Dai Griffiths, CETIS, The University of Bolton D'E'Griffithsbolton'ac'uk

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Dai Griffiths, CETIS, The University of
BoltonD.E.Griffiths_at_bolton.ac.uk
Designing Learning in Context
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TENCompetence

• TENCompetence
• 4-year EU Integrated IST-TEL project
• Led by Rob Koper of OUNL
• www.tencompetence.org
• Technical organisational infrastructure for
  lifelong competence development
• Open source, standards and interoperability
  specifications compliant

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Ill be talking about

• Why Life Long competences?
• A personal view, but strongly informed by the
  work being done in TENCompetence
• What problem does TENCompetence resolve?
• What solutions is the project providing?
• What does this imply for the design of learning?

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Why Life Long Competences?
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Some slippery words

• Even in English, there are multiple meanings of
• Knowledge, Learning / training, Skill
• Competence and/or competency
• What are they? Where are they located?
• How do we recognise them?

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Life Long Learning and EU convergence makes this
harder

• Life Long Learning
• Forces us to work outside individual institutions
  
• Long Life Learning?
• Life Long unlearning and relearning?
• Life wide learning?
• Bologna process and EU convergence
• Meanings in different languages do not map onto
  each other.

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Why is competence such a key word?

• Next two slides have two caricatures (but they
  may be recognisable)
• How can we build a system which can encompass
  them both?

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1. Competencies are objective, learning is an
opinion?

• Competency based LLL is scientifically validated?
• Expert analysis of a professional field to
  identify required competences?
• Objectively certify knowledge and skills?
• Providing a service that ensures the best match
  of job opportunities and job seekers?
• Does this presuppose knowledge transfer and
  knowledge management?

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2. Learning is more than acquisition of
competency?

• Competency based approaches lead to
• Long forms full of check boxes?
• Learners jumping through hoops?
• Superficial learning?
• Learning (in contrast) is real because
• It is constructed by the individual and
  integrated into their life and work?
• It strikes a blow for the individual against the
  system?

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What are competences in TENCompetence?

• Necessary ability of actor to cope with problems,
  events or tasks in a situation (niche) e.g. job,
  hobby, market, sport, etc.
• Of individuals, teams and organisations
• Highly situational
• Latent attribute (not directly observable and
  applied to future activities)
• Identified and defined in a community

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Competences

• Some see competency as a verifiable cognitive
  state, and competency management as simply a
  matter of measurement and certification
• We use the terms Competence and Competences. This
  goes some way to distinguishing our approach
• Close to approach of Cheetham Chivers (2005)
  Professions, Competence and Informal Learning

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but where did the learning go?

• In my view
• Learning is happening all the time in education,
  in conversation, in actions...
• Neural changes certainly occur in the brain, and
  behavioural changes follow
• But to work with this we need higher level
  descriptions to identify which changes count as
  learning

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but where did the learning go?

• In my view
• We try to make this process objective with
  curricula and examinations, but they are
  approximations, inconsistent, and on-going
• This is why no single qualification system is
  ever likely to meet the needs of all employers in
  a domain, present and future
• Or to put it another way, when you select
  employees the qualifications arent enough, you
  need references, other experience

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but where did the learning go?

• In my view (yes, I have lots of views!)
• We should accept that learning is always someone
  saying something about someone (at different
  levels of formality and authority)
• What has been learned, how, when, why
• The competence approach provides a framework for
  those conversations, and provides contextualised
  opportunities for learning
• The conversations need to bridge social and
  organisational contexts (HE, KM, HRM)
• The structure should not constrain learning or
  teaching processes

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What problem does TENCompetence resolve?

• Within the set of ideas which I have just
  described, TENCompetence supports people in
• Planning their Life Long Competence development
• Developing their competences
• Engaging with others who might have a use for the
  competences they can offer

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More specifically

• Individuals, groups and organisations create and
  share
• Structures through which competence definitions
  profiles are defined and shared
• Learning opportunities and activities through
  which competences can be developed
• Competence development paths
• Competence development networks to navigate the
  maze of competence paths

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So you want to be a brain surgeon?

• Many competences and professions need to be
  regulated to differing degrees
• At the level of the organisation
• At the level of the state
• At the European or global level
• Need to support their creation, availability,
  development, and integration with each other and
  local needs

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What solutions is the project providing?
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What can we do for the individual in developing
competences?

• What are people expected to do in competence
  development?
• Coordinate and track
• A wide range competence development activities
• In a wide range of contexts
• Varying schedules and patterns of commitment

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But

• Profiles, descriptions and development
  opportunities presented in different ways
• Many identities and applications required
• Separation of contexts (work/leisure,
  formal/informal, learning/teaching)
• Competence acquisition requires physical and
  virtual treks to a series of locations
• But competences can do the coordination be a
  coordinating framework

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The Personal Competence Manager is designed to
help

• Uses service based architecture to create a
  system which
• Gathers competence related information from
  sources at multiple levels
• Presents and edits the information in a context,
  structure and format which is determined by the
  user
• Facilitates the creation of a range of
  interoperable tools

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Personal?

• Personal as in personalised or Personal
  Computer, not just to manage the individuals own
  competences
• A personal Competence Manager
• not
• A Personal Competence manager

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PCM Client-server

• All TENCompetence end user software is
• Open Source, Java (Eclipse), Standards compliant
• Uses interoperability specifications
• The PCM is a rich client application
• Communicates with
• a server developed by the project
• publicly available services (Fickr, Delicious,
  FOAF)

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Other software is also being developed

• Tools are provided for specialised tasks
• Not necessarily for everybody, may be only for
  expert users
• Some will be integrated into the PCM in future
  releases
• Some additional services will be developed and
  integrated

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What does this imply for the design of learning?
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One of things you do in the PCM is design learning

• The decisions made about Competence Development
  Plans and Activities are stored on the server
• These can be
• individual, group or institution.
• shared or private
• They are updated continuously
• No designtime runtime distinction

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Learning Design in the TENCompetence PCM

• IMS LD???
• Competences are equivalent to IMS LD objectives
• The people who support competence development are
  teachers in IMS LD
• A Competence Development Plan is equivalent to a
  Unit of Learning in IMS LD

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Learning Design in the PcM

• In future PCM will output IMS LD (Competences,
  Competence Development Plans)
• A new approach to IMS LD authoring
• a shared, contextualised, real-time system

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But sometimes you need additional tools

• For complex formal competence development actions
  more sophisticated environments are needed
• New LD Authoring Tool is being developed to
  support this
• Integrated with a QTI based assessment editor

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Pre-authoring for Competence Development
Activities

• For people who find this level too technical, a
  pre-authoring system is being developed (see
  Yongwu Miaos paper)
• Integrated with the authoring tool
• Gathers information and requirements
• Generates QTI and IMS LD
• Can be edited further in the editor

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Runtime

• Provision CopperCore from the PCM
• A new protocol for linking runtime services to
  IMS LD has been developed
• It is currently being implemented, and the first
  delivery is scheduled for December 2007
• See our paper http//hdl.handle.net/1820/963

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Designing learning in TENCompetence

• Designing learning in the deeper and wider
  context of Life Long Learning
• IMS Learning Design in a richer context
• More flexibility in the design process
• More (and more flexible) services
• Extends interoperability to the context

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Its going to be an exciting next year or so!

• Official launch of PCM at ePortfolio 2007
• 15th 19th October
• (no LD export or provisioning in this version)
• Version 1 of the LD Authoring tool scheduled for
  October 2007
• Version 1 of the enhanced LD services server
  scheduled for December 2007