Ken Carroll

FrenchPod went live last week. It represents a new version of the Praxis Language platform. It got off to a great start with some colorful lessons and and an active community.

We’ve called the new platform the Personalized Learning System, or PLS. The PLS has one obsessive objective: to allow the user in every way possible to fit the learning around her own needs (rather than forcing her to conform to some outside requirements). In this sense, the PLS is consistent with Personal Learning Environments, and of course, with our own philosophy of learning on your terms. The lifelong learner simply has to have ownership/control of the learning. Perhaps the PLS would fit as a language learning toolkit within a PLE to enable that control.

The autonomous learner

The old teacher/student hierarchies implode on the web. Good. Those were social structures, not learning structures anyway. Nonetheless, learning does involve (at least partly) a social exchange, so we need new social structures to give form to the new learning while preserving the all-important freedom to choose. I think the distributed community of practice that is now forming around FrenchPod is one example.

But drawing the line between autonomy and guidance is tricky. Doing too much for the learner robs him of ownership and control, while doing too little has obvious implications. In our experience, real life learners almost certainly want efficiency and convenience. They also expect a learning service to reduce the learning curve for them and provide guidance - learning how to learn is valuable. These basic requirements form the substance of what we call the PLS. (I would note that I mean users, not in a theoretical, abstract sense, but paying customers and almost 3 years of feedback.)

Focus on one subject

The PLS starts with a single discipline and solves a single problem - in this case, learning French. This singular focus means we have a shared social object, a necessary requirement for a social/collaborative CoP. It also means that we can integrate the elements and that users can dive in, immerse themselves in the resources, and develop a live culture of learning the language.

How did it start?

From the get-go (2005) our strategy was to apply web 2.0 tools to do new things for language learning (with the two-way medium, RSS syndication, etc). It was designed for the individual (rather than the institution) with a focus on accessibility. The value creation came through fitting the learning into the learner’s lifestyle (rather than the other way around) and allowing him to hit the ground running with a functioning system. Hank Horkoff’s first ChinesePod blog post explained this pretty well in September 2005.

The Elements

The fundamental concepts have not changed since 2005, but the platform has developed quite dramatically. Here are the key elements of the PLS as it now exists:

• The Learning Media - a large database of learning objects, plus a new release every day to stimulate interest and community focus. The lessons offer a trusted source of materials in a manageable format - short lessons with many consumption options, tagged according to topics, vocab, structures, etc. (ChinesePod now has almost 1,000 lessons to choose from.)
• The Open Community - a social/collaborative learning environment that functions as a community of practice. This offers the learner immediate access to others on the network with whom they can interact, converse, and learn from.
• The Personalization features - tools and content options for the individual, including mobile features and ways to free the learner from the computer.

Pedagogy

The philosophy behind the PLS is social constructivist with elements of connectivism, cognitivism (in particular, Krashen’s input theory) humanism, the social/situational model, and communities of practice.

Level of autonomy

Learning on your terms means having as much choice in the learning decisions as possible.  As I wrote in a year ago:

The act of formulating your own goals, choosing your own inputs, etc, helps you focus and commit to your course of study. It allows you to align your behaviors with your objectives. In my experience, this motivates more effectively than someone telling you what to do, or making the decisions for you. (Methinks we all had enough of that in school.)

 We hope the result is a ubiquitous, immersive, learning environment over which the learner has a great deal of control. 

Both ChinesePod and SpanishPod have also been upgraded to PLS status.

Ken Carroll