betty collis university of twente, the netherlands copyright betty collis 2005. this work is the...

Betty Collis

University of Twente, The Netherlands

Copyright Betty Collis 2005. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to

republish requires written permission from the author.

Some background

• From Detroit; degrees from University of Michigan, Stanford and University of Victoria (Canada)

• Faculty member 1975-2005; educational technology

• Pioneer user of technology to support learning and for strategic change in organizations

• Leader of team that developed the TeleTOP CMS

• Since 2000, associated with Shell EP; head of research for learning & leadership development

• Consultant

From context to tools to people…

• Why? Functioning in a Knowledge Society– Using digital workbenches

• How? Learning for a Knowledge Society– More than acquiring, also

contributing

• With what? Technology and Learning– Digital workbenches, also

for learning

• Who? What makes it complicated? What about research?

Why? The Knowledge Society

Characteristics of a knowledge society include:

– mobility of services, information, and workforce

– globally-available information

– working in multidisciplinary and distributed teams

– on-going need to update and change one’s skills

– using information technology for knowledge management, sharing, and creation

Productive Functioning

How? Using workbenches

A platform, tools,

customizable to the user…

People use digital workbenches to…

Solve problems that are meaningful to them

Create new processes for how they interact, communicate, organize and amuse themselves

Build new communities in which they define themselves

Fill their time

Find what they need

How? Learning for a Knowledge Society

Learning as Participating and Contributing

• The focus of learning activities is not only knowledge acquisition, but becoming a member of a community of practice: not only learning from the community, but also contributing to it

• The interactions to which the learner contributes may serve to change the knowledge base of the community even as he or she participates in it

Co-Creation

How? The Contributing Student

The Contributing Student

Sharing &

Reuse

With what? Two types of workbenches for contributions

• Discussion forum with archive

• Shared workspaces

Mostly organized around questions and sharing experiences via online communications…

Mostly organized around sharing resources or “stories”, like a library, but a library where each entry can grow…

Professional teams:

Learners as co-constructors of knowledge in a community of practice

The corporate sector: Shell EP

Well engineers and geologists who work together on multidisciplinary teams

Examples:

Cross-course:

Portfolio assessment todemonstrate relationshipsabove the individual course

Demonstrate, relate, add

value

• ..with a use outside of the course

(link…)

Example: Designing and building a product for others, with others

Example: Jointly creating a resource for othersAt the Queensland University of Technology, students as their class assignment design and develop a new version of the public Brisbane Media Map…

Example: Digital portfolios, also as learning resources for others…

(Link…)

Demonstrate, relate, add

value

Example: Using a shared workbench for team projects

Teams keep a shared environment…

•For all, drafts, final versions and resources

•Where everyone can leave comments and ideas

•Where others can share your results…..

an example …

Example: Use your experience to help others

• In the corporate setting, with multidiscipline teams…

Thus, how? Digital workbenches, also for learning

1. Common application tools

2. Specialized tools and platforms, but not created especially for learning

3. Workbenches created for learning purposes

4. Educationally oriented workbenches for instructors and instructional designers

How? A CMS as a Workbench

From being on the receiving end of content delivery to co-

constructingTransformations:

Strengthening the processes

Content

Communication

Co-constructed content and meaning

Pre-structured content, within a course

Little or no human communication

Within a course or programme

Professional knowledge building, reflection

Information repository

Online course

Blended (extended) course

Communities of Practice

Information

Who? The people involved will face challenges

How to help? Action Research

…a family of research methodologies which pursue action (or change) and research (or understanding) at the same time…

It is an iterative process which takes shape as understanding increases and converges towards a better understanding of what happens

Plan Act

ObserveReflect

Participant(s)

Our Conclusion:

For us, technology is not for “delivering” learning or for taking the

humans out of learning,

but is rather is a set of tools, a locally tailorable workbench,

which offers affordances to empower people to share, build, support, and

manage their learning together, in their common context

Prof. dr. Betty CollisBetty.Collis@Utwente.nl

For more…

Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2005). An on-going journey: Technology as a learning workbench. Available via http://bettycollisjefmoonen.nl