Towards a HyFlex Model of Teaching and Learning in Adult Language, Literacy, Numeracy and Digital (ALLND) Education

In October 2020, I published a series of notes and slides on a presentation I gave for the Learning for Employment (LfE) Consortium in Western Melbourne about developments in my initial online learning model which was hastily prompted by the appearance of COVID-19 and subsequent need for classes to migrate online. 

The presentation focused heavily on the need to facilitate collaborative work and communicative opportunities among Adult Literacy, Language, Numeracy and Digital Skills (ALLND) students rather than keeping them in isolation at home "studying" with a paper based workbook or electronic equivalent. It also outlined the logistical problems of delivering and retrieving print based materials to and from students which I immediately identified as a limiting factor for learning. The low level of effective group interaction was also indicated in the approaches I had observed taken by many providers of adult education, forced as they were to pivot to online delivery for the first time with some teachers having little or no training or experience.

I explored and presented ways in which greater levels and types of interactions between teacher and student, student and student and even students and family members or friends could be introduced into learning. A brief recapitulation of parts of this approach:

De-Centred Virtual Classroom

Click on the graphic for a better view
A mini-class convened by the teacher in which students review and screen share their work. The teacher can start the process and teleport out to other mini-classes or sessions.

Teaching students to form online study circles and mini-classes in which they direct some of their own learning has been a valuable addition to whole class synchronous sessions over the last year or so.

Time carved out to work individually with students on materials sent electronically, learning plans, review of writing, conversation and the like (while others may be engaged in their study circles or be doing some self paced work) provided a third pillar to the initial approach and subsequent developments. 

Read more about my approach at:

https://dalepobegateaching.blogspot.com/2021/03/learning-circles-extending-study-skills.html

and https://dalepobegateaching.blogspot.com/2020/06/week-8-bringing-individual-learning.html

Click on the graphic for a better view
A one-on-one session in which teacher and student negotiate a learning plan.
A de-centred approach allows for time gains, a broader spread of teacher attention and arguably, better outcomes for all.

The attendant problems associated with the distribution, collection and correcting of print based materials during that period - as well as the issue of many teachers not knowing how to facilitate an effective virtual class, was on my mind. I did, however, see the practical side of producing sufficient materials or  "workbooks" for students but knew activities had to be created that were effective and not just limited to reading comprehension and flat grammar exercises. Why wouldn't we maintain similar classroom practices and norms by including interactions through technology that were communicative, pair or group centred, that engineered potential for some joint research, sharing and review of work? What simple tools were available to allow students to continue learning together? It was not just about using new technologies but thinking carefully about the nature of tasks being set and how to include group interaction rather than the individuals being left to navigate materials alone.

The new situation also provided an opportunity to test other ways of teaching - not always having to be the one who is front and centre of attention but to be more dispersed orchestrating different kinds of learning structures ranging from individual one on one to formations of students planning and meeting themselves whether it be on the phone, through email, chat, WhatsApp or Zoom. 

Click on the graphic for a better view
This is video snippet gives some idea of how I typically designed activities using Google Docs to which students could be assigned to work together on a common project or task.  The activity being discussed is one in which the paired students work individually and together on parts of a challenge - in this case, locating and finding out about the teacher's favourite icecream. They need to describe it, find out where it is produced, where it is available and how to get to the supermarket where it is sold. (The range of transferable language and technology skills here are fairly obvious).

The students also have a further opportunity to talk about their  answers and the set tasks as a whole group in a second  ZOOM class scheduled for later that week. So you can see that the material is covered in a variety of ways, with a range of skills being developed and many inputs being included from across the class over the week. The video also provides the students with points of comparison between their answers, those of the teacher and other answers from other workbooks the teacher might share with the class in the video (or in ZOOM later on).

It also provides precious time gains for the teacher, convenience and
structure for students as they work individually and collaboratively.

View some of the video at: https://youtu.be/aB4s8HzM0y4

The results I am still getting from students, their satisfaction with the flexibility and variety it provides got me thinking how my teaching might look in the longer term. 

What I asked myself then as Covid restrictions eased and students started returning to f-2-f classes in limited numbers was  "why would we now jettison the changes and gains made during the worst of the pandemic?" Did a return to the bricks and mortar classroom mean abandoning more flexible ways of working? Why would you give up the possibilities that online learning provides - even if you are primarily operating out of the face to face classroom?

Is actual attendance always the best option for those who might also work, live remotely, have limited transport options, have disabilities or struggle with illness, have complex family and caring arrangements? There are those who can attend some days but not others. Of course there are very real advantages to be gained in attending an actual class and there are activities and personal interactions that cannot be easily replicated virtually. But why can’t we work and develop pedagogy somewhere in the middle? Why can't we design an approach that caters to variety of complex, adult needs and circumstances?

A Hybrid Approach 

There was a brief period in 2021 when f-2-f classes were able to return for one day a week. 

Two other days of class were conducted online. 

In that time I found myself wanting to use the f-2-f time we had together as best we could for certain activities but not de-couple the learning from the types of communicative online activities that were working so well. I also anticipated that some students would not want to attend or could not attend due to COVID-19 (10 of the 15 students I taught in that time fell sick) so how could I cater in these complicated circumstances? 

Click on the graphic for a better view

Continuing to access materials in the face to face classroom with a workbook of QR codes. 
Students attending remotely were able to access the same workbook through Google Docs.
Activities were designed to include students attending face to face and remotely. They worked collaboratively through learning circles. Some activities were individually based and could be completed by the "absent" students in a self paced fashion.
The next logical step would have been to stream the class live to those attending remotely and facilitate some of the activities synchronously between the two groups. The aim was to maximize possibilities for student interaction through a rich blend of study activities and learning arrangements.

The students were mostly able and willing to work from home but now instead of being able to connect with others virtually, they would be be excluded for the duration of their time in quarantine. This is an obvious downside of a delivery mode that requires all students to be physically present at the same time and in the same place. If you are going to have a face to face class, students who are either sick or unable to attend physically, still need to be to attend or keep up some other way. 

I created workbook is sent to the online students by email or WhatsApp - there are links and QRs and instructions about making contact and communicating with the teacher and other class members so the work can be completed in a similar fashion to the way it is in the "real" classroom but in a much more flexible, time friendly fashion.

Either way, the students were working f-2-f and online with most of the collaborative activities being designed to allow students who could not attend to plug into work groups out of hours. 

What my model tried to achieve was a blurring of the boundaries between the f-2-f classroom and online classrooms - learning is approached from both angles no matter where the students are located and what time they have available. 

I now realise we were moving towards a form of “Hyflex” teaching and learning which unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to continue developing.

As it turned out, the surging pandemic put an end to that brief blended experiment and the students went back to studying fully online for the rest of the year as infection numbers soared. 

Predictably, the pivot to returning online was not a problem for them. It was simply a return to the online modes in which they were well versed. The structure and arrangements for learning were clear and well understood. The learners took up from where they left off the term before. Ironically, there was less disruption to learning for those who fell sick during the brief period in which we were able to return to class physically. 

The question now is could the hybrid model described above be taken that step further? Could we actually transform delivery by providing students with even greater levels of choice and access? Imagine being able to also stream to remotely located students on top of using the other strategies described. 

This is the crossroads at which I now find myself but fear the almost total snap back to face to face delivery across all sectors of education will preclude the potential for further developing the hybrid model which worked for both me and my students in 2021.

What is Hyflex?

HyFlex is an approach which tries to combine or mix a use of modes to maximize opportunities for study. It is a form of teaching in which some students are in the classroom and others attend remotely - or both. There are different graduations and levels of synchronous and asynchronous, individual and group work as well as engagement with the teacher which takes place. By streaming the class in real time another option is added to students participating remotely. 

In a recent forum, I addressed the concerns of parents of immuno-compromised children who were nervous about their kids returning to the f-2-f classroom because of escalating prevalence of Covid across the community - at the time of writing almost 40 000 cases a day!

I commented:

What is disappointing right across Education - regardless of the sector - is the missed opportunity to introduce a HyFlex approach that could cater to a range of students with varying and diverse needs. By HyFlex, I mean forms of delivery which are either

1) fully face-to-face,
2) part f-2-f / part online,
3) fully online with real time streaming to students remotely located at home or elsewhere
4) fully online self paced
5) flexible, customised variations of the above which students can move in and out of. 

We have the technology to roll out such a model and with some thoughtful planning and teacher PD, could revolutionise the way we deliver across the educational spectrum. But that’s not going to happen is it, with the great snap back to the tired status quo of traditional schooling? Why are we so stuck on pushing an industrial era model of education that is largely out of date, inflexible and incapable of properly serving us at such a critical time?

Imagine if we could organise these delivery variations and provide a whole range of students with genuine choice and flexibility? 

I have no doubt that the level of planning and preparation would add greatly to workload of a teacher. An issue that needs a lot of attention in itself. Hyflex also involves a investment in technology for live streaming but I think even more crucially, a very substantial upskilling of teachers. 

And yet what alternatives do we really have in such uncertain times? 

The centre will not hold as far as traditional, classroom delivery is concerned. 

Post Script September 2022: Now in what some (erroneously) call the “post-pandemic” period, most students have returned to long days of face to face study. Absenteeism is rife, teachers are regularly sick themselves and at times educational programs seem to be at crisis point - right across Education. 

It appears, however, that inventive, flexible ways of moving forward do not actually have much traction or support. There has been a definite shift back to the classroom and almost dismissal of online delivery as a failure or at best a necessary evil or last resort in the event of a total meltdown. 

Ironically, the health emergency exposed a great deal that was wrong with education and offered some new ways forward. My personal sense of the situation is that the opportunity to create a more responsive teaching/learning pedagogy is quickly disappearing as we move back to “normal” life and learning again.  

The ALNPP and Digital Literacies 2020

The Adult Literacy and Numeracy Professional Development Program (ALNPP) is a course for those working in preaccredited education across the state of Victoria, Australia, through the division of Adult Community and Further Education (ACFE). 

For 10 weeks at the height of Victoria's lock-downs (August to November) participants from across the state met and worked through a wide range of topics across four broad areas - Theory, Practice, Frameworks, Reflection, Resources.

Digital Literacies

The development of a fifth major area for investigation - Digital Literacies - was an addition to the course I delivered for Wyndham Community Education Centre.

As the Australian Council of Adult Literacy (ACAL) has recently stated

Digital skills are increasingly being discussed and incorporated into programs and funding models. ACAL has started a conversation around whether digital literacy is different to digital skills/ the mechanics of using technologies. We are suggesting that digital literacy is the interaction between literacy and numeracy practices within/in technological contexts – digital literacies.

https://acal.edu.au/toward-a-definition-of-digital-literacy/

The ACAL definition seems a bit arcane to me but (I think) basically posits the idea that "Digital Skills" are the mechanics and "Digital Literacies" are the contexts in which communication using those technologies takes place. I think of the difference in terms of the types of "knowing" the French distinguish. Digital Skills are  a kind of "savoir" = "how to do" and Digital Literacies are more akin to "connaître" = a kind of "deeper knowing" or more nuanced acquaintance. In this case it would involve understanding not only how to use a technology, platform or tool in the mechanical sense but understanding when it is best used, for, by or between whom and why you would use it.

There is a good discussion of the distinction here.

It was precisely the exploration of this intersection between "digital skills" and "digital literacies" that I was keen to explore with the group.

The approach taken involved an exploration of theory and practice specifically in relation to:

*Critical analysis of Kalantzis and Cope's Five Theses on the Future of Learning;

*Critical analysis around the practicalities of migrating f-2-f classes into various online environments;

*Critical consideration of the Digital Literacy Skills Framework (DLSF).

Access the Digital Literacies Unit website here :

https://sites.google.com/view/alnppdigitalliteracies/home

Other Delivery Components

The course delivery also included these extra components :

*a supportive orientation stage consisting of a video guide, printed manual and tutorials for those new to to online conferencing;

*a rigorous communication strategy directing participants to readings, discussions , recordings, and resources before, during and after weekly conferences;

*a private archive of conference session recordings for for those who could not attend a particular session and subsequent reference, research and review;

*a program of "guest participants" (experts in a particular field) who would attend and participant in group discussion, leave a posting and other resources for the group to bounce ideas off. Many of the participants themselves also volunteered to do "mini-presentations" on aspects of the course which they felt they had particular expertise.

Feedback 

There was a great deal of feedback collected. It was overwhelmingly positive and reinforces my impression that teachers, not only in the fields of adult literacy, numeracy and language education, but much more generally, are looking for opportunities to extend the range of their practice. Once they are presented with examples of what can be done online, they seem keen to forge ahead. 

As one participant put it ...
The introduction of Digital Literacy to the ACSF and how it will affect our approach was magnified in this time of Covid.  I could not have imagined 6 months ago that this topic would have generated so much discussion within the group.  I was reassured that my concerns within this space were somewhat echoed by others.  However, it was not a tone of despair, it was a feeling of 'How as trainers can we do this better?'  The digital literacy unit offered some answers.  Why would you simply create a pdf of existing resources to deliver training?  The opportunity to deliver in a whole new way that actually enhances the learning experience is within our grasp, however the learner must stay central to the decisions surrounding the development of such platforms.

Week 6 —- Communication and Assessment through Video Rooms

I was loathe to upset the apple cart. I had established a fairly simple and reliable form of delivery combining my blog for Workbook downloads, email for additional support, phone and SMS for daily contact, a weekly correction video via YouTube and Review Quiz via Google Forms. Would introducing a synchronous layer complicate an arrangement that was working well?

 

Assessments, however, loomed and I wondered how I would go about negotiating this with students. How would I “talk my students through the tasks” as they really do require additional verbal support to fully understand what they need to do? I could achieve this through phone discussion perhaps but that in itself is not a perfect solution as there is something of a disconnect between the visual and the verbal. By that I mean I want them to “see” the task in front of them as we closely look, ponder the subtleties and discuss it together - just as you would in the classroom.

I’d also been looking forward to some interaction wth the students, some virtual FaceTime, to make up for the social interaction we have lost.

Discounting that synchronous possibility would be a mistake.

I’ve met those two challenges by using Messenger Video Rooms - which have only just appeared online. What’s great is that students don’t need to download any app or program, be users of Messenger or any other Facebook products.

You can simply supply a link (in this case by email) have them enter their names into the window that appears before them in a browser and join the room as a guest.

There were a few glitches. Some students were locked out for a while but I think I’ve remedied that problem now. Make sure you keep the room “unlocked” in your Messenger Video Room Settings.

I was really happy that two of my weakest students were able to join me and that by using my iPad I could give them a bit of a tour of my house and garden, as well as the insides of my fridge 😱 to get them relaxed and talking! We then went on to discuss the tasks. On the other hand, my brightest student was on to  Video Rooms in no time ...and has already submitted the first task! I’m now looking forward to experimenting with these rooms for structured oral practice.

There are a range of issues pertaining to principles of assessment, particularly validity and reliability, that could be raised. I am, however, much more concerned with the issue of fairness for those thrown into a chaotic situation for which they were not really prepared. With that said, I’m amazed at how well my students are performing in these conditions that are new and challenging.

I’ve been discussing with colleagues the types of adjustments that need to be factored into assessing remotely in terms of presentation, support, collection and documentation. Our judgements cannot be formed without taking the new learning environment into account. Much of what I see in other places looks hidebound and messy - old world summative approaches that won’t and don’t work neatly in this online context. I think the best assessment in this crisis situation needs to be gradual, formative, inventive and flexible.

A Reply to Stephen Downes' "The Knowledge Hunters"

This is a reply to Stephen Downes who kindly took the time to address some of my criticisms on his blog, Half an Hour, in his posting entitled, "The Knowledge Hunters".

***

Hi Stephen

I've read back over my review and cannot find a reference to any "Downseian fanatical training agenda".

What I did say was :

"an attempt was made at ConVerge 2010 to promote and massage this Downesian connective knowledge theory into the government's fanatical training agenda."

I am not accusing you of fanaticism. The point I was making is that an educational theory espoused by you is being tailored to fit the questionable and narrow educational agendas of others ie. the entrepreneurs of a particular eductional ideology endorsed by Govt/Industry. No great surprise. A reduced, simplistic version of what you are talking about sits very nicely with the e-learning sales pitch of most institutions here in Australia : learning what you like, when you like, wherever and however you like --- making sure of course you do it on their platform, using their software, working within the parameters they allow, conforming to the rigid, received competency standards they articulate ... and most importanty, paying big bucks for the privilege!

This is not "Open Learning" as far as I am concerned. It is also contrary to any tradition of Open Source sharing, free exchange and social networking.

You say, and I totally concur :

""we are probably very much in agreement - there is very much a contradiction between what I would encourage in an educational system and what those who envision a fleet of learning management systems, core vocabularies and competencies, and standardized assessment mechanisms would envision."

In your reply you hone in on my mention of observing students note taking, give it a interesting twist and transform it into evidence of questionable practice on my part.

You say:

[what you do] ... "sounds like a desire to engage students in creativity and participation, but is actually a countervailing edict. Unless there is an active discussion taking place (in which case we might still see some note-taking, but demonstrably less) what is being lost is rather their rapt attention as someone feeds them 'the facts'. That's not engagement, activity, or anything of the sort. It's receptivity."

Are you suggesting that any kind of explicit instruction or presentation when it is required (eg. a sentence written on a whiteboard by the teacher to illustrate a part of speech, verb tense or language point for the purposes of explanation/clarification and ultimately practise by the students ) is not kosher?

It's easy to characterize presentation as ineffectual, boring, "receptive" or as just "feeding facts". It is often a small part or lead-in to the staging of subsequent interaction or other more engaged activities. Let's be honest -- presentation, as a time honoured technique, is used by a range of teachers (and others - you?) across a range of teaching situations.

My students have at best a very confused knowledge of these lingustic "facts". In the first instance, the information presented to the group does indeed require some attention, thought and engagement with the one person in the room who actually does have a thorough knowledge of it -- the native speaking, English teacher. I don't see anything particularly contraversial about that. I'd hardly describe this as craving "rapt attention". Many language learners - often with little experience of the classroom - copy the board because they think that's what students are meant to do or what the teacher expects.

Personally Stephen I have no trouble with PLENK. As I said in my initial post, it's an approach for people like you and me, for those who already have had the opportunity to acquire a solid educational foundation. The approach, it seems to me, requires a capacity to explore and exploit the tools, to access and criticially sort social networks, to have the wherewithal to negotiate new media and genres productively and independently.

You say:

"... I am dismayed when people say that students today just don't have the chops to manage their own learning. It's a denial of the sort of education, of the sort of life, that is worth living. It is to suggest, contra all the evidence to the contrary, that there's no point teaching them to live their own lives, because they'll never learn."

I agree, questions of learning run deep. There is, therefore, a serious responsibility for teachers to ensure learners are not left floundering -- as was often the case in the 70s under the regime of what you call Discovery Learning.

I am not opposed to supporting students in "learning to learn", of helping them establish the foundation they need to function and participate in a complex 21st century society. My own work in this area has been pretty substantial - any doubts check out this link.

Students do, however, need that initial foundation (literacy and numeracy, technology basics). And dare I say, this might involve some form of traditional work in the classroom and computer lab - with the teacher (God forbid)taking the lead!

You say:

"I know, oh I know, that many students and even adults are not in a position to manage their own learning. They do not have the skills and discipline. This is unfortunate, because it leaves them dependent and unable to adapt."

Even in that admission I pick up a hint of hostility to the idea that a "teacher" might be needed? (They - the students - will always be "dependent") Would it be better to leave them to their own devices?

Since there seem to be problems in your scheme associated with learners "without skills and discipline", I wonder then if you really believe PLENK is universally applicable?

***

Hunters and Heels, PLENKS and Platforms : ConVerge 2010 - A Review

It was the Twitter stream projected on multiple screens which held my attention at the recent ConVerge 2010 Conference in Melbourne (November 25-26). As the Tweets birbled and scrolled on screen the keynote speakers faded into the background. On both days I'd watch as those in audience tapped away on their laptops quoting those who spoke, pouncing on the words of others and just as quickly setting them free into cyberspace as if they were liberating caged doves.

This behaviour fascinated me. The "knowledge hunters" in the audience presumably believed they were broadcasting valuable or new information to wider networks and audiences elsewhere. There was something almost slavish about the "note taking" behaviour of those in the audience which troubled me. In fairness I generally worry about voracious note takers --- are they actually listening to what is being said? I discourage my own language students from taking too many notes. I want them to be there with me in the moment, hopefully engaging me or the material I present directly, thinking through and subsequently coming to new personal understandings for themselves.

On those two days of the conference I had no sense of the Twittering forming a part of any worthwhile dialogue. There seemed to be relatively few or no Tweets coming back at us which provided any constructive or critical foil to what was being reported. Sure, it was fun and there were one or two comical Tweets on screen which provoked a giggle or two from the audience. But just how important was it to discover that the keynote speaker had picked up her high heels during a recent trip to Barcelona?

And all the while I wondered if the mad tappers actually believed they were contributing to some larger fund of knowledge elsewhere?

Who were they talking to? How widely distributed, how valuable, was this strange on the spot reporting? Were these virtual gems evaporating into the Twitter-sphere as quickly as they were being typed out? Or were the Tweets being received by other like-minded professionals providing new leads and references, faciliating bold new insights and opportunities for reflection and learning somewhere?

All of this got me thinking about the quality of information circulating within these personal online networks --- the Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) if you like --- of the conference attendees.

By coincidence, members of an online community of Adult Community Educators to which I belong, had recently started a discussion about PLNs.

PLNs and PLEs (E for Environment) or more broadly, PLENKs (Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge) appear to be all the rage at the moment. The PLENK philosophy popularised by Canadian, Stephen Downes, is basically a connective knowledge theory underpinning the explosion of social networking and use of Web 2.0 for teaching and learning.

New Zealander, Joyce Seitzinger (of the Barcelona High Heels fame) referenced many diverse examples of PLNs, encouraging the attendees to study the self-articulated learning programs of various practitioners from around the world --- and to add to the long list with a PLN of their own. These PLNs, to my mind at least, end up looking like indecipherable diagrams from Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory though they may be helpful to some. Take a look and judge for yourself.

Now on the subject of PLNs, I must say that Stephen Downes ideas appear to me to be neither new nor particularly "revolutionary". The great romantic image of the Automath --- "the self-taught man" --- the person who possesses a high degree of self motivation and enthusiasm for self education is very much an elitist 19th century notion.

Pedagogically, the reality is not all of us are in a position to "teach ourselves" as easily as Downes suggests. Many people do not possess the foundation skills, knowledge, language, literacies or the required access to social networks to embark upon such an ambitious, self directed learning project in the first instance.

Here I think about my own Adult Literacy and Language students with often low or no education in their first language. They neither possess the means to buy, set up nor contemplate online social networking as a meaningful learning pathway or program. PLENK assumes a substantial pre-existing knowledge and skill base to be useful to the learner. OK for me and you, but as a general educational approach for all?

Another colleague, Michael Gwyther, commenting on the discussion about Downes and PLENK at acenetwork.ning remarked:

The ol PLN idea suggests we are already skilled in using knowledge, sorting it, shaping it, customising it, catergorising it. What of those who are not? Perhaps I am redredging the old Learning to Learn arguments we had in the late 80s and wonder if this is a fine idea with those of us hip to organising knowledge and using Web 2 but wheres the roadmap to helping those who aint?

Downes ideas largely impress me as being a new form of 70s style Progressivism (a "let them feel their own way" approach, this time with a high tech, social networked twist). Both old and new versions of this story are essentially the same, with the focus on the individual possessing an almost-mystical capacity to articulate his or her own learning needs. He or she realizes this potential by force of his or her own will and by conjuring the knowledge-power of others through diffuse networks. A tall order project indeed.

But back to the Conference. I commented on Geoff Young's blog recently that "the assumed learners" at nearly every workshop and presentation I attended at ConVerge 2010 were "young, tech saavy twenty-something year olds".

Older adult learners -- adult basic education learners -- do not exist in this ideal, high tech vision of personal learning through networks.

I commented:

There was hardly a single mention of older learners within the TAFE sector (although they actually make up quite a considerable percentage of the student cohort). Have older learners fallen off the radar all together? What about the pedagogy / androgogy + relevance of Web2.0, social networking etc, etc for this significant proportion of learners? Most students in the Adult Community Education sector are 55+ but I suspect the focus is well and truly on younger learners in TAFE because of the greater number of potential articulations into employment that can be made?

Geoff's reply, took not only older learners, but interestingly, older teachers into account. His fears are, I agree, cause for concern:

I’m worried about both sides of this cohort; are our older teachers and learners tech savvy enough to be active participants within a framework that would seem to be catering to a much younger market?

And there's the rub --- we are really talking about education for Youth and not considering the needs of many learners who require careful initiation into the use of technology and online tools for learning.

Of course it it easy to bang on about technology and PLNs when your learners belong to a class and generation accustomed to social networking, who are au fait with the internet and comfortable with the idea of using technology independently for learning and leisure purposes.

I was disappointed that the organisers felt it necessary to haul in Andrew Douch, apparently for a second year in a row. "Douchy" is a teacher from the secondary school sector working with already tech saavy teenagers. Andrew is an "inspiration" but teenagers are a far cry from your regular adult learners challenged by technology. The two groups are hardly comparable and I thought the choice of this presenter was rather inappropriate and confirmed my suspicion about the narrowness of focus on younger learners.

Interestingly an attempt was made at ConVerge 2010 to promote and massage this Downesian connective knowledge theory into the government's fanatical training agenda.

At ConVerge 2010 we were introduced to the TrainingVC, (formerly the TAFEVC) and its new LMS centre-piece, Moodle 2.0.

At times I wondered if Moodle Inc. might not be the major sponsor at ConVerge 2010 so heavy was the spin being placed on the product by the entrepreneurs of the TrainingVC. We were led to believe this Learning Management System (LMS) confined within the secure, firewalled boundaries of a "virtual campus" - a mere platform - is capable of accomodating or facilitating just about anything as far as elearning is concerned.

Pause for reflection on the words of Christian Dalsgaard from Aarhus University:

learning management systems do not support a social constructivist approach which emphasizes self-governed learning activities of students ...self-governed and problem-based activities are not very well supported by LMS. LMS are to a large extent developed for the management and delivery of learning – and not for self-governed activities of students. Learning processes of the kind described in the social constructivist approach outlined in this article cannot be managed. What can be managed, however, is the administrative aspects of a course. Thus, a management system is limited to organizing administrative issues

For me, there seems to be an apparent conflict or contradiction between PLENK and the world of the controlled LMSs of the TAFE institutional sector, which as main beneficiary of the Government's fanatical Training agenda, has most to gain. It surprises no one that business managers and bureaucrats are interested in the administrative power of tightly managed LMSs which provide convenient (but by no means reliable) evidence of "learning outcomes". It amused me that at ConVerge 2010 there was so much talk about social networks and ephemeral philosophising around the concept of PLENKs --- all the while imagining elearning happening within highly controlled, institutionally driven online educational environments.

And even though I tweeted and twittered incessantly wanting an explanation why and how TAFEVC in 2001 had become the TrainingVC 2010, I predictably got no reply. So much for my attempts to find answers through the twitter stream at #converge10!

Note: Photo of Joyce Seitzinger's Spanish high heels republished with the permission of @botherbybees

This article also appears at acenetwork.ning.com