Viable Systems Model

I'm currently reading the recent Cetis report A Framework for the Pedagogical Evaluation of eLearning Environments by Sandy Britain and Oleg Liber (more on that soon). They use Laurillard's Conversational Model to show how real learning behaviour is complex and emergent, and that e-learning systems need to be able to cope with that complexity. As a tool for evaluating whether current VLE's meet that requirement whilst performing their institutional roles, they use the Viable Systems Model, which I think is useful as it takes into account emergent self-organizing behaviour and managed structures. They give a good simplified diagram of the model.

Look at this model in relation to John's diagram of the e-learning architecture. It has some obvious similarities, demonstrating I believe that we are thinking about the architecture in the right way.

Robert O'Toole : 21 May 2004 09:22 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem