Archive for November 9th, 2007

Why loosely coupled, freely available third party systems can be better

November 9th, 2007 by Graham Attwell

I remember three years ago having a debate with Alexadra Toedt at a SIGOSSEE meeting in Denmark on why I thought there was no future for VLEs. I was a bit torn between wanting to promote Open Source software alternatives to Blackboard and the like but also frustrated by the pedagogic restrictions of institutional systems for managing learning. Needless to say I convinced few people at best they thought I was well meaning but hopelessly impractical.Nowadays it is becoming almost respectable to predict the end of the VLE. But fortunately we have well developed alternatives to the VLE. In any case students are voting with their feet (or mouse). Better still we have an increasingly sophisticated argument not just as to why VLEs are bad (which I have to admit was the heart of my argument but why “loosely coupled, freely available third party systems” can be better. This is from The Ed Techie blog by Martin Weller:

  • “Better quality tools – because offering each of these loosely coupled elements is what each company does, it is in their interest to make them really good. This means they stay up to date, have better features, and look better than most things produced in higher education.
  • Modern look and feel – related to the above, these tools often look better, and also their use makes a course feel more modern to a user who is raised on these tools compared with the rather sterile, dull systems they encounter in higher ed.
  • Appropriate tools – because they are loosely coupled the educator can choose whatever ones they want, rather than being restricted to the limited set in the VLE. This is one of the biggest draws I feel – as an academic if I want a particular tool I don’t have to put a request in to IT and wait a year to get a reduced quality version, I just go ahead and use it.
  • Cost – using a bunch of free tools has got to be cheaper hasn’t it?
  • Avoids software sedimentation – when you have institutional systems they tend to embody institutional practice which becomes increasingly difficult to break. Having loosely coupled system makes this easier, and also encourages people to think in different ways.
  • Disintermediation happens – this isn’t really a benefit, just an observation. If a services can be disintermediated then it will be. In this case the central VLE system is disintermediated as academics use a variety of freely available tools.”

Posted in e-learning 2.0, Social Software, Wales Wide Web | 1 Comment »

The Social impact of Personal Learning Environments

November 9th, 2007 by Graham Attwell

This may not be entirely new to readers of the old World Wide Web, I think I posted an early draft of this paper. Indeed, it has been six months in revsion. And now I have missed the deadline for publication. The paper was originally intended as part of an special edition of a soemwhat posha cademic journal. I thought they might protest at the content ideas. But no, the big problem was the referencing. One reviewer said: “I did, however, miss proper referencing in the first few parts of the paper. For example, the author is unlikely to have come up with the link between the societal demands of the industrial revolution and the organisational structure of the education system, but it looks as if that is what he claims.” Well I did. Honestly. But I am sure I am not the only one to have that idea and if anyone can come up with refercnces for me I would be very grateful. And also for any other feedback.

I have included the full text of ther paper in the extension to this post. But I have also linked it as an RTF file if you would prefer to download it.

The Social impact of Personal Learning Environments

1. Personal Learning Environments – cause and effect

Although the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a very new term, (van Harmalen (2006) argues the first recorded use of the term is November 4, 2004) the concept represents the latest step in an alternative approach to e-learning which can trace its origins to earlier systems such as Colloquia (reference) , the first peer-to-peer learning system (released as Learning Landscapes in 2000), and to more recent phenomena such as the Elgg system released in 2003 (reference). The PLE approach is based on a learner-centred view of learning and differs fundamentally from the alternative Learning Management Systems or Virtual Learning Environments approach both of which are based on an institution- or course-centred view of learning. Van Harmelen describes Personal Learning Environments as “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to

  • set their own learning goals
  • manage their learning; managing both content and process
  • communicate with others in the process of learning
  • and thereby achieve learning goals.”

He goes on to say: “a PLE may be composed of one or more subsystems: As such it may be a desktop application, or composed of one or more web-based services.”

Downes (2006) says “the heart of the concept of the PLE is that it is a tool that allows a learner (or anyone) to engage in a distributed environment consisting of a network of people, services and resources. It is not just Web 2.0, but it is certainly Web 2.0 in the sense that it is (in the broadest sense possible) a read-write application.” Important concepts in PLEs include the integration of both formal and informal learning episodes into a single experience, the use of social networks that can cross institutional boundaries and the use of networking protocols (Peer-to-Peer, web services, syndication) to connect a range of resources and systems within a personally-managed space. The ‘pedagogy’ behind the PLE – if it could be still called that – is that it offers a portal to the world through which learners can explore and create, according to their own interests and directions, interacting as they choose, with their friends and learning community. Seely Brown (1999) has drawn attention to the social nature of learning: “Learning becomes as much social as cognitive, as much concrete as abstract, and becomes intertwined with judgement and exploration.”

This paper examines the social impact of Personal Learning Environments. In so doing, it is difficult to separate cause and effect. Personal Learning Environments can be expected to have a profound effect on systems for teaching and learning, on pedagogic approaches to learning and on knowledge development and sharing. Conversely, the emergence of PLEs and the widespread interest in PLEs may be seen as a reaction to the changing ways in which people are using technology for learning, to new societal demands for education and to changing forms of knowledge usage within society.

Download rtf version of full paper

(more…)

Posted in PLEs, Wales Wide Web | 4 Comments »

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    From a Jisc press release:

    Over 14,000 items of archived TV footage from 17 European countries are now available via the EUscreen online portal for teaching, research and general interest.

    EUscreen – the result of a collaboration between 36 partners across Europe – provides a rich insight into Europe’s television heritage with content dating from the 1920s to the present day.

    The portal includes rare footage and commentary on key events in history, including a 1962 interview with Martin Luther King about racial discrimination in the US.

    John Ellis, Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway and principal investigator on the EUscreen project, said: “This is a valuable resource for anyone interested in social history or indeed TV history, as it brings together tens of thousands of clips from across Europe. The portal is available to anyone (not only academics) and it is very easy to get absorbed and spend hours browsing all of the footage.”

    The expansive footage has also proved popular as a learning aid for foreign language students, with clips available in 14 languages.

    By the end of September 2012, there will be around 30,000 items of digital content freely available on the portal as the European providers continue to add carefully selected material.

    Explore the EUscreen footage

    Open online seminar

    Jisc are hosting an open, online seminar on ‘Making Assessment Count (MAC)’ on Friday 3rd Feb – 1-2pm. The presenters are Professor Peter Chatterton (Daedalus e-World Ltd) and Professor Gunter Saunders (University of Westminster).

    The mailing for the seminar says” “The objective of Making Assessment Count is primarily to help students engage more closely with the assessment process, either at the stage where they are addressing an assignment or at the stage when they receive feedback on a completed assignment. In addition an underlying theme of MAC is to use technology to help connect student reflections on their assessment with their tutors. To facilitate the reflection aspect of MAC a web based tool called e-Reflect is often used. This tool enables the authoring of self-review questionnaires by tutors for students. On completion of an e-Reflect questionnaire a report is generated for the student containing responses that are linked to the options the student selected on the questionnaire.”

    You can find out more ans sign up for the seminar at  http://jiscmac.eventbrite.co.uk/

    EC-TEL 2012

    The EC-TEL 2012: Seventh European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Skills takes place on 18-21 September 2012 at Saarbrücken in Germany.

    The focus for the conference includes:

    - How can schools prepare young people for the technology-rich workplace of the future?
    - How can we use technology to promote informal and independent learning outside traditional educational settings?
    - How can we use next generation social and mobile technologies to promote informal and responsive learning?

    The deadline for proposals is April 2.

    Visitors and Residents

    David White (University of Oxford) and Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC) have been attracting quite a stir with their JISC-funded work on Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?, being undertaken as part of the Developing Digital Literacies programme webinar series.

    Slides, audio and a recording of the Blackboard Collaborate session where they presented some of the findings of their work can be found at http://bit.ly/jiscdiglitvr.

    ECER 2010

    The keynotes, videos, radio shows and interviews from the ECER 2010 Conference in Helsinki:

    On the ECER 2010 website.

    Taccle handbook for teachers order form

    Here you find the Taccle handbook for teachers order form.

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