9.30am Friday

Tom Bentley, DEMOS ThinkTank in UK powerpoint presentation here

Demand for learning comes from higher levels of knowledge and general education. General fuzzier changes in society with increasing diversity.
Whilst men were quicker to take up internet, women have overtaken, connectivity is becoming a utility like electricity, in the western world which will influence the way in which we think abut learning,
Shape of the new world economy - less FT permanent, huge leaps in ft and pt temp and self-employed. Permanent no substantial change in comparison.

Appetite for learning not driven totally by economic factors in their lives but also freedom and prosperity. Development process - post industrialist values. Also looking for fulfillment, polarises ethical outlook and quality of relationships, not shaped or controlled by social clubs as was 2 generations ago, changes driven as much by culture as much as other factors.

Declining confidence in institutions such as the army, police, legal system, parliament. Institutions have a huge role to play in people’s lives so what form of educational institutions do we need so that people have trust in them?

Two kinds of response - encourage higher general educational attainment by raising standards and participation also create new learning opportunities and markets in learning modelled around flexibility and individual choice.
No politician can afford to ignore education as in issue. Parents become lobby groups. Watchwords are flexibility and individual choice, trying to find ways of making this a reality.

Problem with universal schooling -schools and colleges are a particular kind of institution built for the industrial society that we are moving away from. Their productivity has some limits - can only run a machine so hard before it starts to break down. Under pressures of social fragmentation and diversity they do not do a good job of providing work-based learning and other forms of vocational learning despite being our most resilient form of educational institution.

The promise of flexible learning - these promises are still just a dream - what we have learnt from trying to embed this in our systems is they don't fulfill their promise and if we are not careful they create a greater distance between learner and teacher.
Struggling with the weight of education. How do we get over this?

Can’t count on the promise of technology driven learning, if we want to make tech count have to put learning first and educational tech follows afterwards. Learning needs to take place in a context.
The downside:
Reality can be fragmentation, isolation, non-completion, automation of mediocre learning resources.

Creative learners: find their own problems; can focus attention in pursuit of a goal, work through collaboration. In an era of flexibility a critical skill is transferability of learning. See learning as an ongoing incremental process, repeated instances of failure are what you set you up for success,

If we are serious about the point that it is social contexts that shape learning we need to think about creative learning organisation: high trust is a prerequisite, autonomy - people have to have real choice, variation of context, balance between skills and challenge - 'sufficient challenge'. Intensive exchange of information, focus on the real world and concrete outcomes - question in the air - what is the outcome?

We are not going to get there if all we are focused on is content or curricula to entice people into our organizations. Truth is that it is a slow process

Institutional adaptation - in many sectors delivery institutions have been structured around a set of principles that are difficult to unpack - they tend to be standardized frameworks, vertically integrated, hierarchically maintained, models of change gradual and slow moving control from above
Compared with: diverse, horizontally connected, interdependent network based
Fast moving, unpredictable and out of control.

Personalised learning - a new entitlement?
Personal profiles and curriculum planning, personalised and formative assessment, portfolio of portable information and evidence, active construction of pathways thorough modular cross agency collaboration, focus on the skills and habits of learning to learn. Parity of esteem between further (=VET) education and academic education - not through funding changes or restructuring but rather 11-14yrs stage of education should have a much more personalised structure - reality so far is just another form of chaos because it presents such a deep challenge to communication at a local level.

Networks -the key to mass personalisation?
Enable diversity and coordination as gateways for learner navigation.
Networks of suppliers and providers offering flexible pathways,
Employer networks providing demand led info about skills specifications and learning opportunities,
Community networks providing informal support for learning and participation.
This may mean that VET needs to act in different ways as coordinating those networking opportunities.

Centralised vs. decentralised vs. distributed networks {check out the powerpoint show} - distributed may not help you to find all the opportunities, recommends thinking about the decentralised model - think about the extent to which local learning providers can make links with other local means of learning support.

Networked Learning communities - small grants to encourage clusters of schools and colleges to engage in mutual learning and networked relationships seem to generate lots of enthusiasm and collaboration and curriculum change that would not have otherwise been possible.

NHS Collaborative - use to accelerate rates of learning on how to speed up processes such as coronary care or GP appointment processes. Crucial point is the lateral communication that really makes the difference.

Learndirect - sees as failure, just an attempt to provide a user friendly interface and brokerage and online interface to point them towards types of support they might be able get - Radio ads have a rather desperate air. Think they have found it difficult to identify further opportunities. Too diffuse not the backbone.

Ongoing challenge
Sees need for radical bureaucratic reform,
Learner potential is going to be met more and more through innovation, which is widely distributed across local settings and systems. We can find the local practices.

Have to make it work with the institutions being key mover in setting up network

What changes need to be made? Several strands

1. distributed model of leadership

2. strategy for pedagogical innovation- through collaboration

3. strong vision which sets out to engage wider community - build shared understanding

Thinking big starting small - repeated practice

Centralised control = centralised failure

In UK cutting out mid layers, and also giving responsibility to regional areas, for example looking for ways to improve quality of life or health rather than efficiency.