What future for the VLE?
Back in May I wrote, with Dave Cormier and Mark Stiles an article for Educational Developments entitled “Reflecting on the Virtual Learning Systems - extinction or evolution?”; on Friday, we three, present on a panel session about our views and conclusions at the Altered States (online) conference, along with Blackboard and Moodle representatives. Mostly our musings looked at how we thought VLEs would change, concluding that they may become much lighter and slimmer, act more as aggregators, and be controlled by learners, rather than extinction. Like a good presenter I was preparing for my session and reflecting on how we really hadn’t discussed the scenario where VLEs did become extinct (and like the dinosaurs - what had caused the extinction, perhaps the web 2.o asteroid?).
Anyhow, as I was preparing I was d tweeted by dr_neil with a note about his latest blog posting which provided a superb and topical diversion, and I am now shamelessly printing it as prep material for the panel. If you would like an entertaining discussion about the pedagogy of VLEs and the role of senior managers in their procurement, and for those of you familar with the Emperor’s New Clothes (a metaphor used before by Neil and I to describe accessbility standards) take a trip over to Neil’s blog posting The Vice Chancellor’s New VLE it is a hoot…
