Dan Sutch, Futurelab
Futurelab’s Blog
Ploughing through copious notes from the Vision not Division event that was led by UK Youth at St George’s, Windsor Castle last week, (looking at the role and future of ‘non formal learning’) has reminded me of how different sectors within education really can -and do – learn from one another. My first reflection is on responsive education approaches and what we can learn from Personal Learning Networks (PLNs).
Part of the discussion at the event was considering when it is appropriate for young people to have access to personal and social development activities – such as those often associated with Youth Workers, Youth Services or PHSE lessons. These activities play an important part in informing the development of young people’s values, and from there, the way in which they (and we) act. The importance of these activities was highlighted throughout the discussions but seen as particularly crucial during ‘key transition points’ in young people’s lives. At first reading, these ‘key transition points’ easily map on to big events: moving house, changing from primary to secondary schools, summative assessments etc. It would be easy to begin to map resources against these events to strengthen ‘education provision’, but that would miss many events that learners themselves may describe (perhaps in different language) as key transition points – personal confrontations, uncertainty or new opportunities. How then, on a system level, can resources be made available to young people so that they’re available when the young person needs them, rather than against any relatively arbitrary markers, such as age, stage or predetermined event?
Below is a section from a Futurelab report (written by Kieron Kirkland and myself) that outlines Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). It’s reproduced here to ask questions about how we organise learning provision/access around the needs of the learner at a system level. The section describes how for some teachers, accessing the support they need comes from the development of a personal learning network, rather than waiting for existing frameworks (such as CPD modules) to be implemented. There are of course differences between teachers and young people as learners, and one key element is developing the attributes and competencies to participate in such PLNs – but if we recognise alternative models for organising access to education, rather than reworking existing models of supply, perhaps we can develop a responsive education approach that takes the best elements from various education sectors.
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The notion of what constitutes a professional community needs to come under closer investigation as developments in networked technologies meet with the reshaping of what it is to work as a learning professional – the definitions of who constitutes ‘a colleague’ and who ‘from a different discipline’ is becoming more blurred. Yet it is not only the notion of a professional community that is being redefined. What counts as an institution is also currently being brought into consideration.
The Beyond Current Horizons programme suggests that a ‘weakening of institutional boundaries’ will occur as
‘the disaggregation of information from the institution, the capacity to interact easily at a distance … the creation of personal ‘clouds’ of information, people and resources … the increasing merging of public and private provision of public services; all of these different trends suggest that the next two decades will see an increased weakening of boundaries between institutions previously seen as separate.’ (Keri Facer highlights in here)
One element of this is already evidenced by the rise of the Personal Learning Network (PLN) as a dominant support group for innovative teachers. This group extends beyond immediate colleagues and traditional support groups (such as subject groups, key-stage groups etc), to create new networks of support. These groups have not yet been theorized within the research literature (Although they are being address in what Charles Crook refers to as ‘community literature’: blogs, website, microblogs etc. An example of ‘community literature’ on PLNs is http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams), although they are becoming far more evident as new digital networks are used for professional purposes.
In their report for Becta, Cable (2009) highlight a number of models that support innovation. One model within the institution is termed ‘peer involvement’, which supports innovation by (for example) ‘encouraging peer reflection’. A model beyond the institution, posed by this paper, is termed ‘Loose networks’ where institutions ‘collaborate informally, drawing on each others’ ideas and information as and when they can’. (CABLE, 2009). Personal Learning Networks are where these two models combine: where individuals within institutions create informal networks with peers inside and outside of those networks. What is particularly powerful about these networks is that they cross geographical boundaries, but also institutional and disciplinary boundaries. Although these can be termed ‘loose’ networks, as their make-up can change on an informal basis, they are becoming very important as sources of ideas, resource sharing and support for innovators.
Personal Learning Networks are created by the person at the centre of them. As such they are difficult to describe as each can vary greatly from others, yet they can be characterized as non-formal networks that take advantage of digital and physical tools to bring together the most useful and interesting sets of people to provide ideas, inspirations, resources and support systems. These networks are reciprocal; flexible and necessarily personal.
It is interesting that the reciprocity of PLNs comes by taking advantage of current social processes, rather than setting out to encourage new activities for people to share innovations. That is, by utilizing existing sharing networks (twitter, facebook, Google docs, TeachMeets) the single act of sharing becomes used for a variety of purposes which are contextualized by other parts of the PLN.
http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams provides a useful set of PLNs that shows the true diversity of them, based upon the preferences of the person at the centre of the PLN.
So some homework whilst I reflect further on the event … if you mapped your own PLN, how much of it is made up of formal relationships and what/who else plays a significant role in your own learning and work? Further (for an extra few marks 
when do you access these supporters and which are the least planned for?
