Haverhill Online Learning Community

The torch is coming!
 (Olympic Torch along Haverhill High Street)

21st Century Learning:  Open, Online and Innovative

Online Learning Communities (OLCs) is a new area of learning experience.  We are all familiar with the traditional role of instructor and student carried out in a classroom.   We all have our own experiences of what worked for us and what did not.  We may have had the elation of receiving a certificate followed by the question what happens next?  Is the learning over?  What if I am still no longer clear about the bits I understood and the bits I did not?  How can I keep in touch?  

The questions may be applied to all stages of life.  Leaving school and entering work or further study, working and growing personally in your chosen area of life, then making the transition into well earned leisure time of retirement all have challenges that  may be helped by community of learners.  The challenge today is that of Life Long Learning.  Online Learning Communities are a way to do this as you pass through the three ages of man.

How can you do this?  I am setting up an Open Learning Community for the Haverhill area.  An Open Online Learning Community.  It is in it's crawling stage at the moment and seeks to appeal to learners from 13 to 99.  I am in discussion with various local Haverhill Groups seeking to establish a 21st Century Learning Community that is both innovative and flexible to move with the vast changes we see happening around us.    A community moulded by and by inspired by it's participants. 

A few scenarios that demonstrate some of the benefits of being involved I have been blogging about in recent months.     

The Everlasting Class:  When did you last speak to your teacher? Did you still have learning questions unanswered on your road to the better lifestyle?

A Personal Reflection on Online Learning Communites:  A personal experience of Life Long Learning within an Open Learning Community

Education in the Third Age:  Ideas on how to keep connected and pass on experiences.

So how to move towards creating a Participatory Learning Community. Some ideas behind establishing the Open Learning Community taken from my own involvement with participating an Online Learning Community (see blogs for details). 

 1.With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement2.With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others3.With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced ispassed along to novices 4.Where members believe that their contributions matter5.Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created).
Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued.

If you would like to express an interest or make a comment visit the Facebook page .  As we gather more interest and other parties become involved the intention is to establish a Haverhill Online Community presence.  Regular updates will be posted 

Thoughts on Virginia Tech Model: Part 3

Cognitive Conflict: Piaget and Vygotsky 

The previous blog   looked at the Virginia Tech Model and how it could be extended to include cognitive conflict (defined in previous document).  The model in graphic form (Fig. 1)  was then transformed into a scattergram (Fig. 2).

Fig 1. Graphical representation of Virginia Tech model

 

Fig 2.  Representation of the Virginia Tech Model in terms of student ownership/engagement  against cognitive conflict.     1. The Audio/Video Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments

The transformation of the model into a scattergram allows a pseudo Cartesian co-ordinate plane to be established for the relationship of student ownership and cognitive conflict.  The model shown in the youtube video, mentioned by John Graves (a collaborator in the Bank Street Open Learning Community) in a personal communication via a Google+ post ,    for the three levels of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy there are three planes of student engagement.  The first plane being the remember, understand apply.  The second plane analyse and evaluate.  The third the creative plane.  (Might need to question the correct usage of the term plane in this context).    It might be best thought of like a game of vertical chess with the student moving between the levels of Revised Bloom’s taxonomy according to the rules of the learning activity and outcome.  



The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is drawn on top of  the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy’s (RBT) plane.  The ZPD is the  shoulders, so to speak, on which the next  learning is about to stand.  After the learning and understanding the RBT planes extends to encompass the ZPD to become the what you know core.  This then acts as the starting point for the next learning activity and outcome.  This is a constructivist view of the model, and open to discussion as always.  It is also an iterative process that occurs within the overall learning objective (the “blended” use of activities that have their own learning objective to achieve the overall learning objective).  This is the intrinsic relationship between perceived micro and macro learning activities, a bit like a Russian doll.   

Key Question (IMO):     How might RBT and ZPD be represented on a Scattergram model?

Looking at the RBT model we will take 2 plane definition of Lower Order Thinking skills (LOTS) and Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) as a starting point.  This is often referred to by a lot of trainers as fixed definitions.  What might be  LOTS for one group could be  HOTS for others and vice versa.  In other words the instructor needs to embrace the idea flexibilty of task to the approach to learning.  Sometimes difficult to maintain when dealing with the same group throughout  a year where curricula dictate you look at a certain knowledge area but “have to use” HOTS when the group may still be in the realms of LOTS. (But that is a different discussion for another day!).  

Looking at the Vygotsky model of ZPD we have three concentric zones (Fig 3.).   We have the core to the “apple” of what you know, the flesh (mesocarp for the botanically inclined) of the apple which is what you can learn on your own and the “skin” of the apple what you can learn with help.  The “apple” may be a good way of thinking of ZPD in terms of the amount of independent action on the part of the student.  A misshapen “apple” may be used to map the diversity of learners within a group and their relative position to others (another point possibly for development).




Fig 3.  The ZPD model, green represents prior learning (least cognitive conflict), amber represents the application of students knowledge and understanding to new challenges, red represents the greatest cognitive conflict where greater instructor or peer input is needed   
The red zone of Fig 3 is the position where I would expect the social media and collaboration to take place ie the what I can learn with help.  The relative sizes of each zone  would depend on the  learning context.  A MOOC would be more operating in the amber zone while an OLC would be in the realms of the red zone.

On a scattergram I would envisage again green, amber and red zones.  These would be arranged along the cognitive conflict continuum.  An illustrative example is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig 4.  Zones of ZPD superimposed on a Scattergram of Reworked Virginia Tech Model.  Green = What you already know, Amber = What you can learn yourself, Red = Waht you can learn with help from instructor (facilitator) and peers in a social interaction (Numbers represent learning activities from Fig. 2)

The green area extends to the line where cognitive conflict is zero since everything to the left is assumed to learnt and understood and therefore concrete.  (This is an assumption many teachers have make to their peril when trying to use cross curricular skills or a new group of students).  The amber zone is the transition achieved through independent learning using the concrete skills (green zone)  to the point where new learning understanding requires more instruction (the red zone).  As stated previously this might be through the intervention of an instructor or by the use of peer knowledge and peer instruction in an OLC.  This is why I have left activity 3 in it’s position in the 4th quadrant in the red zone
(below the axis where studentship and instructor ownership is zero or of parity between student ownership and instructor ownership).  

The learning activities (the numbers in Fig.4.) can move between the various different quadrants  as would be expected with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) or Group Learning Plans (GLPs).    The activities equally can move between green, amber and red zone.  The zones do not have be fixed on a particular line of cognitive conflict either, I will possibly discuss this in another paper.  

Comments would be appreciated.

Then next step could be to incorporate a degree of grading or using a UK term leveling on the cognitive conflict axis.

There are a lot of very complex interactions between student, instructor, context of learning activity and prior knowledge within the proposed model. Partitioning of the effects of each component and testing their impact becomes a challenge. Developing or applying standard evaluative methodologies to the steps proposed in the development of the Reworked Virginia Tech model requires some though at this time. Possibly a subject for an Open Learning Community!

Thoughts on Virginia Tech Model: Part 2

Fig 1. Graphical representation of Virginia Tech model reworked from original by pcjspalding@gmail.com.

Mapping Learning Activities

The reworking of the Virginia Tech Model  above, which I blogged  about previously  , is a starting for classifying Learning Activities by cognitive conflict. 

 Cognitive conflict is a term  defining relative demands made on learners to change or reinterpret their pre-held  concepts.  It is a type of conflict centred on completion of task.  In order to change their understanding of concepts and principles students/participants have to be involved in the learning journey.    

The above is an interpretation the Virginia Tech model and is not intended to be definitive.  The Models themselves are can be subsets of another.  For instance for  a pupil with specific learning challenges such as associated with Dyslexia the primary model may be (2) Personalised System of Instruction.  The secondary model used may (10) problem based learning.  The point I am trying to make is that they are not mutually exclusive but can be “bundled” together.

Another representation of this might be as below.

Fig 2.  Representation of the Virginia Tech Model in terms of student ownership/engagement  against cognitive conflict.     1. The Audio/Video Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments

The above is not, as said, a definitive model just a relative qualitative weighting of the activities compared to each other.

So how might I use this in the context of the project shared on the OFLC drive.

1. To group Apps, tools with their most appropriate model
2. Within the context of an Individual Learning Plan (IEP, have had to fill out many forms over the years that did not really address the aims  with Learning outcomes in a clear format) to illustrate where learners may be at in terms of independence of learning and ability to cope with cognitive conflict. Quantifying the learning task against the Learning outcome by using a leveled approach (a link here to Levels applied in UK Curriculum ICT    Could also be linked to Piaget’s or Vygotsky’s terms.
3. To use as an aid to course to design for learning outcomes and representation of number of pupils who are achieving a level or completing a task. Individual tracking also springs to mind.
4. Mapping the relationship between different activities in a “bundled” model of a particular learning activity/ course..

Below in Figure 3, I have sought to apply this to a Dyslexia scenario.


Fig 3.  Application of scatter chart to specific learning difficulty Dyslexia: tools considered YouTube and Kindle-book .    1. The Audio/Video/Visual Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments

The Virginia Tech model definition (1) (which I have slightly modified to be Audio/Video/ Visual Approach) may appear in several positions on the scatter gram Fig. 3 ( there is a more correct name but can’t recall it just at the moment).  This could be used as a graphic for the initial evaluation of where the pupil may be at and how provision for access to learning may be achieved.  The solution graphic might look something like this.


Fig 4.  Application of scatter chart to specific learning difficulty Dyslexia: tools considered YouTube and Kindle-book .    1. The Audio/Video/Visual Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments

In Fig 4 I have sought to demonstrate how mapping of activities to solutions might take place. A text based mode learning activity might not be the most appropriate for dyslexia at first glance.  Using the tool OpenDyslexic  (http://dyslexicfonts.com/) could be a solution,  closing the gap between learning task and accessibility.  

Mapping a learning journey may be achieved using the same framework.  This could either teacher, peer or self-assessed all that is needed is editing access to the graphic.  In Fig. 5 a theoretical journey has been shown for increasing knowledge and understanding of the Louvre Gallery in France and the Mona Lisa (general easily recognised subject).









Fig 5.  Application of scatter chart to map the learning journey for specific learning difficulty Dyslexia: tools considered YouTube and Kindle-book .   Arrows indicate potential route of the learning journey (open to change)   1. The Audio/Video/Visual Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments





Final bit for the thought on the model is the monitoring stage.  The timing might be over a whole  unit/course or during a year.

Fig 6.  Application of scatter chart to map the learning journey and monitoring for specific learning difficulty Dyslexia: tools considered YouTube and Kindle-book .   Arrows indicate potential route of the learning journey (open to change), red circles indicate the start and finish time for example in an academic year and not necessarily duration.    1. The Audio/Video/Visual Tutorial Approach, 2. Personalised system of instruction, 3. Goal Based Scenarios, 4. Case Based Teaching, 5. Guided design, 6. Anchored Instruction,7. Cognitive Apprenticeship,8. Cooperative Learning,9. Constructionist Project based Models,10. Problem based Learning,11. Learning Environments



The cognitive conflict the pupil undergoes during learning is a difficult quantity to measure.  Approaches of defining progression through cognitive conflict using Piagetian levels has been attempted with the use of Cognitive Accelerated Science Education (CASE).    This is not necessarily the same as the use of case based teaching alluded to in Learning Activity 4 of  the Virginia Tech Model. 

The next step will be to look at how the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky might fit into this Reworked Virginia Tech Model.

Online Faculty Learning communities

Snow could arrive this weekend!
Shot taken  last year of Hamlet Green
100 m around the corner. 

 The Friday Reflection!

Reflective practice in action in  less than 500 words.  A worthy aim see if I can achieve this self imposed limit.  This week has been a very good week for the Bank Street College of Education OFLC (Online Faculty Learning Community)  activity.  One of the problems, often, with a "normal" teaching job is the inability to find time to reflect.  The demands certainly of UK education has reflective practice talked about but often not considered a vital of good practice.  I admit I have been guilty of this in the past!

 I set myself a number of tasks when planning my Google Calendar for the week last Saturday morning. The calendar I have been using now for more than a  couple of years for time management. This will be one of the tasks I will doing on Saturday morning.

The major task for the week was formalising a specific project for attention.  That has been initiated and completed up to the point of planning the logistics.  This has also been shared with the OFLC ready for comment and collaboration.  On reflection although the proposal looks to be a self-contained project of delivering CPD to a specific aim of familiarising teacher with Scratch, that may not be all that is needed!

 The article highlighted by one of our collaborators (not mentioning names since this blog is in the public domain) , College is dead ... in Time magazine was instructive.  I have previously used articles in my own Life Long Learning in another blog    from the Harvard Business Review.  A journal I have a little familiarity with from all the Daniel Golman reprints that fly around British Schools.  Time is a publication not usually looked at by an English Audience certainly not in the context of Professional Practice.  Point to note then is that not all publications have to have a direct subject specific target audience to be useful.  Articles of mass appeal and importance are sometimes better where they can viewed by the greatest number in this case Time.  After all we do own our own learning, don't we?

So up to this point how are we doing.  Word count 348 to the question mark.  Enough reflection and food for thought for next week.  A medium term plan would be for me to look at how the OFLC schedule fits in with the project and also the other working commitments. A long term plan up to the end of the OFLC schedule and beyond encompassing maintaining collaboration and extending collaboration and skills would be  an aspirational task.  Probably now on or near the 500 word limit and have some achievable aims for the next week?    OK, copy and pasted into OpenOffice and word counted (440 words).

So enough written now.  We have a snow day predicted in Suffolk.  Visitation from sister, niece , nephew and bouncy Spaniel.  Cat is really going to enjoy that.  But all part of maintaining the Work-Life balance!

Raspberry's and Pythons!

Raspberry Pi, an education platform!

Raspberry Pi, low cost credit card sized computer , has initially been put together by the charitable trust that designed it as an educators platform.  The primary intention to educate the young (under 18 year olds) in the mysteries of computer architecture and programming.  

A step back to the days of self build computers in the late seventies and early eighties.  I do remember buying Personal Computer World and looking at the Commodore PETs and wincing at the price beyond my pocket money.  Migrating to the more techie magazines where bare boards could be bought and made up the costs again seemed to escalate.  The Sinclair ZX80  arrived, still too expensive (half a weeks wages for the average for the worker) then the ZX81 (I finally managed to own one of these).   Then came Windows! 

Each time a new "consumer" computer arrived the machine became more enclosed and a black box culture started to emerge of plug and play.  In amongst this the educational use and then the UK National Curriculum for IT or ICT arrived.  This sought to educate people in the end use of technology as opposed to understanding the technology. The lack of understanding of what is within the black box was obscured by the use of WYSWYG applications that bridged the gap between hardware understanding and programming skills.   Basic engineering and STEM (the new buzz word) skills were no longer there since the cost of the item was so expensive tinkering with the engineering was naturally shied away from.  The Raspberry Pi again gives this feel of a new start to computing.  

Raspberry Pi is a Linnux based system with the operating system stored on an SD card which in effect is a solid state hard drive.  This comes in various different versions and images downloadable from the Raspberry Pi foundation.  The interesting feature for me at the moment is that the latest images are supporting Python.  Python is one of the fundamentals to Google Course builder.  As system is Linnux based, a precursor of Android and uses an ARM processor it should be possible to get the Raspberry Pi to run the App engine.  

Manufacturing of the Raspberry Pi has only really just started to go into volume.  At a price of £35 for the basic unit a more economical way of ensuring cheap access to the digital classroom than an Apple or a Samsung solution.

  

 

Towards a Google Class Room

The fine print: How big?

Experience of making IT based resources in the past has taught me the rule: time spent making > time spent watching. 

 In the introduction of IT in the classroom though the UK National Curriculum the emphasis was on using lots projector based resources and whiteboards.  Assuming the equipment worked as it should do (ie whiteboards attached on the other side of  corridor walls that moved slightly due to cracks would always give a interesting experience)  which was rare presentations were not as well received as could be owing to concentration span.  Government produced framework material  guaranteed to cause mental turn off the quickest!

So with the view in mind of the resource rule number one (time spent making > time spent watching) I am looking to try and get in an ideal world a ratio time spent making to time spent watching down quotient of 1.  It is very easy to become technology orientated. You can forget that the 10 hours producing a resource may produce a unique technical application of your skills, but if one person sees it for it's 5 minutes duration the impact on overall learning is small.  Granted if more people see it then the ratio goes down.  

We can modify resource rule 1 for a time efficient resource to be: time spent making < collective time spent watching.  Remembering individually tailored learning experiences there may be a degree of temporal separation from the various learners.

Experience of "playing" with Microsoft Reader when it first became available to produce differentiated texts for individual pupils showed IT  was a resource hungry dead end.  Since then a lot of resources have been supplied if buy the "right " course for the exam board.  GCSE dumbing down apart there is a certain amount of recognition that not necessarily do we need to know how to produce the materials but know how to operate them.  An analogy is a bit like that photocopier in  a school where everybody knows how make a copy but very few know the difference between  photocopy safe acetates and ordinary OHP acetates (there are still some OHPs being used).  Or even more frequent there are some people know how to change the toner, fill the paper hoppers  and clear a jam, while others just cause them by pressing a button! 

How large can the resource be and what is the cost?  A look at the "Quotas page" suggests there is a 5  GB free allocation for data.  This is shared across the appengine applications (courses?) that you generate.  The size might sound a lot but could easily be eaten up with a resource rich content.  The daily useage quotas may be a little small for a large class with access and email limits if the free resource quota is to be adhered to.  A cost estimate would be a useful first step to make in the general planning stage.  This is also a good way to limit enthusiasm with  the first rule of resources in mind.

A suitable spreadsheet needs to be used to give a cost estimates and run as a financial model.  Having had a role with responsibility for resourcing an IT and a Science department budget control is a must as it also can generate time management as well.  Traditional lesson planning methodology in classrooms relies on resources being to hand.  Busy teachers do not always have time to reinvent the wheel in the non-It literate class room.  When I trained PGCE students I used to recommended planning of 20 minutes per hour of teaching when all the resources were available.  The what to teach should be there in the planning at the beginning of the of the period of instruction.  In among the Google Wiki pages, 30 minutes of content for each chunk of topic per session is given as a guideline.  Experience of designing Screen based resources has led me to the conclusion that for every 30 minutes of screen content allow at least a 2 hour planning window for simple content such as PowerPoint or Flash or even effective YouTube presentations.  This is something that the various curriculum strategies did not address when we having to be all singing, dancing multi-skilled  educators.

So the next blog will be looking a little further at the planning for cost and time budgets for the use of the course builder.  After all time is money?

School day from Yesteryear!

A windy day on literal face value! 

The Public Boarding school!

A new idea surfaced in the area of  state led Lifelong Learning promoting social mobility.  There was talk and mention of the fact some areas starting to set up State Boarding Schools.  The experiment in social engineering is not a new idea.  Looking back in history to the 1830s and 1840s  Poor Law and Public legislation  set about increasing life opportunities (using modern terminology).  The setting up of the Workhouses as a place where poor people could be housed is a stark Victorian image.  However, the next step which was not always implemented, was to provide a bad influence free environment where poor children could be prepared for a useful life. 

A school day typical of that time in local district schools in the Stow area of Suffolk was:

6.00 rise, wash, dress.

6.20 rollcall, inspection.

6.30 prayers, breakfast.

7.15-8,00 recreation in yards.

8.00-11.00   boys-gardening or carpentering, shoe making, whitewashing etc.

                     girls-make beds, scrub floors, work in laundry, kitchen.

11.00-12.00 reading from bible, hymn singing.

12.00 lunch.

12.30-2.00 recreation in yards.

2.00-4.00 reading in lesson books, writing, arithmetic, etc.

4.00-5.00 religious instruction.

5.00-6.00 singing. ,-

6.00 supper. After supper, prayers, hymns and bed.

                                                                         (From Edwin Chadwick, Poor Law and Public Health

                                                                                         by Roger Watson ISBN 0 582 20458 5)

The idea being to educate pupils even though it might not be considered fun by today's standards.  Would we be able to have a twelve day for young people?  The 3 Rs "academic" content of the day might be considered quite small with 2 hours specifically for this out of the day.  The proportion of the day devoted to practical activities and recreation as well as what we would call PSHE/RE is very high compared to the academic week in most schools now.  The practical activities of the 1840s today would be those covered by GNVQs but with more practical than today's arguably theory driven qualifications.   Your average pupil looks as though they might also have been more musicals than today's.

So after nearly 200 years have we educated the population enough that communities are able to self-regulate their life outcomes?  Can we as individuals see how the  benefits of education moves the whole society along a continuum of relative wealth? Interesting questions in the consumption driven economy of today.

More thoughts on the cost of knowledge to follow.

Online Learning .... 24/7 Access

Perpetual Motion in Learning
when do you ------- get the chance to Stop

Continuous Lifelong Learning

 Education and testing of people starts early in the UK.  The measure of progress a child is making starts at the age of two and a half when pupils enter pre-school nursery care.  Ofsted starts their management of lifelong learning.

We continue the lifelong learning treadmill as we grow older.  The industry of Education is a multi-million (and the life-cycle of a generation a multi-billion) pound industry.  Monitoring the progress and the validity of qualifications is becoming increasingly difficult.  Does the education provider provide an accredited qualification?

The folk tales about private American College degrees and the availability of certificates for courses that require no study are common in the pre-internet age.  It should be remembered that Harvard and other Ivy League colleges are essentially private. Before state funded higher education in the UK all Universities were private and those that are old enough ostensibly still private institutions.

So what is there on offer on line.  There is the ALISON group of course providers with certification.  This is wholly on line.  The verification of who you are is therefore a little vague.  The edX  participants have strtaed to address this concern by setting up examination centres in the UK with Pearson .   Competing with edX as a course providers are  Coursera this includes the British University Edinburgh.  This provides free courses with completion certification as opposed to credit certification.

Traditionally in the UK distance and video has been the preserve of the Open University.  There has been a general move towards working students' study to be predominately selected to be via the OU.  Will this continue with other study providers, especially since the validity and longevity of  relevance of qualifications seems to have an inbuilt shelf life?

I have signed up for two courses: one with edX and one with Coursera.  It will be interesting to see what the Lifelong Experience is!

Lifelong Learning for the self taught!

Grimes graves Norfolk, ancient factory with modern ladder!

Self taught, self made!

A Victorian entrepreneur who lived the improvement dream was admired more if his family came from modest circumstances and he then made a pile!  He garnered public praise  especially if he became a great philanthropist! Examples of donations to the public good include Tate Gallery (Tate as in Sugar) and  Andrew Carnegie  with the various Halls, learning institutions and buildings (even though he made his fortune in America he was still a Victorian in the sense he was Scottish born).  He became even more admired if he claimed to be self taught!

With generally universal free formal education available from the ages of 7 to 16 in the developed world the idea of somebody being self taught is a "strange" concept today!  We often hear self taught musicians!  We are only aware if they are self taught when they proudly proclaim they have never had a lesson.  This ability is part of the innate set of tools we all seem to possess to a greater or lesser extent!  What might we now mean by self-taught?

The definition  of self-taught becomes even more blurred in the digital age! We have a formal training culture in the UK built up from apprenticeships that involved work and formal qualifications.  Universities have existed but it has to be remembered that to practice in the chosen you still needed to be qualified in the professional bodies' exams eg the bar exams, solicitors exams, becoming chartered.  This is something that many English students are probably not made aware happens.  They do not realise a first degree is only the first step.  America a readily acceptance of the concept of Grad Schools.  They realise that the first degree does not produce a finished article.  This is also something that a lot of UK parents whose children are the "first to go to University in their family" have difficulty grasping that there is no immediate guaranteed reward for the investment of having a first degree!

So where does that leave us with the self-taught?  How do they have their experience and qualifications recognised!  Many self-employed people have this dilemma.  They run a business for many years, they have great experience and are successful!  A lifestyle changing event such as old age, accident, flood, fire or banking crisis may cause a change in direction.  How do they formalise skills and experiences that an eCV search filter will recognise? 

There is a National Framework for Qualifications  in the UK that tries to classify qualifications in to Levels.  There is also system in Europe that over arches this European Qualifications Framework .  Included in this framework is Europass and European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).  The ECTS has been put on some diplomas especially from smaller organisations, I have myself been credited for points with a CPD course!

How is this affecting the digital age?  We have mentioned eCVs so far as being difficult for the person with non-formal "qualifications" to negotiate!  On-line learning that provides accreditation is a route many universities seem to be going along!  Even 20 (odd, very odd) years ago Dundee University and Stirling were talking of setting up video links to allow less well enrolled courses to continue!  A route to this attracted my attention called ALISON.  This may be the shape of training to come!

More discussion on these topics later!   

        

Introduction to Life Long Learning

Routes to Lifelong Learning

Lifelong Learning, the formal term for what most of us do but never identify a Learning! This Blog is a commentary on individual and collective opportunities for Life Long Learning. 

A free resource of How to use the Facebook App BeKnown to produce a type of eCV can be found at:  http://www.facebook.com/groups/Kritirecharge2012.LifelongLearning/.

To start with here is a sample of some of the linked content from some of my other blogs.

http://kritirecharge2012summerschool.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/kritirecharge-2012-online-summer-school.html 

http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-middle-manager.html