Learning and Maturing Knowledge

[slideshare id=217879&doc=knowledge-maturing-and-learning-1199378136320414-2&w=425]

A new presentation on Learning and Knowledge Maturing - you can either watch the presentation or download the audio version.

 Learning and Knowledge Maturing [25:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17237)

5 comments January 5th, 2008

Yet more on Personal Learning Environments

I am in Odense, Denmark at a conference organised by the University of South Denmark on Scaffolding learning - web 2.0 and e-portfolios. I gave a presentation on Personal Learning Environments. The presentation focuses on the different ways in which people are using Web 2.0 technologies for social networking and creating and sharing. It goes on to assert that this is a major challenge to the future of education systems and institutions which are in danger of becoming irrelevant to the ways in which young people live and create and share ideas and knowledge. The final section of the presentation outlines the ideas behind the PLE- with the PLE being seen as a concept rather than a particular substantiation of technology.

You can see the slides here and you can listen to the whole presentation by clicking on the MP3 file below.

 Personal Learning Environments: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (838)

Add comment May 7th, 2007

Bazaar Seminar Athens 2007

Amongst other activities, the Bazaar project is organising a series of seminars on key and emergent issues in Open Source and Open Content for learning.

These seminars intend to be explorative and participative events and to raise issues for future policy and funding by the European Commission and national Member States.

The first of the seminars – entitled ‘Hey Dude, Where’s my Data?‘ was held in Barcelona in October 2006.

We would like to invite you to the second of the seminars – ‘Social software and web 2: a challenge to the future of schooling?‘ The seminar will be held in Athens on Friday 27 April 2007 (venue to be announced), hosted by Ergon KEK, and will take place between 10:30 and 17:00.

Download the flyer in pdf: Flyer Bazaar Seminar Athens 2007

Seminar Theme: Social software and web 2: a challenge to the future of schooling? 

In a recent blog post Rita Kop says: “There is currently a vast array of communications options available on the Internet. Especially young people have grasped the potential offered to them by blogs, web pages and increasingly personal spaces such as ‘My Space’ and ‘youtube’ to make links with like minded people and to invite comments and messages to their postings. The speed in which communities are being formed has surprised most observers. Participants in these developments, though, take them for granted as expressing themselves to the wider world has increasingly become part of their life style.

The education world has not grasped yet the revolution that is taking place outside the class room. The discrepancy in the way technology is being used inside and outside the class room seems to be growing.

The availability of blog and web authoring tools and their ease of use have made that a vast number of people are now engaged in interacting on the Internet. It has created a huge leap forward in moving people on from being consumers to becoming producers of information.

As educators know, the pace of change within institutions is a lot slower than outside the brick walls, which raises questions about the ability of formal education institutions to keep engaged the generation that lives in a technology saturated world and has grown up with technology.”

Personal Learning Environments

At the same time researchers have begun to explore the idea of Personal Learning environments or PLEs. Rather than access a single learning application or a walled institutional learning area, the idea of a PLE is that learners can configure different services and tools to develop their own learning environment, bringing together informal learning from the home, the workplace as well as more formal provision by education institutions. The PLE is controlled by the learner and as well as offering an environment for accessing different information and knowledge allows access to web based publishing and other opportunities for creating content and expressing and exchanging ideas.

The idea behind the PLE is to harness the power and potential of social software and web 2.0 applications for learning.

As Graham Attwell has pointed out PLEs may be a seriously disruptive development, challenging the present model of schooling. The seminar is intended to examine the changing ways in which we are using technology for learning, to look at the potential of Personal Learning Environments and to discuss the implications for the future of our education systems.

This could include (but is not limited to) the following issues:

• Young people are increasingly using social networking sites and social software applications - but are they learning?
• What do the new uses of technology for learning imply for pedagogy and the future role of teachers?
• What is the role of school in the future when more and more learning takes place over the internet?
• How can technology supported informal learning be recognised?
• How disruptive are the new technologies to the education system - is it just a bubble?
• How can Personal Learning Environments be reconciled with the social nature of learning?
• What are the implications of technology supported learning and PLEs for social equity within education?
• What sort of technological infrastructure should the education system be providing for learning?
• If content is increasingly created by teachers and learners and is open for access, how will we guarantee quality?
• Does increasing learner control and autonomy spell the end of centralised curricula?
• Hey dude, where’s my data?

Attending

We would like all participants to prepare a position paper prior to the event.

The paper should be no more than 2 pages A4 and should contain the following type of information:

• Your name and your affiliation (company, university, etc)
• An overview of how you see the current situation regarding the theme of the seminar
• What you see as the key issues at stake and the obstacles to progress
• Your initial thoughts on what needs to be done
• Your initial recommendations, if you have any, for possible actions by the European Commission or national governments in terms of policy and/or actions to be funded
• Web links to reports, studies or other information you feel is worth referencing

We regret no funding is available for travel and accommodation. However we are happy to say we will provide lunch for all those attending!

If you are interested in attending please email Graham Attwell, who will be coordinating this event for the Bazaar project: graham10@mac.com
For more information about the Bazaar project: http://www.bazaar.org

2 comments February 25th, 2007

Personal Learning Environments - the Video

At the 2006 Alt-C conference, the Bazaar project organised a workshop on Personal Learning Environments. We are going to write a wiki page which will give access to all the results of the workshop.

Here is a video of Graham Attwells presentation at the workshop

 Personal Learning Environments [7:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (305)

3 comments September 9th, 2006

Thoughts on Alt-C

Back from the the ALT-C conference in Edinburgh. I always go to these events convinced I am going to blog through the conference and never do. In reality I suspect that post-conference reflection may be of more value than ‘news coverage’ as it happens. Lets face it - academic conference have little that requires up to the minute reporting.
I have come away with about ten headings for future posts - so I must have learnt something. Hopefully these will roll out over the next couple of weeks.
My overall impressions? Well this was the year of social software. Presentations about blogging in education were the topic of the conference. Wikis were also popular though less so. Interestingly there was little or no reference to tagging (might that be next years trend?).
About the blogging - as far as I can see there were two main issues. First was whether blogs should form a structured part of the curriculum or be an additional - add-on - space for students - or both. The second issue was whether blogs should be open to the whole world or be used in a closed system - and who should decide?
There was little talk about VLEs - apart from the by now customary slagging off of Blackboard. Indeed there was even public doubting of the future need for VLEs in a services led world. There was plenty of angst about the future role teaching and of institutions. And plenty of what seemed largely ungrounded discussions about the ‘net generation’. More research and less talk would seem to be useful.
I organised a symposium (which we turned into a workshop) on Personal Learning Environments. I enjoyed it greatly and the audience seemed to too. I will post a video of my contribution on this blog tomorrow. And the ever gorgeous Joise Fraser is working on a Flickr stream of the results of the workshop.
It is good to see (at last) the take up of social software. I just worry a little that this is this years fad - and as it proofs hard to get students involved and develop appropriate pedagogy people will move on to the next technology - video?
had a great time night out drinking with the ELGG boy band (photo pending). And met many old and new friends. Thanks to all of you who told me you read the blog regularly - I never new so many people cared. And thanks to all who helped with the workshop especially Ray, Terry, Josie and Lawrie,

Technorati Tags: Alt-C2006, social software

1 comment September 8th, 2006

Sounds of the Bazaar 4

Its time for the regular education blog - Sounds of the Bazaar - only just over two weeks from the last edition so we are beginning to get the schedule I am aiming at.

Here are the sleeve notes for this edition     

Graham’s rant - my regular slot

In this edition I talk about issues arising from the Leonardo da Vinci funded Workplace Learning partnership project. How do we resolve the tensions between wanting to try small scale experiments with Web 2.0 technologies towards developing the concept of the Personal Learning environment, whilst practitioners and education and training providers want solutions now - software which works and software which makes their lives easier.

The Bazaar Interview

I interview Lou McGill who leads the JISC e-Learning programme work on e-assessment. Lou talks about moving away from a simple multiple choice question approach to e-assessment to more formative approaches to learning and assessment.

I interview Lou McGill who leads the JISC work on e-assessment. Lou talks about moving away from a simple multiple choice question approach to e-assessment to more formative approaches to learning and assessment.The JISC work on e-assessment can be found here.

There is also a Special Interest Group on e-assessment, run by CETIS

Web site of the Week

This edition has a bit of a CETIS theme. web site of the week is Scott Wilson’s work blog. Scott, who works for CETIS is for me a rare hard core techie who can make himself understood to those of us of less technical backgrounds. Right on Scott!

 

Wilfred Rubens and edu-bloggers

The theme continues although it is a few steps removed. Wilfred Rubens works for the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Wilfred is involved in the SURF programme - which is a parters of - yes you’ve got it - CETIS. In this discussion recorded in a bar in Salzburg, Wilfred talks to me about the Dutch Edu-bloggers and the role of blogging in education and research.

 Sounds of the Bazaar (4) [33:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1042)
 Graham Attwell on Web 2 and education [5:48m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1179)
 Lou Mc Gill talks about e-assessment [12:36m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (851)
 Wilfred Rubens and edu-blogging [8:37m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (877)

1 comment July 18th, 2006

Social learning or the industrialisation of learning?

Derek Morrison detects an increasing dissonance, however, between attempts to ground Technology Enhanced Learning 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

Continue Reading Add comment June 5th, 2006

Personal Learning Environments

This is my Position Paper on Personal Learning Environments for next weeks PLE meeting in Manchester

Continue Reading 9 comments June 1st, 2006

Educational Technology is NOT Neutral

Abstract and slides for a presentation entitled ‘Educational Technology is NOT Neutral - Chancen und Risiken von ePortfolio Design’.

Continue Reading 1 comment May 18th, 2006

Sounds of the Bazaar 2

Sounds of the Bazaar 2

This week Graham Attwell spends time providing further reflections on ePortfolios and Personal Learning Environments. Due to the feedback received after last weeks Sounds of the Bazaar, he has plenty to talk about!

This week also sees the introduction of two new regular features:

Blogspot and Website of the week.

There is also the first in a series of interviews. This week Graham interviews Georg Spottl.

If you want to listen to the whole programme but can’t wait to hear a particular segment, here are the start times for each section:

1. Further reflections on the development of ePortfolios and PLE’s [1:20 mins]
2. Website of the week [7:04 mins]
3. Interview [8:30 mins]
4. Blogspot [15:40 mins]
5. Wrap up [17:03 mins]

For those only wanting certain sections of the broadcast the individual segments are available below.
Credits:
Script, voice and production: Graham Attwell
Technorati Tags: Open source, podcasts

 Sounds of the Bazaar No. 2 [17:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (236)
 Welcome [0:50m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (190)
 Blogspot [0:58m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (179)
 Website of the week [1:21m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (186)
 Graham talking about PLE\'s and ePortfolios [5:45m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (176)
 Graham interviewing Georg Spottl [7:17m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (214)
 Closing statement [0:40m]: | Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (174)

1 comment May 11th, 2006