I’m working through my own thoughts on the ongoing nature and future of Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) (once thought of as a course management system) and the related Personal Learning Environment (PLE). I hope to have a blog post up later this week, but my draft has grown quite unwieldy, so it may not make it. In the meantime let me post a bit of an outline and try to spark some discussion. I hope through conversation I can clarify my own thoughts.
1) The Virtual Learning Environment Defined
- Is this a meaningful software category distinct from adminisrative, portal and other applications?
- I think of a VLE as being distinct from a PLE in that a VLE is owned and managed by the instructor/institution, while the PLE is a collection of tools ultimately managed by individual learners. Is this a correct distinction?
- One can think of a VLE as loosely or tightly joined. Are there a core set of services that make something a VLE or is the VLE a set of tools assembled by the institution? If so what distinguishes a Moodle from a Wimba or Second Life are these all VLE’s or is there some set of capabilities like the gradebook and section navigation /rollup that comprises the overall VLE?
2) Change Agents for the core VLE
Assuming there is some core VLE platform component. Some have argued that the VLE tool set has become fixed and known while others propose that continued innovation is underway.
- What are your thoughts on the state of the VLE feature set? Have we reached a state of equilibrium or are new tools and capabilities driving further innovation?
- Does the core of the VLE need to narrow to a smaller but richer set of services or should it broaden out to encompass a large set of activities with a distinct learning tool? For example should the VLE continue to provide a discussion forum or distinct blog tool, or does it make sense to leverage existing services while refining capabilities like grading and assessment services.
- The Purdue SIgnals Project, USF User Performance Assistant, Blackboard Outcomes Assessment Module, and Starfish Retention indicate the potential to predict and improve student performance. Do these tools drive additional reliance on the VLE?
- How does the rise in usage of new platforms like the iPad ®, iPhone® and eReaders such as Kindle ® impact the VLE?
3) Edupunk vs. the VLE
On the heels of the ELI conference An amusing debate is playing out between Jim Groom and Jon Mott.
- What is your perspective on Edupunk?
- Is Edupunk an issue of practice and implementation driven by misunderstanding of how a VLE works, or a complete opposition to the VLE?
- Is Edupunk more about opposition to the institution or to the VLE? Is the VLE a conventional midsized sedan as proposed by John St. Clair at UMW
4) Visibility of Innovation
The Internet undergoes rapid transformation. The VLE mirrors this innovation in terms of user interface and popular tools. Consider that YouTube turned 5 this month and that 10 years ago Geocities was one of the top websites valued at over a billion dollars (gone today).
- Product adoption cycles in education are built on multi-year timeframes. Does this disadvantage an incumbent player who is seen in light of an older version vs. a new entrant who can be seen with fresh eyes.
- What is the optimal length to remian on a version of a VLE. Is it 2-3 years, or should an effort be made to keep close to the latest version?
- What strategies should be employed to get early adopters looking not just to external solutions, but working within the toolset adopted by the university, or is this relevant?
The Edufountain: Virtual and Personal Learning Environments by Fountains of Fontaine, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
#1: http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/blog/2009/09/16/alt-c-report-3-what-is-a-vle-is-a-virtual-world-a-vle/ http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/blog/2009/09/14/alt-c-report-2-is-the-vle-dead/ & http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/blog/2009/09/03/the-vle-is-dead/
#2: have touched on this in various comments to basa before – it’s not going to be ok for Bb to keep charging for being a framework more than just tools, but we need to be able to easily and quickly hook in new things as they come along, rather than getting stuck with a vast behemoth that moves slower than a conventional sedan, more like a tanker. On the other hand, having that core authenticated system to have something to hook in to is necessary – still necessary, imho. Who is the change agent? us still, please, when we’re out and about hearing what faculty want to be able to provide for students, and what students want to have access to, and we want to be able to point them at the right, fittest tool for the job, without having to say well this you can connect to the rest of your module in the vle, but this is more appropriate only you can’t, you choose…
#3: haven’t got one, but am somehow feeling there’s a whole ‘nother blog post in this and #4 so I’ll shut up for now anyway
To this point: “I think of a VLE as being distinct from a PLE in that a VLE is owned and managed by the instructor/institution, while the PLE is a collection of tools ultimately managed by individual learners. Is this a correct distinction?”
I would say from current experience that it varies widely. My fellow grad students and I dearly wish our profs would use even some of the capabilities of the Blackboard suite. But most simply don’t. And for projects where there needs to be student collaboration, there is no ‘privacy’ of process from the professors, for instance in group work. No one wants to have the prof check on the date stamps and see that XX% of the work was done in the last 48 hrs before something was due. So we ended up using gmail and online doc sharing and virtual file storage, and it never went back to the other environment.
So there are human factors, involving comfort with the technology as well as lack of comfort with the transparency and agency of some of the content creators (students), which need to be taken into consideration.
For me personally, I am figuring out my PLE, which I hope will include accessing some Second Life learning environments in my field (counseling psychology) to take advantage of some newer research in both ADD and the effect of avatars on real-life performance.
(I clicked over from your mom’s linking to this series.)