Using technology-enhanced PLEs to support mobile learning

Sean DowlingProf. Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez

Prof. Declan O’ Sullivan

About the Presenter

• Almost 20 years experience in education;

• Worked as an EFL teacher in Japan, Thailand and the Middle East;

• Last 10 years – educational technologist in the Middle East;

• Currently Marie Curie Research Fellow in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

• Working on PhD as part of the European Commission funded EDUWORKS project.

EDUWORKS

• 11 PhD candidates, 2 Post-Doc researchers, 3-year project

Presentation Overview

• Lifelong learning (LLL), informal learning, mobile learning

• Learning trajectories and transitions

• Challenges to maintaining learning trajectories

• Using technology-enhanced personal learning environments (PLEs) to respond to the challenges

Lifelong learning

All learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competencies within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective.

(European Commission, 2001)

Lifelong learning

• formal / non-formal / informal• “interact and overlap with each other both conceptually and temporally”

(Schugurensky & Myers, 2003, p. 331)

(LIFE Center: Stevens, R. Bransford, J. & Stevens, A., 2005)

Informal learning

• Incidental learning that results from everyday experiences occurring in a wide variety of contexts.

• Mobile in nature

Mobile Learning

• Learning that occurs in different locations, with different people, interwoven with other activities, using different technologies and dispersed over time. (Sharples et al, 2009)

• Multi-dimensional• Formal, non-formal or informal

Learning Trajectories and Transitions

change

trigger

abstraction

synthesis

Trajectory

transition

transition

transition

transition

experience

Challenges to learning trajectories

Mobility of learners presents some challenges:

1. Competing conceptual demands;

2. Limited access to existing knowledge;

3. Poor recall of original experiences.

Technology-enhanced solutions

Challenge 1 – Competing conceptual demands

• Record experience for later reflection• Audio / Video / Photo / Text• Text editor

Technology-enhanced Solutions

Challenge 2 – Limited access to existing knowledge

• Record experience for later reflection• Recommendation systems• Sharing / collaboration with others• Organizing / connection learning experiences

Technology-enhanced Solutions

Challenge 3 – Poor recall of original experiences

• Record experience for later reflection• Notifications

Personal Learning Environments

• Technical level - a customized set of resources, services and tools,

generally consisting of web-based technologies, selected and used by learners to create a flexible learning environment (Godwin-Jones, 2009)

• Social level - “an environment where people and tools and

communities and resources interact in a very loose kind of way” (Wilson, 2008, p.18)

Technology-enhanced PLE

Application(s) Interface

Some current research projects

• MIRROR (http://www.mirror-project.eu/)

• Learning Layers (http://learning-layers.eu/)

• TRAILER (http://trailerproject.eu/)

Evernote

Future work

• Collect data on 1) how technology (in particular, PLEs) is being used to support lifelong learning trajectories; 2) effects (positive and negative) of learner mobility on lifelong learning trajectories;

• Identify any significant patterns in this data;

• Recommendations for future learning technologies based on the data/patterns.

Acknowledgments

• Prof. Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez / Prof. Declan O’ Sullivan

• EDUWORKS – European Commission FP7 funding

References

• European Commission. (2001). Making a European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality. Communication from the Commission. European Commission. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED476026.

• Godwin-Jones, R. (2009). Emerging technologies: Personal learning environments. Language Learning & Technology, 13(2), 3–9.

• LIFE Center: Stevens, R. Bransford, J. & Stevens, A. (2005). Details on the LIFE Center Lifelong and Lifewide Learning Diagram. Retrieved from http://life-slc.org/about/citationdetails.html

• Sharples, M., Arnedillo-Sanchez, I., Milrad, M., & Vavoula, G. (2009). Chapter 14 Small devices , Big issues. In Technology-Enhanced Learning - Principles and Products (pp. 233–251).

• Schugurensky, D., & Myers, J. (2003). A framework to explore lifelong learning: the case of the civic education of civics teachers. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 22(4), 325–352.

• Wilson, S. (2008). Patterns of personal learning environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 16(1), 17–34.

Acknowledgments

Any questions or feedback?

Thank you.