Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

Some time around Christmas I wrote that I was encouraged by the slow but steady progress in embedding Open Educational resources in the policy and practice of educational institutions. The Jisc funded HumBox project is the kind of thing I mean.

According to the project web site ,”The HumBox project focuses on the Humanities and is a collaboration between four Humanities Subject Centres (LLAS, English, History and Philosophical and Religious Studies), and at least twelve different institutions across the country.The HumBox project aims to publish a bank of good quality humanities resources online for free download and sharing, and in doing so, to create a community of Humanities specialists who are willing to share their teaching materials and collaborate with others to peer review and enhance existing resources. The resources published as part of our project will be placed in the HumBox, an innovative new online storage area for teaching and learning materials.”

And, although always somewhat wary of what project web sites claim, the say they already have over 100 individual learning resources published in the repository and a peer review process initiated between the 12 partner institutions.and widely publicised initiatives in Open Educational resources were single institution initiatives with project funding allowing the employment of staff to develop a bank of open resources. However these initiatives, whilst attracting much attention, were problematic in a number of ways. Firstly, they had little traction or impact within the institution and thus limited submissions from institution staff. Secondly there has been limited reuse of resources, or if resources have been reused they are not being submitted back to OER repositories. And third is teh fraught issue of quality. Project staff have neither the time or expertise to review resources themselves and the lack of a community around the project has limited efforts to develop peer review processes.

However the new generation of projects such as HumBox, whilst perhaps not as well known as The Open University Open Learn or the MIT OER initiative, are based within the community of practice and thus have the potential to overcome these issues.

• 1000+ individual learning resources published to the HumBox repository
• Peer review process initiated and ongoing amongst project partners across 12 institutions

Don’t jump to conclusions and think my German has suddenly improved. But Pontydysgu are proud to be associated with organising a seminar on Green ICT in Bremen, Germany on May 12th, along with our friends from the Institut Technik und Bildung at the University of Bremen.  The seminar features work undertaken by the Green ICT strand of the UK JISC Users and Innovations programme. JISC have also set up a Green ICT blog. Guest speakers are Josie Fraser from the JISC SSBR project, Howard Noble from Oxford University Computing Services who has been looking at low carbon computing, and  Stephen Phipps from the Univeristy of Hertfordshire, For those of you who are interested the seminar takes place from 9:30 to 17:30  at the Gästehaus der Universität Bremen, Auf dem Teerhof 58.

Das Thema »Green ICT« (grüne Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie) gewinnt in Deutschland an Bedeutung, denn vielen Computernutzern – ob kommerziellen, öffentlichen oder privaten – wird zunehmend klar; das wir auf neue Kraftwerke verzichten könnten, wenn der Energieverbrauch in diesem Feld klein gehalten wird und wir gezielt  energiesparende Technologie und Verhaltensweisen nutzen.
Hinter dem Begriff »Green ICT«, verbergen sich technische Innovationen und Ver-haltensstrategien, die bei den Nutzern, den Betreibern von Rechenzentren und sonstiger ICT- Infrastruktur und bei denjenigen ansetzen, die über den Kauf und die Nutzung von ICT-Technologie entscheiden. Das Ziel dieser Strategien ist es zum einen, den Energie- und Ressourcenverbrauch bei der Herstellung, Nutzung und Entsorgung zu minimieren (green in ICT), und zum anderen, durch die Nutzung von ICT Energie und sonstige Ressourcen einzusparen (green through ICT). Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, müssen Anreize gegeben werden und Einsichten vermittelt werden, um zum Beispiel den Nutzer davon zu überzeugen, nicht genutzte Computer auszuschalten statt sie im Stand-By-Modus zu betreiben.
Die Implementierung von »Green ICT« steckt in Deutschland, verglichen mit Großbritannien, vor allem in Bildungseinrichtungen noch in den Kinderschuhen. Um ein erfolgreich durchgeführtes Projekt näher kennen zu lernen, und den internationalen Erfahrungsaustausch zu befördern, hat das Institut Technik und Bildung (ITB) Experten aus Großbritannien, die am »Green ICT«-Projekt ECCILES beteiligt waren, eingeladen.
Hiermit wird die direkte und indirekte Reduzierung des Energieverbrauches eines Computers, eine Analyse der (Wirk-) Faktoren die zum An bzw. Abstieg des Energieverbrauches führen, die Entwicklung von Lösungsansätzen für diese Problemstellung und die Durchführung von Energiereduktionsmaßnahmen bezweckt. Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.

I am a great admirer of the work Andreas Auwarter is doing incorporating the creation of new media in his teaching. Here is a video his students made yesterday. Andreas says: “This question raised up during a discussion inside the AG Podcasting. Students themselves felt as creators as well as story-tellers. They felt as producers. and they felt as learners. But how feels it to be a global learner? What are the scares? What are the fears? What are the expectations, challenges? We want to know it!”

I have written at length on this blog about the growing tension between the schooling system and the changing ways in which we are using the internet for self managed, networked learning, often through informal learning in the work force. The implications of this these changes are slowly working their way into the system.

The US Information Week government website draws attention to an interesting report. The report, ‘Net Generation: Preparing for Change in the Federal Information Technology Workforce,’  “surveyed federal IT workforce trends and found that young IT workers are among the most demanding employees yet, but that the federal government, in many places, has been falling short in its ability to entice these young workers to join and remain in the federal workforce.”

There are three particularly interesting findings from the report.

Firstly, instead of choosing a career and working their way upwards within a company or organisation, individuals are tending to see particular posts as learning situations, moving on when they have acquired new skills and competences. ““‘Net-Geners’ are not patiently working their way through the organizational hierarchy, but are instead sampling professional opportunities and moving on quickly when they see no clear-cut advantages, personally, professionally, or financially, to staying,” the report said. “As a result, many organizations are experiencing the loss of younger workers before they can recover their recruitment investment.”

Secondly the report suggested changes in workplace design and practice to make the workplace more attractive to younger workers. This includes IT leaderships working “actively and openly” with teams to facilitate a trusting and empowered working environment. The report urged regular assessments, as it found that young workers are constantly looking for feedback.

The report also recognised the importance of social networking for working and learning.“The Net Generation understands intuitively the power of Web 2.0,” the report said. “The deprivation of connectivity to the Internet has a visceral impact on the Net Generation.” That means agencies must strive to adopt the latest social media technologies to help accommodate the working styles of young IT workers, and that agencies need to look more strongly to the possibility of telework.

A finding from research we have undertaken in Pontydysgu is that the more responsibility people have for their work, the more likely they are to use technology for informal learning. The research also suggest that tecahing others is a powerful form of learning. the report appears recognise such findings.

The report pushed managers to give young workers early responsibility. “Younger, more technically savvy workers who demonstrate the ability to interject greater efficiency through technological solutions can provide training on these capabilities,” the report said.

The report is interesting. We have consistently pointed to the need to design workplaces to provide opportunities for learning. Sadly, all too often this is not happening. There are numerous frustrations particularly in regard to limited internet access. The report is into Federal IT employees, an area where there is likely to be a skills shortage in the future. But, longer term, it may be that such sectors can provide examples of innovative practice for future work space design.

In May I will be voting for the first time in the UK elections. This means I have spent large amounts of time researching and discussing the different parties and what they have to offer and I am finding it extremely hard to differentiate between the parties. In discussions with other voters my own age I became very aware what little experience many of us have in politics and within my own experience, aside from the influence of parents, guidance in making this decision for the first time is minimal.
This video from the Yahoo election page shows the extent to which this lack of knowledge can extend and was a real eye opener for me.

I believe learning about Politics is something that should be embedded somewhere within standard curriculums in the education system to avoid this sort of ignorance.
Pontydysgu is currently working on a European project called POLITICS which hopes to increase knowledge of Politics on both a national and European scale.

‘The POLITICS project is built around an e-book “Straight into Politics”. Learners will be invited to form (transnational) teams online and develop a digital and humorous story based on the scenario of a politically active young person who is convinced they can change the world for the better and organizes a election campaign.’

If you’d like to know more about this project this can be found out on the project website at http://www.politics-project.eu/index.htm.

Social Media in Higher Education and Beyond New forms of collaborating and developing team work A presentation for the interdisciplinary seminar “Future Social Learning Networks” at the University of Paderborn and the Knowledge Media Research Center in Augsburg. Tag for this event is #fsln10 Below is a voicethread with some ideas about Social Media for collaboration [...]

The Pontydysgu Polish language Paradygmat blog has undergone a facelift. Two young researchers – Ilona Buchem and Joanna Wild have launched Paradygmat 2.0. Ilona and Joanna got to know each other through the first incarnation of Paradygmat! Joanna commented on Ilona’s blogposts and they soon discovered that there is much they have in common. Ilona works as a researcher in Berlin (research project Mediencommunity 2.0)  in the area of e-learning 2.0 and learning with social media in online communities. She is interested in how Web 2.0 tools can be used to enable more learner-driven, personalized, socially connected, work embedded and sustainable learning. Joanna works at the Centre for Social Innovation – ZSI in Vienna. Her scientific focus is on pedagogical issues of technology-enhanced learning for education and training, especially on aspects related to systematic planning for learning, use of Personal Learning Environments in formal and informal learning settings, and support planning for the acquisition of rich professional competences and literacies including abilities for self-regulation, collaboration, and networked learning.

Their collaboration is a good example of how Social Media can bring people together! Ilona & Joanna have started their first series of blogposts in Polish with the topic of Personal Learning Environments. They have introduced this topic with definitions of theories and best practice discussions about applications in education and experiment with new formats of blogging in duet, such as interviews, dialogs and collaborative writing. They then want to go on and discover other interesting issues about how Social Media changes education. Their goal is to connect with the Polish-speaking research community and sparkle some innovative ideas about the future of education.

Here is the other part of the paper on the future of learning environments which I serialised on this web site last week. In truth it is the section I am least happy with. My point is that young people (and not just young people) are using social software and Web 2.0 technologies for work, play and learning outside institutions. Furthermore the pedagogic approaches to such (self-directed) learning are very different than the pedagogic approaches generally adopted in schools and educational institutions. Social networking is increasingly being used to support informal learning in work. The issue is how to show this. there are a wealth of studies and reports – which ones should I cite. And I am aware that there is a danger of just choosing reports which back up my own ideas. Anyway, as always, your comments are very welcome.

Web 2.0 and Bricolage

Web 2.0 applications and social software mark a change in our use of computers from consumption to creation. A series of studies and reports have provided rich evidence of the ways young people are using technology and the internet for socialising, communicating and for learning. Young people are increasingly using technology for creating and sharing multi media objects and for social networking. A Pew Research study (Lenhart and Madden, 2005) found that 56 per cent of young people in America were using computers for ‘creative activities, writing and posting of the internet, mixing and constructing multimedia and developing their own content. Twelve to 17-year-olds look to web tools to share what they think and do online. One in five who use the net said they used other people’s images, audio or text to help make their own creations. According to Raine (BBC, 2005), “These teens were born into a digital world where they expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share material with each other and lots of strangers.”

Such a process of creation, remixing and sharing is similar to Levi Struass’s idea of bricolage as a functioning of the logic of the concrete. In their book ‘Introducing Levi Strauus and Structural Anthropology’, Boris Wiseman and Judy Groves explains the work of the bricoleur:

“Unlike the engineer who creates specialised tools and materials for each new project that he embarks upon, the bricoleur work with materials that are always second hand.

In as much as he must make do with whatever is at hand, an element of chance always enters into the work of the bricoleur……

The bricoleur is in possession of a stock of objects (a “treasure”). These possess “meaning” in as much as they are bound together by a set of possible relationships, one of which is concretized by the bricoleur’s choice”.

Young people today are collecting their treasure to make their own meanings of objects they discover on the web. In contrast our education systems are based on specialised tools and materials.

Social networking

It is not only young people who are using social networks for communication, content sharing and learning. A further survey by Pew Internet (Lenhart, 2009) on adults use of social networking sites found:

• 79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 2005
• 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
• 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
• As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.
• 10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com?

Lest this be thought to be a north American phenomena, Ewan McIntosh (2008) has provided a summary of a series of studies undertaken in the UK (Ofcom Social Networking Research, the Oxford Internet Institute’s Internet Surveys, Ofcom Media Literacy Audit).

The main use of the internet by young people, by far, is for learning: 57% use the net for homework, saying it provides more information than books. 15% use it for learning that is not ’school’. 40% use it to stay in touch with friends, 9% for entertainment such as YouTube.

Most users of the net are using it at home (94%), then at work (34%), another persons house (30%) or at school (16%). Only 12% use public libraries and 9% internet cafés. Most people’s first exposure to the web is at home.

A further survey into the use of technology for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises found few instances of the use of formal educational technologies (Attwell, 2007). But the study found the widespread everyday use of internet technologies for informal learning, utilizing a wide range of business and social software applications. This finding is confirmed by a recent study on the adoption of social networking in the workplace and Enterprise 2.0 (Oliver Young G, 2009). The study found almost two-thirds of those responding (65%) said that social networks had increased either their efficiency at work, or the efficiency of their colleagues. 63% of respondents who said that using them had enabled them to do something that they hadn’t been able to do before. The survey of based on 2500 interviews in five European countries found the following percentage of respondents reported adoption of social networks in the workplace:

• Germany – 72%
• Netherlands – 67%
• Belgium – 65%
• France – 62%
• UK – 59%

Of course such studies beg the question of the nature and purpose of the use of social software in the workplace. The findings of the ICT and SME project, which was based on 106 case studies in six European countries (Attwell, 2007) focused on the use of technologies for informal learning. The study suggested that although social software was used for information seeking and for social and communication purposes it was also being widely used for informal learning. In such a context:

• Learning takes place in response to problems or issues or is driven by the interests of the learner
• Learning is sequenced by the learner
• Learning is episodic
• Learning is controlled by the learner in terms of pace and time
• Learning is heavily contextual in terms of time, place and use
• Learning is cross disciplinary or cross subject
• Learning is interactive with practice
• Learning builds on often idiosyncratic and personal knowledge bases
• Learning takes place in communities of practice

It is also worth considering the growing use of mobile devices. A recent Pew Internet survey (Lenhart et al, 2010) found that of the 75% of teens who own cell phones in the USA, 87% use text messaging at least occasionally. Among those texters:

• Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 texts a month, and one in three send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.
• 15% of teens who are texters send more than 200 texts a day, or more than 6,000 texts a month.
• Boys typically send and receive 30 texts a day; girls typically send and receive 80 messages per day.
• Teen texters ages 12-13 typically send and receive 20 texts a day.
• 14-17 year-old texters typically send and receive 60 text messages a day.
• Older girls who text are the most active, with 14-17 year-old girls typically sending 100 or more messages a day or more than 3,000 texts a month
• However, while many teens are avid texters, a substantial minority are not. One-fifth of teen texters (22%) send and receive just 1-10 texts a day or 30-300 a month.

Once more, of those who owned mobile phones:

• 83% use their phones to take pictures.
• 64% share pictures with others.
• 60% play music on their phones.
• 46% play games on their phones.
• 32% exchange videos on their phones.
• 31% exchange instant messages on their phones.
• 27% go online for general purposes on their phones.
• 23% access social network sites on their phones.
• 21% use email on their phones.
• 11% purchase things via their phones.

It is not just the material and functional character of the technologies which is important but the potential of the use of mobile devices to contribute to a new “participatory culture” (Jenkins at al). Jenkins at al define such a culture as one “with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices… Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways.”

Thus we can see the ways in which technology and the internet is being used for constructing knowledge and meaning through bricolage and through developing and sharing content. This takes place through extended social networks which both serve for staying in touch with friends but also for seeking information and for learning in a participatory culture.

(Rozmowa na Skypie. Ilona mieszka w Berlinie, Joanna w Milton Keynes)

Ilona : Hej Asia, a nie bylaby 22 mojego czasu dla ciebie za pozno?

Joanna : Wiesz co, troche pozno, moze chociaz o 21.30, co?

Ilona : Ok, jestem o 21:30. Boze, jakie z nas kobiety pracujace.

Joanna : Prawda?

Ilona: Prosze, powiedz mi jak to sie stalo, ze zainteresowalas sie tematem Osobistego Srodowiska Uczenia sie, czyli w skrocie z jezyka angielskiego PLE? Bylas w iCampie, to od tego sie zaczelo?

Joanna: Dokladnie tak. Zaczelo sie od pomyslu projektu iCamp, zeby wprowadzic oprogramowania spolecznosciowe do szkol wyzszych. To byl 2005 rok. Wtedy pracowalam jeszcze w Centrum e-Learningu na AGH.

Ilona: Ok, czy to byla pierwsza taka inicjatywa?

Joanna: Moja tak

Ilona: 2005 to juz kupa czasu… czyli mozemy przyjac, ze z poczatkiem projektu iCamp rozpoczela sie dyskusja na temat PLE, tak?

Joanna: Wczesniej mowilo sie o oprogramowaniach spolecznosciowych i roli jaka moga odegrac w procesie uczenia sie. My tez nie zaczelismy od razu od slowa PLE.

Ilona: A kto uchodzi za ojca PLE? lub matke?

Joanna: Wiesz, sukces ma wielu ojcow i matek… Jezeli wierzyc Wikipedii to po raz pierwszy uzyto sformulowania Personal Learning Environment, a wlasciwie Personal Learning/Research Environment, na konferencji JISC/CETIS w 2004 roku – autorow prezentacji bylo… No, zgadnij?

Ilona: Dwoch? Trzech?

Joanna: Dziewietnastu Czesto tez wsrod pionierow wymienia sie Scotta Wilsona i jego wizje VLE przyszlosci.

Ilona: A kto w iCampie byl najwiekszym wizjonerem PLE?

Joanna: Wiesz co, trudno powiedziec. Na pewno duze uznanie nalezy sie pomyslodawcom samego projektu. Tyle ze na poczatku nie mowilo sie o PLE.

Ilona: Tylko?

Joanna: Mowilo sie o polaczeniu dwoch swiatow.

Ilona: Jakich?

Joanna: Jednym byly szkoly wyzsze i ich zamkniete platformy e-learningowe, drugim byl swiat studentow i swiat ludzi pracy, a w nim dominowaly serwisy spolecznosciowe

Ilona: A dlaczego polaczenie tych dwoch swiatow bylo/jest takie wazne?

Joanna: Bo studenci musza w czasie studiow zdobyc umiejetnosci poruszania sie po tym drugim swiecie, tym otwartym, globalnym, w ktorym ludzie wspolpracuja ze soba na odleglosc, poznaja sie przez sieci – tak jak my sie poznalysmy, i w ten sposob poszerzaja swoje horyzonty, rozwiazuja problemy, ucza sie ze soba i od siebie.

Ilona: To ciekawe, ze mowisz o polaczeniu dwoch swiatow, bo czesto w dyskusji o PLE / VLE ludzie sie zacietrzewiaja i uwazaja, ze tylko jedna z tych dwoch drog jest dobra i sensowana. W marcu prowadzilam warsztaty na temat PLE w szkolnictwie wyzszym i przezylam to na wlasnej skorze – zazarte dyskusje dwoch obozow.

Joanna : O, to ciekawe, powiedz cos wiecej

Ilona : Jedni chca tylko PLE a drudzy tylko VLE. Ci co chca VLE argumentuja tak: studenci i docenci potrzebuja zamknietego srodowiska, w korym moga czuc sie bezpiecznie i popelniac bledy. Do tego dorzucja argumenty o ochronie danych osobowych.

Joanna : Tak, to typowe argumenty przeciw. A ci drudzy?

Ilona : A ci, ktorzy chca tylko PLE uwazaja, ze VLE ogranicza wszystkie ruchy i decyzje, ze poprzez swoje sztywne struktury powiela tylko tradycyjny system edukacji, ogranicza kreatywnosc i indywidualnosc. Nie widza sensu istnienia VLE.

Joanna : A jaka jest twoja opinia? Ktory oboz reprezentujesz?

Ilona : Wydaje mi sie, ze sa rozne sytuacje, rozne poziomy kompetencji i rozne potrzeby i ze PLE i VLE maja swoje uzasadnienie. Szczerze powiedziawszy chcialabym zalozyc trzeci oboz ludzi srodka

Joanna : To ja sie zapisuje!

Ilona : To super! Wiesz, ostatnio mialam tez taki przypadek: Dozent na moim uniwersytecie poprosil mnie o rade, jak ma wprowadzic blogowanie dla swoich studentow.

Joanna : I jaka rade mu dalas?

Ilona : … zeby zaczal od Moodle.

Joanna : Bloga Moodlu?

Ilona : No wiem, az wstyd sie przyznac do czegos takiego na Potydysgu.

Joanna : A czy mozna w nim juz komentowac? Bo projektanci kursow, z ktorymi wspolpracuje w projekcie REVIVE tez sie upierali zeby korzystac wylacznie z bloga na moodlu, tylko ze sie okazalo, ze komentowac nie mozna. A przynajmniej wtedy nie mozna bylo, dyskusje na ten temat toczyly sie mniej wiecej rok temu.

Ilona : Nie wiem, szczerze ci powiem. Ale zapytam tego mojego docenta niedlugo o jego pierwszych doswiadczeniach Moodlem.

Joanna : Ok, a dlaczego poradzilas temu docentowi zeby zaczal od Moodla?

Ilona : Bo moja analiza jego potrzeb i podejscia do sprawy do takiego mnie wlasnie posunela wniosku. Po pierwsze upieral sie, aby wszystko to, co studenci beda pisac bylo niedostepne dla swiata zewnetrznego. Po drugie twierdzil, ze nie ma wystarajacego doswiadczenia i kompetencji, aby zalozyc cos wlasnego. A po trzecie uwaza Google za Big Brothera i nie chce wstawiac za duzo o sobie i o swoich studentach do sieci.

Joanna : Ok, to wystarczy mi argumentow.

Ilona : Wiesz, nie chcialam bys misjonarzem. Mysle, ze kazdy musi zdobyc wlasne doswiadczenia. I jezeli, ktos nie jest gotowy i otwarty, to niech sprobuje Moodla

Joanna: A propos bloga: w iCamp’ie nasi technolodzy pracowali miedzy innymi nad interoperacyjnoscia blogow w moodlu i w WordPressie. Napisali nawet taka fajna wtyczke o nienajlepszej (bo mylacej) nazwie Feedback, ktory pozwala na oferowanie subskrypcji wlasnego bloga innym. Mysle, ze najlepiej na przykladzie: Dajmy na to student A ma bloga na moodlu a student B na WordPressie. Student A korzystajac z wtyczki Feedback wysyla zawiadomienie o swoim blogu do studenta B – to takie zaproszenie: czytaj mnie. Student B przyjmuje zaproszenie, co jednoczesnie oznacza: ty tez mnie czytaj. Teraz student A wchodzac na swojego bloga w moodlu bedzie mogl czytac i odpisywac na wpisy studenta B i vice versa.

Ilona: To ciekawe, a jak jeszcze udalo sie wam polaczyc obydwa swiaty w iCampie?

Joanna: Innym bardzo udanym przedsiewzieciem byla wyszukiwarka o nazwie ObjectSpot i jej moodlowa wtyczka. Celem bylo polaczenie zamknietego swiata materialow dydaktycznych zamieszczanych na Moodlu z opcja wygodnego przeszukiwania materialow edukacyjnych rozproszonych w ramach licznych bibliotek cyfrowych i repozytoriow online. Bedac na Moodlu mozesz wklepac slowo klucz do wyszukiwarki ObjectSpot – odpowiedzia bedzie lista zasobow zawierajacych to slowo zebranych ze znanych bibliotek i repozytoriow edukacyjnych rozsianych po Internecie.  Zarowno Feedback jak i ObjectSpot opisane sa w podreczniku iCampa – na stronie Centrum e-Learningu AGH dostepna jest polska wersja tego podrecznika.

Ilona: Ok, czyli wynika z tego, ze Moodle i inne VLEs sa ciezko przepuszczalne ale jednak przepuszczalne…

Joanna: Jak sie chce, to sie da. To byly pierwsze proby laczenia VLE i PLE. W ramach kursow testowych w iCampie studenci i wykladowcy probowali tworzyc wlasne PLE – zakladali blogi i bookmarki, uzywali wiki i google docs, skypa i videokonferencji. VLE bylo tylko jednym z elementow PLE kazdego studenta. Chyba w ostatnim roku iCampa technolodzy zaczeli tez eksperymentowac z tak zwanym mash-up PLE, czyli laczeniem roznych oprogramowan i serwisow sieciowych w ramach jednej strony internetowej. Ale mnie juz wtedy w iCampie niestety nie bylo, zaczelam pracowac dla ZSI w zupelnie innym projekcie.

Joanna: A kiedy zaczela sie twoja przygoda z PLE?

Ilona :  Moja historia jest w porownaniu do Twojej bardzo krotka ale intensywna. Ja sie zajmuje PLE dopiero od ponad roku, odkad zaczelam pracowac w projekcie Mediencommunity 2.0. Przedtem pracowalam w Damiler. Bylam tam w dziale szkolen i robilam eLearning 1.0.

Joanna : Czyli?

Ilona : E-Learning 1.0 czyli nudy na pudy – dobrze opracowane (czesto miesiacami!) multimedialne (drogie!) WBTs (web-based trainings), ktore na koncu standardowo odpytywaly/testowaly wiedze deklaratywna. Czyli taka szkolka w firmie. No i caly czas probowalam przemycac jakies innowatorskie podejscia. Nie latwo bylo wprowadzic innowacje … w nauce. Wiesz jak to jest w duzych firmach, decyzje przechocza przez 5 szczebli zanim zostana podjete, a ludzie maja bardzo tradycyjne pojecie o tym, czym jest uczenie sie. Chce sie wszystko zaplanowac, mierzyc, kontrolowac. Trudno podjac jest decyzje o inwestycji w cos nowego, czego nie mozna wyrazic w ROI (return on investment).

Joanna : I trwa to tak dlugo, az innowacja przestaje byc innowacja

Ilona : Dokladnie.

Ilona : Na szczescie szkolilam trenerow i mialam mozliwosc przemycyc cos nowego od czasu do czasu …

Joanna : A teraz wiele firm ma wlasne blogi?

Ilona : Tak, corporate blogs, ale to jest bardziej instrument marketingowy/PR. Z uczeniem sie nie ma niestety duzo wspolnego.

Joanna : No to opowiedz troche wiecej o tym projekcie, w ktorym jestes teraz.

Ilona : A wiec Mediencommunity 2.0 to jest projekt, ktory bada w jaki sposob siec spoleczna/Web 2.0 moze zostac zastosowowana w branzy poligraficznej i medialnej tak, aby polepszyc ksztalcenie zawodowe na roznych poziomach. Naszym celem jest poprzez siec spoleczna umozliwic dialog w branzy miedzy roznymi ludzmi, np. drukarzami z drukarni i grafikami z agencji, nauczycielami i uczniami, pracownikami z korporacji i z malej firmy. Chodzi o to, aby w takiej branzowej spolecznosci sieciowej, ci rozni ludzie mogli wedlug swoich indywidualnych potrzeb uzywac takich mechanizmow sieciowych jak wiki, blog, mikroblog, systemu zarzadzania zakladkami (np. Delicious) itp itd, po to, aby znajdowac odpowiedzi na wspolne pytania, rozwiazywac wspolne problemy i przy tym dzielic sie wiedza, doswiadczeniami, perspektywami. Probujemy roznych strategi, najczesciej idziemy metoda malych krokow i zachecamy tych, ktorzy maja jakis interesujacy temat, pomysl, potrzebe, aby zaczeli byc w tej spolecznosci aktywni.

Joanna : To jak probujecie wprowadzac PLE?

Ilona : Programujemy nasza platforme w systemie Drupal, co daje mozliwosc bardzo swobodnego laczenia roznych modulow, takich jak wiki, blogi itp, zaleznie od potrzeb uzytkownikow. Chcemy polaczyc tez Drupal i Moodle, czyli bardziej tradycyjne, linearne kursy z jasnym poczatkiem i koncem na Moodlu i nieformalna wymiane ad hoc w spolecznosci sieciowej na Drupalu. Pozy tym probujemy wciagac bezposrednio ludzi z branzy do uczestniczenia w procesie kreowania.

Joanna : o.. to ciekawe

Ilona : Tak, to bardzo wazny proces. Potrzebujemy ludzi, korzy sa otwarci i chca czegos nowego sprobowac. Jako mulitplikatorzy moga potem zmienic cos w swoim wlasnym otoczeniu i tak spirala zmian moze zmienic myslenie w branzy. A musi sie cos zmienic, bo ta branza przechodzi duze zmiany i ma kilka powaznych problemow, np. z zatrudnieniem.

Joanna : Ok, a co kreuja te osoby?

Ilona: Zachecamy np. nauczycieli szkol zawodowych i ludzi z firm, ktorzy zajmuja sie ksztalceniem mlodych ludzi w miejscach pracy aby kreowali wlasne srodowiska uczenia sie. A my ich w tym procesie wspieramy dydaktycznie i techniczne, pomagamy im stworzyc wlasne koncepty i je zrealizowac.

Joanna : To jak wyglada PLE takiego nauczyciela?

Ilona : Roznie, zaleznie od potrzeb mozna zintegrowac w takim wirtualnym srodowisku np. wiki, blog, bookmarking, forum i zdecydowac, co kto w jaki sposob moze uzywac. Nazwalismy to witualne grupy uczenia sie, aby ludzie z branzy lepiej mogli sobie wyobrazic, na czym to polega.

Joanna : Tez ladnie. GLE – group learning environment. A jak pomagacie temu nauczycielowi? Co taka osoba musi wiedziec i jakie musi posiadac umiejetnosci, aby aktywnie wspoltworzyc takie grupowe srodowisko uczenia sie?

Ilona : Czyli jakie kompetencje sa potrzebne do tego, aby stworzyc PLE albo GLE?  O tym pogadamy nastepnym razem, ok?

A quick update in my series of posts on our experiences in organising the PLE2010 conference. We received 82 proposals for the conference – far more than we had expected. The strong response, I suspect, was due to three reasons: the interest in PLEs in the Technology Enhanced Learning community, the attraction of Barcelona as a venue and our success in using applications like Twitter for virally publicising the conference.

Having said that – in terms of format in seems to me that some of the submissions as full conference papers would have been better made under other formats. However, present university funding requirements demand full papers and inhibit applications for work in progress or developing ideas in more appropriate formats.

For the last two weeks I have been organising the review process. We promised that each submission would be blind reviewed by at least two reviewers. For this we are reliant on the freely given time and energy of our Academic Committee. And whilst reviewing can be a learning process in itself it is time consuming.

Submissions have been managed through th open source Easychair system, hosted by the University of Manchester. The system is powerful, but the interfaces are far from transparent and the help somewhat minimalist! I have struggled to get the settings in the system right and some functions seem buggy – for instance the function to show missing reviews seems not to be working.

Two lessons for the future seem immediately apparent. Firstly, we set the length of abstracts as a maximum of 350 words. Many of the reviewers have commented that this is too short to judge the quality of the submission.

Secondly is the fraught issue of criteria for the reviews. We produced detailed guidelines for submissions based on the Creative Commons licensed Alt-C guidelines.

The criteria were:

• Relevance to the themes of the conference although this does not exclude other high quality proposals.
• Contribution to scholarship and research into the use of PLEs for learning.
• Reference to the characteristics and needs of learners.
• Contribution to the development of learning technology policy or theory in education.
• Links that are made between theory, evidence and practice.
• Appropriate reflection and evaluation.
• Clarity and coherence.
• Usefulness to conference participants.

However, when I sent out the papers for review, whilst I provided a link to those guidelines, I failed to copy them into the text of the emails asking for reviews. In retrospect, I should have attempted to produce a review template in EasyChair incorporating the guidelines.

Even with such explicit guidelines, there is considerable room for different interpretation by reviewers. I am not sure that in our community we have a common understanding of what might be relevant to the themes of the conference or a contribution to scholarship and research into the use of PLEs for learning. I suspect this is the same for many conferences: however, the issue may be more problematic in an emergent area of education and technology practice.

We also set a scale for scoring proposals:

• 3 – strong accept
• 2 – accept
• 1- weak accept
• 0 – borderline
• -1 – week reject
• -2 – reject
• - 3 – reject

In addition we asked reviewers to state their degree of confidence in their review ranging from 4, expert, to 0, null.

In over half the cases where we have received two reviews, the variation between the reviewers is no more that 1. But there are also a number of reviews with significant variation. This suggest significant differences in understandings by reviewers of the criteria – or the meaning of the criteria. it could also just be that different reviewers have different standards.

In any case, we will organise a further review procedure for those submissions where there are significant differences. But I wonder if the scoring process is the best approach. To have no scoring seems to be a way fo avoiding the issue. I wonder if we should have scoring for each criteria, although this would make the review process even more complicated.

I would welcome any comments on this. Whilst too late for this conference, as a community we are reliant on peer review as a quality process and collective learning and reflection may be a way of improving our work.