Towards Personal Learning Environments

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Towards Personal Learning Environments

• Oleg Liber
• University of Bolton

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Background

• JISC eLearning Framework
• Reference models
• Assessment (FREMA)
• Learning activity design (LADIE)
• E-Portfolio
• Course validation (COVARM)
• XML Course Related Information (XCRI)
• Personal Learning Environments

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PLE Theme

• Technology is changing
• new projects
• emerging user behaviours
• problem for strategic planning
• Need to take stock of
• trends and technologies
• fundamental processes
• Create a model to guide through the territory.
• Provide
• foresight for threats to current practice
• direction for future development
• focus for constructive discourse.

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The PLE Project

• Elaborate the arguments for Personal Learning
  Environments
• No consensus on what Personal(ized) Learning
  means
• Identify issues for institutional IT provision
  Provide a definition of what a PLE is (and is
  not)
• Identify features that a PLE would typically
  include (assuming a service oriented context) and
  provide a reference model
• Provide prototypes to as examples
• Make recommendations for further work.

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Making sense of the education system
PEDAGOGY
ORGANISATION
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The design problem
Curiosity Access to employment Personal
development Empowerment
Knowledge Expertise Experience Understanding
Number (learners) gtgtgt Number (teachers) Variety
(learners) gtgtgt Variety (teachers)
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• Different resources
• Different processes
• Different relationships
• Different technologies

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Formal v informal education

• Education System
• Sectors
• Institutions
• Courses
• Curricula
• Modules
• Cohorts
• Certification
• Massive regulation
• Technologies and services to support this

• Informal Learning
• Community/work based
• Need/interest driven
• Informal groups
• No certification
• No pre-requisites
• Unregulated
• Increasingly on the web

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Wikipedia
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Institutional technology
Technical Systems Equipment Network Email Student
records VLE Library System

• Responsible for
• Authentication
• Access to resources
• Software

• Institution controls
• Hardware
• Software
• User Interface

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But

• Institutions have limited technical and support
  capability
• Technology development is stressful for the
  organisation
• Need to constrain use of technology
• Use of technology is richer outside education
• Institutions rely on sector level support
• Repositories
• Content
• Services

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Personal technology

• Varied experience
• At school
• At home
• Largely ignored by institution
• How could it be exploited?

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PLE Themes 1

• The locus of control
• Institutions (and VLEs) provide
• Content
• Tools
• User interface
• Can PLEs put instruments under the control of the
  user?

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PLE Themes 2

• Institutional Issues
• change in role from provision to support
• institutions stop owning students (see themselves
  as part of LLL or learning journey)
• focus on design of learning rather than delivery
  of learning

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PLE Themes 3

• Pedagogical Issues
• Single learning space across subjects
• encourages student to see learning as
  inter-related
• Support development of skills in managing
  learning, recognising goals and progress,
  communication and teamwork skills
• Single learning space across formal and informal
  learning lifelong lifewide

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PLE Categories 1

• Separation of service and instrument
• A tool is an extension to human power realised
  through human interaction with its interface (or
  instrument)
• With most (non-e) tools, the service that the
  tool provides is tightly coupled with the
  instrument.
• It is a feature of service-oriented approaches
  that a division of service from the instrument is
  possible.
• This has cognitive benefits

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PLE Categories 2

• The management of technical skill
• When using a tool, we must learn how to relate to
  its interface
• This requires the acquisition of the necessary
  cognitive and motor skills.
• A large number of different tools necessitates
  the learning and management of a large number of
  dispositions.
• This is a cognitive burden

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PLE Categories 3

• Personal System, Environmental System
• A VLE gives access to tools (coupled as service
  and instrument)
• A PLE gives access to services but gives control
  of instrumentation to the user

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PLE Categories 4

• Re-integrating the Learner
• The whole learner is never on a course
• What we have instead is a fragment of the learner
• This fragment is one of many, most of which have
  nothing to do with a course of study, but all of
  which can impact on the learning.
• The fragments are represented in different
  patterns of behaviour
• VLEs typically provide not tools for learner
  integration
• E-portfolio attempts to address this so does PLE

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Relationship of Categories
Fragmentation of the Learner
Service instrument division
Management of instrumental skill
Personal System Vs Environmental System
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PLEs can

• Give learner control over the tools they use
• Exploit emerging services (web 2.0)
• Support the integration of learning episodes
• Integrate formal and informal learning
• Requires changes in institutional technologies