e-Compete Wales

In the first half of this article – somewhat confusing called the The Seven Challenges of e-Learning Design (Part 1) (there are in fact eight challenges listed) I explained the practical challenge facing the deisgn of an on-line learning environment to support the Assipa project. I explained that the European Commission funded ASSIPA project aims to develop a face-to-face and e-learning programme for teachers in adult education to develop their own self-evaluation capacity. A face-to-face programme has been produced and will be piloted in June 2005. The programme is heavily process oriented, encouraging participants to reflect on and evaluate their own learning experiences. The programme is based around a series of different activities, providing a scaffold. Short input sessions provide the theoretical background to the different activities. As such the programme is highly structured but is also student centred in that it is the learners own experiences which provide the raw material for learning.

This poses a considerable challenge for developing an e-learning programme. Most e-learning provision – even for programmes that claim to be constructivist in pedagogic orientation - is based not on the experiences of learners but on the provision text or video based leaning materials developed from a teaching perspective. Of course many e-learning programmes offer opportunities for discussion and reflection but this still takes place within the context of the e-learning materials developed prior to the programme.

The eight challenges are

Challenge 1 – basing e-learning on learners own experiences
Challenge 2 – developing a rich and powerful learning environment
Challenge 3 – localizing the programme
Challenge 4 – supporting individual learners
Challenge 5 – developing sustainable and dynamic contents
Challenge 6 – recording, validating and presenting learning
Challenge 7 – developing a community of learners
Challenge 8 – developing programmes capable of flexible modes of delivery

In part 2 of the article I want to put forward my proposal for how we can meet this challenge.

The proposal is to use social software (blogs, wiki, tagging) to support a connectivist pedagogy. Social software is described by wikipedia as which lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. The term came into more common usage in 2002, largely credited to Clay Shirky who organized a "Social Software Summit" in November of that year. Shirky defines social software as "stuff that gets spammed."

Wikipedia goes on to say: “The more specific term collaborative software applies to cooperative work systems. The study of computer-supported collaboration and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (the name of the major conference on these issues) are closely associated with the software design issues.”

Stephen Downes has pointed to the potential of social software in for bringing togher conversations and learning: “Social software - we need a way to support conversations and not just content, and indeed I would take that even further, we need a way to support conversations with content. This ties into the 'Blogger' of e-media; we need a way to create our words, we need a way to send our words. And learning, again as Erin Brewer suggested, we need to first of all understand, and then leverage, the principles of self-organizing networks."

Mark Hemphill has explained the use of social software at the University of King Edward island “not to orchestrate a community but to catalyze the organic processes of its members such that individual and group dynamics could emerge on their own, where each member could demonstrate the manifest will and interests of the community, and where the technical team could dedicate its time and resources to those members who would best demonstrate and endorse the benefits and power of an online community.”

George Siemans describes connectivism as “the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.

Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. The ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday is also critical.

Principles of connectivism:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.”

He goes on to explain “Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.”

So how can we use social software to develop a connectivist approach for the Assipa project?

Firstly, each student or leaner will be given a blog space to record their learning experiences. The blog will also act as a portfolio for their learning (see my earlier blog posts on portfolios), The blogs will support trackback and tagging as well as a personal profile.

But of course the learners will need some form of sequenced learning materials as a stimulus for self learning and communication.

That will be provided through an imaginary blog – or rather the real blog of an imaginary learner – herself following a course in self evaluation. Learners will follow the entries of the imaginary learner – Sarah Jones – and will be asked to comment on her experiences and feelings. Their commentary – added as comments on Sarah’s blog will automatically be added ion their own blog – or portfolio. Sarah’s blog will contain entries to the different activities that she undertakes through her pursual of a self evaluation course as a face to face evening class programme. Sometimes this will merely give access to video, graphic, audio or text based learning materials or further reading – which they will be able to add to their own notebook recording their involvement in the course. Sometimes it will give access to other media such as wikis in which they will be asked to record and share their ideas around a particular issue.

The initial learning materials – handouts, video and experiences will be developed form a real face to face course organised for the project partners and taking place in mid July. The project partners as participants in this course will become the ‘real’ peer learners fro the on-line participants – with the blog containing pictures and videos and the learning experiences of the project partners.

As more learners participate in the programme over time, the blog space will develop as a web of interlocking and inter-threaded discourse and stories. Learning materials provided by the project partners and by the project partners own learning experiences will be indistinguishable for learning materials directly contributed by the learners through the story of their own experiences in self evaluation.

How does this design meet my seven (or eight!) challenges of e-learning design?

Challenge 1 – basing e-learning on learners own experiences

The e-learning programme is directly based on the learners own experiences drawing both on their experience of working through the learning materials – as sequenced though the blog, their experiences drawn from other learners through he social nature of the software and through their own direct work or community based experience and recorded in their portfolio.

Challenge 2 – developing a rich and powerful learning environment

The elearning experience becomes rich through he peer group learning – through the interaction with other and through the provision of tools like wikis to record their own learning. The environment ‘naturally’ supports the use of a rich range of different media.

Challenge 3 – localizing the programme

It is simple to localize the programme. If say an Italian version is required the Italian project partners can simply write a new blog in Italian. This can be a straight translation of Sarah Jones’ blog, or can be changed as much as required. Equally if learning materials are needed for a different target group than the initial part time adult education teachers –a fork can be created by introducing a new fictional learner at any point in the narrative. Each ‘fictional’ blog can still utilize the same learning materials or new learning materials can be added as required.

Challenge 4 – supporting individual learners

The programme is naturally leaner centered through drawing on the real on-;line and off line experiences of the learners. Each leaner will develop their own personal portfolio. Each leaner develops their own learning story based on individual learning journeys. It can easily be customised to meet the needs of different groups of learners.

Challenge 5 – developing sustainable and dynamic contents

This is the real strength of the programme. Contents can be added to, adapted, changed and re-purposed on the fly. Different partners can contribute their own experiences which become part of the learning environment. Critically, participants materials and stories themselves become a seamless part of the environment developing a constantly changing dynamic learning web.

Challenge 6 – recording, validating and presenting learning

Recording learning takes place naturally though the individual web logs. Validating and presenting learning will have to be developed as activities in the imaginary diary, providing activities and tools for learners to validate their own learning and to develop presentations of that learning. I have written in previous blog entries about the distinction between validation, presentation and assessment in portfolios.

Challenge 7 – developing a community of learners

The social software provides tools for the development of a community of leaner. Each leaner will have their own profile, will be able to establish their own groups and hopefully will have access to other learners experiences.

Challenge 8 – developing programmes capable of flexible modes of delivery

The programme can be followed at the learner’s won pace and time. The programme can be followed as a self learning activity or as a supported activity. However, their will be a challenge for facilitators in supporting learners who are engaging at different levels and at a different pace of learning.

Technical note

I propose that the web log software will be provided though Knotes, social software produced by Knownet for the Open Source Plone platform. Sarah Jones’ story will be written by Jenny Hughes from CRED who will also produce the initial learning materials. Video materials will be produced by Italian partners from FORCOM.

The rest of the material will be produced by us all. I also hope that others not included in the partnership might choose to join in!