Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

Here is the podcast of  the first broadcast of a new pilot live internet radio programme, the Jisc e-Learning show. The programme is based on a symposium on Lifelong Learning, led by Jisc earlier this spring.

The issues discussed include

• the use of mobile technologies and e-Portfolios to support learners.
• engaging with employers
• Project mainstreaming and sustainibility
• developing and supporting work based learning
• changing the culture of higher education
• funding models and policies

and much more.

Guest include Derek Longhurst from Foundation Degree Forward, Clive Church from Edexel, Lucy Stone from Leicester College, Tony Toole from the University of Glamorgan, Bob Bell, HE in FE consultant for the northern region, Sandra Winfield from Nottingham University and Rob Ward from the Centre for Recording Achievement

the show also features a live panel discussion with Oleg Liber from CETIS, Claire Newhouse from the Lifelong Learning Network national forum and Andrew Ravenscroft from London Metropolitan University.

This was a pilot programme and is a little different in style from our sometimes raucous Sounds of the Bazaar. We would particularly appreciate feedback. Is this the kind of programme Jisc should put out? What do you think about the format? Is the programme too long (or too short) and what would be the best time we could broadcast on? What about the music – too much, too little (or too classical ). Do you have ideas for future Jisc radio shows? You can leave comments below or I would especially appreciate it if you could leave any comments on the Jisc e-Learning blog which also provides a link to the podcast feed.

The music is called Musiques en Principauté de Boisbelle and is composed and played by DaCapo. It can be found on the Creative Commons music web site Jamendo.

The programme was produced by Dirk Stieglitz.

The Jisc e-Learning Show [ 1:08:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1002)

It is the season of predictions for 2009. Here is mine – 2009 will be the year of Open Education. Seminars, workshops, lectures, courses – all available on line and for free. I am not sere I trust my  star-gazing ability – or my ability to predict technology development trends for that matter – so we are doing our best to make sure it comes true by organising a series of events ourselves.

Over the next few days I will be posting details of a whole series of different events. First up, here is the spring Open Seminar series being organised by the JISC Evolve network in collaboration with the German Educamp Network who are staging a series of conferences around Web2.0 social software and elearning. is organising the third EduCamp in Germany.

Emerging Sounds of the Bazaar Live

26 January 1900 CET, 1800 UK time – Dragons Den special – Learning and Multi user Virtual Environments

23 February 1900 CET, 1800 UK time – The reality of communities

March 2009 – time and date ot be announced – LIVE broadcast from JISC Emerge conference.

You can listen live to all the programmes by going to http://tinyurl.com/6df6ar in your web browser. This will open the live stream in your MP3 player of choice.

Emerging Mondays Seminars

The open online seminars will take place on the Elluminate platform. We will announce the address for the events shortly, together with the final line line up of presenters. Each seminar will feature tow short introductions with most time being given over to discussion.

PLEs and E-Portfolios – is this the future of education?
January, 19th 2009, 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu
Moderators: Thomas Bernhardt and Marcel Kirchner

• What does a PLE look like?
• What is PLE? A technical concept or a pedagogic method?
• How can we use e-Portfolios and PLEs in practice?What is the difference between a PLE and an E-Portfolio?
• Is the PLE the future of education?

Careers and the Internet – how does Web 2.0 impact on our Online Reputation and Identity
February, 16th 2009 – 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Steven Warburton, Kings College, Eduserve funded Rhizomes project
Moderators: Cristina Costa and Marcel Kirchner

• How can we use E-Portfolios and other tools for applying for jobs and building identities
• The risks and opportunities in developing a web identity
• Privacy 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 – the potential of Social Software for learning in enterprises
March, 16th 2009 – 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Timothy Hall, University of Limerick, Ireland
Moderators: Cristina Costa and Steffen Büffel

• How is social software being used for learning in enterprises
• Can social software support communities of practice
• How can social software support informal learning

Edupunk – Free the educational system
April, 6th 2009 1900 CET, 1800 UK time
Speakers: Dr. Martin Ebner and Steven Wheeler, University of Plymouth
Moderators: Thomas Bernhardt, Marcel Kirchner and Cristina Costa

• Edupunk – hype or reality
• Does e-teaching need a pedagogical apprenticeship?
• Why and how far students should be involved in the developing process of courses?

ThoughtFest 09

5-6 March, Salford, Manchester, UK
Thought Fest is a two-day event being organized by Pontydysgu with the support of the JISC Evolve network and
the European Mature-IP project.

The event will bring together researchers in Technology Enhanced Learning in an open forum to debate the current issues surrounding educational technologies and discuss how and where research impacts on practice and where practice drives research.

Whilst there will be keynotes by Graham Attwell and Steven Warburton, Thought Fest is a user driven workshop and we welcome ideas for sessions, demontsrations activities. Accomodation and food for free – you juts have to pay for your travel.

More details here or sign up on this page.

Educamp
April 17th – 19th
Venue: Ilmenau, Thuringia, Germnay
What is the EduCamp all about?
The EduCamp-Network (http://educamp.mixxt.de/) is organising the third EduCamp in Germany. This will also be the first international EduCamp. The event will take place from the 17th to the 19th of April, 2009 in Ilmenau, Thuringia. Details of previous EduCamps can be found at http://educamp.mixxt.de.

There will be some initial structure for the programme, but after the panel discussion on Friday, the EduCamp will be organized as a barcamp. Sessions and workshops will be organised by participants at the beginning of the event. On Sunday the topic under discussion is “EduOpenSpace” (OpenSpace?). Participants will form clusters to discuss some of the related topics.

Topics
The issue of how we can use social software, such as weblogs, podcasts, wikis, micro-blogging, VoIP in education in schools, universities and companies is a subject attracting much interest. Developing connections to other people and joining learning networks is central to the Information society. Mulitple knowledge resources all access to the exchange of experiences and the construction of knowledge.

The last EduCamps meeting discussed ‘Teaching and Learning 2.0′. This meeting will continue those discussions.

EduCamp is an open event and everyone interested in welcome to attend. It will take place at the Humboldtbau at the Technical University of Ilmenau.

The main topics for the EduCamp are Corporate Learning 2.0 and e-learning in schools or universities. Other topics include the use of E-Portfolios, Digital games and virtual worlds in education. In line with the idea of barcamp, everyone is invited to propose their own topics for discussion.

Interesting survey by the UK Chartered Management Institute and reported in the Guardian newspaper.

“The institute interviewed 1,000 managers aged 35 and under, working in industry, commerce, local government and the police. Their most common complaint was that older bosses regarded the internet as “a massive timewaster”. Half said their organisations did not take up web-based technology until it was tried and tested, and 16% described their employers as “dinosaurs”. The survey found most young managers wanted to use the internet for research, professional development and other aspects of getting the job done. But employers treated it with suspicion. The survey found 65% of organisations monitored usage, rising to 86% in local government and 88% in the police. This led 65% of employers to block access to “inappropriate” sites, rising to 89% in local government and 90% in the utilities. Eighteen per cent of employers limited internet access to certain times of day, rising to 38% in the insurance industry.”

Some two years ago we published the results of a project looking at e-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe. We undertook 105 case studies in six different countries. We found few instances of formal e-learning (or formal learning of any kind). However we found extensive use of the internet for informal learning. Older workers were more likely to use ICT for learning than younger staff. This, we concluded, was due to two reasons: older workers were more likely to have unlimited access to the internet becuase of their seniority. And older workers were more likely to have autonomy to use the results of their learning in the workplace.

The Chartered Mangement Instutute survey shows that businesses have still not progressed in their understanding of learning, less still in thinking about innovation. Informal learning is potentially the most powerful driver of innovation. But this requires both access to learning opportunties and work organisations which allow autonomy to utilise learning. Most businesses still don’t get it.

NB Sadly I cannot find an online copy of the Chartered Mangement Institute Survey. Probably costs lots of money. But you can download the book we produced – Searching, Lurking and the Zone of Proximal Development – E-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe – for free.

I have been working with Cristina Costa to write a review paper on Personal Learning and Working Environments. The paper is now avaiable online on the Research section of this web site.

This review paper part of a series of papers commissioned by the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick under the title of ‘Beyond Current Horizons – Working and Employment Challenge’. In turn, in forms part of a larger programme of work under the banner of Beyond Current Horizons that is being managed by FutureLab on behalf of the UK Department for Schools, Children and Families. The brief was to cover:

• The main trends and issues in the area concerned;
• Any possible discontinuities looking forward to 2025 and beyond;
• Uncertainties and any big tensions;
• Conclusions on what the key issues will be in the future and initial reflections on any general implications for education.

We had also agreed that we would produce such a paper to inform the work of the European Union Mature project which is looking at knowldge maturing and developing Personal and Organisational Learning and Management Environments.

It is a longish paper and covers such issues as:

• new ways of learning using Web 2.0 schools
• deschooling society
• workbased learning and the social shaping of work and technology
• organisational networks and communities of practice
• Personal Learning Emvironments
• the future of universties
• informal learning
• knowledge development and sharing

We were given a wide brief to look at what might happen up to 2025 and what developments we thought were likely and what were desireable. We have used the opportunity to think a little more freely than is often possible within the scope of traditional academic papers.

Annotate this paper

We would be very interested in your views on the ideas in this paper. We invite you to use Diigo tools to annotae the paper. If you have not used Diigo before for annotating and leaving comments here is a short introductory video. We invite you also to join the Diigo e-learning 2.0 group and to share your bookmarks through the group.

But we knw some people still prefer paper publications. So you can download an Open Office and a PDF version of the paper below.

workandlearning – PDF vesrion

workandlearning – Open Office version

Last week I expressed concern that the development of the Open Univeristy SocialLearn project was being motivated by business concerns rather than learning. But it is not difficult to see why a university – especially the Open University which is based on distance learning – might wish to explore new business models.

I am struck by he growing avaiability of free online courses and opportunities for professional development. Just this morning I have picked up on an excellent free seventeen week course on on-line community facilitation being run by Leigh Blackall from the University of Otago on the Wikieducator and the weekly events around Metanomics – the study of economics and policy in the “metaverse” of online virtual world – run by…I am not quite sure who. I found about the first from Twitter and the second form Skype. These services are becoming the new global prospectus of learning opportunties.

Certainly in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning it is perfectly possible to follow an advanced professional development programme for free and engage with the best thinkers in vibrant global communities without having to enroll with a formal education institution. OK – we might expect this in such a technology enabled subject but how long before other subjects catch on.

It has been said for some time that the selling point for universities will be their certifcate granting powers. I am unconvinced. Our study some time ago of the use of technology for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises suggested that apart from in reglated occupations there was limited interest in certification. Both employees and employers were more intersted in competence in terms of what people could do and what they had learnt to do rather than their certificates. And as in one form or another e-Portfolios – or more likely individual eletronic mash-ups showing achievement – become more common then pressures for certification will lessen.

So what is the future for universities? Obviously they have an important role in research. And they could hve an important role in teaching and learning provision. That the Wikieducator is offering a programme in on-line facilitation for free is brilliant. The enrolled students are from all over the world. But how will universities fund themselves in this new world? This is where the rub of the problem lies. The recent trends in many countries towards devolved budgets and funding based on enrolled student numbers does not help. Far better to try to assess the value of universities to the economy and society as a whole and fund their activities accordingly. Of course that is not easy. And universities are not cheap. But we need to start developing new models and that probably requires far more radical thinking than just tinkering with existing funding models.

I think I am doing a keynote presentation on May 7th at the Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning. Think – well it is arranged but their emails are bouncing, they are not answering their phones and skype cannot find their account. Small technical problems!

Anyway, Pelle Filipsson, who works for the Agency, was kind enough to leave a comment on my blog this morning. he invited me to look at his blog, which, of course, I did. And I found an interesting post on informal learnng, with which I totally disagree. So, in the interests of a little debate and discourse in advance of my arrival in Stockholm, here is my reply.

Pelle says: “A somewhat hyped expression the last few years is “informal learning”. I have heard it, used it and at last I came to think about what it really means. “Informal” in popular adult education is a welcome and positive way to regard learning. You learn everywhere, in any situation. It is a central aspect of the sociocultural learning theories too. But what do I learn? When I get really drunk at the pub I learn something, apparently. When I watch a stupid youtube clip for the tenth time too? But how do I experience that I have learned something? How do I measure that learning? How do I know how to use the experience and the things learned?

And what can schools and learning institutions use from the informal learning? That it is a good idea to start teaching at discoteques? (A metaphore to what is going on in every social network on the web at the moment)

A fight broke out in the blogosphere when Bill Brantley went through Jay Crosses book “Informal learning“. Here are some qoutes:

“Informal learning is just another hype-filled, buzzword that pretends to be a radical change from the past but is really bits-and-pieces of other learning methods badly packaged.”

“Cross’ definition of informal learning is so wide open it can mean almost anything.”

Of course not every activity results in learning. But I do have to say some of my best learning has come from pubs. There is a problem that my handwriting does tend to degenerate over a long evening and I sometimes cannot make out what I write the next morning. I wonder why pubs can be such a good source of learning. Could it be in the intensity of a face to face dialogue which is so often missing in formal conferences and seminars?

I think the more serious challenge especially when looking at the use of the internet, is to distinguish between accessing information and learning. I learn little from the long time I spend searching for aircraft routes to different places in Europe (except perhaps how poor the design of so many e-commerce sites is – interestingly the cheap airlines usually have the best sites). But I learn a lot from almost random surfing. How? Often through thinking about what people are saying and clarifying my own views. I could hardly say that reading Fellipe’s post is a formal learning experience. But it has certainly caused me to pause and think.

In the ICT and SME project, which looked at the use of computers for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in six different European projects (you can download the book of the project here), we found few instances of formal learning. But computers were being used extensively for all sorts of different activities. We considered whether these activities could be considered as learning. In many cases we concluded they could. Why? Activities identified through the project case studies were:

• Purposeful
• Heavily influenced by context
• Often resulted in changes in behaviour
• Were sequenced in terms of developing a personal knowledge base
• Problem driven or driven by personal interest
• Social – in that they often involved recourse to shared community knowledge bases through the internet and / or shared with others in the workplace

In my view such criteria clearly differentiate learning from the acquisition of information. And this is a widespread activity. So, Pelle, not hype at all. But probably the main way people learn.

If you are interested in the ideas behind my presentation at Online Educa Berlin, I have written several papers around the theme of Web 2.0 and Personal Learning Environments.

One was posted in a previous entry on the Wales Wide Web here.

A more in depth exposition of the ideas is contained in a paper called ‘E-Learning und die soziale Gestaltung der Technik’ – “e-Learning and the Social Shaping of Technology”. I am trying to find an English version of this paper. for those of you who can read German here is the introduction to the paper and a link to a download for the full paper.

Der Diskurs um die “Wissensgesellschaft”, so wie er seit mittlerweile vier Jahrzehnten in der wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit geführt wird, war von Beginn an mit technikoptimistischen Annahmen verknüpft. Dabei haben in der Frühphase des Wissensgesellschaftsdiskurses die Sozialwissenschaften und die technisch ausgerichteten Wissenschaften wie Ingenieurswissenschaften oder Maschinenbau eine zentrale Rolle gespielt (Bell 1973). Während die technischen Anwendungswissenschaften mühelos nahezu jede Idee in die Praxis umzusetzen schienen, versprach man sich von den Sozialwissenschaften die Expertise, Gesamtgesellschaften so effizient steuern und planen zu können, dass selbst die kapitalistische oder real-sozialistische Verfasstheit der sozialen Einheiten eine untergeordnete Rolle spielte (Richta & Kollektiv 1972; Touraine 1972). Dieser technikoptimistische Zug hat sich bis heute gehalten, allerdings in stark modifizierter Form. Es sind nunmehr weniger die Wissenschaften selbst als die Potenziale der technisch vermittelten Medien, die die Fortschrittsprojektionen nachhaltig anregen. Eine überragende Bedeutung besitzt die Schlüsseltechnologie Computer im Zusammenhang mit dem Medium Internet. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag soll es um eine besondere Variante der Fortschrittsprojektionen gehen, die mit dem Computer und dem Internet verbunden werden: um das elektronisch gestützte oder elektronisch basierte Lernen, das so genannte E-Learning.
E-Learning ist eine relativ neue Technologie, und daher steckt auch die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Thema noch in den Kinderschuhen. Dennoch gibt es mittlerweile eine umfangreiche Literatur zum Thema, und Lernen mittels neuer Medien wird zunehmend als eigenständige Disziplin anerkannt. Die überwältigende Mehrheit der einschlägigen Studien, und zwar sowohl die affirmativen/optimistischen wie die skeptischen, ist jedoch, bezogen auf die Technologie selbst, deterministisch, d.h. befasst sich nur mit deren Potentialen und Auswirkungen auf Bildung und Lernen, anstatt auch umgekehrt die Einflüsse des Lernens und Lehrens auf die Technik ins Auge zu fassen.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht von der Annahme aus, dass sowohl die Technologien selbst als auch ihre Anwendungen durch politische und soziale Prozesse geformt werden. Wenn Lernen ein sozialer Prozess ist, dann muss jede Überlegung über die Entwicklung und die Auswirkungen des E-Learning und seiner Technologien auch die sozialen, ökonomischen und kulturellen Prozesse und Diskurse mit einbeziehen, welche an der Entwicklung und Implementierung der neuen Technologien im Bildungsprozess beteiligt sind.

Dieser Aufsatzgeht davon aus, dass drei dominante Diskurse die Entwicklung und Implementierung des E-Learning geprägt haben, nämlich zunehmende Warenförmigkeit und Privatisierung von Bildung sowie drittens ein verkürzter Diskurs über lebenslanges Lernen, welche ihrerseits wieder auf allgemeineren Diskursen rund um Globalisierung und die Privatisierung des Wissens basieren.
Der Artikel beinhaltet zum einen eine Auseinandersetzung mit verschiedenen Konzepten des E-learning, aber auch mit Konzepten des informellen Lernens, so wie sie sich im Diskurs über E-learning finden lassen. Ferner wird auf Ergebnisse empirischer Forschung zurückgegriffen, die im Rahmen internationaler, EU-finanzierter Projekte erfolgte. Diese Diskurse werden im folgenden nachgezeichnet um anschließend an einigen Beispielen zu zeigen,wie sie die Entwicklung und Anwendung von E-Learning-Technologien in den jeweiligen Anwendungsfeldern beeinflußt haben.
Die Entwicklung des Kapitalismus und kapitalistischer Gesellschaften jedoch stellt sich widersprüchlich dar, nämlich als dialektischer Entwicklungsprozess und als (Klassen-)Kampf. Obwohl also bestimmte Diskurse die derzeitige Periode des Kapitalismus sehr wohl dominieren und auch die Entwicklung der E-Learning-Technologien geprägt haben, gibt es alternative und widersprüchliche Trends. Einige Kommentatoren verweisen etwa auf das E-Learning als eine Technologie mit potentieller (sozialer) Sprengkraft. Außerdem mehren sich die Hinweise darauf, dass die Lernenden selber die Technologien in anderer Weise und für andere Zwecke als die ursprünglich vorgesehenen benutzen. Zur Illustration dieser Entwicklung werde ich auf die Ergebnisse einer von der EU-Kommission finanzierten Studie über den Gebrauch von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien beim Lernen in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen zurückgreifen. Abschließend wird der Aufsatz der Frage nachgehen, wie sich diese neuen Gebrauchsweisen von Technologie auf Bildung im digitalen Zeitalter und Möglichkeiten des Engagements in einer zivilen Gesellschaft auswirken könnten.

E-Learning und die soziale Gestaltung der Technik

Thanks to all of you for your kind comments about my keynote presentation at Online Educa Berlin. Here are the slides from the presentation. Coming soon – the video and two papers – one in English and one in German explaining the key ideas on which the presentation was based.

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