Informal Learning in Social Fields Supported by Plone more

Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria Informal learning in social fields supported by PLONE Maria Jandl, Gunter Vasold, Andreas Behmel, Venerand Erkinger, Per Skoglund, Tone Engen FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH, Mosaik GmbH, Specialpedagogiska Institutet Key words: Tele-learning, Life long learning, Platforms and authoring tools, Pedagogical and psychological issues, Pilot projects/Products/Applications Abstract: The article addresses issues of informal learning at the workplace and the visualisation and transfer of tacit knowledge within the project “Lifelong competences - informal learning in social fields” http://www.informal-learning.org, supported by the European commission (initiative Leonardo Da Vinci). Tools and methods are developed to assess and visualize informal learning processes of employees in social fields (especially in care facility for disabled people). The informal knowledge is transferred by face to face meetings and within a virtual community of practice. A platform based on the open source software Plone was developed using an innovative approach of dynamical structured content by so called smart folders. 1 Definitions of informal learning More and more researchers deal with informal learning. But there is no unique and common European definition – especially in the European Union. In this introduction we will compare different definitions and discuss them. In general, informal learning is learning out of a formal education system. There are similar approaches like that of Jens Björnavold (1). He says that informal learning is a component of lifelong learning and was less noticed compared to formal and non-formal learning. Formal learning is any learning within education institutions, e.g. school, university…and non-formal learning is used for learning in structured ways like trainings in companies. In the first phase of the project “Lifelong Competences – informal learning in social fields”, existing definitions of informal learning were tested. First they seemed to be useful – but there was no breakthrough. It took time until we recognised that there were some gaps, e.g. in CEDEFOP’s definition which says: Informal learning is learning in everyday situations, at workplace, in family or in leisure time. It is (regarding of learning goals, time of learning or learning support) not organised or not structured. Informal learning is mostly unintentional and usually informal learning doesn’t lead to certification. (2) This definition implicates, that informal learning is running mostly by chance, unplanned, not organised, not structured. If this is true, informal learning seems to be unimportant because it seems to be difficult to influence it. But some researchers give another answer. There are international surveys showing that the biggest part of vocational knowledge is created by informal learning. About 80% arise by informal learning, about 20% only by formal learning. Do we usually learn by chance at our workplace? The answer has to be: We learn in both ways! Of course we learn many things by chance. But in an organised, structured environment like workplaces many informal learning processes will be started and 1(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria run. Those surveys confirm the big value of informal learning and informal knowledge! But if we are able to make implicit knowledge explicit, this will be the real value. The recognition of informal learning is the basis. If you are able to transfer and to support the developing of individual knowledge, big impact will arise. Many workplaces are based on targets, tasks, structures and processes, which are available and used every day. If we strive for a goal e.g. to get a solution for a certain problem or situation, we are in a process of informal learning and we use ways and instruments offered by the company or organization. So the definition of Karen E.Watkins, University of Texas at Austin, on informal learning is a good basis: Informal learning is an instrumental learning, a mean to a purpose, and this purpose is – compared to formal learning – not the learning itself, but the development of better solutions, rather a study which cannot be made in school, but in everyday situations. (3) Informal learning is a very natural way of learning. Impressions are processed by comparing perceptions and putting them in order. If required, they are completed with new impressions. The experience is adapted and implemented into life. If there are challenging questions or stimuli, an inner dialogue may start with a discussion about life and world. The extension of the individual imagination, the interpretation and the valuation of the experiences are contributions for your own position and attitude. Imaginations are clarified in those processes, the circular flows become visible and more understandable – so competences and skills get acquired. The implementing itself is a process of learning. (4) We learn from situations, from and about cases, out of practice, when we turn to colleagues for advice or when we give advice, in discussion, in team work. We learn from watching, from feed-back of clients and of colleagues,… The best way to learn is, when we investigate, when we want to solve a problem, when we develop an appetite for challenges. When we are much focused, then we learn in a simple way of passing by. The partnership of the project found out that it is possible to make informal learning visible and to influence it. The ability to get aware, to compare, to share and to take care of everyday experiences increases and will influence our workplaces. Everybody of us is able to influence learning processes. So everybody is able to decide about the impact of our activity. We can influence it in a positive way or we can hinder it. The following sections present the first results of the project mentioned above, at first we introduce the project and its goals, and afterwards we present the work on the assessment of informal learning and the theory of communities of practice which is the basis for the implementation of a virtual platform. After this we describe the technical implementation. Finally we tell about our experiences within the project and summarize the results. 2 The project “Lifelong competences - informal learning in social fields” 2.1 Project’s challenge The project “Lifelong competences – informal learning in social fields”, supported by the European commission (initiative Leonardo Da Vinci), aims to make informal learning at workplaces of professionals in services for people with disability visible and assessable. Mostly complex situations and changing frameworks, and therefore changing objectives build the daily background of these professionals. They have to restructure and to enhance their 2(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria knowledge and know-how day by day – an ideal starting point for making visible and for being able to stimulate and to facilitate informal learning. 2.2 Project’s aims The partnership is developing methods and tools to make informal learning visible and to create accesses for informal (implicit) knowledge for others in social fields. Implicit knowledge becomes explicit knowledge: the partnership takes on this challenge with the aim of developing a process - Assessment Informal Learning - in order to make informal learning visible - and of describing methods how implicit knowledge can be developed into explicit knowledge. The specific project aims are: • to develop an assessment set in order to make informal learning comprehensible and influenceable, due to its structure and on account of observations and understandable courses of events, • to make the results of informal learning, such as know how and competences, visible in order to assess them (change implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge) • to develop a training (face to face and online) for tutors (wegleiters), who use the theory, methods and tool developed in the project to investigate and stimulate informal learning and the transformation to visible knowledge and competence, • to develop a virtual community of practice for professional groups (see Wenger), who support people with disabilities (see http://www.informal-learning.org), that offers tools for communication and collaboration (weblogs, wiki, etc.), • to give employees access to informal knowledge in order that they can reach this knowledge and these experiences and skills easily and at anytime, and acquire them. To achieve these aims, people working in the social service organizations of the project consortium build a virtual community of practice and get access to otherwise not communicated experiences and competences. Also informal learning zones – so called organised formal ways to make informal knowledge run - for personal exchange are established. The project is coordinated by Mosaik, an Austrian social service provider for people with disability. The 9 European project partners are institutions who offer training for employees in the services of disabled people and FH JOANNEUM is participating as the technical partner. The target group of the project is employees of the project partners. They work in different professional fields, such as special pedagogy, special trained teacher, kindergarten teacher, social worker, physiotherapist, speech therapist, ergo therapist, etc. Qualified employees as well as semi skilled employees have a large demand for informal learning and best practice. Therefore, the projects’ support of informal learning and the facilitation of access to the informal knowledge will increase the quality of support for disabled people. 3 Assessment and visualisation of informal learning The central element of the project was to develop an assessment method set. The goal is to offer a systematic procedure for a. a specific search of informal learning processes (at workplace) b. being able to recognise those processes c. to be able to recognise the status of learning phase d. to provide tools for a learning support e. to supply with measures to influence informal learning processes 3(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria The use of the assessment method set will empower each staff member and superior to support informal learning processes in a more independent way. The phases of the development of the assessment method set. There was a lot of complexity in case of the international background and the different understanding about informal learning. A specific process existing of four phases was designed: 1. Mutual understanding and / for mutual focuses 2. Existing theories about learning at practice got merged with our findings: new theories and new way were created. 3. Tools for every day business will be collected and 4. The daily use – how to use it. Here we offer an overall view about our actions in phase 1 und 2: 3.1 Phase 1: Getting a mutual understanding In the partnership a structured and mutual search for know-how and of competences was started. In this basis module all the different (and similar) experiences were collected. We took care of three different fields: 1. organizations’ context and frame conditions, their correlation and their impacts 2. experiences of individual learning histories (learning biographies) and 3. today’s learning situations at workplace. We focused on special environments round work to catch all dimensions of learning at practice: professional and client, between professionals, between professionals with different job lines, between professionals of different departments and organizations. 3.2 Phase 2: Theories + project findings = new theories and new focuses 1. Theories of learning in practice and project findings start to merge: The substance model was created. The model bases on our findings about context factors and the survey about the key factors (phase 1): In the every day work some key processes of learning seem to be crucial (trust/mandate, orientation, problem formulation, planning, action and reflection). In all of the processes a key term was “mutuality”, by which we meant that the processes mostly in the social field of support is a matter of relation between two subjects in the ideal case. No one should therefore be an object, but a part, a participant in the learning process. To be able to grasp “results” we did conceptualize it in terms of five criterions on results: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The new competence is mutual. New knowledge is made visible for others. Results are evaluated by others. The knowledge is spread through some media and Can we thereby see signs of usage of this new knowledge transformed to competent action by others not directly involved in the earlier stages.(5) 2. Some theoretical development: Theories of learning in, by and of practice Our common view of the world of learning seems to be one that is focused on only one part, the so called informal learning, here translated to learning in everyday practice and not in a structured education. The evolvement of theory could be described as one of “integrating old 4(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria theories with new theories”. Lave and Wenger (6) and Wenger (7) among others are in the forefront concerning learning in practice. The strength of this theoretical framework is that it tries to combine or synthesis different kinds of theories in order to understand the complexity of learning. The key terms or perspective of learning is: • • • • learning as experience in practice learning as doing in practice learning as a community process of meaning among colleagues and as a community process between the client and the professional learning as a process of identity, to become something The umbrella concept for Lave and Wenger is then “Community of Practice”. This concept focuses on the possibilities of and limitations on learning in practice. (8) So our findings of phase 1 should bring us answers to the questions “How do our Communities of Practice look like? What are the characteristics and which factors do limit or support everyday learning? 3. Six steps for support learning (in practice): The integrated theory of learning We incorporate some elements from earlier findings into out thinking with the integrated theory of learning. Thereby we do still believe and trust that we can stimulate each other (Behavioural theory). The right stimuli are probably still necessary, but definitely not enough to increase learning in practice. Thereby the six fundaments below could be expressed as “guides for learning in practice”. This model offers several perspectives (focuses). When staff members and managers say, they can’t solve the problem because there is no or only one way, try this model. Step 1: Focus (Skinner): Find the right stimuli Step 2: Social response in focus: • need to be in the centre of the attention • find the right stimuli • humans are socially responsive Step 3: Thinking in focus (Theory of cognition, Piaget et al): • my model of the world causes my experiences • humans assimilate and accommodate to challenges in the environment • humans build up “defences” Step 4: Socio-culture in focus: • humans assimilate and accommodate in social & cultural “settings” in relation to others • learning occurs in practice Step 5: Power in focus: • who can contribute how much • learning mainly as “single-loop-learning” since humans rarely want to “lose” their face, learning within given formulation of problems and routines Step 6: Learning in/by - practice in focus: • can be stimulated • occurs in community with others/respons 5(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria • • • • • occurs in/by doing is about formulating meaning/thinking is about creating identity is about power in the community in relation to others conceptualization is needed to make deep learning possible We do have an integrated theory, which incorporates some of the theory substance from earlier. The complement of theory is both the power perspective and we point out in despite to Lave and Wenger that their theory underestimates the necessity of developing the conceptual world of a professional field. Without that process of “reformulating the world” a field would decline. Beriter and Scardamalia (9) call this “dynamic expertise” involving high capability of self reflection and self motivation to meet an uncertain world. 4. How to discriminate the formal from the informal or practice learning situation. Based on the theories from Argyris and Schön (10), Lars-Erik Ellström (11), we have elaborated three main types of learning context/situation and we have elaborated it further concerning the focus on problem formulation, the fourth dimension of mutuality and the labelling of learning by adjustment to pre-structured Certainty vs. Developmental Learning/Uncertainty (12): adjustment to pre-structured certainty Reproductive Productive learning Learning Situation situation dynamic learning under uncertainty Creative learning Mutual creative situation situation We can discriminate our own contexts and situations by this model. We are sincerely not often in the reproductive learning situation (13). More often we are in a productive learning situation which differs concerning the degree of pre-structure (14) by somebody else than the professional himself or the colleagues themselves. But sincerely we are in “Creative learning situations” according to the “power theory of learning” more often than we believe, since the professional him-/herself do have the power of doing her/his own initial formulation of the problem and by that it guides the continuing process. Following this reasons we can say that we have created theoretical knowledge about two main types of learning, “The Adjustment Learning to Prestructured Certainty” and “The Dynamic Learning under Uncertainty”. We can also state that we can speak about on one hand creative learning situations for the professional and on the other hand about mutual creative learning situations between the professional and the client. With these backgrounds of theory and practice we may provide a catalogue of systematic questions as well as offer measures and actions, to get an answer to our initial questions - and anybody is interested in getting the answers: a. Which basic conditions are of elementary importance for the transfer of invisible/individual/informal learning to visible/verbal/exchangeable knowledge? b. Which processes and tools are of special importance for the transfer of invisible/individual/informal learning to visible/verbal/exchangeable knowledge? c. Which conditions, processes and tools are of special importance for a cooperative learning amongst colleagues with the same training and those with a different training? 6(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria 4 Community of practice Within the project the development of a “virtual” community of practice with people working in the field of services for disabled people shall be facilitated following the community of practice model (CoP) of Etienne Wenger (15). Wenger’s Community of Practice (CoP) model is one of the theoretical models on the notion of learning and professional development within a community. According to this model there are three criteria which we need to support in order to assist the development of a virtual community. • The domain is the area of interest, which creates the common ground and a sense of belonging. • The practice is the body of shared knowledge and resources, which enables community members to develop and deal efficiently with the domain. • The community criterion is the social frame and arena for the learning and knowledge exchange. The domain, community and practice dimensions refer to areas, which have to be addressed and acknowledged in order to create the right “ecology” to encourage the development of CoPs and the active participation of its members within it. In the same way that knowledge is emergent and organic so are CoPs. This also means that CoPs cannot be managed in the traditional sense of ordering. Instead one can encourage, cultivate and nurture these three tightly interconnected, dynamic dimensions. 4.1 Domain At the initial stage of a community the founding members must negotiate the domain and the necessary roles for the community. An established domain will help the community to develop a shared understanding of its area of expertise. A shared passion between group members is vital because, for learning to happen at all it must concern a subject, which people care about. Real learning occurs when people are trying to do something that they want to do. Over time learning is made easier because members share a commonly accepted “view of the world”, which facilitates the rapid exchange of information about particular cases or correct procedures. A well-defined domain also legitimises the community by affirming the purpose of the members and their value to each other. Without commitment to the domain, a community is just a group of friends. A shared domain creates a sense of accountability to a body of knowledge and therefore, to the development of a practice. Although the domain reflects the members’ own view of what they think is important, it is not a static dimension of a community. If new problems or more pushing questions arise, perhaps under the pressure of external changes the members of a CoP redefine the domain (16). 4.2 Practice Whereas the domain is the area of expertise, which the community focuses on, the practice is the specific knowledge the community shares, develops and maintains. In the context of communities of practice, the practice means the following: Socially defined ways of doing things in a specific domain: a common set of approaches and standards which creates a basis for action, communication, problem-solving, performance and accountability. 7(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria 4.3 Community The community element presents the social frame and the arena for the learning processes to take place. It is a very important element since the human relationship is the basis for learning within this social-cultural perspective. T. Bender and S.M. Kruger’s sociological definition of community is the benchmark used by Wenger et al. to gauge how present the community factor is in a community of practice: A community involves a limited number of people in a somewhat restricted social space or network held together by shared understandings and a sense of obligation. Relationships are close, often intimate, and usually face-to-face. Individuals are bound together by affective or emotional ties, rather than by a perception of individual self- interest. There is a ‘we-ness’ in a community….” (17) A strong community element is essential for a CoP to be effective, because the construction of knowledge as well as the knowledge sharing processes depend on a well-functioning relationship among the learners. It is “people” who drive the whole structure, not best practices or websites. This is also why members need to be aware of how to behave towards one another. A CoP can be seen as a group of people who interact, learn together, build relationships and in the process develop a sense of belonging and mutual commitment. Core members of a CoP need time to learn about one another and discover how to operate as a community. Regarding this, Wenger holds engagement and mutual commitment to be the central aspects of the community. A strong community fosters interactions based on mutual respect and trust. This encourages members to share ideas, ask difficult questions, to make an effort and leverage other members’ competencies, to expose one’s ignorance and to be attentive to the needs of others (18). 5 Implementation Based on the theories of Wenger a virtual platform based on the open source software Plone was developed which is described below: 5.1 User survey At the beginning of the project the user’s experiences and needs were examined in a survey. We further investigated communication strategies, the user’s competence in media use and the state of their organizations IT equipment and network connections. It turned out that our target audience was very heterogeneous concerning education, professional interests and computer literacy. A majority has not much experience with communication media like chat or discussion forums and preferred traditional communication like face-to-face, telephone calls or letters. However, some had very clear ideas how they would use the platform und suggested the integration of wiki pages and weblogs as additional tools to the discussion boards, chat and a file archive. 5.2 Technical decisions The community uses a WWW platform, which has been developed at FH JOANNEUM on the basis of the content management system Plone (http://www.plone.org), which is built on the application server Zope (http://www.zope.org). Both Plone and Zope are open source products which are used in many projects all over the world. 8(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria In previous projects we used other content management software, mainly PHP Nuke. We came across a lot of shortcomings, strange designs decisions and bad code quality, so we decided to switch to a new system. We evaluated some products, taking a closer look on Typo3 and Plone. Finally our decision for Plone was based on the overall impression and some important features like the workflow engine, the very powerful and flexible role/rights system, the support for multilingual content and a consequently implemented separation between document content and document presentation. We also liked the syndication tool, which is available for almost any content type, the possibility to comment any piece of content and the way users can subscribe for specific parts of the system. We are developing on the file system (i.e. not through the web) and wrote a central Plone product ‘LLCSite’ and some more smaller and less complex products. Our user management is based on a customized version of the CMFMember Product. A lot of functionality of the platform comes from existing products, some of them without changes and others with minimal modification to fit our needs. 5.3 Implementation of the platform Based on the results of the user survey and the technical decisions made, the implementation of the platform was carried out evolutionary and in close collaboration with the users. A series of consecutive prototypes were developed and released for public use. The resulting feedback allowed it to match the functional range and the usability with the real needs of the users to a high degree. In parallel a strong emphasis was put on developing “Sociability” through supporting various online activities and social interaction in the platform. A set of supporting documents were provided, amongst them guidelines for communication and copyright issues (19). The platform “Informal Learning” (http://www.informal-learning.org) is composed of three main areas: “Project”, “Internal” and “Community”. All of them are directly accessible from the entry page, which also gives a short description of the above mentioned site structure, presents selected content items and finally gives an overview of the recent activities and changes (see figure 1). The area “Project” contains all relevant information about the project “Lifelong Competences – Informal Learning in Social Fields”. Details about the project related items are given, like events, involved partner organizations, glossaries of terms used in the field, a gallery and contact details. This area of the platform is open to all visitors, even to non-registered guests. The focus of the area “Internal” is used for the organization of the project work itself and can only be accessed by registered project partners. A file archive supports partners in document management, further details about people involved to the project are available and a mail archive helps to keep track of the project internal communication. Finally there is the “Community” area, which is the heart of the platform. A mission statement is given and common community netiquette guidelines are provided. There is a discussion forum and an archive summarizing the personal weblogs of the members. A bookmark archive contains classified and commented links. A file archive and an image archive show up the respective contributions by community members. 5.4 Innovative Features An innovative approach was used for the community: most of the content is structured dynamically by using so called smart folders. These smart folders are “virtual” folders, which 9(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria show up content specified in an attached search query. In its simplest form it can be used just to show specific object types in such a folder, as for example all objects of the type “Web links”. But there is almost no limitation in generating even the most sophisticated queries. This highly customizable solution allows organizing or reorganizing the content with a minimum effort and without the necessity of physically moving a huge number of items manually. It even allows multiple views on the same content, without the necessity to duplicate any of the shown items. A new approach was also used for the submission of a number of object types. Instead of having to navigate to the respective location and then submitting an item, each user is doing that in his/her personal folder. This personal folder represents the central workbench for each user where s/he can draft, create and assemble the contribution of files, links and personal weblog entries. Any user contribution has a publication state which can be changed by the author. These states are “private”, “visible for community members” and “visible for all”. If the user selects the respective state for an item, it is published dynamically in the structure of the public accessible area, with the use of the above mentioned smart folder functionality. The above mentioned functionalities, which allow the creation of these “personal” object types, can additionally be accessed via permanently visible links in the main menu. A strong focus was put on accessibility issues. The platform conforms to AA criteria of the W3C-consortium. Scroll wheel or keyboard respectively allows enlarging page items and navigating to key pages of the platform. AJAX features as the Live-Search functionality enhance the usability by making the platform feedback more responsive. Design wise accessibility is supported by a clear and uncluttered interface, even if it is not yet in the final state. To support social interaction all members who are online concurrently are displayed on the page. The username of each of these members links directly to his/her personal info page. Beside personal information links are given to start communicating directly with the respective person via a platform internal messaging facility. 6 First experiences and next steps The following section describes some examples of our experiences during the project work using different point of views and levels: we focus on the clients (disabled people), the staff, the organization and the international partnership as well as the technicians who implemented the platform. 6.1 Experiences on client level Clients are not the main target group in this project, but they should be the winner by the improved know-how of staff and services finally. On one hand we investigated informal learning situations of the professionals and found out that there are a lot of situations and possibilities in organizations offered for an exchange of know-how and of implicit knowledge. But there are less arrangements for clients. A system for the exchange of client’s know-how can be arranged easily if you make some changes. On the other hand it is very helpful to take care of influencing conditions in every day situations. Informal settings will get more and more important in everyday work of the partners’ services. 10(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria 6.2 Experiences on staff level When the management focus on the individual knowledge, the importance of the individual staff member will increase. The individual knowledge becomes relevant. This verbalised acceptance gives a new and powerful impulse. It is a soft change. Empowered employees are more engaged. More engaged colleagues are more open-minded and will exchange their experiences and thinking more and more, more impulses will bring more creativity that may lead to more flexibility. We have noticed such changes in our organizations. We found out that people can influence informal learning and know-how transfer and noticed that leaders are responsible for those learning processes too. 6.3 Experience on organizational level 80% of all lifelong vocational knowledge is generated by informal learning. Leaders of departments and enterprises get slowly aware of this fact. There is a change: the importance of formal education facilitates informal knowledge. Formal education is a basic condition in many social service organizations. If this condition is met, the real challenge for the human resources development starts. The importance of informal learning will increase certainly. This way of learning will accelerate the change from traditional human resource development to a new competence development. 6.4 Experiences on international partner level Finally we’ve stated three main levels of informal learning – so the international partnership has a common approach: 1 Informal learning in general: This learning is mainly running by chance. It is part of our existence and we use it to master our life– anytime and anywhere. 2 Informal learning – advanced level: It happens when we look for (better) solutions, if we are task-oriented – no matter if in your own interest or by order – and when we start to get aware of informal learning processes slowly. 3 Informal learning – professional level: Informal learning in high quality begins, when we are able to use your knowledge and know-how about this way of learning in everyday work. These activities and procedures supplied and offered by the team/division/company will support and optimize the work. Finally it is easy to influence informal learning – but for most people it isn’t visible (until now)! Organizations which will be able to implement and to strengthen informal learning in their systems will win – the impacts will differ and depend on the professionalism and the culture. 6.5 Experiences on technical level The first prototype of the platform was launched in February 2006. We invited all project members to register and offered workshops to demonstrate the platform, its structure and tools and to receive feedback from our users. We gained first experience with the platform in real life. Following our user-centred approach we wanted to improve our prototype permanently to make it more user-friendly. So we collected the feedback and began make necessary changes, e.g. we changed the type of the discussion forum and implemented new tools. At the same time we provided support to all users in order to develop a virtual community who uses the platform for collaboration and communication focusing on services for people with disabilities and informal learning. So far, we invited the project members to register and 11(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria become a member of the virtual community. We introduced new members to the platform and moderated online discussions, e.g. a discussion on the definition of informal learning and on burn-out prevention. Following the feedback of our users we continuously improved the prototypes. At the time of writing (August 2006) 51 members from all partner organizations are registered platform users. Activity has been rather low up to now. We hope that activity will rise after the first tutors (wegleiters) have finished their training in a few weeks and will start to promote the platform inside their organizations. We need more active users to make the platform interesting for new users. As many people of our target audience do not use computers on a daily basis, but check their email from time to time, we are planning to add subscription functionality where users can subscribe to specific topics a get email notifications if new contributions for this topic are added. 6.6 Next Steps In autumn 2006 we will start a training for tutors (wegleiters) on assessment of informal learning and on e-skills (e-moderation and the use of the platform). The tutors (wegleiters) will use the platform to upload the results from their work at their organizations (focus groups etc.) and use the platform to discuss, exchange experiences with others. They will also be promoter for the platform and community in their own organization and accompany their colleagues online. Also at this time the final layout of the platform will be published, incorporating user feedback gathered on all of the above mentioned occasions. 7 Summary Informal learning at workplace is a forgotten but important factor. In the project “Lifelong competences - informal learning in social fields“ supported by the European commission (Leonardo da Vinci initiative) an assessment method set is developed to make informal learning at care facilities for disabled people visible and comprehensible. First results are available. The learning processes were analyzed and the following key processes for professional learning are stated: trust and mandate, orientation, formulation of problems, planning as well as action and reflection. The following steps are necessary to reach and acknowledge learning results: a common competence process between professional and client, the visualization of gained competences and experiences (e.g. by writing), the evaluation of the competences, and distribution of visible and evaluated knowledge to others and transfer of knowledge. The employees of care facilities for disabled people build a community of practice (according the model of Etienne Wenger) and exchange knowledge gained. Therefore a platform developed with the open source software PLONE was built to pass on informal knowledge. The platform consists of different tools for collaboration and communication (such as weblogs, archives, news etc.). An innovative approach of smart folders is used to generate content dynamically at the platform. 12(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria Pictures/Figures/Graphics: Figure 1: starting page of the platform prototype http://www.informal-learning.org References: (1) DOHMEN, G.: Das informelle Lernen – Die internationale Erschließung einer bisher vernachlässigten Grundform menschlichen Lernens für das lebenslange Lernen aller. Hersgb. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Bonn 2001 http://www.bmbf.de/pub/das_informelle_lernen.pdf (2) CEDEFOP: Terminology of Vocational Training Policy – A multilingual glossary for an enlarged Europe. Luxembourg 2004. (4) DOHMEN, G.: Wege der Kompetenzentwicklung-Lernen um zu überleben. Pädagogik in Bewegung, Lectures vol 03, Vortrag v.2.Mai 2006, Wien. (5) The first criterion “mutual competence” could be not fulfilled and still all other criterions are reached. The problem then is (according to our “theory”) that we have “missed” a key to true learning and a community of practice between the client and the professional and thereby the vision of “empowered clients” is not reached! 13(14) Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria (6) LAVE, J., Wenger, E.: Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. USA: Cambridge Univ. Press (1991). Both inspired by Vygotsky, L.S.: Mind in Society. The development of Higher Psychological Processes: Mass. USA: Harvard Univ. Press.1978. 7 WENGER, E.: Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: University Press 1999. (8) An overarching question for our project could then be: How do our “Communities of Practice” look in our different organizations and nations? What are the characteristics in each organization and which factors do limit and support every day learning. (9) Bereiter, C., Scardamalia, M.: Surpassing ourselves. An inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise. Illinois: Open Court Publ. Comp. 1993 and Rethinking learning ID. In: R. Olson and N. Torrance (red), The Handbook of education and human development. New models of learning, teaching and schooling. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell 1996. (10) Argyris, C., Schön, D.A : Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading. London 1978; Bereiter, C. u. Scardamalia, M. : Surpassing ourselves. An inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise.” Illinois: Open Court Publ. Comp. 1993 and ”Rethinking learning” In.Olson & N. Torrance (red), The Handbook of education and human development. New models of learning, teaching and schooling. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell 1996. (11) Ellström, P-E.: Lärande och arbetsorganisation. In: Kompetens och arbete, En antologi. Christer Marking (red). Publica. Stockholm 1992. (12) An earlier atempt to classify like this is found in: Ståhle P. u Grönroos, M.: Dynamic intellectual capital. Knowledge management – in theory and practice. Helsinki: WSOY 2000. (13) Or is not really most education in school in this way? (14) Where the rulebased type is the most structured and the taskbased type is the less structured. (15) WENGER, E. Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: University Press 1999. (16) WENGER, E., McDermott R., Snyder W.: Cultivating Communities of Practice. A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston: Harvard Press 2002. (17) WENGER, E., McDermott Richard, Snyder W.: Cultivating Communities of Practice. A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston: Harvard Press 2002, p. 241. (18) PREECE, J.: Online Communities. Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability. New York: Wiley 2000. Author(s): Ms Maria Jandl, Mag. FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH, ZML – innovative Lernszenarien A_8020 Graz, Eggenberger Allee 11, maria.jandl@fh-joanneum.at Mr Gunter Vasold, Mag. FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH, ZML – innovative Lernszenarien A_8020 Graz, Eggenberger Allee 11, gunter.vasold@fh-joanneum.at Mr Andreas Behmel, DI FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH, ZML – innovative Lernszenarien A_8020 Graz, Eggenberger Allee 11, andreas.behmel@fh-joanneum.at Mr Venerand Erkinger, Mag. Mosaik GmbH A_8020 Graz, Wiener Str. 148, erkinger@mosaik-gmbh.org Mr Per Skoglund, Political Scientist, Development leader Specialpedagogiska Institutet SE_411 04 Göteborg, Kruthusgatan 17, per.skoglund@sit.se Ms Tone Engen, Political Scientist, Wegleiter Specialpedagogiska Institutet SE_411 04 Göteborg, Kruthusgatan 17, tone.engen@sit.se 14(14)