e-Compete Wales

Firstly regarding what I associate with e-learning, I think there are two - radically opposed - associations. The first is the commonly held view of e-learning, dominated by the previous educational paradigms of the classroom and of open a distance learning. Technology is being used to attempt to replicate these paradigms e.g. the electronic classroom.

the second is - in my view - a richer idea of the potential and use of ICt for learning - with e-learning facilitating and building autodidactic learning, problem based learning, work based learning and non formal learning.

In this context e-learning ceases to be a 'thing' in itself - but becomes part of everyday learning and working. The term e-learning is probably unhelpful. It is all learning - whatever and whenever technologies are being used.

Earlier this year I wrote a paper for the Fifth Framework K2 conference called How can ICT support learning leading to knowledge development. The paper can be downloaded here and I will add the presentation to this blog.

In it I wrote:

The biggest and most common factor behind successful applications to support both learning and knowledge development is the presence of creative people who can drive initiatives forward. This requires a constituency or community who want fast access to ideas and knowledge and have a well-formed model of whatever they want to contribute, preferably do-able within existing technology.
The second is a model of social processes within a community of practice or learning community and an understanding of how knowledge is developed and shared within that community and how to embed that knowledge within community activities. ICT should allow individuals and communities to move in and out of and between real (face to face) activities and experiences and ICT facilitated communication and exchange. It must also allow different groups to forms and dissolve, to break away, merge and consolidate as part of the process of learning.

Barry Nyhan (Nyhan et al, 2003) states “one of the keys to promoting learning organisations is to organise work in such a way that it is promotes human development. In other words it is about building workplace environments in which people are motivated to think for themselves so that through their everyday work experiences, they develop new competences and gain new understanding and insights. Thus, people are learning from their work - they are learning as they work.”
He goes on to say: “This entails building organisations in which people have what can be termed ‘developmental work tasks’. These are challenging tasks that ‘compel’ people to stretch their potential and muster up new resources to manage demanding situations. In carrying out ‘developmental work tasks’ people are ‘developing themselves’ and are thus engaged in what can be termed ‘developmental learning'.” The challenge for developing e-learning and knowledge creation in enterprises is the integration of ICT in such a way that it supports developmental work tasks, rather than merely electronically cataloguing and regulating routine roles and tasks.

The third factor is to facilitate individuals and groups, enabling the active exchange of ideas between those people. Users of a system should be as real to each other as in a face-to-face meeting. The system must develop a sense of ‘presence’ and should help discourse and communication between people, rather than provide an extra barrier.
The fourth key factor is to encourage and facilitate the creation of content by participants within the community of practice or learning community. Our experience with open source and in particular, open source Content Management System application server frameworks suggests that the raw technology is still not easy enough to really encourage creativity and innovation. Successful applications will not only make it easy to make content but will make it easy to convey the context in which that content exists and will encourage engagement with the context of knowledge development. This also includes the recycling of ideas and knowledge to new contexts of use and application.
The last key factor I suggest is the engagement of facilitators or experts not as moderators but as active and equal participants. Systems must allow different participants to play different roles as learning and knowledge development takes place. Inflexible permissions systems tend to cast the role of the moderator in stone and prevent others from taking a lead in shaping group learning processes. The system needs to draw of the end users’ knowledge of the community of which they are part.
There is nothing in the list above which is beyond the possibilities of present technology. To make it happen requires new social relations. There is much written about the social basis of technology and, more recently, about the development of generic ‘social software’ to support social network. Much of this is pure common sense, much, I fear, is another wave of hype. A really useful – not to say critical – use of social software or networks would be to help put technical developers together with creators and innovators. Together creators, innovators and technical developers can begin to shape the applications we need for learning and knowledge development to occur.
I am relatively optimistic about the future. But, there remain substantial issues to overcome. These issues embrace both technical and social concerns:
1. Making e-learning content more engaging. The major problem with e-learning is that in general the content remains dull and unattractive. The solutions to this are at the same time technical in terms of making it easy to create engaging content and social in terms of involving teachers and trainers in producing content. To this end, the realisation that teachers and trainers are more likely to create engaging content than proprietary content producers is a key step.
2. Providing space for creativity. The challenge is to provide spaces for educationalists to experiment fluently with their own students and technologies and pedagogies in their own institutions. Experimentation and innovation remain critical for software an content development but standardised institutional policies have tended to limit the space for creativity and innovation.
3. Building on innovation. Despite many islands of innovation and creativity through projects and experiments, few of these measures fail to be sustained. Both institutions and systems need to find new ways to link with research and creative practice.

4. Bring together the Standards and Open Source developments. There are great strides being made in standards development, potentially allowing the interchange and sharing of contents. Open source software provides a means for innovation in the use of ICT for education. The development of new interoperability standards and the tools to use such standards could greatly boost innovation and sharing."