Esther and I have been out and about leading workshops during the last month. It may sound counter-intuitive, but this has been a great opportunity to recharge the mental batteries. There is nothing like talking to the people at the ‘chalk face’ in order to connect to the real issues, and to place new technologies in their proper perspective. There is currently a lot of interest in making virtual learning environments – invariably Moodle in the circles I move in – more interactive and engaging.  This idea isn’t new, of course, and was hard-wired in Martin Dougiamas’s thinking when he designed Moodle in the first place. Nevertheless, much Moodle usage seems to be firmly entrenched in the didactic mode; most ‘moodles’ I have seen consist simply of some powerpoints, supported with the odd reference. This approach may suit some; it means that learners can access resources out of learning hours, but lacks something – dare I say, fun? Most learning providers aspire to do much more, and rightly so.

The big question is how to take the next step. What I am seeing in this round of workshops is an understanding of the barriers to social learning, and a genuine realism about what is possible. As with face to face contact, social learning is based on an implicit (or perhaps explicit) contract between teacher and learner. This can only happen if certain conditions already exist: an agreement about how much time to devote to an activity, the time-lag before responding to messages, and the end date of the activity, amongst other things. I am finding that tutors and facilitators are increasingly aware of these issues, and that these ideas are now emerging spontaneously in workshops.  I see this sense of realism as an important step to making the necessary changes, and I think it exists across all the sectors, and even in those people who have really started on the ‘moodle’ road yet. It is perhaps the people who teach adults in the communities, and who are thoroughly familiar with the idea of social learning, who are best able to turn moodling into a social experience.

Meanwhile, in  my own teaching, I have been grappling with the change from FirstClass to Moodle. To be honest, I had been dreading this – because FirstClass always felt like an old friend, and Moodle is unfamiliar. What I have learned from this is that, while I am still not completely comfortable with the change, the learners don’t really seem to have noticed. So, encouragingly, this may be an instance where it is the practice, and not the technology, which dictates the value of the experience. I hope so, because there are a lot more people out there who can be touched by the learning experience, if only we can find ways to make it more familiar and more social.  I will be working towards that, and I know that quite a few people are planning to go on that journey too. I am looking forward to sharing the experience with people who are doing this.

I have recently read, and been inspired by, ‘Making is Connecting’ by David Gauntlett. Here as some thoughts of mine on the subject….

As the new academic year begins, up and down the UK people are trying out new skills, or refining their existing skills, in painting, sculpture, dressmaking, stained glass, and other arts and crafts far too numerous to list here. Alongside these, other classes are running in digital photography, web design, and other skills which seem at first sight to be far removed from the more evidently hands-on work of the traditional crafts. However, these learners and teachers have something important in common: they are all making things.

David Gauntlet makes this connection quite brilliantly. His thesis is simple:  making something (anything) means putting things together in specific ways, in other words connecting things. He asserts that the act of creating these connections has a positive effect on the human psyche – including both a feeling of wellbeing and a disposition to learn. In support of these ideas he draws on a tradition of thinkers who also had a vision which incorporated arts and crafts, in particular John Ruskin and William Morris.  This is inspired stuff, linking the creative world with the world of ideas in a way which the Victorians perhaps took for granted, but we are in danger of losing sight of. Gauntlett argues that creative activity on the Internet (there is much emphasis on YouTube and blogging here) can help to make these connections more real.

Meanwhile, he also takes us into a different line of thought by linking all this with the notion of social capital. His explanations here are a worthwhile primer, and help to make the link between the personal and the political – which is a core idea in this book. Very briefly (and perhaps a little too sketchily) he leads the reader through some of the thoughts of Ivan Illich, explaining how traditional models of education can fail by forcing learners to become passive recipients of knowledge and ideas. This leads into the ideas of Tim Berners-Lee and Tim O’Reilly. He points out that Web 2, as outlined by O’Reilly , matches the vision of Berners-Lee in a way which early transmissive (and commercial) models of web design have failed to do.

So how does the creative arts and crafts strand interweave with Web 2? Gauntlett points out that the web is now becoming a huge outlet for creativity, as evidenced by the wonderful world of YouTube, Wikipedia, blogs, twitter, etc. Of course, for every person who uploads their stuff to the web, there are many people who simply browse or watch, but that’s ok. The ratio is much more tilted in favour of participation than it ever has been in the case of the mass media which has dominated the entertainment industry for so long.

So, these are powerful ideas. The book is not simply a utopian tract, but also suggests a clear pathway through some aspects of ACL which are currently problematic. I refer specifically to the disconnect between technical courses which impart office skills, technical skills, or an understanding of databases, and the creative work which is going on, perhaps in the room next door. If we can learn anything practical from Gauntlett’s book, it is that we should roll back the divisions between these activities (physically, if possible), and bring these learners and teachers into the same spaces. To do this, we need to get those sitting at keyboards to actually make things and share them. Both groups need to get better at building communities, and to break the boundaries between the communities which emerge in the classroom, and those which develop online.

This week is dedicated to adult learners in the UK and Ireland. Adult Learners Week is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of learners everywhere, and the teachers and mentors who have supported them. For providers, it is also a chance to promote their courses, and to give potential new learners a taste of what can be involved in learning. I spent part of yesterday in Bangor with the team at Connecting Learners, a Wales Union Learning Fund (WULF) project which aims to foster a culture of learning throughout the third sector, and to help people to overcome their barriers to lifelong learning. You can find out more about the project at http://issuu.com/connectinglearners/docs/connecting_learners_fact_sheet_all

The team is on the first leg of its  roadshow, raising awareness of new learning opportunities, including   LearnDirect courses, the ‘Six Books Challenge’ and the project’s own online Ning network, which is a ‘space for lifelong learners to connect’ . Of course, lifelong learners have been connecting in small groups in village halls, colleges and universities since time immemorial, but I think that opportunity to connect across Wales, and perhaps more widely, brings with it new opportunities which the project is only just beginning to explore.  In case you have the chance to catch the team, you may want to know that the roadshow moves on to  Llandudno Junction today (May 17^th), Torfaen (May 19^th)  and Newtown (May 20^th).

If you can’t catch the roadshow, you can hear project manager Richard Speight, who will be leading an online workshop exploring how and why using social media can help you to communicate effectively with a range of audiences. He will be looking at the role of blogs, social networking, creating and embedding content, integrating social media into your existing processes and counting your social media impact.  To book a place on any of the free workshops in summer programmes in the summer programme (June 21^st – 23^rd), visit our online booking page.

To find out more about events throughout Wales for Adult Learners Week, take a look at NIACE Dysgu Cymru’s site at http://www.niacedc.org.uk/campaigns/adult-learners-week. If you use Twitter, you can also see latest news on the events by following the tag #walw11.

I will be signing up the Six Books Challenge, and in my case at least three of them will be in Welsh. I will let you know how that one goes….

Last week I was privileged to be in Leicester for an event run by NIACE called ‘Sharing and Sharpening Practice’, during which a group of adult educators shared their experience of teaching and learning in the digital age. We heard some really dynamic ‘Pecha Kucha’ presentations, about which I will write more in due course. One of the most engaging was the of Terry Loane on ‘Hedge Schools’.

Hedge Schools established across Ireland in response to the suppression of the Catholic faith from the seventeenth century, until (perhaps) the beginning of the twentieth. They enabled children to learn when otherwise they would not have been able. Not all took place outside, but some certainly did. Arthur Young noted in ‘A Tour  in Ireland’  that ‘many a ditch was full of scholars’ (Fernandez-Suarez, 2006). This story shows how powerfully motivated learners, or perhaps their parents, can be. It also illustrates the way that self-organised learning can happen despite, not because of, the established system.

A couple of days earlier, I had been in Norfolk visiting a former colleague of my father’s, now retired. In that serendipitous way which sometimes happens when it is nearly too late, I discovered a lot about their past. Amongst many other things, I learned that they had formerly hosted the Workers Education Association classes in the town, bringing people from a vast range of backgrounds together to learn. Listening to Terry speaking in Leicester, it occurred to me that there were some striking parallels between the WEA and the hedge schools. As in the hedge schools, the learning at the WEA was self-organised at a local level, but also connected to a wider network of similar classes elsewhere.

History tells us much, but we need to look ahead too. Terry’s talk did just that, speculating that the rigours of the current economic climate may be restoring conditions where self-organised and informal learning may be about to undergo a resurgence. If this is the case, then technology will inevitably be involved. The ways we now have of forming groups and sharing knowledge clearly can take learning out of the hedges, and into people’s homes. At least, the potential is there, and it is starting to be realised in initiatives like School of Everything . Much more activity of this kind may be just around the corner.

However, one lesson from the hedge schools is that the technology is not the driver. While it can transform, it can also exclude. My friends in Norfolk are not connected in any way more sophisticated than a telephone, and there are many others like them. I wonder, it we should be  return to the hedges  from time to time, if only to see who is still there?…

(With thanks to Terry Loane, who gave an inspiring presentation).

Over the last couple of years, I have often led workshops on topics relating to social networking, and managing information. When looking at blogs, Twitter, Delicious and that whole plethora of technologies which some of us like to experiment with, I am often asked for good examples, or perhaps role models. Who is working well with these technologies? Who is worth following? Which streams to subscribe to? Of course, this is something everyone needs to explore for themselves. It’s a matter of opinion, really. But it’s good to have a starting point, and increasingly, these days, I direct people to blogs made by children in schools. Whether in the UK, America, India or elsewhere, there is so much innovative work being done in the classroom.

Sugata Mitra’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiment showed us how children can teach themselves and each other, even unsupervised. More recently his ‘Granny Cloud’ project is showing how effective praise and support can be in motivating children to learn, and that this can work really well over video connections. This video of some ‘grannies’ at work gives you the idea.

It seems that everywhere you look on the web, you can find school teachers leading by example; showing their pupils how to enquire, how to solve problems, using multimedia and social networking tools. Take Oliver Quinlan. He is getting his pupils to explain how they solve maths problems on video, and letting the rest of the world know via his blog. Another class group has responded to these by adding a few maths explanations of their own here. Exercises of this kind are normally done in the classroom, but the motivational power of putting this material out online is immense.

Alex’s Class Blog is another good example. This one includes embedded media files which the pupils have made themselves, and a lot of pictures. To find more examples of kids showing off their learning activities on the web, just search for #classblogs, and there is a whole conversation going on. Many of these blogs show counters displaying visits to the site. On most, people are starting to add encouraging comments. Is this Prof. Mitra’s ‘granny effect’, in a different guise?

Is all of this relevant to adults learning? I think it is. The social media represent a massive learning opportunity for old and young alike. Let’s learn from the kids, and get blogging….

Last month saw the publication of the Welsh Assembly Government’s long awaited policy on Adult Community Learning in Wales. ‘Delivering community learning for Wales’ is a succinct 14 pages long. There is no budget associated with it, but it provides a firm direction for ACL over the next five years, and possibly beyond. Following a period of consultation with providers, the authors have (in my view) identified the issues correctly. There are no immediate solutions on offer, but I don’t think that anyone expected any. Longer term solutions will clearly depend on funding, but this policy offers the best hope we have of prioritising appropriately, and maximising efficiency.

Amongst the many strong features here are the recognition of the strong link between ACL and the Voluntary Sector. Providers in these sectors have often worked hand in glove, and yet the funding and regulation to which they have been subject has been distinct. As partnerships between these sectors are strengthened under the Transformation agenda, it is important that the role of voluntary organisations is recognised, and their position strengthened. The policy also calls for clearer links between ACL partnerships and other non DCELLS funded adult
learning, such as libraries and museums. Closer collaboration between these organisations will surely help to enhance quality, and improve efficiency.

Another key feature is the explicit recognition that learning in ACL does not lend itself to measurement by the same standards as those employed in other educational sectors. Too often, the activities of adult learners have been shoehorned into inappropriate accreditation which may match the needs of the funders and providers, but do not relate to those of the learner. It is very good to see that the WAG will be working closely with NIACE Dysgu Cymru and other partners to address this, by developing consistent performance measures for accredited ACL programmes, including learner completion and attainment. These wider objectives have already been recognised under the Quality Assured Lifelong Learning (QALL) pillar of the CQFW.

Technology is not specifically mentioned in the policy. That is no bad thing; perhaps the last thing we need at the moment is an initiative which focuses on technology, rather than the needs of the learners. However, there is scope for technology to enable some of these changes, and to enhance the provision. The policy allows for 20% of the allocated funding to support “innovative provision based on locally determined needs”, with the aim of re-engaging adults who have not participated in learning for some time. This could include provision where technology has been shown to be a key enabler, such as family learning, and the inclusion of online elements in ‘blended learning’ contexts. This element of the funding will free up providers to think in new ways about the learning, both in terms of the targeted groups of learners, and the curriculum.

Last week I was at a very inspiring gathering of many of the movers and shakers in Adult Community Education, organised by NIACE Dysgu Cymru (NDC) bin Llandrindod Wells. One highlight of the event was a presentation by Clare Southard of NDC on the impact of Adult Learners Week 2010. This is a week long festival to celebrate adult learning and reach new learners through free tasters, taking place in May each year. Organisationally, this brings together the providers across all the sectors with a stake in this area; this time there were 255 partners in 22 learning festival groups. The number of participants in local activities has been increasing steadily since 2001; this year it reached 34,805, a 59 % increase on 2009. Interest in learning has never been greater, but the barriers to participation are still considerable (see Learning Through Life, by Tom Schuller and David Watson for supporting evidence). A combination of the demographic shift towards an older population, and the need for increasing numbers of people to reskill in order to re-enter the job market means that the need will never be greater. This was borne out in the NDC statistics, which showed that there has been a significant decrease in work commitments prohibiting learning, from 22% in 2009, down to 9% in 2010.

Against a background of the current and imminent spending cuts, it is worth noting that the total cost per learner of this festival works out at £3.53.

There is clearly a role for technology in this agenda. The NIACE DC Youtube channel was viewed over 2000 times during May. Given the burgeoning interest and the rapidly growth in Broadband connectivity, we can expect to see growth in this area. A few learners also experimented with Twitter, and I expect to see this and other social media, especially Facebook, becoming an important tool for promoting courses.

Meanwhile, take a look at the video of some highlights of Adult Learners Week 2010. You may be inspired. I was.

The past 12 months have seen considerable activity in the development of broadband

services in Wales, as OFCOM has reported in a recently published document, the Communications Market in Wales. ADSL 2+ is now available in 41 exchanges in Wales, offering speeds of up to 20Mbit/s (compared to the up to 8Mbit/s available from ADSL1 networks), although the actual speed obtained depends upon the distance between the premises and the exchange.  Perhaps more tellingly, 64% of households in Wales now have a broadband connection, either via a fixed line or a mobile network. This is a big step forward from approximately one half of all households which had taken up broadband just two years ago. This means that many more people have access to services offered by government and educational services, as well as the (probably more widely used) online shopping and entertainment services.

I also find it very encouraging that rural homes (with 69% broadband) are now better connected than urban homes (62%). While in an ideal world all homes should be connected, these comparative data indicate that connections have been made available to, and taken up by, many people in isolated locations who may need them most.

Although Wales has not yet caught up with England in this respect, these figures mean that we continue to keep up the pace of broadband roll-out, despite the suspension of the Digital Participation Fund earlier this year. Of course, it remains to be seen whether these continued improvements in connectivity will be sustained in the face of further cuts in funding which are likely to follow.

A few months ago, on the BBC’s Springwatch programme, I watched an interview with a scientist. This was not a professional scientist, but an amateur with acute powers of observation who had acted on her instinct over several decades. This person has been recording the precise date of the annual spring bud-burst on one individual oak tree near her home for more than 40 years. This very simple but reliable set of observations is now helping scientists to test hypotheses about how climate change is affecting trees, and by extension all wildlife.

Trees act as useful indicators of environmental change, since their developmental responses like bud-burst are closely linked to climatic conditions. However, the value of this research goes deeper than this, since trees are also often key species in food webs. Sessile oak, for example, is thought to host some hundreds of species of insect. The herbivorous insects, such as aphids, are especially important as they act as a food source for birds. The timing of insect egg hatching with respect to bud-burst is thought to be crucial, and part of the debate around the impact of climate change on this ecosystem has centred on the possible differential effect on bud-burst in plants and egg hatch in insect herbivores.  In other words, earlier bud-burst in the spring could mean that the aphids hatch too late to feed on the tender young leaves, and the young birds may also miss out on a crucial food source.

Detailed information to test ideas like this doesn’t always emerge quickly from laboratory experiments, or from field studies. This is one reason why the Open University and the BBC have set up a database called iSpot (http://ispot.org.uk/), to which naturalists can add their observations. Over time, this will become a huge dataset which will help scientists to answer all kinds of questions. In order to add your observations, you don’t need any specialised knowledge, simply an ability to make careful observations, and to add a digital photo if are able to take one. There are specialists ‘on hand’ to check your observations, and if you are unsure what you have seen, they may be able to identify species. The service is open to all, and anyone can download the data and use it for their own purposes, from university level research down to a school project. The service is a real boon to adult educators, and community groups interested in conservation.

Individual observations may not tell us very much, but added together they can paint a powerful picture. There are many experienced and knowledgeable naturalists in all of our cities, towns and villages, who are constantly monitoring plants and animals. Quite a number work for, or are friends of, our botanic gardens. Pooling our collective wisdom about the flora and fauna which abound in our gardens and countryside will help us to develop a deeper understanding of the changing patterns of wildlife in Wales. In the long term, that will make us all wiser, and help us to conserve biodiversity for future generations.

I wrote earlier this week about the RaceOnline Manifesto for a Networked Nation , and at the end of that posting I mentioned the consultation on Digital Inclusion which was recently launched by the Welsh Assembly Government. These documents have different purposes and tenors, but they address the same theme.

 As the title indicates, the consultation document ‘Delivering Digital Inclusion: a Strategic Framework for Wales’ supplies a Welsh context, and provides strategic leadership. It does not, however, link to any funding opportunities. This is an important (but fully understandable) limitation, especially in the light of the recent disappointing news on the rescoping of the Digital Participation Programme.

 This aside, there is much to like about this document. For me a key element is the thoughtful strategic approach to stakeholder engagement. Crucially, the strategy incorporates are recognition of existing activity. No initiative starts from scratch. The document recognises this by the inclusion of a round-up of many of the best and most positive current and recent developments in this area. However, the authors also recognise that it is a tall order to make this kind of review comprehensive, and accordingly a mechanism is provided for other stakeholders to identify themselves as part of the consultation. Hence, organisations and groups which are not mentioned in the document can outline their work, and indicate how this aligns with the strategy. This is a very refreshing approach, which promises to bring the full range of stakeholders ‘on board’.

 A second key aspect which I find very helpful is the discussion of the barriers which must be overcome, in order for the strategy to succeed, The list is comprehensive, and includes  socio-economic, motivational, and technical constraints, which should allow for the full range of barriers  to be understood and addressed in a concerted manner.  In my view, this approach helps to raise the document above the level of a ‘call to arms’, and turns it into a useful working guide to the actions which will be needed in order to realise the vision.

 This initiative provides hope for genuine widened access in Wales. I hope that many individuals, groups and organisations will choose to take part in the consultation.