Learning everywhere

Learning everywhere is where the road for Web content is heading. This means for individuals to have the opportunity to learn by their interests and motives, abilities and means. Realizing this demands a smart grid to allow the annotation of resources, yet also the user profiling.

There are several directions of actions of the architecture part. There is also much the users themselves can do. From the ecological perspective, it is important for the Web to remain without walls.

In the context of the user perspective, we mention the Tag ontology, designed to guide the annotation of resources in context. There, eight elements are advised for the tag line to respond to: content, purpose and media.

It is of significance, to refer to 'Learning Everywhere'(LE) as an emerging paradigm, which requires syllabus adaptation in several schools. Examples are Instructional Technologies and Information Sciences.

This entry reflects on such an initiative, gradually introducing LE to the curriculum of Instructional Design studies at HIT, in Israel. The wider perspective, is aiming at LMS enhancement on the one hand, and for individuals to adopt Meaningful learning as a way of life. Learning everywhere is here not only ubiquitous learning. Moreover, we aim at a philosophical notion of individual learning: everywhere.

The following introduction is based on a.

Learning everywhere is an evolving phenomenon enabled by such as Web technologies and social media, i.e., Web 2.0 tools, while also facilitated by a spectrum of mobile devices. Learning everywhere, as a phenomenon is rooted in the wider context of learning - eLearning, technology-enhanced learning (Chatty et al., 2007) and web-based learning (Weinberger, 2010) - bringing together a social phenomenon and technological advancements.

Learning everywhere refers to the ability trusted upon the learner to use the spectrum of information technology tools in order to learn - everywhere by choosing the time, place, media and content that best meets her goals, intention and wishes. It can be examined in light of three perspectives: the technology perspective, the content- and the methodological perspective.

The technology perspective: learning everywhere is facilitated based on a spectrum of information and communication technologies such as: laptops, IPad, e-Readers, and mobile devices also using a spectrum of knowledge representation standards and protocols.

The content perspective: content for learning everywhere is available on the Web, also be access from all M-devices using a Web access. By the most part content is available free-of charge.

Methodology: much like the evolution of the Web - technology - standards and protocols, heads methods, such as of sharing and collaboration. Consequently, the integration, application and assimilation of available content to learning differ between learners and instructors. Common to both user groups is that their exposure to ubiquitous learning resources origins with ‘cloud’ information, i.e., information found on social media resources. Successful integration of learning technologies in general and Web technologies in particular necessitates a design-based approach to the conceptualization of learning processes (Nachmias et al., 1999; Vossen and Hagemann, 2007). Along this lane, ubiquitous learning is no exception. Example perquisites are the education and training of an active learner (Preece and Shneiderman, 2009) qualified in the usage of information and communication technologies and of social media (Shen and Khalifa, 2009). Against this background a roadmap for ubiquitous learning can support resources usage and integration as part of individual and organizational learning.

The user role
Over the recent years, the user has evolved from a reader to an active contributor of significant content. User's contribution can have several expressions. Firstly, is content development. In our school we have given undergraduate students the opportunity to develop entries describing Digital Libraries in a methodological- structured approach to facilitate the negotiation of (mostly English language) content by Hebrew speakers. These entries, albeit resembling Wiki entries were aggregated in a Wordpress blog, namely: Class work.. Second is SKeTCo, the social knowledge tagging core, aforementioned, guiding the creation and representation of Tags in content.

A bi-dimensional view
Encouraging learning everywhere is subject to the recognition of its two-faceted view: an independent individual activity on the one hand, and a segment of classical learning, on the other hand. For the latter, support is required for the design of the learning processes. An example in this context is the structuring of cooperative processes (Perkins, 1999; Shamla and Nachmias, 2002), i.e., also as part of a wider perception of the integration of information- and instructional technologies, and the assimilation of Internet resources as part of teaching and learning processes (Kane and Fichman, 2009, Rafaeli and Raban, 2005; Weinberger, 2010).

From theory to practice
An instance effort in this direction could be the incorporation of Learning resources (e.g., video and audio lectures, eBooks, online courses) as part of teaching and of class syllabus. The contribution of reference tools to research is well acknowledged (Nachmias et al., 1999); hence, the specification, development and presentation of a knowledge repository providing direct, guided access (Marchionini and White, 2007) to ubiquitous learning resources could prove beneficial in the context of both individual and organizational learning (Schmidt, 2008).

Web-based learning
From a methodological perspective, Web-based learning can guide individuals through the realization of learning everywhere as a concept - turning into a process. This is for the reason that guiding meaningful learning requires instructional design. In the absent of this, a model and a methodology could compensate the lacking of a pedagogical model.

Example initiative
An open-access road-map for Learning everywhere - mostly based on Web resources(hitcw.wordpress.com); the contribution of several classes (i.e., semesters)of undergraduate students at HIT Instructional systems department. This initiative serves as a hub to facilitate web content negotiation. More to the point, learners and instructors can use the Hebrew, structured platform as means of introducing Web content. All in all there is there not only the annotated description of Digital Libraries but also a rich and diversified collection of Mashup (e.g., using iGoogle) - rich content applications.

Content description in context
As aforementioned, posts on this blog (i.e., students' contribution on DL and on their own Mashups) are structured to respond to goal-based information retrieval. This is following an eight element social tagging ontology (here ref).

Learning everywhere content
The work referenced here is but an example. Indeed, an example for user-for-user model of learning everywhere. In these contributions, our students further acknowledge a spectrum of Web resources for: Web 2.0-based knowledge sharing applications (e.g., Mashup, personalized search engines, content and methods for learning everywhere.

Academic perspective
Previous experience guided students towards the aggregated presentation of Learning everywhere resources on the Web. This can be found through the Class Work blog. A notable example in this context is the UoP - The University of the people. Interesting from several perspectives, not excluding the instructional designer's perspective.