Context-specific ROLE visions: Formal higher education, Life Long Learning, .. PLE conference 2010

© www.role-project.eu

Formal higher educationworkplace learning

Lifelong learning

Sylvana Kroop

PLE 2010 conference, Barcelona

Context-specific ROLE visions:

07.07.2010 © www.role-project.eu

Content:

→ The ROLE approach

→ The current use of Web 2.0 tools & learning activities in higher education

→ The future ROLE challenge in higher education


The ROLE approach


Discussion on the ROLE vision: tag cloud

formal higher education, informal learningworkplace learning, lifelong learning, social learning

highly adaptable to individual needsopenness, intelligent Recommender system

based on social interactions, responsiveness

self-directed learning, freedom & guidance

mash-up of widgets, usability

Impressions of the first ROLE Vision Sharing Workshop in Vienna (May 2009): http://www.role-project.eu/Videos


Lifelong learning → is not seen as a program but as a concept that is based on social interaction: someone is learning all time while s/he has to deal with the consequences of his/her actions.

Openness: It is an open source system for everyone to use. Everyone can join to give his/her input, develop and extend the system.

Responsiveness: The system supports a quick intelligent response (individually-adapted recommendations, content, elements and tools) related to the learner’s individual needs. The response is essentially created from the users’ interactions with the system.

The ROLE approach

The ROLE approach:

Impressions of the first ROLE Vision Sharing Workshop in Vienna (May 2009): http://www.role-project.eu/Videos


The ROLE approach

Survey of learning-related services (July 2009): http://www.role-project.eu/Deliverables

A user can individually select and aggregate their favourite tools & content. This should help to empower the learner in taking control over their own learning processes - as well as stimulating self-directed learning.


The ROLE approach

Self-directed learning:• A mission of our project is to not only target gifted learners,

whose personal attitude is already based on self-directed and self-organized learning.

• Self-directed learning is seen as something that can be inspired and supported by an appropriate learning environment.

Survey of learning-related services (July 2009): http://www.role-project.eu/Deliverables


The current use of

Web 2.0 tools & learning activities

in higher education


The current Web 2.0 use in higher education

What are the most used Web 2.0 tools of students?

Literature / Study review: “Learning with Web 2.0” (www.hisbus.de)



What are the most used Web 2.0 tools of students?

Online-panel:- 4.400 students

(= 40% response rate)

- enquiry period:

09/2008-10/2008

- only German students

- students have been

recruited offline

- representative study

for the basic population

of students in Germany



Web 2.0 learning activities & their usage:→ How often do you use the following possibilities in Wikipedia?

reading articles

writing new articles

reworking existing articles

contributing to discussions on articles



often neverOnline-panel:- 4.400 students


- enquiry period:

09/2008-10/2008



recruited offline





How reliable do you think are the information of the following online-lexica?



Online-panel:- 4.400 students


- enquiry period:

09/2008-10/2008



recruited offline





Conclusion:• Most used and considered most reliable information resources are …

→ Web 2.0 applications (everyone can participate)

→ they are popular worldwide

Potential:• Web 2.0 provides a lot of (social innovative) learning activities which are most

welcome to stimulate self-directed learning & reflection as well as critical thinking• A user is invited to not just remain in a passive consumer-mode, reading articles,

but more over to become active through disputing, revising, reviewing, assessing and producing articles

Problem:• these Web 2.0 learning activities are barely used:

→ there is little reflection about the reliability of information resources

→ the popularity (of a Web 2.0 tool) seems to be decisive in order to be attributed as most reliable resource

• no critical thinking




Boundaries in formal higher education:• Web 2.0 learning activities are barely supported in formal higher education• The usage of Web 2.0 tools is mostly learned informal• Web 2.0 learning activities are in general not accredited at universities• Although every student should be educated in self-directed learning, which includes

learning to distinguish between good and bad knowledge resources, Wikipedia is mostly rejected a-priori.

• Although Wikipedia is forbidden at universities every student is reading and using it

Reasons:• For teaching staff it is mostly unclear how to deal with Wikipedia

→ the simplest way is to ban it

→ “Students need simple & clear rules! To not use the Wikipedia is a simple rule!”

• Traditional learning activities are: read given learning material, writing sth.

→ students are not used to review and assess the work of peers

• There is no system that motivates & appreciates Web 2.0 learning activities


The future ROLE challenge

in higher education


Overall learning objectives at universities are:

• reflection, critical thinking, self-directed & self-organised learning

→ these are even more important competencies in a society with a continuously growing amount of accessible information

Use of Web 2.0 learning activities:• Web 2.0 has the potential to

support these learning objectives, but this potential is not used.

The future ROLE challenge in higher education

→ openness, responsiveness

Use the Web 2.0 potential:• Learners should not only aggregate

widgets, tools & services but also be support and empowered to collaborate, discuss, reflect, and think critical.

• Learners should know how to deal and assess the quality of information in a knowledge society.

• The interactions between learners are becoming more important than ever.

• The creation and usage of desirable learning activities should be stimulated by an pedagogically well founded incentive system.

Existing formal HE ROLE challenge:

ROLE Recommender system: the recommendation of learning activities differs between experts & novices, between freedom & guidance

learner should understand and control own learning process

ROLE infrastructure should provide adaptive guidance

Education

Context-specific ROLE visions: Formal higher education, Life Long Learning, .. PLE conference 2010