2009-11-20
Just back from Canadian Association for Prior Learning Assessment (CAPLA) annual workshop in Toronto, Canada. In many ways, it is a meeting of educational change makers, and well I love change making.
Should it really be so far fetched to imagine that one day soon, a potential student pondering about applying to a post-secondary program is invited directly on the institution’s web site, not hidden, but right up front, « Thinking of coming to our college? Have related life experience and learning? Click here to complete your self-assessment. » A simple direct process allowing individuals to be exempted from parts of the program based on their diverse and rich life-work-education experience. It still astounds me that we are not there yet.
I would dare to take that dream one step further though (why not?). The actual record (or portfolio) of learning built for such a process of recognising prior learning should not be a snapshot in time but rather continue to grow and evolve, becoming a living document supporting lifelong learning – minimally till the completion of the education program. Basic common sense, no?
To advance such dreams, we need to bridge the e-portfolio community and the prior learning community – and that is slowly taking place. This event is testimony to just that. It is all part of the larger shift towards « asset-based » social policies focusing more on personal assets than personal deficits, helping people recognise their own capabilities, thereby contributing to increased confidence and all round well being.
Posted in Apprentissage non formel, Apprentissage tout au long de la vie, Compétences, Culture numérique, General, PLAR, Portfolio numérique |
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2009-09-28
Don’t you find that with the sea of teaching and training jargon – and the preoccupation with classifying learning as formal, non-formal or informal, that we sometimes loose site of learning, what it really is about? Here are two articles, by Roger C. Shank, that brings us back to the essence, with an approach that doesn’t worry itself with trying to draw the line between life-based, work-based, school-based learning, just accepts that they intermingle and enrich each other.
Articles:
What can be taught: part I
What can be taught: part II
Competency based approaches do have an intention to work towards this view, even if the transformation can get a little lost in the implementation. That’s normal, since we are mostly all products of education systems that organised learning into specialised topics and subjects rather than universal skill sets.
I wish that when I was doing my anthropology and education degrees we could have opened up to such a broad view of learning. It would have helped me to get a better grasp that my experience during those university years has actually served me well in my professional and personal life thereafter, even if on the surface it might appear disconnected. Indeed, classifiying types of learning/teaching into 16 types of processes that can then be grouped into 1) conscious processes, 2) subconscious processes, 3) analytic processes, and 4) mixed processes, is eye-opening and useful.
Now, when I read the other entry by Shank, on « Things that can’t be taught », I instantly say to myself, but has he heard about e-portfolios. This is reflective tool that supports the learning/development of self-awareness and self-knowledge. Yes, it is much more difficult to « teach » more personality related competence such as integrity but e-portfolios are the path into this zone.
Posted in Apprentissage tout au long de la vie, Compétences, General, Portfolio numérique |
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2009-04-21
Have you been truly inspired or experienced deep learning at a professional conference or seminar? Are you looking at these words cynically about now? For me, these moments are unique opportunities, bringing people together, away from our daily work routines, to get informed and inspired from our field, to connect with others and to gather feedback on our work and ideas. From my learning designer standpoint, these are learning events – ideal informal learning opportunities.
The good news is that the traditional formats of these professional pow-wows are evolving: the techniques, the technological tools and the shift towards collective intelligence are making gatherings more meaningful. Traditional academia is pondering on how to improve the conference model, (Spaces of Interaction: An Online Conversation on Improving Traditional Conferences), geek world has developed its own formula known as Barcamps, while Open Space Technology and World cafés are making their way across the world. Twitter backchannels are gaining in popularity for facilitating a parallel dialogue amongst the audience. And simple storytelling techniques are being refined for their communication potential. The architect world has brought us the fun formula known as Pecha Kucha.
Jacques Raynauld, Director of MATI, making use of the projected twitter back-channel going on as he presents, Web 2.0 conference, Montreal, 2009.
But, how to go about making the appropriate match between the needs/context of an event and the format, techniques and technological tools that work it? I have begun a list of questions/thoughts that might help in improving the learning design of events:
1. How much do you want/need to pre-program the event? Perhaps it’s our need for security that makes us automatically tend to want to pre-program events. Sometimes, especially if a wide-open common topic is to be explored, it is more powerful to allow attendees to determine the agenda. Open Space Technology is a technique supporting this approach.
2. Are the participants experts or novices in the field? When uniting many experts it makes sense to tap into the collective intelligence in the room rather than have only a single expert speaking. There are all sorts of techniques to open up to allow this. In Possibilities for Transformational Conferences, Tree Brens outlines various such participatory activities.
3. How much should the specialists be provided a structured framework for their documentation? For example, in a « Conversations event » organised by percolab, we requested that the 8 « presenters » present their work based on the same 8 themes and limit their summary to 1 page. This took multiple iterations for everyone to be on the same track, but the foundation allowed for rich conversations to follow and also provided helpful documentation for the attendees. This is particularly interesting when dealing with international situation whereby cultural and vocabulary differences need to be overcome.
4. How much do the participants know each other – want to know each other? Perhaps participants would like to know who else is attending, where they are from, and maybe even easily find a person attending with a common interest? But from information sharing to building a community there is a leap. Event-based social networking is often lots of energy with little payback (see here). But if this group regularly meets there should be a structured way to harness the learning from the event.
5. How can technology support and amplify the impact of the event? For example a twitter feed, during the event, is not appropriate if attendees are without laptops. However, a pre-event poll (short and sweet) can be a meaningful way to begin conversation with information on audience perception or state of play. I have yet to attend an event that allows those that present to upload their own presentations. Still people collecting them and inevitably creating that bottleneck that causes such delay you almost give up. Personally, all my presentations are on slideshare and I await the day whereby people simply request my link, or wip it into a web cast (such as this one).
6. And finally, a question we don’t always dare to ask: How much is the event contributing to real transformation and tapping into people’s souls? I don’t really know where to begin here, but let’s just throw out some words that come to mind: stories, authenticity, spoken word, music, humanism, vulnerability, imagery poignant…
Would love to hear some positive experiences/stories and ideas.
Posted in Apprentissage non formel, Apprentissage tout au long de la vie |
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2008-12-01
En démarrant percolab, nous nous sommes posés la question – parmi tant d’autres – de ce que devrait être notre futur espace de travail. Dans notre esprit, il était clair que nous ne voulions absolument pas nous retrouver dans un bureau anonyme dans le centre-ville de Montréal. Nous nous sommes mis à imaginer un espace qui conserverait la flexibilité du travail nomade, qui disposerait des ressources matérielles permettant différentes formes de travail – solitaire, à deux, en équipe, en groupe - et qui permettrait de profiter de la richesse des échanges au sein d’un groupe de travailleurs de pratiques diverses et d’horizons variées.
Rien de tel que de parler d’un tel projet pour réunir un groupe dynamique partageant cette même vision d’un espace de travail et d’apprentissage. Nous avons créé au printemps dernier la coopérative de solidarité ECTO et travaillons depuis à concrétiser la réalisation de cet espace de travail partagé (ou « coworking space »).
Située au coeur du Plateau Mont-Royal, sur la Place Roy, la coopérative ECTO occupe le dernier étage de l’ancienne Phonotèque de la Ville de Montréal. L’espace ECTO, c’est
- 16 espaces de travail pour travailleurs et petites équipes
- Une dizaine d’espaces pour travailleurs nomades urbains
- Une salle multifonctionnelle pouvant accueillir de 8 à 12 personnes
- Une cuisine et un espace de détente
L’espace ECTO vient avec
- Internet à volonté
- Impression, télécopie, copies
- Espaces de rangement (physique et virtuel) sécurisés
- Le café et les muffins!!
L’espace ECTO vous permet
- de travailler seul, en équipe ou en groupe
- de tenir vos réunions de travail
- d’organiser des rencontres avec vos clients
- de tenir vos activités de formation et de promotion
L’espace ECTO se veut
- accessible (jour, soir et week-end)
- flexible (plusieurs forfaits selon vos besoins)
- un espace d’échanges et d’apprentissage
Les travaux d’installation de l’espace ECTO sont en cours et l’ouverture des locaux est prévue début janvier 2009.
Vous pouvez devenir devenir membre (350 $ : part sociale 100 $ et part de capitalisation de 250 $ – remboursable dans 5 ans avec avec un taux d’intérêt non cumulatif de 6 %) et réserver votre place. Vous pouvez également opter l’un des autres forfaits flexibles que nous proposons.
Pour plus de renseignements, contactez la coopérative à info@ecto.coop ou encore écrivez-nous à Sam ou Yves à percolab. Et merci de faire circuler cette information dans vos réseaux!
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