WLP Project Development

Workplace Learning Partnership:

Planning (initial discussions):
agreement on a focus for partnership given organisational needs, competences and ways in which partnership could work

The plan (development process):
This shows the key points in the partnership, the goals and activities to achieve the required outcomes.

Implementation:
implementation of the agreed activities as part of an agreed process.

The Review
Once the initial cycle of events is complete — the partners should gather thoughts and ideas on the activities, how far the original objectives have been met and whether the desired outcomes have been achieved.

Reflection:
sharing ideas with how to keep moving forward with the partnership (not just refining intial agreed set of activities).

Note we have an index folder for the value of WLPs with nested sub-folders for each country on the main part of the site. What would be helpful is for each partner to contribute material (in English or your native language) about the operation of WLPs both generally and in your own country.

You might also like to respond to Pekka's ideas about planning, reviewing, reflection.

The intention will be to build up a series of resources (both in the form of content in the index folders and discussions in blogs talking about particular use-cases, dummy screen shots of how certain things might be achieved etc. We also have a tools development section outlining what is available now, what is coming etc. and how these tools might be used individually and in combination.

You will see we have rebranded part of the existing site as:

Klearn: sharing knowledge and learning about workplace learning partnerships

Pekka's diagrams can be used as a vision of what we might eventually achieve.

It is important that all partners contribute detailed accounts of their experiences on the project so far so that we can decide how to present the material within this approach. We will of course use the national reports and case studies, but we need your more recent experiences too (and do not forget you can also have as one of your contributions a pointing to resources on WLPs on delicious).

Ideally you should contribute ideas directly into the blogs, but you can also send material as email attachments - but the most important thing is that we get your material and experiences on the project in some form so that we can integrate these into a coherent whole that represents what has been achieved in each partner country as well as the project as a whole.

We agreed on during our WLP extra workshop in London (3-4/7/2006) on how to organise, develop and progressively optimise our interactivity and exchange of resource data-base, contributions and related comments through the WLP website in accordance with a certain number of primary priorities. To my knowledge these priorities fall into two basic categories:

First, we have to deal primarily with the technical priorities connected with an effective use of web related instruments, tools and connections in a simple manner accessible to all partners under the supervision and guidance of the partner(s) in charge of WLP web management and development.  Among these web-related technical priorities (as we agreed on during our last meeting in London) is to make sure that all the partners have effectively registered at “the http://del.icio.us/” for the creation of resource data base as a first stage in WLP web-piloting process. As far as I am concerned, I managed in the end (like the rest of the partners I presume) in getting this registration done. But, I still do not know how to deal effectively with the tagging procedure on this website and connecting this tagging procedure with our WLP-website so that I can allow all the partners to share with me the created resource data base (at the same time I can share with them what they could tag and create as resource data base, including related comments and suggestions). Mike promised us during the afternoon of the last day of our meeting to send to us some guidelines in this connection. I hope that we can get these guidelines (about tagging procedure and how to connect the two websites and share effectively resource data-base created for WLP piloting areas through tagging) as soon as possible. In order to deal effectively with this primary technical issue, I suggest the use of SKYPE between each of  the partners and the partner(s) in charge of WLP web management and development. For this purpose here are my Skype coordinates: Skype: MHamed.DIF; mdif@cournot.u-strasbg.fr.

Secondly, given that the primary web-related technical priorities are solved with each of  the WLP partners, an effective WLP web interactivity between all partners can be launched and progressively improved and optimised in connection primarily with the piloting areas discussed during our last meeting in London concerning resource data base creation, mediating instrument activity and support facilitation (including the preparation for the next coming September, October and November workshops and conferences).

We can link between the blog and our delicious tag by using the 'insert external link' - by clicking on the second globe in the toolbar above and copying in the url and then saving: the result is as given below -

links to my delicious tag

Incidentally do we have a delicious url for the project as a whole rather than just our individual ones?

M'Hamed

I'm posting this to give some examples of the kind of process we;ll be using to make it as easy as possible to build up a project resource-base using del.icio.us.

One thing which I'd like to get clear is the difference between a del.icio.us USER and a del.icio.us TAG. A user is a login name registered with del.icio.us - an account with the service. A tag is a wortd or words added in the 'tags' field when bookmarking an item - it is just used to organise bookmarks, not to log in to the del.icio.us system and create them.

To add bookmarks to del.icio.us you need to be able to log into an account. The reasons why I suggest that we all get our own accounts, instead of sharing the username and password for the one account are:

We will all likely end up using del.icio.us for other work as well as for this project. If you opt to stay logged into your own del.iicio.us account all the time, it makes it very quick to add new bookmarks whenever you feel like it It's dangerous to let too many people have login rights to the one account - too easy to accidentally delete other people's posts etc. It is not necessary to post all our items directly into the WLp account in order for them to arrice there. We here at KnowNet have written scripts and utilities for pulling bookmarks in from multiple accounts.

It is hard to show you what I mean within the current WLP site because we do not yet have very many resources. BUT we have several examples of other projects which have already built up substantial del.icio.us resources by individual usrs tagging over a period of time. In each of these cases, the project del.icio.us accounts not the direct repositories for the original bookmarking our users did - they added the links in the del.icio.us accounts they are usually logged in as, and we later "sucked" some of their tags from that account to the project account.

So far, we have implemented two main kinds of interface for displaying del.icio.us resource bases within project sites:

Tag Clouds these are displays of all the tags used to categorise the bookmarks in a del.icio.us account. In most of our tag cloud displays, you can browse the tags dynamically: click a tag to instantly show the top 100 items with that tag as well as the 'related tags' ( tags that have appeared on at least one item alongside the tag being displayed). Clicking a related tag changes the display so that the links listed are those with both tags. This is a quick and powerful way to look for patterns Live embedded links-lists these are RSS-feeds for the most recent items with particular tags applied to them. They can be displayed easily within site content or as weblog sidebars. We can even show you how to embed these within a single piece of prose.

For examples of Tag Clouds see the following

EGCRF's del.icio.us bookmarks

These are all from the NGRF del.icio.us account, which is shared directly by several close colleagues at the IER. It is updated nightly from the for:egcrf tag in the NGRF delicious bookmarks.

NGRF's bookmarks at del.icio.us

Unlike the other project accounts, these have all been entered directly by a few closely-knit co-workers who trust each other with the same login details :o) It has become a hefty resource.

Vidensdatabase "Tag Cloud"

This is an experimental, smaller resource-base, for the Danish focus group in the EGCRF project. The focus group weblog "has its own" del.icio.us account, so all the members of the blog can indoirectly post the the del.icio.us account without needing access to any login details at all

Opendock Project Tag Cloud

This is not ready for public viewing yet, but is a serious resource in the making for a project using the Learning Design standard for sharing learning activities. It is updated nightly from particular tags in my own and Al Harris' bookmarking, and is already probably the best resource on the subject to be found anywhere.

www.mc-dip.net

Again, this is not ready for public viewing (scroll down for the tag cloud). It is updated nightly from Al Harris, my own, and Glenn Hardaker's bookmarking.

For examples of Live Resource Lists see the following:

See the UK Country Area in the EGCRF Project site for examples of live listing - within content - of links that have been given particular tags.

The main UK page 'pulls in' the most recent items from the whole egcrf del.icio.us account (remember - these will be coming from several other accounts - no-one actually logs in *as* cgcrf)). Most of the sections within the UK country area have their own live linkslists displaying items tagged with one particular tag which is related to the content of that section. See the links below for examples.

Gender

This area of the site is under development. The case for highlighting gender as an issue that continues to be pivotal in overcoming injustice is as strong as ever. Whilst men undoubtedly experience discrimination, it is women who continue to suffer most disadvantage on the basis of their gender.

Race and Ethnicity

This area of the site is under development, it is intended to be used in conjunction with the section on 'asylum seekers, immigrants and refugees' below. .

Asylum seekers, immigrants and refugees

This area of the site is under development, it is intended to be used in conjunction with the 'race and ethnicity' section above.

Disability

This section will grow into a brief overview of definitions, legislation, models, relevant statistics and barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities across Europe.

Age

This section of the site is under development. As more people choose or are compelled to work beyond what was once a statutory retirement age, there is growing interest in their guidance needs and entitlements.

Sexual orientation

This section of the site is currently under development... Discrimination against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals is increasingly acknowledged as a problem in the labour market.

Socio-Economic Context

This area of the site is under development. Socio-economic background has an acknowledged impact on career trajectories.

1. As narrative content. What do I mean by that? Multi-media can be used to make our web pages more vivid - to explain the ideas of the project. Often a short video or slide presentation may be far more compelling and immediate than pages of text. That is not to say it replaces more tradtional web content. Instead it should form a natural part of the web pages. I have some doubts as to how long video clips should be. We have tended to say they should be (very) short. But, used as a part of a narrative discoures for research and information about workplace learning parterships, I think we might use longer clips - if the material is relevant. For instance, much of interview materials I recorded last week could be used in this way.
2. For promotional or dissemination puproses. This should be quite short - say 5-7 minutes and should seek to convey the central 'story' about the workplace learning partership project. It may be a mix of interview material and 'stock' film. It should - needless to say - be vivid and compelling. Whilst video is timeconsuming to produce, it may be worth looking at slidecasting as an alternative - combining slides with an audio commentary. This is fairly quick to produce and can also make for compelling content.
   
3. As 'how-tos'. Thsi is probably the most important. We should produce a series of short 'how-tos' taking people through the use of social software for learning. As a first idea I would suggest 2 'how-tos':

• Using RSS in teaching and learning
• Using Delicio.us in teaching and learning