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The educational techies are getting interested in competence. Why? I’m not sure - I suspect it might be a funding thing.

But last week I was at an EU IST programme funded Ten Competence project meeting in Manchester. It was a pretty good conference with some thought provoking contributions. But i was fairly horrified at the lack of understanding of what competence was. It ranged from “well we aren’t really interested but we had to say we were to get the money’ to the ‘we found this thing called Blooms taxonomy - thats what all educationalists use’.

Now i am not particularly worried that people have different conceptions of competence (more on that in a moment). But i am seriously concerned if educational technologists and particularly systems designers think competence can easily be reduced to a simple hierarchically defined taxonomy. It reminds me of all those developers who claimed that their applications were pedagogically neutral.

One of the problems is that many of the education technology developers, in Europe at least, come from Higher Education. One of them actually said in manchester that the idea of competence in new in education. Well, new it might be for universities. But in vocational education and training we have been working with concepts about competence for many years,

Anyway, I am in Luxembourg at the moment for a review meeting of the IST programme iCamp project (I.m one of the reviewers). Although I must admit I don’t follow exactly what the project is trying to develop, it is very impressive in that it does have a strong pedagogic underpinning. And in the first project deliverable, by Sebastian Fiedler and Barbara Kieslinger (2006) I found an excellent discussion around the nature and meaning of competence.

“It is important to note”, they say,

that the concept of competence is a theoretical construct that refers to a human potentiality for action or its underlying dispositions. Theoretical constructs of this kind can, and indeed are, used for a variety of descriptive and/or explanatory purposes. This variability is clearly reflected in the current literature on competencies and its apparent lack of coherence and precision.

Competencies acquisition and advancement | iCamp

They go on to say:

Like the more traditional concept of ability, competence conceptualizations are generally referring to an individual’s potentiality for action in a range of challenging situations. It is thus a concept that foremost indicates a precondition for future problem solving and coping (including the use of adequate tools) in a particular area of action…….This is where the old notion of qualification that is based on requirements analysis oriented in the past and on the acquisition and performance of standardized procedural skills and factual knowledge clearly shows its limits.

Competencies acquisition and advancement | iCamp

The problem in their formulation seems to be that they divide the potentiality to act from subject based learning. In part that is just because of the problematic nature of the traditional taxonomies of learning based on subject disciplines and their increasing irrelevance to how we apply and structure knowledge in the modern world. Nevertheless it provides a good starting point for considering how competence might be encapsulated in learning software. I would contend that it cannot be codified through a hierarchical taxonomy, but rather requires the provision of tools to enable learners to themselves scaffold their learning and reflexively discover and describe their own competence.

Technorati Tags: e-learning

I read a lot of journal and conference papers - its part of my job. And just occasionally, you read one and think ‘wow, this is so cool’.

So, I am recommending the following paper to you - ‘Authenticity in Learning: Transactional Learning in Virtual Communities‘ by Karen Barton, Patricia McKellar and Paul Maharg.

The context for their work is law education but the ideas in the paper apply to any sphere of learning. The first part of the paper looks at the idea of authenticity. I was particularly taken by a quote from Barab, Squire & Dueber (2000) who say “authenticity lies ‘not in the learner, the task or the environment, but in the dynamic interactions among these various components […] authenticity is manifest in the flow itself, and is not an objective feature of any one component in isolation”.

They go on to describe the environment they have designed for providing simulations of legal practice.

They suggest that “if we focus on creating carefully-designed simulation tasks along the lines of what I shall call ‘transactional learning’ and create flexible, sensitive software instruments by which students can express themselves and carry out that task-based learning, then we become involved in creating an environment where students can begin to comprehend through active learning the complexity of a professional legal task or transaction.

They also define transactional learning based on their practice as:

• Transactional learning is active learning
  
  Transactional learning is based on doing legal transactions.
  
  Transactional learning involves reflection on learning.
  
  Transactional learning is based on collaborative learning.
  
  Transactional learning requires holistic or process learning.

Students work in groups of four, forming virtual legal companies. Particularly important is that assessment is based on the performance of the company, not of individual students, with members of the company responsible for agreeing on the work to be submitted.

The only slight disappointment with the paper is the conclusion, which talks about change management. I’m not saying change management is not important, but it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the paper.

Great stuff - make sure you read this. And thanks to Al Harris who forwarded me a copy.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, simulations

Bit of  strange title, but this is my presentation to last weeks Ten Competence project conference in Manchester.

The conference itself was extremely interesting and I will be adding a couple of entries over various contributions in the next few days.

Meanwhile back to my presentation. I have talked before about how school is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the way people are learning in todays society. This extends beyond issues of pedagogy and includes both curriculum and the way we organise our education systems. In the paper and presentation characterise it as an “industrial model of schooling”.

Whilst new approaches to learning using social software and seeking to recognise informal learning are welcome and necessary, I am sceptical that such model projects can be generalised within the present system. Indeed, the evidence of many, many innovative projects is that without project funding and special dispensation for innovation, they cannot be sustained beyond the lifetime of the project.

The answer is not ‘better projects’ but a thorough going reform of our education systems, indeed a new understanding of the role and process of learning in our societies. Above all we need to deschool society. OK, I know that this may be unpopular or unpalatable for most politicians. But someone, sooner or later, is going to have to address the issue.

In the meantime researchers have a key role, not just in pointing out that the schooling system is breaking down, but in developing radical, agile and pedagogically attractive models for learning within society and provoking a wider debate on the role of learning. Click on the image below to download a PDF version of the presentation - if you would like another format please get in touch.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, pedagogy, Peronal Learning Environments

I’ve submitted a paper for the Ten Competence project Conference to be held in Manchester in January.

The paper brings together previous work on Personal Learning Environments with research into the use of ICt for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. The following extract is from the summary and the full paper can be downloaded below.

“In terms of the development of ICT for supporting lifelong competence development there is the need for a fundamental policy revue. Past models have focused on the extension of the largely consumer driven model of developing standardised learning materials and component qualifications to be delivered through a Learning Management System or Virtual Learning Environment and of targeted marketing campaigns towards enterprises. This model is not only costly but has made little impact and is unsustainable. If learning is best developed through communities of practice then the focus for programmes and projects seeking to provide e-learning for SMEs should be refocused on the provision of applications and support for distributed communities of practice for SMEs.

In terms of software applications this requires the use of social software rather than more traditional e-learning programmes and applications. Rather than subsidise the development of professional learning materials the emphasis could be on the sharing of peer group learning materials through networks. Aggregator applications allow advanced searching and the bringing together of materials from different sources. The refocusing of programmes and projects in this way allow the vision of an ecology of learning materials, rather than the present unsustainable pilot applications.

Thus the development and implementation of Personal Learning Environments for lifelong competence development requires not just a new approach to learning software and architectures, welcome though the Services Oriented Approach is, but the shaping of technology and the co-development of enterprises and business development policies, new pedagogies as well as educational services to facilitate learning and knowledge development.”

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Technorati Tags: Peronal Learning Environments, Personal_Learning_Environments