Online Conference on
Learning and Teaching with Technology
in Art Design and Communication
DeL Online 2009: Presenters
Professor Hugh Davis
Social Learning and the Future of the VLE
Abstract
Traditionally learning has been seen as a solitary and individualistic task; learning has been represented as committing knowledge to memory and the personal acquisition of skills and literacies. The affordances of early computer technologies amplified this perspective, and transitions of learning technologies to networked platforms sustained the individualist context within the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). However constructivist critiques of learning environments have emphasised the importance of social interactions and the benefits of groups working and problem solving as a means to learning and knowledge acquisition. Advances in Web technologies over this decade (the so called Web 2.0) have enabled us to build tools to support and integrate many kinds of collaboration and learning in networks. Such tools have been retrofitted to existing VLEs.
This presentation argues that the current generation of Virtual Leaning Environments are no longer fit for purpose; they embody an approach to learning that supports ineffective/inappropriate didactic approaches, and do not complement the expectations or approaches to learning taken by Generation Y learners. The presentation examines progress in creating personal learning environments (PLEs) that put learners at the centre of their networks, and concludes by suggesting some research issues for learning technology in supporting networks for learning.
Presentation
View Hugh Davis presentation recorded in Wimba Classroom: (MP4 file:147 MB)
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Biography
Hugh Davis is the University Director of Education at the University of Southampton , with cross university strategic responsibility for e-Learning and he also leads the Learning Societies Lab (LSL) within the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) . He has the unique honour in Southampton of having been promoted to professorial level twice, once for my contributions to Education, and later gaining a personal chair for research.
He joined ECS in 1987 following four years of social work and seven years of school teaching. Early work with Wendy Hall in the area of video disc for educational purposes and archives led to ideas about Hypertext, and the early versions of the Microcosm open hypermedia system in 1989. He was a founder member of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group (IAM), and a founding director of Active Navigation Ltd. He is a member of the JISC Learning and Teaching Committee (JLT).
Following a period of 10 years or so working at the leading edge of Hypertext research, he returned to his first research area of learning technology. Hugh is interested in the ways in which technology can improve the learning experience, particularly in a research-led learning and teaching environment. His current areas of research focus on web and grid service architectures for distributed e-Learning, and in social applications in e-learning: how e-learning can be improved when we understand that there is more than one learner. He has more than 200 published papers.
See http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/hcd
Professor Hugh Davis
Head of the Learning Societies Lab & Director of Education (eLearning)
Room 3045, Building 32,
Research School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS),
The University of Southampton,
S017 1BJ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3669
Skpe: skype.hcd
Web: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/hcd/
Email: hcd@ecs.soton.ac.uk
