Quality in E-Learning (European Weblog for E-Learning, Competence and more) : topic:Own Reflections

GMW Congress in Krems

uehlers — 2008-09-19T08:38:00Z

The GMW is the biggest professional organisation in Germany in the field of media and science and is focussing on the use of media for teaching and learning in higher education.

The 2008 GMW Congress in Krems (Austria) discussed the integration of social software into higher education. Robin Mason from the Open University UK pointed out the challenges this brings to universities, focussing on the organisation culture and the needed competences.

I was elected by the GMW general assemebly into the Board of directors of the GMW for a 3 year term.

www.gmw-online.de

Columbia --> Conference for Quality in E-Learning in Higher Education

uehlers — 2007-08-12T19:41:00Z

I am involved in a project which is establishing cooperations between European Higher education institutions and latin American higher education institutions: WINDS-LA.

Now I am invited to talk about European Higher Eudcation Quality policies in Columbia, in a conference for Universities staff in Bogota on AUG 15-17th.

The presentations are live streamed and recorded. You can watch them here. http://www.colombiaaprende.edu.co/seminario2007/

Columbis is an extremely interesting experience. The Ministry of Education launched a 10 year plan to improve the educational opportunities for the Columbians. the plan was put up after a participative apraisal phase in which the all columbians were asked to contribute suggestions. A free phone line was set and 30000 people called. the resuts were analysed and put togthere by a group ofexperts and online discussed by over 20000 participants. Afterwards the MoE made a plan out of it.
The team involved is a team of young rsearchers who is spending a certain time - internship- in the ministry and have the responsibility to implement the plan. This team is the most impressive and energetic group of devoted people I have met in a long time. It is impressisve to see with which enthusiam they move forward, the make allies and they try to motivate people to use e-learning in the universities.

Microlearning - Conference in Innsbruck

uehlers — 2007-06-21T15:52:00Z

I was invited at the Microlearning 2007 Conference in Innsbruck. I must say - I liked it VERY much. There were alot of truely interactive and open formats, eg. learning cafes, real discussion workshops and speedgeeging... Great!

I have discussed in Innsbruck with colleagues from the Microlearning Community. It was very international and I really had good contacts and could start NEW networks.

Apart from that - here are some of my more critical reflections:

(1) A little bit I felt sometimes like in the first days of the "e-learning debate" in the e-learning community, where we discussed many things from a primarily technological perspective - and then until today more and more moved towards strategy, organisational change and didactic. Technology is clearly "only" the enabler - important but not dictating. This is shared with the people involved in the microlearning Community, too.

(2) The idea of Micro-**content** seems to me a iluding to the discussion on Learning Objects (read more about THAT here). There has been already a considerable amount of research carried out and concepts discussed which should definitly be taken into account - in the conference this was little lacking behind.

(2) Microlearning focusses on social software and connecting people and on Microcontent (see below). Many specificly pedagogical questions are viewed as important by the colleagues from this community - for example if the use of WIKIS is leading to better results of learning or what are suitable didactical strategies to integrate widgets into learning processes. these questions in my view need high atention. This is form me the truely interesting side of the Microlearning Discussion - to ask how and if we can develop Micro-learning paths and scenarioes. I would like to open a discussion on this.

My preliminary conclusion: great people and good starting debates. Sometimes also some old stuff (in a little bit new bottles). In anycase: Alot of good cooperation potential between the Microlearning Conference and the ''mainstream'' (what is that actualy??) e-learning world. The open discussions are motivating me to go on exploring the cooperation with this community which, in a way, likes to deal with the real innovative technology segment of tool development (widgest).

Here a definition taken from the Microlearning Wiki

Microlearning
(1) is a term used in the e-learning context for a learners short interaction with a learning matter broken down to very small bits of content. At present this term is not clearly defined. Learning processes that have been called microlearning can cover a span from some seconds (e.g. in mobile learning) to 15 minutes (learning objects sent as e-mails). There is some relation to older concepts like Microteaching. Of course the notion of microlearning rises the question of adequate Micropedagogy and Microdidactics, as well as the problem of learning itself.

(2) in a wider sense is a term that can be used to describe the way more and more people are actually doing informal learning and gaining knowledge in Microcontent and Micromedia/Multitasking environments (see Microcosmos), especially those that become increasingly based on Web 2.0 and Wireless Web technologies. In this wider sense the borders between Microlearning and the complementary concept of Microknowledge are blurring.

(3) is, as Integrated Microlearning (iML), a new didactical concept developed by the RSA Studio eLearning Environments, based on a plain & simple, patent-pending technology (KnowledgePulse) that can be run on all web-based platforms and devices, especially including web-enabled phones.

This short definition (v 1.0) has been proposed on 2005/09/12. Contribute! For more elaborate discussion of the key term see Microlearning discussion, for some links go to Microlearning links. The Microlearning2005 Conference was the first attempt to discuss phenomena, practices and theoretical concepts under this perspectice.

My presentation for the conference Evaluation-for-E-Learning-Some-food-for-thought- (ppt, 1,850 KB)

New Board of Directors! European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning

uehlers — 2007-06-16T11:57:00Z

Our Foundation is moving on...

In Naples we have elected a new board of Directors which now consists of 14 Board members. All excellent personalities - Welcome!! I am looking forward to work with this experienced team and to learn from it.

There was an excellent spirit of moving on with the Foundation and positioning it to provide impulses for the european and international quality landscape of actors!

EDEN Conference NAPLES, Qality Literacy

uehlers — 2007-06-16T11:40:00Z

This week I attended the EDEN Conference in Naples. I gave a talk on "Quality - Moving from controll to culture". In the centre there is the model of quality culture which has been developped by the European University Association which stresses that apart from documentation and process definition an effective quality management system needs elemtns of committment, attitudes, skills and values.

On basis of this model I have developped an approach which I call "Quality literacy" and which is comprised of four competencies which you need to develop an effective and relevant quality srategy for an organisation. The four elements are:
1. Quality knowledge - which tools/ instruments/ strategies are available?
2. Quality experiences - how to use them
3. Quality innovation ability - how to adapt existing strategies to my needs or how to invent suitable criteria for my situation, and
4. Quality analysis - to be able to develop my own quality objectives and goals

It is interesting but I had alot of feedback from people saying that they find especially the elements of "quality literacy" very helpful as a concept to reflect on what is missing in their own organisation or their own quality development process.

The next step is now that I want to develop a clear description of the before mentioned competences in which they are described as competences with different levels of expertise - niveaus.
Then an organisation could be assessed against their expertise in all these different competence niveaus and learning / development need would become apparent.