» Personalisation in electronic environments Josie Fraser gives a good overview of where we are, and, more importantly where we could be going with personalisation in electroncic (learning environments). She looks at a range of differing levels of personalisation and control that the learner can have over the environment, and sees a difference between a “learning environment” and “learners environment” – the latter having the degree of personalisation. Early in the paper, she comments on the difficulty inherent in attempting to offer personalisation at the institutional level pointing out:
provision which attempts to pre-determine what personalisation might mean without allowing for flexibility risks excluding and failing to accommodate learners needs.
Students are coming into futher and higher education with diverse experience in their use of “Web 2.0” type tools, some often associating them with personal activities, and not realising their potential in their learning. At the institutional level, we have to encourage students to use the tools with which they are familiar, to explore new ones, while supporting those to whom all this is new. We have to find a way to enable students to use tools that offer networking and collaborative facilities (where appropriate), yet are suited to their personal needs.