1. Session 5: Maps How do we understand learners’ differences?

2. Learners are different
Access
Preferences, choices, patterns of use
Personalisation
Beliefs and expectations
Effective e-learners
Change and transition
Social software
Specific learners & contexts
Institutional level practices
Course level practices
STROLL mind maps…

3. How do we understand learners’ differences?
attributes/ identities
strategies
In our research we have begun to focus on ‘effective e-learners’, recognising that this is a complex concept. We don’t just mean learners who get high grades in an online course, but learners for whom learning technologies have a specific meaning and advantage.
Many learners have extensive skills in the use of social software, in networking, and in sharing information online. Some even host their own web sites and create their own content, including podcasts. We know that institutions are poorly prepared for such learners (Conole 2006). Their skills, their willingness to experiment, their use of multiple personal technologies and their lack of respect for organisational boundaries all pose a challenge. Such adept users have an expectation of being able to access their favourite technologies within their place of learning and alongside the more formal technologies they are offered.
However, their effectiveness is not just about access and skills. Increasingly we understand that effective e-learning involves complex strategies and sophisticated approaches, in which personal beliefs, values and motivations are also a factor. We have tried to represent these different aspects of the effective e-learner as a pyramid, rather like Maslow’s hierarchy of learning needs (MASLOW A (1987) Motivation and Personality (3rd edition) New York: Harper and Row) 
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

4. attributes/ identities
Learners have access to relevant technologies, resources and services. Barriers to access such as cost and disability are actively addressed. Learners are not barred from accessing social and personal technologies without good reason. Technical support and reliable networks are available.
attributes/ identities
strategies
Without reliable, convenient and cost-effective access to technologies and services, none of the other attributes of effective e-learners can be brought into play. The paper on ‘future learning’, associated with this presentation, speculates on the kinds of technology learners will expect to use in the near future. Perhaps the greatest organisational challenges are in supporting access to personal technologies within and alongside institutional systems. There are undoubtedly challenges to the integrity and identity of the institution in these apparently technical issues of access and integration.
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

5. attributes/ identities
Learners are developing technical skills and using them in a variety of learning contexts, increasing in confidence and expertise. Information skills and digital literacies are emerging through guidance and practice.
strategies
Learner experience studies show that the range of skills needed by effective e-learners go beyond technical ICT skills. Learners need opportunities to apply and practice these skills in different learning contexts, for different learning activities and objectives.
Effective e-learners are categorised by Macdonald (2006) as e-writers, e-investigators and e-collaborators. These are certainly skills that effective e-learners will have mastered, but they fail to reflect how the new technologies are changing the nature of learning and knowledge. ‘e-create’ takes the idea of e-writing into other media besides text. E-collation is an essential new skill that Macdonald misses, but that forms the centrepiece of Siemens’ (2004) analysis of the ‘connectivist’ learner. Collation involves gathering of information nodes into new systems and networks, for example through tagging, mapping, modelling, editing and commenting, syndication, use of favourites, and the social software versions of the same (e.g. del.icio.us). Social software is also to the fore in the development of new collaboration skills for learning, and e-investigation involves a host of search and research skills. Again these are explored in more detail in the accompanying paper.
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

6. attributes/ identities
Learners are making informed choices about how they use technologies for learning, alone and with others, and developing flexible strategies in response to situational needs. They are literate and critically aware users of digital resources.
attributes/ identities
strategies
There is no clear demarcation between ‘skills’ and ‘strategies’, but the latter generally involve learners choosing from a repertoire of possible approaches. Tools, skills, social contacts and learning approaches are mixed and matched to suit immediate requirements or as part of an evolving personal ‘style’ of technology use. John Seely Brown (2005) is just one writer who has tried to characterise the evolving strategies of effective e-learners. Are these convincing? Are there others he has missed?
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

7. attributes/ identities
Learners are creating their own learning environments and social contexts. Personal styles of learning/ technology use come to the fore. They are active participants in communities of knowledge building and sharing.
attributes/ identities
strategies
When strategies become unconscious through practice, they could be said to be fully appropriated. At this stage – maslow’s ‘self-actualisation’ – the learner has ‘creatively appropriated’ available technologies and learning opportunities to meet his/her own goals. At this stage, personal attributes and styles come to the fore, as do personal motivations for learning, and beliefs about both learning and technology. Learners will have their own reasons for how they choose to spend their time, which technologies they use in which situations, how social they are in their learning, how they manage and personalise the resources they need.
Green & Hannon (2007) used this typology of learners: it has some apparent links with Seely Browns’ strategies:
Digital pioneers were blogging before the phrase had been coined
Creative producers are building websites, posting movies, photos and music to share with friends, family and beyond
Everyday communicators are making their lives easier through texting and MSN
Information gatherers are Google and Wikipedia addicts, ‘cutting and pasting’ as a way of life.
A recent report on effective LEARNERS by Higgins et al (2005 – looking mainly at research in schools) concluded that five attributes stood out. Readiness, resourcefulness, resilience, remembering and reflecting can all be re-interpreted when new technologies are available to support them (for example e-portfolios, time management software on PDAs, memory sticks and so on). This approach ties our research into the long tradition of investigating what makes for effective learning and effective learners.
Finally, we have taken some key terms from Owens et al (2007)’s FutureLab report into social software and the new demands it is placing on learners. None of these three approaches to understanding effective learners is necessarily more ‘right’ than the others, but they may be more useful in different contexts (e.g. Green and Hannon suggest a typology, while Higgins and Owen suggest attributes that all effective e-learners must expect to develop).
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

8. attributes/ identities
experiences of learning with technology
conceptions of learning with technology
attributes/ identities
strategies
In our research we have begun to focus on ‘effective e-learners’, recognising that this is a complex concept. We don’t just mean learners who get high grades in an online course, but learners for whom learning technologies have a specific meaning and advantage.
Many learners have extensive skills in the use of social software, in networking, and in sharing information online. Some even host their own web sites and create their own content, including podcasts. We know that institutions are poorly prepared for such learners (Conole 2006). Their skills, their willingness to experiment, their use of multiple personal technologies and their lack of respect for organisational boundaries all pose a challenge. Such adept users have an expectation of being able to access their favourite technologies within their place of learning and alongside the more formal technologies they are offered.
However, their effectiveness is not just about access and skills. Increasingly we understand that effective e-learning involves complex strategies and sophisticated approaches, in which personal beliefs, values and motivations are also a factor. We have tried to represent these different aspects of the effective e-learner as a pyramid, rather like Maslow’s hierarchy of learning needs (MASLOW A (1987) Motivation and Personality (3rd edition) New York: Harper and Row) 
skills
access
Beetham and Sharpe: future learners, future learning

9. Activity #6: ‘A Day in the Life’
In three groups per table (2s, 3s or 4s) read through the ‘Day in the Life’ of one learner
Discuss:
Does this learner have good access to technologies for learning? How could it be improved?
Does this learner have the skills they need to support learning with technology? How could they be enhanced?
What strategies are working for this learner? Are there any other strategies you could recommend?
How could other learners benefit from this learners’ experiences?
It may help to use a blank copy of the ‘pyramid’ model in your discussions.