Hybrid professional learning networks for knowledge workers

Steven Verjans & Marlies Bitter

Centre for Learning Sciences & Technologies

A matter of perspective – My learning needs

A matter of perspective – Institutional learning needs

A matter of perspective – (Cross)sectoral learning needs

Aspects of (continuous) professional learning

• Individual vs. organisational perspective• Formal vs. informal / non-formal learning• Personal vs. professional?• Agency / locus of control

– Organised vs. self-organised

• Source of content / knowledge• Location and time of learning

Individual learning vs. organisational learning

• Partly overlapping• Individual:

– Continuous professional & personal development

– Keeping up-to-date

• Organisational:– Value creation– Knowledge creation &

management– Innovation / creativity

Formal / informal / non-formal

• Formal– Intentional– (Initial) education / accredited / institutional

• Non-formal– Intentional– In the workplace, on-the-job, with colleagues

• Informal– Not intentional / accidental / implicit

Personal vs. professional

• Professional– Related to current or future work / job /

profession

• Personal– Hobby / personal interest / family

• Boundaries are sometimes blurry

Agency / locus of control

• Individual in control– (Implicitly) determines own goals– Self-organising

• Group in control– Grass roots– Self-organising

• Institution / organisation / company– Managed– Organised / control / support / etc.

Content / knowledge creation and delivery process

• Experts / specialists– Mediated by publisher / editor– Often in a ‘delivery’ paradigm– Formal quality assurance (reviewers, etc.)

• Individuals– Everyone can create and share content– Crowdsourcing / sharing– Quality assurance?!

Location and time of learning

• Location– Institution / school / university– Workplace– Community– Home

• Time– Specific moments (course / workshop)– Continuous (ad hoc / all the time)– Just in time learning

Supporting professional learning

• Integrated in daily work activities• Match with

– Individual learning style– Existing learning strategies– Technological preferences

• Blend of learning modes– Individual / Social / Networked– Face-to-face / Online / Blended– Formal / Informal / Non-formal

Networked learning / connectivism

• Increasing speed of information and knowledge creation– Traditional courses, training sessions, etc.

insufficient

• Increased specialisation across the board– No single person is ‘the expert’– Distributed expertise / cognition– Expert-to-peer & peer-to-peer learning

• Complementary ways of learning needed

Networked learning

Alec Couros(http://educationinnovation.typepad.com/)

Supporting professional learning

• Personal learning environment– Individual as part of an open online network

• People• Artefacts

– Tailored to individual (learning) needs and preferences

• Organisational learning environment– ‘Capturing’ / sharing / controlling

organisational knowledge– Tailored to organisational needs

Personal learning environment (PLE)

Scott Leslie

Issues with PLEs

• Optimal fit with individual learning– vs. organisational or cross-sectoral

• Openness of PLE components– Often perceived as unsafe, too open– Perceived need for safety, trust, access control to

allow sharing of immature ideas

• Transient through use of cloud– vs. persistent (in-house storage)

• For technologically savvy individuals– vs. novices

Managed knowledge / learning environment (MLE)

Tim Hand (2007)

Examples of MLEs for professional learning

• Collaborative projects– Groupware systems– Shared webspaces

• Intra-organisational systems– Document sharing– Intranet– CRM systems

Issues with MLEs

• Controlled, persistent (in house storage)– Inflexible, rigid

• Closedness of MLE systems– Access control, privacy– Internally oriented– Not integrated in day-to-day toolbox

• Pre-structured (explicit) information– Vs. freedom of learning / unpredictability

• Also for novices– Not intuitive for technology savvy individuals

Best of both worlds? Hybrid systems

• Examples:– ALT-C Crowdvine– CCK course– USpace project– Biebkracht.nl (Public libraries – on Drupal)– OUNL e-learning course (on Ning)

Crowdvine

Connectivism & connective knowledge

http://USpace.org.uk

Public libraries

OUNL e-learning course

Tim Hand (2007)

Aspects of hybrid networking systems

• Organisational control– Local server (persistence)– Outside feeds are stored– Access control can be implemented

• Individual freedom / flexibility– PLE users can ‘inject’ (selective) feeds from

external tools, such as Twitter, blog, etc– MLE users can use ‘internal’ tools, but

choose to ‘publish’ contributions

Aspects of hybrid networking systems

• Offer maximum user control within organisational control boundaries– Self-management:

• User profile, contacts, external feeds, etc.

– Self-organisation:• Create subgroups / teams• Free tagging / structuring of contributions

– Access control:• Private, limited, public

Aspects of hybrid networking systems

• Scaffolding– Safe, low complexity environment for novices

(only use internal MLE tools)– Medium complexity: e.g. use internal MLE

blogging tool, but external social bookmarking, or export feed of public contributions

– Full complexity: use your own PLE, but ‘inject’ your learning into the MLE

Q&A

• http://www.netvibes.com/sverjans/ • http://twitter.com/sverjans• http://slideshare.net/sverjans/

• http://celstec.org/• http://portal.ou.nl/