1. FLEXIBLE PERSONAL LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS, DEVELOPED WITH
NETBOOK COMPUTERS,
TO ENHANCE LEARNING IN FIELDWORK
LEARNING SPACES
Brian Whalley, Derek France, Julian Park,
Katharine Welsh, David Favis-Mortlock

2. Learning Spaces,
where are we going to?
Libraries, lecture room, study spaces
VLE PLE
Some concepts of space and thought and the integration
of facts, learning and understanding (in a spatial world)
‘Learning takes place through the active behavior of
the student: it is what he does that he learns, not
what the teachers does.’ (Tyler, 1949 in McLuhan 1965)

3. Extending the personal in a 21C, information-rich,
world (for as many people as possible)

4. Computers in Fieldwork –
Lyngen Alps, North Norway, 1984
Apple II
+ HDD + Screen + generator

5. Some people and their concepts
Alan Kay –
The Dynabook
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Neal Stephenson –
The Young Lady’s
Illustrated Primer
(Diamond Age)
Douglas N Adams –
The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- ‘The Book’

6. The Book?
Not just yet
TTheYoung Ladyy’s
he You g Lad ’s
IlIllustrated Prrimer
lustr ated P imer

7. Some people and their views
V. I. Vernadsky –
The Noosphere,
The Biosphere (Seuss)
W. Kirk –
The Behavioural Environment
K. R. Popper –
World Three Ideas, ‘facts’, their
recognition and
organisation

8. Who said this and when?
‘The kind of organisation we wish to aim at is
one in which all relevant information should
be available to each research worker and in
amplitude proportional to its degree of
relevance.
Further, that not only should the information
be available but also that it should be to a
large extent put at the disposal of the
research worker without his having to take
any steps to get hold of it.’
J.D. Bernal (the Sage) 1939!
Vannevar Bush, 1936-45, Memex; ‘As we may think’

9. Bernal thought that
a modern information service should:
• send the right information T? ts?
E en
Y d
• in the right form
EN stu
• to the right people PP r
and HA Fo
IS rs?
• arrange those TH e of whatever
facts,
S orch
diverse origin, r bearing on any
E a
O se
particularDtopic and should be
integrated forre those studying that topic
For

10. Learning experiences
• NOT: ‘pile ‘em high and lecture ‘em long’
– And then examine them!
Sage on the stage from this; the
lecture?
Traveling scholar and student
The Name of the Rose -
Umberto Eco (The Sage of Bologna?
Or ‘The Sage of the Page’?)

11. The ‘Knowledge’ or DIKW Pyramid
Wisdom
Intelligence Human, judgmental
Contextual, tacit
Knowledge Transfer needs learning
Information Codifiable, explicit
Easily transferable
Data

12. And for learners:
‘Everyone should be able to
participate and control their own
learning process’
(Knowles 1987)
Does a VLE (really) allow this?

13. Personal Learning Environment
A definition:
As such, a PLE is a single user’s e-learning
system that provides access to a variety of
learning resources, and that may provide
access to learners and teachers who use
other PLEs and/or VLEs.
Mark van Harmelen 2006
(NB ‘ideas about PLEs are still forming’)
Work by Scott Wilson and Stephen Downes
Technology Enhanced Learning (Dillenbourg)

14. Stephen Downes
"... one node in a web of content,
connected to other nodes and content
creation services used by other students.
It becomes, not an institutional or
corporate application, but a personal
learning center, where content is reused
and remixed according to the student's
own needs and interests. It becomes,
indeed, not a single application, but a
collection of interoperating applications
— an environment rather than a system".

15. Connectivism
"theory that learning consists of making the right
connections." George Siemens and Stephen Downes
The categories of human thought are never fixed in
any one definite form; they are made, unmade and
remade incessantly; they change with places and
times. Emile Durkheim

16. Educational Spaces
Personal
space Other
Personal
In the field Team Space space
Trip space
Field space PLE
Student
Rich Internet
information
Applications
environment
Knowledge space
Student +
Computer
(desktop,
… lab, home, library …. laptop,
‘netbook’)

18. Fieldwork, lab and active learning
'You know what a learning
experience is?
A learning experience is one
of those things that says,
'You know that thing you just
did? Don't do that.’
(Douglas N Adams 'The Salmon of Doubt', p274)

19. Enabling metadata - a student NING site

20. Some tools for the future are here:
• Search Tools - will become more
sophisticated
• Information aggregators
(DevonAgent, C link)
• Tools for assisting the ‘learning’ and
research
• Using metadata rather than facts
• E-books and readers

21. What we are requiring is to take the
hardware and the information
handling software and build in a 21st
century student-centred pedagogy

22. An e-communication 'model'
Empowered, independent and life-long learners?
By working more in groups - encouraging confidence?
Assessment
Student Alone feedback Tutor input
Student
Reading Student Fieldwork
Tutorial Labs
WWW
Student Dissertation
Library
Lectures Essays
Projects
Internal and external e-communication
Let us promote ways in which 'e-learning' (in any sense)
enhances students' experiences

23. Personal Knowledge Network?
• How we all interact with the
information environment
• Where the information environment
can be anything from books to
internet to in our heads
• Developing the tools to deal with this
beyond our ‘memories’ (including
Popper’s World 3)

25. So, what can we do with a PLE?
• ‘Anything’ you want
• Extend your brain
• Do new things with your brain
• Link your brain with others
• Use your computer to link to …….
Any bit of the world - people, places, things
information - you, or your students, want

26. Paper and Pencil
Word processor, compact, shockproof, secure access,
endless battery life, compact, etc

27. Cloud
Apps Apps
Netbook/iPad etc
WiFi/3G/Bluetooth

28. Maybe the (nascent) PLE is already here …..
On a Mac of course!

29. So - how do we use them?
• PLE - the person
• PLE - the desktop
• PLE - the person+kit
• PLE - the broadband environment
• Handing responsibility to the student

30. Marguerite Koole’s FRAME Model
Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education
Device
Learner
Social

31. Dillenbourg, Schneider & Synteta
1 : A virtual learning environment is a designed
information space.
2 : A virtual learning environment is a social space
3: The virtual space is explicitly represented
4 : Students are not only active, but also actors
5 : Virtual learning environments are not restricted to
distance education.
6 : Virtual learning environments integrate heterogeneous
technologies and multiple pedagogical approaches
7 : Most virtual environments overlap with physical
environments

32. The Illustrated Primer -
‘… is an extremely general and
powerful system capable of
more extensive self-
reconfiguration than most. …a
fundamental part of its job is to
respond to its environment.’
The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson, 1995 p. 108.

33. What we are requiring is to take
the hardware and the information
handling software and build in a
21st century student-centred
pedagogy

34. Devices
(Computers and affordances)
‘Livescribe’ for making notes, Dictation and
Written and aural speech recognition

35. Out in the field

36. Student Field Guide – Vegetation in Mallorca

37. Learning
(after Beetham 2002)
• Student-centred Using
acquiring
• Constructivism digital
skills
• Activity based tools
• Experiential
Using digital
participating
• Communities of
communications
practice
media
constructing
Using digital
knowledge and developing
Using digital
resources
understanding values
etiquette

38. Identities: preferences, needs motivations.
Competencies: skills knowledge, abilities
Roles; Approaches and modes of participating
Learners
Learning Specific interaction of learners with other
people, using specific tools and resources,
Learning
Environment oriented towards specific outcomes Outcomes
Tools, resources, artefacts
affordances of the physical
Learning activity New Knowledge, skills
and abilities. Evidence of
and virtual environment for This and/or artefacts of the
learning learning process
An outline for a learning
activity, Helen
Beetham 2007
Others
Other people involved and the specific role
they play in the interactions, e.g. support,
mediate, change, guide

39. Field ------ Lab GPS data
analysis and section plotting
Several groups
(working Comparison of between-group
River
independently) results and report writing
Discharge
Study
Calculate
velocity data Lab. Analysis and Compilation
River Velocity measurements
Combine data Data
River cross profile measurements analysis
Download
GPS data
Pre-field
trip [ podcasts - digital reporting - vidcasts ]
preparation
Sampling Beach
Photographs Micrographs Size analysis
Sampling Dunes
Report Writing and Submission
Beach and Dune Study
Vegetation surveys
(with key and photos on netbook)
Combine
Combine with satellite images
Beach-dune profile data +
Download
surveys Other reports etc
GPS data
(GPS + Netbook)

40. Using Ron Oliver’s schema

41. Marguerite Koole’s FRAME Model
Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education
Device
Learner
Social

42. Things you can do on
iPad/netbooks
• Note taking • Modeling
(Pulsepen) • Identification
• Photos/microscopy
• Exchange data
• Video
• Web lookup
• Voice recording
• Social networking
• Field Sketching
• Mashups
• Data entry (etc)
• Panoramas
• Modeling
• Layars (Enhanced
• Identification
• Audioboo
• Geotagging
• Access to PDFs and e-book
• PRS
• E-book reader So, why on earth do we use VLEs?

43. Search and classify - DevonAgent

44. ‘Learning spaces are manifolds for
exchanging metadata’
It is not the ‘fact’ itself but the
metadata associated with that fact
that are really significant.
The PLE helps mediate this
connectivity

45. In conclusion
Personal Learning Environments
are what you
and our students
make them
Ideas and Technology are
in our favour!