Learner-Modelling

This chapter focuses on the Open Context Model of Learning, namely that of a Community Development Model of Learning. However, this sector-based model of learning emerged from research carried out in 2002 into how people learned in UK online centres, which were the first wholly digital learning environments, developed in the UK. This chapter goes beyond examining digitally enabled learning within a single context by asking, “How do people learn?” especially as the original research had started with the question “How do people learn in UK online centres?” The chapter also asks, “How do we model learning?” The education system itself has never “modelled learning” it offers content-based courses. The design of large-scale computerisation technology projects has been based on a systems analysis approach that includes the concept of “user-modelling.” The chapter shows how this can be done from the research conceptualisation of these processes from three perspectives: 1) learner (interest-driven learning), 2) learning location (lifecycles), 3) large-scale (context-responsive) system.