eLearning

Comments on good practice
with e-guide/VLE provision


Learning and eLearning
Learning and eLearning differ in so far as with eLearning
technology allows more activity to be at the time and place
that suits an individual learner and thereby the learner is likely
to spend less time with other students during learning.

An e-guide that reflects an understanding of how students
can learn will be a more helpful guide. How do students learn?
A simple question, it has evinced answers for generations.

How people learn, and how best to learn, has changed  and is
dependent on what has to be learned and on the social context.
A characteristic of the contemporary world is the increased
pace of change. It seems certain that the pace will continue to increase.
With the extent of change, learning is now a lifelong odyssey and
good VLE provision will help students to learn in the way they
will need to learn throughout their working lives.
At school or college, it is the development in the ability to learn,
and growth in confidence as a learner, that is at the least as
important as that which is learned. Good e-guides, therefore, will
help students to be good learners as much as develop competence
with a particular area of knowledge.
 

The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory, ELLI (see*), research project
(University of Bristol) investigated how people learn and how they can improve
their learning power. They comment:

The research project gathered data on nearly 2000 learners
from the age of 7 through to adult learners. What was clear
from this data was that over time, and through the course
of formal schooling students actually become weaker
on ALL learning dimensions, but especially creativity.
At the same time they actually become MORE
dependent and fragile as learners.

The ELLI project propose seven dimensions of learning power;
these dimensions are guideline avenues toward successful learning.

• The changing and learning dimension. This dimension is the sense that
  they are learning and changing and that they can learn to learn.
  They are (more or less happily) engaged in, and establishing confidence with, learning.

• The critical curiosity dimension. With critical curiosity, learners want
  to get below the surface and find reasons by asking questions and coming
  to their own conclusions. They are less likely to accept statements
  uncritically, from ‘an authority’.

• The ‘meaning making’ dimension. In meaning making, connections
  are made between what is already known and what is being learned.
  Links between subjects and contexts are made and integrated into the learner’s life.

• The creativity dimension. Learners will look at issues from several perspectives;
  they will use their imagination and follow hunches and intuitions.

• The resilience dimension. Resilient learners like a challenge and
  are not frightened by finding something difficult. They can tolerate feelings,
  such as frustration and anxiety that sometimes accompany learning.

• The awareness dimension. This is the dimension that identifies learners
  thinking about how they learn and have ownership (responsibility) of it.

• The learning relationships dimension. Effective learners have a healthy balance
  between independent and collaborative learning; between independent work
  and sharing and exchanging with peers and others.

It is the view of the Sempringham e-resources team that the ELLI*
dimensions more closely represents the learning issues appropriate
for the early years of the twenty first century.

Good practice with e-guide creation/VLE provision for the creation of
effective resources will have cognizance of the dimensions of learning.
The importance of helping students become good learners, and to a
greater degree than before self-sufficient learners, is central to our
delivery of e-guides and eLearning resources.

Comments by the Sempringham e-resources team,  January 2008, who acknowledge
the help of  Chris Godwin and Dr Philip Evans for initial ELLI information.

* For information on ELLI, please see the ELLI  website.
* Information on the background and history of ELLI.

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