The furure of ple
- 1. The Future of Online Learning and
Personal Learning Environments
Stephen Downes April 18, 2007
- 2. Online Learning
• Has been around since 1995 or so
• Really grew with the World Wide Web
• Has advanced tremendously
Many positive developments in the
last few years worth sharing…
- 3. Open Source Applications
• Learning Management Systems
such as Moodle, Sakai, Bodington, ATutor
• Development and CommunityTools
such as LAMS, Connexions, ELGG, Drupal,
WordPress
• Supporting Software
such as Firefox, Thunderbird,
OpenOffice, Audacity
- 4. Open Educational Resources
• MIT’s OpenCourseWare project
and the OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Open University’s Open Courses
• OER initiatives
Hewlett, Wellcome, OECD, UNESCO
• Creative Commons and CC materials
in Flickr, Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, Wikiversity, etc.
- 5. New Environments
• Multimedia explosion
podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube, Slideshare, more
• Mobile computing
mobile phones, PDAs, etc.
• The 3D web
Second Life is a start, we will see more of this
- 6. Access…
• One-to-one computing
such as the Maine laptop project,
now spreading rapidly
• One Laptop per Child
has launched –
computers in Nigeria
• Wireless access
3G networks, WLAN…
- 7. It looks like nothing before…
– Like open source
– Like Social Networks
– Like blogs and blogging
– Like wikis and collaborative
writing
– Like tagging and Digg
and…
It looks like Web 2.0
Stallman
The Internet of 2007
- 8. The Concept…
• Learning is centered around the interests
of the learner
• This learning is immersive – learning by
doing
• The computer connects the student to the
rest of the world
- 9. Game Based Learning
Types: Branching, Spreadsheet, Game,
Lab…
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/view.cgi?dbs=Article&key=11162
- 11. Online Learning at the Crossroads
• On the one hand – we have developed
tools and systems intended to support
traditional classroom based learning
• On the other hand – we could (should?)
be developing tools and systems to
support immersive learning
• We should be developing for dynamic,
immersive, living systems…
- 13. Web 2.0: The Learning Network
• The e-Portfolio lives in the intersection
between the worlds for education, work,
and home
• A model for e-Portfolio as a learner-
managed construct
• Key requirement is easy-to-use tools and
hosting services*
• *E.g. the “e-Portfolio-as-blog” approach
Scott Wilson:
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/entries/20050523083528
- 14. The Idea of the PLE…
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/ple/resources/edf.ppt
- 21. The old way – use descriptions
• Dublin Core
• Learning Object Metadata
http://www.capuano.biz/Papers/ITS%202000/ITS%202000.htm
- 22. The New Way: Recommender Systems
The idea is that associations are mapped
between:
• User profile – properties of given users
• Resource profile – properties of the
resource
• Previous evaluations of other resources
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/projecting-quality
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/quality-standards-its-all-about-teaching-and-learning/
- 24. Finding Resources is like Finding
Patterns in the Mesh
the knowledge is in the network
the knowledge is the network
Old: universals
– rules
– categories
New: patterns
– patterns
– similarities
Tenenbaumhttp://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.tenenbaum.html
- 26. stands for?
Or is caused by?
Distributed Representation
= a pattern of connectivity
Hopfield
- 30. Network Learning…
• Hebbian associationism
• based on concurrency
• Back propagation
• based on desired outcome
• Boltzman
• based on ‘settling’, annealing
This…
- 33. We can get an idea of what the PLE looks like
by drilling down into the pieces…
Model
- conceptual frameworks
- wiki (wiki API, RSS)
- concept maps (SVG, mapping format)
- gliffy (SVG?)
- reference frameworks
- Wikipedia
- video / 2L 3D representation – embedded
spaces
The question is – how to
transport and represent
models that are actually
used?
- 34. Demonstrate
- reference examples
- code library
- image samples
- thought processes
- show experts at work (Chaos Manor)
- application
- case studies
- stories
The question is, how
can we connect the
learner with the
community at work?
- 35. Practice
- scaffolded practice
- game interfaces
- sandboxes
- job aids
- flash cards
- cheat sheets
- games and simulations
- mod kits
- mmorpgs
The question is, how can
we enable access to
multiple environments
that support various
activities?
- 36. Reflection
- guided reflection
- forms-based input
- presentations and seminars
- journaling
- blogs, wikis
- communities
- discussion, sharing
The question is, how can we
assist people to see
themselves, their practice, in
a mirror?
- 37. Choice – Identity - Creativity
- simulated or actual environments
that present tasks or problems
- OpenID, authentication, feature or
profile development
- Portfolios & creative libraries
People talk about ‘motivation’
– but the real issue here is
ownership