Learning Landscapes

Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu

Moving from the walled garden of the institutional VLE to Personal Learning Environments

Lifelong Learning

different values: a) belief in the power of education for emancipation a) belief in the power of education for emancipation

b) continuous learning throughout the work-life to update occupational skills and knowledge or to learn new occupational competences

learning: multi episodic, with individuals spending occasional periods of formal education and training throughout their working life

PLEs recognise the role of the individual in organising their own learning

PLE are based on the idea that learning will take place in different contexts and situations

Informal learning

There has been little attention paid to informal learning or to how it takes place

increased interest from the corporate world - capitalise on the intellectual assets of the workforce, manage organisational knowledge

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.

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.

Personal Learning Environments could be to extend access to educational technology to everyone who wishes to organise their own learning

to include and bring together all learning, including informal learning, workplace learning, learning from the home

Assessment and the recognition of learning

development of outcomes based programmes

learners can present their learning to prove they possess such competencies or are able to achieve those outcomes

Employers increasingly wish to see evidence of the ability to apply skills and knowledge

Changing technologies

Ubiquitous computing

access theory and knowledge in the context in which it is to be applied - in the work process

PLEs can develop this potential by facilitating access to learning in different contexts and using different devices and interface

Social software and Web 2.0

Social software - software that lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network

supports networks of people, content and services that are adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals

Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software

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.

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.

‘ small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts.

narrowing the divide between producers and consumer

new ecology of user generated open content

PLEs provide tools and functionality for creating knowledge, as well as consuming it

PLE will facilitate connections between people and between different software applications.

How we use computers for learning

The new literacy, the one beyond text and knowledge, is one of information navigation.

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.

the need for making judgements is greater than ever before.

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”.

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

"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."

Employees in SMEs use Google for informal learning

legitimate peripheral participation and proximinal development

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

Educational technology 7

present educational technology is based on managing learning, rather than encouraging creativity

commodification, privatisation and a restricted discourse of lifelong learning

Young people will turn to social spaces for communication and developing ideas

One vision of learning

A second vision

A PLE is not a software application as such but a collection of tools for managing, creating and sharing learning and knowledge

8 ELGG

ELGG is social software for social networking, sharing (and learning)

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