eLearning Practitioner Competencies/certification

It is difficult to define a clear set of competencies for an e-learning practitioner as the role theses practitioners have different meanings dependant on contexts, seniority, responsibilities and roles. For example a practitioner in formal education will need a different skill set to a practitioner in the corporate world. An e-learning instructional designer will have a very different role in comparison to an e-learning advisor or project manager. Each role and setting needs its own set of competencies; this is highlighted by the various frameworks that have been developed to support an individual’s progression into and around this field of work.

Examples of the different associations that have developed these frameworks are; The Learning Skills Network (LSN), Association of Learning Technology (ALT), Department of Education and training in Queensland Australia, The Institute of IT training and the European Institute for e-Learning (ElfEL). Each association has a slightly different take on what practitioners need to demonstrate to become an e-learning practitioner.

In the broadest terms the e-learning practitioner must have knowledge of learning technology, and they must have knowledge of pedagogical principles. They should also be able to demonstrate their active involvement with learning technology and be able to identify where and when to use it to support learning.

The profession of learning technologist

e-Learning professional - A practising individual that uses technology to support, implement or enhance learning, who is accepted by the e-learning community and also by 'customers' as a professional. The learning technologist is a generalist role within this group. These individuals have the pedagological knowledge and the technical skills to use technology to support learning.

The ‘profession’ is growing as there is a need for these types of skills. Even so the specific role of the learning technologist is not well defined as there are no clear boundaries, and im many cases seem to be an extension of existing professions; teaching and IT.

The teaching profession have recognised the gap in their knowledge, many are evolving their practice to include IT as an additional set of competencies. Less obvious is that IT professionals are looking to understand more about teaching practices, however im sure that its happening.

Reification

As Wenger (1998:65) notes, if one is exposed to too much reification, 'there may not be enough overlap in participation to recover a co-ordinated, relevant or generative meaning' (Lisewski et al, 2003)


"if I had wanted you to understand I would have explained better"

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Lisewski, Bernard and Joyce, Paul (2003) Examining the five‐stage e‐moderating model: Designed and emergent practice in the learning technology profession. Association for Learning Technology Journal, 11 (1). pp. 55-66. ISSN 0968-7769

Definitions

First go at definitions...

e-Learning – the use of technology to support or enhance a learning outcome

Professional - A practitioner who sits within, and is accepted both by the practising community and also by external individuals as a professional.

e-Learning professional - A practising individual that uses technology to support or enhance learning, who is is accepted by the e-learning community and also by 'customers' as a professional

Professionalism is ''being'?

Notes...

The idea that being a professional is a 'soft' concept, its more about ones state of mind than a check list of criteria. This is something that I have thought about before when looking at the PDP.

Being a professional is about 'being' and links in with the ideas around communities of practice, 'participation', an individual professional is nothing without a community.

Qualifications do not matter unless they are recognised as an essential for the community.

I then had a bash some criteria for being a professional:

• You need to practice your profession
• You need to actively participate and contribute to a community of practice.
• Be accepted by your profession as a professional.

Defining professional in this way makes it much easier for me to grasp as a concept. Its perhaps not a polished definition/criteria just yet, hoping to test and refine with my community (tutor group).

Evidence Collection Form

Just created a form to collect evidence for my next TMA, fingers crossed should help me organise evidence leading up to when I begin to write the assignment. The link to the form can be found on the right hand menu if you want to take a look.

TMA01 Reflection

The TMA wasn’t as painful as I had imagined, I think this was because it was relatively short. I really need to get my act together for the next one or im going to be in trouble. I can’t be doing with scraping around later at night looking for evidence to support my points, it’s just not productive. Im reading plenty and reflecting lots so the evidence should not be a problem.

The essay looked straight forward initially, however once I got going I found myself drifting. I found the ‘cons’ of the eportfolio for X&Y were mostly nothing to do with system design; it was how they were being used. Perhaps I should have been clearer with my context which would have helped me stay on track. I will prob reflect more once I get my marks back.

Reflection was perhaps a little too easy, im worried ive done it wrong.

Predicted grade for TMA01 is 55%

Action plan…

1. Create an evidence grid based on the assignment criteria for TMA02 (and potentially ECA)
2. Schedule time at the end of each week reflect on that weeks learning in comparison to TMA/ECA start to construct points.

Fingers crossed by the time I get to TMA02 I will have a very good idea about what the question is asking me, I will also have all the evidence and references. Well that’s the plan.

I could of course just capture articles and thoughts through out the course and tag them as useful for the TMA however I don’t think that’s going to work for me as its not detailed enough. I need to do more work and extracting the specific evidence and map it to the criteria.