It sounds so simple when you say it or write it down the first time. “We’re going to build a framework that begins with the student/individual and that doesn’t require any institution, class, or teacher to be relevant.”
In making that statement, we weren’t saying that those formal containers weren’t useful in the learning process, simply that our framework needed to have a different center of gravity.
And that, quite frankly, has been the most challenging principle to implement in Xplana.com. Focusing on the student, the individual, has challenged all of us at Xplana to re-think our own learning experiences and to re-evaluate how learning takes place in personal, informal, and formal environments. We asked lots of questions:
How do learners create networks for learning naturally in the real world? Have we provided the right tools? Have we identified the essential paths and made it easy for users to access those. Are we allowing users to chart their own, new territories?
How do we create a framework that encourages learning productivity at an individual level? We are strong advocates of learning through/by experience and doing. We make no distinction between students and teachers when it comes to tools and productivity. This creates certain challenges both in terms of product design and in terms of translating our platform to the current roles engrained in educational thinking.
How do we provide a meaningful structure or context for learning without really controlling learners or preventing from learning in individual ways? We want to bring Web resources and open content into meaningful learning contexts and to enhance those with framework tools for productivity. At the same tine, we don’t want learners to feel too directed or constrained. The essential feeling we want them to have is one of freedom to learn and grow however they want to.
How do we allow learners to create their own learning networks and control those? In other words, how do we focus first on learner-generated networks and make formal networks (classes/institutions) secondary?
How do we map the power of a learner-centric workflow back to formal, container-based models such as institutional portals and LMS platforms? This isn’t as hard as it might seem for us because in our design, these are just extensions of a learner’s personal learning networks(s). The key, from a framework design perspective, has been to allow the individual learner to always maintain control over his/her experience, and to make the formal container a child/extension of the learner-focused workflow/rules as opposed to letting the formal learning environment dictate the user’s overall workflow and options.
I’ve included a screenshot of our user Home space below. It may seem like a small thing, but the fact the the “Home” tab in our framework is really the individual learner’s home, and that it is a space completely controlled by the learner, is particularly significant. The learner can belong to groups, join institutional courses, etc., but always maintains an identity independent of those groups. In addition, the learner’s identity is ultimately determined by the complete, unique set of content and connections represented in this Home space.