In formal learning in the blended mix

anything new?or

a corporate bandwagon for trainers and e-vendors?

a cost effective cut-back on estate?

an exciting new landscape of pods and virtual spaces?

a turn to liberating pedagogies?

Image: supernova

Blended, crushed and pulverised . . .?

WebCT Vista, the industry's premier Academic Enterprise System (AES), is

specifically built to address the mission-critical challenges of enterprise-

scale deployment. WebCT Vista provides a state-of-the-art teaching and

learning environment that streamlines course management for faculty,

offers capabilities to help improve student outcomes, and creates powerful

efficiencies institution-wide …

At the institutional level, WebCT Vista offers an enterprise-wide solution for

institutions to fully leverage their content and learning assets, reliably

scale their e-learning environment and support the growing needs of

diverse constituencies.

webct

MMU is committed to e-learning, with an MLE that will provide a sound e-learning structure...

e-learning at MMU ... is now ubiquitous and mainstream.

MMU has agreed the use of a single VLE ... to support a high quality location-independent experience for staff and students that encourages and stimulates

independent, autonomous learners.

E-benchmarking Report

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiphey/31092052/

And the learners?

In the WebCT model the students 'belong' to us, log-in to us, navigate according to our decisions, publish at our discretion on our server ... 

We have control and they get … a rather lonely learning experience

And very different to their other digital learning experiences

Fully half of all teens and

57% of teens who use the

internet could be

considered content

creators, according to a

survey by Pew Internet

and American Life Project.

By the time he or she has

reached 21 years of age, the

average NetGener will have

spent:

10,000 hours playing video

games,

200,000 e-mails,

20,000 hours watching TV,

10,000 hours on cell phones, and

under 5,000 hours reading

(Bonamici et al. 2005).

Digital natives

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=195492568&size=m

The gamer’s learning style

Ignores any hint of formal instruction. They are self-directed learners.

Includes trial and error and approaching a problem from different angles.

Relies heavily on learning from peers with a distrust of information from authorities.

Focuses on small, focused bits of information

Demands just-in-time information. They don’t want to learn about what they might need.

Is not focused on books and reading.

Karl Kapp

informal learning

the degree of informality of learning is the degree to which you have been told what to do

i.e. informal learning by definition can only be influenced by creating an environment and not by direct instruction.

juliette white

Informal learning is social

communication

conversation

connection

community

Does webct take all this on board?

Social software is something that can support communication, conversation, connection, and community

blogs

Adding the blog to webct

Content blog

http://feed2js.org/

Keeping track - rss

http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Getting it into webct

But what a faff!

Warwick university has hosted its own blogging service since 2005

4593 blogs

91990 entries

14798 tags

194081 comments

111162 images

Brighton & Elgg

Easier to use a Wiki

Where are we now …? Bewildered, confused …?

Why do we always want to integrate and

standardise?

Might separate tools be better?

The whole thing then becomes a learning

experience – changing technologies

picking and choosing the most

appropriate for you and the task.

Image: JakeBrewer

Isn’t this the students’ elearning system?Is it yours?

And content?

A question of content

A question of content

If content is becoming an almost free commodity - should we be basing our elearning work on it?

Should we be teaching students different skills using a different pedagogy?

Blended, crushed and pulverised . . .?

management learning systems

digitalising classrooms

formal learning

personal learning environments

connecting and extending ideas through the power of networks

informal learning exploiting a variety of technologies

Webct vista?

Formal learning spaces

Learning for the masses

Competitive

Restricted and constructed

All about instruction

lecturers content

Management learning systems

Digitising the classroom

Informal learning spaces

Personal learning

Collaborative

Creative and extended

Personal authorship

Knowledge and understanding

Personal learning spaces using

powerful networks