PhD Proposal Details.3

The Nature Of The Problem

‘The mis-use and mis-understood practice of E-learning.’

Mayes & de Freitas (2005) have mapped the relationship of theoretical perspectives of teaching and learning to that of current e-learning models. In so doing they have once again unintentionally reverted to a categorisation that is reliant on past ideals. Though this provides a clear link with day to day practice in terms of the current ‘vogue’, it offers no glimpse of possible future iteratives. Mayes and de Freitas themselves note that no current models appear to fall within their identified theoretical construct based upon Lave and Wenger’s CoP, perhaps here is the first indication that we should move beyond the current recognised perspectives and begin to tease out a new realm of investigation.

Selection of Current E-Learning Models:
E-Training
Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Britain & Liber’s Framework
Learning Objects Model
IMS Learning Design
DialogPlus Project
Reload Project
CANDLE Project
Networked Learning Model (CSALT)
Conversational Framework (Laurillard)
The Conceptualisation Cycle (Mayes)
Mayes & Fowler’s Framework
Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE Bereter & Scardamalia)
E-Tivities (Salmon)
Flexible Learning Approach (Collis & Moonen)
Extended Learning Objects Approach (OU IET)
Opencourseware Initiative (MIT)


Usage of VLEs across UK HE appears not to be as widespread as first thought, those that are using such systems are utlising them to supplement current practices by providing online access to materials. In so doing a recent JISC report raises the question “Is there a shared understanding of e-learning?” This glaring dichotomy of use and apparent use needs to be further explored.
(JISC ‘Study of Environments to Support e-Learning’, available from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/e-learning_survey_2005.pdf)

The UNFOLD project outlines an e-learning methodology and a potential set of tools (applications) that one may use in creating and using the particular units of learning created. Fundamental to this process is the interoperable standards required to enable usage across platforms and for diverse practical applications.

One of the key issues addressed by UNFOLD is the need for teachers / developers who have spent a long time, money and expertise in creating content, the ability to be able to export learning resources from one VLE to another. So for example, learning activities that have been set up in the Blackboard VLE by use of the collaboration tools, discussion fora etc are not transferable. Only the actual learning resources accompanying such activities may be exported e.g. text files, bibliographies, .jpegs.

It is this inherent fixation on content that is allowing the programmers to take precedence in an attempt to answer all our prays by developing such an interoperable system that is the IMS LD. As worthy a project as this is, to allow universal exchange of learning resources, it belies a crushing insecurity that has been allowed to fester – the propensity to imagine and seek out a technical solution to the ever increasing weight of educational technology flotsam that has built up over the last decade. It is this flotsam that obscures the true depth of the potential offered by such endeavours as Open Sources initiatives to foster collaboration and development in the realm of e-learning.

The use of Blooms taxonomy (1956, written in an attempt to classify questions asked in assessment) has been trotted out time and again for use as a tool with which to design learning outcomes and interactions within e-learning. Indeed it offers an ideal snapshot of what one might wish to implement to achieve a certain level of instructional competence within an e-learning situation. It does not however begin to touch upon the technical and social perspectives that are immediately apparent in the vast array of e-learning components, tools and learning objects currently available.

The fractious nature of current learning paradigms often leads to a fundamental misconception in the way in which we choose to engage with e-learning. Whilst apparently offering a ‘blended approach’ are we not doing a dis-service to the potential on offer. It is evident that we have been able to develop our traditional face to face teaching to a level of maturity that reacts and interacts within current social behaviour and societal norms. Indeed the use of technology to do this, is nothing new (e.g. from slate and chalk to the interactive whiteboard). What we have bemoaned for too long and yet never genuinely reacted too is the potential offered by new technologies as an entity rather than as a new tool set. We apparently fear the onset of an ever increasing demand by ‘networked learners’ for the insatiable desire for all things electronic, and yet year in we offer up a mild Diaspora of modules ‘enhanced’ with technology. Why have we not changed our ways? We have merely altered our approach by the addition of tool sets that appear to service the administrative needs far better than any academic needs, let alone the learner’s. Indeed is it not the case that the massification of HE offers up the ideal opportunity to track and manage all educational needs via technology? Where are the needs of the learner in this realm? They seem to have been allotted a number in a rather grand computer system.