Using technology-enhanced PLEs to support mobile learning

1. Using technology-enhanced PLEs to
support mobile learning
Sean Dowling
Prof. Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez
Prof. Declan O’ Sullivan

2. About the Presenter
• Almost 20 years experience in education;
• Worked as an EFL teacher in Japan, Thailand and the Middle East;
• Last 10 years – educational technologist in the Middle East;
• Currently Marie Curie Research Fellow in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
• Working on PhD as part of the European Commission funded EDUWORKS
project.

3. EDUWORKS
• 11 PhD candidates, 2 Post-Doc researchers, 3-year project

4. Presentation Overview
• Lifelong learning (LLL), informal learning, mobile learning
• Learning trajectories and transitions
• Challenges to maintaining learning trajectories
• Using technology-enhanced personal learning environments (PLEs) to
respond to the challenges

5. Lifelong learning
All learning activity undertaken throughout life,
with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and
competencies within a personal, civic, social
and/or employment-related perspective.
(European Commission, 2001)

6. Lifelong learning
• formal / non-formal / informal
• “interact and overlap with each other both conceptually and temporally”
(Schugurensky & Myers, 2003, p. 331)
(LIFE Center: Stevens, R. Bransford, J. & Stevens, A., 2005)

7. Informal learning
• Incidental learning that results from everyday
experiences occurring in a wide variety of
contexts.
• Mobile in nature

8. Mobile Learning
• Learning that occurs in different locations, with
different people, interwoven with other activities,
using different technologies and dispersed over
time. (Sharples et al, 2009)
• Multi-dimensional
• Formal, non-formal or informal

9. Learning Trajectories and Transitions
change
trigger
abstraction
synthesis
Trajectory
transition
transition
transition
transition
experience

10. Challenges to learning trajectories
Mobility of learners presents some challenges:
1. Competing conceptual demands;
2. Limited access to existing knowledge;
3. Poor recall of original experiences.

11. Technology-enhanced solutions
Challenge 1 – Competing conceptual demands
• Record experience for later reflection
• Audio / Video / Photo / Text
• Text editor

12. Technology-enhanced Solutions
Challenge 2 – Limited access to existing knowledge
• Record experience for later reflection
• Recommendation systems
• Sharing / collaboration with others
• Organizing / connection learning experiences

13. Technology-enhanced Solutions
Challenge 3 – Poor recall of original experiences
• Record experience for later reflection
• Notifications

14. Personal Learning Environments
• Technical level - a customized set of resources, services and tools,
generally consisting of web-based technologies, selected and used by
learners to create a flexible learning environment (Godwin-Jones,
2009)
• Social level - “an environment where people and tools and
communities and resources interact in a very loose kind of way”
(Wilson, 2008, p.18)

15. Technology-enhanced PLE

16. Application(s) Interface

17. Some current research projects
• MIRROR (http://www.mirror-project.eu/)
• Learning Layers (http://learning-layers.eu/)
• TRAILER (http://trailerproject.eu/)

18. Evernote

19. Future work
• Collect data on 1) how technology (in particular, PLEs) is being used to
support lifelong learning trajectories; 2) effects (positive and negative) of
learner mobility on lifelong learning trajectories;
• Identify any significant patterns in this data;
• Recommendations for future learning technologies based on the
data/patterns.

20. Acknowledgments
• Prof. Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez / Prof. Declan O’ Sullivan
• EDUWORKS – European Commission FP7 funding

21. References
• European Commission. (2001). Making a European Area of Lifelong Learning
a Reality. Communication from the Commission. European Commission.
Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED476026.
• Godwin-Jones, R. (2009). Emerging technologies: Personal learning
environments. Language Learning & Technology, 13(2), 3–9.
• LIFE Center: Stevens, R. Bransford, J. & Stevens, A. (2005). Details on the LIFE
Center Lifelong and Lifewide Learning Diagram. Retrieved from http://life-
slc.org/about/citationdetails.html
• Sharples, M., Arnedillo-Sanchez, I., Milrad, M., & Vavoula, G. (2009). Chapter
14 Small devices , Big issues. In Technology-Enhanced Learning - Principles
and Products (pp. 233–251).
• Schugurensky, D., & Myers, J. (2003). A framework to explore lifelong
learning: the case of the civic education of civics teachers. International
Journal of Lifelong Education, 22(4), 325–352.
• Wilson, S. (2008). Patterns of personal learning environments. Interactive
Learning Environments, 16(1), 17–34.

22. Acknowledgments
Any questions or feedback?
Thank you.