Marita Ljungqvist's Library tagged no_tag →  View Popular

Technology undermined certain business models that sustained the music industry, but the threat was not to music itself, only to the way that current business models worked. New ways of creating and finding music had been made possible.

It is no use lamenting the golden age of universities (or record companies). The goals of the two ‘industries’ remain the same, but they must refocus on how to achieve them. Society’s aspirations for the sector remain the same. The challenge for institutions is to find the way to do it. [p.11]

While strongly advocating the pursuit of openness, the report argues that the role of the university is shifting from being sole providers of higher learning to becoming partners in the creation and validation of knowledge and reputation. Universities are ‘resource providers’, with expertise which can ‘validate learning’.

Their reputations, networks and spaces are a driving force for research and collaboration… Their value is their institutional capital – the spaces they create for learning, the validation they provide for learning and research, and the returns people get from it… Universities have to rediscover their value to knowledgeseekers in a world where information is ubiquitous. Their presence across these networks of learning and research remains vital and influential. [p. 33-34]

here is my initial set of reservations, with some random indication of progress.




1. Support.
   My initial argument was that VLEs allow centralisation of support which becomes unmanageably complex if every user has different applications. While this is true, the need for support has diminished I feel because a) there is a greater level of familiarity out there (although I am not naive enough to think that even amongst the digital natives everyone is computer savvy) and b) the sort of third party tools available are easy to use and robust. People don't take courses in how to use Facebook after all.
   Progress: 50%
2. Quality
   assurance. My argument was that universities could not ensure a certain quality of provision with PLEs. I feel that given the superiority of many third party applications over institutional systems, the reverse may now be true. But it still remains that it is much more difficult with a PLE type world to point at something and say 'that's what student A is doing at time X'.
   Progress: 75%
3. Suitability. My argument here was that users may adopt or use the wrong technology. This brings us back to what we mean by a PLE, since it might not be the case that they are left completely to their own devices (pardon the pun). And in addition I don't think I envisaged the way widgets would come in to play, so your blog, Netvibes or iGoogle page is easily populated.
   Progress: 60%
4. Negotiation
   of activity. My argument here was that if everyone is using a different tool it means that every activity starts with some negotiation about what you will use, instead of just getting on with the task using the default VLE services. I still think there is something in this, but if we take the slightly looser interpretation of a PLE, then it may not mean that every task is negotiated, but rather that the educator has a choice of tools to choose from.
   Progress: 40%
   
   
5. Technological
   complexity. This is the big one. Since 2006 the rise of RSS as a common data standard, the use of widgets and the development of standards such as openID makes a lot of the potential complexity less of an issue. Look how easily a user can embed different tools, video content, feeds, etc. But at the moment the different applications are dumb to each other, and this is where work will focus over the next few years (through things like Social:Learn and eduglu).
   Progress: 50%

A student-centred approach to e-learning is approached
by:





1. using a management system for administrative issues,
2. offering students personal tools for construction, presentation, reflection,
   collaboration, etc.,
3. facilitating networks between students within the same course, and
4. facilitating networks between students and other people working within
   the field.

"Self-organised learning networks provide a base for the establishment
of a form of education that goes beyond course and curriculum centric models,
and envisions a learner-centred and learner controlled model of lifelong
learning."

(Koper 2004b, p. 1)

Working as proposed here, students not only learn a specific topic, but they
are equipped with tools to navigate and make active use of the web to solve
future problems. After the end of a course or an education, the networks continue
to exist. Continued participation in social networks and creation of new networks
give people access to a vast number of people and other resources.

First, let's look at the audience. The average age of presidents is sixty. Almost half are over sixty, and only about 8 percent are fifty or younger.¹ With some notable exceptions, the average president completed graduate studies, developed a scholarly or research agenda, and earned tenure at a time when the modern age of IT was in its infancy. Although the average president may be an adept user of technology—especially for communications—the visceral feel for technology that seems to be part of the DNA of today's students and younger faculty and staff is often missing among college and university presidents. Substantive conversations about technology sometimes make them uncomfortable, because they think they don't know enough about the topic.

But they do. And IT leaders would do themselves and their institutions a big favor by reminding presidents of that fact. As observers of other users and as users themselves, most presidents are sufficiently immersed in cyberculture to pose many intelligent variations on a single question: how will our investments in people and systems make life better for faculty, students, and staff and improve the institution?