Paper
Abstracts
Personal Learning Environments Symposium
Personal learning environments: implications and challenges.
Edilson Arenas
Central Queensland University, Melbourne International Campus
Evolving Web-based technologies make possible the creation of personal learning environments (PLEs) that provide learners with increasing control of their individual learning processes. This paper reviews the concept of PLEs in the literature and suggests some possible implications for academic practice and institutional policy in higher education.
Self-direction and lifelong learning in the information age: Can PLEs help?
Nona Muldoon
Central Queensland University
This paper offers a perspective on what it means for individuals to learn in the information age and examines challenges concerning learner control and self-direction. Supporting learners and learning are also discussed and considers how the PLE idea, as a methodology, can deliver holistic support within and beyond institutional learning engagements.
The Australian postgraduate writing network: developing a collaborative learning environment for higher degree students and their supervisors.
Donna Lee Brien & Jen Webb
Central Queensland University & University of Canberra
A decade ago, very few universities in Australia, or overseas, offered courses in the creative arts. Now more than 20 Australian universities offer a full range of Writing programs, from undergraduate to doctoral levels. This rapid growth has offered many opportunities for students, academics and universities, but has also resulted in various inconsistencies in curricula, teaching/supervisory relations and examination standards. This paper is presented by the Chief Investigators of the Carrick Institute-funded Australian Postgraduate Writers Network (APWN) which will be launched mid-2008. This project utilises extensive input from the community of potential users (research students, their supervisors, examiners and professional/industry/community associates) and has developed an ongoing evaluative strategy to achieve its aims to:
- initiate a national postgraduate Writing research and supervision network;
- promote a culture of collaboration across the Writing higher education sector in Australia to reduce HDR student isolation and attrition and improve supervision quality;
- build a national and international collaborative research culture among postgraduate research students and their supervisors in Writing;
- disseminate information about Australian writing higher degrees research, learning and teaching to potential students, early career supervisors, and the publishing community/industry;
- produce a sustainable and scaleable model for use by other creative arts and creative industries disciplines in Australia.
The resulting networked learning environment seeks to service individual needs while building an inclusive, supportive and responsive online community for researchers – students and supervisors – in this new field of higher degree endeavour.
Building capacity for lifelong learning: using a PLE to support participatory design of the Granitenet virtual community portal
C.H. Arden & K. McLachlan
Faculty of Education,
University of Southern Queensland;
Community Development Services Inc
Universities are increasingly seen as key players in supporting community development and renewal through research and development partnerships with communities that foster lifelong learning and build community capacity (Kilpatrick, Barrett and Jones, 2003). One such partnership, which is the subject of this paper, is the GraniteNet Project – a collaboration between the University of Southern Queensland and the Stanthorpe community which has as its objective the development of a self-sustaining virtual community portal that will support Stanthorpe’s development as a learning community (AUTHORS, 2007).
This paper explores the possibilities presented by the concept of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) for the design of a community portal environment that will foster increased participation in lifelong learning by enhancing access to mediated informal learning opportunities and activities that are linked with more formal community-based, vocational and university course offerings and that are supported by university and community ICT infrastructure and expertise. In doing so, the authors argue for a “bottom up” or “grass roots” approach that contests the assumption that the education institution must be the driver of the development process and, building on the work of Merkel and others (2004), promote a participatory design process that utilizes the portal as an incubator for project participants to learn about and experiment with the technologies used within the portal environment through the development and use of a PLE prototype during the portal design phase. The paper discusses implications of the proposal for university policies and practices and presents a framework that can be used to guide the development of the portal environment during subsequent phases of the project.
References
AUTHORS (2007). GraniteNet Phoenix Phase 1. Contributed to (Re)Presenting Community Virtual Conference 8 October – 9 November 2007, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba in association with Observatory PASCAL, University of Stirling, UK and RMIT, Victoria.
Kilpatrick, S., Jones, T., & Barrett, M. (2006). Learning through research: A regional university and its community. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning (2)2, pp. 36-49. July.
Merkel, C., Xiao, L., Farooq, Ul, Ganoe, C., Lee, J., Carroll, M., & Rosson, M. (2004). Participatory design in community computing contexts: Tales from the field. Retrieved 20 March, 2008 from http://www.ala.asn.au/learningcities/LGALearningLayout.pdf
PLEs: framing one future for lifelong learning, e-learning and universities.
David Jones
Central Queensland University
Personal Learning Environments are a new conceptualisation of how technology might support lifelong learning, one that questions many of the assumptions of existing institutional practice. This paper develops a series of enablers and suggestions that can aid a university to better frame its future use of PLEs.
Learning networks: harnessing the power of online communities for discipline and lifelong learning.
Colin Beer & David Jones
Central Queensland University
One of the principal roles of higher education in fostering lifelong learning is helping students attain discipline or professional knowledge. This paper examines the notion of how a discipline based learning network, implemented using Web 2.0 technologies, can be used to complement existing e-learning and address a range of limitations preventing higher education fulfilling its roles.
