Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), Managed Learning Environment (MLE) and Learning Platform have been used inconsistently, but normally they:

· provide opportunities for communication and collaboration through a mix of mail, forums, ‘chat’ , wikis and web pages

· provide opportunities for assessment and assessment management, tracking of progress through quizzes, online testing, posting of assignments, formative and summative feedback on assignments

· are web browser based but password protected, with differential rights of access, say, for teachers, pupils and parents

· offer consistency between the above features though a learning platform is not necessarily a single 'off the shelf' VLE such as Blackboard, Moodle or WebCT but a collection of tools that are designed to support teaching, learning, management and administration.

Learning platforms perhaps first took off in HE rather than the school sector. They built on innovations in teaching such as widening access a much enlarged set of resources and for online one to one and one to many interaction. Products such as Blackboard and Moodle were developed to bring together access to both not only to support teachers but help them to reconsider the nature and scope of teaching. Of course a VLE / learning platform can be adapted to a range of approaches in the same way as a classroom teacher can adapt to preferred teaching styles and learner feedback. However some of the originators of VLEs had a learner centred view of teaching and associated a VLE with curriculum change, in particular as a tool for addressing learner isolation and lack of interactivity at first in distance learning then more generally with growing numbers of students on campus and increasingly limited face to face (F2F) classroom contact.

VLEs / learning platforms were given a boost in England within the HT initiative (DfES 2005) which while not making a specific requirement for implementation of a learning platform, set as targets to offer ‘a personalised learning space, with the potential to support e-portfolios available to every school by 2007-08’ (p 44) and to ‘ensure every learner has appropriate access to technology in school and beyond the normal school day’ (p47 DfES 2005). Together with other statements about connectivity between children’s services and recommendations at local authority and other intermediate levels, including the flagship Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, this was an all but explicit steer towards adopting a learning platform – in practice likely to be a single VLE. In respect to teaching and learning it was intended that HT could ‘transform teaching, learning and help to improve outcomes for children and young people, through shared ideas; more exciting lessons and online help for professionals’ and ‘engage ‘hard to reach’ learners, with special needs support, more motivating ways of learning, and more choice about how and where to learn’ (p4 DfES 2005). Learning platforms were mentioned only once but they could easily be seen as contributing significantly to these goals as later described for example in work on personalisation of learning (Underwood et al 2008).

Learning platform use to date

Schools have experienced difficulties in adopting learning platforms. Work carried out locally suggested that some teachers were finding them an aid to planning, teaching and assessment but it was early days. Teachers seem to find access to information easier to manage than access to communication where there are widely held worries about monitoring of pupils interactions and e-safety. There have however been some interesting experiments in using Wilkis and blogs. If you want to see VLEs used to support more radical teaching experiments you could look at Notschool [http://www.notschool.net].

For you to consider?

How have learning platforms been introduced in your school and what have been key opportunities and constraints?

Use of learning platforms is often divided between access to information and access to communication, does this distinction work for you and if so what interests you more?

For you to read

Becta (2005). An Introduction to Learning Platforms. Coventry: Becta.

Becta (2008a). Harnessing Technology Review 2008: The role of technology and its impact on education. Coventry: Becta.

Becta (2008b). Learning Platforms in Action (DVD). Coventry: Becta.

Becta (2008c). What is a learning platform? Coventry: Becta.

Coffin, C., North, S. and Martin, D. (2009). ‘Exchanging and countering points of view: a linguistic perspective on school students' use of electronic conferencing’. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 25, 85–98.

DFES (2005). Harnessing Technology Transforming Learning and Children’s Services. London: DfES.

Duckworth, J. Ltd (2005) Notschool.Net Evaluation 2005, Julia Duckworth Ltd, Exmouth and published at http://www.inclusiontrust.org/Activities/Documents/NS_eval2005.pdf

Fanning, J. (2008). The Digital Panoptican. Bristol: FutureLab [http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/web-articles/Web-Article1118]

Hammond, M. (2010) What the literature says about continuing professional development and the use of learning platforms in schools and in Initial Teacher Education, Coventry, Becta.  [download here]

Hunt, M., Parsons, A. and Fleming, A. (2003). A Review of the Research Literature on the use of Managed Learning Environments and Virtual Learning Environments in Education and a Consideration of the Implications for Schools in the United Kingdom. Coventry: Becta.

Jared, L. (2005) Breaking down the confines: an e-learning resource for all, at home and at school, Educational Media International, 42, 2, 135 – 141.

Kingswood, M. (2008). Use of the VLE to Engage Students and Develop Independence. What Works Well? London: DCSF [http://whatworkswell.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/wcm/site/pages/processcasestudypdf.aspx?casestudyid=2473]

Ofsted (2009). Virtual Learning Environments: an evaluation of their development in a sample of educational settings. London: Ofsted.

Management – Choosing a VLE. Teachers’ TV [http://www.teachers.tv/video/21853]

Tomai, M., Rosa, V., Mebane, M. E., D'Acunti, A., Benedetti, M. and Francescato, D. (2010). ‘Virtual communities in schools as tools to promote social capital with high schools students’. Computers and Education 54, 265–274.

And to view

Teachers’ TV (2007a). Secondary ICT Management – VLE in Action. Teachers’ TV [http://www.teachers.tv/video/21840]

Teachers’ TV (2007b). Secondary ICT Management – Choosing a VLE. Teachers’ TV [http://www.teachers.tv/video/21853]