Category Archives: Knowledge development

Google Goggles – an important tool for mobile work based learning?

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Is Google running short of imagination. Not when it comes to applications – there seems to be a new product announcement almost everyday. But Google Goggles – who thought that up? Its a terrible name. But in terms of developing a work based mobile learning platform it may represent a big step forward.

Goggles is a very simple application. You merely point your Android phone at an object – a building, an object, an artefact – and it produces search results based on the image (Google say they will be porting it to other platforms in the future).

If course Goggles has not been developed for learning. Google are interested in driving more search traffic to their site and have arguably paid little attention to education in the past (witness the little attention paid to developing Google scholar). But we have noted before the way in which social software applications (as well as mobile devices) are being appropriated for learning despite their original design purpose.

Work based learning poses particular opportunities and issues and for mobile learning.  Most elearning courses are based on formal programmes of study, on a curriculum, usually designed around a particular discipline. Even vocational programmes envisage steady progression through a corpus of ideas and knowledge, albeit with practice based phases. Work based learning is predicated on occupational practice. Practice is often inter disciplinary in terms of a knowledge base and progression is dependent on the nature of the work being carried out. In other words in work based learning the context of action is king. Up to now it has proved difficult to develop elearning base don widely differing contexts of practice based action.

Mobile devices have portability to be used in workplaces where access to computers may be problematic. Goggles can allow simple gesturing to allow access to a wealth of information about the particular practice being carried out. Of course this is not enough to support learning. Learning requires reflection. But it is not difficult to envisage a simple interface allowing reflection through audio, video or text input which could then be aggregated along with the original video which sparked the reflection and the results of the Google search. The addition of keywords could allow such reflections to be added to a Personal or Organisational Learning Environment. Geotagging could also allow an extension to enhanced reality applications thus allowing interaction with other learners also encountered similar learning situations.

The object or artefact opens a Zone of Proximal Development in Vygotsky’s terminology, with ‘the significant other’ supporting learning being mediated through technology.

Workplaces could become a rich learning environment with learning opportunities embedded in artefacts and in geographical spaces. And at the sameGoogle Giggles  time informal learning, that learning which takes place everyday in relation to context, can be brought together within a formal learning base.

None of this seems unrealistic to me. Who wants to build me some apps to try it?

User-generated content, User-generated contexts and Learning

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This is a short video – the first in a new series of Sounds of the Bazaar videos – made as a contribution to a workshop on ‘Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformation’ being held on November 30 to December 1 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria.

This workshop is organised by Norbert Pachler, the convenor of the London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG) and is being hosted by the EU funded Stellar network. The workshop is looking at the following questions:

  • What relationship is there between user-generated content, user-generated contexts and learning? How can educational institutions cope with the more informal communicative approaches to digital interactions that new generations of learners possess?
  • Learning as a process of meaning-making for us occurs through acts of communication, which take place within rapidly changing socio-cultural, mass communication and technological structures. Does the notion of learner-generated cultural resources represent a sustainable paradigm shift for formal education in which learning is viewed in categories of context and not content? What are the issues in terms of ‘text’ production in terms of modes of representation, (re)contextualisation and conceptions of literacy? Who decides/redefines what it means to have coherence in contemporary interaction?
  • What synergies are there between the socio-cultural ecological approach to mobile learning, which the group has developed through its work to date, with paradigms developed by different TEL communities in Europe?
  • What pedagogical parameters are there in response to the significant transformation of society, culture and education currently taking place alongside technological innovation?

The LMLG sees learning using mobile devices governed by a triangular relationship between socio-cultural structures, cultural practices and the agency of media users / learners, represented in the three domains. The interrelationship of these three components: agency, the user’s capacity to act on the world, cultural practices, the routines users engage in their everyday lives, and the socio-cultural and technological structures that govern their being in the world, we see as an ecology, which in turn manifests itself in the form of an emerging cultural transformation.

I have created a Cloudworks site to support the workshop and you are all invited to participate in the discussions. The site features key questions from a series of background papers, all available on the site and you are invited not only to comment but to add your own links, academic references and additional materials. The discussion is being organised around the following themes:

Look forward to your comments on this site or in the clouds.

Going mobile

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Some twelve years or so ago I was at a conference iN hong Kong. One of the sponsored presentations was by a local elearning company who demonstrated their mobile learning platform. I was totally sceptical. The screen was to small I said, no-one would want to learn on a phone.

I was wrong. The thing the Hong Kong developers had got right was the idea that learning happens in context – in their case learning how to play Badminton – and the phone could allow access to learning in real time in any environment. What they got wrong was the lack of any real interaction – this was just a series of very short videos. What has changed is social software allowing interaction between people using mobile devices. Last week I had a meeting in a bar by the sea in Crete. We had one laptop, two ipods and an iphone. The internet cafe had a wireless connection and we were able to go on a virtual tour of a proposed confernce venue through the safari browser and then book our venue through skype. In this case the context was that a group of us from five different countries were in the same place and we wanted to work together.

Over the summer I have been working with colleagues from the Mature project and with Mark van Harmelen on the idea of a mobile PLE based on Mark’s mPLE software. The more I have worked on this, the more I am convinced that mobile devices are integral to the idea of a PLE. But they also provide a challenge, not just to traditional course based education, but to ‘traditional’ notions of educational technology which is still very much wedded to VLE based courses. One of our central ideas is that learners will support each other through the social layers of a PLE and in particular will use such a device for collaborative problem solving in the context that the problem occurs. In such a situation the curriculum is essentially being evolved within the community and resources are co-developed by that community. I am not saying that such an approach will replace traditional education – or that everyone will want to develop their own PLE. But I am convinced the opportunity is there – if educators and educational technologists can grasp the idea of contextual learning using mobile devices.

NB If you are interested in trialling the mPLE contact Mark van Harmelen.

Are we still getting e-learning wrong – how can we get it ‘right’?

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I have written many posts about what I consider wrong with approaches to e-learning based on attempts to ‘manage’ learning through Learning Management Systems and Virtual Learning Environments. I have also written about the promise of alternative approaches based on Web 2.0, social software and Personal Learning Environments.

But are we still getting e-learning wrong? Not the technology but what we are trying to use ot for and with whom.

As with most technological innovation, first attempts at implementation tend to mimic previous social paradigms. This the idea of the virtual classroom and the on-line university. Teaching and learning  through technology have changed with the idea of blended learning and the increasing integration of technologies within curricular and pedagogic  approaches. But the main thrust of use of technology for learning remains the delivery of ‘traditional; curricula or bodies of knowledge to translational students groups – albeit extended through distance learning to a wider student cohort.

I have long thought that the transformative potential of Technology Enhanced Learning is the ability to support explorative (I am desperately trying to avoid that vague ‘constructivist’ word?) learning for anyone, anywhere. And, in a developmental perspective, the most interesting work may be the use of technology for supporting work based learning and informal learning outside traditional courses. In this respect, it is interested to see the increasing interest of projects funded under the European Commission Research programme and Education and Training programme in competence based approaches to education and training.

However, this approach remains problematic. attempts to develop standardised  taxonomies of competence tend to ignore the importance of context, especially or work based learning and Continuing Professional Development. Recently, I have been involved in a number fo projects looking at how we can use internet based technologies ot support learning, knowledge development and knowledge maturing for Careers Advice, Information and Guidance practitioners in the UK. Of course, ‘training’ is important for such a group of knowledge workers. But even more important is the ability to learn, everyday from the work they carry out, both individually and collectively. Within the Mature-IP project we have developed an approach to knowledge maturing aiming at the development and implementation of tools for Personal Learning and for Organisational learning. In reality it has proved difficult to separate out the two. Individual learning rests of more collective learning processes, within a community of practice, and equally organisational learning is largely dependent on the individual learning of the practitioners. it is possible to look at the roles and tasks carried out by Careers professionals and then to develop tools to assist in carrying out such tasks. such an approach has the merit of supporting everyday work, thus meaning that potentially learning is integrated within the work process. However, there is no guarantee that merely using technologies for task management results in significant learning and knowledge development at either individual or organisational level.

One answer appears to be to integrate more social software functionality into platforms and tools designed to support learning. this autumn, we will launch two platforms: one for policy makers within the careers field based on a mash up of WordPress and the excellent Open University Cloudworks software, and the other a professional development site for careers practitioners based on Buddypress. with both we are attempting to encourage and facilitate peer group learning based on social interaction.

Whether or not these approaches will be successful remains to be seen. But, overall, I am convinced that such projects are key to developing a more transformational direction to the use of technology for learning. In undertaking this work we are lucky to have the support of the Mature-IP project which allows a more focused examination of teh relation between theories and practice in learning and the development of Technology Enhanced Learning tools and platforms. One issue that has become apparent is that research into Technology Enhanced Learning is truly inter-disciplinary – needing at a very least a bringing together of expertise in pedagogy, education, organisational learning, work sciences, design and psychology as well as computer science. Such interdisciplinary research provides a challenge in terms of methodologies.

Projects like Mature-IP and the JISC funded Emerge project offer the basis for rethinking what we are doing with e-learning – and perhaps even for getting it ‘right’ this time round.

European Commission reports on the Information Society

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I spent Monday in Riga developing a tender application to the European Commission on Enterprise 2.0. I am getting increasingly interested in the use of social software and Web 2.0 in enterprises and in particular the use of such applications for informal learning and knowledge development or – as it is coming to be called – knowledge maturing,. One important aspect of this is economic modelling and I think we have had too little cross over and collaboration between economists and researchers inTtechnology Enhanced Learning. Thus I was delighted to be working with Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and BICEPs from Riga in developing the application.

All too ofetn technology is een as a good thing in itself. In this blog I have often questioned the social aspects of introdcuing new technologies – sadly I have no expertise in the economic area. I think all these aspects are of particualr importance when it comes to policy and to detemining what sort of policy interventions are necessary with regard to stimulating and / or regulating the introduction of potentially disruptive technologies for the ways in which we live, learn, work and play.

Anyway hot on the heels of my musings in Latvia comes today the release of the snappily titled “Commission Staff Working Document. Accompanying document to the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Europe’s Digital Competitiveness Report. Volume 1: i2010 — Annual Information Society Report 2009 – Benchmarking i2010: Trends and main achievements.”

The report is accompanyed by the usual press release and executive summary full of policy hyperbole about the wonders of new technologies to overcome the recession. Europe, they say, “can advance even further as a generation of “digitally savvy” young Europeans becomes a strong market driver for growth and innovation. Building on the potential of the digital economy is essential for Europe’s sustainable recovery from the economic crisis.” But forget the political spin – there is a wealth of research and information in the 111 pages of the staff working paper.

I have had no time to read the full report – I am took busy working on my tender applciation – but here are a few key exerpts which caught my eye on a quick scroll through.

On use of the internet by young people

“Young people are active users of the internet as the main channel for information and communication purposes. “Digital natives”, i.e. people between 16 and 34, and especially those aged 16 to 24, most of them students, stand out as the most regular, intensive users of internet advanced services.

There is an evident, profound break with previous generations in the attitude towards the use of internet services. This is linked to the level of internet and informatics skills. The percentage of young people with medium internet skills is twice as much the European average (for all individuals aged 16-74) and the number of individuals aged 16 to 24 with IT skills obtained through formalised educational institution is three times higher than the average.

On average 43% of EU population accessed the Internet everyday or almost every day. However, this percentage increases more than 20 p.p. when it comes to people aged 16-24, with 66% of them accessing the internet everyday. In the most advanced countries, around 90% of young people connect on a daily basis. With the exception of Romania and Cyprus, in all countries the percentage of young people connecting to the internet everyday is higher than the average of the whole EU population. The difference between the whole EU population and the youngest users is about 23 p.p.. This difference lessens in the most advanced countries to about 18 p.p., but can be more than twice as much in the less advanced countries (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal).

It is also worth noting that differences between countries are reduced when the 16-24 age group is taken as a reference. Besides the most developed countries, young people in Latvia, Portugal or Poland have similar frequency of use as in the UK, Germany or Belgium.”

On social particpation:

“The 2008 evidence above suggests that Internet use is associated with increased likelihood that users engage in civic activities (participation in social organizations23) within similar social backgrounds. While about half of internet users reported their participation in social activities, only a third of non-internet users did so. Similarly, frequent internet use is associated with higher levels of generalised trust.

The cross-sectional data used in the analysis do not allow concluding that the internet has a one way enhancing effect on social resources, as this can work the other way around too. Those with less social resources may be the ones who have fewer motivations or opportunities for using ICT and those who are rich in social resources might be more motivated for using the internet more frequently. In fact, most of the available analyses on the digital divide do suggest that the interrelation is one of reciprocal amplification.”

On business use of the internet:

“ICT benefits for businesses are normally expected to materialise through processes efficiency, innovation and market potential. Evidence shows that enterprises perceive ICT more as a tool for boosting productivity and reducing costs, rather than an instrument for increasing the number of reachable customers and the related turnover of the enterprises. This is consistent with findings on ICT take-up which show that applications aiming at increasing the enterprise internal efficiency are more widespread with respect to those enabling e-commerce. Similarly, only a minority of businesses consider ICT an enabler for the rollout of new products/services. Finally, large enterprises tend to be more positive when assessing the impact of ICT with respect to SMEs.”