Yes a learning engine: demo is ready, but #AI and #Learning challenges ahead #TBB2019 @InnoEnergyCE

If you have ideas on ensuring continuity in pedagogy when clustering courses (research), on certifying across corporate and university learning (blockchain/bit of trust certification), on opening up industry academies to decrease L&D costs (HR and L&D), ... please think along and respond to the challenges mentioned at the end.

People in high and common places seem to agree that the world is in transition, especially workplace learning, as innovations keep changing what is possible. As I am working on one such an innovation (the skill project of InnoEnergy), I am at the one hand very excited about the new opportunities it might open, yet at the same time concerned that the complexity is bigger than expected.

First: have a look at the demo screencast here. It shows the overall idea, and ... this might immediately give rise to questions.

Today the Business Booster event (TBB) is opened, and with it, the skill project demo is launched. The skillproject (we still need to get a brand name for it), is combining AI and learning for the sustainable energy sector. But in essence, once we get the sustainable energy sector mapped with this tool, others can follow. 

AI and learning? What does it do: the project identifies industry needs (AI-driven), pinpoints emerging skill gaps in the sustainable energy sector (AI-driven), analysis the existing workforce to know where urgent skills gaps are situated (AI-driven) and then refers employees to a personalized learning trajectory addressing their skills gap (part AI, part human support). The goal of this project is to ensure that employees of the sustainable energy sector stay futureproof in a quickly changing working environment. Let's be honest, it sounds cool, but ... the challenges are multiple. 

The emergence of a Learning Engine

The skillproject helps realize the emergence of a learning engine, an intelligent career-oriented engine which knows your own skills and which signposts you to where you want to go with your career by suggesting a personalized learning track.

In the Learning Engine you simply type in “goal: become Director of Innovation’s in offshore wind energy which courses?” and the engine immediately returns a tailored, personalized learning track consisting of a variety of certified, business training from both universities, corporate academies, open educational energy resources and coaching options to send you on your way. This will allow professional learning to surpass the limits of classical, university-based learning.

Challenges

In order to get our engine to come up with the best, most-tailored courses, we need access to industry academies, as well as university courses. 

Learning-to-Learn capacities. Once we signpost learners to a cluster of courses, they need to take them (the familiar 'take the horse to water' comes to mind). But even if the learners are taking the courses, 

Granularity for course clustering: clustering courses to keep on top of your field of expertise is one thing, but then what is the granularity of those courses? Micro-learning is an option, and modular learning will become a clear necessity, as all learners have different existing knowledge, which means they all need different parts in order to upskill what they already know. 

Ensuring pedagogical continuity, even OU finds that a challenge. Great, so let's cluster modules. But then, how can we link these modules together, Do we believe in the non-pedagogical support (e.g. hole in the wall from Sugata Mitra already dates back 10 years), or do we need to find a solution to provide pedagogical continuity that fits with this new assembly of short modules, and courses coming from different sources (both university and industry)?

Certification across the learning ecologies: to blockchain or not to blockchain. Once we start learning across institutes, we need to keep track of that what we learn, by keeping tabs on the actual learning: corporate academy learning, university modules, hands-on training, workplace learning... one solution is to embed blockchain in education to keep track of all learning. But this is easier said than done, and open standards and trust might be an issue to consider (bit of trust initiative offers good reading). 

Feel free to send questions, comments, share your own projects... let's get together.

Open Textbooks through REBUS community #opened

Great open textbook opportunity! Ever contemplated writing and sharing an open textbook? This might be the moment/community you were waiting for. The Rebus community offers an organized (actively learning) option to create, review, add, to open textbook initiatives… and - in the end - get them published. So open access, open writing, open collaboration … all the way and with an international perspective as well, in addition to being open minded about using multiple languages. 
 

Driven by a huge goal: “building a universal library of free Open Textbooks in every subject, in every language”, I have the feeling this is something to volunteer for, even if it is simply to gain more knowledge on the subject itself. They gather librarians, educators, researchers... to start or help with getting projects realised. I am very tempted (which book first?!).

How does the Rebus community achieve this goal? By supporting initiatives to write, organise and publish open textbooks on specific subject matter, and in as many languages as possible. As it is a non-profit organisation, those willing to put an effort into creating an open textbook, will not be paid… but like in Wikipedia, every contributor adds to a greater good: available open textbooks.

Every open textbook is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license, where the copyright remains with the author(s), and readers have access to the content without any kind of payment. 

Forum-driven, but with social extensions and network

Their main medium to create these textbooks is a forum. Forums have been trialed, tested over decades and they work if they are actively moderated. In this case, it is a dynamic and focused forum moderation.

They partner up with institutions and organizations dedicated to Open Textbooks, including: The Open Textbook Network, BCcampus, eCampus Ontario and OpenOregon (University of Arizona, University of Washington, University of British Columbia, Cleveland State University, University of Saskatchewan, University of Minnesota, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Brigham Young University, University of Hawaii, University of Maryland, and Plymouth State University).

More practical FAQ’s can be found here: https://about.rebus.community/faq/

Some practical first findings

• The collaboration can take place on multiple levels: copy edit/proofread/illustrate (etc.).
• The forum is well organized, and clearly aims at promoting collaboration based on social interaction.
• They have monthly, online office hours/meetings: video meetings offering advise or sharing knowledge (one definitely worth watching is the “open textbook: internationalperspectives” video with guest speakers from South-Africa, Haiti, Chile, Australia and USA), all of the videos can be seen here, e.g. how to adapt open textbooks, as well as planning options (e.g. who is willing to work on what).
• Although the community relies heavily on a forum, there is a clear and well-designed social media integration, both for projects, posts as for social purposes (e.g. following).

The Rebus community describes itself as

The Rebus Community is a non-profit organization developing a new, collaborative process for publishing open textbooks, and associated content. Rebus is building tools and resources to support open textbook publishing, and to bring together a community of faculty, librarians, students and others working with open textbooks around the world.
We want to make it easy for the community to contribute to the creation of open textbooks (their own, or others’), and support the creation of new, high-quality open textbooks, available for free to anyone, in standard formats (web, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and print).

#OEB16 results from personalised learning session #personalLearning

This session, which I facilitated at OEB16, had one of the ‘slow cooking’ formats. It takes time for all the elements to come together, and you work with those elements you find in the room (so thank you to all the participants) and … somehow magic happened as you can see from the results shared below. Each of the participants got this synopsis sent to them. The participants had a background in volunteering (and supporting the volunteers across the country through offering online solutions to their questions), corporate environments (ranging from actual online developers, to medical support professionals, to management), and academics & teachers. All of us are faced with similar challenges as the world keeps coming up with technical solutions and keeps changing, where our task as educational technologists/trainers is to keep bridging the divides created by change and innovative technology.

The aim of this OEB session: enabling personalised learning by sharing experiences/knowledge

In this blogpost, I will first share the list of challenges that we (all who participated) came up with (pictures), then share the actions that could lead to solutions (also 5 pictures from the flip papers), and finally the way I interpret those challenges and solutions. To all, feel free to add your interpretation, as many brains make stronger solutions.

The list from the challenges we face: grouped as learning characteristics, technology and media, individual & collaborative learning, contexts, and organising learning.

The list of solutions we started to think off:

How can we enable personalised learning looking at what the participants shared. My interpretation of what we came up with:

From trainer/teacher perspective:

• Try to cater to intrinsic motivation: solutions for the learner, adding to the interest of the learner, using tools the learner feels comfortable with.
• Provide options for just-in-time learning (the concept comes from mobile learning, but the reality is that we live in a constantly connected world where just-in-time is more broadly available, yet under-used).
• Deliver authentic learning opportunities. This includes selecting people in the field/workfloor to become trainers/teachers (eg. Offer action cam to record actual processes).
• Crowdsourcing the learners for needs and solutions. Start from learning goals the learners might have: start from their learning goals to direct them to solutions, or – if the solutions is not yet existing – allow them to share a solution once they found it. This means following up on problems put forward by the learner. Maybe built a channel or list with problems or needs voiced by the learners.
• The learner-generated products (movies, written problem solving options… all media) must be made retrievable afterwards in order for these materials to be found: meaningful meta tagging, offer strands of learning (see next point).
• Offer strands of learning: e.g. offer Continued Professional Development options per field, where learners can register for updates on particular fields (e.g. if they work on language learning, provide a push-solution that notifies them when a new bit of information is available (a push-solution is a messaging service that pushes news towards either a mobile or internet-connected device to which people are registered. For instance: registering for an online list which only shares new information in one particular field). Another strand of learning is a blockchain learning option that can be build: one learner finds a solution for learning how to draw in YouTube (and shares it on a central list), another learner begins advanced learning by following a MOOC on it (and shares it)… where at the end the learners have collaboratively set up an informal curriculum for learning how to draw and become really good at it. Use micro-learning as a way to solve small needs, yet be able to organise these micro-learning moments into a larger learning pathway.
• Stimulate informal as well as formal learning inside and outside the institute/company/organisation: if someone faces a problem, but they found a solution outside the company/university… then tell them where they can share that location or solutions.
• Increase literacy skills by a variety of ways: using fun games, and formal dry options, … when digital literacy skills increase, more tech solutions can come from the learner.
• Make learners aware of copyright options.

From a manager perspective:

• We need to activate the experts: enabling durable sharing of expertise. Reach those who are willing to become champions for specific topics or skills.
• A sharing culture is something that needs to be visible and used at all levels: top managers sharing what they learn, as well as volunteers. Leadership in sharing and collaborating must happen at all levels.
• Make the outcomes of learning visible (indicators, productivity…) to show that investment in learning pays off.
• Provide socializing spaces and times: on many occasions people keep information to themselves, until they hear others are also facing the same problems. By creating more social spaces, more information exchange can take place.
• Allow learner-generated production time to take place (this is a way to compensate those learners who are willing to be champions in a specific field and allow them to deliver useful material).
• Set up a learning support task force (a new product is launched, or a new production line or workflow needs to be implemented; the support task force can help with building change enablers or customised content with the help of the learners/workers/volunteers): instructional designers, media savvy people that can help to make learner-generated media/products be disseminated across the group/department/peer experts.
• Provide a clear pathway from the moment a problem arises at the learner/worker/volunteer level: if something is a problem, to whom must they convey the problem and how. And once the problem is communicated, how will it be solved/acted upon (and by whom). Making these learning/teaching pathways transparent to all.
• Designate content curators: allow people with expertise to curate content for a group. Make the curated content available to the rest of the group, like digital newspapers that highlight potentially useful new insights.

From developers perspective:

• Integrate self-evaluation or visible learning options inside learning apps/designs/hard-& software.
• Allow inside and outside information to be gathered or linked to: to enable learners to add additional information that might help others.
• Use more learning solutions from the mobile learning evidence-based theories: make learning seamingless, use augmented/alternate reality options, just-in-time learning, provide access to immediate sharing of knowledge opportunities (e.g. mobile movies streaming from a device, sharing descriptions to an easily retrievable specific field content area).
• Allow collaborative learning to take place: enable group formation to communicate more efficiently or intuitively to work on a problem.
• Allow integration of existing tools (that way the learner can come into your tool, while still using their own preferred media).
• Make the data that users produce secure, yet allowing them to share on other platforms (if it is allowed, and they want to).
• Provide a granular approach, that can be embedded into existing systems, yet adds easy micro-learning options.
• Create ways to indicate the usefulness of any part of the solution.

From a learner perspective:

• Make learning visible for the learner: showing them the progress they have made (projects, building digital or real life artefacts), provide self-evaluation options (e.g. reflecting on the process, thus increasing meta learning skills).
• Learning how to describe an existing need: knowing how to isolate the problem, where to go to next, and describing it to others that might be able to help.
• Share with others (in corporate terms: Work Out Loud). Sharing can be quite scary at first, but sharing makes your own learning visible, it allows others to see you as a champion, and it increases your skills and knowledge as you automatically reflect deeper on any subject as you share with others.
• Daring to fail: learn that it is okay to fail at first, but simply keep doing something if you think it will be useful in the end.
• Built a network of people that are expert in your field of interest.

When looking at the above, I think that in most cases information is available, but enabling people to be able to find (and distinguish) good quality information, and resharing that new knowledge is still a challenge. The thought that sharing is caring, and will help all of us, must be either reinforced or reignited. 

Free webinar on phases of Merrill's task-centered #MOOC design #EUMoocs

On 10 March 2016, from 14 - 15 CET (to find your timezone equivalent, look here) the EMMA consortium offers a free webinar on an interactive MOOC design; following Merrill's task-centered MOOC approach. You can find more information on the webinar here, and more information on Merrill's instructional design here. 

This one hour webinar is intended for people willing to improve the pedagogical design of MOOCs. Often MOOCs tend to follow an instructivist approach where learners are mostly expected to acquire and remember the knowledge presented by the teacher. This webinar will guide participants through the phases of Merrill’s task-centered instructional design model. We will show how the model can be applied to MOOC design for engaging learners in active and collaborative knowledge construction through meaningful and practical assignments. Opportunities that task-centered MOOC design offers and challenges that need to be considered will be discussed.

You can register here (for free), and there will be two speakers: 

Mart Laanpere, Institute of digital Technologies, Tallinn University, Estonia
Mart Laanpere received the degree in educational technology (M. Sc) from the University of Twente, the Netherlands and Ph.D. degree in educational science from the Tallinn University. Mart is an experienced lecturer, trainer and a researcher in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning. He is a co-founder of the Centre for Educational Technology in Tallinn University. Currently he is coordinating the ERA Chair project CEITER (ceiter.tlu.ee). His research interests are related with designing innovative online learning environments, school-level educational innovation, instructional design, learning analytics, assessment of digital competences and supporting professional development of teachers with e-portfolio. He has been the convenor of EERA network on Open Learning and an contributing to e-learning development in various countries, such as Georgia, Moldova, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Senegal, Croatia and Serbia. Mart is a member of the steering group of the Estonian Strategy for Lifelong Learning 2015 – 2020.

Olga Firssova, WELTEN Institute, The Netherlands
Dr. Olga Firssova is Assistant professor at WELTEN Institute, Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology, Open University Netherlands. Firssova has been involved in course and curriculum design, quality assurance and evaluation projects at the OU for 10 years and has been teaching various courses at the Master of Educational Science program. Research interests and areas of expertise include course and curriculum design, academic writing and design for inquiry-based learning with technologies. Knowledge construction in Massive Online courses is her new research interest. Currently Olga is involved in two European projects: weSPOT (working environment for inquiry-based learning) and EMMA (European Multiple MOOC Aggregator).

Natalie Panek on Learning without Boundaries #devlearn

This keynote by Natalie Panek (she is a real rocket scientist, NASA Mission Systems Engineer, MDA Robotics and Automation Learning) will only be available for one week through the ELearning Guild's archive. Natalie gave the closing keynote at the DevLearn conference in 2015. She describes her journey on how she came to work for NASA (perseverance, keep on knocking on that door). The nice thing is that she focuses on getting more girls, women into engineering and science (if they are interested) by being a role model, mentor, active professional out there. 

The video is available here (in the archive of the eLearning Guild). 

It is definitely worth half an hour, for all of us dreamers and actors in learning technology. 
"She sees everything in life as an opportunity to demand the most of yourself: To commit to a goal and develop intellectual fortitude. Natalie Panek is passionate about lifelong learning through experiences removed from your comfort zones. As learning professionals, we have the challenge of igniting this passion in others. In this inspiring session, Ms. Panek explores how the ongoing pursuit of knowledge should take place throughout life and across an array of experiences. You will leave this session able to encourage yourself and others to be drawn to the rewards of challenge and learning, because the incentive is the fulfilment of our dreams, and our dreams are what will transform the world."

You do need to register for the eLearning Guild, but you can do it as an associate member (free). Once you are registered, you get access to the video (this week). 

#OEB15 liveblog Future workers and the future

On this last day at online educa berlin, these are my notes from the keynote with Cornelia Daheim, John Higgins, Ioannis Angelis on the topic of future and future work(ers). 

Work or jobs or employment… paradigm shift in work. We all earn our living, with a variety of different models, but the classic work traject of school, job, retirement will be less frequently happening.

Cornelia Daheim

Future of critical future topics, specifically work – non-profit organisation

About 50% are at risk of being automated, since that oxford published report people looked at which type of jobs would might disappear.

We have a high possibility that work in the future will be: we do not have to work. So not in the terminology that we have today.

Experts (who? Conservative professionals) technology will drive change: AI, robotics, analytics…

AI where machines can learn to learn, which affects the face of work.

Industry4.0, but how will this shift affect knowledge.

There is a chance of 25% of 2050… but we might get into a new society, where more machines do the jobs, and a such we need to make a new system.

We need to find a new way of how society can function in the long run when the model is not based on jobs/income.

We need to start thinking about it.

She looked at predictions of 2030. If there is no a major breaks (war…) and demographic evolution continues. If we extrapolate these changes, people might live longer, but this means that you work in a 4 generation team (which is really new). A new way of generations working together. The same is true for more freelance, project oriented work, more international… so here are the new forms that come into play. We need to use new terminology for this new era.

The studies show us that there is a possibility for radical change, but even if we simply extrapolate we already get multiple challenges.

What are the new skills needed

John Higgins

Discovered that in 1831 (Peel) he mused that we might prefer that brittain stays a country of cotton fields, but we will be a land of cotton mills. This is representative for current age, one of the interesting pieces of data: cognitive robotics, AI, but also basic connected things (internet of things)… wave of new technologies, and looking at EU adoption of these technologies, only a limited amount of companies (50%) is picking this up.

It seems to me that the pressure is on to start using all these tools to move with the drive pushed by technology.

He does not buy the idea of hollowing out jobs. There is an interesting piece of McKinsey report that all jobs will need to be able to use parts of these technologies, and will be improved by these sort of jobs. (eg; exo-skeletons to carry objects and/or people – nursing, car assembly)

What sort of skills are companies looking for: three main one’s:

Analytical data driven reasoning: identify different sources of information, and be analytical about them (numerical mostly, draw conclusions from big data)

Not following processes, but understanding the goal of an organisation (details change too quickly, so goal-oriented thinking is preferred).  Curation: how to filter out the massive information you get.

Working in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams: using modern collaborative tools. Eg. The 5 why’s model.

What sort of skills are we going to need? New jobs will appear, so there are changing hard and soft skills that will be needed.

Ioannis Angelis

Our predictions about the future fail frequently as they are built from the presence.

The workplace of the future is significant in this debate. There will be multiple spaces that will offer learning and working spaces. But this means that the virtual reality office will give an immersive experience, which will give us a real feeling of reality. But how will this affect work.

Paradoxical trend that done is better than perfect (in terms of work), so how can technology be used to point people in the right direction.

Digital transformation: two ICT people led the debate: somewhere in that discussion was a topic: we cannot speed innovation down. There are risks: it might endanger us by addiction, tension, virality of data…

Nomad society sees themselves as workers in the future, they can work for anyone anywhere at any time.

We all need to take ownership of our own learning.

Creative adjustment: people will continue to look for the meaning of life, but they will use their own creativity.

We want to be competent and skilful.

Missing in a lot of skill discussions: we all need to be change makers (not project management, but in terms of how we influence humanity). We need to focus on humanity.

Dealing with change is an attitude.

In order to become the worker of your dreams, we all need to slow down.

At the agora, if we take this to the future, the slaves can be replaced by the robots (which to me might sound as some people will not be in society anymore).

  

Aren’t we as workers obstructing the technological drive, as we are unable to change that rapidly? Big systems are extremely slow, but people get happier if they can self-adapt their learning/working.

People resist or adapt to change, which is delivering a balance, but it affects the speed of change or the take up of new options. (inge note: uptake of mobile use). 

#OEB15 MOOCs in Schools adding a lifelong learning experience #OPN19

On Thursday 3 December 2015 during Online Educa Berlin, Kathy Demeulenaere, Heidi Steegen and myself will be leading a session looking into MOOC and how they can be used in secondary schools (high schools, K12) to enhance lifelong learning skills and put more students on route to find their own meaningful, professional life. The session is an open session, where we will start off with our own project. In brief, our project is about supporting 16 - 17 year old students to start learning with MOOCs, and then letting them choose the MOOC they want to follow, in a non-native language, specifically in French or English).

This means that teachers need to let go: they are guides, no longer teachers; and it means that students need to enhance critical thinking and autonomous learning, which can be quite scary. But while doing this, and might I add that the three teachers who are leading this project obtain amazing results (looking at self-esteem and motivation of students). But there are also many challenges, as well as new opportunities that might be good to find answers too or to explore. In this session we want to look for answers to these challenges (maybe we can find answers in the experiences from participants in the session), and also explore options that might help in getting these lifelong learning skills somehow manifested or strengthened by educational technologies.

So feel free to join this session (it is planned for 90 minutes, with our project highlighted for the first 30 minutes and then gathering answers and options for challenges). The session is #OPN19 on Thursday 3 December, from 14.15 - 15.45 o'clock in room Lincke at the OEB conference hotel.

These are the slides for the session (with links to more information):

Online Educa Berlin: MOOCs in Schools: preparing for Lifelong Learning from Inge Ignatia de Waard

#DigiWriMo who am I, my alternative CV

An answer to the first DigiWriMo challenge: to create an alternative CV. It is quite a challenge to view myself through a non-professional, personal looking glass. Who is the generic me? Who is the me that people might get as a colleague, friend, peer?

I am a wanderer at midpoint in life (if life proofs to be kind to me and permits me some extra decades). As you can see in the previous sentence, if I move forward two steps, I tend to reflect on the steps taken and add question marks. Especially if I am in a state of exploration. At this point, I am exploring to find a new challenge in professional life. I am writing up a thesis on self-directed learning in FutureLearn courses, while contemplating a book on ‘a feeling of the future in the now’.

The me in words might be: typing (the motion is as soothing as the message it – sometimes – becomes), technology, exchanging knowledge, books, parenting, learning, and since birth using a feminist window to see the world … Or wait, most of all I am hoping for a more collaborative, peaceful world where everyone can be a nomad or sedentary purely based on their own preferences, not necessities. I guess I am a believer in dreams and change to attain enlightenment. This means that if I daydream, I think about the concept of time, the future, and the possible purpose of organic algorithms in the universe. I find answers to these dwellings in art, astronomy, and interactions. I know the world in its present and past state, but to me – in my wildest dreams - there is more to us humans then meets the news.  

Loving action and challenge

I need multiple actions to have the feeling that I am doing something (building mobile learning options across various expensive as well asrelatively cheap mobile devices, playing in a samba band while reviewing movies). Doing something is a state of being  I prefer best, or flipping the known to explore how far it can be stretched into other existing options (that flipped classroom of life). I always prefer doing something, but I frequently did/do nothing in a very passionate, consistent way as well.

As a more active-oriented person, I get excited by a challenge. As a kid I loved biking, most of the time leisurely, at reasonable pace, but every time I would encounter an old, rocky road/street I would turn up my speed and immediately launch bike-fighting mode - blasting off to tackle the rough road with amazing speed! *last sentence is part of an internal voice which sounds like a lion's roar*. Which probably is one of the sources for being a lifelong activist (which type is under constant debate at home, we hastle who is the mostest, I would say feminism first, LGBT second).

The same is true for finding a new professional opportunity: suddenly I will get fired up… it is only a matter of finding that point where I get ignited and decide This Is What I WILL DO, no matter what! Regular routes - either by means of getting educated or earning money - never seem to have appealed to me, it was always a sudden trigger, a gut feeling that triggered passion to come forward and which drove me forward with all the energy that is inside of me.

I love those moments of complete, focused energy. This drive pushes me out of my comfort-zone with amazing, and non-reflective ease... when this passion hits me, I mount my little pony and charge forward "to change the world for ever!" Ah, passion liberates.  

Loyal though not a frequent digital/IRL friend

My social life seems to be less conventional than most (but all comparisons rest on its starting point, so I could easily change my point of view, just by turning the looking glass). My life is half digital, half face-to-face. I have long-term friends, but I see them infrequently. I pledge allegiance to my friends (not that they know this per se, I think). If someone puts them in harm’s way, I get into protective mode immediately. I am protective to those I love, as I see them as good human beings. So what does ‘good’ mean to me? Good is being open minded, tolerating other points of view, being peaceful in physical presence towards others, not necessarily agreeing, but searching for a common ground to build upon, move forward, not withstanding the occasional brawl I guess. 

Media to contemplate self

Nothing is as revealing as watching yourself in an informal video. At this point in time I dare to say that what you see is what you get. I am me, with people, on stage, in an elevator, in or out of country, or buying stuff in a shop. A Flemish-English enthusiast who ad-libs while thinking and loves technologies, time and evolution. 

Write, create, curate and collaborate: preparing for #digiWriMo

Great initiative to combine digital writing and creativity all through the month of November 2015. I learn by writing. It always feels like the movement of my fingers on my keyboard makes me think more clearly, and even pushes thoughts right into the open. So this Digital Writing Month initiative (#DigiWriMo), organised by the Hybrid Pedagogy bloggers (Maha Bali, Sarah Honeychurch, and Kevin Hogdson), is right up my alley. The #DigiWriMo will push people to engage in digital writing and creativity during the month of November. The frequency is left to your own preference, even the choice to make your writings public or not is up to you. The definition of writing is also very open (though digital): it can be any narrative making media: drawing, video, audio, text...

So here it is: if you ever had an idea about writing (making use of whichever digital media, and for an idea that can be either big or as small), this is the moment to test it out. It is simple and open. 

My addition to #DigiWriMo: I will be able to test out a strand of writing that has been sitting in my mind for months: imagine future daily life, and connect it with current digital, learning options. Breadcrumbs from here to the future... To prepare I am listing a number of topics already... oh, nice initiative!

Get subscribed through the designated website: http://www.digitalwritingmonth.com/ 

Or get into all or some of the online communities (or not, as I said, they are really open with this initiative, open to all of us), what they provide as guidance and locations:

How Does One DigiWriMo?

1. There are no secrets to doing DigiWriMo, no right way and no wrong way to do it. Some people may write a novel using their computer and call it a day; while others may write hundreds of Twitter haiku. The key to success is your imagination and your love of experimentation, exploration, and fun. Along the way, check out our regular prompts and guest posts for inspiration.
2. Prepare to join the fray! Beginning on November 1 at 12:01 UTC, post your goals for the month on our Roster. This will help you connect with others in the DigiWriMo community and keep on track!
3. Join in wherever you like: Because digital writing takes place everywhere on the web, so will our discussions. Plan to join our regular Twitter chats using#digiwrimo, head over to our Facebook page, or participate in the DiGiWriMo Google Community, and visit this site often. All the Digital Writing Month writing prompts and special challenges will be posted here.
4. Not all digital writing has to be public. But, if you want to share your work with others, do so by posting it on our Facebook page, on Twitter using #digiwrimo, in the Google Community, or tag your blog posts with “digiwrimo”. That way, you’ll have all the audience you deserve for your grueling hours of digital brilliance. We’ll be curating content created on the web via a Flipboard magazine entitled “Along the Edges of Digital Writing.”

Ideas on methods or instruments for CLIL and MOOC learning?

Help and thoughts welcomed. While planning a small research which combines Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL, MOOC and lifelong learning options, I am calling out for any help that you might be able to offer in terms of suggesting methods, pointing towards useful research instruments (either as they stand or to build on) or simply helping with the project (either this one, or setting up parallel project and that we share experiences).

An abstract and overview of the theoretical ideas behind this project can be read here:

https://www.academia.edu/14990931/Increasing_LifeLong_Learning_Skills_for_upper-secondary_students_by_combining_CLIL_and_MOOC_with_teachers_as_guides_on_the_side 

This call for help comes after some work has been done, so feel free to read up where I and my colleagues from the secondary school GUSCO school in Kortrijk, Belgium are at.

Challenge and brainstorm to plan research and build research instrument(s) to be used by 15 – 16 year old secondary students to measure whether or not their language and online learning skills (in terms of self-esteem and motivation) have increased by using a teacher/classroom supported step-by-step approach where the teachers gradually step back to increase the students autonomous learning skills and competencies.

This is a small, exploratory study and as such I expect to have between 10 - 15 students volunteering (with informed consent of all parties: school, parents, students) for this research.

Potential central research question:

How does the CLIL MOOC project influence the learning readiness of secondary students voluntarily engaged in online learning courses which are delivered in a non-native language.

Or in  more hypothesis kind of formulation:

The participation of students in a CLIL MOOC project increases their language and online learning skills.

The CLIL MOOC project has three potential learning pillars:

1.       Language skills: learning or enhancing communication skills in a foreign language

2.       Increasing digital literacy: critical thinking, conscious use of educational technology and increased interaction in a foreign language (good paper on multiple literacies https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Pinto12/publication/249750716_Thirty_years_of_information_literacy_%281977--2007%29_A_terminological_conceptual_and_statistical_analysis/links/0f31753a074649c07e000000.pdf and a critical note on literacies http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/past/nlc2012/abstracts/pdf/gourlay.pdf )

3.       Lifelong learning skills: learning to learn more autonomously in view of personal learning interests

There are several challenges:

• Whether or not these three pillars can be measured amidst other learning advances (to keep out indirect influences, e.g. learning skills coming from other courses)
• The meta-cognitive level of the students: whether any instrument can be made that uses the right language for the processes the students can identify (any instrument used must be transparent in terms of concepts and vocabulary used)
• Keeping the surveys limited while having all these areas to monitor
• 10 – 15 students hardly make up a representative quantitative target population, it can be enough for a study with a main focus on qualitative methods (this means combining quantitative with qualitative, where the qualitative elements clarify the potential indicators provided by the quantitative results)
• Building on previous learn-to-learn instruments that focus on self-regulated or/and self-directed learning (this is a new combination of factors, but still any research instrument used might be linked to previous research projects)

 Existing instruments related to self-directed/regulated learning. Four options:

1. Use the self-directed readiness test pre- and post-course to see whether this has changed over the academic year (key researcher Guglielmino, see background here http://www.lpasdlrs.com/ and nursing training example implementation here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11788963_Development_of_self-directed_learning_readiness_scale_for_nursing_education )
2. Use the self-regulated learning opportunities questionnaire: to see whether the students can identify learning, and how it fits their own self-esteem and motivation. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (key researcher Pintrich, see here for overview and manual http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED338122.pdf )
3. Use a mix of the self-directed readiness test and the self-regulated learning opportunities questionnaire (with focus of the latter on self-esteem and motivation, as these are key lifelong learning skills), add language-related indicators - at the moment this is my favorite
4. Build a new instrument from scratch, combining both language and MOOC skills, as well as learning to learn options.

It might of course also be a mix of self-regulated and self-directed instruments, provided to the students on different moments during the academic year. The SDL test pre and post, the SRL on 3 occasions, after each term but without meddling with the exam periods.

Question: which methodology would be best?

Attention for: limited class time, not to be too intrusive.

In view of the size of the target population, and the fact that this is a new combination of fields, I am thinking of using a mixed methodology, where attention is paid to choosing methods that are not too intrusive (as this might be difficult to combine with teachers as well as students).

Option in consideration:

Action research: The basic action research procedural routine involves four stages: (1) identifying the research question(s), (2) gathering the information to answer the question(s), (3) analyzing and interpreting the information, and (4) sharing the results with the participants. Action research follows a kind of spiralling progression, rather than the more traditional linear one (see p. 180 https://mthoyibi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/qualitative-research-methods-for-the-social-sciences__bruce-l-berg-2001.pdf )

So any ideas are welcomed, you can either mail me or tweet (@ignatia) or connect through comments... 

We will go live with this project on the 1 September, so a nice solid deadline for the actual project and I hope by then I will have my instruments and documents ready (I will).