I noticed this post from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies [CL4PT] on ten key tools for learning. There’s a very clear triangle forming of course/ content “authorware” [eg, screenr or prezi], collaboration tools [eg, etherpad or dimdim] and individual tools [eg, evernote or arguable posterour].
This highlighted a question would be how these might work together? But also what it might mean for the L&D department that focuses on courseware suitable for routine learning for routinised work as opposed to collaboration and reflection that is potentially more focused on creativity, innovation and expansive learning?
An interesting set of slides on a European survey of social media use (via Pontydysgu) suggesting aa decline in the use of email. A key issue for me is to what extent is the use of MSN/ IM/ SMS etc. compartmentalised as being for social rather than for studying/ work? My own experience is that students are heavy users of particular social media tools for social use but they don’t think about them in terms of their learning. Their use of certain tools such as blogs or twitter or googledocs is very limited while awareness of, eg, social bookmarking, basecamp… is pretty much nonexistent. Use of these tools in a learning context is thus largely driven by course requirements – in other words, adoption is a product of power/ the desire to do well rather than anything intrinsic to that generation (of course, this may change as time goes on and our students become ‘more millennial’). This reflects comments from Andrew McAfee on enterprise 2.0 and email making the point that the adoption of collaborative tools in any given project is an outcome of the views of the most powerful person in the team.
More on edupunk/ hacking the education “system” here Although I think there is a conflation of two issues here: (a) the brand recognition and market value of possessing a recognised degree (preferably from a prestigious university and (b) the power of the www to enable lifelong learning. So one is concerned with the confirmation that I have understanding of a particular body of knowledge in a form that others will recognise, the other is about learning and reflection in pursuit of my own interests, to be more productive/ innovative, etc. at work
This post overlaps many of the issues highlighted in the notion of the business as a social environment. If the ability to learn is key to competitive advantage then designing organsiational forms and practices around learning – social, informal, serendipitous – becomes an organisational imperative which is so much of what enterprise2.0 is about.
A well argued post here on personal learning environments as a dynamic environment rather than a product or device. This chimes with my own views on PLEs as something that is personal rather than a product as well as with the tension in views of enterprise 2.0 between the techno-determinists and those focused on people and culture.
A very interesting post from Dan Pontefract on the integration of corporate learning and development and enterprise 2.0 in to learnerprise 2.0. Obviously, the concept needs further development but makes a useful point that too much L&D provision is focused on formalised learning and this is exacerbated in the context of much e-learning which relies on linear learning pathways decontextualised from the work situation where it (might) be applied. I think this may be part of the issue in relation to the VLE is dead debate, whereby the nature of VLEs steers towards formal learning that is institutionally bound but other web 2.0 type approaches, such as PLEs emphasise informal learning but also can migrate with the learner. Most of my on-line learning activities take place within Netvibes and have been integral to how I’ve approached my personal professional development in three different and demanding jobs. Of course, this is not new and is being done in some companies (see the presentation here, especially slide 114 onwards)
The UK think tank Demos has recently published a report on the state of higher education in the UK, “the edgeless university“. In particular the report points to technology as a driver of change and as [part of] the solution for edgeless universities that are:
“no longer contained within the campus, nor within the physically defined space of a particular institution … This is driven by people finding new ways to access and use ideas and knowledge, by new networks of learning and innovation and by collaborative networks that span institutions and businesses.”
As Christopher Barnatt in a recent article suggests (International Journal of Management Education, 2009), the impacts of such change can be seen in students demands for multi-modal delivery, the availability of open learning resources (Open University or iTunesU, and in academic self-branding as well as requiring an institutional and professional mash-up mentality to emerge.
Of course, the implications are not simply ‘outward’ facing but may have profound implications for how universities organise and staff themselves – and so transform what might be meant by a university as an institution. As a recent article Zeitz (2009 International Journal of HRM 20/2) stated in the context of wider environmental (social, economic, etc.) change: “It is argued that networked organizations provide the requisite flexibility and innovation by making making extensive use of external companies and independent workers as suppliers and partners”. So a mash-up mentality extends from a multi-modal delivery of learning to more flexible, fluid and multi-modal approaches to knowledge production all occuring in an edgeless institution as network. The technology is here but as ever its a question of institutions supporting the changes in practices required.
In some ways, the issue comes to a head in the debates around the future of the VLE as discussed by @timbuckteethhere. In terms of both this discussion and other developments such the open learning initiatives, the adoption of personal learning environments as well others mentioned in a recent article from Fast Company the obvious tension is less with technological futures or pedagogical considerations both rather with the blend of notions of knowledge as possession and a managerial urge for control and a particular view of the value proposition of HE which is in part about its brand and position – certainly to its ’stakeholder’. Maybe the way forward is as suggested by Dan Stucke here where small parts are loosely coupled but clearly branded (as in easy to find!).
Nice post here from George Siemens – worth quoting
Does the internet – social media in particular – act as a unifier? Apparently not, according to several researchers. Instead, social media amplifies existing social structures. Or, as danah boyd states, “pervasive social stratification is being reified in a new era”. Technology doesn’t (immediately) alter human nature. It provides new views (mirrors) for seeing what we are. The desire to associate with people who share our beliefs, values, and economic conditions, migrates to new social spaces – digital or physical.
As I’ve said before [here], we shouldn’t think of social media/ web 2.0 as being any different from any other form of social practice and so subject to the type power relations and issues that can be found in any social context, I think Danah Boyd says it a bit more elegently mind.
An interesting post here from mathemagenic on the process of developing blogged content into some form of ‘product’. The post succinctly lays out a process from initial capture of ideas, to pattern recognition, meaning-making and final explicit articulation as a product – in this case, mainly academic papers.
I would be interested to see how such a process would work in an organisational context, eg, if project blogs/ communications/ critical incidents are systematically analysed for particular patterns of behaviours/ activities to inform final lessons learned type reports or to feed into training interventions or other learning resources and/ or standard operating procedures. My experience to date has been that such analysis of captured data is rare – a preference seems to be for the often tired and partial project review meeting leading to an unread report and learning transfer is partial (transfered by particular team embers to a new project) and knowledge inertia is high.
A short post linking to a great post from Jay Cross here on the business case/ ROI of social learning in [what should be] the age of learning platforms and ecosystems rather than training courses and programmes. Some very useful resources are also available via the post.
An interesting post here from David White at Oxford on digital identity in educational settings. I particularly agree with his focus on shifting the emphasis from the internet as a broadcast/ content distribution channel to thinking in terms of relationships which “focuses back on the heart of teaching and learning.”
But I think his notion of a digital tutor or student identity overly simplifies the issue. A person will tend to have multiple virtual and non-virtual/ actual (?) identities with different purposes or goals that may conflict with one another – but this may be less of an issue within the closed walls of a university VLE. Furthermore, the recipient of the projection of the identity may read that identity in a very different way and understand it in tems of a very different purpose. So my identity as projected via facebook may be aimed at relationships with long time friends and so have many complex and subtle facets yet someone else seeing my profile may ‘read’ that identity in different (unflattering) ways. So while moving out of the:
recent epistemological cul-de-sac that is the digital identity of the individual by considering not what digital identity is but where it leads.
let not loose sight of the richness, complexity, ambiguity and difficulty of digital identity for the purposes of being pragmatic.
