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

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

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

Here is a video of Graham Attwells presentation at the workshop

Technorati Tags: Alt-C2006, social software

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.

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

Introduction
There is a buzz at events bringing together educational technologists. That buzz is called Personal Learning Environments. Yet, a year and a half after serious discussion broke out in the edu-blogosphere, there is little agreement on what a Personal Learning Environment is, still less on what it might mean if translated to a learning application. Neither is there agreement on who it is for or who might own or use it. Does it replace VLEs or is it a plug in or additional application? Is it any different to an extended e-Portfolio? There is not even agreement as to whether a PLE should be an application or if it is just a collection of user-configured tools.
This paper will not answer all those questions. Instead it seeks to explain why the idea of the PLE is so appealing and what are the social and educational ideas which underpin the concept of the PLE. Secondly it will look at some of the issues that need to be resolved in a little more detail. Thirdly it will suggest some of the principles which should underpin PLE development and implementation and finally suggest what further developmental activities might be undertaken.
The paper will attempt to blend the educational or learning issues and the more technical issues. Educational technology should be shaped by the users, rather than shape or inhibit learning. Yet even this raises issues. Is the PLE just what it says? A personal learning environment belonging solely to the learner, or should the education system and educational institutions also have a say in the shaping of these tools?

Technorati Tags: Personal Learning Environments, social software

Why a Personal Learning Environment and why now?

This section of the paper will look at the different pressures and movements which underpin the idea of a Personal Learning Environment. The first of these is the move towards lifelong learning.

Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning is hardly a new idea. Arguably, the idea of lifelong learning was originally rooted in the workers movement. In the UK, the Mechanics Institutes, the Miners Halls and organisations like the Workers Educational Association organised the classes and courses for workers to improve their own education as well as providing access to learning resources and social activities. Whilst this provision might aim at developing technical and labour market related skills and knowledge, it was guided by a wider belief in the power of education for emancipation. The more recent focus on life long learning, in say the last thirty years, has been guided by a far narrower discourses. Driven by a shorter product life cycle, the increasing speed of adoption and implementation of new technologies in the workplace and the increasing instability of employment with the computer driven industrial revolution, it was reasoned that workers would need continuous learning throughout their work-life to update their occupational skills and knowledge or to learn new occupational competences. It was contestable as to who would be responsible for this. Whilst previously continuing vocational training had been the responsibility of employers, and the state was seen as playing a leading role in the provision of continuing education and training, it was now often argued that individuals were responsible for maintaining their own employability, albeit sometimes with the assistance of grants, vouchers and subsidised courses,

If not continuous, learning is now seen as multi episodic, with individuals spending occasional periods of formal education and training throughout their working life.

The idea of a Personal Learning Environment recognises that learning is continuing and seeks to provide tools to support that learning. It also recognises the role of the individual in organising their own learning. Moreover, the pressures for a PLE are based on the idea that learning will take place in different contexts and situations and will not be provided by a single learning provider. Linked to this is an increasing recognition of the importance of informal learning.

Informal Learning

Informal learning is something of a conundrum. Fairly obviously, we learn throughout our lives, in all kinds of different setting and contexts. Most of this learning does not come form formal educational programmes. Jay Cross (2006) argues that only 10 -15 per cent of learning is formal, that 85 per cent of our learning takes place outside of formal settings. Yet there has been little attention paid to informal learning or to how it takes place (see below for more consideration of this).

In most European countries there has been some moves to recognise inform learning. However, most effort has been expended on trying to assess and certify informal learning, (Whether it then remains informal is a moot point, as is whether most people wish their informal learning to be certified).

There has been interest in informal learning from the corporate world, driven by the desire to capitalise on the intellectual assets of the workforce, to manage organisational knowledge and in recognition that informal learning may prove a cost effective way of developing competence.

In terms of educational technology, there has been little attention paid to informal learning. It is remarkable that formal learning technology and applications have only really been made available to those enrolled on an educational programme or to those working for larger enterprises.

The promise of Personal Learning Environments could be to extend access to educational technology to everyone who wishes to organise their own learning. Furthermore the idea of the PLE purports to include and bring together all learning, including informal learning, workplace learning, learning from the home, learning driven by problem solving and learning motivated by personal interest as well as learning through engagement in formal educational programmes.

Personal Learning Environments could also facilitate different styles of learning.

Different styles of Learning

It is argued that we all have different styles of learning and approach learning in different ways. Although this would seem self-evident, attempts to theorise and classify such learning styles are less than convincing.. Personally, I do not think I have one particular learning style but use different learning styles and different ‘ intelligences’ in different contexts, different subjects and in different knowledge - domains and in response to different learning aims and goals. I might use a different style for solving a quick problem - say how to use Skype for my podcast, - than for learning German.

Not withstanding the problems of the the theoretical debate on learning styles, it would appear likely that learners will have preferences for different pedagogic approaches, in particular learning contexts.

All educational software, implicitly or otherwise, either enhances or restrains certain pedagogic approaches to learning. There is no such thing as pedagogically neutral software. A Personal Learning Environment could allow a leaner to configure and develop a learning environment to suit and enable their own style of learning.

New approaches to assessment and the recognition of learning

An important development in education in the past period has been the translation of qualifications into outcomes and competences. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore the full implications of these developments or to go into the discussion over what exactly competence is. From the point of view of the PLE, the importance lies in the separation of the outcomes which form a qualification from the learning programme which develops competence for such outcomes. This means that learners are no longer necessarily locked in to a particular course in order to gain a qualification but are able to present their learning to prove they possess such competencies or are able to achieve those outcomes. This means that learners could select evidence and artefacts from the PLE for presentation for qualification purposes.

It is also important to note that formal qualifications are increasingly only seen as one aspect of competence, at least for employment purposes. Employers also increasingly wish to see evidence of the ability to apply skills and knowledge in a particular context. PLEs could facilitate such presentations, in an extended form of an e-Portfolio and through links to an e-Portfolio.

Changing technologies

In this section I will look at two developments in technology which I think are of particular significance for the development of Personal Learning Environments - ubiquitous computing and the development of social software.

Ubiquitous computing

The term ubiquitous computing refers to two technological developments. The first is the growing ubiquitous nature of internet connectivity with the development of wireless and GSM networks, as well as the spread of broadband, resulting in connectivity becoming available almost everywhere in the future. It is also expected that devices will be able to search for and seamlessly switch to utilise available networks. The second and associated use of the term is for the many different devices now able to access the internet, including mobile communication devices such as PDAs but also household appliances and industrial and electronic tools and machinery.

The development of ubiquitous computing may offer new opportunities for the use of ICT for learning.

Previously occupational and vocational learning has been divided between the theory and knowledge base to be acquired in training schools and the practice which often takes place in the workplace. With the use of mobile devices and the spread of connectivity it is at least theoretically possible to bring this learning together and to access theory and knowledge in the context in which it is to be applied - in the work process.

Secondly - and possibly more important from a didactical point of view - is the embedding of computer based communication within the tools of the workplace. This offers the opportunity to develop learning environments whilst simultaneously accessing and shaping the production and business process through such interfaces.

In other words the context in which learning takes place becomes the context in which the learning is to be applied and the nature of the learning interface - or the learning materials become the occupational tools with which the (work process) knowledge is carried out.

Whilst ubiquitous computing is not yet fully developed, there are a number of pilot activities with the use of mobile devices and with new interfaces to learning and working.

Key to an understanding of the potential of such devices is the idea of being able both to shape the work process through the application of occupational knowledge whilst shaping the learning process through carrying out work processes.

It also facilitates participation in dispersed communities of practice and collaboration between different enterprises in providing training (although arguably such opportunities already exist without ubiquitous computing).

PLEs can develop this potential by facilitating access to learning in different contexts and using different devices and interfaces. Secondly PLEs can bring together learning acquired in different contexts.

Social software and Web 2

Social software is used here in the meaning of software that lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. It supports networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. In this way social software is seen as overcoming “the absurd distinction between e-learning and knowledge management software” (Hiebert, 2005).

Social software underpins what is loosely referred to as Web 2. Whereas Web 1 was largely implemented as a push technology - to allow access to information on a dispersed basis, Web 2 is a two way process, allowing the internet to be used for creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than merely accessing external artefacts.

Social software is increasingly being used in education and training through such applications as web logs, wikis, tools and applications for creating and sharing multi media and tools for sharing all kinds of different personal knowledge bases including bookmarks and book collections.

In software terms, rather than monolithic vendor driven and designed applications, Web 2 and social software is based on the idea of ‘small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts.

Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing. One implication is the potential for a new ecology of ‘open content, books, learning materials and multi media, through learners themselves becoming producers of learning materials.

Social software has already led to widespread adoption of portfolios for learners bringing together learning from different contexts an sources of learning and providing an on-going record of lifelong learning, capable of expression in different forms.

The idea of the Personal Learning environment is in effect a Web 2, social software concept. Although we still are unsure of what exactly a PLE is, there would appear to be a common understanding that PLEs provide tools and functionality for creating knowledge, as well as consuming it. Furthermore, there seems to be a common agreement that a PLE will facilitate connections between people and between different software applications.

How we use computers for learning

Whilst changes in the education systems and new developments in technology may pave the way for the PLE, the most compelling driver may be the changing ways learners (young people in particular but by no means just young people) are using computers for learning. This section is largely based on an empirical study of informal learning in Small and Medium Enterprises.
John Seely Brown in a speech in 1999, looked at the new dimensions of “learning, working and playing in the digital age”. One dimension he drew attention to was literacy and how it is evolving. The new literacy, the one beyond text and knowledge, he said, is one of information navigation.
Linked to this was learning and how that is shifting. He pointed to the growth of discovery or experiential learning. As kids work in the new digital media, he said, rather than abstract logic, they deploy Bricolage. Bricolage relates to the concrete and has to do with the ability to find something – an object or a tool, a piece of code, a document - and to use it in a new way and in a new context. But to be a successful bricoleur of the virtual rather than the physical you have to be able to decide whether or not to trust or believe these things. Therefore the need for making judgements is greater than ever before.
Navigation is being coupled to discovery and discovery being coupled to bricolage but you do not dare build on whatever you discover unless you can make a judgement concerning its quality or trustworthiness.
The final dimension Seely Brown addressed was that of action. He suggests new forms of learning are based on trying things and action, rather than on more abstract knowledge. “Learning becomes as much social as cognitive, as much concrete as abstract, and becomes intertwined with judgement and exploration”.

Seely Brown’s early study has been reinforced by more recent research by Pew Research (2005). The study found that 56 per cent of young people in America were using computers for ‘creative activities, writing and posting of the internet, mixing and constructing multimedia and developing their own content. 12 to 17-year-olds look to web tools to share what they think and do online. One in five who use the net said they used other people’s images, audio or text to help make their own creations. According to Lee Raine, author of the study, “These teens were born into a digital world where they expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share material with each other and lots of strangers.”

Of course there is almost certainly a generation gap in the way computers are used for learning. But a seven country study of the use of ICT for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises found a number of surprising results

There was little use of ICT for formal learning in the SMEs (in fact there was little formal learning taking place at all). In contrast to the paucity of formal learning provision in the SMEs studied, there was a great deal of informal learning taking place. From the study most informal learning appeared be learner driven, rather than planned in conjunction with others in the enterprise, and was problem motivated, although some learners were motivated by their own interest rather than in response to any specific problem. In many cases ICT was being used as part of this informal learning. The main means of ICT based learning was Google key word searches. Managers were often unaware of this learning, although they were frequently aware of the problem which inspired it.
There were considerable differences in the use of ICT for informal learning between different enterprises. It would be tempting to ascribe these differences to age, sector, size or occupation but it is hard to discern such causal factors from the case studies undertaken.
None of the employees in the enterprises studied had attempted to claim recognition or accreditation for the skills and knowledge gained through informal learning. It is not clear if this is because they are not interested in pursuing further formal qualifications or if it is because they are unaware of any opportunities of claiming accreditation for informal learning.
The use of the Google search engine as the major tool for learning is interesting. It raises the question of how people are framing their search terms, how they are refining search strings, how they are selecting from the results of search queries and how they are following hyperlinked texts. For a search result to be useful it needs to both produce materials, ideas and concepts which can connect with the learner’s existing knowledge base of the one hand and approach the issue or problem being addressed on the other. The ideas of legitimate peripheral participation and proximinal development may be helpful for explaining this process and of understanding how people are making sense of knowledge.
Lave and Wenger (1991) propose that the initial participation in a culture of practice can be observation from the periphery or legitimate peripheral participation. The participant moves from the role of observer, as learning and observation in the culture increase, to a fully functioning member. The progressive movement towards full participation enables the learner to piece together the culture of the group and establish their identity.
“Knowing is inherent in the growth and transformation of identities and it is located in relations among practitioners, their practice, the artefacts of that practice, and the social organization…of communities of practice.”(Lave and Wenger, 1991, p 122).
Especially in micro enterprises, SME employees have tended to be isolated from communities of practice. This may be a greater barrier to learning than the lack of time to attend training courses. One of the most powerful uses of ICT for learning in SMEs is the ability to connect to distributed communities of practice. There has been much comment on the phenomenon of ‘lurkers’ on discussion sites, lists servers and bulletin board. Lurking is very much a process of legitimate peripheral participation. Watching, listening and trying to make sense of a series of posts and discussions without being forced to reveal oneself or to actively participate allows the development of knowledge ‘about knowledge’ within a community and about the practices of the on-line community.
Similar to the idea of legitimate peripheral participation is Vygotsky’s (1990) “Zone of Proximinal Development”. This theoretical construct states that learning occurs best when an expert guides a novice from the novice’s current level of knowledge to the expert’s level of knowledge. Bridging the zone of proximinal development construct with legitimate peripheral participation construct may be accomplished if one thinks of a zone in which the expert or mentor takes the learner from the peripheral status of knowing to a deeper status. This may be accomplished with or without intention as Lave and Wegner (1991) state:
“Legitimate peripheral participation is not itself an educational form, much less a pedagogical strategy or a teaching technique. It is an analytic viewpoint on learning, a way of understanding learning. We hope to make it clear that learning through legitimate peripheral participation takes place no matter which educational form provides a context for learning, or whether there is any intentional educational form at all. Indeed, this viewpoint makes a fundamental distinction between learning and intentional instruction (1991, p. 40).”
However, the expert scaffolds the environment to the extent in which the learner is engaged with the discourse and participants within the zone and is drawn from a peripheral status to a more engaged status. The peripheral learner interacts with the mentor, expert learners and peers within this zone. More able learners (peers) or the mentor will work with the less able learner potentially allowing for socially constructed knowledge.
Within the SMEs studies there were few instances of mentoring or continuous contact with an expert. The use of ICT was allowing distributed access to expertise – albeit mediated through bulletin boards, forums and web pages. This leaves open the question as to the process of scaffolding which essentially becomes an internalised process. However the process of less able learners working with more able peers is a common process in seeking new knowledge through the use of ICT.
Essentially workers are using search engines to seek out potential forums and contexts for learning. Selection depends on closeness of interest and the level of discourse in the community. There is little point in following a discourse of too low a level, of knowledge already gained, neither is their an attraction to a discourse clearly on an level which cannot be understood. Learners wills eek a community with knowledge at a higher level than their own but which can connect with their prior learning, learning and practice. Typically they will lurk in order to understand the workings of the community and to gain some basic knowledge. After a period of time they might contribute in the form of a question and later again might themselves contribute to the hared knowledge pool. In this ways they move from the periphery through lurking to full bound participants in a community. It should be noted that communities are frequently overlapping and that the use of hyper-links and more recently standards like track-back allow the communities to be dynamic with the emergence of new groups and discourses.
This study is important not only in showing how people are using computers for learning but in their use of learning materials. Few of those we surveyed used formal learning materials. they were using materials they found on the web for learning. In education, we have tended to focus on the development of formal learning materials and have ignored the vast potential of freely available ‘objects’ of all kinds (not formal learning objects!) freely available for learning purposes.
What about educational technology?

Despite the widespread and increasing use of computers for informal learning and for communicating, creating and sharing, educational technology remain less than compelling. Compare the vibrancy of many of the web spaces targeted at young people and the massive take up of My Space, compared to the lack of discourse on many institutional VLEs.

Of course it could be said that the evidence I have cited is for informal learning and that formal education is different. Learning can be hard and may not be fun. Different processes and technologies are needed for engagement with a formal body of knowledge and for navigating a formal curriculum. It might also be argued that different forms of educational technology are required if there is the presence of a skilled teacher or facilitator. A further argument is that the learning processes I have described are based on voluntary learning and rely on a high level of self motivation. What about those learners who lack high levels of self motivation and are unaccustomed to managing their own learning?

There is a degree of truth in this. But I am unconvinced that our present educational technology, based essentially on managing learning, rather than encouraging creativity, provides any better motivation for learners.

In a paper shortly to be published in Germany (Attwell, forthcoming) , I argue that the lack of innovation and the limited didactic approaches to learning using computers within the educational system is perhaps not surprising. The development and adoption of e-learning has not taken place in an ideological vacuum; the forms and uses of technologies are shaped by political and social processes. If learning is a social process (Guile and Young, 1997), then any consideration of the development and impact of e-learning and e-learning technologies needs to examine the wider social, economic and cultural processes and discourses involved in the development and implementation of new technologies in education.

Three dominant policy discourses in education have shaped the development and implementation of e-learning: commodification, privatisation and a restricted discourse of lifelong learning, which in turn are based on broader discourses around globalisation and the privatisation of knowledge.

Such dominant discourses have tended towards limiting the impact of ICT within the mainstream education and training systems and of holding back the development of new didactic and pedagogic approaches within formal learning.

The danger is that the education system will become irrelevant to many peoples learning needs. It will be seen as an imposition. Young people will turn to social spaces for communication and developing ideas. Access to quality learning provision for adults will be dependent on companies and private training providers.

The most compelling argument for the PLE is to develop educational technology which can respond to the way people are using technology for learning and which allows them to themselves shape their own learning spaces, to form and join communities and to create, consume, remix, and share material.

What might a PLE look like?

In this section of the paper I will put forward some ideas of what a PLE might look like. Inevitably this will raise a number of issues, most of which are rooted in a tension between the institutional management and control and the idea of a truly personal learning environment.
Do we need a PLE application?

First though, I wish to briefly comment on the issue of whether we need a PLE application at all. It can be argued that most of the features of a PLE can be supported by existing desktop applications and social software. The list below is of the software I use for my personal learning environment (in a later version of this paper I will provide this in diagrammatic form).

• Word processor for writing papers like this - Nisus Writer Express
• E-mail client for communication - Mac Mail
• Diary for managing my work and sharing with others- iCal linked to my web site
• Audio for making podcasts - Garage Band
• Video editor for making multi media presentations - iMovie
• Weblog client for various blogs I contribute to - Ecto
• Content Management System for creating web sites - Jumbla
• Personal Weblog - Knotes
• Photo editing programme - iPhoto (and plug in for uploading to Flickyr)
• Photo sharing service - Flickyr
• Web Browser - Firefox
• Bookmark sharing service - Delicio-us
• Podcast publishing - Jumbla plug in
• Presentation software - Keynote
• Newsreader - Net Newsreader
• Instant messaging and VOIP - Skype
• Search engines - mainly Spotlight and Google
• FTP client for sharing multimedia files - FileChute

And a number of other applications for creating and editing graphics. A number of other services from different social software companies. And, of course, the operating system itself for managing and storing files. This is a lot of software. Apple has become increasingly good at allowing services between the different applications, but it can be a little unpredictable what will work with what.

This is a powerful personal learning environment. But, all this software takes a lot of setting up, configuring and maintenance. At the present time, it is probably beyond the average learner (or teacher). The argument for a Personal Learning Environment application is to provide easy access to a range of services, applications and functionality for learners. There is a danger that we create a new form of the walled garden. If the PLE is to be developed as an application., it needs to be easily configured to allow the use of personal tools and applications instead of the default settings.

Who provides services?

A second major issue is who provides services. In the example of my personal learning environment, I use a mixture of desktop applications and external web spaces, applications and services. There is a major issue as to who is controlling and storing data and the reliability of those services. Of course, services could be provided by individual educational institutions. But that would exclude access to those not currently enrolled on a formal learning programme. Furthermore, it would create problems if a leaner was accessing programmes in more than one institution although adherence to standards would reduce that problem. But what happens when someone completes their course and leaves the institution. This is already an issue with regard to e-Portfolios. At least one UK university is already considering offering maintenance of e-Portfolios as a commercial alumni service. I am unconvinced that the scenario of educational institutions competing to sell technology services is desirable. Better would be the creation of a national (networked) service offering everyone access to Personal Learning Environment services, regardless of whether they are presently participating in an educational course. Helen Barret has argued that we should provide everyone with their own personnel web space to encourage creativity and learning. There is a danger that such a space would be spurned by young people seeing it as an extension of the education system. The attraction of MySpace is in the lack of prescription of what a user may do. PLE services would need to be as permissive in allowing learners to use services in the way they wish.

Other issues and features

The remaining list of features and issues are a mixture of technical considerations and issues related to learning. Some relate to the issues raised above.

On and off line

An e-portfolio should work on and off-line. Despite my earlier remarks on ubiquitous computers, connectivity is still variable (I have no connection at home myself at the moment due to an argument with my Internet Service Provider). More importantly, PLEs should be usable in work contexts and when travelling, both situations where connectivity cannot be provided and in countries and regions lacking high speed internet connections.

Multiple Devices

PLEs should interact and connect with multiple digital devices. Ideally there should be different versions of the application for use on advanced phones and handheld devices.

Powerful Permissions

A PLE should be personal. This means the suer should have fine grained control over what and when they wish to share with other users and with whom. This should include the ability to develop ad hoc groups.

Although rich personal profiles are very useful in making connections between people, many users may be reluctant to reveal personal data. Therefore the data required by the application / system profile should be kept to a minimum.

Multiple Sources of Learning

The PLE must recognise that learning takes place in different and multiple contexts and situations. Furthermore, learners may access formal learning materials or may use other materials available on the web. the PLE should allow learners to bring together collections of learning materials from different sources.

Powerful searching

Searching and lurking lay at the heart of the way people are using ICT for learning. The PLE should incorporate not only access to search engines but the ability to classify and store searches and bookmarks.

Easy updating

Clearly any PLE application will be a perpetual beta. Therefore, it is important that updating to new versions is very simple.

Easy to install and maintain

If the PLE does include server end software, it is important that this should be easy to install and maintain. PLE software should be accessible to small institutions and even workplaces with limited ICT support personnel. The ease of install and maintenance is one of the reasons for the success of Moodle.

Ease of use and extendable functionality

This has two meanings. the first is the importance of a clean interface and ease of use for novices. At the same time the PLE should be easily extended for advanced functionality. this may mean interfacing desktop and service applications.

Permit multiple presentations

The PLE should assist the leaner in presenting the learning in different ways for different purposes. This could include developing a e-Portfolio. It could just mean pulling together parts of the learning for an essay or presentation.

Interoperability and standards

It almost goes without saying that the PLE should support interoperability and standards., But this is easier said than done. It is probably more important to adopt lightweight and widely used standards, than some of the more obtuse and heavyweight educational standards.

Support the learner in scaffolding and planning learning

It would seem to be helpful if a PLE could assist learners in planning and sequencing their own learning. I do not know how this could be done. The present way I ‘store’ my learning is through a personal folder and file structure base on my computers operating system but I have always felt there must be a better way of doing this than in the traditional folder structure. The need is to allow learners to easily and intuitively link different things together and to develop maps of those links in a dynamic way - perhaps building on the way ‘smart searching’ applications operate.

A PLE should also allow people to add their own metadata and to share that metadata, possibly through some form of ‘negotiated’ folksonomies. It could also allow users to add their own metadata to objects they have used, thus allowing the development of a trail of distributed metadata.

Next Steps

What should be the next steps in exploring the development of Personal Learning Environments?

Firstly there are some prototype PLE-like applications already in being piloted. Besides the JISV funded Plex application, the ELGG Personal Learning Landscape supports many of the functions of a PLE and has a growing installation base in many parts of the world. No doubt other such applications could be identified.

But perhaps more important is the increasing use of social software - including blogs, wikis and bookmarking applications for learning, both within the education system and within enterprises and public services. One thing is certain - there can be no such thing as the Personal Learning Environment. It is better to envisage a family of different applications and services which support the conception of such of the PLE.

The use of these applications can provide a fertile research environment for exploring further the development of PLEs.

Such research should include approaches to learning and knowledge and technical development. It might include:

• examining in depth how individuals are using computers for learning in different settings (especially non-educational technology) and outside the setting of formal educational programmes;
• exploring the relationship between informal learning and formal learning in developing competence;
• examining different forms of competence and how educational technology can support such competences;
• examining the use of different social software applications for learning;
• examining in depth the nature and form of computer mediated interactions between learners in different communities;
• examining the implications of persistence of data for Personal Learning Environments;
• examining the different ways in which learners might wish to represent learning (both formal and informal);
• examining what materials are used for informal learning and how they are used;
• exploring the implications of changing forms and patterns of learning for educational institutions;
• exploring ways of representing and patterning learning activities interactions;
• exploring ways of utilising different services - both within and between institutions and with broader communities - to support PLE-type activities;
• exploring issues in standards and interoperability to facilitate PLE-type development;
• exploring how PLE-type applications and services can be integrated or work alongside existing educational applications and services

None of this precludes or replaces the development and piloting of new and creative learning applications which might be seen as a PLE. But such development needs to take place alongside pedagogic and social research and development. Otherwise we are in danger of once more driving down a blind alley.

Background and context of the presentation

E-learning is a young technology and the study of e-learning is equally in its infancy. Despite this there is by now an extensive literature on the subject and learning technology is increasingly recognised as a discipline in itself. However the overwhelming majority of these studies, from both proponents and sceptics, have been technologically determinist, based on the potentials and effects of technologies on education and learning, rather than looking at the influence of learning and teaching on technology.

The forms and uses of technologies are shaped by political and social processes. If learning is a social process, then any consideration of the development and impact of e-learning and e-learning technologies needs to examine the wider social, economic and cultural processes and discourses involved in the development and implementation of new technologies in education.

Three dominant policy discourses in education have shaped the development and implementation of e-learning: commodification, privatization and a restricted discourse of lifelong learning, which in turn are based on broader discourses around globalization and the privatization of knowledge (Attwell, forthcoming).
Such dominant discourses have tended towards limiting the impact of ICT within the mainstream education and training systems and of holding back the development of new didactic and pedagogic approaches within formal learning.

Even the development of individual learning portfolios has been inhibited by the desire to control and commodify learning. Rather than learners being encouraged to develop an account of all their learning experiences, many systems constrain the recording and reflection on learning to the learning outcomes prescribed by the curriculum and by the desire to present the results of the portfolio in a standard way.

However, the changing ways in which young people are using computers for learning and the increasing use of ICt for informal learning is leading to new pedagogic possibilities and opportunities for new didactic approaches to education and training. Ubiquitous computing and social software have the potential to support such a new approach to learning and an expanded pedagogical idea of e-portfolios.

Objectives

The objectives of the presentation are:
• To explain the links between political and social processes and the development of use of e-learning technologies
• To examine how young people are using computers for learning
• To examine how computers are being used for informal learning
• To consider the implications of these changes for pedagogic and didactic approaches to formal education and training
• To consider how social software can be used to support new pedagogic and didactic approaches to education and training.
Conclusions

To utilise the opportunities for new forms of didactics will require profound reform in education and training systems and practice and new responsibilities and roles for teachers and trainers.

Two requirements stand out. The first is the need for wider and more flexible occupational profiles capable of being shaped both by the learners and by the requirements of changing technologies and work processes. It is striking that through informal learning in SMEs learners were able to develop new and emergent occupational practice, building on previous learning and shaping the use of new technologies in the work process.

The second involves the structure and form of the curriculum. Present formal e-learning is largely context free, is usually subject based, and is sequenced by teachers and trainers. Above all e-learning is driven by the demands of the education process, rather than by the demands of the work process. A new didactical approach requires curricula based on a holistic understanding of work processes, allowing learners to create and make as they learn and to engage in a community of practice through their activities and understanding of those activities. In this way the subject of learning and the process of learning can be brought together developing new and dynamic forms of ‘applied knowledge’ or ‘work process knowledge’ as both the subject and object of learning.

Further reading
Jeremny Hiebert’s blog - Headspace
Graham Attwell’s blog - The Wales-Wide Web
John Seely Brown’s web site
The Personal Learning Environments Blog.

Technorati Tags: e-learning, e-portfolios

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