JISC

Flexible learning environments and learning spaces allow students to develop a diversity of study skills and to practice them in a variety of settings. Since 2007, JISC has spearheaded the exploration of personal learning environments (PLEs) as a new generation of e-learning systems. Unlike traditional VLEs, these are suites of loosely-coupled, student-centred tools which support learning, reflection, personal knowledge management and collaborative working.

Tools that have seen recent development work

• e-Portfolios e-Portfolios; Effective Practice with e-Portfolios Publication; InfoKit: e-Portfolios
• Weblogs & social networking tools MANSLE project
• Syndication tools Enabling personal portals to be created for (e.g.) electronic journals TicTocs project; MeAggregator project
• Mash-ups Enabling students to manage their own learning information and outcomes via personal home pages SPLASH project
• Immersive environments Learning in Immersive Worlds Publication (PDF); DELVE project

DPIE 1 is a project to enhance the Information Environment with personal features and Web 2.0 technologies, while several User-Owned Technology Projects are investigating how the gap between personal devices and institutional learning environments can be bridged (Isthmus project; TSLE project; RLI project).

While PLEs may be some way off for most students, today’s generation benefit from the service-oriented approach to institutional architectures that JISC has championed. More open architectures allow greater choice to students and staff in the technologies they use for learning.

The real world spaces available for learning are also of great significance to students.

74% of first year students regularly access the internet from the university library and 28% during lectures or seminars specifically for university work

Great Expectations Study,
JISC 2008

JISC supports innovation in the design of learning spaces (Designing Spaces for Effective Learning Publication; InfoKit: Learning Space Design), which in recent years has seen a particular focus on the design of informal, highly networked spaces for collaborative working. On a larger scale, podcasts are available on transforming university libraries into personal information environments, contributed by Betsy Wilson, Dean of the award-winning University Libraries at the University of Washington in Seattle,
(Podcast Duration 9:34) and by Dame Lynne Brindley, CEO of the British Library (Video below) and on the role technology played in a £100m new build project at Oaklands College (Podcast Duration 8:54).

All these developments are helping to personalise the experience of learning for students who are used to having personal technologies at their fingertips.

An interview with Lynne Brindley (CEO of the British Library)

(Duration 11:12)

Download the video