Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

Photo Samscam

Its been a week off from the blog. Following the PLE2010 conference in Barcelona I took a short holiday. And since I have been back I have been fighting (unsuccessfully) a power failure in my office. So now I am squatting in a friend’s house and using my laptop.

I have much to say about the PLE2010 conference – I am not quite sure where to start.

Firstly it was a truly social conference – social in the both face to face and distant participants were involved in the different sessions. Social too, in the way the pre-conference discussions ran into the conference proper and then into the discussions at coffee breaks and in the evening. The formal conference was just one part of the whole event. And social in the use of media. Besides the live streaming of many sessions, it woudl appear the conference generated over 5000 tweets on the first day (the tweets are archived here).Indeed, for many of us it was the first chance to meet face to face people we have been collaborating with on line for a long time.

Much of this was down to the design of the conference. the pre-conference publicity and discuxxiosn had been focused on social media and in particualr twitter. And the programme design, from unkeynotes to cafe style sessions, debates amnd workshops, was signed to facilitate social interaction and participation. And it is encouraging that many have said they will relook at how they are organising conferences and draw on our ideas.

But what about the ideas? Firstly it was very heartening to see that we seemed to have moved beyond the stage of defining a PLE by what it is not i.e. not a VLE. Instead participants were looking outwards, at how to support learning. I am not sure how much we shared common understandings and meanings around PLEs (sadly I cannot find a record of the session which tried to arrive at such a common definition) but there seemed sufficient understanding for common debates.

One controversial issue was how far it was possible to provide an institutional PLE. This debate was driven by the folks from SAPO Campus in Portugal who are trying to do just that (and still managing to find time for late night and in depth analysis of the failings of the Portugese football team!). My own take is that I do not mind where the tools for a PLE come from as long as the leaner is in control.

Two ‘discourses’ particularly heartened me. The first was between educational researchers and practitioners and software and technical developers. This is an oft troubled discourse in the ed tech community. It may be that the common understandings around the idea of a PLE are allowing these different groups to work together in new ways. I particularly enjoyed the session on using Google Wave as a PLE and was impressed by the Talkingabout video sharing site. But what charatcterised these ideas – as in others I could not attend but heard from others about – was the innovation in appropriating technologies for pedagogic innovation.

Another – and more problematic but recurrent discourse was the issue of motivation. Participants were trying to develop PLEs with students inside the schooling and university systems. But surveys and anecdotal evidence suggests students are wary being overly focused on what work they need to do to pass exams, rather than exploring ideas and learning. And most students view direct didactic teaching as the best approach to passing their exams. As such they have little time for reflection or indeed little understanding as to why they should engage in such activity. This is problematic. We may consider their longer term learning important and thus view the development of meta-cognition and problem solving a priority. But perhaps inevitably under the present education systems their major concern is just to jump the next hurdle in the education race.

My only personal disappointment was that the major focus for PLE development and implementation for the vast majority of participants was for learners within schools and universities. There was limited interest in work based learning or in learning outside teh existing systems – the very areas where I think PLEs have the greatest potential.

Indeed, I think we have to consider the wider issue of where to locate the PLE debate. Clearly it is not just another instance of educational technology. But neither can it be easily subsumed in considerations of pedagogic approaches to the use of ICT for learning. I increasingly feel that the whole issue of PLEs is closely related to the ongoing discussions around open education. The very promise of PLEs is to understand the use of technology for learning in a new way, in a context where learning becomes part of society and is free and open to all.

But now there is a lot of work to be done. We have over 70 papers and many offers of publications. Most participants seemed to assume that PLE2011 was already on the cards (watch this blog for more news on that). And the bigger question is how we can use the ideas and networks generated by the conference to build a collective community of practice based on networking and sharing. Any thoughts or ideas  very welcome.

We’ve made it! I just can’t believe that the first edition of the PLE Conference already belongs to the past. But it’s true. It happened last week. And YES, I think I can say we have achieved our main goal which was to invite people to contribute to the event in different ways. Before I go on [...]

In Monday’s edition of weeks series of blog posts around the PLE2010 conference being held in Barcelona, I commented on the use of social media. Indeed, from the level of on-line activity the conference has already started! You can pick up on what is happening through following the #PLE_2010 hash tag. And the #PLE_BCN daily newspaper – http://paper.li/tag/PLE_BCN provides a surprisingly rich picture of what is going on. But here are a few posts which have caught my eye.

Firstly George Couros has blogged that he is “honoured to be asked to moderate a session at the PLE Conference in Barcelona (#PLE_BCN on Twitter) to talk about what exactly is a Personal Learning Environment.  In this session, myself and 3 other educators (Cristina Costa, Ilona Buchem and Wolfgang Reinhardt) that are located all over the world, will work with participants to figure out a definition for the PLE term. ” George has posted the following diagramme to start the discussion.

Sia Vogel has contributed the following Prezi towards Alec Couros’s and my joint unkeynote presentation.

PLE_BCN Conference Jordi Adell from epdrntr on Vimeo.

Jordi will be doing a joint keynote with Ismael Pena Lopez. Here is his contribution.

That is all I have time for today. More tomorrow – live from Barcelona.

Well it is PLE2010 Conference week so no apologies is that is the theme of the week. And in pre-conference reflection mood I wanted to reflect on some of the things we have done well and some we have done less well.

Fist of all, PLE2010 has some 70 or so presentations and over 100 delegates. Considering we set out with no large organisations or associations backing the conference I think this is pretty good. The conference has been put together through the hard work of a fairly inexperienced organising committee backed by the experience and enthusiasm of the community – edupunk working at its best!

And most of the publicity has been generated not through traditional media but through the4 us eof social media especially Twitter – just look at #PLE_BCN for proof. There are still barriers to the do it yourself cvonference model – we had big problems setting up payments systems that worked> And whilst the opens ource EasyChair system is sort of OK it does have its quirks (it would be very useful if someone could do some more work on the software).

As I told yesterday, I am very happy about our mix of traditional calls fo contribution (needed for researchers to gain travel grants form institutions with more unconferencing formats for presentation. I am sure the event is going to be a lot of fun.

The issue I think we have not paid sufficient attention to is what we do with the outcomes of the conference. True all the papers etc. are available as on-line proceedings. But how do we represent the outcomes of the different sessions to the wider community? How can we capture ideas and use such ideas in practice and in future research? How can we use the conference as a live event in our community generating new shared knowledge and experience?

Face to face events are valuable, not just for the participants, but for the community as a whole. But I am not sure we make best use of them at the moment. Your ideas would as ever be very welcome.

Looking forward to seeing some of you in Barcelona.

Part two of my new paper on Personal Learning environments, focusing on context, and written for the PLE2010 conference in Barcelona next week.

How can the idea of context help us in designing work based Personal Learning Environments? First, given the varied definitions, it might be apposite to explain what we mean by a PLE. PLEs can be seen as the spaces in which people interact and communicate and whose ultimate result is learning and the development of collective know-how. In terms of technology, PLEs are made-up of a collection of loosely coupled tools, including Web 2.0 technologies, used for working, learning, reflection and collaboration with others.

As such, PLEs offer some solutions to the issue of the fluid and relational nature of context. PLEs, unlike traditional educational technology are mobile, flexible and not context dependent. They can move from one domain to another and make connections between them. Secondly PLEs can support and facilitate a greater variety of relationships than traditional educational media. These include relationships within and between networks and communities of practice and support for collaborative working. PLEs shift the axis of control from the teacher to the learners and thus alter balance of power within learning discourses. And, perhaps critically, PLEs support a greater range of learning discourses than traditional educational technology.

PLEs are able to link knowledge assets with people, communities and informal knowledge (Agostini et al, 2003) and support the development of social networks for learning (Fischer, 1995). Razavi and Iverson (2006) suggest integrating weblogs, ePortfolios, and social networking functionality both for enhanced e-learning and knowledge management, and for developing communities of practice. A PLE can use social software for informal learning which is learner driven, problem-based and motivated by interest – not as a process triggered by a single learning provider, but as a continuing activity.

So far we have stressed the utility of PLEs in being flexible and adaptable to different contexts. In a work based context, the ‘Learning in Process’ project (Schmidt, 2005) and the APOSDLE project (Lindstaedt, and Mayer, 2006) have attempted to develop embedded, or work-integrated, learning support where learning opportunities (learning objects, documents, checklists and also colleagues) are recommended based on a virtual understanding of the learner’s context.

However, while these development activities acknowledge the importance of collaboration, community engagement and of embedding learning into working and living processes, they have not so far addressed the linkage of individual learning processes and the further development of both individual and collective understanding as the knowledge and learning processes (Attwell. Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, 2008). In order to achieve that transition (to what we term a ‘community of innovation’), processes of reflection and formative assessment have a critical role to play.

Personal Learning Environments are by definition individual. However it is possible to provide tools and services to support individuals in developing their own environment. In looking at the needs of careers guidance advisors for learning Attwell, Barnes, Bimrose and Brown, (2008) say a PLE should be based on a set of tools to allow personal access to resources from multiple sources, and to support knowledge creation and communication. Based on an scoping of knowledge development needs, an initial list of possible functions for a PLE have been suggested, including: access/search for information and knowledge; aggregate and scaffold by combining information and knowledge; manipulate, rearrange and repurpose knowledge artefacts; analyse information to develop knowledge; reflect, question, challenge, seek clarification, form and defend opinions; present ideas, learning and knowledge in different ways and for different purposes; represent the underpinning knowledge structures of different artefacts and support the dynamic re-rendering of such structures; share by supporting individuals in their learning and knowledge; networking by creating a collaborative learning environment.

People tagging

However, rather than seeking to build a monolithic application which can meet all these needs, a better approach may be to seek to develop tools and services which can meet learning needs related to particular aspects of such needs. And in developing such a tool, it is useful to reflect on the different aspects of context involved in the potential use of such tools.  The European Commission supported Mature project is seeking to research and develop Personal Learning and Maturing Environments and Organisation Learning and Maturing Environments to support knowledge development and ‘maturing’ in organisations. The project has developed a number of use cases and demonstrators, following a participatory design process and aiming at supporting learning in context for careers guidance advisors.

One such demonstrator is a ‘people tagging’ application (Braun, Kunzmann and Schmidt, 2010). According to the project report “Knowing-who is an essential element for efficient knowledge maturing processes, e.g. for finding the right person to talk to. Take the scenario of where a novice Personal Adviser (P.A.) needs to respond to a client query. The P.A. does not feel sufficiently confident to respond adequately, so needs to contact a colleague who is more knowledgeable, for support. The key problems would be:

• How does the P.A. find the right person to contact
• How can the P.A. find people inside, and even outside, the employing organisation?
• How can colleagues who might be able to support the P.A. be identified and contacted quickly and efficiently?

Typically, employee directories, which simply list staff and their areas of expertise, are insufficient. One reason is that information contained in the directories is outdated; or it is not described in an appropriate manner; or it focuses too much on ‘experts’; and they often do not include external contacts (Schmidt & Kunzmann 2007).

Also Human Resource Development needs to have sufficient information about the needs and current capabilities of current employees to make the right decisions. In service delivery contexts that must be responsive to the changing needs of clients, like Connexions services, it is necessary to establish precisely what additional skills and competencies are required to keep up with new developments. The people tagging tool would provide a clear indication of:

• What type of expertise is needed?
• How much of the requisite expertise already exists within the organisation?”

At a technical level the demonstrator includes:

• A bookmarking widget for annotating persons, which can be invoked as a bookmarklet
• A browsing component for navigating annotated people based on the vocabulary
• An employee list and profile visualization of annotated people
• A search component for searching for people
• A collaborative real-time editor of the shared vocabulary that allows for consolidating tags and introducing hierarchical relationships
• An analysis component for displaying trends based on search and tagging behaviour.

The application seeks to meet the challenge of aligning the maturing of ontological knowledge with the development of the knowledge about people in the organization (and possibly beyond).

Early evaluation results suggest that people tagging is accepted by employees in general, and that they view it as beneficial on average. The evaluation “has also revealed that we have to be careful when designing such a people tagging system and need to consider affective barriers, the organizational context, and other motivational aspects so that it can become successful and sustainable. Therefore we need to develop a design framework (and respective technical enablement) for people tagging systems as socio-technical systems that covers aspects like control, transparency, scope etc. This design framework needs to be backed by a flexible implementation.”

Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects

A further approach to supporting Personal Learning environments for careers guidance professional is based on the development of Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects (TEBOs). Mazzoni and Gaffuri (2009) consider that PLEs as such may be seen as boundary objects in acting to support transitions within a Zone of Proximal Development between knowledge acquired in formal educational contexts and knowledge required for performance or practice within the workplace. Alan Brown (2009) refers to an approach to designing technologically enhanced boundary objects that promote boundary crossing for careers practitioners.

Careers practitioners use labour market information in their practice of advising clients about potential career options. Much of this labour Markey information is gathered from official statistics, providing, for example, details of numbers employed in different professionals at varying degree of granularity, job centre vacancies in time series data at a fine granular level and pay levels in different occupations at a regional level, as well as information about education and training routes, job descriptions and future career predictions. However much of this data is produced as part of the various governmental departments statistical services and is difficult to search for and above all to interpret. Most problematic is the issue of meaning making when related to providing careers advice, information and guidance. The data sits in the boundaries of practice of careers workers and equally at the ordinary of the practice of collating and providing data. Our intention is to develop technology enhanced boundary objects as a series of infographs, dynamic graphical displays, visualisations and simulations to scaffold careers guidance workers in the process of meaning making of such data.

Whilst we are presently working with static data, much of the data is now being provided online with an API to a SPARQL query interface, allowing interrogation of live data. This is part of the open data initiative, led by Nick Shabolt and Tim Berners Lee in the UK. Berners Lee (2010) has recently said that linked data lies at the heart of the semantic web. Our aim is to connect the TEBO to live data through the SPARQL interface and to visualise and represent that data in forms which would allow careers guidance workers and clients to make intelligent meaning of that data in terms of the shared practice of providing and acting on guidance. Such a TEBO could form a key element in a Personal Learning environment for careers guidance practitioners. A further step in exploring PLE services and applications would be to link the TEBO to people tagging services allowing careers practitioners to find those with particular expertise and experience in interpreting labour market data and relating this to careers opportunities at a local level.

There has been considerable interest in the potential of Mash Up Personal Learning Environments (Wild, Mödritscher and Sigurdarson, 2008). as a means of providing flexible access to different tools. Other commentators have focused on the use of social software for learners to develop their own PLEs. Our research into PLEs and knowledge maturing in organisations does not contradict either of these approaches. However, it suggests that PLE tools need to take into account the contexts in which learning takes place, including knowledge assets, people and communities and especially the context of practice. In reality a PLE may be comprised of both general communication and knowledge sharing tools as well as specialist tools designed to meet the particular needs of a community.

Conclusions

In seeking to design a work based PLE it is necessary to understand the contexts in which learning take place and the different discourses associated with that learning. A PLE is both able to transpose the different contexts in which learning takes place and can move from one domain to another and make connections between them. support and facilitate a greater variety of relationships than traditional educational media. At them same time a PLE is able to support a range of learning discourses including discourses taking place within and between different communities if practice. An understanding of the contexts in which learning takes place and of those different learning discourses provides that basis for designing key tools which can form the centre of a work based PLE. Above all a PLE can respond to the demands of fluid and relational discourses in providing scaffolding for meaning making related to practice.

References

Attwell G. Barnes S.A., Bimrose J. and Brown A, (2008), Maturing Learning: Mashup Personal Learning Environments, CEUR Workshops proceedings, Aachen, Germany

Berners Lee T. (2010) Open Linked Data for a Global Community, presentation at Gov 2.0 Expo 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1aSJXCFe0&feature=player_embedded, accessed June 25, 2010

Braun S. Kunzmann C. Schmidt A. (2010) People Tagging & Ontology Maturing: Towards Collaborative Competence Management, In: David Randall and Pascal Salembier (eds.): From CSCW to Web2.0: European Developments in Collaborative Design Selected Papers from COOP08, Computer Supported Cooperative Work Springer,

Brown A. (2009) Boundary crossing and boundary objects – ‘Technologically Enhanced Boundary Objects’. Unpublished paper for the Mature IP Project

Lindstaedt, S., & Mayer, H. (2006). A storyboard of the APOSDLE vision. Paper presented at the 1st European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Crete (1-4 October 2006)

Mazzoni E. and Gaffuri P .(2009) Personal Learning environments for Overcoming Knowledge Boundaries between activity Systems in emerging adulthood, eLearning papers, http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=14400&doclng=6&vol=15, accessed December 26, 2009

Schmidt A., Kunzmann C. (2007) Sustainable Competency-Oriented Human Resource Development with Ontology-Based Competency Catalogs, In: Miriam Cunningham and Paul Cunningham (eds.): eChallenges 2007, 2007, http://publications.professional-learning.eu/schmidt_kunzmann_sustainable-competence-management_eChallenges07.pdf, accessed 27 June, 2010

Schmidt, A. (2005) Knowledge Maturing and the Continuity of Context as a Unifying Concept for Integrating Knowledge Management and ELearning. In: Proceedings I-KNOW ’05, Graz, 2005.

Wild, F., Mödritscher, F., & Sigurdarson, S. (2008). Designing for Change: Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments. elearning papers, 9. 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.elearningeuropa.info/out/?doc_id=15055&rsr_id=15972

Wilson, S., Liber, O., Johnson, M., Beauvoir, P., Sharples, P., & Milligan, C. (2006). Personal learning environments challenging the dominant design of educational systems. Paper presented at the ECTEL Workshops 2006, Heraklion, Crete (1-4 October 2006

I am rushing to produce my paper on ‘Supporting Learning in the Workplace’ for the PLE2010 conference (and trying to resist the temptation to recycle previous material!). The paper focuses on the issue of context, building on discussions I have had with Jenny Hughes, based on her contributions to Stephen Downes and Rita Kop’s excellent Critical Literacies course.

The  key section (which is most certainly only a first draft) is called “Problematising the Learning Space: Contexts for Learning.” Any feedback very welcome.

A major issue on designing a work based PLE is in problematising the learning space. This involves examining relations, context, actions and learning discourses. Vygotsky’s approach to cognitive development is sociocultural, working on the assumption that “action is mediated and cannot be separated from the milieu in which it is carried out” (Wertsch, 1991:18).

The socio cultural milieu mediating actions and learning in the workplace includes s series of different relationships (Attwell and Hughes, 21010).

The first is the relationships between teachers and learners. Yet, as we have already pointed out, much learning in the workplace may take place in the absence of a formal teacher or trainer. It may be more appropriate to talk in Vygotskian terms of a More Knowledgeable Other. “The More Knowledgeable Other. is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the leaner particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process. Traditionally the MKO is thought of as a teacher, an older adult or a peer” (Dahms et al, 2007),

The second relationship is that between learners themselves. The third is relationships between learners and the wider community. In the context of work based learning that community could include formal education institutions, communities of practice or local or extended personal learning networks. Institutions. And in the context of Personal Learning Environments it is important not to forget the relationships between learners and technology. Technology will play a key role in mediating both the other relationships and mediating learning itself.

The socialcultutal milieu also includes the learning contexts. The most obvious aspect of context is where the learning takes place. Learning takes place in wider physical and online communities as well as at home and in the workplace. This relates to the issue of. physical domains. We can learn through h training workshops, through online communities or even through watching a television programme. A key issue here may be the distance of that domain from our practice Learning about computing through using a computer means the learning domain is close to practice. However learning through a training workshop may be more or less close to actual practice. Equally some enterprises have developed training islands within the workplace with aim of lessoning the distance between the learning domain and practice. Obviously the context of practice is key to work based learning and we will return to this issue. A further aspect of context is the wider social political, cultural and sub cultural environment. This in itself contains a raft of issues including factors such as the time and cost of learning and rewards for learning.

A further and critical aspect of context is what is judged as legitimate in terms of process and content. How are outcomes defined, what constitutes success and how is it measured?

Another critical issue on problematising the learning space is the nature of different learning discourse s. Learning discourses are dependent of different factors.

Firstly they can be viewed as am set of practices. Wenger points out that we practice eis not learned individually but is dependent on social relations in communities.

“Over time, this collective learning results in practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore to call these kinds of communities communities of practice.”

Although the nature and composition of these communities varies members are brought together by joining in common activities and by ‘what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities.’

According to Wenger, a community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:

• What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members.
• How it functions – mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity.
• What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artefacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

A community of practice involves much more than the technical knowledge or skill For a community of practice to function it needs to generate and appropriate a shared repertoire of ideas, commitments and memories. It also needs to develop various resources such as tools, documents, routines, vocabulary and symbols that in some way carry the accumulated knowledge of the community. In other words, it involves practice: ways of doing and approaching things that are shared to some significant extent among members.

Secondly, learning discourses can be viewed in terms of processes methodologies and structures. As we said earlier work based learning may be more or less structured and formalised and the degree of interaction of learning processes with work processes.

Learning discourses can also be seen as taking place through the exploration of boundary objects, Boundary objects are another idea associated with Vygotsky and have attracted particular interest by those interested in Communities of Practice. The idea was introduced by Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer (1989): “Boundary objects are objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual-site use. They may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is key in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds.”

According to Denham (2003) “boundary objects serve as point of mediation and negotiation around intent” and can comprise a place for shared work. Denham goes on to say “Boundary objects are not necessarily physical artifacts such as a map between two people: they can be a set of information, conversations, interests, rules, plans, contracts, or even persons.”

As a class of knowledge artefacts their importance may lay in their role in dynamic knowledge exchange and are “associated with process, meaning, participation, alignment and reification.”

Whilst reports and documents may be considered boundary objects, they can also be seen as information spaces for the creation of knowledge. A boundary object could also be a space for dialogue and interaction. Ravenscroft (2009) has advocated “knowledge maturing through dialogue and the advantages of linking ‘learning dialogues’ and artefacts.” Knowledge maturing, he suggests, can be  “supported through setting up an appropriate dialogic space in the digital milieu

The key aspect of learning discourses it that they are fluid and relational. Vygotsky held that “environment cannot be regarded as a static entity and one which is peripheral in relation to development, but must be seen as changeable and dynamic.” It is this fluid and dynamic nature of learning  environments and discourses which provides the central challenge to the design of a PLE, particularly in a workplace context.

Ostatnio Joanna zapytała mnie, dlaczego właściwie tweetuję (= używam Twittera). Kilka innych osób też zadało mi to pytanie, więc myślę, że jest to temat ciekawy dla wielu, szczególnie tych nie-tweetujących. Oto zapis naszej rozmowy:

Joanna: Wiem, że zawzięcie tweetujesz. Kiedyś napisałaś, że czytasz nowe Tweety jeszcze przed poranną kawą… Co takiego daje ci Twitter?  Na czym polega  jego „czar“? Pytam oczywiście pod kątem procesu uczenia się, bo rozumiem, że informacja o tym że ktoś właśnie idzie na kawę niekoniecznie wzbogaca cię naukowo. Twitter jest na pewno szybkim zródłem informacji, ale czesto jest to informacja z drugiej reki, w dodatku podana w telegraficznym skrócie, a nie każdy jest urodzonym sprawozdawcą, czy reporterem. Szybkie zródło informacji niekoniecznie oznacza dobre i rzetelne zródło informacji….

Ilona: Właśnie z Twitterem jest odwrotnie! Jest świetnym zródłem informacji – zarówno z pierwszej ręki (np. Tweety na temat konferencji PLE) jak i z drugiej ręki (np. Re-Tweety (RT), czyli informacje przez kogoś już ocenione jako wartościowe i dlatego przekazane dalej). Ale masz rację, Twitter jest mieszanką przeróżnych typów informacji i ważne jest, aby umieć filtrowac to, co jest subjektywnie ważne, interesujące itd. Chociaż to, co jest ważne i interesujące może się dosyć często zmieniać. Ja na przykład mam takie momenty, kiedy jestem tylko ukierunkowana na odbiór informacji fachowych i ignoruję Tweety, które donoszą o sprawach osobistych. Jednak czasami właśnie te osobiste Tweety są dla mnie bardzo ważne i cieszę się, że mogę w ten sposób być w kontakcie z ludzmi na innych płaszczyznach niż poziom zawodowy. Twitter to taka mieszanka publiczności i prywatności. I to właśnie jest w nim ciekawe. Każdego dnia możesz znaleść na Twitterze coś, co cię zainspiruje, ucieszy albo skłoni do myślenia, albo podsunie ci prosto „pod nos“ informację, której szukałaś już od dawna.

Joanna: Czyli, kiedy wchodzisz na Twittera to z góry wiesz po co?

Ilona: Czasami wiem, czasami nie. Najczęściej po prostu idę z falą i odkrywam w tym potoku informacji jakieś nowe wzory. Dam ci przyklad. Jakiś czas temu zapomnialam zupełnie, że miała być w TV transmisja z Eurowizji, a bardzo chciałam ją w tym roku zobaczyć, bo Niemcy mieli przesympatyczną kandydatkę (Lenę), ktróra nota bene wygrała.  Było już póżno i zaczełam szukać w Internecie, czy Lena już miała występ. Nie mogłam znalezć nic aktualnego, ani przez Google, ani przez strony programów TV. No i myślałam, że już przegapiłam. Wysłałam więc przez Twittera zapytanie, jak dała sobie radę Lena. W ciągu kilku sekund dostałam na tego Tweeta (wiadomość na Twitterze) kilka odpowiedzi! Okazało się, że wystep był jeszcze przed nami. Przez te Tweety odkryłam hasło tzw. taga #eurovision, za pomocą którego mogłam prześledzić wszystko to, co do tej pory zostało na Twitterze napisane na temat Eurowizji. Okazało się, że ludzie tweetowali już od kilku dobrych godzin na ten temat -  komentowali, co się dzieje, kto ma jakie szanse, kto miał dobry występ itp. Było też wiele dowcipnych Tweetów – przy kilku naprawdę śmiałam się do rozpuku!  Za pomocą Taga #eurovision zaczełam uszestniczyć w tym globalnym tweetowaniu  – komentowałam, odpowiadałam, re-tweetowałam. To była super zabawa! Jak wiesz, transmisje Eurowizji nie są najlepszą rozrywką pod słońcem, ale przez Twittera uczestniczyłam w bardzo fajnej globalnej party. To tak, jakby moi znajomi byli u mnie i razem komentowalibyśmy to, co się dzieje w TV. Było wesoło i miło spędziłam czas. Gdyby nie Twitter, to pewnie wyłączyłabym TV po 5 minutach. A tak, bez wychodzenia z domu byłam częścia społecznego, interaktywnego wydarzenia. Teraz coś podobnego dzieje się w związku z mistrzostwami świata w piłce nożnej … polecam hasło #worldcup!

Joanna: Czy umiesz ocenić ile czasu dziennie poświecasz tweetowaniu? Jakby tak zebrać te sekundy, minuty razem?

Ilona: Cieżko powiedzieć. Czasami pół godziny dziennie, czasami 15 minut, czasami 5 minut. Ale prawie codziennie wchodzę i patrzę co się dzieje, o czym się dyskutuje.

Joanna: Czy zamiast np. czytać tweety o konferencji albo z konferencji, nie lepiej jest na niej być? Albo w tym czasie przeczytać artykuł z dobrego czasopisma naukowego?

Ilona: Tak, dobrze być na konferencji, ale nie możesz być na wszystkich i zawsze. Dlatego jeżeli coś cię bardzo interesuje, a nie masz czasu godzinami śledzić livestreamów, możesz sobie taką kwintesencję przeczytać właśnie na Twitterze. Na podstawie Tweetów dowiadujesz się wtedy, jakie były najważniesze tematy, co ludzi poruszyło i o czym sie mówiło. A jeżeli to cię dalej interesuje, na pewno znajdziesz też pośród Tweetow linka na bloga, gdzie będziesz mogła poczytać więcej … Ale zapomniałyśmy w naszej rozmowie o najważniejszym aspekcie Tweetera – o ludziach, którzy są jego częścią. Porozmawiajmy następnym razem na ten temat pod kątem PLN – Personal Learning Networks …

I have been invited to deliver a keynote presentation at the PLE 2010 conference in July in Barcelona. And the organising committee has asked each of the keynote speakers – the others are Alec Couros, Ismael Peña Lopez and Jordi  Adell to make a short video or slidecast about their presentation. So here is my contribution – hope you like it.

This week is the deadline for applications for Online Educa Berlin. Online Educa may not be the most prestigious of educational research conferences, but it is a great crack. So, I went to make a proposal. Obviously, the Educa people have been giving some serious thought to how to improve the quality of presentations (they are even asking for examples of your PowerPoint slides) And they have a completely new application form which I quite like. It starts off innocuously enough, asking fro a 500 word abstract. Here’s mine – on (no surprises here), Vygosky.

“Pedagogic approaches to e-learning remain problematic. Whilst many researchers have proposed constructivist approaches to learning, in reality there remains a gap between espoused and actual uses of Technology for learning. Technology has tended to be introduced within the present paradigms of educational and institutional organisation and management. Educational technology has focused on the management of learning rather than active learning.

This is the more so when it comes to work based learning where technology has been seen primarily as an extension of exiting training practices.

This presentation will explore research and development vbeing undertaken though a number of European projects including the Research Programme funded Mature project on knowledge maturing and the Lifelong Learning Programme G8WAY project. Both are seeking to develop new pedagogic approaches to learning using social software and web 2.0 – the first for knowledge development and maturing and the second for supporting  young people in educational transitions.

Both projects are seeking to develop and implement Personal Learning Environments  as a new approach to the development of e-learning tools (Wilson et al, 2006) that are no longer focused on integrated learning platforms such as VLEs or course management systems. In contrast, these PLEs are made-up of a collection of loosely coupled tools, including Web 2.0 technologies, used for working, learning, reflection and collaboration with others. PLEs can be seen as the spaces in which people interact and communicate and whose ultimate result is learning and the development of collective know-how. A PLE can use social software for informal learning which is learner driven, problem-based and motivated by interest – not as a process triggered by a single learning provider, but as a continuing activity.

Both projects are also seeking to develop new pedagogic approaches to social learning and knowledge development and sharing.

The presentation will examine the work of the Russian phschologist, Vygotsky, Vygotsky’s research focused on school based learning. He developed the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which is the gap between “actual developmental level” which children can accomplish independently and the “potential developmental level” which children can accomplish when they are interacting with others who are more capable peers or adults.

In Vygotsky’s view, interactions with the social environment, including peer interaction and/or scaffolding, are important ways to facilitate individual cognitive growth and knowledge acquisition.

Vygotsky also emphasized the importance of the social nature of imagination play for development. He saw the imaginary situations created in play as zones of proximal development that operate as mental support system (Fleer, 2008).

Vygotsky stressed the importance of support for learning through a More Knowledge Other, a teacher or peer, This idea corresponds to the use of Personal Learning Networks to suppoort learning.

The paper will examine how the work of Vygostky, including the idea of scaffolding learning, can be used to develop pedagogic approaches to informal and self motivated learning and how it can assist us in developing learning environments including in the school and in the workplace.”

Then the questions get hard. In addition, they say, teh conference will be focusing on practical outcomes – so all proposals will need to answer four key questions. What did we do> Why? With what results> With what impact? Here is my answer.

“Although this may seem a theoretical presentation it is not intended as such. Instead I wish to make the links between pedagogy and practice in a vivid and radical way..

What did we do?

We researched pedagogic approaches to learning looking in particular at how young people use computers and Web 2.0 for learning and sought to explain, make sense and meanings from this.We went on to design and develop tools for social learning (a PLE) in communities of practice and in the workplace and are currently evaluating the use of those tools. We also established processes of developing ‘mini learning activities’ to scaffold learning within a Zone of Proximal Development. We provided tools to support peer group learning and collaboration. We developed workshops for teachers and others who support learning to explain how to use such a pedagogic approach and to use the tools.We told others about our ideas at Online Educa Berlin!

Why did we do it?

We observed a growing gap between the ways in which young people (and not just young people) use computers for work and for play and for learning and the pedagogic and institutional approaches to education in schools and in the workplace. We looked for pedagogic theories which could support the social construction of learning and learning through Personal Learning Networks and in communities of practice.

We were seeking to develop new pedagogic approaches which could support informal learning and lifelong learning and bring together learning from the school, from home and from the workplace. We wanted to stimulate curiosity and release the creative potential of learners.

With what results?

It is really to early to tell. There is growing interest in our pedagogic approach from researchers and developers. And our early evaluation of designs with users are favourable. Teachers too are increasingly adopting our approach to social land creative learning. We have a number of pilots currently running with early adopters participating. By the time of the conference we will be able to show much more of our work and the results of our trials.

With what impact?

At one level we can point to a high impact. People are interested in our approach to learning. We have many teachers and trainers signing up for workshops. A number of projects are adopting this approach. Evaluation work with enterprises – so called application partners – is encouraging. But the real impact can only be measured over a longer time period. Will  this be just interesting project and research work which never moves beyond a pilot stage or can we change practice on a wider level. We think we can!”

And finally they ask for web references and multimedia! Here you go.

Pontydysgu blogs posts on Vygotsky – http://www.pontydysgu.org/?s=vygotsky

Pontydysgu wiki on Vyrgotsky – http://opendistancelearning.pbworks.com/Vygotsky-Resources

Video of presentation at debate on PLEs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW9SGNYr37s

Slidecast – PLEs: the future of Learning – http://www.slideshare.net/GrahamAttwell/personal-learning-enviroments-the-future-of-education-presentation

Mature project – www.mature-ip.eu

G8WAY project -  g8way.0u.nt

A further update on planning and preparations for the PLE2010 conference. We received 81 proposals, far more than we had expected. And whilst very welcome, this has generated a lot fo work. Each proposal was assigned two reviewers from the conference Academic Committee. This has meant some members of the Committee being asked to review six papers which is quite an effort for which we are truly grateful

One of the main points made in feedback to us from the reviewers was that a 360 word abstract is too short to make a proper judgement. And indeed some submissions did not make full use of the 360 words. We produced criteria for the submissions which were used by some reviewers. Others disagreed with this approach. Stephen Downes, commenting on my last blog post about the conference, said:

the stated criteria, as listed in the post above, are actually longer than many of the abstract submissions. As such, the criteria were overkill for what was actually being evaluated.

the criteria do not reflect academic merit. They are more like a check-off list that a a non-skilled intake worker could complete. The purpose of having academics do the review is that the academics can evaluate the work on its own merit, not against a check-off list.

the criteria reflect a specific theoretical perspective on the subject matter which is at odds with the subject matter. They reflect an instructivist perspective, and a theory-based (universalists, abstractivist) perspective. Personal learning environments are exactly the opposite of that.

In other words, it is not appropriate to ask academic reviewers to bring their expertise the material, and to then neuter that expertise with overly perspective statement of criteria.

On the whole I think I agree with Stephen. But I am still concerned with how we reach some common understandings or standards for reviewing, especially in a multi-disciplinary and multi national context.

Following the completion of the reviews, the conference organising committee met (via Skype) to discuss the outcomes of the process. We did not have time to properly consider the results of all 166 reviews and in the end accepted to unconditionally accept any paper with an average score of two or more (reviewers were asked to score each submission on a scale ranging from plus to minus three). That accounted for twenty six of the proposals. Each of the remaining proposals was reconsidered by the seven members of the organising committee in the light of the feedback from the reviewers. In many of the  cases we agreed with their reviews, in some cases we did not. 30 of the proposals were accepted but we have asked the proposers to resubmit their abstract, feeling that improvements could be made in clarity and in explaining their ideas to potential participants at the conference.

We referred nine of the proposals, in the main case because whilst they seemed interesting proposals we did not feel they has sufficiently addressed the theme of the conference ie Personal Learning Environments. These we have asked to resubmit the abstract and we will review the proposals for a second time. In a small number of cases we have recommended a change of format, particularly for research which is still at a conceptual stage which we felt would be better presented as a short paper, rather than a full proceedings paper. And, following the reviews, we did not accept five of the proposals. Once more the main reason was their failing to9 address the themes of the conference.

I am sure we will have upset some people through this process. But the review process was if nothing else rigorous. the meeting to discuss the outcome lasted late into the evening the we were concerned wherever possible to be inclusive in our approach. We also decided not to use the automatic functionality of the EasyChair system for providing feedback on the proposals. the main reason for this was that we were very concerned that feedback should be helpful and constructive for all proposers. Whilst many of the reviews were very helpful in that respect, some were less so and thus we have edited those reviews.

Four quick thoughts on all this:

• I am not sure that people spend enough time thinking about the calls for papers. What are the themes a conference is trying to address? How does my work contribute towards those themes.
• I wonder if many academics struggle with writing abstracts. I was surprised how many did not use their full 360 words in their proposals. Abstracts are difficult to write (at least I find them hard) and perhaps our 360 word limit constrained many. However, it was surprising how many were not really clear in focus.
• I am still concerned with how we can develop common understandings and standards between reviewers. Maybe we need some sort of discourse process between reviewers.
• The task of providing clear feedback and judgement about proposals whilst still proving constructive and helpful feedback to proposers is not easy. Once more, this maybe something which needs to be addressed at a community level.