ASCILITE 2008
It’s nice to be back in Melbourne for the ASCILITE Conference. It was so much more meaningful for me this year, as I have had nearly three months of ICT on-the-job training since Singapore, 2007. So much of the talk is relevant to our research project into personal learning environments and Web 2.0 enabled social media. Interestingly, the various definitions of PLEs are surfacing. For some, it means customization of the existing LMS. We cannot assume a common understanding of the terminology. We will need to take care to discuss our work in the context of our own definitions, at least until it all settles itself through common usage.
My colleagues and I are satisfied that our little presentations were well received. It was encouraging for me to see a small but enthusiastic fan club in the audience of former work colleagues from Swinburne University. (Thanks, guys – especially the bit where you publicly congratulated us on our project!) My project partner, Nathaniel, has made some good contacts as a result of his presentation. There apparently are others out there who want to explore learner-centered pedagogy using platforms outside of the LMS. It seems that the universal difficulty is getting organisations to take their proverbial hand off the LMS control stick. Incidental discussion at this conference has indicated that the institutions, especially (and ironically) the technology divisions controlling the LMSs, are recalcitrant when it comes to shifting the center of learning management to the users. And of course there are logistical and pedagogical challenges associated with such change, which will need to be investigated. But already, there is an irresistible transition taking place. Novices like me, who used to hate being forced to be technically consistent and accurate, and therefore resisted technology, are now being creatively empowered by opportunities to control their own learning tools. I love it. Web 2.0 could draw in a whole new cohort of “end-users” who rather than doggedly “bringing up the rear” for the ICT task masters, can now venture forth as pioneers and leaders of their own experiential learning.
The session on second-life machinimas was inspiring. I really want to do something along those lines within my PLE. Now I just have to learn how to do it. The good thing is that the learning won’t hurt because the relevance of what I want to create will be ever-present throughout my transformation.
I wonder if I could blog with machinimas? Groovy. Watch this space.
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:50 am
G’day Jocene,
Glad to hear that ASCILITE had some value. Hope to hear all about it on Friday afternoon.
I find your point about how the idea of the PLE might be more appealing to folk, who like yourself, hate being consistent and constrained is a very interesting insight and would be very interesting to investigate further.
A lot of the PLE stuff (our understanding/definition) is based on short-comings of the LMS. But it’s tended to focus on limitations of the technology and the pedagogies it enables/constrains. I’m not aware of much of it focusing on potential mismatches between the technology and a group of users.
David.