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Personal Learning Environments: interface between physical & virtual spaces

Gráinne Conole, The Open University, UKSKG First ForumLa Trobe University, 28/05/09

Blog:www.e4innovation.com

Grimscote, NorthamptonshireUK, February 2009

+Overarching questions

What is personalisation?

What is the relationship between Government rhetoric and actual practice?

How can technologies support personalisation?

What is the relationship between technologies, physical and virtual spaces and pedagogy?

+Personalisation: Definition

To endow with personal or individual qualities of characteristics

To design or produce (something) to meet someone’s individual requirements

+Origins and quotes Hopkins

Reaction against traditional education: limitations of space, constraints of the curriculum, lack of innovation

Challenge “To connect the possibility of truly personalised pedagogy with the promise of more flexible, responsive, and transparent systems of organisation”

Miliband Excellence and equity; flexibility with accountability and a personal

focus

Leadbeater Learners actively engaged in setting their own targets, devising

their own learning plans and choosing from a range of ways to learn

Järvelä “How could the collaborative process in personalised learning be

regulated in order to favour the emergence of these types of interactions? How can technology be designed to enhance personalised learning environments in ways that increase the possibilities that such rich interactions occur?” OECD, 2006

+From PLE to PDE…

What does your Personal Digital Environment consist of?

What does it say about you?

What do you do (types of activity)?How do you do it (what tools do you use)?Where do you do it (locations and contexts)?

+My Personal Digital Learning Environment

InformationWriting (Word)Finding (Google) Blogging (Wordpress)Presenting (Powerpoint)Recording (Audacity)

CommunicationWriting (Email)Talking (Mobile & skype)Texting (SMS & twitter)Learning (Audio conferencing)Presenting (Video conferencing)

Hardware: Laptop, iphone, ipod, portable hard disk, camera, flip video camera

Learning, research, work

Where: Dining room table, hot desking space, hotel rooms, airport lounges

Function Pre 2005 Now..

Text/Data Word, Excel Google docs

Presentation Powerpoint Slideshare, podcasts, YouTube

Finding info Google Google+, RSS feeds

Managing info Bibliographic tools, repositories, e-journals

Social bookmarking, blogs, wikis

Personal management

Microsoft exchange Shared calenders & to do lists

Communication Email, forums, chat Skype, elluminate, social networking

Visualisation Mindmaps Compendium, mind42, cohere

Shift from information to communication

Co-evolution of tools and practice

Conole, forthcoming in Lee and McLoughan

+Convergence

What are the characteristics of new technologies?

What are the characteristics of good pedagogy?

Can you map one to the other?

+Converging practices

Modern technologies Modern pedagogy

Web 2.0 practices

Location aware technologies

Adaptation & customisation

Second life/immersive worlds

Google it!

Badges, World of warcraft

User generated content

Blogging, peer critique

Cloud computing

From individual to social

Contextualised and situated

Personalised learning

Experiential learning

Inquiry learning

Peer learning

Open Educational Resources

Reflection

Distributed cognition

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Properties of learning spaces

Characteristics of good pedagogy

Affordances of new technologies

Intersections

PersonalisedSituativeSocialExperientialReflective

AdaptiveContextualNetworkedImmersiveCollective

FurnitureEquipmentLightLayoutNoise

+Buzz words

What words do you associated with the concept of personalisation?

+Policy rhetoric buzz words

Individual

Learner centered

Adaptive

Flexible

Self improving

Empowering

Equitable

Inclusive

Niche

Ownership

Creative

Community

Evolving

Empowerment

Individualism

Adaptable

+Questions

How is personalisation instantiated in Australian policy rhetoric?

How does this translate into funding support and educational initiatives?

Is there evidence of a change in practice (general and/or specifically because of educational interventions?)

+Learner entitlement framework

BECTA, UK

Personalised learning which reflects learners’ interests, preferred approaches, abilities and choices, and tailored access to materials and content

+Actual practice: Learning 2.0

IPTS, 2008

+Value

+7 dimensions of Personal Learning1. Development of key skills

2. Improvement of student learner skills

3. Encourage learning through motivation

4. Learning environments for collaborative learning

5. New models of assessment

6. Technology as personal, cognitive and social tools

7. Teachers are keyJärvelä (2006)

+1. Key skills

Students taught to use conceptual and factual knowledge in purposeful activities in authentic environments

WISE project – (SecondReiff Aachen School of Architecture) Authentic real-time modeling environment in Second Life for Architecture students

Ancient Spaces – (British Columbia) students move in a virtual world, to get new insight into the subject matter (Ancient Spaces)

Focus Examples

+2. Learner skills

Improvement of student learner skills

Personal Inquiry Project – development of inquiry-based learning skills for students to enhanced their understanding of Science

Mundo des estrellas – young people in hospitals, interactive gaming, life swapping and sharing of experience

Focus Projects

+3. Motivation

Encourage learning through building motivation

Multiple delivery channels and media: Content on iTunes, podcasts and YouTube videos as alternatives to text, student generated content

Notschool – virtual home schooling for disaffected children

Focus Examples

+4.Collaboration

Designing new learning environments for collaborative learning

CSCL pedagogical patterns – Jigsaw, ArgueGraph, Concept Grid script

LeMill – teacher sharing and collaboration, social tagging of resources

Wlker’s Wikinomics – collaborative co-construction of understanding of Economics

Focus Examples

+5. Assessment

Devising new models of assessment

REAP project – distillation of good practice in assessment into a set of guiding principles

Utilization of technologies to support diagnostic, formative and summative assessment, as well as peer assessment

Focus Example

+6. Appropriation

The use of technology as a personal, cognitive and social tool

SCHOME – a rich multimedia environment, focus is gifted students, an open pedagogy approach

Pebblepad: e-Portfolio, a “Personal Learning System”

Focus Examples

+7. Support

Remembering that teachers are key

OU Learning Design Initiative – range of tools, methods and approaches to support the learning design process

Olnet – global network to support researchers and users of Open Educational Resources

Focus Example

+The VLE/LMS is dead!

Loosely coupled

Integrated systems

Personalised tools

Institutional tools

Student controlled

Institutional controlled

+Designing for personalisation Need for new approaches to design for learning

Foregrounding characteristics of personalisation

Utilising the affordances of new technologies

Transferable concept and meaning Open source, open

services, open educational resources

Explicit

Shareable

Adaptable

Repurposed

Open

Transfer between Government rhetoric and practice Two-way dialogue, two-

way learning

Tailored, contextualized

Building cumulatively

Individualized

Reused for different purposes

Personalised

MA MA

MA

12 3

ba

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Internet

Mobile

TV

Radio

Smart

+A mediating layer

Designer DesignHas an inherent

Learning Activity or an OER

Creates

Vygotsky

Mediating artifacts

Mediating artifactsLesson plansStep by step guidesOnline toolsPedagogical patterns“Expert other”

Can we develop new innovative mediating artifacts?How can we make the design more explicit and sharable?

User

+Personlised design

+Design, use, reuse

Designer

OER

Design

Creates

Deposits

Deposits

Learner A

OER

DesignLearner B

Tutor

Chooses

UsesQuiz + beginners route

UsesQuiz + advanced route

Repurposes & deposits

Process designPrior designs & resources New designs

Clouds in Cloudworks

Pedagogical Patterns

OER repositories

New OER & designs

+Final thoughts What does personalisation mean in a technology-enhanced

environment?

How do we take account of a digital divide that is ever narrower but deeper?

What new digital literacy skills will learners and teachers need ?

True personalisation will require a radical rethinking of the curriculum,

Personalisation challenges existing norms about assessment

Key challenge is to produce new pedagogical models which marry the affordances of personalisation with the best affordances of technologies

There is a blurring of the boundaries of formal and informal education; what is the role of personalised learning across these contexts?