In the clouds again

Tonight I'm travelling up to Loughborough University to speak at tomorrow's Google Apps for Education User Group meeting. Together with the University of Portsmouth's Manish Malik I will be presenting a paper on our latest thinking around Cloud Learning Environments. Other speakers include Tony Hirst and Niall Sclater (both at the Open University), Nick Skelton (University of Bristol) and presided over by Martin Hamilton (Loughborough University). You can follow the entire day's proceedings by checking the Twitter hashtag #guug11. Here's our abstract:

Manish Malik (Faculty Learning and Teaching Coordinator at the University of Portsmouth) and Steve Wheeler (Associate Professor of Learning Technology at the University of Plymouth) discuss the recent developments and the patterns emerging within the CMS/LMS/VLE product sector. From BB & Moodle 1.0 to BBoogle & Moodle 2.0/Google to Sakai 3.0/Canvas to a GApps based learning environment. Also they highlight and demo an application that shows the potential that Google Apps and other loosely coupled Web 2.0 services have in creating an open Virtual Learning Environment that is cloud based or a "Cloud Learning Environment."

Image source by Marcos Papapopolus


In the clouds again by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Beyond Control?

A recent ALT Conference ran under the banner of 'Beyond Control', and I remember writing the editorial for the research proceedings along the lines that the net generation (whoever they are) has been operating largely outside the boundaries of instutional technology provision for some time. More and more students own their own laptops and mobile phones, and they do not take kindly to being told how they should use the Internet. Last week's e-learning conference in Plymouth had a similar title 'Crossing Boundaries' which also elicited a similar set of themed papers on student activities that are conducted largely outside of institutional boundaries. One of my recent publications dealing with this subject is a chapter that appears in the book 'Effective Blended Learning Practices' Edited by Elizabeth Stacey and Phillipa Gerbic. There is limited access to it on Google Books, but it's another of those overpriced IGI Global books I'm afraid. At £135.50 I don't expect many to buy it, but there are some valuable chapters contained therein and I would like to share one or two of those ideas with you here. In my chapter I critically review some of the recent uses of the Learning Management System (LMS) in universities and ask who the systems have been designed for. Is it the institution or the student? Here's an abstract:

The Learning Management System is not always popular with students, for a number of reasons. Students report that they experience difficulties with technical issues (Weller et al, 2005), lack of familiarity with the system (McGill & Hobbs, 2007), and discussion overload (Kear & Heap, 2007), and this is not an exhaustive list. Furthermore, the LMS is facing competition for student ‘online time’ from a more attractive and rapidly growing rival – social networking. Where the LMS invariably has the appearance of an institutional system – branded logo, controlled log-in and passwords, uninspiring topography and bland presentation – the more popular social networking tools ..... are more colourful and attractive, can be more or less tailored to personal preferences, and are beyond the control and surveillance of the university.


The point I wish to underline is the institution imposes the LMS on staff and students with little consultation with the true stakeholders. This leads me to believe that the LMS is primarily there for the benefit of the institution rather than for the student. It is there to impose control, but the battle for control is being lost, because...


...today’s generation of students expect and seek out highly interactive experiences, involving muti-tasking, self-selection of learning material and fast-moving engagement with their enviroment which centres upon play, user-generation of content and collaboration. We might conclude that the insitutional LMS is simply failing to keep pace which the new demands from the network generation, so students are migrating to social networking sites to supplement their on-line experiences.


The institutional LMS is failing because its design curtails creativity and constrains students (and tutors) to think in a particular way. There is no latitude for informal learning either, because this is not what an LMS does. So students are populating social networking and Web 2.0 tools in greater numbers every week, and all of their activities are beyond the reach of the institution. Universities can if they wish, ban access to Facebook, YouTube and other popular sites across their networks, but students will still find ways to continue to gossip, share images, tag and otherwise interact beyond the control of the institute. They will do it because they enjoy it, and because it also provides something that the institutional LMS can never do: Social networks provide a place where students can relax, have fun and chat with friends who are inside and outside of the university they are studying in. My conclusion?


It is highly likely that a compromise will be required if blended technology supported learning is to improve its track record. Future deployments of online learning environments are likely to have elements of both systems within the architecture of the LMS.


Image source

Buses, blogging and breakfast

It all started during my visit to Utrecht to speak at the Bazaar conference last month. Coming out of the railway station at Utrecht, I caught a public bus, which I was assured by the driver, would stop just outside my hotel. It was dark and getting very cold by now, as it always does in Holland in mid-December. I asked the Dutch driver if he would be so kind to indicate to me when he reached my stop. "Yah, of coursh", he said.

A dozen stops later, and I was getting worried. I asked the driver when my stop would be coming up. "It'sh two shtops back" he informed me.......

I was livid. But of course, being British, I didn't show it. I got off at the next stop and started the long walk back to where I thought my hotel was. After over half an hour trudging about in steadily dropping temperatures, I realised I was hopelessly lost in a strange town, with no decent map to guide me. No-one knew where my hotel was. I was getting cold and tired and beginning to despair of ever seeing a warm bed for the night...

Then joy of joys.... I chanced across a car-park attendant who was very helpful. He showed me the map, and said I was miles away from where I should be. Then he called me a taxi. (Frankly, he could have called me any name he liked at this point, I was past caring...). The taxi arrived and I jumped in, and within 5 minutes was at my hotel. Wonderful.

Got me thinking. At breakfast on the last day, I found myself talking to some colleagues including my newest German buddy Kristina Hoeppner. I was holding court about my views on LMSs versus PLEs and likened Learning Management Systems to public buses, which have prescribed ways of operating, and cater more for timetables and costs than they do for the needs of individuals. Drawing on my experience a few nights before, I said I thought that Personalised Learning Environments were more like taxis - you could get them to go in exactly the direction you wished, making them more flexible and personalised.

Kristina brought this all back to me when I read her blog yesterday. (Thanks for reminding me what I said Kristina - I may have forgotton this little analogy otherwise!) It's nice to be mentioned in dispatches but it sure makes you think - if a conversation over coffee and croissants can be blogged to all and sundry, I'd better be a little careful what I say in public in future.