But are we still getting e-learning wrong? Not the technology but what we are trying to use ot for and with whom.

As with most technological innovation, first attempts at implementation tend to mimic previous social paradigms. This the idea of the virtual classroom and the on-line university. Teaching and learning  through technology have changed with the idea of blended learning and the increasing integration of technologies within curricular and pedagogic  approaches. But the main thrust of use of technology for learning remains the delivery of ‘traditional; curricula or bodies of knowledge to translational students groups – albeit extended through distance learning to a wider student cohort.

I have long thought that the transformative potential of Technology Enhanced Learning is the ability to support explorative (I am desperately trying to avoid that vague ‘constructivist’ word?) learning for anyone, anywhere. And, in a developmental perspective, the most interesting work may be the use of technology for supporting work based learning and informal learning outside traditional courses. In this respect, it is interested to see the increasing interest of projects funded under the European Commission Research programme and Education and Training programme in competence based approaches to education and training.

However, this approach remains problematic. attempts to develop standardised  taxonomies of competence tend to ignore the importance of context, especially or work based learning and Continuing Professional Development. Recently, I have been involved in a number fo projects looking at how we can use internet based technologies ot support learning, knowledge development and knowledge maturing for Careers Advice, Information and Guidance practitioners in the UK. Of course, ‘training’ is important for such a group of knowledge workers. But even more important is the ability to learn, everyday from the work they carry out, both individually and collectively. Within the Mature-IP project we have developed an approach to knowledge maturing aiming at the development and implementation of tools for Personal Learning and for Organisational learning. In reality it has proved difficult to separate out the two. Individual learning rests of more collective learning processes, within a community of practice, and equally organisational learning is largely dependent on the individual learning of the practitioners. it is possible to look at the roles and tasks carried out by Careers professionals and then to develop tools to assist in carrying out such tasks. such an approach has the merit of supporting everyday work, thus meaning that potentially learning is integrated within the work process. However, there is no guarantee that merely using technologies for task management results in significant learning and knowledge development at either individual or organisational level.

One answer appears to be to integrate more social software functionality into platforms and tools designed to support learning. this autumn, we will launch two platforms: one for policy makers within the careers field based on a mash up of Wordpress and the excellent Open University Cloudworks software, and the other a professional development site for careers practitioners based on Buddypress. with both we are attempting to encourage and facilitate peer group learning based on social interaction.

Whether or not these approaches will be successful remains to be seen. But, overall, I am convinced that such projects are key to developing a more transformational direction to the use of technology for learning. In undertaking this work we are lucky to have the support of the Mature-IP project which allows a more focused examination of teh relation between theories and practice in learning and the development of Technology Enhanced Learning tools and platforms. One issue that has become apparent is that research into Technology Enhanced Learning is truly inter-disciplinary – needing at a very least a bringing together of expertise in pedagogy, education, organisational learning, work sciences, design and psychology as well as computer science. Such interdisciplinary research provides a challenge in terms of methodologies.

Projects like Mature-IP and the JISC funded Emerge project offer the basis for rethinking what we are doing with e-learning – and perhaps even for getting it ‘right’ this time round.

Emerge was by invitation. But I turned up at the rest by following urls on shout outs on twitter. Twitter is becoming a professional and social calender.

So far so good. But opportunities for participation and interaction varied greatly. This is partly due to the technologies. From one extreme to the other – Emerge used the Elluminate platform which allows a high degree of particaption whilst MirandaNet had a hand held vdeo camera linked to u-stream. Cetis had no video feed but the event was intensively covered in Twitter and live blogged as well. The Amplified people ambitiously tried to provide four different video streams. With both the MirandaNet and the Amplified event the audio quality was poor. These things happen and I am sure the technology will get better. My only observation would be that whilst people invest a lot of energy into video feeds they seem to ignore the need for high quality micrrophones. Indeed, a preamp to pick up the audio directly would seem a worthwhile investment if people really want to get their event out on the net.

But it is the event organisation or pedagogy which concerns me more. Organising a Blended Event is like organising a belended learningc ourse. You cannot just replace the nromal face to face elements of the course with the smae pedagogci approache son the ineterent. It requires thought and design. And if you really want such a blended prohgramme – rather then just pushing out a video feed of the face to face event – then the design of the event will have to be changed. For Emerge, it was diifcult to see what added value there was for the Face to Face participants. For MirandaNet and Amplified the opportunities for active partication by on-line participants was limited. In some ways the Cetis people who did not stream their conference may have got more interaction through the use of Live Blogging and Twitter than those who did provide a video stream.

We do not really seem to know how to do these things at the moment.

If I get a little time to think about this, I am going to try to start writing some guidelines on how to organise Blended Eevents. But better still, has anyone out there got any ideas?

First up is Frederic Aunis on hairdressing. He works for L’Oriel. Kids end up doing hairdressing because they do not know what else to do or have failed at school. Hairdressers, he says, all over the world learn by doing. they need techncial and artistic skills, life and communication skills and a business understanding. But in schools business skills are not taught. Managers train apprentices in technical skills but not business skills.

Frederick has been developing a business game. His organisation is developing programmes for 20 million students (seems unlikely?). The game is called Hair Be12. It is translated into 13 languages and implemented in 10 countries. Now we get a demo. Choose a character and customise it. Then twelve episodes to the game. The first is on customer relations. A series of multiple choice questions. Then according to answers skills levels indicator moves up and down and turnover for business changes. No correct answers in game says Frederick. It’s like in real life. No-one complains but your turnover is hit. And there are bonus games. design your salon etc. At end get classification on the web based game – compared to others.

interesting that it did not really work as an individual self-learning game but took off when it was used in groups – it created, he says, “a wow effect.” And it has gone on to be used for facilitating meetings and organisational development within hair salons.

The topics have been ‘flattened’ to ensure game is applicable in different cultures.

Hm – not bad – looks quite fun, teaches something hard to learn any other way. At least it feels like a game. Maybe a bit limited in scope though. Big plus – he says it was relatively cheap to develop. My rating – cool. And a great presentation.

Contact url seems to be www.hair-be12.com – definitely worth a look.

Some time ago I read the transcript of a speech by John Seely Brown on Learning, Working and Playing in the digital Age. In the speech Seely Brown talked about how young people used the web as bricolage.

I have cited this in quite a few papers. Jenny Hughes was reviewing one of the papers for me and objected to my citing the idea of bricolage to Seely Brown. Bricolage, she said, was a key idea in Levi- Strauss’s thinking amongst. I had fogotten about this but Jenny had not. She gave me a copy of a book called “Introducing Levi Strauus and Structural Anthropology” by Boris Wiseman and Judy Groves. It is a great book and it has pictures and cartoons – I love these easy introduction books. And indeed there is a section on bricolage:

“To describe the functioning of the logic of the concrete – the essence of a pensee sauvage – Levi-Strauss usesd an unusual analogy. The logic of the concrete he says is the mental equivalent of bricolage – intellectual D.I.Y.

Levi-Strauss’s notion of briclolage has many different applications for all of those from anthropologists to literary critics and philosophers, who have recognised themselves in his portrait of the bricoleur and drawn their own lessons from it.

Levi-Strauss contrasts the work of the bricoleur to that of the engineer, and uses this opposition to characterise the two modes of understanding which underlie, repsoectively, primitive science and modern science.

At the same time, he also applies his concept of bricolage to myth, thus opening up the whole question of its specific reference to an understanding of the processes of artistic creation.

This is how the bricoleur works.

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.

Levi Strauss draws two analogies with myth. First, considered in its genesis, myth, like bricolage, is an assembly of disparate elements: it creates structures (i.e. narratives) out of events.

Second, myths are always constructed out of the disarticulated elements of the social discourses of the past. In this too they resemble bricolage.

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”.

I have been increasingly interested in unearthing alternative design principles to that of instructional design. It seems to me Levi-Strauss has written the definitive guide to using Web 2.0 and learning. I have an aspiration – to be a true bricoleur.

It should be easy, I thought. Most e-learning in the UK is, in reality, a mix of different modes and forms of learning. But it was to prove not so – or perhaps my search strategies were uninspired. Whilst it is relatively easy to find research articles about blended learning – and tehir are a number of handbooks etc. these tend to focus on rubriucs of curriculum and technology design. It is much haredr to find anything which really dives into the practice of deisgn and delivery of blended learning.

I started wondering why. Perhaps it is because we still seem to have problems in evaluating effective and approariate learning using technologies. Is it because we do not know what we are really looking for? Is it because we have inadequate understanding of what makes for effective learning? Or is it because we do not understand the processes of inetraction in teaching and learning.

I was talking about this with my friend and colleague Jenny Hughes. Jenny has worked for many years in training teachers and trainers. We were discussing the difficulty in recognising and researching effective teaching practices. In truth we know little about what actually happens behind the closed classroom door. Of course teachers and trainers exchange experiences – mostly, I suspect, through telling stories. Some teachers and trainers exchange materaisl they have found to be useful. We have some pretty good programmes for school managers. Yet we still have great difficulty in explaining what makes for effective teaching – even more so in passing that on to others. Indeed it sometimes seems that teacher training colleges teach everything else except how to teach. Jen and I went on to talk about how we might design a research project to identify effective teaching practice based on observation and developing shared metadata for describing practice.

More on this next week. And I will give you my list of examples of effective and appropriate practice when I finish it. In the meantime, if you have any examples, I would be very happy to hear from you.

Happy new year.

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