but based on commonality of interest.

There are two contexts in which I am looking at tagging and at using delicio.us. The first is for research students. A friend of mine is researching sustatinable production. She is spending a considerable time undertaking a literature search, mainly through the internet and bookmarking sites on her computer. If she was to use delicio.us tags, not only would she develop a useful shared resource for all of us, but through following people who had used the sme tags, would speed up her work by finding what other work they had been following.

My second interest is as part of the background research for the MOSEP project. MOSEP is a European funded project researching and piloting e-Portfolios for vocational school students. For this project I have devised an initial list of tags which (I have suggested the seven or so partners in the project all use in their literature reviews and research activities. Hopefully, this will allow us to share our work in a distributed network. I will report back on how this goes.

My friend Mike Malloch has developed a very considerable resource of tags. He uses an interesting link blog to display this tags. he also has been working on developing different tools for displaying tags, including tag clouds and a tag viewer.

for another example of a useful tag collection, Colin Milligan from Cetis has assembled a collection of links to resources around Personal Learning Environments.

Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, tagging

Last week, I went to Klagenfurt University to speak at a workshop organised by Wolfgang Greller.

Dave and Ben in action. Photo: Elmo De Angelis

The workshop was entitled 'ELGG - Social e-Portfolio Landscape for Reflecting and Presenting Learning'. I was the warm up speaker, talking about the use of social software for learning. Dave Tosh and Ben Werdmuller from ELGG did the hands on stuff.

It being August, I was pretty doubtful how many would sign up, but we had more than 30 (enthusiastic) participants, from four countries.

We specifically agreed we would show how the ELGG-Moodle integration worked. Now, if anyone has been following the history of this integration through a development block from New Zealand, you will know it is non trivial. Early releases of the plug-in for Moodle appear to have been buggy.

Anyway, Rene Samselnig from the University of Klagenfurt had done a wonderful job in configuring (or hacking) the plug in.

Dave led a walk through session, showing how form a single log-in, users could move assignments undertaken through the course structure in Moodle to their ELGG personal learning portfolio and went on to show the pedagogic use of ELGG ind developing personal portfolios.

I was impressed. For me, this bridges the gap between present VLE oriented practice and the Personal Learning Environments we have been talking about. And this is not proof of concept, this is rich, working software. There is also a further release of ELGG due in the next ten days or so, with many enhancements. It seems this will feature federated search across any ELGG install configured to allow such access. And a presentation module is planned for this autumn. ELGG is getting to be powerful stuff.

I have worked for the last two years with the JISC e-learning programme. In general, I think JISC have made the right call in backing the development of a Service Oriented Environment and in developing 'reference Models' for standards between the different building blocks of an e-learning, e-adminsitartion and e-researcch environment. But progress is painfully slow. Open Source providers are making much quicker progress through providing working solutions, utilizing Open APIs and de facto standards to allow the development and repurposing and reuse of contents.

The University of Klagenfurt are producing a video of the workshop. We will write it up and present the workshop on ELGG and on the Bazaar site. And if anyone is interested in a similar, hands on, practical workshop please get in touch.

Meanwhile, there are many people who should be thanked, too many to mention. But I have to say what a wonderful job Wolfgang did in organizing the event. he has only been in post in Klagenfurt since last autumn, but there is a real buzz around the place. Long may it continue.

Technorati Tags: e-portfolios, Peronal Learning Environments, Personal_Learning_Environments

Creativity seems to be rearing its head in one way or another lately.

First a bit of practical creativity. I made a presentation on e-Portfolios in a Beer Keller in Salzburg. OK - so the beer keeler wasn't so well adapted for teaching and learning. But upside down beer crates do a fine job as a stand for the data projector.

I raised the ability to create as a key facet of digital competence for developing e-Portfolios. I was challenged by a person - whose name I did not get - who asked what role creativity plays in e-Portfolios. Now I can see the role of creativity with the full use of multi media for [presentations - but am not sure how creativity is manifested in the more humdrum everyday activities of recording and reflection. I think the question warrants further thought.

Anyway, I had forgotten all about this until yesterday - traveling home after another five days on the road and reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Steinbeck says: "our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Noething was ever created by two men. there are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, thre group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything."

Ignoring Steinbeck's use of the word man to describe men and women - his point is interesting.

Technorati Tags: creativity

Sometime in the spring - can't remember quite when or who said it - there was a flurry of pots as to whether Personal Learning environments were the new e-Portfolio. The discussion has too slants. One strand questioned whether there was any real difference between e-Portfolios and PLEs. The second worried about the hype over PLEs and pointed to lack of evidence that the previous upsurge of interest in e-Portfolios had resulted in much real change.

Over the last few weeks I've been noticing a resurgence of interest in e-Portfolios. OK, maybe I'm being a little subjective. Last week I was at the launch of a new European project - site still under construction - on e-Portfolios, tomorrow I am traveling to Austria for a workshop on ELGG. But I think it goes beyond projects and workshops. The real driver of the recent discussions is simply the fast approaching new school and college term. e-Portfolios are moving beyond the first adopters, beyond the pedagogic researchers into mainstream use.

Coming back to the first question regarding the difference between e-Portfolios and PLEs, I am not sure of the answer. I don't think my idea of an effective e-Portfolio is much different form my take on a PLE. But not everyone in the learning technology community shares my views (probably a good job). What we all seem to have agreed on at the e-Portfolios meet up in Manchester in June was that we needed more grounded and small scale experiments in how we might configure and develop PLEs. (for discussion on ideas from Manhester workshop see PLE wiki pages maintained by Marc van Harmelen). We did not need yet another monolithic system called a PLE ( and anyway some ***tards would only try to patent it).

The good news about e-Portfolios coming of age - if my suspicion is right - is it will provide us with a rich landscape to experiment and develop new pedagogic approaches to learning.

Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, social software

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 am hard at work editing a book on e-learning in SMEs. The book is based on a wealth of empirical research. The research shows it is hard to generalise - attitudes to e-learning vary greatly between SMEs in different sectors and with different forms of work organisation.

One surprising finding - which seems to run across countries, sectors and organisations, is a fear that e-learning results in social isolation. I wonder how grounded such a perception is in reality. I also wonder if it is based on fear of lack of teacher support, or fear of lack of peer group interaction.

I am always wary of reading to much into such findings. But so common is this finding that it has to be taken seriously. And is it yet more evidence that the LMS / VLE model of e-learningis inappropriate - at least for adults and work based learning.

Social networking and e-portfolio type applications such as ELGG may be far more suitable for these learners. But, of course, the perception that the use of ICT for learning will leave learners socially isolated still has to be overcome.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, e-portfolios, Small and Medium Enterprises

Carole quotes Step[hen Downes whos ays "LMSs as perpetuating old ways of learning" (she is kind enough to also trackback to an entry on this site.

Carole goes on to questions if all academics are ready to create personal learning environments. Big question. I would say they most certainly are not. Lets face it, most academics are not ready to embrace e-learning.

But this is not an issue of going at the speed at which academics are happy (or for that matter, institutional managers). the reality is that young people (and not just young people) are themselves creating and shaping their own learning environments, regardless of the wishes and prejudices of academics.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, Peronal Learning Environments

This is a trailer.

At almost every meeting I have been to lately - and I have been to a lot of meetings - the issue of data ownership and access to data has arisen.

Yes Web 2 is great for allowing mash ups and integrating services to produce rich and interactive web sites. But the reliance on external services from mostly commercial companies does raise a whole series of issues. Can we trust these people with our data? will we still have access to this data in the future.? What is to stop them data mining for their own purposes?

These concerns do not limit themselves to commercial companies. What happens to an e-Portfolio after a student has left and institution. At least one UK university is considering charging ex-students for continuing access to their portfolio.

Later this year, the Bazaar project will be holding a seminar around these issues. We will be issuing a call for position papers. If, in the meantime, you would like to be kept informed about details of th seminar please send me an email.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, education and training research, eportfolio