Elizabeth A Hartnell-Young

Joining up the Episodes of Lifelong Learning: A Regional Transition Project.

In this paper, we explore the rationale, process and outcomes of the Regional Interoperability Project on Progression for Lifelong Learning, a project that established a model of cross-sector collaboration in personal development planning technology in the UK. With specific reference to the widening participation agenda, and grounded in the perspective of lifelong learners, the project tested an approach in which discrete nodes of an individual’s learning journey are joined up through technology services. The paper describes the development of conceptual and practical tools to assist transitions between various communities of learning. A set of scenarios was developed, involving study to study and study to employment, while practical tools included development of UK LeaP draft interoperability standard (BS8788)-compliant links between ePortfolio software, and the actual test transfer of data. The results indicate that recognising the smallest individual elements in the process is important, both in a technical sense and as a means of personalising learning and assisting transition between sectors. Through developing connections between these elements, the project partners engaged in lifelong learning.

Lifeblog: a new concept in mobile learning?

In this paper we report early findings from a sample of Australian participants using Nokias Lifeblog software on mobile phones to record aspects of living and learning in both formal and informal settings. We take the view that learning is the process people engage in when they are making meaning and constructing knowledge. The Lifeblog software affords new opportunities to capture, manipulate and communicate daily events and thoughts that assist in making meaning in individual and collective contexts. We aim to link this with the emerging phenomena of digital story telling and ePortfolios, which are both examples of learners actively creating digital material for an audience, rather than passively receiving information. Findings to date indicate that the creative capacity of the mobile phones is not frequently encouraged informal educational settings.

The converged appliance: I love it... but I hate it

The last decade has seen convergence marketed as one response to the challenge of users having to juggle an increasingly wide array of digital services, technologies and media. Key to this view is the assumption that by converging computer devices, and digital media, the value of technology for end users can be maximised whilst the overheads involved in purchasing, maintaining and orchestrating a variety of different technology solutions can be minimised. In contrast however, some authors have argued that convergence creates weak-general solutions, and rather we should be aiming for strong-specific technology by means of the deliberate design of multiple diverged devices. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of convergence and divergence. We discuss three apparently irreconcilable perspectives on the relationship between functionality and usability, and show that they are in fact complementary views of convergence. To ground this discussion we draw on the results of a recent cultural probes study of a cohort of early adopters of converged devices.

From facilitator to knowledge-builder: a new role for the teacher of the future

The influence of constructivism and the spread of information and communication technologies (ICT) in classrooms are both expected to change the role of the teacher in the classroom from the expert dispensing knowledge to the facilitator of student learning (Dwyer, Ringstaff, & Sandholtz, 1991; Hadley & Sheingold, 1993; Ravitz, Becker, & Wong, 2000). In such a student-centred classroom the teacher is expected to understand individual learning styles and appropriate means to scaffold learning while social constructivism emphasises student collaboration and interaction with the learning context. The notion of the teacher as facilitator in a student-centred classroom may have been useful to progress pedagogical thinking, but limits attempts to create a knowledge-building community which requires social relations to be reconceptualised. Some suggest that the focus should be on learning-centredness (Marzano, 1992) and many teachers using ICT are happy to acknowledge that they are themselves learners rather than experts. Further, economic and educational imperatives, and the frequent complaint that teachers have “no time” now require that teachers engage in a community of practice where their own learning activities are purposeful and authentic because they are situated within their work (Brown & Campione, 1994; Lave & Wenger, 1994). This community can include teachers and students as co-learners, while technology as a communication medium opens up the possibility for collaboration within and across schools and with other learning partners locally and internationally. (The terms “learning” and “knowledge-building” are used with similar meaning in this paper.)

The importance of teaching roles when introducing Personal Digital Assistants in a Year 6 classroom

This paper analyses the experience of a teacher and her Year 6 class (10–11 year‐olds) over a school year, while participating in a pilot project introducing Personal Digital Assistants as a learning tool. The intervention was initiated and supported by the local City Learning Centre, which was concerned with how best to use technologies for learning, and the teacher was prepared to take risks to learn how to use the technology and apply it within the national curriculum. This paper focuses on the roles the teacher played in designing, managing and mediating multi‐modal approaches to teaching and learning, while meeting the curriculum requirements. Her creative approach was rewarded with high levels of student engagement, motivation and autonomy across the class, and higher than expected results in the national tests.

Learning for Teaching: Building Professional Knowledge on a National Scale.

This paper takes a large-scale social perspective in describing a national project in Australia that was premised on local school communities working together and contributing ideas for the benefit of their students, and potentially, the whole country. The project was intended to improve schools’ capacity for educating boys, and in the long-term, the learning outcomes of under-performing boys, using evidence-based and action research methods. It was supported by the web spaces and tools of the National Quality Schooling Framework and Think.com. This paper emphasises the structures and processes teachers engaged in while building knowledge through their daily work, where the resulting ideas became the property of the whole community. Analyses focus on the extent to which an underlying social structure for knowledge building developed in various parts of the nation during the project, making it possible to characterize a process for innovations in education with commitment to continual idea improvement. Resume Le present article adopte une perspective sociale a grande echelle pour decrire un projet national en Australie fonde sur la collaboration des communautes scolaires locales et leur contribution d’idees au benefice de leurs eleves et, eventuellement, de l’ensemble du pays. Le projet avait pour but de rendre les ecoles plus aptes a eduquer les garcons et, a long terme, d’ameliorer les resultats d’apprentissage des garcons qui sous-performent a l’aide de methodes de recherche-action fondees sur des donnees probantes. Il a beneficie du soutien des espaces et des outils Web du National Quality Schooling Framework et de Think.com. Le present article met l’accent sur les structures et les processus que les enseignants ont utilises dans leur travail quotidien pour la coelaboration de connaissances; les idees qui en ont resulte sont par la suite devenues la propriete de l’ensemble de la communaute. Les analyses portent principalement sur la mesure dans laquelle une structure sociale sous-jacente de coelaboration des connaissances s’est developpee en differents endroits de la nation au cours du projet, ce qui rend possible la caracterisation d’un processus d’innovation en education avec un engagement envers l’amelioration continue.

Technology to Improve Assessments of Learning in Class, School and Nation

This chapter considers the current education policy context in Australia, including the high level of technology provision and use and an increasingly national approach to curriculum, teaching and assessment. It argues that to meet the first Professional Standard—“know students and how they learn”—teachers can be strongly supported by assessments conducted through technologies. The view of assessment in this case is not one of ranking and sorting, but a growth mindset, where teachers see their role as enabling learners to demonstrate growth over time. It describes elements of a Learning Assessment System to support this growth, and how technology assists teachers by providing feedback efficiently. It includes examples of schools working with researchers, government and industry to implement assessment tools that meet their needs. Finally it argues that while teachers must take a position regarding the purpose of assessment and play a role in the developments involving technology, the scope of the task is so great that it requires collaboration locally and globally.

Supporting learning communities for children on Think.com

This paper considers the extent to which the free, password-protected online community environment of the Oracle Education Foundations Think.com supports childrens learning. Using an interpretive approach, we analysed the uses of the environment within a broad frame of digital literacies, social interaction and facilitated collaboration, in order to identify potential for, and instances of, learning. We found that many children engaged readily with the site to display a range of digital literacies and to communicate with others, and that teachers and facilitators played a powerful role in mediating learning, managing the communities, setting guidelines for participation, and linking students with outside experts. There is, however, scope for richer learning which is yet to be developed.