Intro to Educational Technology by Mike Sharples #EdTech

A nice overview of early educational technology presented by Mike Sharples, the pedagogical lead of FutureLearn and longtime EdTech researcher. The focus of this talk is first on technology for education, followed by zooming in on the learning bit of the EdTech, and at the end a brief look at evaluating learning.

The talk covers
One of the early Skinner linear behaviour teaching machines from the 1950's (with a link to FutureLearn remedial system).
A first example of a touch screen multimedia EdTech from the 1960's (including a blueprint from 1966 that shows an approach to sequenced multimedia tele-education offerings as can be seen in most major MOOC platforms, instructivist pedagogy: inform, test, explain).
A 1970's reference to the first AI driven tutorial machines (including the Dyna book, the inspiration of the tablet 40 years prior to the ipad; the Plato IV which was the forerunner of the one laptop per child idea - which also was the first network computer system), and also looking at Papert's first use of the logo programming for children idea to increase problem-solving skills (pdf of Mindstorms book). Interesting remark from Mike Sharples on Papert being dead against any guidance for children's learning, bit similar to what Sugata Mitra concluded from his Hole in the Wall project, illustrating the need for guidance to support exploration (done by children with technology).
1980's sees the launch of micro-computers (reference to BBC's first micro computer), commercial teaching coming in with multimedia personal computers.
1990's spread of online learning (VLE's, intelligent agents, integrated learning environments).
2000 search of mobile learning with contextual and seamless learning coming up (with a reference to handler, one of the first personal mobile learning devices, paper describing HandLeR here).

After this first part of the talk, the focus shifts to old/new learning starting in 1990 to 2010.
An important paper from Meltzoff, Kuhl, Movellan and Sejnowski (2009) describes the foundations for a new science for learning (pdf here). This paper is seen as a manifesto to see learning as a science, and no longer as a craft. It also brings together multiple disciplines that are all part of learning (neurology, machine learning, education, psychology).
Looking at 3 important learning theories: John Dewey with instrumentalism (inquiry led learning), Yrjo Engestrom with expansive activity theory (socio-constructivist learning) and Gordon Pask with conversation theory (coming to know through conversation and mutual adjustment, and a nice reference to wikipedia as an example of conversational theory). With a nice hint to the usefulness of the Experience and Education book by Dewey that you can use in almost any learning situation (pdf here). Part of the FutureLearn learning approach was based upon Pask's theory, which is why each bit of content in FutureLearn actually has an option to interact with others (or yourself) as part of a learning conversation.

Last bit of the talk: evaluating learning
Visible learning by Hattie (more info here), Hattie used meta studies to look at the effect size (whether a learning intervention has an effect) of different factors coming out of around 800 studies. He concluded that if you can make learning more transparent, more visible, the learning will have more effect.
Another nice resource mentioned here is the map of learning theories created by Richard Millwood (map link)

Link to the video below, and there is an upcoming talk - a follow-up on this talk that will be given this Thursday (20 October 2016) at the OU, UK.

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Call to action: academics should reclaim their voice in society, NOW

Enough is enough! Let's reclaim common ground, let's reclaim our voice in society!

These thoughts have been playing in my mind: why are academic voices hardly heard in contemporary societal debates? Why are there so many opinions, and so little facts? Why do we - as educators - promote lifelong learning, yet we are not reaching out to citizens in our own regions, nations, or across nations?

The reason why I ask these questions, is because I feel that a social world populated with superficial opinions is a world susceptible to populism, dichotomy ... and ultimately a mentally impoverished society. If we do not take action, than how can we take our societal role seriously. We, as scientists, as academics, as teachers have a huge societal goal.

I truly believe, that we - academics, educators, teachers - should start reclaiming our voice in society, in order to take back what we have lost: voices of reason, sound information (in all its nuanced diversity, not information delivered in black on white).

In this presentation I make a first attempt to organise my thoughts on the need to reclaim our voice in society. Let ourselves be heard across media, across groups and communities, across generations... in order to regain common sense and argument.

Academics should reclaim their voice in society, NOW! from Inge de Waard

#edenRW9 editors and the publishing process #papers

Question and answer session with editors, really great questions!

Question: Interesting question from Airina Volungeviciene whether the published research can be tagged in some way (like with xAPI or similar but than connected to bridge theory to practical) in order to see how applicable the research is, whether it is implemented and how. Some indicators to see the impact of science.  

No clear answer to that  from the editors (Dianne Conrad, Jill Buban, Josep Duart, Som Naidu) (yet). I would like to see this happen, also  in other areas. Aaron Silvers, what do you think would this be possible.

Question from Marti Cleveland-Innes: increasing fear for reviewing articles, editing journals… how can this become more possible given the increased time shortage. And can you give a notion of who reviews your articles, how do you choose reviewers.

Answer: (Diane Conrad) you hit the nail on the head, it is a major fallacy of peer-review. We rate reviewers and than evaluate whether they can stay on as reviewer. We assign 4 reviewers to every article (in the hope 2 will respond).

(Som Naidu): we are editors for our academic responsibility. And universities do not reward people for doing reviews! Academics might be given awards for that type of work. There is a process for each reviewer, and if reviewers do not respond than they come out. A full professor is the busiest, and they almost do not respond. So we choose reviewers who are early in their academic career.

(Josep Duart). We collect as much information as possible in terms of their expertise, so we have a good profile of them as academics in their field.

Question: George Veletsianos: could you give feedback to the authors on how to respond to ‘minor or major’ revisions.

Answer: (Diane Conrad) it is upon the reviewer to make sensible comments that support the review suggestion. The feedback needs to provide support for the decision made by the reviewer.

(Som Naidu) I look at the reports and filter them if they are too different before sending them to the author. And than provide the author with the option of what the author can do, making it possible to the author to enter into a constructive conversation.

Question: how can we get published

(Diane Conrad) Most common reasons for rejection:

Turn it in is used, and its reports.

We look at the scope of the research for the journal

Issue of the research with little importance, specifically to our readership

There is always something out there on any topic… never think there is not.  (we prescreen articles before sending them to reviewers)

Make an article understandable right from the abstracts. Abstracts should be written after the article, and be VERY precise, including the conclusions!

If the research is old, probably not accepted, use up to date research.

Use up to date literature

Do not republish, we have seen it before makes it unpublishable.

Question: how do you handle contradictory reviews

There always are more opinions, and it can be depressing to see how different equal experts give different reviews and decisions.

Each review is different, so as an editor I choose what goes out and what does not go out.

I consider the quality of the reviews, and the quality of the reviewer. I might send it to another reviewer, or take a personal decision as an expert myself (Diane)

If one decline is suggested by reviewers, I do not publish it.

Some reviews are not up to snuff, so I do look over the reviewer comments.

There are a lot of subjective components in the editorship. 

editors get not paid

#edenRW9 Community of Inquiry Framework: new directions and research opportunities

The slides can be found here : tinyurl.com/edenone

Great session focusing on Teacher presence (by MartiCleveland-Innes) and great idea of shared metacognition (by Randy Garrison).

Related to the Community of Inquiry model.

Marti Cleveland-Innes speaks on Community of Inquiry which can be used as a model for different educational settings, both digital and physical.

Interesting idea of moving from teaching to teacher presence, where each one of us can be the teacher in a community.

Context is changing, this means roles are changing. This is more about teaching and learning, making a transition like this can make a significant contribution to the higher educational reform.

Student demographics will change, and with different characteristics. The employment factory demands different graduates (or with other skills).

Pressure on higher ed is not about technology, it is a matrix and technology has an effect on the whole society. The pressure on higher ed is higher than at any other given moment in time.

We are teaching students that are no longer living under the same conditions as when the educational institutes were set up.

CoI is all about creating an educational experience, which can help us with some of the contemporary conditions and pressures.

Drivers for higher education change: the ed institutes need to morph into the current challenges. We shall all be engaging and learning with others collaboratively.

Teaching presence: the design and organisation , facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes to realize personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes. The opportunities for students to participate in each of these components of teaching presence. We can empower the learners and engage them in a way that are meaningful to them.

The best way to measure whether these elements were present or not. There are 4 design and organisation factors: communicating important course topics, clearly communicate important course goals, provide clear instructions on how to participant in course learning activities, communicate… (see slide)

Facilitation is key… identifying areas of agreement and disagreement, guiding the class towards understanding, keep course participants engaged and participating in constructive dialogue, explor new concepts, reinforced the development of a sense of community.

Direct instruction: focus discussion on relevant issues, help to understand strengths and weaknesses, provide feedback in a timely fashion.

Teaching teaching presence: faculty needs to learn, and be given the opportunity to understand the learning. Learning how to teach is through teacher presence, by teaching. The CoI model serves as course design and delivery. Pedagogy involves observing and modelling the online teaching practices of expert distance educators. A high-tech, high-touch approach provides the most effective means of assuring quality student learning and satisfaction.

Translation into practice: critical to impact on higher ed reform is that students will be enabled to play a more active role (purposeful) and faculty realise this. Make students participate in teacher presence, in teaching. Sharing teaching is the most important part of the Community of Inquiry, as well as being emotionally present.

Shared metacognition (Randy Garrison talking)

Thinking and learning collaboratively. Metacognition is central to Inquiry.

Regulating learning (between cognitive and teaching presence) is the situated area for metacognition.

Goal of CoI is constructing another level of awareness.

Explicitly recognizing co-regulating of metacognition, and individual as well as shared learning processes.

Self- and co-regulated functions, each of which include monitoring and managing cognitive and teaching responsibilities. (Inge note: I realllly like this!!!). Shared metacognition.

They did a construct validation pilot study, data from 167 participants, from a 54 item questionnaire. In the final questionnaire the elements were reduced from 54 to 26 items.

Two factor solution analysis was used (looking it up), followed by a four factor analysis conducted to extract monitoring and management subcomponents. Big challenge to separate monitoring from management. Look up references from Garrison and Akyol (2011, 2013, 2015).

Randy promotes shared metacognition as an interesting future research topic.

The questionnaire was built coming from the CoI model. Now, I want to connect to Randy (remark from myself).

#edenRW9 A scholarly life online @veletsianos

Finally, I got to meet George Veletsianos (http://www.veletsianos.com/) and the pleasure of hearing his keynote liveblog from EDENRW9. 

open/social/digital scholarship: how does that influence each of our professional practice?

But we as academics are not only online for professional reasons, we are also humans with lives... online. 

Digital residents (individuals that consider the web of part of their live), digital visitors (those who use the web to engage in a particular activity, more practical, less part of life). 

So different people use the web for different purposes in different ways. 

What: share information, collaborative authoring, post draft papers, author open textbooks, open teaching, public P&T materials, crowdsourcing... not always rewarded by the institutes for putting or working online, but the mindset is changing. Online participation is becoming more encouraged by institutes (opportunity). 

Institutions and academics are still looking at social media in different ways.  Social media activities are rife with tensions, dilemmas, and conundrums. 

acceptable identity fragments (Kimmons & Veletsianos, 2016) https://royalroads.academia.edu/GeorgeVeletsianos 

Academics filter their posts to cater to specific groups.... (inge remark: this also means less overlap is happening, so less potential stepping stones). 

Disclosures might be tactical: political, encouraging reflection (Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016). 

When institutions view social media with a functional perspective.. they become part of an audit culture, and a complex data assemblage that confronts the individual academic (burrows, 2012). 

So what does it mean to look at academic impact through social media (see paper on twitter).

A scholarly life online from George Veletsianos

#edenRW9 Studying learning expeditions in cross action spaces with digital didactical designs

Isa Jahnke (http://www.isa-jahnke.com/ ) is an inspiring academic, and one who knows how to network.

Liveblogging from Oldenburg, Germany.

@isaja

Who is using a device with internet access? That is cross action spaces… when you tweet content is used to link to other people in other spaces, to learn from.

Human interaction is crossaction… multiple spaces. Conversations go from network to network to network. Humans connect across locations/spaces virtual or physical.

This crossaction can also be done in classrooms. About 20 years ago, school was the place to learn. Now with these crossaction spaces learning is opened up from classrooms only.

Learners apply classroom themes into the material world, in which they are living. So the outside comes into classroom and from classroom to other spaces.

What is learning:

Reflective doing of multiple crossactions

Reflective performance of crossactions

Reflective communication

Theoretical lens:

Learning is embedded in a bigger organisational framework.

It is not only about teacher student, it is about learning goals, institutional strategies, curricula, academic staff development...

Digital didactical design has 5 components to study about 80% of what is happening in the classroom:

learning activities,

assessment

learning outcomes

social relations

web-enabled technologies

She investigated 64 classes to see where these classes were in the 5 layered framework. This position in the framework, enabled to identify where problems arose. 

The patterns provided meaningful interpretations into the inner/outer classroom actions. 

The university of the future is made of those crossaction spaces, in which teaching is organised in project teacher teams across existing disciplines

teacher teams from different departments work together and design a learning expedition and the students develop learning expeditions, learning by topic and not by the subject. 

Have a look at her book!

Digital Didactical Designs, published by Routledge

 https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Didactical-Designs-Teaching-CrossActionSpaces/dp/1138928496 

#EDENRW9 The increasing im-possibilities of justice and care in open distance learning

Paul Prinsloo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-prinsloo-226a8716) was looking particularly good this morning in his light blue jacket and his radiant presence. And what he said hit home! Really great presentation.

Liveblogging what he said here. (@14prinsp ) slides on slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/prinsp/the-increasing-impossibilities-of-justice-and-care-in-open-distance-learning ).

Achieving justice and care was a concern from early on in distance education. Spending time and resources to take down barriers. AT this point in time, the opportunities for justice and care have grown over the years. On the other hand the impossibilities for justice and care have seen new challenges arise.

Intergenerational weight, colonialism, … education is often seen as a key initiative to counter these. Yet, challenges arise against the belief that education and equality is possible. All of societies problems cannot be addressed or erased by education. Students need to be made aware of what education entails from the start to be able to attain access to higher education. Access to education is not enough.

Ethics of care is essential to create equality.

Government subsidies have tumbled while student numbers rose in South Africa.

The amount of funding spend per students are decreasing (see slides).

The problem lies in completion rates of undergraduate degrees, not only on completing individual courses.

In DE there is still this grey area of not knowing where it will take us, what student success entails.

Education is not broken, and technology cannot mend it. Paul believes advances in tech, AI, machine learning can address some of the challenges we face. But what are the conditions. Paul refers to the chatbot, a female chatbot to support students and answer their questions.

AI can get awfully wrong. Can robot replace teachers? It does allow for some light relieve, but it might also endanger jobs. If we consider the role of AI, algorithms to change education, where equity, equality is reached, than what this imply: cost, access, quality and care.

How do we talk about university care with top ranking of universities, the rankings increase marginalisation of knowing. Most of the people are still offline. See most recent report of the Worldbank (http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2016 ).

Can we increase access, maintain quality and address the issue of cost through implementation of these new techs? Student data is the contemporary greatness… our obsession with metrics turn academics/researchers into data drones. Students and surveillance. What could we learn of tracking everyone? How much more student data do we need to move to justice and care? How much is enough data to achieve justice and care?

Will having access to more data answer challenges? Knowing more about our students does not, necessarily, result in understanding. Can we respond in appropriate ways?

We need to realise that our digital lives are more than the clicks. Data does not exist without assumptions, data have contexts, and it impacts on the integraty of data. Knowing what is happening, does not say why things are happening. We do not even have the time to think about why it is happening. Biesta quote (in slides).

Correlation is not causation. 

We need to be careful with accountability and AI. 

HOw can we use algorithms to structure a learning journey, allocation of resources, addressing inter-generational disadvantage? Red-lining?

What are the implications of tech to the justice and care for open distance learning to actually remove barriers and to reach more justice and care. 

People should know who makes algorithms, what it implies, to question conclusions, to have access, to opting out or in, to keep ethical oversight of all these possibilities. 

The increasing (im)possibilities of justice and care in open, distance learning from prinsp

#edenRW9 Tweaking facilitator focus in MOOCs changes course dynamic dramatically

Martha Cleveland Innes from Athabasca University (yeah!!!) talks about MOOC

MOOCs are part of educational reform.

She looks at the drivers for higher education and change, and looking at those will (hopefully) make. This is a liveblog from EDEN research workshop 9. 

Everything we are doing, online, offline in our universities, MOOCs… are all part of pressure for change and it is greater than any the university has faced in any previous history.

Athabasca is a reformed university working to maintain and fullfil the iron triangle, which also includes pedagogical quality.

Iron triangle: three components of higher ed that is a good for society: access, quality, affordability and cost-effectiveness. (Daniel, Kanwar and Uvalie-trumble, 2009)

Whatever the response we get from higher ed on MOOCs, never before in history have so many learners are following all these courses. But can MOOCs help us with educational reform.

AU MOOC advisory group mandate:

·        Create and provide an expert, evidence-based assessment of and a critical academic and practical voice on MOOC issues to our local, national and international networks

·        Determine direction regarding the assignment of credit for individuals who participate in MOOCs

·        Support those interested in constructing an AU version off a MOOC, where such an endeavor will continue our mandate.

·        Observe, document, measure analyze and disseminate MOOC experience.

MOOC research initiative at AU selecting MOOC research initiatives.

Results from ensuring quality and scale impact for MOOCs.

Learning to learn online (www.ltlo.ca) was the MOOC to focus on. 5 week MOOC, launched 9 March 2015, given on Canvas LMS, designed for both new and experienced learners (community based education). Learner-centered.

Key question: is it possible to maintain the access and affordability offered by MOOCs while completing the education iron triangle which requires pedagogical quality as well.

3 levels o instruction: one flat instruction (video), an inspirer starts and ends the week through inspiring, and supporters (students in DE, to support, guide, offer assistance). The completion rates were similar to other MOOCs, regardless of the pedagogical choices. They ran it a second time, due to the quality experience it gave. The second time there were only 4 facilitators, not 10 and the focus of the facilitators was to connect leaners. This lead to a much higher social interaction between student-to-student interactions. Just by tweaking the facilitator focus, the course dynamic changed dramatically (in this case for the positive).

interviews were done with specific students, these qualitative data showed

Also have a look at telmooc.org 

Yes! #PhD written... looking for joyful bliss once more

So, this is it. My thesis is submitted and it will now be wrapped and sent out to my examiners. For anyone interested, you can read the thesis here. The full title: self-directed learning of adult experienced online learners enrolled in FutureLearn MOOCs

Emerging from my last two months of seemingly living in total isolation, it looks like the world has changed while I was reflecting, discussion, investigating the studies for my PhD. I have grown wiser, and become more aware of the fact that the more I learn, the less I know. Unfortunately, it also seems I lost some of my playful self… I am hoping it will come back as my mind rejuvenates after having typed for weeks on end. John Traxler commented on that seemingly loss of joyful bliss, and he was right. I have become less joyful, less open these last few weeks. Ciska found out the hard way yesterday. She opened my thesis looking forward to what I had written to thank her… and only found the briefest of dedications at the beginning of my thesis (I admit shamefully). My justification was that I wanted to keep it ‘formal’… I was wrong, of course, formality never helped anyone. I should have know better, as research is not void from passion. Indeed, I think no meaningful research can be done without passion being at the root of it. So I vowed to make it up to her and put in a full dedication in the final open to the public version of my thesis (for those interested, you can read it in the first pages of my thesis). If you have a family, and any member is starting a PhD, you can rest assured that all of the family is enrolled in this reflective journey, and I am truly grateful that Ciska and Isaak are on my side, ready for any adventure.

"Any thoughts?", asked a friend while I was off to submit my thesis…. Yes, these: a PhD is in a way a socialization. I now know what it means to make words look like evidence and not only use the evidence, but deliver it in a way that is agreed upon academically. It is good that no facts are facts, but only free for interpretation, and that these interpretations demand rationales. I learned a lot along the way: building and evaluating methods, grounding emerging facts in theories, writing, structure, deepen understanding by discussing data, theories and wild options. Researching in a strong academic institute such as IET certainly helps to become a mentally enriched academic. But above all, I think that academic excellence is vastly improved if you have strong, experienced supervisors. I was lucky enough to have two inspiring, intellectually tough and constructive supervisors: MikeSharples (the visionary academic lead of FutureLearn) and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (renowned mobile learning expert).

And now… off to find a new challenge. While reviewing as well as writing some papers, giving some talks and getting back in touch with playfulness.... oh wait, quickly adding the abstract to my thesis below:

This research investigates the informal learning journeys of 56 experienced adult online learners engaging in individual and/or social self-directed learning using any device to follow a FutureLearn course. Literature from MOOCs, mobile and informal learning is provided as background, as well as literature clarifying the rational for choosing self-directed learning compared to similar learning concepts (self-regulated, self-determined and self-managed learning).
The participants of this study voluntarily followed one of three FutureLearn courses that were rolled out for the first time late 2014. The data were collected at three different stages: an online survey (pre-course), self-reported learning logs (during the course), and semi-structured one-on-one interviews (post-course). The data were analysed using Charmaz’s (2014) method for constructing a grounded theory. The analysis included memo-writing, and involved open coding, line-by-line coding, and focused coding in order to construct a grounded theory that provided insights into the self-directed learning experiences of FutureLearn participants.
Based on the experience of the FutureLearn participants five main learning components emerged: individual & social learning, context, technological and media elements, organising learning, and learner characteristics. Further analysis revealed two key enablers/inhibitors for the FutureLearn experience: motivation and learning goals. Motivation was mostly intrinsic in nature, and the learning goals mostly personal. Although these components, and the two key impacting factors, are common to most types of learning, the informal nature of the FutureLearn courses together with the FutureLearn platform characteristics provided specific differences in the actions undertaken by the FutureLearn participants to self-direct their learning.
By getting a better understanding of the self-directed learning in FutureLearn courses, additional insights are gained regarding informal learning, instructional design, continued professional development with MOOCs, and on how to contextualize or personalise course content in order to obtain increased learner engagement.

2 day online seminar (fee): explore opportunities for data & analytics #data

The eLearning Guild is organizing a two day online seminar on 21 - 22 September 2016 on the opportunities for data and analytics within the eLearning industry. The standard rate is 395 $, but there are discounts available (e.g. academics, non-profits, government: 35% discount). When looking at the full summit program you will see that the organizers provide a nice balance between technology, usability and theoretical frameworks on the subject.

There is a considerable amount of buzz in our industry surrounding data. Data continues to multiply, and so does the processing power available for analytics and interpretation. People are grappling with making sense of it all. At the Data & Analytics Summit, we’re inviting leaders from the data and analytics space (Ellen Wagner, Aaron Silvers & Megan Bowe, George Siemens, JD Dillon, MJ Bishop, Sean Putman, Tim Martin and a panel session putting data into perspective chaired by David Kelly) to explore the questions that our industry is struggling to answer and provide clarity around what we’re doing today and what’s possible for tomorrow. Each speaker session is about 60 min long, including Q&A. 

This Summit aims to give you a better understanding of the relationships between data and content, show you how to make data actionable within your organization, and prepare you to take advantage of the new opportunities that data is going to open up for learning in the future.