Personalized Learning Systems and YOU PLE Conference University of Manitoba March 26, 2006

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Personalized Learning Systems and YOUPLE
ConferenceUniversity of ManitobaMarch 26, 2006

• Terry Anderson, Ph.D.
• Canada Research Chair in Distance Education
• terrya_at_athabascau.ca

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Congratulations You - as a contributing
lifelong learner Are the Person of the Year!
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This Person of the year

• Wants to learn things
• Continuously moves between on and offline
• Is learning to recognize and demand quality when
  investing in learning
• Knows there are many paths to learning
• Uses a wide set of information and communications
  tools

The decline of the compliant learner. P.
Goodyear 2004
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How do professional educators deal with these
persons of the year?

• We must look at today's radical changes in
  technology, not just as forecasters but as actors
  charged with designing and bringing about a
  sustainable and acceptable world.
• Herbert Simon, 1916-2001

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Presentation Overview

• Context and the Net
• Affordances of the Net
• The personal learning environment
• Definitions
• Implementation issues
• Athabasca examples
• Your comments or questions

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Importance of this conference

• Educational problems are not solved through
  evangelism, threats or technologies alone.
• Change happens when teachers, administrators and
  learners make it happen
• Perceived benefits Personal
• Readiness - Organizational
• Pressure Inter-organizational
• Chwelos Benbasat Dexter, 2001)
• Each of us is an agent of change

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Maybe the Sky Really is Falling!

• The Net Creates
• Great challenge and Great Opportunity

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Values

• We can (and must) continuously improve the
  quality, effectiveness, appeal, cost and time
  efficiency of the learning experience.
• Student control and freedom is integral to 21st
  Century life-long education and learning.
• Education is an academic, individual and a social
  experience both on campus and online.

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University of ManitobaCanadas leading Web 2.0
University !!

• Checkout your Myspace profile

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The Ubiquitous Net Context

• Context creates and constrains learning
• Context affords learning opportunities
• Context and Content are created
• through interaction,
• through use and creation of artifacts

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Canadian Connection to the Net

• 67.9 of Canadians use the Net Computer Industry
  Almanac (2005)
• 85 access from home
• Canadian Internet Project (2006)
• Average 13.5 hours/week
• 76 Broadband

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Affordances of the Educational Semantic Web
(Anderson Whitelaw, 2004)
Abundance of Content
Filtering, Mashups, Updating
Read/Write Web 2.0
Connected Learning
High quality, Low cost Communication
Agent Assistance
Automated Facilitation Net as OS
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Affordance 1. Massive Amounts of Content

• Any information, any format, anytime, anywhere
• Customizable content
• Interactive content
• User created content
• Open content resources

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Wiki and Open Courseware

• Imagine a world in which every single person is
  given free access to the sum of all human
  knowledge. That's what we're doing.
• Terry Foote, Wikipedia

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Content - conclusion

• Cheap or free
• Need to learn to share and re-use
• Dont build your value on your content
• Content is necessary, but not sufficient to
  create a quality educational experience for the
  persons of the year
• "Centuries of specialist stress in pedagogy and
  in the arrangement of data now end with the
  instantaneous retrieval of information made
  possible by electricity." Marshall McLuhan 1964
  p. 346

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Affordance 2High Quality, Low Cost Communication

• Multi synchronous
• Synchronous, asynch
• Text, audio and video
• Stored, indexed and retrievable
• Mobile
• Embedded
• Pervasive
• Learner, teacher, community and publisher
  instigated

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• Each person operates a separate personal
  community network and switches rapidly among
  multiple sub-networks
• WELLMAN, BOASE CHEN 2002

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Learning Happens through Interaction in
Communities of Inquiry

• At home
• At work
• In third places not work and not home

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Affordance 3Agents

• Google Alerts
• Meeting Wizard
• RSS
• Athabasca
• Freudbot AIML
• E-Advisor
• Are you ready for AU? Agents

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These Affordances Stimulate Development of a
Participatory Culture

• relatively low barriers to artistic expression
  and civic engagement,
• strong support for creating and sharing ones
  creations, and
• some type of informal mentorship
• members believe their contributions matter, and
  feel some degree of social connection with one
  another
• (at the least they care what other people think
  about what they have created).
• Henry Jenkins, Media Education of 21. Century
  2006

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Creating Incentive to Sustain Contribution
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Pedagogical Basis
Our educational discourse is largely stuck in a
time warp, framed by issues and standards set
decades before the widespread use of the personal
computer, the Internet, and free trade
agreements. Stewart and Kagan (2005)

• Connectivism Knowledge exists in the network
  (Siemens, 2005)
• Community of Inquiry (Garrison Anderson, 2003)
• Integrated Virtual learning pedagogy of
  nearness (Mejias, 2005)
• Learner construction and sharing of artifacts
  (Collis Moonen, 2001)
• New learning Environments John Seely Brown, 2006

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Convergence between new learning and new
technology

• New Learning
• Personalised
• Learner centred
• Situated, Mobile
• Collaborative
• Ubiquitous
• Lifelong
• Expensive

• New Technology
• Personal
• User centred
• Networked
• Ubiquitous
• Durable
• Affordable

Towards a Theory of Mobile Learning Sharples,
Taylor, Giasemi (2005)
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Learning Networks

• Imagine a world where there are tens of thousands
  of online learning paths, communities,
  experiences and objects.
• Imagine that they can be aggregated to
  demonstrate competence and accrue accreditation.
• How will learners find and connect to particular
  paths?
• Where will be the U. of M. be in this world?

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Who does the work when learning on the Net?

• Students used to dropping in and watching the
  teacher perform.
• Net learning demands and creates opportunity for
  engaged learners
• Net instruction theory and practice must not
• Increase teacher work load
• Use and re-use
• Dont over teach or over moderate
• Use agents and sophisticated tools
• Make busy work for learners
• Net learning does not emerge naturally from
  traditional instructive approaches and
  experiences it takes work, incentives and
  experimentation.

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Living a Learning
We have to move learning out of an education
context into one that stimulates, creates,
rewards and evaluates learning anytime, anyplace,
anywhere, for any reason. Are todays education
tools helping create lifelong learners?
life long learning
Community at Practice
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• John Seely Brown
• New Learning Environments for the 21st Century
  2006

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• Moving Learning from Institutionally Centered to
  Learner Centered
• The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Solution

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Dallsgaard, 2006 http//www.eurodl.org/materials/
contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htmr
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What is a PLE?

• The logic of education systems should be
  reversed so that the system conforms to the
  learner, rather than the learner to the system.
  Futurelab 2006

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What is a PLE ?

• PLE is a concept, an idea, an ideal?
• A reaction to institutional Learning Management
  Systems?
• All the tools that you use to learn?
• Cool new name to drop at cocktail parties
  demonstrating how with it you are?

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What is a PLE?

• A PLE is a web interface into the owners
  digital environment.
• Content management integrating personal and
  professional interests (both formal and informal
  learning),
• a profiling system for making connections
• A collaborative and individual workspace
• A multi formatted communications system
• All connected via a series of syndicated and
  distributed feeds.

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"The PLE is an approach not an application."
Stephen Downes

• An approach that
• Values and builds upon learner input
• Protects and celebrates identity
• Respects academic ownership
• Is Net-centric
• Supports multiple levels of socializing,
  administration and learning
• Supports communities of inquiry across and within
  disciplines, programs, institutions and
  individual learning contexts

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Technologies used to create PLEs

• Mobile computing
• Wireless
• High bandwidth
• Cell phones
• Digital photography, video and audio recording
• Internet video, audio and conferencing
• Low cost hardware - 100 laptop

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PLEs are not LMS

• LMS were designed, built for and operated by
  institutions of formal learning
• Designed to meet teacher needs
• Based on dissemination model of education
• Contributions are owned by the institution
• Student is forced to learn a new system at each
  institution
• Designed for a push rather than a pull learning
  context
• Course centric view of learning
• Hard to interoperate with competitive or OS
  products
• Designed to protect intellectual property, not
  make it freely available
• Very poor record of innovation

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PLE- Learner Links their environment to that of
education institutions
My social Life
My work
My school(s)
My calendar
My profile
My hobbies
My files
My identity
My publications E-portfolios
My conversations(s)
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Learner Centred OLE.doc Derek Wenmoth, March
2006
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Early PLE Prototype products
Blogs and Profiles With RSS
Welcome to Flock, the safe, spyware free web
browser that makes it easier to connect with your
friends. With Flock it's a snap to upload,
comment, and discover new pics. Read all the news
you care about, in one place. Blog freely. Get
search results as soon as you start typing in the
search box, and much more.
RSS Reader on steroids
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Formal education paradox?

• Many PLE applications today are challenging to
  learn how to use, very unstable and not as
  administratively effective for either students or
  faculty as LMS substitutes.

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Blogs vs Threaded DiscussionCameron Anderson,
2006

• Cognitive presence
• Context beyond the course allows for enhanced
  verification and application
• Harder to follow threads and quickly find new
  contributions
• Social Presence
• Increased depth from chronological background
• Openness may inhibit self-disclosure, humour
• Teaching Presence
• Poor navigation and tracking
• Difficult to follow conversations
• Harder to assess
• Little institutional support

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Typical PLE Applications
Profiles
Selective Disclosure
Communities groups
Self-paced Social learning
Calendars
Individual Space
Cooperative Space
Wikis
Blogs
Group Ware
E- Portfolios
Each linked via RSS
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An elgg instance http//elgg.net
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Technologies of AUs MDE 663 Fall 2006
M2U.Athabascau.ca
Moodle
Blogging Connections
Content Admin Asynchronous Int.
Portal Products
Learning Objects
CMAP
Elluminate
Furl
Real Time Pacing Social Presence
Dissemination Knowledge Polling
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Usefulness over 8 Educ Functions
N 9 of 13
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Advantages of PLEs

• Identity
• Customizable and control
• Ownership
• Social Presence
• Capacity and Speed of Innovation
• Open Connectivity (API, mashups, web services)

See my blog posting at Are PLEs ready for prime
time? http//terrya.edublogs.org/
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Advantages of LMSs

• Advantages of LMS
• Purposefully designed
• Mature
• Safe and Secure
• Ease of Use
• Centrally Supported

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Some see PLEs as just for informal learning

• Learning is a continuous, (largely)
  self-organized process of change Sebastian
  Fiedler
• PLEs
• provides learning systems for the vast majority
  of people who are not enrolled on formal learning
  programmes.
• helping learners organize informal learning.
• allow people to form their own (transitory)
  networks for learning. Learning is a social
  activity and takes place in communities of
  interest and communities of practice. (from
  Graham Attwell)

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Response to my blog posting Are PLEs ready for
Prime Time?

• Who are "we" in this case? We in the ed-biz or we
  human inhabitants of the earth? I may be being
  hyper sensitive but all too often we in the
  ed-biz see it as our job to operationalize things
  for them, the (demonic) other.
• Through this, Terry appears to be perpetuating
  the teacher/learner divide. Too many discussions
  are about how can we do things for you/them.
• Not until we realize that we are them and they
  are us - without abdicating responsibility for
  mentorship, inscription, facilitation and,
  indeed, teaching - can such ideas as PLEs be
  realized.

Seb Schmoller http//my-world.typepad.com/my_webl
og/2006/01/personal_learni.html
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PLE Activities

• Making connections
• Sharing artifacts
• Applying knowledge on and offline
• Sharing experiences and creating new contexts
• Teachers job is to help learners determine and
  satisfy their learning needs
• Need to create and support environments from
  which learning emerges

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Institutions are moving to PLEs

• From computer owners (Labs)
• To ISPs (email and web space)
• To online architecture (LMS) and portals
• To web services, open standard and access
  applications, accessible through many, learner
  owned interfaces

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A PLE Roadmap
From PLE Reference Model Presentation by Colin
Milligan/George Siemens
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Transitioning to PLEs

• Be the person you want your pupils to be model
  desired behaviour (Stephen Downes).
• Support a culture of innovation and teaching
  scholarship
• Use only open standard and interoperable tools
• Try a new tool in every course you teach

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2006 EduBlog Survey
Scott Mcleod N160
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Time Inc. to Eliminate Nearly 300 Magazine
Jobs(Jan 19, 2007)

• "It really is a different world, and these legacy
  businesses are going through a wrenching
  transition . . . they have to run the old
  business while building the new one." Harold Vogel

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Conclusion

• The context of both formal and lifelong learning
  is changing rapidly, creating great opportunity
  and considerable risk.
• Taking advantage requires allowing student and
  teacher choice, support and opportunity to
  exploit affordances of Net technologies.
• Role of management is to create an ecology of
  innovation.
• There is no single killer app in this
  environment - rather an evolving set of personal
  and social tools, pedagogies, and resources

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The Great Community

• ..a subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of
  communication must take possession of the
  physical machinery of transmission and
  circulation and breath life into it. When the
  machine age has thus perfected its machinery, it
  will be a means of life and not its despotic
  master.
• John Dewey (1927) The great community

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Your Comments or QuestionsMost Welcomed !
Terry Anderson terrya_at_athabascau.ca
Final reference futurelab (2006) Social software
and learning
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Learning in a Networked Era Focuses on

• Even in formal learning, Learner Choice to
  co-determine and negotiate
• Tools for learning
• Content
• Time and place
• Pace
• Means of evaluation
• Ways to learn
• Relationships
• Openness

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Threaded Discussions
Rod Boothby. ,2006 http//www.innovationcreators.
com
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Choices Appropriate learning Environments Skills
and Knowledge Feedback
http//www.nestafuturelab.org/research/personalisa
tion/report_01.htm
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"First Law of Technology"

• "A consistent pattern in our response to new
  technologies is we simultaneously overestimate
  the short-term impact and underestimate the
  long-term impact.
• Roy Amara of the Institute for the Future.
• Learning a living The Age of Information
  demands the simultaneous use of all our
  faculties, we discover that we are most at
  leisure when we are most intensely involved, very
  much as with the artists in all ages McLuhan,
  1994 p. 347

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Net-Gen TeacherAction Research

• Lisa Suben, 23. told her supervisors she was
  going to produce her own fifth-grade math
  curriculum.
• A year later, her students achieved the largest
  one-year math score jump ever seen at a KIPP
  school from the 16th to the 77th percentile

Jay Mathews Washington Post Staff WriterTuesday,
December 19, 2006
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• Suben said "My primary goal as a teacher is to
  help my students understand the reasoning behind
  math rules and procedures.
• Understanding is constructed by the learner, not
  passively received from the teacher.
• Understanding is built by making connections
  between as many strands of knowledge as possible.
• Understanding is galvanized through
  communication.
• Understanding is only valuable when you reflect
  on it and question it."
• Jay Mathews

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Terrys Technology of the Year Award

• The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) society aims to
  distribute a laptop to every child in the world
  in the next 5 to 10 years

Our display has higher resolution than 95 of
the laptop displays on the market today
approximately 1/7th the power consumption 1/3rd
the price sunlight readability and room-light
readability with the backlight off.
www.laptop.org