Hi Jonathan - interesting post, and an area with which I am reasonably familiar by now. You may well know of the work we are doing at Cleveratom around learning spaces, and VLEs in particular. Facebook has a lot of potential and I can well imagine many learning possibilities from using it, but it does lack certain safeguards - both for the students and the teachers. Not least of which you have rightly identified; child protection is an increasingly important aspect.
However, the more I look at it the more I am convinced that there needs to be a blend of tools and not a reliance on any single solution. In amongst the blend would be user choice, personalisation and the ability to work collaboratively, individually or in any other arrangement.
The key, IMO, is the ability to syndicate the content into a central space which is called the VLE, leaving students free to use their own tools wherever they might be. The syndicated content can then be dealt with by the teachers for the purposes of assessment and reporting. Crucially, the syndication therefore needs to be two way, from the VLE back out to the original space.
The other aspect to all this is the need to integrate the VLE with a MIS such as Sims or Serco - a further requirement which will kick in for 2010. Personally, I see this integration as a tool for administration rather than purely learning, however the learning opportunities do still need organisation and I guess this MIS integration will help some folk achieve that. However, Facebook is nowhere near ready to be used in this way, but never say never!
You should also read the 'Virtually There: Learning Platforms' book which we created this time last year (and which Stephen wrote the introduction to). It shows a series of case studies examining the ways in which schools are attempting to implement VLEs in Yorkshire and Humber. There is much evidence to suggest that this is all going to take a lot longer than 'Spring 2008' or 2010.
Heck, is that a daffodil I see in my garden? ;-)
Have a look at http://www.cleveratom.co.uk/vle as well - some more help for schools there, too.
Hal
Hi Jonathan - interesting post, and an area with which I am reasonably familiar by now. You may well know of the work we are doing at Cleveratom around learning spaces, and VLEs in particular. Facebook has a lot of potential and I can well imagine many learning possibilities from using it, but it does lack certain safeguards - both for the students and the teachers. Not least of which you have rightly identified; child protection is an increasingly important aspect.
However, the more I look at it the more I am convinced that there needs to be a blend of tools and not a reliance on any single solution. In amongst the blend would be user choice, personalisation and the ability to work collaboratively, individually or in any other arrangement.
The key, IMO, is the ability to syndicate the content into a central space which is called the VLE, leaving students free to use their own tools wherever they might be. The syndicated content can then be dealt with by the teachers for the purposes of assessment and reporting. Crucially, the syndication therefore needs to be two way, from the VLE back out to the original space.
The other aspect to all this is the need to integrate the VLE with a MIS such as Sims or Serco - a further requirement which will kick in for 2010. Personally, I see this integration as a tool for administration rather than purely learning, however the learning opportunities do still need organisation and I guess this MIS integration will help some folk achieve that. However, Facebook is nowhere near ready to be used in this way, but never say never!
You should also read the 'Virtually There: Learning Platforms' book which we created this time last year (and which Stephen wrote the introduction to). It shows a series of case studies examining the ways in which schools are attempting to implement VLEs in Yorkshire and Humber. There is much evidence to suggest that this is all going to take a lot longer than 'Spring 2008' or 2010.
Heck, is that a daffodil I see in my garden? ;-)
Have a look at http://www.cleveratom.co.uk/vle as well - some more help for schools there, too.