Structuring institutions to exploit learning technologies: A cybernetic model

The adoption of learning technologies has not fulfilled expectation in any sector of education. Arguably, it is the structure of educational institutions which is the main obstacle. Schools, colleges and universities were designed to allow the delivery of education by the few to the many at a time when the key technology was the printed page, and many of the organizational instruments that facilitated this are still with us today: timetables, classrooms, syllabuses and so on. These permit a particular style of education to take place, but result in a system where the complexity of learning needs is ignored New technologies can provide new organizational devices that recognize this complexity. These require careful design and imply a significant restructuring of institutional organization. This paper addresses how the tools provided by management cybernetics, in particular Stafford Beer's Viable System Model, allow the analysis of structural mechanisms and how they impact on organizational complexity. It describes how these tools can be used to redesign educational organizations, including identifying key points where technologies can be used to create structures that permit a more flexible exploitation of the opportunities offered by learning technologies. The current JTAP project Toolkit for the Management of Learning is offered as an example of a set of software tools that emerge from such a cybernetic analysis

A framework for the pedagogical evaluation of eLearning environments

In 1999 the authors proposed a pedagogical framework for the evaluation of VLEs that was grounded in both educational and organisational theory,(Britain and Liber, 1999). The report was driven by the lack of work in the field at the time examining how VLEs could enhance teaching and learning. In 1999 many institutions were evaluating VLEs with a view to making their first step into using Internet-based ICT in their teaching and so the report was written to help educators understand how the design of systems could facilitate or constrain their pedagogical use in different contexts. By 2003, elearning had matured considerably. ICT developments to support teaching and learning were no longer predominantly confined to isolated projects within academic departments and learning technology support units, but instead formed a core part of institutional strategy and policy. Widespread uptake of VLEs within HEIs had been supplemented by work to join up institutional administrative systems with VLEs to form Managed Learning Environments (MLEs). At a national level, e-learning had become the subject of a variety of government sponsored strategic initiatives in support of the programme of widening participation in HE and FE and promoting e-learning as an approach to improving the quality of education provision and empowering learners. This report updates the earlier JISC report entitled 'A Framework for the Pedagogical Evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments' (1999). That report can be found online at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/jtap-041.doc The structure of the report is as follows: - Chapter one provides an overview of the current context of e-learning - Chapter two presents the revised framework which elaborates and extends the model - Chapter three presents a review of a selection of systems against the framewor

UNFOLD Deliverable D6.1. Half yearly report 1

Half yearly management report, covering the work carried out during the months of January - June 200

UNFOLD Deliverable D3. Evaluation Plan.

Three periods of evaluation are established covering the whole project and corresponding to the deliverables defined in the project work plan. A detailed evaluation plan is defined for the first period, covering September to December 2004

UNFOLD Deliverable D2 - Awareness raising resources: (Project Deliverable Report - Understanding New Frameworks of Learning Design UNFOLD)

This report describes the work carried out in the development of UNFOLD project awareness resources. These include handouts, posters, and other publications, but the principal action has been to create a Web server which both raises awareness of the project, and of the specifications which it seeks to promote. The planning and development of the resources is described and some conclusions provided

UNFOLD Deliverable D5. Establishment of CoPs report

Description of the two implementations carried out in Plone and PHP Nuke by UNFOLD in providing support for three CoP

Learning objects: Conditions for viability

This article elaborates the factors that have led to the emergence of the concept of learning objects as the predominant model for digital learning materials, examining the problems that they address. It suggests that while there do appear to be real benefits, for a learning object model to be successful there needs to be a thriving learning object economy. In turn this demands a wide group of authors, drawn from the teaching community, and for these to participate there is an urgent requirement for tools that permit the easy creation and description of learning materials in learning objects format; but more importantly, support for sustainable communities of authors of digital learning materials

Cybernetics, eLearning and the education system

This paper is based on the author's inaugural lecture, delivered on 22 May 2003. The paper is dedicated to the memory of two recently deceased thinkers: Ivan Illich and Stafford Beer. The paper first gives an overview of the contribution they made to illuminating the nature of institutions and their organizational structure, in particular, the education system. Learning technologies challenge accepted models of educational organization. Developments since the 1970s are examined, identifying how the three strands of learning content development, computer mediated communication and learning management have become integrated in Learning Management Systems (LMS) made possible by the World Wide Web. It is argued that mainstream LMS offer restricted pedagogic opportunities if they are adapted to existing organizational forms, instead of being used relax organizational constraints. Beer's work provides us with tools for the redesign of educational systems to make most benefit from new technologies, guided by Illich's critique of formal education