Thursday, February 19, 2009
To VLE or PLE …?
The first report from Ofsted evaluating how effective the use of VLEs has been since their introduction in 2000 reveals a slow start. Perhaps PLEs may be being used more widely.
Everyone has tools they use regularly such as email, word, favourite websites and search engines. Portals or 'environments' are loose structures on the web which allow people to group tools together so they are quicker to access from different locations. For example you can now add the BBC weather report and your email account to your MSN portal and make the whole lot available on your mobile phone.
So which loose structure or Learning Environment should schools use to help people organise their learning tools on the web? The options are, broadly speaking
a) Invest resources in a new or existing VLE (Virtual learning environment)
b) Watch this space as new PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) begin to emerge
c) Do nothing and allow learners to use free environments such as facebook, google or MSN to generate their own PLEs
Invest in your Virtual Learning Environment?
Most schools have invested in some form of VLE. Essentially, a VLE is a system which allows remote access for pupils and staff to learning materials which are placed in/on the VLE by the institution hosting it.
The first Virtual Learning Environments were established in UK schools in 2000 but it is since the Becta Harnessing Technology Report , 2005 which encouraged the use of VLEs, that they have become increasingly widespread. Since the Becta report it has been widely expected that VLEs will become essential to effective provision in 21st century schools.
Now, for the first time Ofsted have written a report on the effective use of VLEs in schools.
Ofsted inspectors made special visits to a sample of 34 colleges, secondary schools and primary schools to review their use of VLEs. They also looked at the comments of Inspectors from general Ofsted inspections of the previous 3 years and viewed further VLEs online.
The report found whilst VLEs were being used enthusiastically by teachers and learners in many of the institutions visited, there were no institutions in their sample where they were being used across all curriculum areas and age ranges. Where VLEs were being used in different subjects across a school there was little collaboration between departments.
"In most of the provision surveyed, the use of VLEs to enhance learning was not widespread and at curriculum level VLEs were more of a cottage industry than a national technological revolution."
The use of VLEs in Primary schools was found to be limited and in secondary schools was more likely to be used with older learners. This is likely to be related to the pattern that 3/4 of the schools and colleges visited reported that VLEs were originally introduced in order to allow assignments to be submitted to staff.
Evaluating how effectively the VLEs were used, the report reveals no school or college had a formal quality assurance scheme for the content on their VLE and only 3 of the 34 had a VLE strategy. A typical picture was one department which had a regularly updated and interactive area on the school VLE, whilst another department stored documents and rarely anything else on theirs, within the same school. The use and success of the VLE relied upon the enthusiasm of individual members of staff.
Ofsted's recommendations for effective use of a VLE are given at the end of the report and conclude that schools need to "ensure that VLEs are designed to enhance learning and are not just a storage or communication facility."
Interestingly, the Ofsted report found that learners had no issues or need for support in using the VLEs- if the learning activities were provided they were used. The learners were also able to recognise the difference in the use by different staff and adapt their own patterns of learning accordingly. This may be because the patterns of use of online and digital tools and applications is a part of life for children and young people which they are used to being varied and personalised.
Consider Personal Learning Environments?
Personalised Learning Environments (PLEs) arose from criticism of VLEs that they were too centralised and designed more to help teachers manage workload and content rather than for learners.
Personal Learning Environments are designed to focus on how to give control to learners over how they learn recognising the huge diversity of tools and content now available on the web that is available to them. Such environments need a core of tools which are not age, stage, device, institution or content specific but would allow mentors and teachers some feedback, such as PbyP and then a framework on which to hang all of the tools the learners would use including possibly their social networks.
The three features defining PLEs and making them distinct from VLEs are they should enable learners to :·
Set their own learning goals,
Manage their learning; managing both content and process,
Communicate with others in the process of learning.
In reality each person's PLE will be made up of their own preferred applications, digital tools and web 2.0 technologies, in other words, it will be personalised. Choosing the PLE route requires schools to have the confidence to allow this de-centralised approach to the role of technology in teaching and learning.