WLP Piloting and Reporting

In my first comment on Al's posting I used football terminology and heard the whistle blow due to the fact that Al had got himself to an offside position. Now, assuming that we have all worked some steps further with the "Resource Areas" and the "KLearn" instrument, we might consider anew the ideas that Al has put forward in his posting.

I think that the key questions that Al wants us to consider (regarding our piloting activities) are the following ones:
a) Can the WLP project pilot with online  tutoring and Skype tutoring in order to train beginner-users (of web applications) into user-devlopers (of their own applications) and into peer tutors (that disseminate the know-how to other users)?
b) Can the WLP WLP project make use of similar web applications and services as other professional communities (e.g. the Guidance Research Forums) in order to promote broader accessability and (re)usability of European knowledge resources on work-related learning?

Here again, I must remind myself and the reader that when I start discussing the above presented questions and Al's proposals I have to consider firstly the work with the German piloting agenda.

Firstly, I can very well see the potential of the tutorial measures that Al is proposing. I think that this could be one way to develop a concept for "Tutorial workshop"and to implement it in practice. However, when thinking of the different situations in which we are I do not think that such tutorial arrangements are a solution for every partner. I do not wish to speak on behalf of others before having their views but my sofisticated guess is that we should need a clear idea on the contents and tasks to which such exercise is related and that we would need a clear idea how to use the know-how in the country-specific piloting agenda. When I think of the German context I would need to get the students (who need to report on their prior experience to get it recognised as practical learning) working with the KLearn and find their way to work with the item 'Learning diary'. At that point it is possible to introduce such measures. However, here we have to take into account the language issues and the possible need for interpretation. Yet, I would imagine that some of the students are in the position to go through a tutoring process in English language (and that it would be helpful for me to join them).

Secondly, I am a bit more slower in getting myself a clear idea of the benefits of the web applications and services that Al mentions as support facilities for content management and knowledge sharing (categories, tags, tag clouds, feeders, bookmarks, del.icio.us etc.). I know that they are powerful but they appear to me at the moment as double-edged-swords.  Usually these tools are discussed by educational technlogists, software developers and facilitators of web-supported learning. Therefore, the discussion appears to go deeper in the advanced developers' underground bunkers and leaves the layman users with their content-related interests on the ground. In this respect there is a need for a similar 'survival kit' as the "KLearn" appears to be regarding the realm of 'learinng management systems' or 'personal learning environments'. However, I also see the possibility to work with this prospect in some country contexts but I do not see this as a strong priority for the German piloting agenda.

As I see it, we should explore the possibility to make use of the woking perspectives that Al has proposed. If we manage to tie online tutoring and Skype tutoring to some of the piloting agendas and document this process properly, we will have an important experiment to report on. Also, if we manage to make proper use of the web applications and services for content management and knowledge sharing (related to particular content areas) we would also make important steps forward. However, we need to see what kind of opportunities we can identify within the country-specific piloting activities.

I think I have said enough on this topic. I would very much welcome other views on these issues. We shall not finish the discussion before we have some more views to take into consideration.

Pekka Kämäräinen