Building a Learning Framework Focused on Individual Learners

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.

Nine Questions for Jeffrey Hangst

Today the Xplanation presents an interview with physicist Jeffrey Hangst. In November 2010, Hangst was a member of an international team of physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) that not only trapped 38 antihydrogen atoms but managed to keep them around for more than a tenth of a second, which, when it comes to antimatter, is apparently a pretty long time.

jeff_hangst_102

  1. What’s your favorite physics and/or mathematical law, and why?

I couldn’t possibly choose a favorite. The law’s the law. My favorite rock song about the law is “I Fought the Law” – The Clash version. You know, “I fought the law, and the law won.” Sums up many a failed physics experiment.

  1. At what age did you realize your mind worked differently than the other kids?

I’d say at about 34; that’s when I heard about and became interested in antihydrogen. Many of the other kids thought it would be impossible to make antihydrogen, let alone trap and study it. But here we are.

  1. If you could invite to a dinner party any five people from throughout history until present day, who would you invite?

I won’t name names – they would be politicians and founders of religions – but I can tell you the question I would ask: “What the hell were you thinking?” I have a secret fear that many historical figures would be deathly boring, like you would be embarrassed to take them to your local pub with you.

  1. Who’s the bigger genius – Newton or Einstein, and why?

Guys like that – we must include Dirac – have one or two extra gears the rest of us simply don’t have, so I am not even qualified to judge. It is best to know your place here in the grand scheme of things. People who invent whole new ways of thinking don’t need to be ranked. Okay, let’s do it anyway. I would say Newton, because there was much less in the way of a scientific framework in place for him.

  1. What’s the last novel you read?

I spend a lot of time in airplanes, so I read a steady stream of popular fiction, purchased in airports. I have no delusions about being an intellectual. The last one was “Lustrum” by Robert Harris. It is a historical novel about the Roman orator and consul Cicero. Ancient Rome has always fascinated me; I even studied Latin in high school. The last important book I read was “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris. I only read books by guys named Harris.

  1. What’s your favorite movie?

The original “Alien.” I love horror movies and science fiction. This movie is the best example of how to combine the two. I can still remember being terrified when seeing this for the first time in the cinema.

  1. If you had a career outside the sciences, what would you do?

I would probably be a musician. I play acoustic blues and electric rock guitar and even get paid for it sometimes. Or maybe I would work on a Formula One racing team. I like working on cars, and I have a Lotus Esprit that I completely dismantled and restored. But not a modern team – one before fuel injection, computers, and telemetry. Eight or twelve cylinder engines with big Weber carbs; those were cool.

  1. Are there some things scientists will not be able to figure out, or, given enough time, will the human mind eventually have answers to all its really big questions?

The best way to embarrass yourself in science is to rule out something that seems unlikely in your time. I do this regularly when I tell reporters that we will never have enough antimatter to make a weapon or a rocket fuel. I hope that there is an endless supply of big questions. I often think the worst thing that could happen would be if a superior alien race showed up and explained all of physics to us. Maybe this is just because I like to publish first. The question of what happened before the Big Bang is one that can drive you crazy – science can only address things through observation.

  1. What’s so fascinating about antimatter?

Its absence. Why do we have matter instead of antimatter? Obviously, it also fascinates me that you can get paid to worry about this.

Xplana.com is Live and Moving Forward

I would like to take a brief moment to thank everyone who has worked with us over recent months to make Xplana.com a reality. In particular, I want to express my appreciation for all of you who made kind and helpful recommendations last week while we were in our “soft launch” mode.

Now that we are live, I also want to address some of the broader questions that some have asked, as well as discuss how Xplana.com will evolve in the coming months.

We want everyone to know that this first version represents only the beginning of our platform vision. Every product has to be pushed from the nest into the public eye, and we felt that this fall was the appropriate time to make our debut. As with any product launch, we were forced to make thoughtful decisions about what would not be included.

Some of you have asked about specific features you would like to see or about items you felt were missing. The good news is that all of these are already on our current list of upcoming enhancements or module development.

While we will be publishing our official roadmap in a few weeks, I thought it might be helpful to share some specific gaps that we are aware of, and enhancements that we plan to make.

RSS Feeds — Yes, we will be adding RSS feeds. This means that we will feature news feeds as part of our content library, and also provide feeds for user and community journals.
Journal Enhancements — We are also excited about our journals, and look forward to extending this tool with: named URLs, full rich text editor, and a robust portfolio theme.

Communities — We will be introducing more granular administrative controls, better customization, group authorship capabilities, and named URLs.
Flashcards — We will make this a richer activity with a basic template and faster authoring capabilities.

Embed Codes and Content Exports – We are committed to supporting various distributed models for content access. To that end, we will be adding embed codes for albums, as well as content export capabilities.

Creative Commons — We understand the importance of Creative Commons licensing, and are working to map our baseline permissions to different CC licenses. In a future release, we will roll out an advanced option that allows users to select a CC license and have that badge placed with their content.
In addition to these enhancements of our current features, there are also some larger projects on our radar. I am listing a few of them here as I believe this will help everyone gain a deeper insight into our product purpose and vision.

Mobile — We will launch our mobile applications for iPhone and Android in October and continue evolving our mobile options from that initial foundation.
LMS Integration — Xplana.com is designed a a complementary platform to traditional, formal learning solutions like the LMS. We are already working on our LMS integration strategy and will begin piloting options with university partners this year. Our goal is to join the content and student-focused informal learning options of Xplana.com with the other facets of the student’s learning life.
E-book Integrations – Students will be able to access purchased e-books in our platform this fall, but we plan to extent our e-book integration over the next year so that content can flow more freely between the e-book container and the other content and tools within our larger paltform.
Chat and Discussion — We certainly understand the importance of this element with regards to social interactivity, and are looking at a variety of alternatives. This will be something we add in the coming year, and we plan to use it to extend both individual and community interactions.
Expanded Support for Content Types — Much of our vision for Xplana.com is around our content library. To that end, we will continually expand the types of content that we support, both for physical upload as well as for virtual integration. In the coming year we will be expanding our support for file types, and also developing support for key content platforms such as Flickr and Slideshare.
Most important in all this is the fact that Xplana.com is a platform designed for you

— the student, the teacher, the educational technologist, the institutional administrator. And, as we continue to grow and evolve, there is one ingredient for success that outweighs all others — your feedback.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. I want to thank all who have offered suggestions and criticisms here at the beginning of our journey. Our hope is that you will find great value in our platform and that you will continue sending us your comments and suggestions so that we can make Xplana.com what it needs to be in order to serve you best.