Technology-enhanced Learning in German VET

Technology-enhanced Learning German Adult Vocational Education and Training

(VET)

ED Mahood

Research Report 2010-L-0001

SynRes ResRpt 2010-L-0001 i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction........................................................................................................................... 1

Why does it matter? .................................................................................................... 1

Where will we be going?.............................................................................................. 2

The German educational system ................................................................................. 3

And now? ..................................................................................................................... 5

E-LEARNING PROFESSIONALS................................................................................................ 6

First thoughts ............................................................................................................... 6

Roles of e-learning practitioners.................................................................................. 6

Development needs ..................................................................................................... 9

Ways of providing evidence....................................................................................... 12

Assessment................................................................................................................. 14

Summary .................................................................................................................... 15

Key Drivers of e-Portfolios................................................................................................... 16

Overview .................................................................................................................... 16

e-Portfolios and more ................................................................................................ 16

e-Portfolio drivers in German vocational education ................................................. 18

Final thoughts............................................................................................................. 19

Introducting Accessibility into VET ...................................................................................... 20

Starting point.............................................................................................................. 20

Background ................................................................................................................ 21

Formal rules and informal constraints....................................................................... 22

Formal rules ...................................................................................................... 22

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Informal constraints ......................................................................................... 23

Potential areas of conflict .......................................................................................... 26

Community norms ............................................................................................ 26

Division of labour.............................................................................................. 27

Brokering changes of perception............................................................................... 28

Negotiation of meaning.................................................................................... 29

Brokering as a means of overcoming boundaries ............................................ 29

A realistic plan of action............................................................................................. 30

Policy formulation............................................................................................. 31

Implementation ................................................................................................ 33

Outlook ............................................................................................................. 35

Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 35

Digital Technologies: practical considerations .................................................................... 38

Initial considerations.................................................................................................. 38

Experience and evidence ........................................................................................... 38

Wiki experience and evidence.......................................................................... 39

Wikis as teaching tool: strengths and weaknesses .......................................... 40

Wikis as a learning tool: strengths and weaknesses ........................................ 41

Podcast experience and evidence .................................................................... 42

Podcasts as a teaching tool: strengths and weaknesses .................................. 43

Podcasts as a learning tool: strengths and weaknesses................................... 44

Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 45

Wikis: recommendations for practitioners ...................................................... 46

Wikis: areas of further research ....................................................................... 46

Podcasts: recommendations for practitioners................................................. 47

Podcasts: areas for further research ................................................................ 48

Design specification ................................................................................................... 49

Target group and context ................................................................................. 50

Design and discussion....................................................................................... 51

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Individual and collaborative learning......................................................................... 54

Final considerations ................................................................................................... 57

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 59

Bibliography......................................................................................................................... 60

Specialized links related to e-learning professionals ................................................. 70

German web links related to accessibility ................................................................. 72

List of Figures

Figure 1: The German educational system ........................................................................... 4

Figure 2: Structure of the Educational System in Germany (KMK, 2009a) ........................ 25

Figure 3: Structure of DEKRA Akademie GmbH ................................................................. 27

Figure 4: Fundamental constituents of the learning environment .................................... 55

Figure 5: Individual-collaborative learning cube................................................................ 56

List of Tables

Table 1: e-Learning practitioners and tasks .......................................................................... 8

Table 2: Roles of e-learning practitioners ............................................................................. 9

Table 3: Development needs of e-learning practitioners ................................................... 11

Table 4: Evidencing development for e-learning practitioners........................................... 13

Table 5: Strengths and weaknesses of wikis ....................................................................... 42

Table 6: Recommendations for the use of wikis ................................................................. 46

Table 7: Recommendations for the use of podcasts........................................................... 48

Table 8: Design of Professional Driver Continuous Training Module ................................. 53

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Abstract

Technology-enhanced education has so far been the purview of higher education. Advances in

technology and the rise in the number of qualified educational technologists, however, are

causing the expansion of this field into other areas of education. This study takes a look at this

development within the context of German adult vocational education and training (VET).

The German vocational-training system is different from most others in Eurorpe and has

specific characteristics that may or may not lend themselves to online methodologies. It is a

foundational study aimed at providing a snapshot of current thinking in the field and it takes

a look at the issues of accessibility and specific technologies as they may be implemented in

this educational sector. The approach taken is one of finding and discussing specific

examples, rather than attempting to establish a theoretical backdrop for further work. The

orientation is instead practical, targeting educational practitioners, that is, those who deal

directly with the central issues involved. After an intoductory discussion of the role of e-

learning professionals and practitioners, a review of the status of the e-learning professional

in German VET is provided. Next, a brief examination of assessment tools, in this case, the e-

portfolio is undertaken, as this seems to be a particularly fitting assessment method in this

field. This is followed by an excursion into the ream of accessibility which is of increasing

importance in online education in general, but vocational education in particular. A specific

practical examination of two popular technologies, wikis and podcasts are examined to show

their strengths and weaknesses and how these may be effectively employed in vocational

education. Both a simple design of a learning unit and some final considerations on individual

and collaborative learning round out the discussion.

This report is a compilation and reworking of a number of papers, primarily end-of-course assessments, which were produced to fulfill the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Online and Distance Education at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

between 2007 and 2010.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

SynRes ResRpt 2010-L-0001 1

INTRODUCTION

Why does it matter?

It is said the internet changes everything, but in fact that role might actually fall to the

Worldwide Web (www). The combination of databases and graphic elements went far to

raise interest in things online. After the mastering of static web pages and the establishment

of Google as the world's leading search-engine company, web usage really accelerated at an

unprecedented pace. The effects of Moore's and Metcalfe's Laws have increased processing

power and produced network effects that are at times breath-taking. The interactive

revolution known as Web 2.0 combined with a rapidly decreasing price of large amounts of

bandwidth have catapulted the industrialized world, at any rate, into an always-on, ever-

connected society, a society that finds the net, the web in practically every aspect of our lives.

Education is no exception. In fact, web technology and education are merging to produce

what many consider an educational revolution.

While I do not personally agree whole-heartedly with this assessment, it is clear that

significant changes in the way we teach and the way we learn are taking place. The number

and variety of educational opportunities seems to be endless, but my own personality calls

for caution when diving into unknown waters. It is not an inherently conservative nature that

drives this caution, rather it is the repeated experience that euphoria is a poor guide, and

something as serious as education needs to be approached with awareness, openness, and

reason. There is no doubt that the web and digital interaction may produce benefits, but to

what extent, to what degree, and in which directions are still questions in need of answers.

A first step toward answering these questions is the purpose of this dissertation. It takes a

specific context and looks at it in the light of several of the technological innovations that

have become prominent in the past couple of years. The goal is not a comprehensive

assessment of the potential that technology-enhanced education may have within the context

of German vocational education, rather it is a kind of inventory and exploration of what might

be beneficial and how some of the tools associated with Web 2.0 might be used in that


context. It addresses what I believe to be are key issues and deals more specifically with

examples in the hope of providing a foundation for further exploration and research.

Where will we be going?

The report is divided into six chapters. The first chapter, this Introduction, will provide some

background to the topic at hand and will present the study in short-hand form. In addition, it

will include a short digression into the German education system for those readers who may

be unfamiliar with it. In many ways, the German system is like other European systems, but

there are a couple of points in which it differs significantly, vocational education being one of

them. Given the special role this takes within the overall system, the overview may prove

very useful. In Chapter 2, we start with a look at the e-learning professional. To date, this is

not a wide-spread nor very well-known professional field. Germany, for all its engineering

innovation, is rather conservative when it comes to education, hence the somewhat limited

dispersion of technology-enhanced learning overall. We will discuss potential roles of such

professionals, what development needs can be identified to produce them, how evidence for

their learning may be gathered and assessed. One of these methods, e-portfolios, will then

form the focal point of Chapter 3. We will discuss what e-portfolios are, and we will explore

ways that they can be implemented within the vocational-education system, not only for e-

learning professionals, but for vocational learners as well. After this, in Chapter 4, we will

take a short excursion into the realm of accessibility. This is a particularly problematic area

not only within the general education system, but also in particular in relation to vocational

education and training. We will review German legislation dealing with accessibility, the

constraints these impose on educational institutions, and will explore ways the needed and

necessary changes may be brokered and implemented. Chapter 5 then turns to example

technologies themselves. In particular, we will consider the roles and potential of two widely

dispersed technologies: wikis and podcasts. We will take a brief look at how they have been

used and may be used, and we will consider their inherent strengths and weaknesses. After

that we will be in a position to make some recommendations for practitioners in using such

technologies in training. This will lead to a simple design example, and the chapter will be

rounded out by some considerations on the issues of individual and collaborative learning,

both of which are relevant in our particular context. The final chapter will then summarize


and highlight the most important results and provide a brief outlook of where we may go

from here.

The German educational system

As noted above, a brief digression is necessary. Three features of this system are worth

noting (see Figure 1, overleaf). First, streaming is conducted by means of school forms, that is,

there is the Gymnasium for preparation for university study, the Realschule, which

encompasses the standard education requirements, and the Hauptschule, which is

responsible for providing the minimum education required by law1. Second, the Germans

consider this system to consist of 4 pillars: (1) primary, (2) secondary, and (3) tertiary, as

well as (4) vocational education. In other words, in Germany, vocational education is

considered to be on equal footing with other types of education. Finally, throughout one's

career in Germany most employers will encourage to employees to participate in relevant

continuing or further education, which may or may not be sponsored by the employers

themselves. Nevertheless, there is a large network of approximately 20,000 small to mid-

sized companies providing such training in Germany, in addition to the larger, more well

known companies, such as Siemens, Daimler, etc.

In vocational education, there are over 350 officially recognized apprenticeship programs,

which can be broken down into three general categories:

1. Crafts and Trades

Traditional training such as carpentry, cabinet-making, brick-laying, automotive

mechanics, metal-working, but also fields, such as nursing, social work, pre-school

education, etc.

2. Technical

Newer skill sets, such as computer programming, software development, but also

combinations such as mechatronics, medical technician, automotive or industrial

1 Streaming is according to ability, but is determined solely on the basis of grades and a teacher

recommendation. The decision on which stream a student will attend is made at the end of primary schooling, that is at the end of grade 4, around 11 years of age.

There has been an effort over the past 30+ years to unify the three streams into one comprehensive school, but change is slow in Germany. In spite of all OECD recommendations, there is no sign at the moment that the general overhaul of the system, which is sorely needed for the 21st century, will be accomplished soon.


electronics, and so on.

3. Commercial

General office skills and jobs, like banking, retail, transportation, logistics, clerical, etc.

Figure 1: The German educational system

All apprenticeship programs have a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part is a

relatively small proportion of the overall training, and is concerned primarily with basic IT

skills, worker health and safety issues, employment law, and a general understanding of the

industry in which they are working. Training is conducted by companies, most of whom take

on the apprentices as regular employees once they have completed their training. The bulk of

the training, however, is supervised, on-the-job training (learning by doing). At the end of the

apprenticeship each apprentice must undergo a written and oral examination under the

auspices of the regional industry and trade associations. Upon completion of vocational


training, one attains journeyman status.2

And now?

With these overviews of the text and the German education system, we should be well

positioned to now take a closer look at technology-enhanced education as it applies to

German vocational training.

2 It is possible to continue with a formal master-tradesman qualification (additional 7 years of training, part-time,

mostly evenings and weekends), which is required if one wants to start one's own business, but this is a path not followed by the vast majority workers and will not be considered here


E-LEARNING PROFESSIONALS

First thoughts

As Postman (1985) aptly noted, 'a major new media changes the structure of discourse'

(p27), and it also changes what we believe to be true and how we understand the world

around us. This is, of course, relevant to the educational enterprise: as teachers and learners

we do much discoursing in particular ways, and the objective is a new, perhaps better, more

informed view of the world around us. The so-called internet/web revolution promised to

change the nature of education in many ways. However, as with all new technologies, there

needs to be a group of individuals, or an estate, who are the masters of that technology and

who can help shape the discourses that take place in that medium. Enter the e-learning

professional. How this individual is conceived, though, is not as straightforward as it may first

appear. Different cultures may take different tacks. Given the nature of modern e-

technologies, national and specific cultural boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

While teaching has long been the sovereign purview of local government, the globalization of

communication itself is having deep-reaching consequences for that sovereignty.

In this chapter, then, we will take a closer look at the e-learning professional in the context of

German vocational education. First, a distinction will be made between professionals and

practitioners in light of the specific German context, and we will consider how this group of

individuals fits into this environment. Specific roles will be identified and from these a range

of developmental needs of practitioners will be developed. Based on these needs, a variety of

ways for evidencing these needs will be identified. Finally, we will develop a general

framework for addressing the assessment of continuing development and certification needs.

We shall see that the particular German case allows forces us to think in broader, yet more

specific, terms in regard to the role of e-learning practitioners.

Roles of e-learning practitioners

As was pointed out in the Introduction, The German educational system is structured

differently from most Western and Western educational systems. It is the last to have a

clearly delineated differentiation between crafts/trades and other occupational groups.


Whether one is a commercial specialist (such as a clerk or office worker), works in industry

(warehousing specialist, production buyer) or in services (social worker, nurse), Germans

will have undergone a three-year apprenticeship program that qualifies them to call

themselves by a given vocational title. This is their Beruf (lit. 'calling')3. Throughout the

course of their careers, they may undertake further training or attend company-sponsored

continuing training, but they will not generally be required to keep their skills and knowledge

up-to-date4. It is expected that those in services, such as nursing, will keep abreast of new

developments as they are introduced into their practical, everyday work.

In other words, the role of vocational education is much greater than elsewhere, and much

post-job-preparatory training (that is, training that takes place once one has been qualified to

practice a craft/trade or has received a university degree) is conducted by private companies

who specialize in further adult education. Continuing training is desirable, to say the least,

but it is a matter of choice, not requirement. It should be noted, then, that the notion of

'professional' is quite different than in, say, English-speaking countries5. If a person is

qualified as a technician, one will most likely remain a technician. What is more, without a

university degree, that individual will never be considered a 'professional': a subject-matter

expert, even a highly qualified technician, but not a professional. The difference is subtle but

profound. This has far-reaching consequences for what English-speakers consider to be

'continuing professional development'. For this reason, all individuals considered in this

chapter will be referred to as practitioners, not professionals.

A search for e-learning-related jobs in German search engines reveals two general types of

positions (which roughly correspond to the types of positions discussed in some of the

relevant (English-language) literature, e.g. Beetham, H., et al., 2001; Oliver, 2002; Liewski &

Joyce, 2004; Warrior, 2006) and which we may conveniently specify as

1. e-learning technologists, or

3 From the German translation of the Latin voco, 'I call/name/summon', which is the root of the English

'vocation'.4 In fact, German is the only language I know that has a word for being finished with learning something,

namely auslernen (lit. 'learning out/completely/to the end').5 Those who are considered professionals in Germany are those who have gone to university to study5 (cf.

Perkin, 1996, Ch. 5). A person learns a vocation, one studies to become a professional. Doctors, veterinarians, dentists, lawyers, teachers, and the like, are all professionals by decree5, so to speak, that is, they must pass certain state exams in order to undertake the second, practical, phase of their education (generally over a two-year period), after which they must pass a further examination before being permitted to practice in their given field.


2. e-learning technologists.

The former can be considered the technicians, who deal primarily with technical, system, or

networking issues, and the latter are those who deal primarily with educational, pedagogical,

and content-related matters. A representative listing of roles of these two types of

practitioners could be as follows6:

Class Position Tasks

Senior Specialist e-Learning Technical support, system integration

System Integration Technician System integration, network integration, hardware support

Technician for eLearning Network support, system integration, technical support

Media Designer Graphics design, layout design, layout implementation

e-Learning Developer Programming, application development

E-learning

Technologists

e-Learning Application Developer

Application development, implementation

Editor e-Learning Editor, quality assurance

Teaching Assistant e-Learning Content design, process design, content specification

e-Learning Project Manager Coordination, management, implementation, process

e-Learning Content Developer Content design, process design, content specification

E-learning

Technologists

Teletutor/Online Moderator Implementation, student support, facilitation, assessment

Table 1: e-Learning practitioners and tasks

As can be seen, there is a good deal of overlap in the tasks required by these various

practitioners, which can be further consolidated into a general listing of roles as follows:

Roles

Application developer

6 The job titles in this listing are my translations of titles found via a search of JobScout24.de, Germany's largest

online job marketplace. The listing should be considered representative, not exhaustive.


Roles

Content designer (process, sequence, etc.)

Editor

Learning facilitator

Network administrator

Project manager

Quality assurance specialist

System integrator

Teaching support specialist

Technical designer (graphics, layout, etc.)

Technical support specialist

Table 2: Roles of e-learning practitioners

Development needs

It is worth noting that there are no formal continuing education requirements, no specific

certification requirements placed upon individuals in a particular professional or vocational

estate. There are, however, professional organizations and professional communities, but

none which exercise the regulation of the profession itself. That is a matter for the

lawmakers. What is more, there is still a strict distinction between the skilled worker

(technician) and professional (university graduate). Titles of vocations and professions are

regulated by law, and once one has successfully completed his or her training or studies, they

received official documentation permitting them to call themselves by a particular title.

Consequently, the issue of values becomes secondary. The issue of needs, however, remains

an important one. The pace and degree of change in the area of technology appears – at least

subjectively – to be increasing rapidly. The proliferation of computing technology and the

growth of the internet and world wide web attest to this. In any area of rapid development, it

is a matter of survival to keep abreast of new developments.


There have been a few, limited attempts to develop certification programs for Teletutors7.

These are comparable with both the ALT (2004, 2006) and LSN (2007) certification schemes.

They have not really caught on and have been being outpaced by institutions of higher

learning (in particular Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen) who are offering

their own qualification programs for e-learning practitioners). Moreover, all of these

programs are slowly being superceded by both bachelor- and master-degree programs aimed

at producing learning and teaching professionals who can deal with e-technology in

teaching8. In other words, these degree programs are aiming at producing individuals

identified by the second class of professional identified in the previous section, the learning

technologist. However, it is also interesting to note that the ALT (2004, 2006) and LSN (2007)

certification schemes are primarily initial certification schemes9. Neither of them have

provisions for evaluating or assessing required continuing development. The thrust of the

discussion is on what is needed now. In so far, there is a certain similarity to the German

context, of course, that once degreed, always certified. What is also important is the fact that

almost all certification efforts to date have taken place within the scope of government-

established education (schools and universities). Vocational education in Germany is

considered part of the educational system as a whole, but most vocational trainers work in

the private sector, outside the scope of governmental oversight.

Nevertheless, development needs can be identified which would benefit all practitioners in

this area:

Roles Development needs

Application developer Web/communication technologies, programming, programming languages, team working

7 An overview of the standard offerings can be found at http://www.checkpoint-elearning.de/etrainer/,

http://www.teletutoren.net/, or http://www.time4you.de/ ibt/time4you/site/time4you/ibt/de/start.cxjsp?pos=overQualifications.

8 For example, the FernUniversität Hagen (German counterpart to the OU, so to speak) offers a BA in Educational Sciences which has e-technology in education as one of its focuses; they also offer an MA in eEducation. The University of Duisburg-Essen offers an MA in Educational Media, as well as a certificate program in this area. The University of Rostock offers an MA in Media & Education as well as certificates in Online Communication and Design of Multimedia Applications. The Free University of Berlin offers a certificate in E-teaching, while the University of Oldenburg offers both a Diploma and an MA in Distance education. Finally, the University of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen offers two programs, one as Expert for New Learning Technologies and a European Net-Trainer certification in association with the European Net-Trainer Association.

9 Also, the question of cross-national acceptance has not been addressed at all: what status does the CMALT, for instance, have in Germany? My initial response would have to be 'none'.


Roles Development needs

Content designer Subject-matter expertise, application ofweb/communication technologies, pedagogy/andragogy, team working

Content developer Subject-matter expertise, application of web/communication technologies, pedagogy/andragogy, team working

Editor Subject-matter expertise, application of web/communication technologies

Learning facilitator Application of web/communication technologies, pedagogy/andragogy, team working, subject-matter expertise

Network administrator Web/communication technologies, network technologies, process implementation

Project manager Application of web/communication and network technologies, programming, business skills, interpersonal skills

Quality assurance specialist Web/communication technologies, network technologies, programming

System integrator Web/communication technologies, network technologies, process implementation, team working, interpersonal skills

Teaching support specialist Subject-matter expertise, application of web/communication technologies, pedagogy/andragogy, interpersonal skills

Technical designer Application of web/communication technologies, graphic processing and design, audio processing and design, team working

Technical support specialist Web/communication technologies, network technologies, programming, interpersonal skills

Table 3: Development needs of e-learning practitioners

A question that immediately poses itself is 'Why do we care?' One driver of the need to

rethink the state-centred notion of professionalism and the need for continuing professional

development is globalization. The Bologna Agreement is driving the restructuring of higher

education systems throughout Europe and will encourage the exchange of professionals

across cultures. The physical movement of specialists (or practitioners) within the EU will


require a higher-order regulatory system10 in order to ensure quality of product and service

delivery. Beyond this, the technology involved is global: what can be offered online can be

offered independent of location. How is the value and quality of the product or service

assessed? As pointed out above, the German educational and certification system makes no

overt provision for continuing development and no provision for ensuring the integrity of the

professional estate. It would seem, then, that professional development and providing

evidence thereof is something that everyone in a given profession should be concerned with.

Ways of providing evidence

Given the lack of accepted standards throughout the field of e-learning, and as there is no

system of formal certification nor private-sector certification that is applicable within the

vocational area of German education, the current alternative is to consider best practice and

individual accomplishment (Hillier, 2002; Goodyear, et al., 2001; JISC, 2004; Dondi, et al.,

2005). This is being practiced in English-speaking countries11 and appears to be a sensible

starting point for developing an nationwide standard in Germany. As we have seen, however,

each role has its own development needs, but these overlap from role to role. The driver of

evidencing, of course, are the needs themselves, as shown in the following table:

Development needs Ways of evidencing Applicable roles

Business skills Certificates, further education courses, letters of reference or commendation, statements of results

Project manager

Graphic/audioprocessing and design

Artifacts (e.g. pictures, layouts, templates, podcasts, open-source-project participation), certificates, further education courses

Technical designer

10 Which, of course, does not yet exist, nor is there much evidence that there is movement in this direction. JISC

(2004), for example, does provide a list of comprehensive competences, but not in the intent of a standardization that would be binding for all e-learning practitioners. It could be used as a starting point, however.

11 The Carnegie Foundation's Gallery of Teaching and Learning (http://cms. carnegiefoundation.org/gallery_of_tl/keep_toolkit.html) or the Past, Higher Education Projects: Pluralism and Unity, Liberal Arts Institutions, and General Education in Research Universities from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/Opportunity/Past+Higher+Education+Projects.htm) are examples from the higher-education sector.


Development needs Ways of evidencing Applicable roles

Interpersonal skills Certificates, further education courses, letters of reference or commendation

Learning facilitator, Project manager, Teaching support specialist

Pedagogy/andragogy Artifacts (e.g. online courses or modules), certificates, further education courses, letters of reference or commendation, statements of results

Content designer, content developer, learning facilitator teaching support specialist

Process implementation

Certificates, further education courses, letters of reference or commendation, statements of results.

Project manager, Network administrator, System integrator

Programming &programming languages

Artifacts (e.g. programs, modules, open-source-project participation), certificates, further education courses

Application developer, Quality assurance specialist, Technical designer

Subject-matter expertise

Certificates, further education courses, published materials, provision of materials online

Content designer, content developer, Teaching support specialist

Team working Certificates, further education courses, letters of reference or commendation, statements of results

Application developer, Content designer, Editor, Learning facilitator, Network administrator, Project manager, Quality assurance specialist, System integrator, Teaching support specialist, Technical designer

Web/communication technologies, application

Artifacts (e.g. systems, projects, open-source-project participation), certificates, further education courses, statements of results

Content designer, Content developer. Editor, Learning facilitator, Project manager, Teaching support specialist,Technical designer

Web/communication technologies, technical

Artifacts (e.g. systems, projects, open-source-project participation), certificates, further education courses, statements of results

Application developer, Network administrator, Quality assurance specialist, System integrator, Technical designer

Table 4: Evidencing development for e-learning practitioners


It is apparent that in the field of German vocational education, it is essential that a formalized

and recognized system of continuing development be established. Unfortunately, in the age of

omnipresent, always-on, always-accessible communication platforms (such as the WWW),

what means are available for separating the wheat from the chaff, the real from the merely

claimed?

Assessment

Assessment calls up initial impressions of tests and testing. While this may be a general and

usual image, it does not adequately cover what is meant by the term here. In the context of

continuing practitioner development, and given the German proclivity for verifiable

documentation, it would seem in this particular context, assessment must be expanded in

meaning to include the attestation of the claims made by the practitioner. Certificates, letters

of reference, letters of commendation, awards, and more can be digitized easily and

published somewhere online that makes them accessible to potential clients or employers,

but this does attest to the veracity of the documentation nor of the claims made. Similarly,

these could be provided on request, for example, as email attachments, but this too does not

insure that what is claimed is what is real. One way to overcome this problem, of course, is

through the process of (mostly) independent, third-party verification. Organizationally this

can be handled by an authorized private-sector organization (such as a professional

association) or it can a governmental (or quasi-governmental) organization. But how should

this evidence be made available.

All of the evidence listed in table 4 can be provided in electronic form. The organization

would provide each member with his or her own e-portfolio (or, better, web space), which

encompasses both a public and private (organizational) area. The public area would provide

an always-present, from-anywhere-accessible central repository for the members' artefacts

illustrating his or her competences, as well as links to projects on which he or she has

worked. In more technical areas, these may take the form of developed courses or

simulations; in more educational areas, these may encompass study plans or exercises; in

interpersonal areas, these may include letters of appreciation, student responses and

testimonials, etc. Further, provision can be made to provide digital signatures (or attestation)

codes for all documentation, so that clients or employers, for example, can be sure of the

legitimacy of the documents.


Assessment of what may (or should) be included would be determined by the organization,

but not strictly in the form of established criteria, but also in the form of third-party

monitoring. In this case, each member would be assigned a mentor to assist in his/her

professional development, and could oversee the member's continuing development.

Assessments of the elements in the portfolio would best be a combination of personal (CDP,

personal reflection) and peer assessments (skill audits, formal appraisal, on- and offline

assessments), which would ensure greater transparency in regard to established standards.

All together these approaches would provide for an accessible and trusted record of an

individual's achievements and development.

Summary

The challenge of this chapter has been the examining of the role of e-learning professionals

within the context of German vocational education. It was shown that the German system

differs from other education systems in its clear division between what is considered

vocational and professional. This applies not only to the learners, but also to those who

develop and implement e-learning materials. Hence a distinction was made between e-

learning practitioners and e-learning professionals. A number of roles were identified, and it

was shown which developmental needs can be associated with these them. The needs of the

various roles were taken as a starting point to identify ways of evidencing development in

these areas. Finally, the role of both peer and self-assessment was considered.

Although Germany does not yet have a functional system for addressing the issues discussed

in this chapter, it would be worth their while to start considering the implementation of one.

Two important factors are at play: Recalling Postman, the impact of e-technologies, on

education and training in particular, is greater and more far-reaching that the limited

discussion of skills, competences and technical possibilities in this chapter. This is augmented

by what Perkin (1996) characterizes as the shift to a professional society. One of the trends

he identifies is the attempt by professional elites to 'de-professionalize the employed

professions' (p188). The absence of any system, as we saw here, makes one particularly

vulnerable to the negative effects of both factors. Their combination, though, needs to be

addressed seriously and across a broad front. There is a lot at stake.


KEY DRIVERS OF E-PORTFOLIOS

Overview

To date, e-portfolios have been discussed primarily in the tertiary education sector, that is in

colleges and universities. While some attention has been directed toward secondary

education, vocational education – at least as it is understood in Germany – has been seriously

neglected. There vocational training plays a stronger, more formalized role in education than

in many countries. In light of the recent, increased interest in e-portfolios in education, we

will first take a look at what is driving this interest and how this may be applicable to the

German vocational-education context. After that, we will take a brief excursion into the realm

of the German education system, to see specifically how e-portfolios might best fit there.

Some brief concluding remarks will then round out the presentation.

e-Portfolios and more

As the e-portfolio a relatively new tool, which is still under development, both conceptually

and practically, it is worth considering what is driving the use of the tool, as well as what is

hoped to be accomplished through them. The primary drivers of much of the interest in e-

portfolios are government agencies, quasi-government organizations, and educational

institutions (e.g. QAA, 2001). A secondary driver is the group of commercial enterprises

which are trying to develop e-portfolio tools. In the UK, for example, all of the primary drivers

see e-portfolios as a way of broadening assessment and of increasing access to higher

education. There are a number of programs that are being piloted in secondary schools (cf.

Barrett, 2008a; 2008b) which aim at clarifying the related questions.

The anticipated outcomes of e-portfolio use are also interesting: holistic assessment,

transparency of qualifications, certified results and documentation of achievements, the

development of life-long and life-wide learning, and deeper learning. These outcomes,

however, can only be achieved when e-portfolios are maintained over time and are controlled

and managed by the users (cf. Barrett, 2004; Barrett & Garrett, 2007; Batson, 2002; Beetham,

2003; Cambridge, 2005; Greenberg, 2004;, Jafari, 2004). This presupposes, however,

interoperable tools and platforms and permanent access to the portfolios.


Given the long-term nature of this thinking, it is difficult to think of e-portfolios without

considering personal development planning (PDP) as well. While planning and personal

development have always played a role in education, the most fundamental problem has

always been record-keeping and access to those records of accomplishment. Computers in

general have made this easier, but it is only with the advent of the internet and world-wide

web that just about anyone can manage the process on their own. Given the emphasis

provided by the higher-education context, there appears to be more emphasis on

professional (in contrast to personal) development (CRA, n.d.; Moon, 2001, 2005; Morris &

Woodward, 2005; Steffani, 2005). As most university graduates are searching for

professional positions (e.g. in healthcare, social services, education, management, etc.), PDP

becomes relevant, as completing a multiyear degree program necessitates a certain amount

of planning (choosing specific modules, sequencing courses, etc.) and may take place at more

than one institution. Add to this the fact that many professional fields require extensive

internships, which provide further opportunity for documenting learning and professional

accomplishments, and we can see why e-portfolios are an attractive tool for managing PDP

and the documentation process. There is, however, the implicit (sometimes explicit)

suggestion in the literature that the use of these tools should be extended to all types of

education. Whether this is practical or even possible remains to be seen.

Some thought needs to be given to the effects of these outcomes. There are a number of

issues, such as intellectual property rights, digital security, sustained access, etc. that need to

be given more attention. What is more, Acker (2005) identifies three obstacles to the

acceptance of e-portfolios: (1) protection of intellectual property rights for students, (2)

increased faculty workloads, (3) 'inverted' value to students (low at beginning, but high later

in life). In addition, one of the greatest limitation at the moment is the lack of standards, both

conceptual and technical.

It would appear then that the primary use of e-portfolios would be to help manage PDP and

to act as a repository for documentation and certification of learning achievements. At this

level, it would further appear that they would then fit in well in the context of German

vocational training.


e-Portfolio drivers in German vocational education

The use of e-portfolios in vocational education is not mentioned in most of the articles read in

this block and only Walker (2008) makes reference in the conferences to namely further

education (FE) in the UK and Scotland, whereby her emphasis is on FE-teacher training. The

question immediately arises as to whether e-portfolios are applicable at all, and if so, in which

ways. What vocational education shares with the academic programs described above is its

variability of subject matter and multiyear duration. These features help drive the use of e-

portfolios elsewhere, but they are unknown in this educational context. While PDP is

relevant, and while the documentation of achievements (certificates, etc.) would lend

themselves to inclusion in e-portfolios, there are reasons to suspect that their introduction

into this particular context might be slow.

Considering the different types of apprenticeship programs, it can be readily seen that craft

and trade apprentices would have difficulty producing artefacts suitable for e-portfolios, as

these are solid, concrete objects that cannot be digitized. Granted, one could take pictures of

such objects and include them in the portfolios. In the other two areas, certain items, e.g.

those related to IT training, or general office functions, could possibly be saved and included

in an e-portfolio. In technical areas, the inclusion of plans, designs, technical drawings, or in

commercial areas, items such as planning documents, disposition schedules, or quality

management documents could conceivably be included as well. It would seem that the door is

open to introducing such portfolios in vocational training in Germany.

It must be remembered, though, that the bulk of practical training takes place within the

employing company. Many, if not most, of these are small- and mid-sized companies (which

form the backbone of the German economy). Intellectual property rights and trade-secret

issues are important in these organizations, for it is often only slight variations in process or

technique that differentiates one competitor from another. Consequently, many German

companies are very cautious when it comes to publicizing company-internal information.

This, if nothing else, can, and most likely will, have a significant impact on the implementation

of e-portfolios in German vocational training. The implementation of e-portfolios will

therefore only occur when the peripheral issues mentioned here have been adequately

addressed.


Final thoughts

In this chapter, e-portfolios have been considered in the context of German vocational

education. First, some general background on the rise and implementation of e-portfolios in

general was presented. It was shown that these have developed primarily in academic

contexts. Further, it was noted that they can, and do, serve as repositories for two types of

items: documentation and learning artefacts. Next, a brief overview of the German

educational system was presented to show the particular role that vocational education plays

in this system. The vast majority of German learners pass through this part of the system.

Finally, it was seen that while there are aspects of the German vocational education context

that could lend themselves to the implementation of e-portfolios, two important issues need

to be addressed: intellectual property and trade-secret rights. Even though e-portfolios have

made strong advances in some sectors over the past few years, it is relatively safe to assume

that their introduction into and implementation in the German vocational education system

will be slow in coming.


INTRODUCTING ACCESSIBILITY INTO VET

Starting point

One of the interesting side-effects of globalization is the heightened sensitivity for what is

local. While most of us in the western, industrialized world would agree, for example, that

education is a basic right of all people, the interpretations of what this means precisely can

vary significantly from culture to culture. Though we share certain fundamental beliefs, we

differ greatly in how we believe those beliefs should be implemented. The wave of

globalization more often than not crashes on the breakers of local culture, that is, on

fundamental and principle understandings of how the world does and should work.

The spread of the internet and Web 2.0 makes it technologically possible for students just

about anywhere to participate in formal and informal education programs worldwide. Yet, for

all the hype and excitement related to these technological developments, there is still the

issue of access. Who is truly able to participate in this educational revolution? Restricted

access can take many forms. Most of the literature written and, at least formal, programs that

have been developed have been in the area of higher (academic) education. The dearth of

vocational-oriented online programs is in itself a form of inaccessibility. More commonly,

however, it may be due to technical considerations, such as the simple unavailability of

electricity or computers. It may be narrow bandwidths or obsolete hardware which can

prevent some applications from functioning properly, if at all. But even more seriously, and

this in areas such as the industrialized West which have long overcome the technical barriers,

there are many potential participants in this new world of education who are excluded (or

restricted) for more personal reasons, such as physical impairments or disabilities. All of

these examples apparently contradicting the claims of advances that have been made.

In this chapter, then, we are going to examine the issue of accessibility, particularly in regard

to this last factor, namely for students with disabilities, but we shall do so in a particular

cultural context: German vocational education. We will do so, however, by focusing on three

general issues which can be considered from different perspectives to provide a sound

foundation for future development. First, we will consider the issue of formal rules and

informal constraints (cf. Seale, 2006: 142ff). By this we mean not only the German legal

framework regarding accessibility but also those aspects of German culture which provide


the backdrop for their position from which they deal with the matter of accessibility in online

contexts. Second, we will move inside my particular organization – the DEKRA Akademie

GmbH (DA) – and examine its own current position on accessibility in terms of potential

areas of conflict, such as community norms, that is, how we are structured and organized and

what may be termed the division of labour, or how decisions are made in the organization (cf.

Seale, 2006: 143f; 164ff; and Engeström, 1987). It will become clear just how important a role

money plays in a for-profit organization. Third, by looking at the organization, its structure,

culture, and attitudes, we will consider brokering as a possible approach to implementing

organizational change (cf. Seale, 2006: 177ff). The world continues to develop and, as in

nature, only those organizations who can adapt to their environments can survive. This is

true in business as well. Finally, we will bring each of these discussions together into a

possible plan of action for implementing a long-overdue accessibility policy, which will

enable us to not only move forward in terms of accessibility, but in a way that is tolerable for

the interests of the organization as a whole.

Background

The DA is one of Germany’s largest, private, vocational-education providers. The DA provides

only a supporting role to the German educational system. It is a for-profit organization that

annually trains more than 80,000 individuals in over 80 training centres nationwide. The

training ranges from office and clerical skills to warehousing, truck-driver training, and

heavy-equipment operation. Participants are primarily unemployed persons who receive

funding for their training from the Federal Labour Agency (FLA). The Agency's philosophy,

which is supported by the political establishment, is to provide retraining or up-skilling as

necessary to improve the individual's chances of being reintegrated into the primary labour

market. Job mediation is used by the agency as a criterion of success, hence mediation quotas

of 70% and higher are expected. The DA generates annual revenues in excess of 150 million

euros, whereby about 90% comes from FLA funding.

In order to improve operational efficiency and to be able to address more participants in a

more flexible way, the DA has developed a modularized system of directed self-study called

the p.r.o.f.i. method12. Participants learn individually, at their own pace, under the supervision

12 p.r.o.f.i. = professional, realistic, open, flexible, innovative.


of a learning coach13. All training takes place at a DA centre. FLA-funded participants must be

present for eight training units of 45 minutes/day, five days/week. Modules are comprised of

required readings, set activities and exercises, review questions, and self-tests. Each module

ends with a module test. Over the past 18 months, all paper-based modules have been

digitized and installed on our own online platform, the DEKRA Interactive Learning System

(DILS). In the next phase, these modules will be adapted to the electronic medium, and new,

online-only modules are intended to be developed. In all development discussions thus far,

accessibility issues have not been raised nor addressed. At present, the organization has no

specific disability or accessibility policy. While it could be argued that the mere transfer of

text-based materials to electronic form has not made it necessary to consider it, accessibility

will certainly become a topic in the coming years. In other words, the time is ripe for making

a strategic, organizational decision regarding accessibility.

Formal rules and informal constraints

North's (1993, 1994a, b) working papers on institutional change offer a sound starting point

for considering the drivers behind accessibility issues in vocational education. According to

this framework, organizations consist of formal rules, informal constraints, and the

enforcement of both. Seale (2006: Ch 11) has also shown as well how North's thinking may be

redirected toward educational contexts. In this section then, we will consider two of these

aspects: formal rules and informal constraints. The notion of enforcement will be taken up in

the following section on potential conflicts.

Formal rules

Not only has Germany signed and ratified the UN (2008) 'Convention on the Rights of

Disabled Persons and Its Optional Protocol', its own Disabled Persons Equal Treatment Law

(BGG) mandates integration for disabled persons. BGG §11 also specifies that public websites

must be designed for accessibility. The BGG further requires, wherever possible, the

establishment of target agreements among the affected parties whenever disability issues are

concerned. The goal of these agreements must be the fullest possible integration of the

disabled person14. The law is of particular relevance for the DA, as its primary customer is the

13 German = Lernprozessbegleiter (LPB).14 In this context, Clark's (2003: 3) differentiation between 'equality' and 'equivalency' is of particular relevance,

for the laws in Germany speak of equal treatment, but not of equivalency, which is the real issue.


FLA, which is technically bound to the provisions of this legislation. In addition, the DA is

headquartered in the state of Baden-Württemberg, which as is the case with all states within

the Federal Republic of Germany has its own version of such legislation, namely the State Law

for the Equal Treatment of Disabled Persons (L-BGG). These laws mirror the federal

requirements, adding no additional ones on their own.

The question immediately arises, of course, as to why everyone involved is not complying. As

Seale (2006: 157) points out, purely legal requirements are not enough to drive the

development of accessible online components, or accessibility in general. As elsewhere, if

organizations are not forced into compliance, they are hesitant to comply. This is a

comfortable approach to take when we consider that none of the laws examined provide

enforcement provisions. There is no provision for fines, suspension of business activities,

potential jail sentences for responsible individuals, hence the motivation (even if it is

negative) to comply is non-existent.

Informal constraints

Still, we know that making online educational materials accessible is the right thing to do. The

Germans are a generous people with a soft spot in their hearts for the disabled, to be sure.

Aktion Mensch is one of Germany's largest and most respected charitable organizations which

deals exclusively on behalf of disabled citizens. Nevertheless there are two culturally related

issues that have a serious impact on the issue of accessibility, which both are related to the

structure and philosophy of the education system: one is the actual structure of the education

system, the other is the psychological divide between academic (i.e. higher) and vocational

education.

Figure 2 shows the basic structure of the educational system in Germany. The first thing to

notice are the dark fields labelled Sonderschule [special school] in the lower, left-hand part of

the diagram. The annotation to these blocks reads: 'The disabled attend special forms of

general-education and vocational school types (partially integrated with non-handicapped

pupils) depending on the type of disability in question.' (KMK, 2009a: 3) In other words,

disabled students are sorted out of mainstream education from the very beginning of their

educational careers. What is also worth noting is the fact that although the annotation makes

mention of special forms of vocational schools, these are not to be found in the middle part, or

secondary levels, of the diagram. It is here that we see the first contradiction between the

formal requirements identified above and the actual cultural and social practice found in the


school system. This separatist or exclusionary attitude is reinforced by the fact that Germany

is world-renowned for its dual-system of vocational education. During the two or three years

of apprenticeship training (depending on the qualification being pursued), students are

required to attend general-education schools (Berufsschule). The bulk of the training,

however, takes place in companies themselves in a type of supervised on-the-job training.

Not only have disabled students been separated off from their non-handicapped fellows

during their general studies, but once vocational training begins, if the company has no slots

to accommodate disabled learners, it is not required to adjust to accommodate them, as they

will be dealt with in specialized training centres.


The other point worth noting is the fact that tertiary (or post-secondary) education begins

above the level of Fachschule and Abendgymnasium/Kolleg. If we consider the upper left-hand

quadrant of the diagram as the area of vocational education, we can see that there is a real

separation between academic (or higher) education (as illustrated by the various

Hochschulen and universities. More importantly, though, mobility through the system is

generally unidirectional from right to left. It is much easier to be moved from the Gymnasium

(college preparatory) to the Realschule than vice versa; it is easy to move from the Realschule

to the Hauptschule, but almost impossible to go back. In other words, something as simple as

upward, educational mobility is a critical factor in German education.

Figure 2: Structure of the Educational System in Germany (KMK, 2009a)

This combination of formal rules which are hardly enforceable and informal constraints that

undermine most moral arguments makes for an extremely difficult starting point for

introducing accessibility issues into the organization. We will now turn our attention to the

organization itself to see where the greatest potential for obstacles lies.


Potential areas of conflict

Given the lack of external factors providing a motivation to introduce accessibility into our

training programs, a look inside the organization might be helpful at this point. Engeström

(1987) identifies six factors (after Seale, 2006: 165) – tools, subject, object, rules, community,

and division of labour – whose interaction with one another sets the boundaries for which

activities may be viable within the organization. In this section, then, we consider the role of

community norms (that is, among staff and training personnel) and management (that is, that

division of labour, with decisional capabilities) in order to find potential openings for the

implementation of accessibility issues in the organization.

Community norms

DA sees itself as a training organization, and the vast majority of its employees are involved,

directly or indirectly, in training or training-related activities, that is, over 700 of the DA's

750 employees. The three departments which make up headquarters (strategy, marketing,

controlling) employ about 30 people. Figure 3 shows a diagrammatic overview of the

structure of the Akademie. The dashed boxes in grey are support services that the DA

receives from its corporate parent.

Given the training emphasis of the organization and the self-image of most of the employees,

it is not difficult to see that the organization in general takes pride in its ability to provide

quality training to the society as a whole.

Within the organization, pride is also taken in being at the leading edge of new developments

in the training field. For this reason, it was decided two years ago to introduce and develop an

online learning platform. When viewed from a competitive perspective, it seemed essential

that the DA be active in online learning as well, hence the introduction of DILS. So far,

however, development has been slow for several reasons. First, it is a specialized system that

only few individuals can operate. A high degree of system and technical knowledge is

necessary to administer the system and to generate content. Second, a management working

group decided that the developmental path would proceed from the digitization of existing

materials to the development of online-only materials. The first phase has been

accomplished. Third, only a small team of three employees in one of our decentralized

training-development centres has been tasked with working on the system. Consequently, the


organization has a small vehicle for propagating the idea of online learning, and it is at a stage

in its development where it is not too late to bring accessibility issues into the discussion.

Figure 3: Structure of DEKRA Akademie GmbH

It should be recognized, however, that the individuals who comprise the community within

the organization come from that same society that fundamentally marginalizes the disabled

to begin with. There is an internal inconsistency or conflict that needs to be overcome. A

reasonable and enforceable accessibility policy would go a long way toward achieving this

end, but at the moment, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the organization does not have

that policy. This is a subject to which we will return in the last section of this report. In the

meantime, let us turn our attention to the roles of important stakeholders in the policy-

formulation process to identify the other potential obstacle intimated earlier.

Division of labour

Referring again to Figure 2, the three solid boxes on the left-hand side of the figure are of

greatest interest. These represent the support services provided by headquarters. As a

member of the Educational Policy and Strategy department, it will fall to us to spearhead

policy formulation. Marketing and Sales support will need to be made aware of the image

gains and positive reputation that can be acquired through the development of more

inclusionary training programs. The Financial Controlling department, as its name implies, is

concerned with determining the value that our activities have for the organization, and since

the DA is a for-profit company, this would be the most sensible place to start.


Current business theory adheres to the maxim that the purpose of business is the

maximization of profits (Porter, 1980; Grant, 2008). Though as economists, they refer to

economic rents, the bottom line is – if you excuse the pun – that business is about money. The

DA subscribes to this view of business as well. For anyone outside the for-profit community,

it is sometimes difficult to imagine the omnipotence of money. Want to develop a new

training program? Want to revise our fundamental pedagogical approach? Want to up-skill

current trainers in light of new technologies? Want to implement new training methods? The

first question that will have to be answered is, 'What is it going to cost us?' And the second

question is, 'What kind of return will we get on our investment?' If you have no ready answer

for these question, you are doomed from the start, as merciless as that sounds.

Granted, senior and operational management will repeatedly make clear that the quality of

service provision is their highest priority, and in a certain sense they sincerely mean it. They

like everyone else would like to be known for doing a good job and having a excellent

reputation in the training community. But, in the end, what remains in financial terms is what

matters. By making profits the primary driving factor in all business decisions, even while

proclaiming its quality ideals, money becomes the basis for all reasoning and decision-

making. In other words, the first task of anyone interested in introducing or implementing

anything new has to be translating that idea into financial terms.

What we have within the organization, then, is a situation that is analogous to that outside it:

competing and conflicting views of the matter, yet with a fundamental, albeit weak,

commitment to instituting online training elements. The question which arises is whether

there is a means of achieving the goal of getting everyone together to support the

development of an accessibility policy in the organization.

Brokering changes of perception

Although all may seem lost, the situation is not completely hopeless. The consideration of the

previous two issues has helped us gain a better understanding of what we are up against, and

from which quarters opposition will most likely come. What we need, however, is a means of

getting a better grasp on what can be done about it. One reasonable starting point is Wenger's

(1998) theory of 'communities of practice.' There are, in particular, two aspects of his theory


that appear to be especially relevant here: the negotiation of meaning and brokering as a

means of overcoming boundaries (cf. Seale, 2006: 178ff).

Negotiation of meaning

Practice, according to Wenger (1998), is what gives structure and meaning to what a

community does. In the case of the DA, we have a community of training and support staff

who are all immersed in the same culture and who interact with one another in the pursuit of

organizational goals. We have seen in the discussion thus far, however, that the general view

of staff on accessibility (in online contexts) is not the same as mine. While we are all in

agreement that online learning and training is the way of the future, we are not in agreement

on the accessibility aspects. It is clear that the Educational Policy and Strategy department

will have to take the lead in initiating the discussions that can lead to the awareness of the

moral, legal, pedagogical, and business reasons for embracing a meaningful accessibility

policy.

One advantage to the current constellation of participants (Seale, 2006: 182) is that we share

a common understanding of practical goals. The challenge, then, is not so much to radically

change colleagues' views, rather the task at hand is the enhancing or expanding of those

views to include learners with disabilities, whether any are present in our current training

programs or not. Given the extremely low visibility that accessibility has had in the

organization, this is not surprising. Nevertheless, from a strategic perspective, it would make

sense to include accessibility in our thinking now in order to be better prepared for any

future eventuality. While significant changes are not immediately expected, shifts in the

economy, for example, could lead to an increased necessity for including more disabled

individuals in the workforce, which would in turn open up new market opportunities for a

training provider like DEKRA. Hence, it would be to our advantage to be prepared for the

future. What is needed is a wide range of arguments that would be helpful in emphasizing the

overall meaningfulness of accessibility, including financial considerations, as noted above.

Brokering as a means of overcoming boundaries

Wenger's model also provides us with a useful notion for organizing our thoughts on how to

proceed, namely brokering. According to Wenger, brokering consists of three interrelated

processes, to wit, the translation, co-ordination and alignment between different

perspectives. What is more, anyone taking on the brokering role needs to fulfil three essential

characteristics: to have the legitimacy necessary to influence the development of practice, to


be able to facilitate transactions among participants, and to be secure living on the

boundaries between the various groups (Seale, 2006: 180).

Thinking of the Educational Policy & Strategy department in this light indicates quite clearly

which activities will be necessary in trying to establish a disability policy as a first step to

including accessibility considerations in our online programs. The first process, translation, is

clear. As was mentioned in the previous section, everything we do or propose in the DA has to

be translated into financial (that is, money) terms. This may be the greatest challenge of all,

though an approach will be outlined in the next section. Being located in headquarters and

not as part of any of the decentralized units, the department can also fill the coordination role

well. The department has access to and interaction with all the decentralized units in a

variety of contexts. This makes the bringing of accessibility issues into the discussion a

relatively simple matter. Finally, the only real alignment that is necessary is between

operational and financial considerations. If it is easy enough to do and does not cost a lot of

money, it is generally easier to initiate change in the organization. What is more, the

department has the legitimacy to take on this role (as its name implies), it is represented in

all senior-management committees, thereby ensuring access to both the managing director as

well as the heads of the operational units and as such being able to influence the decision-

making process. Finally, its current role positions it firmly on the boundaries between all

organizational stakeholders (cf. Figure 3, above).

In theory, then, it would seem that all the pieces are in place to take Wenger's notions of

meaning negotiation and brokering as the approach to initiating the organizational change

necessary to anchor an accessibility policy in our future online development work. His model

has been helpful in clarifying both the role of the department and the tasks it must undertake

in order to move forward in the desired direction. In the next section, we will turn our

attention to putting all of the theoretical and experiential ideas and issues that have been

discussed thus far into a concrete plan of action.

A realistic plan of action

The real challenge in dealing with the subject of online accessibility in vocational education at

the DA, is the fact that we have not yet even got off the ground. The mere mention of the word

'accessibility' induces reactions of uncertainty to bemused wonder. It is simply something


that no one has thought about, and this is precisely the challenge, but it also our greatest

opportunity at the same time. The goal, again, is to formulate and establish an accessibility

policy and then to implement this policy in the next phase of our online-platform

development. We will conclude this section, then, by considering the outlook for a possible

future in this area.

Policy formulation

In the formulation of an accessibility policy, each of the three major issues that have been

discussed thus far (the conflict between formal and informal constraints, the conflict between

internal norms and structure, and challenge of brokering new perceptions) must be

addressed. In Wenger's (1998) terms, all three processes of coordination, alignment, and

translation need to be addressed.

First, coordination: The task of initiating the process falls to the Educational Policy &

Strategy department. As I am responsible for Strategic Projects within that department, it

seems reasonable that I should take on the role of change agent (Recklies, 2001). In this role,

it will be up to me to overcome the problems that plague learning technologists in general,

such as low levels of awareness or even negative attitudes toward accessibility (Seale, 2006:

81) which are certainly applicable in the DA context. Both weak legislation and the cultural

attitudes toward disabilities and education are potential stumbling blocks that cannot be

ignored.

By placing the topic of accessibility on the department agenda, it will be possible to identify

the stakeholders who will need to be brought on board:

1. senior management

2. the online-learning development team

3. the internal community of training personnel.

The first group will be dealt with by the department head, the second through my own

involvement with the team on other projects, and the third through the implementation of a

brief survey to identify potential disabilities within the participant population.


Second, alignment: The fact that DA is involved in a number of European projects15 and, as of

last year, established a subsidiary in Hungary indicate that there is a basic, albeit nascent,

trend toward internationalization. This trend has been enhanced by a recent change in

corporate strategy as well. In the greater European context, issues of online accessibility play

a greater role so it would also be sensible to get involved in European initiatives, such as

EDeAN16. By incorporating aspects of e-accessibility into current and future projects, a kind of

reverse pressure can be built and brought to bear on the organization to increase awareness

of the issues and to disseminate them within the organization.

The DA's participation in this projects is also used by the Marketing department as part of our

general image campaign. It should be possible to include ideas related to disabilities and

support for disabled students in subtle ways as part of our advertising and marketing efforts.

This will be of particular importance over the next couple of years as the focus of these efforts

will be in the direction of online learning and the development of a second branch of training

business in the private sector. There has come the stark recognition within the organization

that our reliance on one, primary customer is inadvisable for the long-term survival of the

organization. In other words, it should be possible as change agent to pick up on this need for

change and include accessibility issues in the discussion.

Third, translation: This is, by far, the most critical and challenging process. There is, of

course, the matter of technical translation. As Seale (2006: 2) points out, ignorance of what is

involved in accessibility can arouse immediate opposition from technical partners. This

applies not only to the team involved in online training development, but it also involves our

in-house IT technical support unit which is provided by our corporate IT department. The

training-development team is the more critical of the two, as they are directly involved, but

the latter cannot be ignored. The most reasonable line of argumentation to take, of course, is

in the direction of accessibility guidelines and standards. There are a number of resources in

German17 which provide a starting point for exploring what needs to be done. It will be my

job, however, to translate these quickly into a sensible checklist for use in the development

15 These encompass, at present, about 12 projects funded by the European Directorate General for Education

within the framework of the Leonardo Da Vinci and Life Long Learning Programs.16 The European Design for All e-Accessibility Network (EDeAN), is a network of 160 organisations in

European Union member states. The goal of the network is to support all citizens' access to the Information Society. Both the Fraunhofer Institute and FTB (Research Institute for Technological Support for Disabilities in association with the University in Hagen) are members now, which adds to the credibility of the network in German eyes.

17 These are included in a separate section in the list of references at the end of document.


process. Based on the results of the survey mentioned in the previous subsection, a

prioritization of disabilities can be established for those cases where specific development

may be necessary. In the initial phase of the project, a brief white paper outlining the

principles of universal design (cf. Seale, 2006: Part 2; EDeAN; and Design für Alle [Design for

Everyone], but most importantly Clark, 2003) can get us started.

As was outlined above, in the section on potential areas of conflict, money is the most

important dialect spoken in our organization. This will be an on-going process. It will be

continuously necessary to provide argumentation and documentation showing how the

implementation of accessibility standards and guidelines is not incurring additional

development costs, and it will be necessary to reinforce the alignment process by showing

how we are actually taking into consideration a wider customer market as a result (cf.

HREOC, 2002; Foley, 2003; Jacobs 2005, and, of course, Clark, 2003). I have become firmly

convinced of the principle that 'if we get it right for disabled students, we get it right for

everyone' (Stenham, 2009).

Implementation

Taking the requirements and results of these three processes into consideration, three

definite implementation steps can be identified, which can be implemented in the mid-term,

say, over the next six months:

1. Formulate an accessibility policy that can be approved by the department.

This should be a fairly brief statement that addresses, but does not overemphasize,

the legal necessity of compliance with current legislation and which highlights the

organization's commitment to publicly approved and accepted standards and

guidelines, such as those from the W3C (2008) and their Web Accessibility Initiative.

Once complete, the head of the Educational Policy & Strategy department can

introduce this into the monthly Regional Managers Conference for acceptance and

dissemination.

Estimated timeframe: 3 months

2. Develop a survey to identify disabilities needs.

A relatively brief, yet fairly comprehensive email questionnaire can be developed and

sent to each of the more than 80 training centres of the DA. The purpose of the

questionnaire would be to identify the numbers and types of disabilities that must be


dealt with. As this would be a purely statistical survey, inhibitors such as data-

protection regulations would not apply. The intent is to identify needs in a general

way at first.

Estimated timeframe: 2 months

3. Develop a checklist for design.

The checklist would not be a complete translation of the WCAG 2.0 (2008) guidelines,

but rather an easy-to-use list of first-step measures to improve accessibility. For

example, the inclusion of ALT tags on images, the ability to navigate the pages with

both mouse and keyboard, and text generation that is accessible by, say, common

screen readers would be the starting point. Over time, the use of this checklist, and its

becoming second nature to our developers, will allow for expanding and deepening

its scope in the future.

Estimated timeframe: 1 month

A certain amount of work can be done in parallel, of course. The survey can be developed in

parallel to the draft policy statement. The checklist can be started while the survey is out for

response and even before the policy is accepted by the Regional Manager Conference. Time is

of the essence, however, for the DA will soon be moving into a more intense development

phase of its online content, so it would behove the Educational Policy & Strategy department

to assert its position prior to this point.

It can be seen how the completion of these three steps will provide the DA with the

foundation for incorporating accessibility considerations into future online training-program

design. Not only will this project raise the overall awareness within the organization of the

topic of accessibility, but it provides us with the opportunity to link this awareness to good

business practice along its strategic path. What is more, it can also establish a usable technical

foundation for content development. Even more importantly, though, the successful

completion of this plan of action can contribute to the long-term success of the organization

because in its own small way, it addresses each of the major issues discussed in the earlier

parts of this chapter. These first small steps are, in my estimation, clearly defined actions to

meet the fundamental opposition to the topic of accessibility, not head on, but in an efficient,

yet effective manner.


Outlook

Once the initial part of the plan has been accomplished, the work is far from over. At least

three additional tasks can be set for the months that follow (that is, after the initial six month

phase has been successfully completed):

1. Incorporate disabilities sensitivity into marketing materials.

Should we succeed in increasing awareness for disability and accessibility issues

inside the organization, we then need to think about taking this message to our

potential customers. While providing accessibility may simply be the 'right thing to

do', in the business world, moral imperatives carry little weight. Nevertheless, the DA

can use this internal change to its advantage by incorporating it into its marketing

strategy. The results could be an improved image, but also a means of differentiation

from our competitors. If we are the only ones speaking of accessibility, we stand out

from the crowd.

2. Expand involvement in projects and organizations with accessibility issues.

This is an extension of the marketing aspects just mentioned, yet has the added

advantage of keeping the organization actually closer to accessibility issues. There is a

growing network of associations and organizations dealing with these issues, and if it

can be shown that affiliating them can enhance our 'business as usual' without

incurring additional costs, it will be possible to enhance our visibility in this area.

3. Identify potential private customer markets.

This has long been a stated aim of the organization and part of its stated strategy.

Unfortunately, little has been done in this regard. As long as the organization is

recording record revenues and profits from publicly-funded training, it will be

difficult to expand our customer base to include private individuals and

organizations.

Conclusions

The challenges are clear, but so is the necessary course of action. In this chapter, we have

considered three fundamental, and overarching issues that affect the role of online

accessibility in the DA. First, using North's framework for institutional change, we considered


the formal rules and informal constraints involved. We saw that although there is a legal basis

for making vocational training more accessible to disabled students, there is a cultural

reticence to do so. The German education system is fundamentally exclusionary and the

divide between academic and vocational education is much starker than in other countries.

Second, it was shown that within the organization, potential areas of conflict could be

identified using Engeström's activity model. The norms within the internal community, which

are brought in from the culture in general, coupled with a strict division of labor within the

organization places money at the heart of all the company's activity. If the money question

cannot be answered, nothing will get done. Next, Wenger's community-of-practice model

provided us a potential means of breaking this deadlock. Negotiating an expanded

understanding of accessibility – also (or especially) in terms of profit and loss – could enable

the Educational Policy & Strategy department to formulate and implement a reasonable and

acceptable accessibility policy. Finally, a plan of action was proposed to initiate action that

could effect the required changes within the organization. An accessibility policy should be

developed and at least passively introduced. A survey of disability needs would be conducted

to determine the scope and types of disabilities that needed to be addressed first. Finally, a

checklist of accessibility features needs to be developed to assist developers in their design of

online content. This would start small and expand as required in future developments. Once

the plan has been carried out, further image-enhancing activities, in the areas of marketing

and business development, are possible.

It should be very clear by now that the situation in the DA is not an easy one, nor is it one that

is directly comparable to other tertiary-education institutions. The Akademie finds itself at

the very beginning of the online accessibility path. There is an enormous amount of work to

do and the barriers are anything but insignificant. A good proportion of the difficulties the

organization faces are simply the result of the cultural situation. There is, of course, a lot of

work being done outside of Germany and outside of vocational education that can help the

change agents within the organization achieve their goals. The development of accessible and

assistive technologies continues unabated elsewhere. One specific ray of hope, of course, is

the organization's own plans to expand beyond its current national borders. While never

intended in the accessibility sense, this move by the organization could enable a positive

result of globalization, if you will, as some of this outside pressure could be redirected to

achieving the worthy goal of accessible online vocational education. The goal is clear. The


way forward is known. Yet, as Lao-Tzu so aptly noted, even the longest journey begins with

the first step.


DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES: PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Initial considerations

In this chapter, we will take a closer look at two specific technologies within the context of

German vocational education and training: wikis and podcasts. These two particular

technologies were chosen as they are perhaps the most widely used and most well-known of

Web 2.0 technologies. These features make the especially attractive, then, for potential use –

or as a means of introduction to such technologies – in our context of focus.

Experience and evidence

It is difficult to keep up with the pace of technological development and the plethora of tools

and technologies available. In educational contexts, teachers and trainers are more concerned

with planning, preparing, and presenting their instruction, than trying to develop materials,

lessons or courses online. The innate conservative nature of education can prove to be an

advantage, as it only worth considering those tools and technologies that have proven

themselves in real-life situations, avoiding technical shortfalls that could impinge upon, if not

thwart, the learning process.

In this section, we will consider two technologies that are valuable in online educational

contexts: wikis and podcasts. This choice is based on their contrasting natures. Education is

continually challenged to bridge the gap between collaborative and individual learning.

Recent educational literature shows a clear preference for and tendency toward collaborative

learning. Nevertheless, there are areas of knowledge, skills, and competences18 that not are

not well-suited to collaborative learning (such as developing manual skills in vocational

education). Some knowledge transfer is indistinguishable from the provision of information

18 Cf. the European Qualifications Framework, or EQF (ECDEC, 2008; EPC, 2008). In general terms this is

comparable to the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) in the United Kingdom. The EQF is the European-wide standard which was established to guide the introduction of similar frameworks in member countries. The purpose is to provide a common qualification-description instrument which will promote mobility amongst workers in the various member states. The EQF describes all levels of qualifications in terms of knowledge, skills, and competences. While originally intended for use in vocational fields, it has since become increasingly important in higher education as well, as part of the European Union programme to promote mobility between vocation and higher-education systems. The EQF must be considered in training offered by my own organization, hence it is particularly relevant to my personal context.


(e.g. in a lecture), and such intake and processing is highly individual. The wiki is a tool that

was developed with collaboration in mind, a many-to-one technology. The podcast, by

contrast, is a newer version of the traditional lecture, requiring individual attention and

processing, that is, a quintessential one-to-many technology. We will look at how each of

these technologies is used in teaching and learning, and then identify their relevant strengths

and weaknesses.

Wiki experience and evidence

Wikipedia, for all its faults, hence the wiki, has become one of the main focal points of

attention in regard to collaborative working. Wikipedia's success has as much to do with the

desire of human beings to share and shine as it does with the wiki as an easy-to-use

production tool. Given that this first public wiki application was a knowledge-base, it is little

wonder than the wiki quickly found its way into online education. Wiki use is quite varied: as

an online, administrative and information portal (Nielsen, 2009), a professional-development

tool (Foley & Chang, 2006; Robertson, 2008), for online group work (Elgort, et al., 2008),

though Parker & Chao (2007) provide the most extensive list of uses distilled from their

literature review on the subject). These include: the development of simple web pages, online

cooperation and collaboration, project management, and the development of knowledge-

bases, and supporting the teaching of writing online (p61).

My personal wiki experience reflects those listed above, both as teacher and learner. In two

other courses I tutor19, wikis have been used as a collaborative platform for student work. In

one, the use was determined by the course team; in the other, I was part of the team

designing the Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) that uses wikis as a learning tool. I have

dealt with wikis both actively and passively in formal learning situations20. Wikis have been

19 B201 Business organizations and their environments and B820 Strategy.20 The distinction between these three types of learning are based on CEDEFOP, 2008b and are as follows:

Formal learning: Learning that occurs in an organised and structured environment (e.g. in an education or training institution or on the job) and is explicitly designated as learning (in terms of objectives, time or resources). Formal learning is intentional from the learner's point of view. It typically leads to validation and certification. (p85)

Informal learning: Learning resulting from daily activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not organisedor structured in terms of objectives time or learning support. Informal learning is in most cases unintentional from the learner's perspective. Outcomes do not usually lead to certification but may be validated and certified in the framework of recognition of prior learning schemes; it is also referred to as experiential or incidental/random learning. (p93)

Non-formal learning: Learning which is embedded in planned activities not explicitly designated as learning (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support). Non-formal learning is intentional from the


used in this course, though in a very limited way21, and where I have experienced them as a

learner. Additionally, I use wikis in non-formal learning: to compile notes and observations

on education- and course-related topics. The wiki is the ideal tool for bringing multiple

authors and editors together to produce a common document, indicating its inherent strength

and most debilitating weakness, yet these should be considered both from the perspective of

wiki-as-a-teaching and wiki-as-a-learning tool.

Wikis as teaching tool: strengths and weaknesses

The ALE, mentioned above, is a substitute event for students who cannot attend residential

school. The design attempts to mimic the F2F residential experience. Wikis are used to

produce team results for the various tasks, follow a similar pattern in three of the five ALE

stages: a team of 10-15 students is set a specific analytical task pertaining to a set case study

and has between three and five days to complete a brief collaborative report that serves as

the basis for a plenum discussion in the tutor-group forum on the final day of the stage. The

wiki was chosen as it is a technologically relatively simple tool that allows for both

asynchronous editing and commenting while working toward a single result. This has proved

effective over the span of nine presentations, addressing more than 400 students, who adapt

quickly to using the tool and are generally satisfied with the results. This experience is

supported by both Elgort, et al. (2008) and Robertson (2008).

Nevertheless, there are a number of aspects to this approach which can be considered

weaknesses. Adequate ALE participation is considered to at least three substantive

contributions per stage; there are both minimalist students and active participants.

Assessment is not an issue as only participation is monitored (whereby, in other contexts, e.g.

Parker & Chao, 2007, wikis have been used specifically as an assessment tool). Robertson

(2008) has perhaps observed the greatest weakness of wikis as a teaching tool: 'Despite the

limitations of variations in terminology, there is a strong body of literature to support the

contention that teacher's deep seated notions of what constitutes good teaching are critical in

shaping teacher's practice. [...] Therefore, if professional development of teachers is to

fundamentally change teachers' practice there is a need to move beyond simply providing

technical level skills in the use of a technology and strategies for using the technology in an

learner's point of view. Non-formal learning outcomes may be validated and lead to certification; it is sometimes described as semi-structured learning. (p133)

21 Wikis and Wikipedia were dealt with in H800 Week 10a; student use of wikis was considered in Weeks 14/15; a wiki was one optional response to an activity in Week 19; and in Week 23, a common glossary was to be made by the tutor group.


educational setting to address teacher's beliefs about what constitutes good teaching

practice' (p15). This is a point to which we shall return in later when considering individual

and collaborative learning.

Wikis as a learning tool: strengths and weaknesses

Despite their relative neglect in this course, wikis can be used in a number of ways (cf.

Forrest, 2010), i.e.:

• for interaction (discussion and debate),

• as a repository for content, or

• for collaborative creation.

In one presentation students attempted to both discuss and produce their using the wiki and

had a difficult time keeping things organized and meeting the deadline. In most cases, the last

two of these ways are applicable to the ALE. The question arises as to where the actual

learning in using a wiki takes place. The conclusions reached in the our tutor-group

Elluminate session (Forrest, 2010) are applicable here, that is, in the interaction with the

content itself and through working with others. This is borne out by feedback from ALE

participants. The reports, once completed, are available to the other team, which worked on a

separate task, and as a repository of results for later revision.

Their actual strengths and weaknesses as a learning tool, however, do derive from their

technical characteristics, as shown in Table 5.

This last-named weakness is particularly notable amongst teachers learning about wikis

(Foley & Chang, 2006; Elgort, et al., 2008; Robertson, 2008). Younger students are less

hesitant about editing others' work and are more motivated to contribute (Elgort, et al., 2008;

Robertson, 2008). As with any technology or tool, its effective use depends on a number of factors.

This applies not only to those planning, guiding and monitoring that use, but also to those who are

acquiring new or developing old skills in the process.

Wiki Strengths Wiki Weaknesses

their simple design makes them reliable

their simple design means they are somewhat unattractive


Wiki Strengths Wiki Weaknesses

their ease-of-use, a follow-on from their simple design

though easy-to-use and learn, without clear guidance and specific deadlines, learners will often ignore or circumvent them

they are easy to learn (because they are easy to use)

also due to their simple nature, learner's frequently consider wikis less academically rigorous than other tools

they are flexible (real-time changes, quasi-permanency, etc.)

learners are generally shy, especially at the beginning, of editing other people's work

Table 5: Strengths and weaknesses of wikis

Podcast experience and evidence

The use of audio (in the first instance, radio) as an educational tool is not new. The use of

audio (and video) texts has long been a part of foreign language teaching. Podcasts per sé are

a more recent 'invention' (ca. 2003 (cf. Beam, 2005; Topbits.com, 2010)), but the rise in

numbers of portable audio players (most notably Apple's iPod, from which the 'podcast'

derives its name) and mobile phones have made them a household term. Campbell (2005)

reports that a Google search of the term 'podcasts' in 2004 yielded 24 hits (p44); the same

search today yields approximately 268,000,000 hits.

Podcasts are a low-profile, but popular, technology that serve a variety of purposes. McGarr's

(2009) literature review identified three primary types of uses: 'Podcasting appears to be

most commonly used to provide recordings of past lectures to students for the purposes of

review and revision (substitutional use). The second most common use was in providing

additional material, often in the form of study guides and summary notes, to broaden and

deepen students' understanding (supplementary use). The third and least common use

reported in the literature involved the creation of student generated podcasts (creative use)'

(p1). Cebeci & Tekdal (2006) explore ways of technically standardizing podcasts as learning

objects, that is, turning them from mere audio files into specifically purposed files for

education and incorporation into a virtual learning environment. This makes sense in light of

the interest in podcasting in relation to mobile learning (m-learning), and it was in this

context that they were presented in H800. It should be noted, however, that McGarr (2009)

found no evidence to support this notion, rather students preferred traditional lectures


(p12). Evans (2008) found that students prefer podcasts to textbooks when revising for

exams.

Podcasts are mentioned, discussed, and used in the context of the course22, but I have also

used them in relation to a different OU course which I tutor, producing a series of five five-

minute podcasts as an introduction to strategic thinking which I provide my students at the

beginning of each presentation. From a learner's perspective, I have also made use of lectures

that have been made available by Yale University, strictly in an informal-learning context.

About 800 universities worldwide have made podcasts available, primarily through iTunesU,

part of Apple Inc.'s online audio platform, which boasts over 350,000 files and over 300

million downloads since its inception (CollegeDegree.com, 2010). My own experience is

certainly in line with the perspective set forth in the course in Weeks 8/9 where it was noted

that 'a podcast can take the form of a formal, one-to-many 'lecture'; it can provide informal

study advice for a specific, targeted group of learners; or it could be generated by one or more

students to demonstrate their response to an extended activity' (Activity 6). Interestingly

enough, accessing, downloading, and listening to audio files is often cited as one of the

premier characteristics of the so-called 'Net Generation' (cf. Becta, 2008; Oblinger & Oblinger,

2005; Prensky, 2001a, 2001b; Tapscott, 1998, 1999).

Podcasts as a teaching tool: strengths and weaknesses

As we shall see in the section on design below, the learning outcomes for a given learning

situation are a major factor in the choice of media and methods best-suited for achieving

those outcomes. There are any number of learning situations in which the communication of

larger amounts of information or specific instructions and advice is required. Lectures, for

example, are an audio alternative to a book. The advantage is that the lecture that has been

captured in audio can be repeated an infinite number of times, and always be delivered in the

same way. Moreover, recent technologies make the automated distribution of audio files or

podcasts possible (i.e. via RSS feeds and media aggregators). This enables learners who

prefer listening to reading to be informed and receive explanations in a convenient, flexible

manner. Further, podcasts have permanence and can be easily stored in repositories for

access in other, perhaps unrelated, contexts.

22 Podcasts are mentioned in relation to the case studies in H800 Week 2c, indirectly referenced in Week 3a

(voice online), in one activity in Week 5, discussed in Weeks 8/9, referenced in Week 19, and actually used as the core of one activity in Weeks 21/22.


Podcasts are relatively easy to produce. Open-source software, such as Audacity, is available

for any conventional operating system. All that is additionally needed is a microphone. Even

non-audiophiles can learn to use the recording and editing software quickly. On the other

hand, experience has shown that any recording made needs to be thought through ahead of

time, scripted, and read for full effect. A podcast is only effective if it is clear, easy to

understand, and free from stops, stutters, and unnecessary hesitations.

Edirisingha & Salmon (2007), in a study conducted a five UK universities, identify seven

pedagogical models that should be considered when using podcasts (pp3-4):

• to support online learning and to integrate other e-learning activities – a profcast

model;

• as a strategy for teaching large student cohorts requiring support for practical-based

learning;

• to bring topical issues and informal content into the formal curriculum;

• to develop reflective and active learning skills;

• to develop students' study skills during the first year at the university;

• to enhance student learning in location-based studies; and

• as extensions to lectures: summaries, additional learning resources, further reading

and research.

Podcasts are most effectively employed when they augment other learning and teaching

activities, rather than being considered an independent or self-sufficient method on their

own.

Podcasts as a learning tool: strengths and weaknesses

Many students prefer oral to written presentations. Given that lecturing, for example, is a

mainstay of German education, many German students have stated that they would like to

have more such mini-lectures. A number of students have remarked that this is a convenient

way to receive information, providing them flexibility, for they can listen to podcasts, for


example, during their daily commute. In sum, we can say that podcasts' primary strengths

from a learner perspective are their:

• familiarity;

• ease-of-use;

• general availability (if open repositories are the source); and

• flexibility (portability, quasi-permanency, etc.).

Ming, et al. (2010) report: 'Evidence suggested that the students' learning experiences

improved as a result of four key benefits associated with the integration of podcasting in

learning design: personalisation; an additional and different format for providing clear and

engaging guidance, support and feedback; increased flexibility and mobility within the

curricula; and 'design once, deliver many times' with minimum adaptation' (p105). This is in

keeping the augmenting function of podcasts mentioned above.

Their weaknesses as a learning tool are closely related to their essential characteristics.

Podcasts cannot be too long. Also, they must be well-produced. Finally, they must compete

with the other tracks that learners have on their digital audio devices. Nevertheless,

Edirisingha & Salmon (2007) emphasize: ' Students reported that podcasts helped their

learning by providing a good introduction to the online material; helping to organise weekly

learning activities; helping to stay focused on the course; developing positive attitudes

towards the lecturer, making formal learning more fun and informal; supporting independent

learning; enabling deep engagement with learning material; enabling access while being

mobile. The study also emphasised that listening to educational material was different from

listening for entertainment; therefore, podcasts must be integrated with other learning

activities' (p3). As with wikis, it would seem a conscious degree of scaffolding would be

beneficial when using podcasts in teaching.

Recommendations

The course implies that technology is driving the pedagogy, but the argumentation has not

been convincing. Instead, we need to think harder about which tools can be most effective for

which learners in which environments.


Wikis: recommendations for practitioners

Recommendations should enhance strengths and avoid weaknesses. While wikis have

inherent (technical) strengths, the effective use of any tool depends upon the skills and

experience of the individual using that tool. Table 6 contains five recommendations:

No. Recommendation Context Rating

1 Gain personal, hands-on experience with the tool before using it in a teaching situation.

Professional development

Medium

2 Understand the potential uses, strengths and weaknesses of the tool before using it


High

3 Have a clear idea of what learning outcomes are to be achieved and how the tool can help

Designing and developing content

High

4 Provide clear guidance (scaffolding) and support during the implementation

Teaching online

High

5 Decide how much participation is necessary and make requirements clear to learners

Assessment High

Table 6: Recommendations for the use of wikis

An understanding of the tool and hands-on experience is necessary before requiring students

to deal with that tool. Consequently, adequate preparation must be provided, both theoretical

and practical, for any teaching personnel who will be expected to use wikis. Wikis strengths

are in their cooperative/collaborative nature (Foley & Chang, 2006; Parker & Chao, 2007;

Elgort, et al., 2008; Robertson, 2008), hence it is extremely important that the desired

learning outcomes be attainable via cooperation or collaboration. Nevertheless, clear

guidance, or scaffolding, is an absolute necessity (Foley & Chang 2006; Elgort, et al., 2008),

otherwise learners will become de-motivated, even reticent (cf. O'Leary (2008)). Finally,

close consideration needs to be given to assessing whether stated outcomes have been

achieved. This is part of scaffolding and must also be made clear to the learners.

Wikis: areas of further research

Unfortunately, too much of the reviewed research on wikis deals with how users feel about

what they did or were required to do. While the affective dimensions of learning should not

be ignored, being pleased with a tool, or feeling comfortable using a technology says little


about how worthwhile that experience has been, or whether the intended learning outcomes

have been achieved. Just because a technology is inherently cooperative/collaborative does

not mean that learners will use it. The technology provides the opportunity, not the

motivation. While some comparative studies between face-to-face and online learning (Price,

et al., 2007; Richardson, 2005, 2006, 2009) or alleged advantages of online approaches have

been conducted (Alexander, 2006; Conole, et al., 2008; Goodyear, et al., 2003), these have

only looked at the general relationship between these different modes of learning. Given

Robertson's (2008) observation regarding good teaching, cited above, the following are some

research questions that must still be addressed:

1. Which learning contexts require the use of specific tools or range of tools? In other

words, in which contexts would it appear that wikis would be the tool of choice?

2. In appropriate learning contexts, which types of wiki activities are most motivating

for the given target-learner population?

3. Are wikis more effective for cooperative learning tasks than for collaborative tasks?

4. What types of assessment are possible or reasonable in conjunction with wiki work?

5. How do we measure the effectiveness of cooperative or collaborative learning, using,

say, wikis? Are comparisons to other cooperative/collaborative methods in fact-to-

face contexts possible?

6. Which types of learners (say, in regard to Grow's (1991) taxonomy of self-directed

learners) perform best with wikis? Which types have the most difficulties and how

can these difficulties be overcome?

This is only a partial list and not prioritized. The underlying ordering principle is the search

for the best tool for a given job in conjunction with particular types of learners, that is, a

stronger learning-theoretical, rather than technical, perspective.

Podcasts: recommendations for practitioners

As was the case with wikis, the following recommendations are in light of the use of podcasts

in actual learning situations:


No. Recommendation Context Rating

1 Gain a clear understanding of the technical issues required in producing podcasts


Medium

2 Identify which supporting roles podcasts can play in your own teaching context


High

3 Specifically identify which learning outcomes podcasts can contribute toward achieving


High

4 Consider whether the podcasts you produce could be used by colleagues in similar situations, that is, as learning objects.

Designing and developing content; teaching online

High

5 Decide which role, if any, podcasts can play in your assessment strategy.

Assessment Medium

Table 7: Recommendations for the use of podcasts

Though relatively easy, a certain degree of skill is required to produce podcasts that students

will actually want to listen to, hence it is important that the practitioner gain personal

expertise in this area. This is particularly true if the teacher is going to be guiding or

supporting students in producing their own content (cf. McGarr, 2009). Podcasts often serve

informational purposes (Edirisingha & Salmon, 2007; McGarr, 2009), but we have seen that

they are also widely used in language instruction. Different educational contexts have

different pedagogical demands, which is why it is essential that practitioners have a clear idea

of why and how podcasts should be used in their particular context. Simply wanting to

enhance or contribute to students' mobile learning may not be a wise strategy. Though some

still hold to the connection between podcasts and m-learning (e.g. Campbell, 2005;

Edirisingha & Salmon, 2007; Evans, 2008), there is not sufficient evidence that this is

warranted. A produce-once-use-often approach can be beneficial, particularly if podcasts are

used for informational or perhaps general revision purposes (Cebeci & Tekdal, 2006; Ming, et

al., 2010). Finally, it is clear that podcasts can be used as part of an assessment strategy, for

example in language instruction (e.g. listening comprehension), but it is worth considering

whether other subject-specific-assessment uses of podcasting are warranted and feasible.

Podcasts: areas for further research

Although podcasting is a much younger technology than wikis, it was easier to find more

practice-related research. There appears to be a greater interest in the actual production and


distribution of podcasts for educational purposes. In light of the primary thrust of this

chapter thus far, namely the educationally sound application of technology to learning, there

are three areas which need to be researched further:

1. Is the alleged connection between podcasting and mobile learning significant? Which

reasons do students have for using particular technologies, in this case podcasts, in

particular ways? Why do learners so often appear to use podcasts differently than

they are originally intended by their designers? Does this lend credence to the idea of

creating podcasts intentionally as learning objects?

2. New technologies and new uses of technologies in the classroom make myriad

demands on the learning context, hence what needs to be considered when using new

technologies, in this case podcasts, as part of assessment? Which pedagogical

purposes to podcasts best serve, and is assessment one of them. If so, why; if not, why

not?

3. While there is much emphasis on collaborative learning as effective learning (as we

saw in the case with wikis) what learning benefits can be derived from the creative

use of podcasts (cf. McGarr, 2009) and learner production of podcasts in particular?

What benefits can be identified for collaborative production? More interesting,

however, which benefits can be identified in regard to learning when an individual

produces podcasts as a result of a given learning situation?

This too is a partial, unprioritized list, but the emphasis here is, again, a stronger learning-

theoretical, rather than technical, perspective.

Design specification

Having considered the theoretical and experiential aspects of wikis and podcasts, it is time to

turn to more practical considerations and see how these might be implemented in a real

learning situation. In this part, then, I will present an overview of an online learning module

that will incorporate both of the technologies under consideration. Podcasts will be used to

set the stage and provide the learners a common starting point, then after some additional

individual tasks results will be collaboratively generated in a wiki.


Target group and context

My organization provides vocational training and re-training primarily to unemployed

individuals whose training is subsidized by the German Federal Labour Office (FLO). The

transport and logistics sectors are our primary training areas and account for more than 50%

of total revenues. Training groups for all FLO-subsidized training must have a minimum of 15

members. Participants are all over 18 years of age, but may come from a variety of cultural

backgrounds, that is, not only Germans but also individuals from other European Union (EU)

and candidate countries as well as from non-EU countries, for example the Middle East or

Africa. All participants are capable of pursuing training in German, the language of

instruction. Many of our participants have received a formal vocational qualification in

Germany, though others may be going through an initial vocational training for the first

time23.

The learning situation to be specified here, then, is one that could be made part of the training

offered to qualify professional drivers. New EU regulations (EPC, 2003) are in place to

standardize both the initial and continuing qualifications of truck and bus drivers. These

requirements have been translated into legal requirements (BMJ, 2006a, 2006b) mandated

by the professional-driver training law (BKrFQG) and its associated directive (BKrFQV). The

learning module would fulfil a number of the legal requirements that have been mandated for

such training, which could be carried out at any one of our 100 training centres nationwide. A

revised or expanded version of this module could be developed an implemented for the

mandated continuing training (35 F2F hours over five years) once it is possible to offer such

training online.24

23 Germany has a rather strict, and highly regulated, initial vocational qualification sector. Upon completion of

mandatory school requirements (roughly equivalent to O-Levels in the UK), most students apply for and are accepted to one of 398 officially recognized vocational training programmes. The requirements for theseprogrammes are established by law and are overseen by the regional Chambers of Industry and Trade (Industrie- und Handelskammer (IHK)). The training programmes last, depending on the qualification, between two and three years, are conducted in companies, and are a rich mixture of theoretical and on-the-job training (the so-called Dualsystem, or dual-system). Exams, which are both theoretical and practical are set and carried out by the IHK.

24 At present this training may only be conducted face-to-face. Drivers must attend 7-hour, theoretical classes in five different subject-areas. Identity verification is the primary issue prohibiting these modules from being offered online. Once this is issue is resolved, however, it would be beneficial to the organization to be able to move online immediately. This is a hotly contested market.


Design and discussion

Table 8 provides an overview of the module design. The design is not yet complete. Each of

the sessions will be similar in format. The content will change, of course, and the specific,

individual follow-on activities need to be concreticized. The required elements per the EU

directive are reflected in the individual session titles. Two variations of Session 5 have been

listed as both goods-transport and personnel-transport drivers are covered by the directive.

Professional Driver Continuous Training

Contextual information

Author Ed Mahood

Course information

The five sessions comprising this module encompass the material required to be included continuing training in the continuing training programme mandated by law and which you will be subject to upon completion of your current qualification.

Timetabling Five sessions of two hours each.

Curriculum aspects

Learning outcomes for course

By the end of this module, you will have ...

become familiar with the EU-mandated continuing training requirements;

gained insight into the content of the five required training modules;

improved your ability to work with others;

been exposed to different ways of learning.

Teaching resources

The following resources are required for this module:

DILS (VLE)

Podcasts for each of the introductory lectures to the sessions

Reference materials for students



Teaching approach

The general format of each of the sessions will be similar, namely

Learners will be divided into teams (3-4 participants each), and team members will work each session together.

After an introductory lecture (NTE 5 minutes), individuals will work on set follow-on tasks (online).

Team members will construct a wiki which consolidates their acquired knowledge.

Tutors will monitor individual student activity and results.

The students

Target group Professional driver qualification candidates (minimum group size = 15), broken down into 4 or 5 teams.

Overview of sessions

Session 1 Control of Vehicle and Eco and Driving Techniques

Learning Outcomes for Week 1

By the end of this session, student will have ...

become familiar with the necessary content

consolidate knowledge through practical exercises

work with colleagues to contribute to a common result

Session 2 Minimising Risks and Managing Emergencies in the Transport Industry

Session 3 Health and Safety of the Professional Driver

Session 4 Role of the Professional Driver in the Transport Industry

Session 5a The Professional Truck Driver

Session 5b The Professional Bus Driver

Assessment

Approach Progress will be monitored by the tutor throughout all sessions.

The final wiki per session will not be given a point-mark, rather assessed as complete/incomplete.

Post-implementation

Reflections



Impressions

Student outcomes

Quality of design

Generated using Phoebebeta (Oxford University, 2010)

Table 8: Design of Professional Driver Continuous Training Module

This particular format was chosen for a number of reasons. As reflected in the learning

outcomes, exposure to and familiarity with the content of the prescribed topics is a legal

requirement. This is the primary dictate of the module. An online approach was chosen for

logistical reasons. During truck/bus-driver training, mandatory behind-the-wheel hours are

required, and in a group of 15 learners, only one or two persons can be practicing at any one

time. Assigning a separate trainer to oversee those not practicing is a costly option. Given that

our training centres generally have an area (usually a separate room) as a self-directed

learning lab. These labs are monitored by specially qualified trainers. The truck/bus-driver

candidates could use these labs during regularly scheduled practical training hours when

they are not practicing themselves.

Culturally, German learners are accustomed to lectures, which parallel podcasts. Experience

has shown that the widespread use of MP3 players ensures familiarity with the medium. As

the podcasts are to be used for ensuring conformance to legal requirements, this seemed a

reasonable alternative to a standard lecture. The use of headphones would preclude

disturbing other learners during these phases of the module. Also, many of our participants

(both German and non-German), welcome interaction with their fellow learners, and this is

the primary reason for including the wiki as a collaborative exercise. Since verbal interaction

would also not be possible in the self-directed learning labs and each participant is working

on the own computer, the wiki appears to be a reasonable alternative. Wikis are less common

and collaboration in this way may be an issue, so to prepare students for this, the

introductory IT-skills module would have to be modified to include working with wikis. As

this module is becoming increasingly web-based this should not pose any undue difficulties.

Neither wikis nor podcasts are necessarily high-barrier technologies. Both are relatively low

cost and podcasts can be produced in-house by our online production unit.


An approach such as this one is an excellent opportunity to not only optimize some

scheduling issues in this particular training program, but it is also an opportunity to expand

the participants' skill-sets and experience beyond the usual modes of learning to which they

are accustomed. It also enhances our instructional repertoire. While the approach may be a

bit unconventional for the target group, it is becoming increasingly necessary to pool

resource across learning centres. Online modules are one way of providing portions of a set

training programme in a way that allows for lower actual participant numbers at a given

location.

Individual and collaborative learning

Learning, at least in a formal learning environment, is a teleological activity: it has a purpose

and one or more desired outcomes. Learning should accomplish something, and both

teachers and learners25 desire to know whether the desired goals have been reached. Even

non-formal and informal learning environments are at least tacitly teleological as well. Brief

reflection on what is essential to constitute such an environment, we can identify three

fundamental elements: teachers, learners, and content, or, put differently, whatever it is to be

learned. This can be graphically depicted as shown in Figure 426 (overleaf).

To this, we can add two additional notions which bear significantly on our understanding of

what happens in this environment: 'individual' and 'collaborative' learning. Within the

context of the course, the terms have been used rather loosely, especially in regard to the

latter term, which has been used to cover a broad range of activities that are questionably

collaborative.

Before discussing this in particular, it would be beneficial to consider the environment in

terms of a different graphical model. Given the notions 'individual' and 'collaborative', the

further notion of number springs to mind: how many teachers, how many learners are

25 For the purposes of the present discussion, the term 'teacher' refers to anyone who designs, develops, delivers,

moderates, facilitates or in other ways guides or directs the learning situation. 'Learners', on the other hand, may assume the role of 'teacher', but these participants in the process are those toward whom the outcomes are directed. In a formal context, these outcomes are externally imposed; in an informal context, by contrast, they may be self-imposed, even if they are not specifically articulated.

26 There are many ways to describe such an environment, of course. Cf. Banyard & Underwood (2008) who speak instead of 'spaces', that is, a learning space, a teacher space, etc., which include other 'dimensions', such as physical and cognitive, and to which we could add affective and cultural. The purpose here, however, is to address the bare essentials of the environment only.


involved? Does it make a difference? What impact can this have on one's understanding of the

learning environment? Speaking in fundamental terms, we can imagine learning

Figure 4: Fundamental constituents of the learning environment27

environments in which no teachers are involved: an individual is learning something on his

own (individual, informal learning), or perhaps a small group of friends is working on a

project (small group, formal learning). Other possible combinations include a pair of teachers

team-tutoring additional sessions in conjunction with a lecture (large group, multi-teacher,

formal learning), while a group of IT students are applying their latest programming skills by

contributing to the development of an open-source software application (large group, single-

teacher, non-formal learning). There are any number of combinations, but for simplicity's

sake, we can reduce the numbers involved (for both teachers and learners) to 0, 1, few, or

many. In addition, we have three types of learning (formal, non-formal, and informal).

Graphically these features can be combined as shown in Figure 5 (overleaf)

We have no fewer than 48 unique learning environments to consider. Twelve are individual

(only one learner is involved); 24 by definition potentially collaborative; three (0 teachers, 0

learners) can be ignored, leaving nine that are teacher-specific, some of which could be

considered design/development environments, but these can be ignored for our purposes

here. This preponderance of potentially collaborative environments underscores the

emphasis in the educational literature on collaborative pedagogies. It has become clear

throughout the course that providing the opportunity for collaboration does not necessarily

lead to collaborative learning, even though it has been implied that the technology would

27 This could be considered a bare-bones variation of Engström's (2001) expansive-learning activity model, which

it is, in part. All of Engström's extra features, however, have been folded into the main constituents of the learning environment.


make this possible (cf. Kearsley (1996) for a counter-position). Who learns what, where, and

why are learning psychological questions, and there has been little attention paid to this

aspect of the process. Beetham (2007) attempts to bring in this idea, but focuses instead on

the design of learning activities in relation to digital media. Design is important, but not

necessarily digital design.

Figure 5: Individual-collaborative learning cube

We can see from Figure 4 above that technology plays no special role. Technology is but a

method, a mediator, a means of assisting learners. In formal learning environments, the

teacher plays a decisive role in the selecting, structuring, and arranging of content, methods,

and media to enhance learning and the achievement of desired learning outcomes, for it is

this process that will be most directly impacted by the teacher's own understanding of what

learning means. Even in informal learning environments, without a clear understanding of

what is expected as an outcome, it is difficult to determine if one's learning outcomes have

been realized. Even so, the learner can be an active agent in this environment. Minocha &

Thomas (2007) demonstrate clearly that learners may not understand the desired outcomes

as the designer intended and this can have an impact on actual outcomes. Their focus,

however, was on a single, preferred learning theory, social constructivism, but the learning

outcomes were apparently more varied than one single learning-theory approach could

support.28

28 In my own professional context, policy is developing to shift the focus to learning outcomes (cf. Cedefop,

2008b). There is a wide variety of literature on the subject (cf. Biggs, 2002; Hussey & Smith, 2002, 2003; Megginson, 1994, 1996, just to name a few).


A similar case obtains with Sfard (1998) who described two dominant metaphors in learning:

acquisition and participation. The acquisition of anything – from knowledge to consumer

goods – implies that whatever is to be acquired is reifiable, that is, the emphasis is on having

and possession. Individual learning is often looked upon as acquisition, which may have been

true in earlier learning theories (cf. Skinner, 1971) but is not necessarily the case, for it has

been considered constructivist by at least one learning theorist (Piaget, 1972). Individual

learning is participative. Participation focuses on doing, which implies a social dimension to

learning (cf. Vygotsky, 1978), which leads us again to an emphasis on collaborative learning.

It could simply be that the acquisition/participation dichotomy is not a strong enough tool to

understand the inner workings of the learning environment, and that participation equals

'more' (or 'better') learning is more assumption than fact. It appears that all learning is to

some degree participatory. The learner is required to engage (an action) the content, the

teacher/teachers, or himself or other learners in order to acquire knowledge, or a skill, or

competence (cf. Brown, et al.'s (1989) description of apprenticeship learning, and also Grow's

(1991) exploration of learner self-directedness).

The notion-pair 'individual vs. collaborative learning' that has been emphasized in this course

of study has been useful in so far as it has forced me to re-engage my own understanding of

the learning environment. Having dealt with the topic specifically (Mahood, 2010), I have

seen that the repeated engagement with this notion-pair has refined and further developed

my own understandings in very rich ways. The true dynamic of the learning environment is

not fully described through the use of simple dichotomies, rather it becomes visible in the

extended context of learning in general (see Figure 4 above). This engagement has also made

clear to me that the outcomes (desired, intended, explicit, or implicit) are the true drivers of

the learning-environment dynamic. The consequence of this is that different modes of

learning must be reinforced, different styles of learning must be tolerated, and methods,

media, and technology are primarily tools for assisting the learning process. Different things

must be learned in different ways, and finding the best tool, the best approach, or the best

combination of these is the grail of practical education.

Final considerations

We have seen now how wikis and podcasts can become meaningful elements in the online

vocational education and training repertoire. Wikis can be used well for producing team


results, that is, where several individuals work collectively on a single task to produce a

single result. It is a technologically relatively simple tool that allows for both asynchronous

editing and commenting. Podcasts, it was seen, are most effectively employed when they

augment other learning and teaching activities, rather than being considered an independent

or self-sufficient method on their own. From a learner's point of view, they are easy-to-use

and generally available, increasing their attractiveness. In this chapter, we considered both

wikis and podcasting from their general usability in education, particularly adult education.

Their implementation in a particular field or discipline, though, may be worth exploring on its

own, but a better understanding of the educational dimension of the technologies, rather than

their mere technical features, was my goal, which I believe was attained. As we also saw,

however, there are still open areas and specific research questions worth addressing in

relation to both technologies. We saw further that a legally mandated professional-driver

training could be developed for online use, and with proper controls be suitable for fulfilling

the necessary legal requirements for such continuing training. And finally, our considerations

of individual vs. collective learning raised several issues, the most important of which is the

need to take a more differentiated approach to decisions in this regard. We saw that that

different modes of learning must be reinforced, different styles of learning must be tolerated,

and methods, media, and technology are primarily tools for assisting the learning process.

Different things must be learned in different ways, and finding the best tool, the best

approach, or the best combination of these is of the utmost importance.


CONCLUSION

There is obviously still a lot of work to be done in this area. Technology-enhanced education,

online instruction, digitally-enriched teaching are all relatively new in the context of German

vocational education and training. This is not surprising considering the long tradition it can

boast and the excellent reputation that it enjoys in the world. Nevertheless, times are

changing and the relative decline in the need for manual labour – not all manual labour, but

for highly skilled manual labour – is already having an impact on the system as a whole. The

increasing abstractness of the world of work and the increased attention being paid to the

service sector are having effects on the nature of vocational training. There appears to be a

trend toward more school-based training, that is, occupational preparation that is more

oriented toward the head than the hands. Irrespective of this overall trend, however, for as

long as there are school-based components of vocational education and training, there will be

areas of that training that can, and perhaps should be, addressed online.

There is a slow, but increasing need for educational technologists. There are tools and

technologies available to handle learning and assessment needs. The increasing attention to

inclusiveness means dealing with disabilities in a meaningful way, and this is one area that

has great potential for growth in a world in which manual dexterity plays a less than primary

role. There are ways to incorporate elements of these tool and approaches into current

training programmes and scenarios. In other words, there are a large number of

opportunities awaiting the institution or organization which is willing and ready to address

these in a meaningful way.

Most importantly, though, as we have repeatedly seen throughout this dissertation, there is a

wide variety of issues still to be addressed and areas in need of specific research as well. A

change is coming, albeit slowly, and there is still the opportunity to play a meaningful, if not

significant, role in the developments that will be needed, will be coming, and must be

implemented in the not-too-distant future. As we have seen, a foundation is there, it is now up

to us to build something lasting upon it.


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Specialized links related to e-learning professionals

The Carnegie Foundation, Gallery of Teaching and Learninghttp://cms.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery_of_tl/keep_toolkit.html

Checkpoint-Elearning: E-TRAINERhttp://www.checkpoint-elearning.de/etrainer/

Elearning in Europehttp://www.elearningeuropa.info/.


Elearning Portal of the European Commissionhttp://www.elearningeuropa.info/main/index.php?page=home

E-Learning-net.dehttp://www.elearning-net.de/cms/front_content.php

European Association For Distance Learninghttp://www.eadl.org/home.php

European Net-Trainers Associationhttp://www.nettrainers.org/en/index.asp?p=1-1

FernUniversität Hagenhttp://www.fernuni-hagen.de/

Forum DistancE-Learninghttp://www.forum-distance-learning.de/fdl_home.htm

Free University of Berlinhttp://www.e-learning.fu-berlin.de/schulungen/e-teaching/index.html

Furtwangen Universityhttp://www.hs-furtwangen.de/

Institut für Lern-Innovationhttp://www.fim.uni-erlangen.de/en

JobScout 24 (German online job marketplace)http://www.jobscout24.de/

Quality Initiative E-Learning in Germanyhttp://www.qed-info.de/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&lang=en

teletutoren.nethttp://www.teletutoren.net/index.htm

Time4You, Tele-Trainer, WBT-Authorhttp://www.time4you.de/ibt/time4you/site/time4you/ibt/de/start.cxjsp?pos=overQualifications

University of Duisburg-Essenhttp://www.uni-duisburg-essen.de/studienangebote/studienangebote_06698.shtml

University of Rostockhttp://www.weiterbildung.uni-rostock.de/home.html?&L=


The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Past, Higher Education Projects: Pluralism and Unity, Liberal Arts Institutions, and General Education in Research Universitieshttp://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/Opportunity/Past+Higher+Education+Projects.htm

German web links related to accessibility

Aktion Mensch, http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/

Barrierefreies-Webdesign, a private project from Jan Eric Hellbusch, http://www.barrierefreies-webdesign.de

Design für Alle, German EDeAN site, http://edean.universelles-design.de/dfa_de/

Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT) – e-Accessibility, http://www.fit.fraunhofer.de/projects/bika/e-accessibility.html

Research Institute Technology and Disability (FTB), a joint undertaking of the University Hagen and the Technical University Dortmund, http://www.ftb-net.de/

Stiftung Digitaler Chancen [Foundation for Digital Opportunities], a non-profit organization which coordinates a variety of accessibility and disabilities-related initiatives, http://www.digitale-chancen.de/

Technical University Dortmund, Rehabilitation Technology Department, http://www.reha-technologie.de/

W3C Richtlinien für barrierefreie Webinhalte (WCAG) 2.0, http://www.w3.org/Translations/WCAG20-de/

Web ohne Barrieren, sponsored in part by the German Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs, http://www.wob11.de/

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