Personal Learning Environments as boundary objects for bridging the distance between schooling and work activities

During the last two decades, work contexts have been strongly modified by technological innovations (e.g. the increasing importance of web communication in organizing activities and connecting people within and between organizations) and by new management models (e.g. the introduction of team and project work, the attribution of responsibility on the base of the retained competences, or the flattening of hierarchical levels). In this scenario, transformations concern also processes connected to knowledge acquisition and construction in the direction of a greater complexity. Increasingly, in fact, the rapidity of knowledge evolution, transfer and obsolescence, tends to break the sequential nature of traditional training courses (models based on the transmission of repetitive competences isolated by contexts, on the acquisition of behavioural schemes, or on movements automation) that nowadays seem obsolete and involved in marginal professional contexts. In contexts characterized by this speed of change, also classic refresher professional courses risk to be characterized by simple portions of contents encapsulated in knowledge sets which are exposed to ageing processes difficult to predict. Starting from previous considerations, we can surely conceive Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as the most strategic tools for new learning models and for the creation of flexible and large networks for supporting contents acquisition and knowledge construction and sharing between individuals (students, workers, employees, etc.). From an activity theoretical point of view (Engeström, 1987; Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006), ICT and in particular web artefacts could be seen as instruments for mediating the relation between individual-community-object of activity systems in learning and working contexts. On the one hand, this mediation is explicated by the creation of virtual communities of practices (Wenger, 1998) characterized by individuals having a common aim connected to learning or work. On the other hand, virtual environments create by web artefacts could be seen as boundary objects (Wenger, 1998; 2000; Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003) for overcoming the boundary of activity systems such as school, university and work organizations and bridging the gap of knowledge and competences required by these systems. Here the idea is the creation of a virtual Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotskij, 1978; Griffin & Cole, 1984) that supports individuals during their knowledge and competences construction, in particular during their transition periods (e.g. from school to university and from school or university to work). But, considering the constantly evolution of web artefacts, today represented by the transit from web 1.0 (and e-learning 1.0) to web 2.0 (and e-learning 2.0), and considering an AT point of view, which types of web artefact (and consequent web environments) could be more effective for overcoming boundaries of (and connecting) different activity systems? This proposal would be a positional paper in which, starting from the theoretical background previously sketched, we would stress why web artefact 2.0, in particular those defined Personal Learning Environment (PLE) by Attwell (2007) could be more effective with respect to web artefact 1.0, such as those defined Virtual Learning Environment (mainly represented by classical web platform and web forum), for creating a supporting Zone of Proximal Development that overcame boundary between transitional activity systems. The potential of web artefact 2.0 to actively manage the personal network of contacts, relations and knowledge construction and to take into consideration many aspects of formal and informal learning, with respect to web artefacts 1.0, appear key issues that - on the one hand, are more in line with an AT cultural-historical approach to learning; - on the other hand, appear more effective for achieving the aims of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the Eur...