As part of a working group at the Open University (James Fleck, Mick Jones, Tony Walton, Andrew Russell and Paul Mundin) we are trying to devise a series of course representations. We have come up with five:
•    At a glance
•    Pedagogy profile
•    Financial
•    Course performance
•    Success checklist
I’ve mainly being involved with the representations that particularly foreground the learning aspects of the course.

Figure 1 Pedagogy Profile

The pedagogy profile is a worked up version of the media advisor toolkit Martin Oliver and I developed years ago (link to download the toolkit below), modernised against task types developed as part of a learning activity taxonomy I developed a few years ago (Conole, 2008). In essence there are six types of tasks learners do:
•    Assimilative – reading, listening, viewing
•    Information handling – manipulating data or text
•    Communicative – discussing, critiqueing, etc
•    Productive – production of an essay, architectural model, etc
•    Experiential – practising, mimicking, applying, etc
•    Adaptive – modelling or simulation
In addition, learners undertake some form of assessment activities
You can then use these to create a pedagogy profile for a course – indicating the proportion of each type of tasks (Figure 1).

Figure 2: The “at a glance” representation

The ‘at a glance’ representation gives an overview of the course. It’s an adaption of an earlier pedagogy representation (see for example an earlier blog post), but Mick Jones pointed out that it was important to also emphase the instruction and guidance provided to the student. The representation now includes both guidance and support as well as evidence and demonstration (Figure 2). The representation enables you to describe the course in terms of the types of learning activities the learner is undertaking as well as the guidance and support provided and the nature of any assessment. Table 1 describes the five facets of the representation in more detail. Would welcome thoughts on these representations.

Table 1

Finally, the success checklist is intended to be an evolving list of  success criteria or ‘dos and don’ts’ for course. There are four facts considered:

• Good pedagogy
• Innovation
• Cost effectiveness
• Fitness for purpose

Table 2 shows some suggested examples.

Table 2

References

Conole, G. (2008) ‘Capturing practice: the role of mediating artefacts in learning design’, in Handbook of Research on Learning Design and Learning Objects: Issues, Applications and Technologies, in L. Lockyer, S. Bennett, S. Agostinho, and B Harper (Eds), 187-207, Hersey PA: IGI Global.

Media Advisor available to download from  http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/ltri/demos/media_adviser_files/media_adviser.htm

I’m doing a keynote today at the University of Limerick, Maggie McPherson from Leeds University is doing the first keynote. It’s timely as preparation for it has enabled me to write down some thoughts following on from a number of really excellent discussions over the last couple of weeks with Patrick McAndrew, Yannis Dimitriadis, Andrew Brasher, Juliette Culver, Martin Weller, Niall Sclater and Niall Winters. Here are my notes for the presentation, the powerpoint is on slideshare.

Blues skies thinking for design and Open Educational Resources 

Gráinne Conole, The Open University, UK (g.c.conole@open.ac.uk)

Keynote

Technology and Learning: Defining Quality in Research, Theory and Practice

Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society Symposium, 2009

University of Limerick, 11^th May 2009

Focus

·        The focus of the talk is at the intersection of Design and Open Educational Resources (OER).

·        It will consider why the wealth of free tools and resources now available, that could be used to support learning and teaching, are not being used more extensively and will suggest that teachers and learners lack the time and necessary skills to harness them effectively.

·        It will highlight current research on Pedagogical Patterns, Learning Design and OER and will suggest that together these three areas provide a possible solution to the mismatch between the potential of new technologies and use in practice.

·        It will conclude with an illustrative example being developed as part of a new initiative, Olnet (http://olnet.org) (See Conole and McAndrew (submitted) for an overview of the background to OLNet).

Redefining openness

·        I will argue that we need to expand the notion of openness…

o    There has been a growth in recent years in activities around the Open source movement and the development of open tools and services, also the open educational resource movement.

o    These have a common set of principles and practices: free, shared, collaborative, cumulatively better…

o    The next logical step is a more “open” approach to design (Open Design) – where the inherent designs within learning activities and resources are made more explicit to learners and to other teachers; so that they can be picked up discussed and adapted.

·        I will argue that education is now faced with a challenge… We are operating in a context that is increasingly:

o    Open – In terms of free resources and in terms of public gauze/scrutiny and can no longer ignore this.

o    Abundant - There are now a wealth of tools, services and resources available to support education. If tools and resources are freely available, what is the purpose of formal educational institutions?

·        Examples include

o    The open source moment in general and the phenomenal success of Moodle as a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)/Learner Management System (LMS).

o    There are increasingly sophisticated free generic tools available - Google apps, Gmail, free blog and wiki services, communication tools from Skype to Twitter.

o    There has been a noticeable shift in the last few years in terms of the use of technologies

§   Now have near ubiquitous access – internet and mobile technologies

§   New generation phones such as iPhone – the world in your pocket

§   Today’s students have grown up surrounded by a technologically mediated world.

§   The growth of the OER movement, supported by the Hewlett foundation and OECD and marked by the announcement by MIT that it was making its educational resources freely available. A range of different types of OERs and models are available which differ in terms of level of granularity, format and media richness, and type of pedagogy. The Open University launched Openlearn (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) in 2006 with funded from the William and Flora Hewlett foundation.

o    Good sources of further information on current technology trends and use in education include: Review of learning 2.0 (Ala-Mutka, 2009), Learner experience work (Conole, De Laat et al., 2008), NSF cyberlearning task force report (NSF, 2008), review of OER movement (Atkins et al., 2007)

Education for free

Theoretically one can now put together totally free course offerings using free tools and resources.

·        George Siemens and Stephen Downes ran an ambitious course last year – not only were the tools and resources they used in the course free, but so was the expertise!. See http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/?p=182 for a reflection on the experiment by George Siemens. The twelve-week course was called ‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course’.[1]  They described the course as a MOOG (Massive Open Online Course). The content, delivery and support for the course was totally free, anyone could join and an impressive 2400 did, although the actual number of very active participants was smaller (ca. 200). The course provides a nice example of an extension of the open movement, moving a step beyond the Open Educational Resource movement to providing a totally free course.

·        George Siemens and Martin Weller are delivering something similar this week, in the form of an ‘un-course’ conference (“From Courses to Dis-Course (yes/no? Am I being too cute-sy?”). See http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/blogs/futurecourse/ for further information.

Implications

Clearly all this has profound implications for institutions (Conole, in press).

1.      For students in terms of the skills and experiences they come with and their expectations in terms of technologies (Conole, De Laat, 2008).

2.      For teachers in terms of how they design courses for students.

3.      For institutions in terms of how they support and assess students.

But there is a catch – the hidden conundrum

·        To what extent have all these free tools and resources impacted on mainstream education? To what extent are the majority of teachers capitalising on these? How much are mainstream courses changing as a result?

·        In reality uptake of new technologies and free resources had been slow. A lot of use of new tools mirrors existing face-to-face practice. There is little evidence of major innovations or new forms of pedagogy.

The complexity behind the simplicity

The reasons for the lack of impact of these new technologies are complex and multifaceted. But one of the key ones is that teachers lack the time and expertise to make best use of new tools and resources. Faced with a new tool – say a wiki or twitter - there are a number of questions a teacher (or indeed a learner) needs to consider:

·        What are the special features of the tool?

·        How can it be used to support learning?

·        How have others used the tool?

·        What are the implications in terms of designing and delivering a learning activity using this tool – for the teacher, for the student?

Similarly just having freely available OERs is not enough, a series of similar questions arise:

·        What is the quality of the resource?

·        How has it been used elsewhere?

·        How can it be incorporated into my teaching context?

·        Am I able to adapt it; how much do I need to change to suit my teaching context?

All of these are non-trivial and time-consuming questions.

The mediating layer

My argument in this talk is as follows:

·        Given this conundrum of a vast wealth of tools and resources, but teachers and learners lack the skills to make use of these, I will argue that there is a need for a mediating layer to support teachers and learners in making best use of these tools and resources.  See Conole (2008a) for a description of what is meant by a mediating layer and examples of mediating artefacts.

·        A mediating layer that provides mechanisms to help them answer questions like those posed above, to help them make decisions on which tools and resources to use and in what ways. For example mechanisms to provide them with access to help and advice, expertise and peer support. Mechanisms to enable them to become part of an evolving peer community committed to discussing and sharing learning and teaching ideas.

·        I will argue that this mediation is through more explicit articulation of the inherent designs associated with a particular learning activity and the way in which tools and resources are used in that particular learning activity. If we can abstract these designs and represent them in a meaningful and understandable way there is a greater chance of them being picked up, used and adapted by others, which, in turn, over time is likely to lead to an evolving understanding of how new tools and resources can be used.

Converging schools of thought

Three parallel areas of research have being working on aspects of this mediating layer – learning design, pedagogical patterns and OER research. There are signs that these areas are beginning to converge. In particular a clearer understanding of the different types of design representations is emerging.

Pedagogical patterns

·        The concept of Pedagogical Patterns derives from Alexander’s work in Architecture, towards pattern languages for buildings. 

·        Applied to an educational context – can we generate a set of ‘patterns for good practice’; i.e. here is a problem and here is a tried and tested solution.

·        There is now a considerable body of research on Pedagogical Patterns, such as the work of Yannis Dimitriadis and colleagues in Spain, Peter Goodyear in Australia and the Planet project in the UK. There are a number of repositories of patterns with surrounding communities of interest, see for example http://lp.noe-kaleidoscope.org/ and http://patternlanguagenetwork.org/partners/.

·        Two well-known examples of patterns for collaborative learning are: “Think, Pair, Share” and “Jigsaw”.

Benefits of the pedagogical patterns approach: derived from know, tried and tested examples, building on existing good practice, shared format of representation – problem + solution, and the power of visual metaphors.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

·        OER research has concentrated on developing open educational resources and studying the ways in which they are used and/or adapted by learners and teachers (See for example McAndrew and Santos, 2008).

·        Benefits: building a wordwide set of high quality free educational resources, opportunity to build a community around this to share and critically discuss good practice in learning and teaching.

Learning design

·        Learning design – in our own work as part of the OU Learning Design Initiative (OUDLI) we are developing a suite of tools and methods to help teachers with the design process and in particular to enable them to create more pedagogical informed learning activities and make better use of new technologies.

·        Our work is focusing on three aspects of the design process: ways of representing pedagogy (and in particular visualising it), providing guidance and advice, and mechanisms to enable teachers to share and discuss learning and teaching ideas.

·        In particular we have developed two tools – CompendiumLD for visualising and guiding the design process (Conole, Brasher et al., Submitted; Conole, Brasher et al., 2008), and Cloudworks a social networking site for finding, sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas (Conole and Culver, submitted; Conole, Culver et al, 2008). In addition we have been developed new schema for mapping pedagogies and technologies (Conole, 2008b).

Benefits of the Learning Design approach: range of tools, methods and approaches to help teachers think differently, making the design process more explicit, means of sharing good practice.

A new understanding of design

What we can see across these three areas of research are different types of design

1.      Pedagogical patterns – describe a learning and teaching activity or strategy according to a predefined template – what’s the problem? Here’s a tried and tested solution.

2.      OERs – might be considered as ‘designs in action’ – with content.

3.      Learning design – better understanding of the broad ways in which learning and teaching activities or strategies can be represented from narrative case studies or descriptions through to visual designs.

Can we start to put these together?

·        Can we combine these learning design tools with the documented good practice, which has been developed in the pedagogical pattern community, with the real exemplars available in the OER world?

·        This is the focus of a new Hewlett funded project – Olnet which aims to create a global to help researchers and users of OER to work together – so that research outputs inform practice and vice versa.

·        We are interested in exploring how explicit designs might be used to help learners and teachers. How existing designs – available through sites like Cloudworks, via OER repositories such as Openlearn or via Pattern communities like Planet – might feed into an evolving network connected researchers and users of OERs.

An illustrative example

The following scenario provides an example of how this might work. (Figure 1).

 

Teacher A: The design phase

Context: A teacher is putting her beginners’ level Spanish material for the OU course L194 online in the Openlearn repository. She uses the CompendiumLD tool to articulate different ways in which she thinks the materials can be used. In particular she is interested in showing how the materials can be used as both a revision exercise for an individual student and at a more advanced level for a group of students working collaboratively. Whilst developing her design in CompendiumLD she has access to ideas and tips and hints from the Cloudworks site, as well as from a range of OER and Pedagogical Pattern repositories. These help her to refine her design thinking, to get ideas about how to structure activities in the sequences and suggestions of tools that be used for example for supporting a diagnostic e-assessment test or to enable students to communicate synchronously.

Learner A: Use Scenario 1 – beginners’ route

Context: A Learner doing Spanish.  She is a few weeks into the intermediate level Spanish course. The topic she is currently working on is ‘describing places’, she is looking for freely available tools or resources that might help her, she is also interested in finding study buddies to work with, who are at a similar level.

1.      Explores the openlearn site

2.      Finds a set of OERs for a beginners’ Spanish course – L194 – Portales from the Open University, UK.

3.      Finds alongside these resources a visual design – which provides an example of how these resources might be used. The design consists of the following aspects:

a.       A diagnostic e-assessment test to assess her level of understanding of the topics covered in the course

b.       Two potential pathways: a) a beginners route where the learner works individually through the L194 OER material, b) an advanced route where the learner is assigned to a study group to work collaboratively around 1 aspects of the L194 OER material, Activity 2.1. In this advanced route, the existing activity (categorise 3 pictures of buildings as Latin American or Spanish) is replaced with one where the learner has to describe and compare the buildings, working collaboratively with other students and interrogating an expert for information. The activity exploits the jigsaw pedagogical pattern and also uses a free video conferencing tool to enable the study group to speak with a Spanish cultural expert. 

4.      She takes the diagnostic tests and the advice is that she takes the beginners’ route and completes the L194 OER material.

Learner B: Use Scenario 2 – advanced route

Context: Same context as above, but in this case after taking the diagnostic test the advice is that he takes the advanced route and focuses in on the adapted activity 2.1 as a collaborative exercise with other students.

Teacher BL Use Scenario 3 – repurposes

Context: an associated lecturer teaching on the intermediate level Spanish course at the Open University, En Rumbo – L140, preparing for a face-to-face tutorial with his students. The topic is describing places. Finds the design described above and adapts it to produce two new variants of the design 1. a classroom-based activity where the students describe the pictures using the Think-Pair-Share pattern and provides, 2. A similar exercise in terms of comparing three buildings but the students are asked to describe buildings from their town and then talk with an expert (a student in Spain) who then describes their home town. The activity is set as a precursor to the first assignment exercise for the course.

Figure 2 provides a conceptual overview and generalisation of this scenario – showing how an initial design can query existing resources such as Cloudworks and Openlearn, use these to help create and populate an OER, along with an associated design, both of which can then be deposited back into sites such as Cloudworks and OpenLearn for reuse.

 

Conclusion

The mismatch between the potential of technologies and actual use in practice is I would argue one of the most important key challenges facing e-learning researchers today. The areas of Pedagogical Patterns, Learning Design and OER research have developed a range of valuable tools and resources which have proved effective in supporting teachers and learners and enabling them to decide and use educational resources more effectively. The next stage in the challenge is how to build on this; how to make more effective connections across these three areas of research.

Acknowledgements

Many people are involved in this work but want to thank in particular:

§   Olnet/Openlearn: Patrick McAndrew, Yannis Demitriadis (who is currently working with us as a visiting Olnet professor), Tina Wilson, Niall Sclater

§   OULDI: Andrew Brasher, Juliette Culver, Simon Cross, Paul Clark, Martin Weller

§   Funders: The William and Flora Hewlett foundation, the JISC, the Open University for strategic funding

Websites

·        The Open University Learning Design (OULDI), http://ouldi.open.ac.uk

·        Cloudworks, http://cloudworks.ac.uk

·        CompendiumLD, http://compendiumld.open.ac.uk

·        Olnet, http://olnet.org

·        Personal blog, www.e4innovation.com

·        Slideshare, http://www.slideshare.net/grainne

References

Ala-Mutka, K., Bacigalupo, M., Kluzer, S., Pascu, C., Punie, Y. and Redecker, C. (2009). Review of Learning 2.0 Practices. IPTS technical report prepared for publication, IPTS: Seville, available online at http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2139 [18/4/09].

Atkins, D., Seely Brown, J. and Hammond, A.L. (2007), A review of the Open Educational Resource movement: achievements, challenges and new opportunities, report to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, available online at http://www.hewlett.org/NR/rdonlyres/5D2E3386-3974-4314-8F67-5C2F22EC4F9B/0/AReviewoftheOpenEducationalResourcesOERMovement_BlogLink.pdf, last accessed 5/2/09.

Conole and Culver (submitted), Cloudworks: applying social networking practice for the exchange of learning and teaching ideas and designs, special issue of CAL09, Computers and Education, submitted April 09.

Conole, Brasher et al (submitted), CompendiumLD paper, adaptation of paper presented at Edmedia 08, submitted April 09.

Conole, G. (2008a) ‘Capturing practice: the role of mediating artefacts in learning design’, in Handbook of Research on Learning Design and Learning Objects: Issues, Applications and Technologies, in L. Lockyer, S. Bennett, S. Agostinho, and B Harper (Eds), 187-207, Hersey PA: IGI Global.

Conole, G. (2008b), New schema for mapping pedagogies and technologies, http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/conole/

Conole, G. (in press), Stepping over the edge: the implications of new technologies for education in M. Lee and C. McLouglin (forthcoming), Web 2.0-based e-learning: applying social informatics for tertiary teaching, ICI Global: Hersey, PA

Conole, G. and McAndrew, P. (submitted), A new approach to supporting the design and use of OER: Harnessing the power of web 2.0, M. Edner and M. Schiefner (eds), Looking toward the future of technology enhanced education: ubiquitous learning and the digital nature.

Conole, G., Brasher, A., Cross, S., Weller, M., Clark, P. and White, J. (2008), Visualising learning design to foster and support good practice and creativity, Educational Media International, Volume 54, Issue 3, 177-194.

Conole, G., Culver, J., Well, M., Williams, P., Cross, S., Clark, P. and Brasher, A. (2008), Cloudworks: social networking for learning design, Ascilite Conference, 30^th Nov – 3^rd Dec 2008, Melbourne.

Conole, G., De Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2008), ‘Disruptive technologies’, ‘pedagogical innovation’: What’s new? Findings from an in-depth study of students’ use and perception of technology’, Computers and Education, Volume 50, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 511-524.

McAndrew, P. and A. I. Santos (Eds.) (2009). Learning from OpenLearn: Research Report 2006-2008. Milton Keynes, UK: The Open University.

NSF (2008), Fostering learning in the networked world: learning opportunity and challenge. A 21^st Century agenda for the National Science Foundation, report of the NSF task force on cyberlearning, available online at http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08204, last accessed 8/2/09.

 

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[1] http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Connectivism

I’ve just been at a very productive two-day meeting at Strathclyde University. It was related to our JISC Curriculum Design project (see our main OULDI site and associated links). The twelve projects involved in the programme have been grouped into clusters of related projects. We are part of Cluster C, along with Strathclyde and Ulster University. We have a shared interest in a number of respects: a focus on the pedagogical aspects of curriculum design, exploration of different types of representations and development of schema for thinking through the design process.

Each cluster has a ‘critical friend’ ours is Peter Bullen from Hertfordshire University.The aim of the meeting was to share what we have done to date in the projects and in particular to draw out a set of activities that it might be useful to do at the cluster level. We began by providing an overview of our projects, work to date and issues we had identified. One of the activities we are currently all engaged with is mapping our existing curriculum design processes and developing a baseline document of curriculum design which we can use as a benchmark of progress achieved on the projects.

A key issue for all of us is how to represent curriculum design – what representations might be useful, for what purposes and for whom? We spent a lot of the first afternoon sharing what we had done to date and some of the problems in terms of what representations might be appropriate. We agreed that representation at the level of learning activity was now fairly well understood. In our own work we have articulated a learning activity taxonomy, which describes the components that need to be addressed when designing at this level (such as the tools and resources involved in the activity, the kinds of task the students will do, the roles of those involved, etc.). Whilst some of these components scale up to the level of curriculum design, this level brings additional levels of complexity – how can you map across the design process, what are the relationships between the different components at this level and what are the interdependencies?The general conversation got me thinking and with jet lag kicking in I was wide awake early the next morning so took the opportunity to try and articulate my thoughts and issues with this through a series of Powerpoint slides, which are available from slideshare. I used the Powerpoint presentation as a starting point for the conversation on day two and then adapted the slides on the basis of our shared discussion.It seemed to me we needed first and foremost to agree a set of types of representations and then test these out in our different contexts. I put forward eight initial representations but during the discussion an addition two emerged – around mapping relationships/interdependencies and around mapping the flow process of design. Below is a description of each of these representations.

Textual summary and keywords

This representation provides a brief textual overview of the course (akin probably to what is already produced in course descriptions). In addition we would include keywords, which give an indication of the nature of the course. For us keywords might include a description of the type of course it is (in terms of mapping to some abstract model). At the OU we have identified six models: ‘OU classic’, bought-in, Web 2.0, wrap around, empty box, and disaggregated curriculum assets. In addition we would include a set of keywords that described the course generally, in terms of discipline, level and pedagogy (problem-based, dialogic, etc.).

At a glance map

This representation would list out all the components of the course. It would be possible to drill down into each component to find out more details about it – for example what tools are being used, when and for what purpose?

Timeline 

The timeline would distinguish between activities during the production phase of a course and those during the actual presentation/delivery of the course. In addition, a simplified student timeline (akin to what we in the OU in terms of the course calendar), giving a breakdown week by week of what the student has to do, along with key milestones such as assignment deadlines would be useful.For us for example each course starts with a Business Appraisal (BA), then there are eight ‘stage gates’ (SG1 – SG8) over the production and presentation of the course. Other key moments include drafts of material (from D0 a rough outline of content and activities through to D2 a final draft).

In terms of the student view – courses are divided into blocks with each block consisting of a number of weeks; key deadlines include TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) and ECA(End of Course Assignment).

Content/topic/curriculum map

One way of representing content is showed below – where the content is organised by a series of themes and sub-themes.

Workload – overall, distribution, breakdown

The workload representation would need to identify the stakeholders involved in the course and an allocation of their time involvement/costing across the production/presentation of the course. This could be presented as a simple aggregate of time/costs or broken down into appropriate timeframes (weeks or months).

Principles/pedagogy matrix

This representation articulates the pedagogical approach being adopted by the course and the overarching principles. The example we provide uses a schema we have developed previously, more details are available in a recent Ariadne article. It provides a matrix which maps the principles of the course against four macro-level aspects of pedagogy. Principles might be generated/articulated by the course team (for example getting the students to reflect on experience and show understanding or incorporating frequent interactive exercises and feedback across the course) or might be derived from theory or empirical evidence (for example the 12 REAP assessment principles).

Furthermore we can then produce a set of ‘Course Design DNAs’, which can be used to compare the nature of different courses. Below is an example of two comparative DNAs. One for OpenLearn which is a repository of open educational resources and one for SocilaLearn which is an initiative applying web 2.0 tools and principles to an educational context.Variants on the matrix are also possible. For example mapping principles to course activities, or mapping the principles to a different set of pedagogical characteristics (for example Bloom’s educational taxonomy, the REAP principles or Laurillard’s conversational framework).

Cost

As with the timeline representation, cost would be broken down into production vs. presentation/delivery costs. As with the workload costs could be viewed across different timeframes.The people cost would be an aggregation of the workload representation discussed earlier, but in addition cost types include resources, media, assessment and administration.

Success criteria tick box

This representation tries to articulate what constitutes a ‘good course’, what does good mean? At the OU we have identified four broad criteria for good; good in terms of: pedagogy, innovation, cost effectiveness and fitness for purpose/context. For each of these it is then possible to list a set of sub-criteria or demonstrations/evidence of how the course is ‘good’ in terms of the four macro-criteria.

Relationships and inter-dependencies

We didn’t really get onto articulating what this might look like but essentially this representation would show relationships and inter-dependencies at the course level. This might include a mapping of learning outcomes, topics and assessment for example, or a representation of media use across the course. Diana Laurillard’s London Pedagogic Planner has attempted to do some aspects of this, as did the Media Advisor tool we developed a few years ago.

Process flow maps

Finally UML-type representations can be used to show the process of curriculum design – who is involved and when and an indication of data flow across the system.

In discussion around these representations, we clarified a number of aspects. Firstly, that clearly the representations could work at a number of levels of detail and for each it would be important to work at a level that was meaningful. In many of the representations, there are a number of ‘white boxes’ that are represented at a general level but could, if needed, be unpacked in more detail. This is particularly evident with representation two – ‘course at a glance’.

As with the learning activity level there is a differentiation between Curriculum designs as static representations vs. progression process vs. relationships/dependencies; indeed as representation nine begins to indicate this is even more an issue at the Curriculum level than at the activity level. We also discussed as a group the distinction between representations of the design of a course and particular instantiations of the course.We also considered the ways in which such representations might be used and how they might add value.

Six initial examples were suggested:

• Guidelines for course design
• Comparison between courses
• Articulation of particular departmental, faculty, or institutional overviews
• Deconstruction
• Checklist
• Course evaluation

As a to do list to take this work forward we suggested the following:

• Set up a cloudscape for the cluster and populate with clouds describing the different interventions each of the projects is producing (tools, approaches, methods)
• Work up/validate curriculum design taxonomy
• Agree a set of principles mapped to good pedagogy (REAP, etc)
• Brainstorm success criteria
• Trial representations and compare.

I found it really useful to have the time to discuss in-depth some of the challenges each of us are facing in terms of mapping and representing at the curriculum level. I would really welcome feedback on these representations, are they useful? are there others we should be including? Below is a picture of us dining out at the City Merchant where the heated debates from day one continued!

 

 I’ve just got back from the AERA conference which was held in San Diego this year. I still can’t quite cope with the size of the conference - 15,000 delegates this year I understand! Eileen Scanlon and I were part of a TLRP Technology-Enhanced Learning symposium, in which 5 of the 8 projects funded under the programme presented.We focused in on three themes: Design, Interdiscplinarity and Transformation.We had a slight change at the last minute - Vic Lally was unable to come and so Margaret Cox presented on her project “Personalised learning with Haptics when Teaching with online media, PHANTOM”. It was a great session lots of interesting discussions afterwards and we have plans to do a follow up next year. Our draft paper relating to the Personal Inquiry paper is available here. We are planning to work this up and submit to a journal soon.  Here is the abstract for the session:

Innovations in design and methodology in technology-enhanced learning: findings from the TLRP Technology Enhanced Learning programme

Session submission to the

Advanced Technologies for Learning (SIG #7), AERA conference 2009

Chair: Professor Richard Noss

Discussant: Professor Sir Tim O’Shea 

Contributions

Personal Inquiry (PI): Innovations in participatory design and models for inquiry learning

Eileen Scanlon, Gráinne Conole, Lucinda Kerawalla, Karen Littleton, Mark Gaved, Alison Twiner, Trevor Collins, Paul Mulholland, The Open University

MiGen: Intelligent support for mathematical generalisation

Richard Noss and Celia Hoyles, University of London

LSDE: Transforming teaching practice through planning and design

Diana Laurillard, Institute of Education, University of London, George Magoulas, Birkbeck College, University of London, Elizabeth Masterman, University of Oxford

SynergyNet: Innovative and immersion

Liz Burd, University of Durham

Inter-Life: Interoperability and transition

Victor Lally University of Glasgow

Overview

Technology continues to have a radical impact on all aspects of society and offers much for the educational domain. Information of relevance to learning is now available in abundance – through the Open Educational Resources movement and via a range of sites which offer ‘media-rich’ resources. This is coupled with the increasing impact of web 2.0 technologies characterised by user-generated content and social networking. At face value this might suggest that technologies are radically changing educational practice, however, in reality the impact in education of technologies has not being as profound as in other spheres of life. The reasons are complex and pose important technological, pedagogical and organisational challenges and dilemmas.

In the UK an ambiguous Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) programme (ca. $22 M over five years) is underway, funded by the EPSRC/ESRC, which at its core is about tackling these challenges of educational significance from an interdisciplinary perspective:

Technology enhanced learning (TEL) requires interdisciplinary collaboration across the disciplines of learning, cognition, information and communication technologies (ICT) and education, and broader social sciences… To achieve the highest ambitions for education and lifelong learning we need to exploit fully what new technology offers – for personalising learning and improving outcomes… for creating more flexible learning opportunities and for improving the productivity of learning and knowledge building processes. But to do this, we need a more explicit understanding of the nature of learning itself, both formal and informal, and the way it is responding to changes in society and the opportunities created by new technologies… This… will support innovation from both research areas, each challenging the other, to rethink ways of making learning more effective and to develop the new technology solutions to make that possible. Such interdisciplinary research is intended to help build new understandings of how technology can enhance learning.

The first phase began in September 2007; a second phase begins in September 2008. The symposium is structured around five of the projects in the TEL programme and will consist of thematically linked presentations.It will explore how the projects are tackling the challenges set by the programme and more generally on how to instantiate the rhetoric of radical transformation of educational practice through the use of technologies. In particular the objectives of the session will be to consider the following questions:

·      Issues of design: How can we design for innovation and adopt a more participatory, inclusive approach to design? What is the relationship between design and instantiation of practice?

·      Transformation of practice: How might innovative technologies lead to real transformation of practice? What are the barriers and enablers? What new forms of pedagogy are possible?

·      Methodological development and interdisciplinary inquiry: What are the methodological challenges and what are methodological innovations? What are the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research? 

Rooted in the distinctive approaches and context of each specific project, we will address the issues identified above with reference to key findings to date.

Phase one – the PI and MiGenprojects

Personal Inquiry (PI) is designed to help school students learn the skills of evidence-based inquiry (Conole et al. 2008). The aim is to understand how effective learning can be enabled with technology across formal and informal settings. Our focus is on designing for evidence-based inquiry learning and we are developing an innovative ‘scripted inquiry learning’ approach, where children aged 11-16 carry out scientific explorations supported by a personal inquiry toolkit. This toolkit, running on an Ultra-Mobile PC provides ‘scripts’ in the form of dynamic lesson plans that guide the learners through a process of gathering and assessing evidence, conducting experiments and engaging in informed debate on topic themes of relevance to the secondary-level UK National Curriculum (Myself, My Environment, My Community). The aim is to encourage thinking and debate about issues that affect students’ everyday lives, such as fitness, diet and waste. Project partners include schools, technology companies that develop sensing and data-logging equipment, and museums, community resource centres and fieldtrip sites.

The project sees pedagogy and technology development as inextricably interwoven and the team have adopted an iterative, participatory approach to the design, development and evaluation of the scripts. We have conducted focus groups, design workshops, and discussions of the prototypes with teachers and learners, as well as with key educational experts, software designers, curriculum developers, curators of informal learning and discovery centres. Initial trials, carried out in Spring 2008, involved each site (Open University and University of Nottingham) working with local partners. These are being followed by a further iteration from September. Key questions driving the design and evaluation include, how:

1.      do students and their teachers adopt the technologies as tools for learning?

2.      does the experience of scripted inquiry learning assist and change learning activities?

3.      do scripted inquiry learning activities develop children’s learning skills?

We will report on the development and trial activities conducted by the OU team with local participants. It will detail our participatory design approach - which aims to involve true cross-stakeholder engagement in the design and enactment of innovative inquiry-based scenarios. We will report on the research findings of the first set of trials involving two school-based interventions, one a location-based inquiry learning toolset to support an eight-week Geography project on urban heat islands, which has been completed by 78 students aged 15-16 years-old, and a second with younger students on microclimates.

The work presented will draw on videotaped observations, the data students collected and the notes and products created by the learners and teachers in the trials. Video records of the stakeholder workshops involving teachers, pupils and others will also be used. Drawing on Engstrom’s (1999) analytic approach, we will explore how the outcomes of both the initial trial and the participatory design workshop have informed the subsequent design of activities and the associated personal inquiry toolkit.

MiGen aims to co-design, build and evaluate, with teachers and teacher-educators, a mutually supportive pedagogical and technical environment for improving 11-14 year-old students’ learning of mathematical generalisation. There is a clearly identified need to engage students in reasoning and explanation on the basis of recognition and articulation of pattern and structure. This challenging agenda has been well documented and theorised (Healy and Hoyles, 2000, Stacey et al., 2004, Mason and Bruning, 2004; Kieran and Yerushalmy, 2004; Kaput, et al. 2002). One fruitful approach has involved students constructing, evaluating and sharing their own computationally-based mathematical models (Noss, Healy, and Hoyles, 1997). Despite some successes, difficulties coalesce around the need for intensive, timely and appropriate pedagogic support from the teacher. In particular, the need to:

 

• provide students with appropriate pedagogic support during the modelling process; and support the building and sustaining an online learning collaborative community.

We have developed a prototype microworld – the eXpresser – designed to promote the learning of mathematical generalisation through model-construction where tools have been designed that afford building with the general case, building with the specific, while the system provides an ‘eye to the general’. Our work adopts a “lightweight” strategy that focuses on supporting the individual without artificially constraining his/her explorations, and therefore renders unnecessary a large-scale complete learner model (Veermans, 2003, de Jong, 2006). 

We will present the eXpresser, its pedagogical rationale and the epistemological and pedagogical-design criteria and the ways we have sought to devise intelligent support. We will outline the architecture of the technical system and illustrate its operation in trials with students and teachers. The challenging issues confronted include:

·      What to model – knowledge in constructionist environments is not well-specified and often ephemeral;

·      Recognising correctness – in an exploratory environment, it is difficult to label strategies as correct or incorrect, without taking account of the contingencies of overall student goals, strategies and characteristics;

·      Accounting for situated abstractions – knowledge is not usually expressed in conventional abstractions, but rather within the tools and relationships of the system;

·      Attempting to characterise student strategies from student-system interactions;

·      Finding ways to represent student knowledge to the teacher, in ways that can suggest helpful intervention trigger-points and pedagogic strategies.

Phase two: the LDSE, SynergyNet and InterLife projects

LDSE is developing a ‘learning design support environment’, based on our analysis of the gap between current and potential best practice. ‘Potential best practice’ includes, for example, an informed analysis of the comparative benefits and costs of alternative learning technologies and realistic planning that exploits the potential of innovative technologies alongside conventional methods. LDSE includes a set of design support tools, links to relevant existing good practice documents and exemplars, and learning activity management tools. We will focus on the issue of how to transform teaching practice using interactive tools to support them in planning and design for the blended use of innovative learning technologies alongside conventional methods. The project adopts a design-research approach (Bell et al. 2004) with interdisciplinarity as a fundamental principle. It is through melding the knowledge and expertise of computer scientists, educational researchers and teaching practitioners that we can clarify the complex requirements of the learning design process and implement them in a computational form that is viable for teachers. Moreover, by engaging teachers in a more research-based approach to teaching as part of their everyday practice, we hope to accelerate the development of their understanding of how to engage more effectively with TEL. We will draw on previous findings (Masterman, 2008; San Diego et al., 2007), initial practitioner needs analysis, initial modeling of practitioner design decisions, and user evaluation data for the early prototype, completed in the first stage of the three-year project.

SynergyNet involves the development, operation, and evaluation of an innovative ‘Interactive Immersive Classroom’ in which advanced technology is introduced to provide high quality collaborative learning experiences.  Central to SynergyNet is a new form of computer interface (for both desks and presentation boards) that integrates a large built-in multi-touch surface that can detect simultaneous contacts by fingers or pens. Therefore, two or more students can operate the desk concurrently. Therefore a single multi-touch desk can operate both as a set of individual computerised work spaces and as a single large digital workspace allowing students to work individually or collaboratively on a task.  Our research involves capturing and analysing the learning experiences of students while they use the multi-touch equipment, and subsequently assessing how these differ from those learning experiences gained in more traditional classroom environments in primary, secondary and higher education settings. We are focusing on two broad issues: collaborative engagement through ICT and the impact of this upon knowledge and understanding. Our data-collection system enables analysis of the level of students’ cognitive engagement and achievement (Moseley et al. 2005) using Bloom’s revised taxonomy and considers any changes in the relational complexity of their contributions (using the SOLO taxonomy: Biggs and Collis 1982). This analytic work is complemented by microgenetic analysis of group discourse (Schoenfeld et al. 1993) and group solutions (Taylor and Cox, 1997).  

Inter-life is investigating the use ofICTs to support skillsdevelopment by young people to enhance their management of life transitions . It has developed a mobile and three-dimensional (3D)virtual community called ‘Inter-Life’.  Educational and social transitions have significant impacts on performance, motivation and identity formation.  Inter-Life offers the opportunity for participants to work together on transition activities in thiscommunity, whether they are logged in, or using their mobile deviceaway from the desktop.  It provides reflective and personal development tools and scenarios for transitions, to demonstrate theflexibility and robustness of the educational and technical designs.In particular, the research focuses on: user engagement, co-design, and development, identification of learning outcomes, processes, and skills acquisition, participant identity formation and development associated with Inter-Life usageand professional development of educators working in 3D-communities. The project uses mixed-method, technology-enhanced data gathering andanalysis. Phenomenographic techniques are used - analysing personalaccounts of participants across a range of settings. The project isinvestigating identity development from an Activity Theory perspective, viewing identity as individually and sociallyconstructed, rather than a fixed quality or ‘given’.

References

Bell, P., Hoadley, C.M. and Linn, M.C. (2004) Design-based research in education, in: M. C. Linn, E.A. Davis and P. Bell (Eds) Internet environments for science education (Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum).

Biggs, J.B., and Collis, K.F., (1982) Evaluating the Quality of Learning – the SOLO Taxonomy (1^st ed.), New York: Academic Press.

Conole, G., Scanlon, E., Kerawalla, C., Mullholland, P., Anastopulou, S. and Blake, C., (2008), From design to narrative: the development of inquiry-based learning models, Edmedia Conference, July 2008, Vienna

de Jong, T. (2006). Technological Advances in Inquiry Learning. Science, 312, 532-533.

Engeström, Y. (1999) Innovative Learning in Work Teams: Analysing cycles of Knowledge Creation in Practice, in Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, and R.L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory, Cambridge University Press

Healy L and Hoyles, C. (2000), ‘A Study of Proof conceptions in Algebra’. Journal for Research  in Mathematics Education, 31, 4, 396-428.

Kaput, J., Noss R. and Hoyles, C. (2002) Developing New Notations for a Learnable Mathematics in the Computational Era. In English, L. (Ed) Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 51-75.

Kieran, C., Yerushalmy, M. (2004) Research on the role of technological environments in algebra learning and teaching. In Stacey, K., H. Shick, H., Kendal, M., eds.: The Future of the Teaching and Learning of Algebra. The 12th ICMI Study. Volume 8 of New ICMI (International Commission on Mathematical Instruction) Study Series. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 99–152.

Mason, B, and Bruning, R. (2004). Providing Feedback in Computer-based Instruction: What the research tells us. Retrieved 2004 from http://dwb.unl.edu/Edit/ MB/MasonBruning.html

Masterman, L. (2008). Phoebe Pedagogy Planner Project: Evaluation Report. Available at: http://phoebe-project.conted.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/ProjectOutputs.

Moseley, D., Baumfield, V., Elliott, J., Higgins, S., Miller, J. and Newton D. P. (2005) Frameworks for thinking: a handbook for teachers and learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Noss, R. and Hoyles, C. (1997) The Construction of Mathematical Meanings: Connecting the Visual with the Symbolic. Educational Studies in Mathematics., Vol 33, 2, pp 203-233

San Diego, J.P., Laurillard, D., Boyle, T., Bradley, C., Ljubojevic, D., Neumann, T. and Pearce, D. (2007) The feasibility of modelling lecturers’ approaches to learning design, ALT-J, 16(1), 2008, 15–29.

Schoenfeld A. H., Smith, J. P., III, Arcavi, A. (1993). Learning: The microgenetic analysis of one student’ s evolving understanding of a complex subject matter domain. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in instructional psychology: Volume 4 (pp. 55-175). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Stacey, K., Chick, H., and Kendal M. (2004) The Future of the Teaching and Learning of Algebra. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Taylor, J and Cox, B.D. (1997) Microgenetic Analysis of Group-Based Solution f Complex Two-Step Mathematical Word problems by Fourth Graders. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6, 2:183-226.

TLRP ESRC (2006), Announcement of forthcoming EPSRC/ESRC call for research on technology enhanced learning, http://www.tlrp.org/tel/tel1.html (30/6/08)

Veermans, K.H. (2003) Intelligent support for discovery learning. Enschede, The Netherlands: University of Twente Press.

 

An excellent review of e-learning produced by the Institute of Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS) is now available online. The abstract provides an overview to the report.

 

This report presents the outcomes of the expert workshop held at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) on 29 and 30 October 2008 to discuss the impact of the social computing on Education and Training (E&T) in Europe.

The workshop aimed to validate the results of the Learning 2.0 study, launched by IPTS in collaboration with DG EAC. The study explored the impact of social computing on E&T in Europe (in terms of contribution to the innovation of educational practice, and to more inclusive learning opportunities for the knowledge society). It also assessed Europe’s position in the take up of social computing in formal educational contexts and - by identifying opportunities and challenges - devised policy options for EU decision makers.

The report offers a structured account of the debate that took place during the two day workshop. It reflects the discussion on the potential of social computing take up in organized educational contexts, focusing on innovation (from the pedagogical, organisational and technological standpoints), and on inclusion. It further discusses how, despite the recent emergence of the phenomenon mostly outside E&T institutions, its primarily experimental nature within formal E&T contexts, and the speed of its evolution, there are clear signs that it can transform educational practice and that a new schooling culture is called for. The report then presents the main risks that were identified by the experts and proposes a number of items for research and the policy agenda to respond to the educational needs of society as it is being transformed by the social computing wave. Finally, it summarizes the trends identified as likely to affect the future evolution of the learning landscape.

We have been making substantial changes to Cloudworks recently and there is more to come! Juliette Culver is on a roll! We have just commissioned a graphics designer so the site is to get a totally new look and feel very soon! Below are some draft guidelines on the site and tips and hints on using it. Would welcome comments.

An introduction to Cloudworks

·           What is it? Cloudworks is a social networking site for finding, sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas and designs.

·           Core concepts. There are two key concepts associated with Cloudworks - the notion of ‘Clouds’ and ‘Cloudscapes’.

·           Clouds. A Cloud can be anything to do with learning and teaching. Each Cloud is ‘social’ in that it is possible to have a conversation around the Cloud. A Cloud could be: a short description of a learning and teaching idea, information about resources or tools for learning and teaching, detailed learning designs or case studies of practice or a question as a starting point for a discussion.

·           Cloudscapes. Clouds can be aggregated into ‘Cloudscapes’ associated with a particular event, purpose or interest. For example you can have Cloudscapes associated with a conference aggregating Clouds about conference presentations or tools and resources referenced. A Cloudscape can be set up for a workshop where Clouds might include workshop resources, tools or activities. Cloudscapes can also be more general for example to stimulate debate about a particular teaching approach.  Clouds can be associated with more than one Cloudscape.

·           Creating a user account. You can view everything available on the site, but if you want to create Clouds or Cloudscapes or if you want to add comments, then you need to create an account.

·           Navigating the site. The front page shows a rolling list of new Clouds added to the site on the right hand side, features Cloudscapes are presented in the middle panel and a list of Clouds that have recently had comments added to them appear on the left hand side. You can get a list of all the Clouds in the site by clicking on ‘All Clouds’. A title and brief summary for each Cloud is provided. Click on the link to get further details. Clicking on the ‘All Cloudscapes’ link lists all the Cloudscapes in the site, as with individual Clouds a brief description of each Cloudscape is provided. Clicking on a particular Cloudscape will take you into it and will show all the Clouds associated with that Cloudscape.

·           Setting up a profile. You can set up a profile and include some information about yourself. Your profile page automatically lists any Clouds you have created. You can follow both people and Cloudscapes. Your profile page indicates the Cloudscapes you are following, who you are following and who is following you.

·           Creating a Cloud. To create a Cloud clicks on the ‘create a Cloud’ link. Enter a short title and a summary - these will appear on the ‘All Clouds’ page and give an indication of what your Cloud is about. Then enter a description - you can include url links, images, etc. You can also provide a URL for more information. You can tag the Cloud in terms of ‘tool’, ‘pedagogy’, ‘discipline’ and ‘other’. Clicking on the tag list at the top will list Clouds according to how they have been tagged using these categories. You can preview to see what your Cloud will look like and then submit. A Cloudscape is produced in much the same way. Once your Cloud has been created you can add it to one or more Cloudscapes. You can also go back and edit the Cloud or delete it. Other people registered on Cloudworks are able to add comments to any Clouds or Cloudscapes you produce.

·           Finding content. Clouds and Cloudscapes can be tagged by pedagogy, discipline, tool and other and can be searched using these tags or via a search facility. You can also find relevant content by browsing All Clouds, All Cloudscapes or looking at the Clouds associated with individuals under their profile.

·           Your Cloudstream. All the Clouds created by the people and Cloudscapes you are following are aggregated under your ‘My Cloudstream’.

Tips and hints for effective use of Cloudworks  

1. Supporting conferences

·           Set up a Cloudscape for a conference.

·           Include a short clear description of the conference in the Cloudscape with a link to the conference website.

·           Agree and promote a hash (#) tag to be used for the conference, which can be used for Twitter, Blogs, Flckr etc.

·           Incorporate a dynamic twitter stream, blog aggregator, flckr stream using the agreed conference tag.

·           Promote the conference Cloudscape to delegates, via Twitter etc and invite them to follow the Cloudscape.

·           Live blog sessions and include as Clouds in the conference Cloudscape, keep entries short with succinct summarising, provide links to further information

·           Comment on relate Clouds in the Cloudscape that others have created.

2.     Supporting workshops

·           Cloudscapes can also be used to support workshops and all the tips and hints suggested for supporting conferences are also valid for supporting workshops.

·           Set up discussion Clouds that can be used as a basis for group activities during the workshop. Include a brief outline of the activity you want delegates to take part in and any associated questions you want them to address. Get them working in groups and entering their discussions as comments on the discussion Cloud. Encourage them to scan what other groups are entering.

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