In my two latest blogs I started a series of posts to revisit the prior European project “Learning about politics” in which I worked as the ITB partner in 2010 and 2011.  In the first post I discussed the project experience as a whole and presented some thoughts on the key activities in Germany and on the Politics Spring School 2011. In the second post I look at some ‘hot issues’ in the German (and international) politics in 2011 and what kind of developments we have seen since then. In this third post I will have a look at the the themes raised by German vocational school teachers with whom I worked in the project.

WikiLeaks, Netzpolitik and the NSA-affair

One of the vocational school teachers raised the issue ‘WikiLeaks’ as a new phenomenon in the international politices of those years. Although he couldn’t participate very intensively in the continuation of the project, he had drawn our attention to the new role of social media and new kinds of social networks in national and international politics. We firstly paid attention to the WikiLeaks network and its revelations. Then, we took note of the new role of social media and new kinds of protest movements in the revolutionary developments during the Arabic Spring. Finally, parallel to these developments, we took note of the new kinds of Netzpolitik networks that revealed plagiarism in the academic dissertations of some leading German polticians. At that time the abrupt fall of the popular conservative politician Guttenberg (then minister of defence) was the most striking case in which a politician had to resign because of plagiarism in dissertation.

Whilst these themes firstly seemed to refer to relatively separate phenomena, during the subsequent years they appeared to be more closer to each other and to concerns of ordinary citizens. Whilst the revelations on plagiarism had put the credibility of several politicians into question, a further episode around the WikiLeaks network had a major impact on the atmosphere of trust vs. mistrust on government policies. The whistleblower Edward Snowden (former agent of the NSA) had revealed to what extent NSA had got access to major servers and thus to private data. The most striking news was that of listening of the private phone of chancellor Angela Merkel by the NSA. All this raised the public interest in data privacy and concerns about data protection by national governments and major internet and telephone service providers.

Juniorvoting and participation of young people in elections

Another vocational school teacher was interested in the phenomenon ‘juniorvoting’ (Juniorenwahlen)  – an initiative to organise simulated elections in schools among youngsters who didn’t have the right to vote. Such events had been organised successfully before national elections in Germany during the recent years. In 2011 there was an increased interest to organise such preliminary voting arrangements for youngsters also before the regional parliaments. However, before the elections of the regional parliament in Bremen there was less interest to organise such simulated voting, because the voting age had already been brought to 16 years. Thus, the youngsters had become real voters. Therefore, the schools were less willing to arrange juniorvoting events. Nevertheless, the teacher had collected lot of information on the implementation of such events and their role as preliminary elections and presented this as input to Politics Spring School. Also, we could use this material for the German platform of the Politics project. Sadly enough, the lowering of voting age appeared to have little impact on the participation of young voters in the regional elections in Bremen 2011 and 2015.

Climate change as challenge for policy makers and individual citizens

The third vocational school teacher had engaged himself intensively with the theme ‘climate change’ and managed to make use of this theme in his teaching. Therefore, we could use primarily his material as a basis for the respective ‘learning pathway’ of the German platform. This material had awareness-raising exercises (with YouTube videos), basic information on international policy processes to control/prevent climate change (Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen conference) and tasks that brought climate change close to the vocational area of his apprentices and to their individual behaviour as consumers. The grande finale was the competition for the apprentices to calculate the CO2 footprint of their designed holiday trips. Based on this material the teacher also prepared an input for the Politics Spring School and to work with several other participants on this theme.

Looking back, the theme ‘climate change’ gained weight in the German politics and at the international level. In particular the fact that the Copenhagen conference couldn’t reach major results, gave pressure to the next international climate summit – in Paris 2015. This time the conference managed to reach an result – a binding document that replaced the Kyoto protocol. Now the international community had made commitments to keep the climate change in limits. And the ecologically oriented NGOs had points of reference for monitoring, whether the policy-makers keep their promises.

– – –

I think this is enough of the themes that were raised by the teachers and how we worked with them – and what kind of actuality these themes have had afterwards. As we felt it at that time, our German team worked separately from the other national teams with clearly different contents. However, during the Politics Spring School we could all bring some of our themes forward in the group work – young people’s participation, climate change and integration of migrants/intercultural understanding. (I will have a closer look at the last mentioned theme and how it was taken up in the Spring School and in the follow-up.) And it it is worthwhile to mention that the the two German teachers who participated in the Spring School have worked together to develop their teaching in the subject politics.

More blogs to come … 

During my summer break I have several times had thoughts on a prior European project “Learning about politics” in which I worked as the ITB partner in 2010 and 2011. The project as such was not one of the most successful ones in which I have been working. Yet – looking back at some of the activities carried out in the project and at the themes covered in the German contributions – I must say that I learned a lot during that time. And when comparing the hot issues of that time and those of the present date – there is a lot to be learned about the evolution of politics in the light of these issues. Therefore, I have decided to write a series of blogs to revisit the project experience and some of the key themes – now, five years after the end of the project. In this first post I will deal with the project as a whole and some of its key activities.

The project idea, the partnership and the evolution of the project

The project was initiated in Estonia on the basis of a ‘seed corn story’ on a young schoolboy who wants to change the world and starts a political campaign to run for the next elections. All this started in family talks and the boy and his followers started to get information and draft their program for the elections. The trans-national partnership was supposed to build upon the core story and continue it as national variants adjusted to their contexts.

As the project was launched under the transversal programme of the EU-funded Lifelong Learning Programme, the partners represented different educational sectors and had respectively different ideas, how to work further. Thus, the Estonian, Slovenian and Italian partners (who represented lower secondary schools) chose to work with this script. As a contrast, the Greek, German and Welsh partners (who represented other educational sectors) worked their own ways forward independently of the initial core story. This was reflected in the development of the trans-national website that gave each partner its own WordPress platform for developing its own contents. Below I will first give an overview on the work of the German team and then give insights into the Politics Spring School event.

The German sub-project took shape as a theme-based online learning environment

In the beginning phase we had had some difficulties in getting the project moving. After some time I cam in as a replacement of the initial partner. After exploring some other options, I ended up working with three vocational school teachers who had ‘politics’ as their second subject (in addition to their vocational subjects). We discussed several themes that might be interesting and outlined a set of  thematic ‘learning pathways’ (Lernwege) to be covered with introductory blog posts and separate ‘learning units’ with more specific information, links to additional materials and workspaces for learning tasks.

When developing this online learning environment, some additional themes came up. So, at the end of the project we had developed the following ‘learning pathways’:

Pathway One: The regional parliament elections in Germany in 2011

Pathway Two: Protest movements and citizens’ participation in Germany (Anti-nuclear protests and protests against Stuttgart 2010  railway station project)

Pathway Three: Protest movements and revolutions in Arab countries

Pathway Four: The new role of internet and social media in policy

Pathway Five: Debates on the integration of migrants and on multicultural society in Germany

Pathway Six: The issue of climate change and citizens’ responsibility

Pathway Seven: Young people’s participation in politics.

(I will get back to these themes in my next blogs.)

The Politics Spring School 2011 as a joint training and learning event

During the project the partners tended to work somewhat separately with their own contents and learning stories (except for the Estonian and Slovenian partners who had a closer collaboration). Therefore, the Politics Spring School (initiated and hosted by the Greek partners) was an important complementary training and learning event. The Politics Spring School was designed as a combination of a Grundtvig course for individual adult learners and of a Comenius course for teacher’s further education. In practice, the two first day were run as a joint multimedia training and then during three following days the groups were separated. The adult learners worked individually with their stories, whilst the teacher group worked in transnational teams that created their own stories. To me it was a positive experience to see that I could combine the theme ‘integration of migrants’ with the interests of two other participants (outside the project context). I a similar way the two German vocational school teachers could link their themes (junior voting and climate change) into their group stories.

– – –

I think this is enough of the project as such. I do not think that we would have been very successful if we would have followed strictly the original original plan. Some partners found it appropriate for them – for the others it was better to follow alternative options. Yet, as the Politics Spring School showed it, there was enough common content and interest to get the international partners learn and work together. Based on our teamwork in Bremen and in the Spring School the German vocational school teachers have continued their cooperation and shared experiences on their teaching in politics. I think this is already a good result. Moreover, the work with the German platform and the respective ‘pathways’ and ‘learning units’ provided me a pre-school for the kind of multimedia competences that I have needed in our ongoing EU-funded Learning Layers project. Finally, the work with the themes to be covered has clearly been a valuable learning experience in German and international politics. (I will get back to this in my next blogs.)

More blogs to come …

With my two previous posts on the EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project I have started a series of reports on the Multimedia Training of the training centre Bau-ABC with the concept “Theme Rooms”. The concept was initiated by the training staff of Bau-ABC.  In my first blog I reported, how we (the LL teams of Bau-ABC, ITB and Pontydysgu) adjusted the concept in planning meetings. The second post focused on the work with the theme ‘Social media’. This post focuses on the theme ‘Preparing  Digital Learning Materials’. The groups that that started with this theme gave primary attention to preparation of exemplary digital contents (videos, GoConqr quiz-tests and mindmaps) and put the emphasis on editing processes. The groups that had started with the theme ‘Social Media’ put the main emphasis on working with blogs (and integrating the preparation of digital learning materials to work with blogs). Therefore, the picture of these groups is more differentiated than of the previous ones.

Working with videos and particular GoConqr tools

The two pioneering groups working with digital learning materials put the emphasis on hands-on exercises. In this respect they engaged the participating trainers in producing short videos and preparing exemplary exercises (interim tests) with GoConqr quiz tools. in this way the participants got direct insights into working with these tools. In this context these groups were confronted with the limits provided by ICT infrastructure, old laptops and software bugs. However, in the context of continuing group dynamics these difficulties did not bring the learning processes into standstill. Moreover, the groups used the brainstorming phases to consider the usability of videos and GoConqr applications in training. When continuing to social media, these groups discussed the role of blogs as instruments for presenting such exercises for apprentices.

Working with blogs

The groups that put more emphasis on blogs had somewhat different approaches. In one group the trainers were engaged to create completely new blogs and to use them for posting and commenting messages. In another group the main attention was given on the existing trainers’ blogs that had been created during the earlier Multimedia Training workshops provided by the LL project. As a result, trainers in four occupational domains had started blogs that were used to present comprehensive sets of training materials that covered different contents areas and different phases of apprentice training. When exploring the existing blogs the workshop discussed, how to engage the less represented occupational areas into such work.

However, these explorations and hands-on exercises triggered a lively discussion on the potential benefits and limits of blogs. This discussion was taken up by creating GoConqr Mindmaps that outlined pros and cons of using blogs from different perspectives. In a next step a further question on optimal uses of blogs was again captured with GoConqr mindmaps. This latter step brought more closer to each other the trainers that had created their blogs and the ones that had not been involved. Furthermore, the discussion brought forward the idea of integrated ‘packages’ that link different elements (text documents, photos/drawings/videos, quiz tests and links to further instructions) as building blocks of trainers’ blogs. The results of this discussion were documented in the updates (comments) added to the mindmap.

In this way the work in the workshops not only supported individual learning but provided a basis for discussing the organisational approach to working with web resources and digital learning materials. Such issues were also taken up in the joint concluding session that discussed the progress during the first cycle of workshops. This discussion will be covered in the final post to this series of blogs.

More blogs to come …

With my two previous blogs I have reported on the results of a  field visit to the training centre Bau-ABC Rostrup in the context of our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project. Our colleagues from the University of Innsbruck (UIBK) and our ITB-colleague Lars Heinemann interviewed Bau-ABC trainers to get feedback on the pilot testing of LL tools. In my first blog I  gave a brief news report, whilst in the second blog I discussed in closer detail the remarks of the trainers Markus Pape and Lothar Schoka.

With this third blog I try to relate these fresh interviews to our earlier encounters and on the changing circumstances and changing practices. Here, I want to draw attention to the new activities that have come into picture during the LL project and due to initiatives of the LL project. I try to link my comments to the points that I raised on the interviews in my previous blog:

Initial awareness of digital media, web tools and mobile devices

In the beginning phase of the project (January 2013) the ITB team made some early interviews with Bau-ABC trainers and apprentices. At that time both our awareness as well as the awareness of the trainers and apprentices was not advanced. None of us had a holistic view on the usability of digital media, web tools and mobile devices. In different trades the trainers could refer to some apps and tools. Yet, the trainers had mixed feelings about domain-specific apps for construction sector (some being apps for professionals, others for lay users and altogether with varying quality). Also, the use of web resources and Facebook groups was at an early stage. Furthermore, the use of mobile phones was banned during the training because it was perceived as mere distraction.

Workshops and User Survey: Awareness of web tools, readiness to use mobile devices

In the next phase (Spring 2013) the LL project started co-design workshops with apprentices and trainers (in different groups) to identify points of intervention and to specify the emerging design idea(s). In Autumn 2013 the ITB team organised a User Survey that covered most of the apprentices that attended their initial training periods in Bau-ABC.

The discussions in the workshops and the results of the questionnaire revealed that the apprentices were not at all informed of the existing construction sector apps and had made very little use of them. However, the apprentices indicated that they had made use of their smartphones to support their work and workplace learning (e.g. via web searches or by documenting their work  and learning results).

Co-design of LTB, Multimedia Training and follow-up activities

In Spring 2014 the co-design process brought into picture the framework of Learning Toolbox and parallel to it the LL project arranged Multimedia Training workshops to Bau-ABC trainers. Due to these processes the emphasis in the co-design processes shifted from expectations (on the design work of others) to initiatives (how to develop one’s own training practice with the help of new tools). In this phase the trainers started to work with their own trade-specific blogs and provide digital access to their training contents. Also, the trainers developed their own ideas, how the emerging LTB could be used in Bau-ABC (as was demonstrated by the videos for the Tallinn consortium meeting in the Autumn 2014).

Taking steps to customise and use LTB as integrative set of tools, apps and services

In the light of the above presented background, the interviews of the Bau-ABC trainers (see my previous blog) demonstrate remarkable progress in the LL project. The Bau-ABC trainers are becoming owners of LL-initiated innovations and in customising the LTB for their trades (to be used in training and working contexts). Also, the demonstrate clearly, how their overall competences in using digital media, web resources and mobile devices have grown during the project and due to the support from the project. And thirdly, due to peer tutoring and peer learning they have developed into multipliers who can bring their colleagues and apprentices to an active piloting phase.

I think this is enough for the moment. We will get back to Bau-ABC and our other application partners in a short while.

More blogs to come ...

With my previous blog I reported on the field visit to the training centre Bau-ABC Rostrup in the context of our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project. Our colleagues from the University of Innsbruck (UIBK) together with our ITB-colleague Lars Heinemann interviewed Bau-ABC trainers to get feedback on the pilot testing of LL tools. In particular they wanted to get feedback on the use of the Learning Toolbox (LTB), which we are developing together with our partners in the construction sector. In my first blog I could only give a brief news report and to raise some issues/requests to be considered by the developers of the LTB.

Now that I have listened the recordings, I find that the colleagues have had a very interesting discussion and that we can learn a lot of the points made by the Bau-ABC trainers Markus Pape (carpenter) and Lothar Schoka (well-builder/borehole builder). With this second post I try to pick some of their interesting points and reconstruct a red thread across their conversations:

Motivation to use digital media, web tools and mobile devices

Both trainers emphasised that their apprentices are very inspired when they get a chance to use mobile devices to access digital contents and web resources during their training and in the context of work. Compared to mere written instructions or paper-based documentation, the apprentices feel more motivated (since they are all eager to use their devices at any rate).

Usability of mobile devices, LTB  and digital contents

Both trainers made several points on the usability issues that emphasise the relevance of LTB:

• Access to documents, web resources and real-time communication is often a problem at construction sites (no space for looking at papers or folders, no chance to have stationary PCs or even laptops). With mobile devices, communication apps and the toolset of LTB many problems can be clarified in real time. Furthermore, LTB can essentially facilitate communication between different trades and working groups on same construction sites or quality control between the teams and their supervisors.
• The structure of LTB – tiles, pages and stacks – makes it easy to use without making it overly complex. This is essential for users in craft trades who expect tools that work properly in real work.
• Both trainers emphasised the benefits of LTB in supporting well-structured web searches (with appropriate terminology) and steering it to good quality sources. Moreover, Schoka emphasised the possibility to use QR tags to direct searches to appropriate sections of user manuals and instructions for maintenance.

Use of trainers’ and apprentices’ own web resources and digital contents

• Both trainers have created their own domain-specific blogs (Zimmererblog, Brunnenbauer und Spezialtiefbauer) for uploading their instruction sheets for apprentices’ projects and for presenting other contents. By making their own LTB stacks they can provide access to the right documents when it is appropriate for the training schedules.
• Schoka made a special point on the short videos that have been produced and uploaded by apprentices on the well-builders’ Facebook group. These short videos may serve several purposes. Now, thanks to LTB, they can be used in a more targeted way.

 Changes in training and learning practice

• Both trainers are in the process of linking the pilot testing of LTB to specific training projects and content areas via their own stacks and with specific sets of tools, apps, instructions and tasks. In this way they are creating their own multimedia environments in which they are involving their apprentices as digital learners.
• The two trainers have brought into picture different strengths in using digital media and web resources. Pape has been the pioneer in creating domain specific blogs. Schoka has been active in developing the well-builders’ Facebook group as a community resource. Partly these have activities have been started in the Multimedia Training of the LL project and partly they have been inspired by such support. Moreover, there has been a great deal of peer learning between the trainers, so that they early movers have shared their experiences with others.

I think this is enough of the points that I have picked from the interviews. I do not try to give an exhaustive report. The colleagues from UIBK will work further with the interview materials and put them into a wider context by linking the results from construction sector and healthcare sector to each other. My point was to pick these comments from Bau-ABC for an interim assessment.

With my third post I try to relate these points to earlier interviews and talks with Bau-ABC trainers (and apprentices). In that context I try to demonstrate, how their approach to using digital media, web tools and mobile technologies has changed during the project and due to their involvement in participative design process.

 More blogs to come …

This morning I published a blog post on our preparation for the Tallinn consortium meeting of our EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project.  As usual, I copied it to the current logbook of my blogs on the LL project. When checking that I had properly updated the logbook, I noticed that the number of blog posts in these logbooks had reached the milestone of one hundred (100).

Talking about blogging, one hundred is not a great number – one thousand could already count as an achievement. Or – thinking of the fact that I have been blogging regularly since November 2012 – the time frame that I have covered is not that much either. Thinking of the champion bloggers that I know – like Graham Attwell (Wales-Wide Web) or Wilfred Rubens (Technology Enhanced Learning) – they have been blogging over ten years. So, that gives us a perspective.

Yet, for the Learning Layers project this number of blog articles written at different phases of the project starts to count as a particular source of information. Indeed – my blogs have given my personal views on what is going on in the project at that  time. And they should be interpreted as such statements of a witness and actor deeply involved in the process (but with the tasks of an accompanying researcher and participative contributor).

As I have mentioned above, I have compiled annual logbooks of my blog posts on the LL projects (the 1st logbook on the years 2012-2013, the 2nd logbook on the year 2014 and the 3rd logbook on the year 2015). These logbooks can be found in the shared Google Drive folder for the Construction sector logbooks https://goo.gl/35aZeQ. In addition to these the folder contains logbooks on our co-design workshops in Bau-ABC and logbooks of our local design meetings in Bremen.

Having said all this I need to remind myself that I have to keep on blogging throughout the project so that these blogs and the logbooks can be used as a proper source. I hope that this points out to be a task worth doing.

More blogs to come …

In my latest post I firstly told, why the fieldwork of the Learning Layers (LL) project has had less visibility in the recent weeks. Our reporting duties and some backstage work with the tools have filled the agendas. Therefore, a new round of pilot workshops had to postponed to the beginning of next year. In this respect we were happy to make a field visit to Bau-ABC with our visitors from the Norwegian cluster organisation Tretorget. In my first post on our visit I gave a brief report on our cluster talks with the visitors. In this post I will report on our talks with apprentices and trainers in Bau-ABC.

 Talks with apprentices

Since our Norwegian visitors represented a cluster in wood industry, our primary target was the workshop and the training area of carpenters. When approaching the area, I recognised some of the apprentices as ones who had participated in June in the Demo Camp event in Bau-ABC. They also recognised us and greeted us as old acquaintances – and wanted to know, how the project is going on. Therefore, I started talking with apprentice Ahmed (born in Germany but with family roots in Libanon and Syria). In particular I was interested to find out, how he and his fellow apprentices perceived the blog of their trainer Markus Pape, the Zimmererblog. (See also my previous posts on the trainers’ blogs and on the video presenting the blogs.)

Ahmed made the following remarks:

1) The very fact that their trainer has made all instruction materials for apprentices’ projects available via his blog is very much appreciated. The apprentices feel that they get access to relevant contents via their own media (smartphones, tablets or laptops).

2) The way that the blog has structured the materials of different years of training gives a better overview and the apprentices can relate different contents to phases of training.

3) The fact that they have such a learning resource from the training centre makes it easier to tackle with the learning contents provided by the vocational school. (In general apprentices have been less motivated in school-based learning.)

4) The problem with this web-based learning resource is that it can only be used when you have access to Internet. This is already a problem in several training areas of Bau-ABC and even more at the workplaces.

In the light of the above Ahmed and his fellow apprentices were looking forward to further progress with developing web-based learning resources. In particular they are eager to start piloting with the Learning Toolbox in their projects.

 Talks with trainers

During our visit at the carpenters’ workshop our talks with the trainer, Mr Bruns, focused on their domain. In our next station, at the well-builders, we had a quick talk with the trainer Lothar Schoka. He told us of the recent progress with the Facebook group of the well-builders (using photos and short videos). Inspired by the success of this group they are also developing their own blog (which has not yet become public but is in the pipeline).

At the end of the visit I managed to meet trainer Markus Pape and talk with him of the next phase of developing the blogs. We had reached an agreement to migrate the first pilot blogs to the BauBildung.net platform to promote synergy and mutual support. Also, via this move we want to enable feeding metadata from the blogs to Social Semantic Server and back to Learning Toolbox. This perspective is inspiring and we are looking forward to it.

Finally, I need to mention the transition that has taken place in multimedia training. Whilst we have so far been running these events as LL project workshops organised by Pontydysgu and ITB, the Bau-ABC colleagues have now continued this with their own peer tutoring and peer training activities. In this context they are now discussing the use of different web resources, the importance of Creative Commons and of Open Educational Resources. To us, the R&D partners, this is a step from the project activities towards sustaining the learning gains and new practices. And for our cooperation this gives a challenge to proceed further with the piloting and outreach activities.

More blogs to come …

Last year I managed to blog almost regularly on our progress with the Learning Layers (LL) project. To my own disappointment I have to admit that I have not been able to continue that tradition this year. Now – before the end of March – it is high time to break the silence and to catch up with the activities of the LL project.

Before I go to the ongoing activities (in my next blog posts) I need to make some explanatory remarks.

Firstly, this has not been a quiet period in the LL project. On the contrary, we have had a lot of activities. Even more, we have had to struggle with deadlines to be met with different kinds of contributions. That has pushed the good habit of blogging out of the way.

Secondly, we have done quite a lot of internal development work inside the project. For that we have also needed internal discussions to reach common conclusions. That has also delayed blogging of the results.

Thirdly, we are reaching an integrative phase in which we need to get several initiatives and prototypes linked to each other. This also requires its own time and privacy. Therefore, there has been no case to rush to blogging.

Fourthly, we are entering also a phase that is characterised by joint self-reflection regarding our theoretical foundations, methodological commitments and on their implications for our fieldwork. Here, we also need space and time for mutual adjustment. This has also delayed blogging (although blogs can facilitate dialogue and mutual awareness).

In addition to the points above there have been practical issues that need not be discussed here in detail. After having said all this, I have come to the conclusion that I should not give up the good habit of blogging on our progress. So, in the coming posts I will try to catch up and pave the way for ongoing reporting.

More posts to come …

I have just checked the reports (= podcasts) of the Pontydysgu colleagues from Online Educa Berlin 2013. This reminded me that it was about one year ago and exactly during that conference that I started my new career as blogger on the work of the ITB (Institut Technik & Bildung) team in the Learning Layers project.

Looking back, I see that I have covered different periods of the Learning Layers project and of the work of our team:

In November 2012 I wrote some blogs with which I worked myself in into the project (by looking at lessons from predecessor projects (e.g. expertAzubi and TACCLE2) and raising some common issues regarding our work with partners in construction sector.

In December 2012 I started producing reports on site visits to our application partners (Bau ABC in Rostrup and Agentur/Netzwerk Nachhaltiges Bauen in Verden) and to partner enterprises. My question was: “What do we learn from site visits?”

In January/February 2013 there were reports on the Application Partner Days. At that time most of the consortium came to site visits as well and we had series of workshops. These were followed by blogs that prepared our contributions to the Design Conference (that took place in Helsinki in March 2013). My questions were: “What have we learned from Application Partner Days?” “How do we take our lessons to the design activities?”

 In March 2013 there were reports on the results of the Helsinki Design Conference and further thoughts, how to get the local design activities organised. My question was: “How can we get the initial design ideas properly grounded?” 

In April/May/June 2013 there were less blogs but far more field activities and internal reports. The blogs written in June provided an overview of this phase in general, the workshops in Bau ABC (involving apprentices and trainers), the parallel activities with Agentur/NNB and with craft trade companies. The final blog of this phase gave insights into the stakeholder talks in the pilot region and into the explorations of our partners (CIMNE, I-Perform) on organised clusters and their roles in different European regions. My question was: “What are we learning in the current phase of our fieldwork?”

 In July 2013 there were no blogs due to summer holidays. Bau ABC was closed and most of the ITB team was on holiday as well. Yet, something was moving ahead with the pilots and with the design work.

 In August/September 2013 there was a new high season of manifold workshops. In my blogs of August I tried to put the newer developments into concept with my question: “What kind of transition phase are we going through in our fieldwork?” I discussed new developments in the design work (“Rapid Turbine prototype), in the workshops (shift of emphasis to design and training) and in stakeholder engagement (more direct dialogue on the LL project work and stakeholders priorities). Then, the flow of blogs was interrupted by a period of conference travels and the LL consortium meeting in Pafos.

 In September/October/November 2013 there has been a high season of preparing deliverables and other contributions to the Year 1 review. At the same time we have made important progress with workshops – in particular in developing the Multimedia training approach for construction sector. Sadly, there was no time to comment these steps with blogs – we were absorbed by the main duties.

Now, that we are heading towards the Year 1 review meeting in Barcelona, I find it appropriate to have a closer look at the recent progress in our fieldwork and how it is reflected in different activities.

To be continued …

Acknowledgements. This work is supported by the European Commission under the FP7 project LAYERS (no. 318209), http://www.learning-layers.eu.

Wiecie juz na pewno, ze chcemy na Paradygmacie 2.0 eksperymentowac z roznymi formami blogowania. Nasz pierwszy wpis mial forme rozmowy, dyskusji na temat poczatkow i podstaw PLE. Dzisiaj dla odmiany  wywiad. Czym rozniy sie od rozmowy? Wlasciwie najbardziej tym, ze zadajacy pytania nie duzo o sobie informuje. Kilka dni temu rozmawialam na Skypie z Piotrem Peszko, autorem bloga eLearning 2.0 i moderatorem forum elearningu na goldenline.pl, o tym, jak wyglada elearning w firmach, tzn. czy stosuje sie rozwiazania 1.0 czy 2.0, w jaki sposob wprowadza sie siec spoleczna, jakie czynniki wplywaja na to, czy uda sie wprowadzic wiki, blogi, twittera itd itp. … Oto pierwsza czesc zapisu naszej rozmowy.

Ilona: Ok, zacznijmy od ogolow – czym sie zajmujesz?

Piotr: Aktualnie projektuję rozwiązania e-learningowe dla produktu o nazwie GetThere. Właśnie uruchomiłem II edycję projektu dla osób 45 +, w którym jest dużo elearningu, a także zajmuję się wdrożeniem rozwiązania do zarządzania dokumentacją w modelu single-sourcing i połączeniu go z elearningiem.

Ilona: Co to jest single-sourcing model?

Piotr: Model zarządzania treścią  – kontentem w różnej formie – online, offline itd. Jest oparty na xml-u i pozwala na wielokrotne wykorzystywanie treści i jej konfigurowanie.

Ilona: Masz przyklad?

Piotr: Załóżmy, że masz bloga, piszesz różne treści, tagujesz … i nagle chcesz zrobić z niego książkę. Lipa – nie da się szybko i sprawnie. Single sourcing to podejście, które pozwala na edytowanie treści w jednym miejscu i eksportowanie jej do różnych – zdefiniowanych uprzednio formatów, np. elearningu, wiki, html-a, htmla dla urządzeń mobilnych, pdf, doc itd. itp. i wykorzystania tagów oraz tzw. conditionals zależnych od formatu wyjściowego

Ilona: Aha, ciekawe, a masz moze linka do jakiejs aplikacji opartej na tym modelu?

Piotr: Polecam DocBook na początek. To już trzeci taki project. Każdy inny, ale założenia podobne – po co pisać internal/external reference tutorial + online help + elearning, jeśli każdy z nich korzysta z tej samej treści. Trzeba zdefiniować źródło, procesy i ogień – niech się samo robi 🙂

Ilona: Dzieki, to ciekawe. A co Ty robisz na AGH?

Piotr: Na AGH juz nie wiele, ponieważ  od marca pracuję w Sabre Holdings Polska, pożegnałem się  z uczelnią 🙂

Ilona: To ciekawe, a to co firmy robia w Polsce to bardziej elearning 1.0 czy 2.0?

Piotr: Korporacje po prostu przenoszą swoje wypróbowane rozwiązania na nowy grunt. Posiadają LMS-y wielkie bazy szkoleń, dostęp do niemal wszystkich książek online, wiki, sociale itd. E-learning 1.0 istnieje jako pewna warstwa materialów odniesienia, a profile funkcjonują w wewnętrznych systemach społecznościowych. Także elearning 1.0, elearning 2.0 i workplace learning to chleb powszedni.

Ilona: A jak laczycie elearning 1.0 i 2.0? Na przyklad, w jaki sposob wprowadzacie i stosujecie wiki, blogi? Slyszala, ze wie niektorych korporacjach wprowadza sie wiki w taki sposowb, ze kazdy pracownik musi napisac iles tam stron i iles tam stron skomentowac I to wszystko w scisle okreslonym czasie.

Piotr: Hmm… no nie wiem czy przymus to najlepsze rozwiązanie. Wdrażałem kiedyć taki social w korporacji i wymuszanie okazało się fiaskiem, dopiero danie czegoś w zamian, np.  szybki dostęp do informacji poprzez wewnętrzny twitter, okazało się skuteczne. Problem jest taki, że ta firma jest bardzo nie-polska, a bardzo amerykańska, dlatego pewne rozwiązania są i funkcjonują globalnie.

Ilona: Czyli co w tym przypadku wplywa na udane wprowadzanie sieci spolecznych w firmach?

Piotr: Z mojego doświadczenia wynika, że musi zostać przekroczona pewna masa krytyczna, która pozwala społeczności uczącej się funkcjonować. Równiez pewien stopień anonimowości. On jest ważny w socialach. Zawsze są opory przed odsłonięciem swojej niewiedzy. To tak jak z tłumem zadającym pytania, albo dyskutującym. W grupie raźniej, stadne z nas zwierzę i lepiej się czujemy jeśli możemy zadać pytanie albo zasięgnać rady anonimowo nie narażając się na jakieś uwagi, czy docinki. Social network nie wypali w grupie 20 osob, ale np. w polskim klonie twittera – blipie bardzo często pojawiają się pytania kierowane “w eter” z tagiem #drogiblipie.

Ilona: No to opowiedz, jak to bylo z tym twitterem w twojej firmie? Byla masa krytyczna? Odpowiedni stopien anonimowosci? Wszystko poszlo gladko?

Piotr: To było jakieś 2-3 lata temu – facebook raczkował. Pracowników było około 200, twitter był, blip był, ale raczej jako eksperymenty. Okazało się jednak, że za wcześnie…

Ilona: Dlaczego za wczesnie?

Piotr: Bo nikt nie znał tych narzędzi i nie wiedział po co one są, jak z nich korzystać i co to daje. Dopiero jak okazało się, że ktoś to robi i to daje efekty zaczęto się tym interesować. To takie troszkę małpowanie. Z mojej perspektywy to mało one mają wspólnego z uczeniem się, raczej zabawa i zabijanie czasu – pracy 🙂 Tak to niestety wygląda. Społeczności takie jak linkedin czy goldenline to głównie źródło potencjalnych pracowników / zleceniodawców + wymiana informacji ekspertów.

Ilona: Czy w firmach w Polsce mozna ogolnie uzywac twittera? W Niemczech jest coraz wiecej firm, ktore to ograniczaja, wlasnie z tego powodu, ze nie sa uzywane do pracy, tylko do “zabawy”.

Piotr: W wielu firmach nie ma przeszkód. To zależy od modelu pracy, ja na przykład nie wyobrażam sobie pracy bez 1) Google, 2) last.fm i kilku innych

Ilona: Czyli nie ma zadnych problemow z eLearningiem 2.0?

Piotr: cóż… z elearningiem 2.0 jest problem, bo nawet “specjaliści” dużo mówią na jego temat, a sami nie sa w stanie stworzyć we własnym miejscu pracy takiego środowiska, które byłoby chociażby namiastką 2.0. Moim zdaniem tez i w w firmach elearning 2.0 potrzebuje pewnej masy krytycznej zapaleńców, wtedy nie ma przeszkód i nie uczenie sie nie zależy od środków miejsca, czasu…

Ilona: A sa jakies dobre przyklady PLE w Polsce?

Piotr: Szczerze powiem, że się nie spotkałem. Może za mało szukam :), albo nic nie wystaje ponad dno.

Ilona: Nawet u Ciebie w firmie ;)?

Piotr: No to co teraz robimy to jest eLearning 2.0. Ja np. zarządzam projektem korzystając z Wiki. Wrzucam tam zasoby, uczestnicy komentują, dokładają swoje. Mam przygotowany szablon projektu, kopiuje go i zaczynamy.

Ilona: Na zasadzie samoorganizacji – kto co da, czy masz jakas strategie zarzadzania?

Piotr: Przewaznie stosuje SCRUM w standardowych, typowych projektach, a na wyższym poziomie sprawdza się PRINCE2. Bardzo dobre w Wiki jest to, że nie ma konieczności przygotowywania raportów, generowania dokumentów itd. Wszystko jest online – transparentne dla wszystkich. Wiadomo co się dzieje, kiedy i jak. No i właśnie tutaj wszyscy się uczą, bo nie ma innego wyjścia. Jesteś w projekcie = działasz na wiki.

Ilona: Ok,a wady?

Piotr: 1. Wypada zrezygnować z załączania plików; 2. Trzeba nauczyć konsekwencji stosowania Wiki; 3. muszą być jasne reguły – kto co może.

Piotr: No i hmmm… trzeba umieć korzystać z wiki. A to czasami największy problem. Chociaż, nie wyobrażam sobie projektu, w którym nie korzysta sie z jakiegoś narzędzia współpracy online.

Ilona: Jakie sa krytyczne punkty korzystania z wiki?

Piotr: Rozmiar projektu, poziom digital literacy, sposób organizacji,  simplicity matters – łatwość obsługi produktu rozwiązującego istniejący problem to najlepiej sprzedawalna rzecz.

Ilona: Czyli jakie uzasadnienie biznesowe ma uzywanie sieci spolecznych w korporacjach?

Piotr: 1. Szybkość komunikacji, 2. Budowanie bazy wiedzy

Piotr: chociaż… najważniejsze moim zdaniem jest umożliwienie przekazania informacji – wiedzy – od super-specjalistów wewnątrz firmy do klientów, lub przynajmniej sprzedawców. Bo sprzedawca jest ze swoją wiedzą nt. produktu bliżej klienta

Ilona: Z tym przekazywaniem wiedzy w korporacjach to tez taki kij co ma dwa konce. jedej strony jest motywacja, zeby pokazac sie jako ekspert. Z drugiej nie moge odkryc wszystkich kart, bo ewentualnie nie bede juz ekspertem.

Piotr: To zależy od struktury organizacji i tego w jaki sposób takie aktywności są wspierane – nie wymuszane. Jesli się jest ekspertem to zawsze jest co pokazywać. Cooper dobrze o tym napisał w “Wariaci rządzą domem wariatów” – polecam,

Ilona: Dzieki. Ale czesto przeciez jest tak, ze ludzie w firmach nie zdradzaja takich informacji, ktore stanowia podsawe ich USP (unique selling proposition).

Piotr: No trochę tak, ale np. jeśli ja projektuje rozwiązania elearningowe to nie mam problemów ze zrobieniem szkolenia na temat wersjonowania i jego znaczenia. Moim zdaniem wiedza eksperta jest tak szeroka, że zawsze jest się czym dzielić

Ilona: I zdradzasz wszystkie twoje sztuczki?

Piotr: Oczywiście, że nie. Ale nie mam oporów ze zdradzaniem szczegółów warsztatu. Np. w tamtym tygodniu prowadziłem warsztaty na temat screencastów i dokładnie mówiłem jak i czym to robię.

Ilona: A gdzie byly te warsztaty? W waszej firmie?

Piotr: Nie na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym, dla nauczycieli 🙂

Ilona: Ho ho, i co beda stosowac?

Piotr: No nie wiem, raczej ciężko

Ilona: Dlaczego?

Piotr: Nie ma zapotrzebowania…

Ilona: No co ty?

Piotr: Wiesz to tak jak seks z filozofem: ma czym, ma gdzie, ale po co…

Ilona: (rofl)

No tak, ale to juz inny rozdzial. Druga czesc rozmowy z Piotrem Peszko na tema eLearningu 2.0 w szkolnictwie wyzszym juz w krotce 😉  Ciekawa jestem, czy Wasze doswiadczenia z eLearningiem 2.0 w firmach sa podobe. Czy wszedzie jest problem z brakiem krytycznej masy? Co myslicie na temat anonimowosci w spolecznych sieciach w firmie? Przeciez anonimowosci moze oznaczac tez problemy … Moze ktos z Was ma ochote podzielic sie swoimi doswiadczeniami z perspektywy uzytkownika eLearningu w firmie? To byloby super ciekawe. Czekam na Wasze komentarze!