Get your Hands Dirty: Personalisation for whom?

What is meant by the term ‘personalisation’ in online education and what is the relationship between ‘personalised’ learning and learner autonomy? This chapter explores the journey of personalisation from institutional control to an increased control by the learner. It will look at recent literature in the field before presenting a case study of a current adult education distance learning programme where the learner, the tutor and the learning technologist have all contributed to the development of a ‘personalised’ educational experience. The overall aim of the chapter is to formulate a holistic understanding of the term personalisation. To achieve this, as part of a larger Design Based Research the journey of nine adult learners , their online tutors, and the learning technologists involved has been traced in the development of the programme, in order to analyse the importance of both ‘personalised’ learning and ‘personalised’ teaching in the quest for learner autonomy. The paper will also examine whether the creation of an online ‘place’ can play a meaningful role in the building of a teaching and learning model where the learners increasingly take control and share information. By describing a holistic understanding of personalisation and how this can be articulated through various Web 2.0 tools and activities, the chapter not only highlights the intricate relationship between personalisation and learner autonomy, but also aims to advance the current understanding of these concepts within the field of e-learning.