Thanks to John Falchi, Bob Martinengo and Luca Tateo for attending our online discussion on personalised learning on 26th January.

We had a very interesting chat with Bob and Luca providing excellent perspectives on thier experience of the topic. As a precursor to the IMS Utrecht meeting it provided me with a plethora of ideas to develop further.

It would be good to use this forum as a way of continuing the conversations we had online.

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Andy McGarry
Nisai Group
andy.mcgarry@nisai.com

Edited: 03/16/2011 at 08:11 PM by AndyMcGarry

Thanks to everyone who attended the Personalised Learning Workshop in Utrecht. This was organised as part of the IMS Global Learning Consortium Quarterly Meetings & Emerging Standards for the Educational Cloud Summit on the 14th February 2011.

The following people attended:

1. Rob Abel, Chief Executive Officer of IMS

2. Ross Mackenzie, Strategic Development Manager at Open University

3. Dr. Ingo Dahn, CEO of the Knowledge Media at the Universität Koblenz-Landau

4. Adam Cooper Deputy Director of JISC CETIS

5. Young-Sang Cho Bio Principal researcher from the Keris (Korean Education &
Research Information)

6. Morten Dahl, SIKT

7. Charles Severance, IMS GLC Affiliates Coordinator and Clinical Assistant
Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

8. Guus Klapper, Director of iDucation & Green Square

9. Andy McGarry, Development and Curriculum Manager, Nisai Group


Introduction

I gave a short introduction on personalised learning explaining the derivation of the term, the academic work carried out and the difficulties of providing a rigid definition.



Different Perspectives

Our discussions highlighted that there many aspects of personalising learning and that the delegates had very different views on the subject. Some delegates were intersted in scaling up so that more students could be registered without depersonalising their learning experience. Some were interested in automated systems that would provide a more personalised access to learning. Others were interested in the resources and how they would meet the learning styles etc. of the learners. It was noted that learners may not be capable of connecting online for long periods (e.g. submariners) and that budget constraints may limit the amount of personalisation possible.


It seemed that some attendees were interested in the process of personalising learning and others in the technology that would enable personalised learning. Perhaps these two strands may develop in parallel through two different workgroups.



Process

The process of personalising learning involves:

ensuring that learners were aware of the relevance of the course(s)
to their goals (personalising the reason for the learning)

identifying and overcoming any barriers to progress and success
(providing personalised assistance to enable learning)

Pedagogical approaches to online learning


Technology


Technology could help to enable personalising learning by:

improving accessibility

improving usability

ensuring that learners had access to material in various media to
match their learning styles (visual, audio and kinaesthetic)

enabling learners to personalise their own learning environments

providing technology that personalises the individual's learning
(automated technology rather than human interaction).

Capturing Various Perspectives of Personalisation

Rob Abel proposed that we ask various practioners to write about the level of personalisation they currently offer and the future goals/challenges for personalised learning that face them and their organisation. Rob has promised to set the task and I will be the first contributor.

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Andy McGarry
Nisai Group
andy.mcgarry@nisai.com

Edited: 03/16/2011 at 08:34 PM by AndyMcGarry