Social learning or the industrialisation of learning?

June 5th, 2006

Auricle:

I’m trying to read my way through all the different contributions for the CETIS Personal Learning Environment Experts Group meeting in Manchester tomorrow (I hate that ‘expert’ word - makes me feel like a fraud). There is now a wiki set up - http://octette.cs.man.ac.uk/jitt/index.php/Personal_Learning_Environments.

I am particularly taken with Derek Morrison’s excellent blog on the subject on Auricle.

Derek concludes his article by saying:

Connectivism and theoretical work related to Communities of Practice/Learning Networks are exactly what we need to provide some sort of conceptual framework to the work being undertaken to develop technology enhanced learning (TEL - possibly a better term than e-learning:) I detect an increasing dissonance, however, between attempts to ground TEL work in connections, communities, and learning/social networks, and the, now open, declarations by some of our institutional leaders (and others) that e-learning is about the ‘industrialisation’ of learning. Where then will the PLE figure in such an Orwellian view?”

He has hit the nail on the head. The “dissonance” increasingly pervades all discourses around the use of social software in education and provides a dilemma to all those working in ‘official’ education and training arenas.

Technorati Tags: education policy, PLEs

Entry Filed under: Personal Learning Environments (PLE)