The learning now arriving at platform…
15th January, 2007It is not surprising that as the e-learning strategy requires schools to have a learning platform by 2008 that the BETT Show 2007 should feature Learning Platforms. Platforms conjure up a depressing picture of waiting for delayed trains Birmingham New Street (if Hell was cold it would be…..) – a place to be endured. Just once in a while platform recalls the station in Otranto – where, in August 1970, the stationmaster treated a couple of forlorn backpackers to wine, cheese, bread and olives. It can mean an arrival at somewhere exciting…. But in this case, I fear not.
The Learning Platform provision is a realisation of the dystopian view of ICT and education that Frank Webster and Kevin Robbins have warned us against since 1986. Webster and Robbins have suggested that the main thrust of application of ICT in education is an updated version of Henry Ford’s production method (neo-Fordism) to education. It maps onto a view that Ken Boston presented at a Futurelab conference that there are 3 phases to introducing ICT – first it is to use applications like word processing as a glass typewriter, in the second phase we automate our current practice. It is not until we reach a third phase do we transform your practice. Learning platforms are SO second phase.
At worst the Leaning Platform mentality is about tracking, delivery, assessment, recording… it is a production line, sausage machine vision of education. There is a paradox here. Just as we are waking up to Web 2.0 – the do-it-yourself-but-with-a-lot-of-others web we propose a highly constrained system for school. I am all for letting the computer take on a lot of the administrative load – however most learning platforms do come with a pre-defined neo-Fordist pedagogic model (even if its developers do not realise it). I am all for managed learning- but I would like to see learners doing some of the management. We already have a platform – it is a computer linked to the internet. We have an abundance of tools for working together. Interoperability comes from TCP/IP, XML and the HTML protocols. It is a point of departure to many exciting places.
The tools that are being produced for social software and web 2.0 applications develop almost organically, interoperate where needed (RSS feeds are wonderful) and respond to emerging needs. They do not try to predetermine what is needed by a platform or demand that a questionable vision of an education and training technical standard needs to be adhered to. These tools are responses to perceived user needs and vanish if they do not meet them. These systems take real advantage of the transformational power of the internet and do not propose to impose old ways of thinking onto it.
Educationists should consider embracing the small pieces , loosely joined mentality. The idea that we need an electronic learning factory is so out of touch with the real needs of our times that Rose has described.
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January 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Fantastic contribution Martin, I’m glad that someone has the balls to stand up and say that the learning platforms approved by BECTA are all very “sausage factory”! The only learning platform I have used which manages to put the learner towards the centre of the learning experience is Moodle. While of course Moodle does not take a completely personalised approach (it relies on pre-organised courses) it is flexible enough for us to present learners with a variety of options and activities to achieve their own outcomes. ELGG seems to be the only truly non-linear approach to building a collaborative learning environment with an emphasis on community and self direction. Neither ELGG or Moodle are utilised by any of the approved companies.
What advice would you give schools wishing to utilise small pieces of loosely joined technology?
The most useful research I’ve read (http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/01/01/ephemeral_profi.html )shows that teenagers are quite comfortable with using disposable identities for websites. If they forget a password they often just create a new account and start afresh, they often recreate information rather than share it between sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Facebook etc. I realise the failings of the terms digital imigrant and native but young poeple do display nomadic traits, visiting a website frequently for a short time - using it’s resources & experiences then moving on to another engaging site.
We are currently looking at ways to integrate these smaller, time limited, free experiences into our teaching programmes - rather than building large, permanent, online structures for students. For example a single lesson (or experience) using PBWiki or MapWing instead of investing time building lasting web applications.
Flux is proving to be fresh, insightful & timely. Thanks.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Thanks for this article which I’ll share at school.
The sausage factory anology is given further credence by the requirement that the VLE needs to link to the school’s database, thus precluding in our case the use of Moodle.
Probably the most depressing teaching experience last year was an INSET at which one of the VLE companies pitched their product. The language used was precisely as your article describes. The salesman made a point of demonstrating a little icon to tell the student how far through the course they had progressed. (Or maybe how far the teacher had progressed) The platform was clearly designed to host content from a learning provider and I left feeling totally disillusioned and determined to try and evangelize the alternatives.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Many thanks for the article Martin. I have many of the same feelings and reservations about some platforms that are commercially available. I think many schools would be far better off spending the many thousands of pounds these platforms cost on investing on the ICT infrastructure they have in schools, and on training their teachers to use their present network effectively. Training teachers how to create their own teaching resources, would be far more effective than using expensive platforms to deliver ‘ready made’ content that might not be suitable to the way that teacher teaches. I’m beginning to understand why Becta picked that particular list of approved suppliers, and not include a product such as Moodle. Could it be that Moodle doesn’t fit into the secondary school model of teaching, whereas the other products do? Moodle is about social constructivism, where students gain a deeper form learning by discussing, debating, bouncing ideas amongst a group of fellow learners, during a time that suits them. Whereas the other platforms are about delivering content, in the class and then testing to see what they remembered. I know which method I would rather use to gain a deeper understanding of a subject and it doesn’t cost thousands of pounds.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
[...] Flux » Articles » The learning now arriving at platform… [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I was pleasantly surprised at seeing the thin end of the wedge which will undoubtedly split the idea of the ‘Platform’ wide open. I work in educational research and have observed endless attempts to launch ‘platforms of one kind and another, all of which fail due to lack of the essential commodity - attention (an insight which I owe to Riel Miller). Simple arithmetic dictates that a proliferation of channels or websites amongst a limited target audience will lead to a reduction in attention to any individual site. We have just started educating our son at home due to the limitations of the French ‘platform’ (sorry education system). All you need for this is a powerbook and an internet connection. Everything else is already out there and the learning occurs precisely in the ‘bricolage’ necessary to search out and cobble together what you need. Packaging or platforming is simply a waste of resources and I’m glad to see someone saying so!
February 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Whilst I agree that commercial VLEs at present are designed for, and are often used by teachers as, sausage machines for pushing students through I think the ‘distributed’ model is also flawed.
I work at the bleeding edge of elearning (or TEL if such things as buzz word acronyms are important to you :) ) and I’m constantly mixing together tools to produce educational experiences. However, I don’t find a VLE a constraint, especially Moodle where I can get under the hood. I use it for forums or seeing what students seem to have disappeared off the planet and link from the VLE to all the other course elements out on the native web.
Meanwhile, for those of medium or low elearning skill and needs, the VLE is a God send. If you use Moodle it manages forums, content, tracking and has lots of support documents and contextual help to support those of low IT literacy with putting together and running a course. You can support and train users at an institutional level as they are all using the same tool.
I think we should move to modular, OS VLEs like Moodle and avoid throw the baby out with the bathwater by thinking VLEs are necessarily evil.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Nice contribution, Martin. Platform, content, delivery - these are a few of my least-favourite things…. BUT…
£41 million of learning platforms are going to be with us - or rather the schools we work with. So the question should now be how are we going to ensure that they incorporate 21st century web 2.0 thinking alongside the 19th century industrial metaphor?
I think there are enough of us with this perspective to make a difference - and a number of them feature in your august panel… or are in their social networks….!
February 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
[...] There’s a thoughtful article about learning platforms by Martin Owen over at Futurelab’s Flux blog. [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I am sorry but that won’t do. We have been using Moodle at my school over a year and it allows us to have a class where 24 students are following 5 units and up to 6 units in each one plus working on a wide array of documents. An ordinary class all do the same thing at the same time. It cripples the cleverest and leaves the weakest with a permanent sense of defeat, now that is a sausage factory or a procrustean bed to be precise.
The VLEs offer the beginnings of personalisation, there is much more to do but for those of us who make our living teaching the young they are the beginnings of a positive change.