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This research study examined a collaborative project between a small rural Alberta community, a college and six teams of business students. A mixed method approach was taken to gather data using student and instructor interviews, questionnaires and surveys. A before and after participation survey was conducted with 250 students in order to discover, if lectures, games or project-based learning was a more effective pedagogy in teaching entrepreneurship. The results showed no significant differences in effectiveness between these pedagogies and so the pilot project pedagogy choice was based on student preferences. Students completed a third survey after their participation in the pilot project which revealed that over 50% of the students stated that they preferred project-based learning over other pedagogies used at the College. The responses gathered during the research process revealed a "win-win" situation for all project stakeholders. The most important findings in this research study were revealed through the student survey results showing students believed they learned entrepreneurial skills and knowledge best using project-based learning. 96% went on to suggest this type of learning should continue to be used for future College programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the advent of Web 2.0, which established the participatory web as a platform, we have been involved in rethinking how we might design and support learning to match the potential of this possible new web-based world of education. In our Open Context Model of Learning (Luckin et al 2010) we captured what we had learnt from theory and web-based learning projects, arguing for a model of "informal e-learning", and for fresh thinking about pedagogy in terms of both andragogy (collaboration) and heutagogy (creativity). We thought this provided an opportunity to rethink the contexts in which learning might take place in the 21st century, as education could be released by the potential of new technology platforms and tools. For us Web 2.0 highlighted the informal social processes of learning over the institutional, formal processes of organising the institutions of education, which raises ethical, cultural and social issues concerning how we might design new contexts of learning. When the EU identified that, post-Bologna, we should look to integrate informal, non-formal and formal learning, we found this inspiring and wrote the Emergent Learning Model (ELM), to both capture what we knew from our own work with informal, non-formal and formal learning and also to be socially inclusive. ELM builds on the Open Context Model and is an attempt to be a learning design tool, what we call a "development framework" for the Digital Agenda Post-Web2.0. We will discuss its origins, the "development framework" we created and how we have used it in designing new learning projects Ambient Learning City & WikiQuals [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having developed the Emergent Learning Model as a conceptual "development framework" to best capture how learning might be designed, developed and deployed if it is learner-centric, we needed to test that model and learn how we might evolve new informal learning ecosystems in contexts beyond the classroom. In the EU call for the "future of learning" in IST 7 it offered 2 strands, one concerning the "classroom of the future" and one concerning "community content." Through links with the City of Manchester and Manchester University we developed the Ambient Learning City project (MOSI-ALONG), which became a JISC-funded project concerned with testing what new practical issues needed to be addressed in creating new learning eco-systems based on "learner-generated digital libraries". We found 3 major issues. Firstly creating new public partnerships, with local authorities and various public bodies not normally concerned with designing learning eco-systems. Secondly in creating learning contexts 'beyond the classroom" we lose many of the hidden values of classroom-based learning and have to create new ones, what we call new metaphors for learning; in MOSIA-LONG this was 'Digital Cabinets of Curiosity.' Thirdly new learning processes need to be created which reflect the context & tools (in our case social media) being used. We developed the "Aggregate then Curate" model, focussing on content curation more than content curation. In this paper we will discuss the practical problems we faced in developing an ambient learning city and how we developed new solutions for partnerships, metaphors and processes for new learning ecosystems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]