The Educational paradigm shift part 2: teaching emerging & ever-changing skills.

More universities are joining their efforts to meet the needs and financial demands of an increased content development in these online first learning space that has dawned in 2020. 

Some universities are sharing their future plans to inspire others, have a look at Stanford 2025 (thank you Frank Gielen for the link and the insights!). But as always with learning and teaching, it is the human factor that makes learning an inspiring success or a tedious process. One can clearly feel something is changing within education and training at large... but why do we hit a wall with our old school learning that pushes us to rethink learning overall?

What are some of the barriers for providing timely teaching?

Uncertainty concerning future skills is one of course, but these will be better addressed soon (look at the SkillCharge project where AI is enabled to screen CVs or job profiles for skills that are there and match them to emerging skills, while pointing to useful training to acquire those necessary skills). 

Keeping up with innovation. It takes time to build course content that integrates new innovations happening in industry, startups, a.o. To create an up to date course, teachers who are content experts need to collaborate with industry experts to know what is emerging in the sector and is part of the new realities within a sector. This means multi-actor learning needs to take place (= networking across disciplines and sectors), this also means such a collaboration needs to be set up (B2U, business to university collaborations). 

Use innovation reality, use data for modeling. Reality in itself is a challenge, with Big Data being integrated in many segments of society, it also means we can use this data to think forward and build anticipating models that can 'predict' or at least list a couple of future scenarios. A great person to follow and to see what can be done with forward thinking and future horizon exploration, is Bryan Alexander. He does a great remodelling excercise on where Higher Education is going.

Creating course content from scratch. One of the main barriers in creating content at a pace that reflects innovation, is the old school content creation. The most common time and cost consuming development of a course, is preparing class notes or content. It comprises of: writing the learning objectives, fixing pedagogical interactions based on the given content (e.g. discussion on a subject like ethics, to complement content that might be questionable or is a reaction to questionable processes - for instance the move to sustainable energy), creating ALL the content for a course, evaluating the course content as well as the course process. Creating course content demands time from the teacher, but also from media support and others, so this is an ideal element within the course development to adress and bring down costs. 

Same content behind multiple closed walls (breaking the university silo's) is another barrier. I wrote about this in my previous post. It is clear that if many universities build the same content, it is a non-working cost model, as all of us invest in human resources as well as in material development with the same results (well, given we all work at the same level of quality, but let's face it, offering basic quality is most of the time the most cost effective way to create anything. 

Where do we go next to address these bariers?

The way forward is to create or use teaching and learning approaches that work under these conditions: innovation, collaboration, using innovation to create new content... so in a next post (which I call part 3 addressing the current paradigm shift in education), I will list a couple of useful teaching and learning approaches that allow learners to prepare for future skills, while using the content and expertise that is only just emerging.

(picture source: http://etag.report/)

The Educational paradigm shift part 1: building a layer on top of single universities

Universities have been around for 1000 years, it is time for the next level of education, moving beyond single universities. New learning architectures are being build, a paradigm shift is happening as course development needs to be made more efficient in keeping pace with sector innovation. This means, new alliances need to be setup across universities (see further below) and new pedagogies need to be installed (see part 2 later). This demand for change has been around for 10 years, but it seems change is upon us. Will the change do us all good?

Old and still here

The university of Bologna was founded in 1088 A.D. and is considered the oldest university in the world. Oxford university was founded not long after that and gradually more universities emerged. Their model was profitable, as you can see as these universities stood the test of time. But is there model still relevant today? Do universities deliver top employees, ready for the higher end job market? No. What they can do, is deliver strong research and evidence-based results. But researchers are only a small part of everyone graduating from university. So when it comes to teaching students to work in non-university sectors, they fail. 

While jobs change, curricula seldomn adjust rapidly

This is due to the rapid change of job profiles, emerging new sectors, innovation overall... no rigid university curriculum can stay on top of rapid change. There is too much specialization involved and the capacity to change on the go as innovation reshapes a sector (e.g. AI embedding affecting all sectors).  

It is a tough goal to ensure that any student coming in for a four year learning journey, will have learned the most innovative, timely training. This becomes even more difficult if we consider the needs of new jobs, that are often situated between different 'known' disciplines (but of course AI can be used to train people for future jobs, hence using innovation to prepare for innovation). But any Utopian or Distopian believes aside, universities in their single, ivory towers are no longer ready to deliver the best employees for these changing times. 

Merging knowledge and specialize

The dominant form always wins, we know this since the Pullitzer prize winning book of Jared Diamond, called "Guns, Germs and Steel". Unfortunately, dominance is seldom the highest quality, it is simply the most agile, the best equiped. Quality always subserves quantity and technological lead (feel free to find examples, there are many! My preferred one is VHS versus Betamax). 

Single universities cannot compete with innovation. They lack speed and specialization. Engineering courses for instance, almost every big university has them.... this is clearly not an efficient use of resources nor course development. Now if a set of universities combines forces, each one of these universities can specialize in one particular area, ensure course relevance and speed due to this specialization (you don't need to update all engineering courses, only your own segment). 10 universities in the USA have started such a collaboration (see Big Ten Academic Alliance post referring to online courses). This is only the start of course, but you can see that working together will save money and human resources, while at the same time enable more rapid course development as innovations are rolled out. As part of such a university network, each partner can now focus on one particular area. 

More than graduates and beyond course degrees

Of course, this type of developing innovation-paced courses, also opens the door for more than students, as professionals will need to stay on top of their field as well. This means it is no longer about curricula and formal courses within a single or joined university to get a degree. With professional learners taking up parts of a degree course, certificatoin needs to become modular. This means certificatoin that is both formal and informal, as well as part of a micro-certification becomes necessary. Look at the Microbol European Certification program that offers a certification across universities (btw nice keynote on the subject can be seen here as part of the virtual EDEN conference September 2020). 

In the next few years many universities will merge to stay afloat and become more competitive. This also means that they will need to choose which main language they will speak with their students ... this again will lead to a more dominant educational language... if I push aside the impact on educational divides ... I guess I concur with Cheryl Crow: "A change will do U good". 

How to transform F-2-F #exams into online exams #onlineAssignments #onlineExams #pedagogy

As #COVID19 seems to disrupt our teaching and learning for a longer period of time, I wrote up a document based on requests from colleagues to look into the delivery of online exams and assignments, and what the options are.
The document is entitled "Transforming face-to-face exams into online exams: considering proctoring tool security and creative pedagogical options".

The document is shared under Creative Commons Share Alike license which aligns with the EU directive on transparency and sharing as EIT InnoEnergy for which I work, has a supporting role to the EU and the EU promotes sharing to ensure mutual growth.

This document is an addition to a previous document I wrote with 10 fast tips to move from face-to-face learning to online learning (with a lot of English resources from the University of Cape Town; South Africa; Harvard business, USA; University of North-South Wales, Australia; and EU commission on education, ... as well as tools).

(Disclosure: I don’t get or have any benefits suggesting any of the tools or solutions in these documents).
The following topics are discussed:

• Comparing online proctoring tools which can be used to ensure safe online exams and assignments (the term ‘safe’ means non-cheating here). Can we use proctoring tools for team exams, how secure are they, what are some of the options and prices?...
• Limiting online exam costs by looking into the usefulness of using group or team exams and open book exams in a digital learning world (benefits, as all of us can transform some or more of our usual closed book exams (CBE) towards an open book exam (OBE).
• Using best online exam practices without proctoring tools with audio/video 1on1 only and assignments (useful for those not having the financial resources, or with limited internet access).

The full document (11 pages) can be found here.

Sharing #oralAssignments and #OnlineExam #bestPractices to limit cheating

Request for expertise sharing on #online #exams #covid19 pro-active planning until the end of this academic year and offering #BestPractices for #OnlineExams below. 

The first rumors are indicating that our international HigherEd students will not be requested to come to their guest universities to plan their exams for the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. 

I am trying to find a solid online learning tool that can be used, but in the meanwhile, I want to share best practices that are already used at our and other institutes. Feel free to add any ideas or measures I might have missed when listing our guidelines.

Best practices for organising online exams and online tests All of us working with international students scattered around the globe as they have rejoined their families in their country of origin, will probably be facing online examination needs. With this in mind, I am listing best practices and in a second stage I will be reviewing #EdTech tools that might come in handy if you have multiple students linking up remotely for their exams (we are preparing for 382 students which is a feasible number, yet demands a streamlined approach). I took my master’s in education (M.Ed.) exams remotely myself (thank you @AthabascaUniversity, so sharing those best practices with some additions below. Best practices using only camera and audio as technology: Preparing the exam Switch any written exam questions you might have to oral exam questions. These can include notes that need to be shared (ask contextualized questions, questions that show they understand the material yet can apply it to new contexts; e.g. ask short oral essay questions). Create original exam questions: i.e. questions are not available in educational textbooks (otherwise tech-savvy students will be able to find them in no time :D Choose an online meeting tool that offers recording options (think legal discussions, you need to be able to show why you gave the examination points you gave) and a tool that allows for lengthy recordings at that (no one wants their exam to suddenly stop). Choose a tool that enables sharing the screen (might come in useful for some short essays, designs, stats…). Prepare an informed consent document and send that to the student, so they know their exam will be recorded and stored at the admin server space for X time. If possible, indicate the amount of time set aside for the exam. Make a designated exam folder structured according to your admin. Additionally: you might want to send out a ‘code of conduct’ to the students, so they know what is expected of them. This is where the penalties might be discussed: what is considered cheating, what is the penalty for each stage of cheating… Once the exam starts Introduce the student to the fact that their online session will be recorded (GDPR) – check that the informed consent was signed and sent back to you. Start recording. Indicate the overall guidelines of the exam: open book, closed book, time available, number of questions (if relevant). The student must be made aware of what they can expect. Ask whether they understood what you have just said. Check identity: ask the examinee to show their passport and take a screenshot, save that screenshot as part of the examination administration. Ask them to show their desk, room, and that they need to be in view mid-torso with hands and keyboard visible. (you know why 😊 In case you choose to go with closed book examination: ask them to share their full screen (look at the tabs that are open!). Of course, there is a workaround if they are tech-savvy, which is why exam questions should preferably be open book, it allows them some freedom, yet they still need to really understand how they come to a solution. Only offer one question at the time. Feedback is important… but: depending on the number of questions you prepared, you might want to choose a different feedback strategy. If you have different questions for each student: give feedback as you see fit. If you want to reuse questions: limited feedback is preferable. As we all know, students quickly inform each other on which type of exam questions they got, what the answers or feedback was to what they gave, and what feedback they got. Feedback is given at the end Stop recording and make sure it is in the right folder. What cannot you address in case you work with audio/video tools only? Disabling the right-click button (copying and pasting options, so that students can quickly save questions). A reason to go to tailored questions per student, based on comprehension and creative thinking. Single function add-on tools Use the Respondus Lockdown browser or similar tool to ensure that students cannot look up answers, but yet again, you need to block students looking up answers https://web.respondus.com/he/lockdownbrowser/ A review of more designated tools such as ProctorU, ProctorExam, … will follow.

2 Free & useful #TELearning in Higher Ed reports #elearning #education

These two reports give a status of TELearning in 2016: one analysing the Technology Enhanced Learning for Higher Education in the UK (233 pages, with appendixes starting at page 78) and case studies of Technology Enhanced Learning (48 pages, with nice examples). I give a brief summary below.

The reports were produced by UCISA (Oxford univesity based network) representing many major UK universities and higher education colleges and it states to have a growing membership among further education colleges, other educational institutions and commercial organisations interested in information systems and technology in UK education.

The used definition of TELearning is: "Any online facility or system that directly supports learning and teaching. This may include a formal VLE (virtual learning environment), e-assessment or e-portfolio software, or lecture capture system, mobile app or collaborative tool that supports student learning. This includes any system that has been developed in-house, as well as commercial or open source tools."

Both reports provide an interesting (though UK-oriented) read. Here is a short overview of what you can find in them:

The report focusing on the TELearning for HE in UK (based on the TELearning survey), I have put the main conclusions next to the main chapters:

Top 5 challenges facing institutions: Staff Development is the most commonly cited challenge, Electronic Management of Assessment, lecture capture/recording continues to move up, technical infrastructure, legal/policy issues.

Factors encouraging the development of TELearning: Enhancing the quality of learning and teaching, meeting student expectations, improving student satisfaction are most common driver for institutional TEL provision. Availability of TEL support staff, encourages the development of TEL, feedback from students, availability and access to tools, school/departmental senior management support. In terms of barriers for TELearning: lack of time, development & consolidating, culture continues to be a key barrier, with Departmental\school culture, and Institutional culture, internal funding, and lack of internal sources of funding to support development.

Strategic questions to ask when considering or implementing TELearning: with Teaching, Learning and Assessment consolidating, the rise of the Student learning experience/student engagement strategy, corporate strategy and library and Learning Resources.

TELearning currently in use: main institutional VLE remains Blackboard and Moodle.
Moodle remains the most commonly used platform across the sector, but rising alternative systems such as Canvas by Instructure, and new platforms eg. Joule by Moodlerooms. SharePoint has rapidly declined. An increase in the number of institutions using open learning platforms such as FutureLearn and Blackboard’s Open Education system. Evaluation activity in reviewing VLE provision: conducting reviews over the last two years. TEL services such as lecture capture is the second most commonly reviewed service by all over the last two years.

Support for TELearning tools: e-submission tools are the most common centrally supported
software, ahead of text matching tools such as Turnitin, SafeAssign and Urkund. Formative and summative e-assessment tools both feature in the Top 5, along with asynchronous communication
tools. Adoption of document sharing tools across the sector and the steady rise in the use of lecture
capture tools. Podcasting tools continue to decline in popularity and the new response items electronic exams and learning analytics appear not to be well established at all as institutional services, with only a handful of institutions currently supporting services in these areas.
Social networking, document sharing and blog tools are the common non-centrally supported tools. TEL tools are being used to support module delivery. Blended learning delivery based on the provision of supplementary learning resources remains the most common use of TEL. Only a small number of institutions actually require students to engage in active learning online across all of their programmes of study. Increasing institutional engagement in the delivery of fully online courses, with over half of 2016 respondents now involved. Growing adoption of MOOC platforms by institutions, but less than half of respondents are pursuing open course delivery.
Little change in the range of online services that higher education institutions are optimising for access by mobile devices. Access to course announcements, email services and course materials and learning resources remain the three leading services optimised for mobile devices. Library services, are being optimised. Optimising lecture recordings at the same level as 2014. The most common ways in which institutions are promoting the use of mobile devices are through the establishment of a bring your own device (BYOD) policy and by loaning out devices to staff and students. Funding for mobile learning projects has reduced in scale.
Outsourcing of institutional services grows: student email, e-Portfolio systems, VLEs and staff email. The type of outsourcing model is dependent on the platform being outsourced: Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud-based model for email services, and to use an institutionally managed, externally hosted model for TEL related tools, such as e-Portfolios and the VLE for blended and fully online courses.
National conferences/seminars and internal staff development all remain as key development activities. Increase in the promotion of accreditation activities, in particular for HEA and CMALT
accreditation.
Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) making the most demand on TEL support teams. Lecture capture and Mobile technologies as well. The demand from Learning Analytics and from distance learning/fully online courses continues to increase. A new entry which might be expected to make more demands in the future is Accessibility; in particular, demands made by changes to the Disabled Students’ Allowance in the English higher education sector.

A number of appendixes: full data, a longitudinal analysis of TELearning over the past years (going back to 2001), questions that were used for the longitudinal analysis.

The report focusing on the case studies from TELearning:
These case studies are a companion to the earlier report mentioned above. The idea is that the case studies enable to probe themes in the data and shed light on TEL trends through the eyes of representative institutions, offering context to the findings of the overall report.
In each of the case studies, the institutions provide answers to the following TELearning sections: used TELearning strategy, TEL drivers, TEL provision, TEL governance and structures, TEL-specific policies, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) strategy, Teaching Excellence Framework, Distance Learning and Open Learning, and Future challenges. The diversity of institutes interviewed give a good perspective of the TEL landscape within Higher Education in the UK. 

How do Instructional Designers support and add to teacher knowledge

As online learning becomes more known, the quality of the delivered online materials become more essential, as learners can (partly) decide which courses they will follow based on the quality of the course material. One of the challenges is to give teachers and trainers an idea of how instructional designers can help (IDs are schooled in online learning options) and what instructional designers can bring to the interdisciplinary learning/teaching team (a broader online and blended learning knowledge, specifically aimed at online or blended interactions, this relies on specific theoretical frameworks that facilitate practical implementations). So, being asked by EIT InnoEnergy to provide an overview of why Instructional Designers are an important Human Resource profile to ensure high quality online or digital learning material, I put together this brief presentation. The slides are text rich so course partners (SELECT) can have another look after the presentation and an ongoing conversation with local Instructional Designers might be started.

In the meantime I am continuing the inspiring work on the Instructional Design Variation Matrix (a practical guide for Instructional Designers, a bit of an extended job aid).

(picture: deeply thinking teachers from KTH Sweden, Polito Italy, UPC Spain, IST Portugal, Aalto Uni Finland listening to online learning experiences at InnoEnergy SELECT kick-off meeting)

How can an Instructional Designer help? from Inge de Waard

Limitless learning plenary #OEB16 on owning learning

A great set of speakers, all talking on the subject of owning learning (some limitless)

Alec Couros

Promise of open and connected learning is the subject. Promise of personalised learning is one of the elements that have changed in the last few years. The ownership.

Help with bowdril youtube is example of the strength of weak ties. Everyone has access to networks today. The longtail of learning helps to connect with people for niche learning.

Post napster idea of MIT giving 2002 all their materials away via the internet. Youtube is the ultimate MOOC as so many people have learned their own passion.

Audrey Clemens is another kid that he learned and shared through the web.

#learningproject (part for students): how can we learn from the web, and document the learning through web options. (eg Bob Ross tutorials to learn painting).

So if we can google it, why teach it. This is a bit of techno utopianism that we need to be critical off. Tech utopia , Langdon Winner on mythinformation. (from searching for the limits book).

Neil Postman on 5 things we need to know about technological change. It is not an attitude, but a ecological…

Emerging challenges for open learning:

information literacies; filter bubbles and fake news (Eli Pariser, youtube beware of filter bubbles).

Blue feed,, Red feed: looking at the tail of two different tail news. Very good article.

Most students don’t know when news is fake (wallstreet journal).

Trevelyan (1942) what is worth reading and easy prey to sensations.

Attention literacy: Mcluhan, heavy media multitaskers impacting learning and attention.

Problems of identity: resume is replaced by online portfolio (eg). One option is universities providing you with your own domain name for you to fill with relevant information.

We live in a world where one single tweet can change our lives for bad or for good.

Cybercrime: romance scams: fake network accounts (catfishing) to get money.

Greater societal problems: when we ask students to come to the web, this is not a perfect world and it is getting more hostile. Geography of hate website.

We need to really think about what we teach students on getting online tools.

Diana Laurillard

Who owns the responsibility of for learning. (using the conversational framework, see picture)

The outline of her argument is: what it means by learning, and what it takes to teach in the digital world, who owns the responsibility fr learning, how to plan the shift to effective blended learning, the education context for teachers and leaders. So her point is more formal, where alex couros’s focus was more on the informal, passionate learning.

What does it take us to learn formally? The point of the conversational framework was to distill the learning and put it into a fairly simple framework.

(see picture), and the idea should be to widen the learning conversations to embed all of these types of learning and interactions.

Question: teaching presence ? when a teacher is taken out of the framework. This is where education comes in, as it can cater specific learning that would take you much more time to get there. So the teacher provides something that you cannot reach quickly yourself.

The teaching workload is increased in terms of … (see picture).

Using learning technologies is our best bet to be able to do this. So, to Diana these are exciting times to be in education.

Challenges: MOOCs are free education for highly educated professionals most of the time. So we need to use the technology to scaffold/cascade those who do need education and cut off.

One option is to use MOOCs for teachers, as they are following MOOCs anyway, but aiming the course at training teachers for their profession.

Who owns the responsibility of learning? The new digital demands we make on teacher time will effect the time and tasks they need to do.

Learners were collaborating, working online in both class and at home, online.

Balance of responsibility looking at teacher and learners? With technology we can enhance the advocacy of both. Teachers should be able to think through how they can support learners with tech for independent learning.

Shift planning towards blended learning.  Modelling learning benefits versus teaching costs: see

http://web.lkldev.ioe.ac.uk/cram/index.html

The drivers are strong but not aligned with digital. And we invest in the enablers, which are weak if you do not have the drivers for innovation. Unlock the power of the teachers to support more blended learning, more personalised learning. Teaching is a design science, lets trust the teachers to do this.

Martin Eyjolfsson

He wondered about why Icelandians seem to be more creative? Because Icelandians are happy… but why?

Only a few of us young people know what they want to do later on in life… this calls for creative solutions to bring passion to their life. A massive participation from an early age into society. So becoming a jack of many trades from an early age onward to feel society, to keep an open mind and be a free spirit. Bjork has a project biophilia (http://biophiliaeducational.org/ ), which learns kids about creativity.   

Mark Surman from Mozilla

Web literacy empowers people and keeps the internet healthy. The stakes are getting higher on what internet means for education and for humanity.

What does it mean to have a healthy internet? Mozilla has a motto: guard the open nature of the internet. And this was said when it was launched in 2003 but it still rings true.

The internet is made by multiple people and in a way by us all. The internet is an ecosystem built by us, but we need to keep it healthy. But many things have happened.

The internet of things is increasingly becoming  reality. Every aspect of us will become connected. This also means it becomes an increased risk, as AI is embedded in these systems and filtering bubbles as well. Some of the risks of this ecosystem is IoT botnets are growing and they are up for hire. Where devices are much less secured. We have an increasing cybersecurity risk that risks of taking whole companies down. The stakes are very high.

What is the social structure as we live in an increasingly connected society? There is a digital divide (eg demographic digital divide is real and pervasive). The digital power and opportunities influence divides. Those divides are global.

Structures of economy are part of the healthy internet, eg major app producers are in the North, where growing smartphone use in South, so new/old colonial.

(look up latest worldbank report as it was actually critical and of interest).

Imperial ambitions from US and China corporations using the internet. Mozilla makes products with values and ethics embedded in them, but increasingly Mozilla found that the need to be part of a larger trend to keep internet health. We as Mozilla are choosing to become more political.

Teaching this to help people realize what the digital world is, is one of the best activist actions to take and be part of. This is an important activist role.

Are we teaching the right things? Web literacy is an important citizen skill, yet we do not take it seriously enough in schools. This is reading and writing and participating in the digital world. Critical reading skills as well as participation skills, and creativity is critical as a skill. We need to be successful to be a productive force.

www.theglassroomnyc.org as a way to interactively make people more web literate.

Why Europe’s new copyright proposals are bad news for the internet (see fortune article), the outcome of this debate will have a massive effect on citizenship in Europe. It might be giving an free road to censor personal internet content on a massive scale. It will have an effect on free digital speech.

Look at www.changecopyright.org which is just getting going, and Mozilla wants teachers and young people to be involved in.

#ic_moveme Jeremy Knox on new MOOC paradigms beyond MOOCs

Jeremy Knox gave a philosophically interesting talk about the effects of MOOCs on education. For a in-depth information, have a look at his recently published wonderful book. What follows are liveblogging notes. 

How has the movement of cMOOC/xMOOCs impacted informal learning. This talk is on the emergence of MOOCs and their dominant forms, as well as suggest some new paradigms for MOOC learning (not new theories, but important movements and things that are happening and influence how we understand learning in the MOOC domain).

Looking back to the 2012 and 2013 where the media got interested in the rise of the MOOC. Promising a revolution of education, the future of Higher Education, which were provocative and aimed at bringing moocs into the main stream. One of the premises was “the online revolution, learning without limits” a quote from Daphne Koller at Stanford. Many advantages came from raising digital education into the mainstream of education. But at the same time the rise of the MOOC is a fact, MOOCs are here to stay.

In the eLearning and digital cultures MOOC came up with embedding resources that were open and public. That evoked the idea of hybridMOOC (Bonnie Stewart). cMOOCs focused more on open and public web, self-directed study, process oriented. While xMOOC were more open in terms of free enrolment, free lectures, content oriented. The quality of the openness we saw in cMOOCs was about practicing learning and teaching in the open public realm. While xMOOC are open in terms of ‘free’ not really open in the open education idea.

The Open Educational Resources movement comes from several regional initiatives, and influences the cMOOCs.   

The very idea of connectivism was on the idea of a network. A special visualisation of a cMOOC points to the learning that happens in a cMOOC, distributed knowledge and content. When looking at the different xMOOCs, we see for profit, to non-profit. This means that these MOOCs have a profit idea behind them as well. In contrast to the network model of connectivist MOOCs.  

The xMOOCs have lots of fantastic moocs, but the reinstate the lecture. And the global North dominates the content and production, which is a different interpretation of what is open education. Martin Weller conveys the idea well in his The battle for open: how openness won and why it does not feel like a victory (Weller, 2014). Bonnie Stewart compared xMOOC to a trojan horse for open education.

But there is more than the battle for open, that is a move from massive to spocs, specialisation (spocs) and learning analytics. There is a huge number of learners enrolled in MOOCs, so that is a good thing, learning is happening and it is more than we got in traditional education. The argument is that after the initial emergence of MOOCs, there was a move against the massive, and more towards community open online courses, so moving away of the massive. Harvard sees an interest in spocs, business idea. But this means that moocs return to the classic online or elearning courses. Coursera moves towards team moocs, or auto-cohorts: a new coursera does a kind of bus, once it is full of people it starts. So two options of managing class sizes. This means it goes back to what was.

Specialisations of MOOCs: group mooc courses together, this sequencing enables certification. This specialisation initiative focuses on disciplines, this has an effect on humanities course, declining rapidly from 20% to 10% shifting distribution of these courses. Specialisations seem to focus on stem, business, data science and computer science. This means that the focus is shifting with specialisation. Similar to the turn that Udacity took to predominantly focus on these types of courses, not the humanities or other less tech-oriented courses. The need to profit will change the priorities and resources they put into moocs.

MOOCs are also shaped by data or learning analytics. Content, interaction & communication, assessment… but what about the actual learning.  And the quantifying participant behaviours, into categorise students into groups that are not necessary meaningful for learning. Data colonialism emerges, that what we are seeing with MOOCs is not a traditional colonialism, it is a drive to capture more data to make more judgements, new sensibilities are needed to make learning analytics less colonial.

Question: what is the chance that we can reverse this new colonialist drive now using learning analytics to roll out this new type of education? Jeremy stays optimistic on the opportunities we can create, but this means we need to look at algorithms supporting learning analytics, look at the categories that are used and the effect it has. (inge remark: can we and do we equip global tech with the algorithms that can in fact try and reach education for all and equality for all? Even if we use the technologies as used in cmoocs e.g. twitter, FB… which are also part of the technological symbolic capital from the Northern regions). Jeremy mentions how the data analytics from global MOOC’rs were used to improve for on location students within Harvard and Stanford, so what is the actual benefit for a global group of learners? MOOCs are used as motivational device to attract on location students, preserve the authenticity of the institutes that provide MOOCs, which does not belittle the work teachers do or the work that learners do, but does speak against the global educational benefit that MOOCs said to achieve.

Life as a PhD student: brief overview #phd #highered #research

Yesterday I sent out a call for full scholarship degrees that were open to proposals at the Open University of the UK. As I started to communicate with friends and colleagues wondering whether they should apply for a scholarship (Of Course!), I realized I might add a bit of background based on my own PhD experience.

As an example of  high potential PhD procrastination, download the presentation and take a look at the cartoons by Jorge Cham (FABULOUS!)

Please find a brief overview of my PhD experience and ideas (plus tools and steps) below. If you have additional experiences that I did not cover, let me know. I think this could be useful for other PhD-potentials.

Life as a PhD student: identity, tools, hurdles, and supervisions from Inge de Waard

Free 86 page book on Visible Learning via Routledge #visibleLearning

From time to time Routledge offers curated books for free download. In this case the book is on Visible learning to celebrate the upcoming new book of John Hattie. This free book is called: Know Thy Impact: Visible Learning in theory and practice, and you can get it here.

In order to get a free copy of this curated book (it takes small samples of previous books by J. Hattie, plus a a part from his upcoming book), you do need to provide your name and email address to Routledge, together with a specification of what you are interested in as a field. I wonder why? Anyway, the ebook is sent immediately to the provided email address, and it opens as a pdf.

Visible Learning
The term visible learning (launched by John Hattie) is still gaining momentum and although its main focus is on classroom settings, with some adjustments you can use it across the educational board, including some online learning options. When you think about learning, being able to understand the impact of learning on the student or learner is pivotal, as it allows you (as a teacher/trainer) to adjust your learning or at least know what its results are. Visible learning is just that, making the impact of learning visible. The term is easy enough, making it happen is much more difficult as we all know. It uses evidence-based statistics, has links to learning analytics, and visualizes different teacher-student learning options.

In this 86 page book a synopsis of prior books on Visible learning is given:
a history of how the term and books about Visible Learning came about (with links to those books, it is a promotional stunt these types of freebooks, but to me worthwhile reading as they do capture some of the core ideas behind the concept).
Some guidelines on why teachers are powerful supporters for the learning process, and how they can enhance the learning process for learners
How the teacher as activator and facilitator has an impact on learning, as such teaching leads to higher levels of learning, autonomy, and self-regulation on behalf of the learner (whether student or teacher)

A nice, brief overview on visible learning, just enough to make you decide whether to search for additional information (or not). 

Joining the debate on #OECD report on students, computers and learning

While the latest 190 page OECD report on students, computers and learning: making the connection, made a lot of educators tows curl... Some extra debates started to emerge.

This debate embedded in the Open Education Europe, focuses on the main question: "Digital technology in schools is a 'benefit' or a 'burden'?". I do have some personal doubt when looking at the selection of questions provided by the survey people of this debate. Feels like an interpretation of an interpretation, but ... at least there is an incentive to take part in this debate. And I must say I applaud the debate.

The PISA test... sigh
What is our obsession with tests that almost drag all the possible contexts from the outcomes? IQ tests are most well-known for their lack of reliable results. They indicate a specific result from a personal context, and even then it still only shows one little niche of very interpretative results. We- as educators - know and understand the importance of context (long known evidence-based outcome for mobile learning, eLearning and now gradually entering the MOOC research as well), of language use, of how personal each of our learning journeys takes form. In a sense, we should know better then to construct a test that puts everyone in the same batch, and then believe in it to state those things that we think sound nice (however tempting that type of action is... I mean, saves time on reflecting, nuancing, evaluating... and all of these time-staking stuff). The PISA test does it all over again, and ... enters the OECD report as core element of proof leading to rigorous outcomes. Yes, the correlation monster pops up once again. PISA test is an in correlation resulting test. A brief resume on the PISA critique can be read in the Guardian or a nice list of educationalists that argued against using PISA here.

A teacher is more then one type of person
An interesting reaction is the call for more CPD of teachers. Although much of the results focus on outside classroom percentages (I am guessing in the next stage the family support will be targeted).
Of course debating the use or (ab)use of computers for education, has many similarities with use or (ab)use of mobile devices for learning/training, use or (ab)use of radio/television for educational purposes... even using books (whether it be e- or paper books) for education. Whichever one wants to learn is either actively learned by the learner, or ... taught (which simply is more passive in a first instance). And teaching means the person teaching specific content has a variety of media to choose from (or not), and s/he curates the content, reflects on how they want to teach it (or not). Teaching is making choices, and as such the choices made by a person stands on their own view of the world, their philosophical framework, their views on what teaching should be, and ... their present state of being (character, energy...).
The teacher is the curator and the deliverer. As such it is no surprise that all depends on the willingness and ability of the teacher. The howl to create and fund more continued professional development for teachers can be heard (technology is the main focus, but I would love to see pedagogy in each CPD, as the media also shapes the content). I like that demand, yet at the same time it means that teachers must be provided the necessary time and options to follow these CPD's. And - for those teachers that really appreciate the art of learning/teaching - that those CPD's are delivered in a nice, high-quality, non-belittling way. The remark I most often hear from teachers is: "This CPD must have been made by pedagogues, it is awful in approach as if we - teachers - are idiots.". Or, also heard often but from CPD providers: "we make it, but they will not come?!"... which takes me back to the beginning of the eLearning era, where countless lessons were produced, yet not followed.

The success of books/computers... and the learner
At the end of the day, I have the impression that all of us discuss along similar lines of those who came before us. In this report one wonders about the efficiency of providing computers to all students, but then again at an earlier point in history the provision of books to as many students as possible was also questioned: some students never read the books we provide, they do not want to learn from books, they do not know basic terms/literature ... Some learners will indeed seldom be inspired by passive delivery of content that might also be not of interest to them. Can you blame them? Or let me rephrase it, can you blame me for being a drop-out student for the biggest formal part of my education? Can you blame the almost proverbial Steve Jobs, Richard Branson for dropping out of formal education? Of course not. And are they good in maths, reading...? Yes, of course they are. Sometimes the dominant learning model (teaching model) that is used simply does not attract as many learners as it wished it would be. No matter which medium is used, which technology... always depending on all human beings involved. Diversity in approaches and media might be an option, but then again, taking the full context of each learner into account when looking at outcomes might result in stronger (yet much, much more complex) outcomes.
Would unschooling be an option, for some and depending on age and situation or type of knowledge, but possibly no one model will deliver for all students.

The best teachers are those who inspire, no matter which technology is used, no matter where they live and teach. The best learners are those who follow their dreams and learn to achieve them via their own trials and errors, media and connections (teachers, peers, role models). 

Some free reading from @RoutledgeBooks: chapters

With Routledge sharing some free chapters, it is easier (and more tempting) to choose some of their book titles. So gladly sharing the free online chapters Routledge is offering at this moment, or as they promote it:

We are pleased to bring you a selection of chapter compilations from our key book series.
Each compilation features a number of chapters from different titles within the series. The compilations give you an idea of the content and scope of the book series.
All of these compilations are free for you to view online.

Where to find these free chapters? Here.

The chapters can be easily read and shared , as the screen tool allows zooming in and out and a quick sharing option as well.

I am reading " The 'Turn to Gramski' in the English language" and one I really look forward to is a chapter from the book "New directions in the philosophy of education" series: chapter entitled: "the poeticization of culture", under the umbrella of 'truth and freedom'... intriguing. 

Module on open education: policy, accreditation by George Siemens #openEd

This is a course I saw passing by, that I just cannot keep in my mail box, as it might be of interest to many. It is however a paid for course organised by Athabasca University (yeah!). But if you are interested in a short cut to know all about open education through great content, shares, as well as direction and guidance by a great researcher: consider registering. From the mail:

This Fall 2015, the Centre for Distance Education will be offering the course MDDE 622: Openness in Education taught by CDE Faculty member Dr. George Siemens.  

Dr. Siemens is best known for his pioneering work on Connectivism, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and Learning Analytics.  He acts as the Associate Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University, has authored many books and articles including Knowing Knowledge and the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning, and is the founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research.  More recently, Dr. Siemens was invited to the White House to share his research on Innovation and Quality in Higher Education.  

More information about this exciting course can be found below.

MDDE 622: Openness in Education

Openness in content, data, government, and access is influencing organizations of all types. Education is influenced heavily: open educational resources and open teaching hold potential to disrupt the full spectrum of education: policy, learning development, delivery, and accreditation.

This course will offer a detailed overview of the history of openness in education, current trends including legal and technological developments, as well as future directions. Educators in all sectors (primary, secondary, and higher education), as well as administrators, will benefit from being well informed of trends and the organizational impact of open education.

Through review of literature, participation in group discussions, online lectures, and related open education resources, students will be able to:

1. Define openness in an educational context and describe its various instantiations in different educational sectors
2. Identify the potential of openness to contribute to systemic change in higher education and policy
3. Plan, search, deploy, and integrate open educational resources (OERs) from design to delivery phases of learning
4. Analyze current research views on how openness influences higher education enrolment, course design costs, and the distinctions between peer-developed resources (“crowd sourcing”) and centrally curated resources (expert).
5. Describe the history of openness in education (including early literature on open universities in the 1960’s) and detail the impact of technological developments on openness
6. Evaluate prominent intellectual property and copyright systems, detailing the influence of each on scholarship.

Students can register for this course online or by contacting the CDE office at mde@athabascau.ca . 

Have a great day!

Not open BJET issue on #MOOC disrupting teaching & learning in #HigherEd

The British Journal of Educational Technologies just published a Special Issue: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): ‘disrupting’ teaching and learning practices in higher education. The articles have been brought together by the wonderful academics Dick N'Gambi and VivienneVivienne. 

 The papers are of interest, unfortunately you need to pay for them or lend them at the least (thank you Stephen Downes for informing me, as I got access due to my OU account).

Here is the short list of article titles, with a multitude of interesting MOOC angles: assessment, engagement, methods, improving classroom instruction... The full set of articles with available html and pdf's can be found here.

1. Will MOOCs transform learning and teaching in higher education? Engagement and course retention in online learning provision (pages 455–471)
   

   Sara Isabella de Freitas, John Morgan and David Gibson

   Article first published online: 8 APR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12268
2. Massive open online courses (MOOCs): Insights and challenges from a psychological perspective (pages 472–487)
   

   Melody M Terras and Judith Ramsay

   Article first published online: 8 APR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12274
3. Methodological approaches in MOOC research: Retracing the myth of Proteus(pages 488–509)
   

   Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli, Stefania Cucchiara and Donatella Persico

   Article first published online: 25 MAY 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12279
4. What public media reveals about MOOCs: A systematic analysis of news reports(pages 510–527)
   

   Vitomir Kovanović, Srećko Joksimović, Dragan Gašević, George Siemens and Marek Hatala

   Article first published online: 6 APR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12277
5. Survey of learning experiences and influence of learning style preferences on user intentions regarding MOOCs (pages 528–541)
   

   Ray I Chang, Yu Hsin Hung and Chun Fu Lin

   Article first published online: 1 APR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12275
6. Experiential online development for educators: The example of the Carpe Diem MOOC (pages 542–556)
   

   Gilly Salmon, Janet Gregory, Kulari Lokuge Dona and Bella Ross

   Article first published online: 4 MAR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12256
7. Who are with us: MOOC learners on a FutureLearn course (pages 557–569)
   

   Tharindu Rekha Liyanagunawardena, Karsten Øster Lundqvist and Shirley Ann Williams

   Article first published online: 3 MAR 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12261
8. Digging deeper into learners' experiences in MOOCs: Participation in social networks outside of MOOCs, notetaking and contexts surrounding content consumption (pages 570–587)
   

   George Veletsianos, Amy Collier and Emily Schneider

   Article first published online: 25 MAY 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12297
9. E-assessment: Institutional development strategies and the assessment life cycle(pages 588–596)
   

   Carmen Tomas, Michaela Borg and Jane McNeil

   Article first published online: 17 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12153
10. A tool for learning or a tool for cheating? The many-sided effects of a participatory student website in mass higher education (pages 597–607)
    

    Tereza Stöckelová and Tereza Virtová

    Article first published online: 26 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12155

    video abstract
11. Bridging the research-to-practice gap in education: A software-mediated approach for improving classroom instruction (pages 608–618)
    

    Mark E. Weston and Alan Bain

    Article first published online: 27 MAR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12157
12. Pattern of accesses over time in an online asynchronous forum and academic achievements (pages 619–628)
    

    Luisa Canal, Patrizia Ghislandi and Rocco Micciolo

    Article first published online: 1 APR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12158
13. Technological utopia, dystopia and ambivalence: Teaching with social media at a South African university (pages 629–648)
    

    Patient Rambe and Liezel Nel

    Article first published online: 4 APR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12159
14. Assessment of children's digital courseware in light of developmentally appropriate courseware criteria (pages 649–663)
    

    Fathi Mahmoud Ihmeideh

    Article first published online: 21 APR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12163
15. Educational games based on distributed and tangible user interfaces to stimulate cognitive abilities in children with ADHD (pages 664–678)
    

    Elena de la Guía, María D. Lozano and Víctor M. R. Penichet

    Article first published online: 27 APR 2014 | DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12165