Does blended learning increase student results? Yes, a case from the Tilburg University

During the innovation day at the university of Ghent, one of the speakers got my attention. Bob van den Brand from the Uni of Tilburg spoke about his experience in increasing student success thanks to blended instruction that was researched at the university of Tilburg.

The Uni of Tilburg (netherlands) had a challenge: big aula's who were populated with learners that were sometimes interested and showed attention, but most of the times the aula's were populated with a vast amount of bored learners. So Bob started looking for solutions that could get students interested again, and... if possible increase their grades while implementing the new techniques. And... it worked, after embedding web-lectures, web-excercises and video's into his lectures, an additional 15% of the students passed their exams.

His topic: accounting (no wonder students fall asleep! *joking, sorry nephew of mine*)
They tried out several strategies and looked at the results
First strategy: record everything and stream it.... it was okay, but this does not change the actual learning problems students can have.
Second strategy: only deliver movies from MAX 10 minutes, this had a positive effect.
Third strategy: he wanted to capture the attention of the students by using examples outside of the course, providing them to the students for individual or peer learning, and then focusing on questions and problems during the face-to-face sessions. And this strategy got 15% more students succeeding the exam.

Some hints he gives:
He is a firm believer in variation! Only with true variation (not simple details that change, but complete rethinking a concept angle).
The learning blocks need to be short as possible (which is liked by the students).
Give the students an extra if they create something: the students also had the possibility of getting bonus points/grades if they provided examples themselves (original examples).

Students could also access the exams afterwards, and look at them, which created an extra learning moment.

He suggests to start with small bitesize content: short, efficient and with a variety.
His format was a variety of online delivered content and actions, his blended approach:
web-lectures
web-tutorials
web-tests
web-consulting
live streaming

All of these five different stages got students more actively involved in the courses.

As an example of being creative and use variety, he mentioned that he did a bit on accounting while using Manchester United as the company to analyse.

Web-lectures e.g.:
All the movies were to the point (no polite intro's), integrated in LMS, with slides or relevant graphs.
In some web-lectures, the teacher wrote (digital pen) on the documents, to increase actual learning/teaching feeling.

web-consulting sessions: freely knitted with the other content. These sessions are meant to get questions and synchronous discussions going.

As a result of this research, he got an award in excellence in innovative learning award.

Tried to find some lecture content, but could not find it.

Vleva congres: Roger Blamire from European Schoolnet gives his view on eLearning needs

Nice man, with a suite (no tie).

This is a live blogpost, so forgive the possibly quick sentences and crooked words.

European Schoolnet (30 European Ministries and regions), not part of the European commission. So, interested of working with regions, so Welsh, Flanders, Bask, who knows might also include Roma ... people, get in contact with Roger.

He gives an overview of European Schoolnet (e-safety, school networking, interoperability (! like Surfnet I guess but then European!).

eTwinning: 100.000 schools are ready for eTwinning. It is about improving learning by the use of technology.

Lists some of the inhibitors to eLearning

• disparity in curriculum and various cross-curricular approaches
• difficulty to assess these skills
• difficulty to shift culture of teachers , training of teachers (! chance for funding project)
• lack of new pedagogical models (! chance for funding project)
• parents expectations - more technology but conservative approach to school organization.

the rise of informal learning as an excellent learning outcome (also gives teachers much more time to focus on the extra's, not the basics). (note: all for that! more learning out of class).

Roger gives two examples on mainstreaming eLearning

iTEC: classroom of the future: it was a scalable, large, mainstreamed practices that worked (1000 classrooms), which helped in getting funding. The program is completely online.

core: scenarios of future classrooms, high reactivity (rapid prototyping, with speeded up feedback loop), it is scalable and the teacher is at the center (teachers own the activities, choose the technologies, a bit like out of a toolbox (!) and social networking).

second example: EUN-Acer netbook project . Looks at one to one computing in a number of countries.
This example was clearly company pushed, but interesting: understand how learners and teachers use netbooks in various educational contexts. An interesting issue here is privacy, what about the learner privacy and ethics... who is in charge of children’s lives if they work at all times on it?
Learning, work, spare time... the boundaries blur.

Games become part of the technology driven schools of the future (paraphrases Obama). The effect of educational games is important and substantial, so it is a trend to follow and research up close. He has 15 recommendations on games for education.

roger (dot) blamire (at) eun (dot) org
or twitter: @rblamire

Vleva Europe: eLearning the grand challenge, some ideas that were mentioned and funding tips

Interesting tip: Vleva funding guide: 'uw snelweg naar Europese subsidies: contact subsidieteam (at) vleva (dot) eu of 02/7371430 of via website: www.vleva.eu/subsidiewijzer/

(Gode)lieve van den Brande (ICT and education, spec. lifelong learning, funding possibilities)
godelieve (dot) van-den-brande (at) ec.europa.eu

Lieve is a presenter who directs herself only to one part of the audience (on her right side), but she is a fluent speaker. She wears a nice green dress and she will share her presentation afterwards (I will keep you posted once it is shared).

The text below is part of live blogging, so it might be a bit rough on the edges (rapid, live typing).

points out the shift towards Learning Society, she says the learners are pushing the shift towards the digital world.
Mentions the 'new millennium learners': who are they, what are the competencies they need... close to 2020, for this also includes the skills we will need for our jobs.

The last 7 - 8 years there was a decline in eLearning initiatives, because educational institutions could not attain the expectations from research. She says that ICT is not yet been absorbed by teaching and learning.
It is not because someone is a digital literate, it will also be an effective learner. She pushes the idea that it is the task of the educational institutions and schools to teach the learners how to get the newly needed competencies and in order to do this, the teachers need to alerted, need to be motivated to get into it as well.

Like her e-maturity approach for schools, institutes and teachers. And she emphasizes crucial importance of teacher skills development.

She gives the European Policy Framework overview, which triangulates research, innovation and education. She also mentions the Europe2020 plans for education.

She emphasizes: leadership and institutional change, digital competences, professional development, learner-centered approaches.

2015 huge need of eLearning (65% ?), competent people - yes this is the future, (note from myself: if you are looking for a job, re-school yourself to become digital competent, and get your profile out there).

digital competencies are currently not in the curricula, so how are we going to fix this? she asks.

A new policy agenda: Europe 2020
Education training is considered as a central pillar for future growth, social cohesion, competitiveness. In order to do this, we need to keep investing in the way education training happens, also in how the learning/teaching process can be innovated.
We need to attack: drop out, quality in education, equity in education. We need to see how member states take up these suggestions (these targets are not mandatory).

Digital literacy needs to be lifted for all. And we need to see how new technologies enhance the education for all.

She mentions that the universities, high schools are also not yet e-mature, similar in other training areas.

Looking for a generic model that would set up a roadmap for digital competence, in order to integrate it in curricula outcomes. Not mandatory, but suggested by EU.
Mentions peer-to-peer learning and says that the EU will make an effort to go further then counting the number of pc's in a class, but really go to capture the actual learning that is taking place in the classroom.

in 2020: strategic challenges: quality & efficiency: lifelong learning and mobility (equity and citizenship) and innovation and creativity (including entrepreneurship).

initiative taking, problem based learning, languages... having positive impact on learning and learning outcomes. We need to show it has that value in using digital competencies and exchanging that with each other.

Lifelong learning program: 2010: key activity 3 innovative practices and exchanges around the use of ICT in the Lifelong learning program! (deadline by the end of March). Go to the site to see the projects in this field and mainstreaming programs (also under Comenius and Erasmus).
(she also mentions eTwinning, but will be mentioned in the next post with Roger)

Wonders if there is occurring any learning in the informal learning environments like social media? Of course! But, the fact that she mentions this, could mean that projects with this in mind would have a bigger success to get funding.

She concludes with a clear request to share our - teachers, experts - thoughts with EU to collaboratively work towards 2020.

Blogphilosophy: ageism in #education

Ageism is one of the big taboos in Western society. We have huge prejudices towards people with a certain age.
The remarkable side of this prejudice is that it occurs in an era where the population’s average age is getting older by the year. And although we are all getting older, we – older people (= which age do you feel ageism kicks in? I think it comes too early) are confronted by ideas embedded in Western culture. Ideas that are unsubstantiated at that.

This is no different in education. In fact mainstream education is/was a bastion of ageism.
Let me list the first 5 prejudice mindsets that come to mind:

1. You go to school from X to X, x being <25.>As if we all are flabbergasted by the knowledge provided by the educational institutes for people of that age, or as if we knew what was going on at 20 (well, I did not). We only start to learn at that age (at best).
2. The older you get the less you can learn: if you agree with this, get a life! Experts are formed through ongoing learning processes ;
3. PhD’s are mostly young graduates: well, I am putting myself up to tackle that one.
4. The digital native – digital immigrant discourse: oh please, try to sell that to my mom, she would shoot you with her WII gun.
5. Old professors or famous people good (let’s shake hands and take a picture), old people stupid (let’s just avoid talking to them all together).

I wonder, is Roger’s diffusion of innovation theory ever tested throughout age groups of different (early adopters, laggers…) groups of techy people? If not, I will do it, I will research it and yes my hypothesis is: once an early adopter, always an early adopter (looking at my auntie Anna, who shook like a maple leaf all of the time; we used her multiple times as a sugar shaker for pancakes... yes, we did, but more importantly, she learned Italian via CD's at age 90).

So please let us really disrupt education, cut down educational ageism barricades in the process and lift a new open minded Phoenix out of its ashes. Education is build by all of us, not just the young one’s, we as older educationalists either uphold the conservative paradigm of ‘my young assistants - best assistants, for they do not contradict me as older one's would’, or we shatter it, exchange notes and embrace openness, all ages and willingness.

(Another great cartoon by Nick D Kim: http://www.lab-initio.com/)

Glasses do tell - part 1: Asimov on personal learning for all ages

A couple of years ago I needed a new pair of glasses, I wanted BIG, as everyone else was wearing them small, really small, like tiny.
Ever since I purchased my BIG pair of glasses, I have been seeing people wearing my glasses as well but in different decades, and... all of a sudden it dawned on me that I sometimes share some of their ideas. So is there some magic in the purchase of glasses? Yes, it must be!

In this movie Isaac Asimov talks about personal learning, and how computers enable one on one learning for the many. He also emphasizes the importance of looking at learning as something that is done througout life, and how computers help with it. Well, we now know these facts are true, but... nice to hear him tell it. I like the fact that he combined the scientific (biochemistry), with the creative (writing).

Preparing a massive open online course on mLearning, balancing old and new thinking

A couple of weeks ago I started to structure an idea I had on organizing an MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the subject of mLearning. It will be an open and free course, so anyone with an interest in mobile learning can join, the course will be in English and incorporate a lot of social media that is accessible via smartphones, tablet pc's and computers. It will emphasize the possibilities of using mobile devices for educational or training purposes (basic cell-phones, to smartphones, mp3 players, tablet pc's,...). As such it will be of use to anyone who thinks: "If I only knew how mobile learning can work in my setting, then I would make a mLearning project and just do it!". mLearning can fit corporate training, k12 education, lifelong learning and of course as we see on a daily basis across the world: in regional and non-profit or ngo-settings.

In the next couple of weeks I will post about the process, and some of my thoughts as I build the course. At this point in time I did create online sites (twitter, facebook, google group, ...) to create an open (and free) course environment. I will list all of these web-spaces once I have added a bit more information on them AND once the facilitators are lined up (just started to contact some really great mobile savants!). The date will follow later as well, but ... we are well on our way.

So what is a MOOC? Look at the movie from the wonderful Dave Cormier to get an idea of what it is.

The MOOC is an idea that was put forward by Stephen Downes and George Siemens, they looked further then the boundaries of their institutes and put a course on the web that could be followed by everybody who could connect to the Internet. The MOOC courses tend to be chaotic, but at the same time energizing. One of the sad things however is that a lot of participants drop out of the MOOCs for a variety of reasons, although many of them expressed enthusiasm for the course.
This posed a couple of learning philosophy problems, as I was looking to find a way where old school instructional design could meet socio-constructivist learning/teaching.

So I got my first challenge: can a massive, open, online course be organized on the topic of mLearning, which would be able to keep more participants motivated and not drop out? Can participants be extra motivated to not only follow the course, but also engage in a minimum set of activities which would result in a stronger networking and connecting amongst participants?

This is what I think might help to achieve this goal:

Be really clear on the learning goal of the course, and connect it to a set of guidelines for activities from which the participants can choose, in this case a participant can choose to be active in 3 different ways: lurking (the most passive, but nevertheless learning), an intermediate, active participant (engages only on some occasions), and an active participant (who engages in at least 2/3 of the course's topics or modules and works on an overall knowledge activity).
Mix learning philosophies: balance a more classic, structured instructional design approach, with the more open socio-constructionalist learning view. Why? To hopefully build a learning environment that might connect closer to each of the participants learning knowledge (by creating clear learning objectives and offer learning activities), yet at the same time allow contextualized and personalized knowledge creation to occur (each participant engages with the other participants to collectively and collaboratively construct their own learning which suits their own teaching/learning need in the topic of mLearning).
Give those participants that are really active something extra once they have concluded the course by participating in 2/3 of the course (ah, are not you wondering what they will get?).

Linda Venter and El-Marie Mostert from the University of Pretoria send me a wonderful resource to get me back on track with basic instructional design and all its features: NetNet's guide to Internet Course Design and Development.

#html5 and #augmented reality combined into a great music clip by the Black Eyed Peas

So, yes, I think html5 is quite innovative and augmented reality is as well, but .... here come the Black Eyed Peas with an incredible fabulous iPhone application that puts you - as a music listener - in the middle of their video-clip (great tip from Gary Woodill, thx!).

Will.I.Am from the BEPs surely knows how to take technology to the next artistic level! And I must say that this is again an illustration how art can lead the way for education.

Just imagine that you open up your smartphone or tablet and you want to learn about the battle at Waterloo where Napoleon got his bottom kicked. Not only could you now enter that battle field, BUT you could also see how Napoleon got defeated and what tactics were used ... all the while you could look at the battle in 360 degrees, simply by rotating your smartphone or table. Now how cool is that!

If you want to get a feel of what they did and you have an iPhone, rush to the iTunes store and search for the BEP360 (Black Eyed Peas 3D 360 application) and put it on your iPhone (it does cost 0.79 cents).
If you don’t have an iPhone, you can see the effects of the new 3D app in the embedded video demo as well.

Ohohhhhooohhooooowwwww, sometimes I wish I would know some of the great visionary artists!

html5 is growing, and this looks like a good e/mLearning solution

The new Rapid Intake mLearning studio looks like it's on its way to become a great authoring tool for all of us who are into ubiquitous learning.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of talking to David Blakely from Rapid Intake solutions. Rapid Intake is company that thrives on its dynamic developers and it shows. They have focused their recent energy on coming up with an authoring tool that allows instructional designers to deliver content across multiple devices while keeping the same content logic, though formatting the content towards the device that is connecting to that content. You can follow them on twitter via @rapidintake.

For those of you who want to take a look at the Rapid Intake mLearning studio, or Rapid Mobile, feel free to take a look at a course example and how it tailors itself to the device that is connecting to it. You can ask for a demo, or get on their mLearning mailing list, so you will be the first to know when they launch this html5/flash authoring tool to the big public!

The tool uses html5 whenever a mobile device connects to the content. They are testing it on android2.2 (galaxy tab, smartphones), iPad and iPhone, and a blackberry version will follow at a later stage. The great thing about this authoring tool is that the developer only has to author one time, once the learners uses the course the device will get the output that fits its specifics. The learners on desktops will see the application in flash, the others on html5. The tool also allows a lot of personalization, which is great for designers.

Additionally, it is scorm comformant, so you can bookmark, which makes it ideal for ubiquitous learning as it memorises where you - as a learner - where looking at the content, so if afterwards you connect to it with another device, it immediately recalls what you have seen and which answers you gave. You can also deliver it to any scorm LMS.

Although the tool will only be launched in March 2011, I had the pleasure of playing around with it (desktop, iPhone and Android running 2.3). Swiping moves the learner from page to page and it works smoothly. At this point in time they have only enabled a couple of templates (text, video, picture and a couple of quizes), but it looks great already. Possibility to add a page narration as well, which is nice. The example course ran smoothly and wonderfully on my desktop, iPad and iPhone, but it was not completely running as it should on my Android phone. Nevertheless, they still have 2 months to get everything up to speed and ... it is really worth a look. This tool will save me a lot of developing time, so yes, I will keep an eye out for when it launches in March.

#LAK11 the #semantic web and how the intelligent curriculum will enhance our learning

This week was rather busy, developing an online mobile course that will be open to all, following LAK the open course on learning analytics and finalizing a needs assessment, on top of regular work. But! The LAK content keeps intriguing. This week's content focused on the semantic web, linked data and intelligent curriculum.

Intelligent curriculum: or how data analysis will tailor content to the learner
The topic that struck me the most in this weeks LAK-topic was the idea of an intelligent curriculum. Just imagine that all the data that you - as a learner or knowledge worker - go to, examine, read, ... are analyzed and put against the content of the rest of the Web? And just think that an algorithm is put upon that data to see which content might be of use to you, but really of use to you... that would certainly enhance in-depth learning in your field of preference.

So the screening of data would result in immediate relevant content (which affects what needs to be learned, as old/new knowledge can change rapidly). Professional learners will be able to get to relevant up-to-date information much quicker.

The benefits for learning are enormous: it would not only provide me with personalized, tailored content that fits my current hunger for knowledge, it would also allow me to stay in close contact with those who provide that information and share it amongst those who have a similar interest (if an algorithm would keep track of who has similar interests, or who is close to the content I go to). This would have an effect on my (and others) professional networks, for the professional groups will shift from a more localized network to real global networks that learn through connectivity (well, most of us do this already, but professional groups that link up will become more important and most of all attainable).

Semantic course: the course wraps itself around the learner
We - as educators or trainers - might even be in the possibility of creating a course which redesigns itself depending on the prerequisites and skills of a particular learner, thus giving her/him a much smoother learning path, without leaving the learning objective itself.

Moving away from old-fashioned classrooms divided by age, going for skills and enthousiasm classes
This approach of semantic learning might even take us out of the artificially divided classrooms. If we could cater lessons to a variety of learners, they would not be put into classes depending their age, but depending their ability to grasp what is necessary, or depending on their eagerness into specific subject matter.

Creating research proposals in a jiffy
It will also facilitate research: just imagine, that you want to launch a new project in your scientific field? You need to write a proposal, and with an algorithm (AI friend) which searches in your scientific field (e.g.) scholar.google and cross-references this to the data bank of EU/WHO or B.& B. Gates foundation for funding that was granted... you could be on your way to get a funded post-doctorate or project going with much more ease.

Corporate intake: Bert De Coutere launches use cases based on learning analytics
Bert who works at IBM and comes up with great learning strategies and educational games, launched an interesting concept which fits learning analytics. This is what he proposed to enhance learning performance: OK, I'll try one again. Does anyone else feel comfortable adding some use cases as we go along in this course?

The use case:
A young manager quarterly runs a tool to picture his social network, as part of his continuous leadership development. Data mining has shown that successful leaders in his corporation typically have 1/3 of their network amongst subordinates, 1/3 with other managers on the same level, and 1/3 higher up the chain. The tool allows the young manager to see the evolution in his network and get some action points to move it to the desired state.

The semantic web
The semantic web is growing, and it effects all of us who search for content or other things in the vast amount of digital data that is on the web.

• Semantic Web: An Introduction: http://infomesh.net/2001/swintro/
• Welcome to the Metaweb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJfrNo3Z-DU&feature=player_embed (Metaweb was purchased by Google in 2010, but this is still a nice resource on dealing with ambiguity of words/text)
  
• Ray, K (2009) Web 3.0 http://vimeo.com/11529540

As the web will become more semantic, all the data that is on it will be tagged, linked, analyzed... and this should increase our feeling of the 'living web'. Which ties the semantic web into Artificial Intelligence (AI) nicely.

For those interested of hearing more on semantic technologies in learning environments, have a look at the video lecture given by Dragan Gasevic available at http://bit.ly/gfXqEF (cool guy).

#LAK11 analyse your learner/worker interactions with SNAPP to increase #elearning outputs, pedagogy and #performance

Many of us use learning management systems, and some of us even track students to support learning processes, but let's face it: tracking does not always result in clear visualization of the interactivity that is taken place amongst learners. Here is where SNAPP comes in.

There are other visual analyzing tools, but SNAPP is simple to use and easy to install, which is why I really like it.

SNAPP is developed by the University of Wollongong (who I think are coming up with a great deal of interesting educational innovations and thoughts). SNAPP allows you to transcript interactions in Moodle, Blackboard (and webCT, Desire2Learn into maps that immediately show who is a hyperconnected learner or participant, and who is more of a lurker, or even to pinpoint learners that at the core of the interactions.

SNAPP is a software tool that allows users to visualize the network of interactions resulting from discussion forum posts and replies. The network visualisations of forum interactions provide an opportunity for teachers to rapidly identify patterns of user behaviour – at any stage of course progression. SNAPP has been developed to extract all user interactions from various commercial and open source learning management systems (LMS) such as BlackBoard (including the former WebCT), and Moodle. SNAPP is compatible for both Mac and PC users and operates in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

By mapping interactions, you have a better overview of what people are doing and how they learn/perform. As such I see two fields of interest: education/training and knowledge management in corporations.

Education and training benefits
you can localize students or learners that are at risk (of not understanding, of having decreasingly less time...). The SNAPP-people have listed some great benefits of network diagrams:
* identify disconnected (at risk) students;
* identify key information brokers within your class;
* identify potentially high and low performing students so you can plan interventions before you even mark their work;
* indicate the extent to which a learning community is developing in your class;
* provide you with a “before and after” snapshot of what kinds of interactions happened before and after you intervened/changed your learning activity design (useful to see what effect your changes have had on student interactions and for demonstrating reflective teaching practice e.g. through a teaching portfolio)
* allow your students to benchmark their performance without the need for marking.

SNAPP also allows you to pinpoint lurkers (who might be a good target audience for research, e.g. did they get something out of the course, and why did they only lurk?
Additionally, you can filter out those students that might be good future facilitators. For students that are in the middle of the interactions, are clearly motivated and strong in reaching out and communicating.
Another educational benefit is for looking at peer-2-peer interactions. It might be that you do not get much feedback from a student, but after analyzing the interactions, you might see that that same student is a real peer-2-peer knowledge node, and as such has great course value.

Performance and knowledge management benefits
This SNAPP approach can also be used for knowledge management. Let's say you have a internal, central 'help' forum inside your company. And there is a person responsible for giving help on that forum. It might well be that after you screen the forum with SNAPP, you can see that someone else in your organization offers just as much help or support, just because they know the subject. As such you can give a bonus, or a different function to that active employee and stimulate knowledge transfer in your organization.

Interpretation of visual network maps
SNAPP does not simply provide the software, they also give an overview of how to interpret the visual data that you get from analyzing the network interactions.
So how does it work?
You download SNAPP and you get cracking with it!
I will take Moodle as an example:
Moodle

1. Visit a Forum in Moodle. Ensure that “Display replies in nested format” is selected.
2. Click on the SNAPP Bookmarklet (from where you placed it in the Bookmarks menu in Firefox or the Favorites menu in IE). You may need to enable the Menu bar in IE 7, to view the Favorites menu. The SNAPP interface will be inserted at the bottom of the page.
3. The SNAPP interface consists of five tabs: Visualization, Statistics, Export, Help and Credits. Within the Export tab, social graph data can be saved as GraphML or to the .vna format. The .vna format can be opened in NetDraw for additional analysis and visualization.

What will you see on your screen: the program will go through all the threads, one-by-one (you see the screen flip from one thread to another), and eventually a Java-icon will be displayed. You just wait and the graphic will appear, together with 5 tabs.

Netdraw - also a free tool developed by Steve Borgatti a nice bearded bowling professor in Kentucky, allows you to fine-tune the graphs you get with SNAPP.

The picture depicted here is a representation of a welcoming forum in Moodle.