Formal and Informal divide

My year started with me making a guest post on Steve Wheeler's award winning blog which can be accessed at "Wisdom of Clouds". By the end of January, there had been a huge number of visits to the post on Steve's and my blog. This spurred a healthy debate which I analyse in another post -Cloudy with a chance of change!. The debate also highlighted this formal and informal divide once again.

 Maybe Graham Atwell misunderstood my stance on PLEs and to clear that I tweeted this on the 24rth of January:

I am not against the concept of #PLEs, in fact they are gr8 for lifelong learning: commented on @GrahamAttwell blog-post http://bit.ly/4quEEW

 

 my only concern is about when people come to universities do they already have a #PLE, does our VLE/LMS/CMS encourage creation of PLEs? 11:43 PM Jan 24th  

 

are PLEs easily integrated within formal education? 11:44 PM Jan 24th from TweetDeck   

why do we want to separate formal and informal learning? when we all know learning knows no boundary 11:44 PM Jan 24th  

 As it happens on twitter, this started a discussion between a few of us who were up that late and joined in:

nlafferty: @manmalik they maybe don't have a #PLE when they come at the moment but another year or two or three and I think they will

me: @nlafferty all the more a reason for our VLEs to change and become more "open" as @sputuk would add :)

 nlafferty:@manmalik I agree they should be more open, do you think current VLEs are really learning environments or admin/management environment envt?

 me: @nlafferty I think they R gd as LMS/CMS & thr is potential 4 these 2 provide formal learning but not informal-not obvious atleast #ple #cle

 jamesclay:@manmalik once you integrate informal learning, it becomes formal learning. You can't plan or design informal learning.

 jamesclay:@manmalik once integrated they are no longer PLEs. You can add institutional systems to your PLE, but not the other way.

 me:@jamesclay re planning informal...I think U can collect stats on wht R the most commonly used informal ways students learn & integr8 some

 creativetallis: @jamesclay @manmalik No, but you can help to create conditions in which it thrives

 me:@jamesclay I do like wht U said abt both informal & PLEs...however there R ways 2 include & benefit from some informal approaches

 nlafferty: @manmalik LMS/CMS can deliver learning content & some tools can support formal learning - I'm interested in what students think of VLEs tho'

 nlafferty: @manmalik I'm using VLE as teacher & student - as a student I would say my learning is happening in my PLE. Agree with @jamesclay comments

 me:@nlafferty a PLE is gr8 for life-long learning, I take it you are a one :)

 nlafferty: @manmalik Yep, at least like to think of myself as one, partly why think important for students not just to use VLE but to develop their PLE

 nlafferty: @manmalik Maybe #CLE will speed up, interesting that OU have opted for google apps

 me:@nlafferty exactly my point, students need to develop a #ple they do not always have one, a #CLE introduces will perhaps speed this up :)

 me:@jamesclay re: adding instl syst 2 #ple & not the other way: I think if u have a #CLE U cn add PLE 2 an institutional #CLE too, nt with #VLE

 jamesclay: @creativetallis @manmalik exactly

 jamesclay:@manmalik as soon as you include it it becomes formal. Create environments for informal, but you can't make informal happen.

I am looking for some answers.

1. Is mixing a PLE with the institutional system a one way process ("You can add institutional systems to your PLE, but not the other way")?  Or is this just a technical limitation of PLEs and existing Institutional systems (LMS/CMS/VLEs)?
2. Is it true that educational institutions can just facilitate/create environments for informal learning and not make it happen?
3. Is there a grey area between the formal and informal that needs attention of the academics? Especially with online learning environments and tools.

Some more interesting read on this I found through @C4lpt http://goodpractice.com/blog/planning-to-implement-informal-learning/

 

Posted via web from manishmalik's posterous

Cloud Learning Environment - What it is? (shorter version)

What is a CLE or Cloud Learning Environment? - The cloud can be seen as one big autonomous system not owned by any educational institution/organisation.
Let the Academics or Learners be the users, of some cloud based services, where both share the same privileges like control, choice, sharing of content etc on these services. This control is different from that in a PLE, a VLE or a PTE. If needed, the academic and the learner can have same rights to the shared content. For example, each "Google Site", can be owned by an academic or a Learner and both users be given the same rights/control by one another (depending on who creates first). Likewise Google Docs can be owned and shared between learners themselves or learners and academics under their own control.
This clearly has potential to enable and facilitate both formal and informal learning for the learners in an institution. Both the academic and the learner are free to use the tools the way they wanted and with anyone they wanted. This would not have been possible if the tools used were chosen / managed by either the academics (PTE) or the learners (PLE) or for that matter the institution (VLE). Google Apps was not designed just for institutions or for individuals, it was designed for collaboration both within and across institutions (CLE).
CLEs also make it very easy to generate content and share it with the rest of the world in a DERPable (Discoverable, Editable, Repurposable and Portable) manner, in the spirit of the UKOER programme.

Lastly, students at my institution love the Google Apps interface, which makes it very easy to get them to engage with their work using online tools. This can be seen from the crazy usage statistics of Google Sites where I now host my Examopedia.