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tim mcnamara

1.1. Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaph... - 9 views

  • The purpose of this chapter is to introduce an instructional technology concept known commonly as the “learning object.” First a review of the literature is presented as groundwork for a working definition of the term “learning object.” A brief discussion of instructional design theory is followed by an attempt to connect the learning objects approach to existing instructional design theory, and the general lack of such connective efforts is contrasted with the financial and technical activity generated by the learning objects notion.
  • What is a learning object?
  • An instructional technology called “learning objects” (LTSC, 2000a) currently leads other candidates for the position of technology of choice in the next generation of instructional design, development, and delivery, due to its potential for reusability, generativity, adaptability, and scalability (Hodgins, 2000; Urdan & Weggen, 2000; Gibbons, Nelson, & Richards, 2000).
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  • grounded in the object-oriented paradigm of computer science.
  • build small (relative to the size of an entire course) instructional components that can be reused a number of times in different learning contexts
  • Moreover, those who incorporate learning objects can collaborate on and benefit immediately from new versions. These are significant differences between learning objects and other instructional media that have existed previously.
  • Supporting the notion of small, reusable chunks of instructional media, Reigeluth and Nelson (1997) suggest that when teachers first gain access to instructional materials, they often break the materials down into their constituent parts.
  • if instructors received instructional resources as individual components, this initial step of decomposition could be bypassed
  • The Learning Technology Standards Committee chose the term “learning objects” (possibly from Wayne Hodgins’ 1994 use of the term in the title of the CedMA working group called “Learning Architectures, API’s, and Learning Objects”)
  • provided a working definition
  • Learning Objects are defined here as any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning. Examples of technology-supported learning include computer-based training systems, interactive learning environments, intelligent computer-aided instruction systems, distance learning systems, and collaborative learning environments. Examples of Learning Objects include multimedia content, instructional content, learning objectives, instructional software and software tools, and persons, organizations, or events referenced during technology supported learning (LOM, 2000).
  • The proliferation of definitions for the term “learning object” makes communication confusing and difficult.
  • It would seem that there are almost as many definitions of the term as there are people employing it.
  • In addition to the various definitions of the term “learning object,” other terms that imply the general intention to take an object-oriented approach to computer-assisted instruction confuse the issue further.
  • Depressingly, while each of these is something different, they all conform to the Learning Technology Standards Committee’s  “learning object” definition. An in depth discussion of the precise meanings of each of these terms would not add to the main point of this discussion: the field is still struggling to come to grips with the question, “What is a learning object?”
  • At the same time, the creation of yet another term only seems to add to the confusion. While the creation of a satisfactory definition of the term learning object will probably consume the better part of the author’s career, a working definition must be presented before the discussion can proceed.
  • Therefore, this chapter will define a learning object as “any digital resource that can be reused to support learning.”
  • This definition includes anything that can be delivered across the network on demand, be it large or small.
  • This definition of learning object, “any digital resource that can be reused to support learning,” is proposed for two reasons.
  • First, the definition is sufficiently narrow to define a reasonably homogeneous set of things: reusable digital resources. At the same time, the definition is broad enough to include the estimated 15 terabytes of information available on the publicly accessible Internet (Internet Newsroom, 1999).
  • Second, the proposed definition is based on the LTSC definition (and defines a proper subset of learning objects as defined by the LTSC), making issues of compatibility of learning object as defined within this chapter and learning object as defined by the LTSC explicit
  • With that compatibility made explicit, the proposed definition differs from the LTSC definition in two important ways.
  • First, the definition explicitly rejects non-digital
  • The definition also drops the phrase "technology supported" which is now implicit, because all learning objects are digital.
  • Second, the phrase "to support" has been substituted in place of "during" in the LTSC definition. Use of an object "during" learning doesn't connect its use to learning
  • The definition adopted for this chapter emphasizes the purposeful use (by either an instructional designer, an instructor, or a student) of these objects to support learning
  • Armed with a working definition of the term learning object, the discussion of the instructional use of learning objects can proceed.
  • Instructional design theory and learning objects
  • Reigeluth
  • [I]nstructional design theories are design oriented, they describe methods of instruction and the situations in which those methods should be used, the methods can be broken into simpler component methods, and the methods are probabilistic. (p. 7).s11 {margin-left:0; line-height:2.400000; text-indent:36;}
  • Because the very definition of “theory” in some fields is “descriptive,” design theories are commonly confused with other types of theories that they are not, including learning theory and curriculum theory (Reigeluth, 1999a).
  • The following discussion takes a step in this direction, by recasting two of the largest issues in the learning objects area – combination and granularity – in instructional design terms
  • Combination
  • there is astonishingly little conversation around the instructional design implications of learning objects.
  • item (d) in the Learning Objects Metadata Working Group’s PAR (LOM, 2000) reads as follows:
  • To enable computer agents to automatically and dynamically compose personalized lessons for an individual learner
  • at this point a brief discussion of metadata, the focus of the Learning Object Metadata Working Group’s efforts, is necessary.
  • Metadata, literally “data about data,” is descriptive information about a resource
  • he Learning Objects Metadata Working Group is working to create metadata for learning objects (such as Title, Author, Version, Format, etc.) so that people and computers will be able to find objects by searching
  • ​The problem with 7(d) arose when people began to actually consider what it meant for a computer to “automatically and dynamically compose personalized lessons.”
  • his meant taking individual learning objects and combining them in a way that made instructional sense, or in instructional design terminology, “sequencing” the learning objects.
  • The problem was that no instructional design information was included in the metadata specified by the current version of the Learning Objects Metadata Working Group standard.
  • ​The lack of instructional design discussion at this standards-setting level of conversation about learning objects is disturbing, because it might indicate a trend.
  • Once technology or software that does not support an instructionally-grounded approach to learning object sequencing is completed and shipped to the average teacher, why would he or she respond any differently
  • Wiley (1999) called this “the new CAI – ‘Clip Art Instruction’” (p. 6).
  • Discussion of the problem of combining learning objects in terms of “sequencing” leads to another connection between learning objects and instructional design theory.
  • Granularity
  • The most difficult problem facing the designers of learning objects is that of “granularity” (Wiley, et al., 1999).
  • How big should a learning object be?
  • Reuse is the core of the learning object notion, as generativity, adaptivity, and other –ivities are all facilitated by the property of reuse.
  • designating every individual graphic and paragraph of text within a curriculum a “learning object” can be prohibitively expensive
  •  
    Chapter 1
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Learnlets » The 7 c's of natural learning - 2 views

  • Yesterday I talked about the seeding, feeding, and weeding necessary to develop a self-sustaining network
  • Choose: we are self-service learners.  We follow what interests us, what is meaningful to us, what we know is important. Commit: we take ownership for the outcomes.  We work until we’ve gotten out of it what we need. Crash: our commitment means we make mistakes, and learn from them. Create: we design, we build, we are active in our learning. Copy: we mimic others, looking to their performances for guidance. Converse: we talk with others. We ask questions, offer opinions, debate positions. Collaborate: we work together. We build together, evaluate what we’re doing, and take turns adding value.
  • With this list of things we do, we need to find ways to support them, across both formal and informal learning. 
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  • In formal learning, we should be presenting meaningful and authentic tasks, and asking learners to solve them, ideally collaboratively.
  • While individual is better than none, collaborative allows opportunity for meaning negotiation.  We need to allow failure, and support learning from it. We need to be able to ask questions, and make decisions and see the consequences.
  • I think there are 8 elements!! I miss Collate, this is not the same as Choose, it is about organising anbd structuring what we learn, (constructing our emergent uderstanding) as opposed to the selection of a direction.
  • in informal learning, we need to create ways for people to develop their understandings, work together, to put out opinions and get feedback, ask for help, and find people to use as models.  By using tools like blogs for recording and sharing personal learning and information updates, wikis to collaborate, discussion forums to converse, and blogs and microblogs to track what others think are important, we provide ways to naturally learn together.
  • the intersection of 1) self-organized learning and 2) online collaboration is what I consider should be a primary focus of organizational learning professionals
  • Common web 2.0 practice is to link back to what has been copied, a form of collaboration or perhaps cooperation.
  • However, real learning involves research, design, problem-solving, creativity, innovation, experimentation, etc
  • informal learning is NOT, by definition, manageable
  • just trying to raise awareness that what we typically do formally is not well aligned with how people really learn, and that supporting some of these activities is the key to unlocking organizational innovation.
  • but instead to provide a conducive environment and encourage them
Rob Parsons

A Pedagogy of Abundance : The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly... - 0 views

  • If we use this perspective to examine education we can consider how education may shift as a result of abundance. Traditionally in education expertise is analogous to talent in the music industry – it is the core element of scarcity in the model. In any one subject there are relatively few experts (compared with the level of knowledge in the general population). Learners represent the ‘demand’ in this model, so when access to the experts is via physical interaction, for example, by means of a lecture, then the model of supply and demand necessitates that the learners come to the place where the experts are located. It also makes sense to group these experts together, around other costly resources such as books and laboratories. The modern university is in this sense a solution to the economics of scarcity.
  • As a result, a ‘pedagogy of scarcity’ developed, which is based around a one-to- many model to make the best use of the scarce resource (the expert). This is embodied in the lecture, which despite its detractors is still a very efficient means of conveying certain types of learning content. An instructivist pedagogy then can be seen as a direct consequence of the demands of scarcity.
  • It may be that we do not require new pedagogies to accommodate these assumptions as Conole (2008) points out: Recent thinking in learning theory has shifted to emphasise the benefit of social and situated learning as opposed to behaviourist, outcomes-based, individual learning. What is striking is that a mapping to the technologies shows that recent trends in the use of technologies, the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 echoes this; Web 2.0 tools very much emphasise the collective and the network.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      Though i think it is true that students learn collaboratively, and always have done, they don't act as if they do (any more than teachers act as if they do, and quite often less). Perhaps our students still come from experiences that value authority and, whatever is said, do not value constructivism and collaboration.
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  • Any pedagogy of abundance would then, I suggest, be based on the following assumptions:
  • Jonassen (1991) describes it thus: Constructivism … claims that reality is constructed by the knower based upon mental activity. Humans are perceivers and interpreters who construct their own reality through engaging in those mental activities … What the mind produces are mental models that explain to the knower what he or she has perceived … We all conceive of the external reality somewhat differently, based on our unique set of experiences with the world.
  • Given that it has a loose definition, it is hard to pin down a constructivist approach exactly. Mayer (2004) suggests that such discovery-based approaches are less effective than guided ones, arguing that the ‘debate about discovery has been replayed many times in education but each time, the evidence has favoured a guided approach to learning’.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      Interesting, because my immediate reaction was that there's no contradiction between guided learning and constructivism. Just don't expect that your students will always go where you guide them.
  • When Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006) claim, with some justification, that ‘the epistemology of a discipline should not be confused with a pedagogy for teaching/learning it’ that only highlights that the epistemology of a discipline is now being constructed by all, so learning how to participate in this is as significant as learning the subject matter of the discipline itself.
  • However, the number of successful open source communities is relatively small compared with the number of unsuccessful ones, and thus the rather tenuous success factors for generating and sustaining an effective community may prove to be a barrier across all subject areas. Where they thrive, however, it offers a significant model which higher education can learn much from in terms of motivation and retention (Meiszner 2010).
  • Abundance does not apply to all aspects of learning; indeed the opposite may be true, for example, an individual's attention is not abundant and is time limited. The abundance of content puts increasing pressure on this scarce resource, and so finding effective ways of dealing with this may be the key element in any pedagogy. However, I would contend that the abundance of content and connections is as fundamental shift in education as any we are likely to encounter, and there has, to date, been little attempt to really place this at the centre of a model of teaching.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      Agreed. Great conclusion. At the moment, if I had to single out one key point Martin makes, it is this.
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Learnlets » Slow Learning - #change11 - 0 views

  • Our limitations are no longer the technology, but our imaginations
  • “work is learning and learning is work”,
  • how would you construct an optimal performance environment for yourself?
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  • We see that we learn by being engaged in meaningful activity, and working with others.
  • I like Collins, Brown, & Holum’s Cognitive Apprenticeship as a model for thinking more richly about learning.  Other learning models are not static
  • I’m really arguing for the need to come up with a broader perspective on learning
  • I think this framework will need to start with considering the experience design, what is the flow of information and activity that will help develop the learner
  • meaningfulness, activation and reactivation, not separate but wrapped around our lives
  • I’m looking to start matching our technology more closely to our brains
  • I don’t need or want an LMS and I often don’t need a ‘teacher’ in the traditional sense, though I welcome the wisdom of coaches and mentors.
  • In self regulated learning, evaluation is a metacognitive event
  • . Much of what my students discussed is similar to my ideal. Briefly, here are some elements, organized under the four categories of appreciative inquiry: 1) Discovery-the best of what we have previously experienced: sense of accomplishment, respect, sharing ideas, supportive atmosphere to enable taking risks. 2) Dream-best of what might be: have real life application, synergy and energy, flexible and fun, open discussions, clear direction, ideas flying around, taking on complex ideas, confidentiality in that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. After these discussions, we went on to 3) Design-what it might truly look like and 4) Delivery-what will we commit to, an individual ranking of items central to creating a best learning experience.
  • The majority of us cannot live on the farm or in the bush; but can we design learning experiences along a similar model where learners contribute something of value to the community?
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Stanford's open courses raise questions about true value of elite education | Inside Hi... - 4 views

  • Search form |  Follow us: Get Daily E-mail Thursday, December 15, 2011 Home NewsAssessment and Accountability Health Professions Retirement Issues Students and Violence Surveys Technology Adjuncts Admissions Books and Publishing Community Colleges Diversity For-Profit Higher Ed International Religious Colleges Student Aid and Loans Teaching and Learning ViewsIntellectual Affairs The Devil's Workshop Technology Blog UAlma Mater College Ready Writing menu-3276 menu-path-taxonomy-term-835 od
  • This made Stanford the latest of a handful of elite American universities to pull back the curtain on their vaunted courses, joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare project, Yale University’s Open Yale Courses and the University of California at Berkeley’s Webcast.Berkeley, among others. The difference with the Stanford experiment is that students are not only able to view the course materials and tune into recorded lectures for CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence; they are also invited to take in-class quizzes, submit homework assignments, and gather for virtual office hours with the course’s two rock star instructors — Peter Norvig, a research executive at Google who used to build robots for NASA, and Sebastian Thrun, a professor of computer science at Stanford who also works for Google, designing cars that drive themselves. (M.I.T., Yale and Berkeley simply make the course materials freely available, without offering the opportunity to interact with the professors or submit assignments to be graded.)
  • MOOCs question the value of teaching as an economic value point.”
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  • Based on the success of Norvig and Thrun’s experiment, the university’s computer science department is planning to broadcast eight additional courses for free in the spring, most focusing on high-level concepts that require participants already to have a pretty good command of math and science.
  • It raises the question: Whose certification matters, for what purposes?
  • For one, the professors can only evaluate non-enrolled students via assessments that can be graded automatically.
  • it can be difficult to assess skills without being able to administer project-based assignments
  • With a player like Stanford doing something like this, they’re bringing attention to the possibilities of the Web for expanding open education
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Learnlets » Learning Experience Design thru the Macroscope - 0 views

  •  But with mobile technologies, we have the capability to truly start to deliver what I call ‘slow learning’: delivering small bits of learning over time to really develop an individual.
  •  Most of our learning comes from outside the learning experience.  But can we do better?
  • to develop individuals in micro bits over a macro period of time rather than macro bits over a micro bit of time (which really doesn’t work)
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  •  We have pieces of the puzzle ( smaller chunks, content models) and we have the tools (individualized delivery, semantics), but putting them together really hasn’t been done yet.
  •  We still have to figure out what our design process would look like,
  •  It’s really trying to build a system that is more mentor like than instructor like.
  • The point is to take the fact that technology is no longer the limit, our imaginations are.
  • You have more small chunks of content, and more distributed performance model.
  • : "Are you trying to teach information or skills? Okay – a skill. Well, that will require practice.
  • that calling it “slow learning” gives the opposite impression of what it actually is
  • and one could argue that what you are describing could actually be FAST learning
  • “spaced learning”
Rob Parsons

Is the Revolution Justified? : The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scho... - 9 views

  • And Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) claim as one of the defining characteristics of the net generation that ‘they want parameters, rules, priorities, and procedures … they think of the world as scheduled and someone must have the agenda. As a result, they like to know what it will take to achieve a goal. Their preference is for structure rather than ambiguity’. This rather begs the question, ‘was there evidence that previous generations had a stated preference for ambiguity and chaos in their learning?’
  • It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of education in the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. (Prensky 2001)
    • tatiluna
       
      I think this statement is anachronistic. In fact, the "new students" today who do not fit into the traditional educational system are in many cases people who were raised in the system, and then either rejected it or were rejected by it in some way.  Our educational system is designed to train conformist drones, who do not know how to learn without school.  There are many who are also able to live in both of these worlds, the traditional and the new, but I think they can bring new insights to the traditional school environment.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      I think this is a red herring as far as technology is concerned. it's much more to do with a pervasive social issue about inclusion and exclusion, probably worldwide, but much more marked in the UK due to the enthusiastic implementation of Thatcherism by her and subsequent governments. Many students know or suspect that there is no point for them in school and schools exclude like everyone else does those pupils who are likely to be expensive. Cost has truly overtaken value as the main point of reference
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    • Rob Parsons
       
      That's interesting. I doubt that the older generation were inherently more moral. I suspect that they regarded plagiarism more seriously because it's easier to hold censorious views about a crime that's difficult to commit. When the crime becomes easy to commit fewer people stand out against it. There is also the issue that plagiarism falls into the category of wrong doing that doesn't obviously hurt anybody - like speeding or smoking cannabis.
  • Brown (2009) reports, Recently, the Nielsen Norman Group study of teenagers using the web noted: ‘We measured a success rate of only 55 percent for the teenage users in this study, which is substantially lower than the 66 percent success rate we found for adult users’. The report added: ‘Teens’ poor performance is caused by three factors: insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level’.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      Summary: discussions about net gen are not significant. There is not evidence of significant difference between net gen and previous gens. Also there is evidence of significant variation within today's younger generation. Issue also lacks significance because we still need to cater for very large number of other gen learners.
  • A new generation is behaving fundamentally differently – there seems little real evidence beyond the rhetoric that the net generation is in some way different from its predecessors as a result of having been exposed to digital technologies. There is some moderate evidence that they may have different attitudes. There is a general change in society which has relevance for learning – certainly the overall context is an ICT-rich one, and people are using the Internet for a variety of learning-related activities. People are learning in different ways – although firm evidence of informal learning is difficult to gather, there is much by the way of proxy activity that indicates this is the case. There is growing dissatisfaction with current practice in higher education – there seems little strong evidence for this. Probably more significant to the culture of education has been the shift to perceiving the student as a customer. There is certainly little evidence that the dissatisfaction is greater than it used to be, but what may be significant is that there are now viable alternatives for learners. Universities have lost their monopoly on learning, which reinforces the next point.
  • Higher education will undergo similar change to that in other sectors – there are some similarities between higher education and other sectors, such as the newspaper and music industries, but the differences are probably more significant. However, the blurring of boundaries between sectors and the viability of self-directed, community-based learning means that the competition is now more complex.
  • The first is that there is lag between society's acceptance of a technology and then its adoption in higher education. Brown (2009) suggests that in society the stages of technology diffusion can be defined as critical mass (ownership by 20–30 per cent of the population), ubiquity (30–70 per cent) and finally invisibility (more than 70 per cent). If higher education were to wait for the invisibility stage to be reached before it engaged with a technology, then given the time it takes to implement policies and technology, it really will look outdated. For example, in 2007, those using social networks might have been in the minority; now they will be in the majority. This is the problem with waiting for data to determine decisions – if you made a decision based on 2007 data that social networks were largely unused, it would look out of date in 2010. What is significant is the direction of travel, not the absolute percentages at any given time.
    • Rob Parsons
       
      I'm not entirely sure what the argument is here; or what the evidence is. What sort of lag and how much is actually evident? And which bits of society is HE lagging behind - there are lots that haven't caught up with the interwebs at all, and others that are racing ahead.
  •  
    The Digital Scholar - Martin Weller
  •  
    I haven't read any of this book yet, but this quote is running along the lines of my own thinking for my own interaction with the web and all its tools and structures. I'm beginning to feel that many of the new tools used for organization, aggregation, and note taking are too regimented for what I want right now, too task-oriented. I'm figuring out how I learn best, and the most important part of that process that has been missing for me in the past is connection to creativity. Of course, the internet is a place where so much creation is going on and I can certainly find inspiration from it. But in terms of working out my projects using solely these new tools, I keep running against a wall. I'm not exactly sure if that's what Oblinger and Oblinger are talking about, but that's what I thought of.
Tai Arnold

Systemic Changes in Higher Education | in education - 9 views

  • When control over information shifts from organizations to individuals, considerations of new models in universities is required, as evidenced by historical transitions of information-based institutions. As an industry fundamentally concerned with “creating and communicating information” (Carey, 2009,
    • Tai Arnold
       
      This is probably the most important element; control=power and the other changes are expanding individual control of content
  • Recognition of only formal learning is a needlessly limiting mindset currently held by higher education.
    • Tai Arnold
       
      Yes!!!
  • Many of the assumptions that inform higher education today – such as classrooms, textbooks, physical space, co-location of educators and learners, pairing of research and teaching, bounded curriculum – are called into question by emerging learning theories and technologies.
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  • However as education in the developed world moves in new directions, we must be cognizant of how this move impacts the learners in the developing world. How will learners in these areas access, explore and contribute to the creation of knowledge? Will social networking technologies, and the emergence of next generation technologies further exclude the greatest number of undergraduate learners. Will this new reality result in too few voices connecting and validating knowledge? How can non-Eurocentric voices be heard? One must ensure that there is some democracy in this new model.
  • Educators and leaders in academia are confronted with important questions. How should institutions of learning be designed to serve the needs participative, social, and global information cycle? What assumptions about the system of higher education need to be abandoned due to technological advancements? How can the vital roles of research and teaching and learning be addressed through distributed means? How can accreditation be broadened to include the full spectrum of formal and informal learning activities?
  • Failure to recognize the pivotal role of digital technologies will result in institutions at odds with the world in which they operate.
  • The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) propose that universities are experiencing a revolution—with tremendous consequences. They write, Everything is in play, as nearly every aspect of academic life is being driven by a host of inter-related developments: dazzling technological advances, globalization that permeates academic boundaries, rapid increase of tertiary students worldwide, expansion of proprietary higher education, a blurring of (the) public/private distinction, and entrepreneurial initiatives on and off campus. (p. xvii)
  • Technological innovations in bandwidth, storage, processing speed, and software directly impact education (Downes, 2009), creating new opportunities for learner-learner/educator and learner-information interactions.
  • ome researchers have turned to complexity theory to advance education, suggesting that emphasis be placed on the whole system rather than reductionist views often found in "mainstream science" (Mason, 2008). Increased collaboration in a model of "interlocking partnerships among researchers, among universities, and across international borders” (McFadden Allen, 2007, p. 3) promises a new model of not only what it means to be an academic, but also what it means to be an academic institution.
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    a very important article - as someone commented (either about this article of another of George's), those who most need to read it probably won't. I'm going to see what I can do about changing that
  •  
    Education, as knowledge presentation, assessment and learning is not the only concern about the modern university system. We must also concern our selves with helping student acheive their goals, or as mentors, helping them to discover what they want to contribute to society. While part of this is job placement, a great deal of it is helping the learning see the possibilities out there and providing them with the tools to acheive those possibilities (such as knowing what types of credentials, certificates, degrees, etc.. they may need). It is also about helping them develop their abilities to filter material, think of material in new or different ways. One problem is the rigid, ego centric hold provided by discipline specific education.
Allan Quartly

A pedagogy of abundance or a pedagogy to support human beings? Participant support on m... - 10 views

  • Teaching presence is much harder to facilitate as learners do not necessarily have contact with the educator, but it is the teaching presence that heightens cognitive presence (Annand, 2011).
  • This research showed the importance of making connections between learners and fellow-learners and between learners and facilitators. Meaningful learning occurs if social and teaching presence forms the basis of design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive processes for the realization of personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
  • The type of support structure that would engage learners in critical learning on an open network should be based on the creation of a place or community where people feel comfortable, trusted, and valued, and where people can access and interact with resources and each other.
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  • The new roles that the teacher as facilitator needs to adopt in networked learning environments include aggregating, curating, amplifying, modelling, and persistently being present in coaching or mentoring.
  • The facilitator also needs to be dynamic and change throughout the course.
  • Novices can best be supported through a series of activities that are structured on connectivist learning principles with a goal to enhance autonomy and the building of personal learning networks.
Tai Arnold

digital digs: Welcome to badge world - 5 views

  • Colleges are filled with students who could give a damn about learning but desperately need that credential.
  • Then it's all about the badges. My kids can just give up on ever having a single moment of joy in their lives. Even if they were going to enjoy something, how can they when they've already committed to this transactional experience instead?
  • The commodification of learning was already quite clear in the Reagan era when we stopped thinking of higher education as a social good and instead defined it as an individual's investment in his/her human capital. 
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  • Anyone can open their own diploma mill, err I mean badge-selling operation? Of course not. Badges would have to be accredited by someone.
  • If you want to get a badge though, that's going to cost.
  • I think the presence of a badge could actually be a detriment to an otherwise genuine learning experience.
  • ]The whole point of education organisations adopting elearning is to cut costs. They are not doing it to improve education standards. They say it's to educate more. But we know this is a smoke screen. Bean-counters run universities and colleges just like they run commercial companies.For example, The Briish Council is planning to move into distance learning big time. 10,000s of new students. Their reasons (am I #cynic) won't be to improve educational outcomes (mostly English language teaching) but to get more qualifed teachers for for their bucks.
  •  
    Thank you for compiling this info and posting for us all. I believe this is an interesting way to engage the learner and increase their extrinsic motivation to learn. I don't see elearning as a way to cut costs but rather a way to expand the reach of learning. Learning on line is different from face to fact and therefore it's possible that this commodification of learning is necessary as a result of these changing times.
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Mobile Learning at Open University Malaysia ~ #change11 - 4 views

  • The survey was carried out in more than 40 OUM learning centers throughout the nation with close to 3,000 respondents
  • it was found that 82.8 percent of the respondents said they would be ready for m-learning. Based on the survey, it may be generalized that 99 percent of OUM learners have mobile phones.
  • About 2,000 students enrolled in the May semester received a total of about 30 SMSes over a period of about 14 weeks. The responses from students were positive.
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  • Generally, the m-learning project made them more engaged with the content and activities of the course
  • In addition, some of the SMSes helped them stay motivated,
  • the SMSes helped them focus on the course, reminded them of important things
  • When we "teach" students in class in order to help them learn, we don't just help them understand the content of the lesson. We also provide tips, motivate them to do activities that will help move them along in the course, get them to participate in discussions and manage their learning/the course. It was the same with the SMSes. We believe, the will get enough content from the print module provided and from the face-to-face interactions with their tutors. So yes, m-learning was used to help "teach" as well as "manage" the student.
  • http://api.ning.com/files/U50Z6pDz8PFgpOps4yunShKHnKR0sbgJx7kyRnjI*eMXpEqJSiqz0n0GuUNtY4DBx3-BFMYIGIabLRg8EqkDO9-IevKFm5Bt/questionnairemobilelearningfirstquestion.pdf
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Authentic Learning ~ #change11 - 5 views

  • We know that people learn best by being actively and collaboratively involved in learning but in universities, we continue to use lectures and other one-way, vessel filling, sage-on-stage, methods to tell students what they need to know
  • An authentic learning approach enables educators to design tasks and assessments that are based on the kinds of activities that are performed in the so called ‘real world’.
  • An authentic learning pedagogy focuses on students collaboratively creating genuine products that are polished and professional, and that are shared and published.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • realistic
  • think in the same ways as professionals
  • Technology-based cognitive tools
  • the creation of real products and artefacts, and are more worthy of the investment of time and effort in higher education than decontextualised exercises and tasks.
  • The creation of genuine sharable products ensures that authentic learning is in a position to capitalize on the participatory culture afforded by social media.
  • our model to guide your design: http://web.me.com/janherrington/AuthenticLearning/
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Ideas from the thirteen weeks of MOOC « Not Worth Printing - 4 views

  • Search: Not Worth Printing open source, elearning trends, ethics in technology and education About
  • In terms of formal learning, Tony Bates believes that changes can occur within the existing education institutes
  • Martin Weller points to the importance of academic institutes recognizing digital scholarship, moving away from the inefficient and costly publishing model and moving towards online publications that better promotes interdisciplinary endeavours
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  • David Wiley and Rory McGreal urge universities to open their content; Wiley further envisions the future of education consisting of learner-generated materials;
  • Building rhizome-like learning networks can foster an environment more conducive to continuous knowledge acquisition and constructio
  • This does not match the way our brain process information, as we are better at learning incremental chunks of knowledge in a meaningful and authentic context.
  • Dave Cormie
  • Clark Quinn’s idea of slow learning
  • Here Jon Dron reminds us that tools themselves are not technology
  • Dron’s definitions of hard vs soft technologies relevant to both formal and informal learning, further help us to undertand that soft technologies are perhaps more useful in building learning and support communities and equipping learners with the ability to  navigate information in networks, thereby promoting lifelong learning.
  • The learners will end up leading the way, as they should.
Lone Guldbrandt Tønnesen

Mobile Learning Toolkit - mobimooc | Google Grupper - 2 views

  • The mobile phone is now a ubiquitous item even among the world’s poorest, and in fact over 70% of the mobile phones on the planet are in developing countries.
  • The 98-page toolkit contains 15 mobile learning methods divided into 4 categories that trainers can choose from depending on their needs –
  • In addition to the methods, an overview of mobile learning is included in the beginning of the guidebook and a set of practical tools that allow the methods to be immediately put into practice.
  •  
    Toolkits for mobile learning- especially in Africa
  •  
    Toolkits for mobile learning- especially in Africa
Tai Arnold

change11 position paper | littlebylittlejohn.com - 6 views

  • we don’t have a good understanding of the ‘binding force’ that connects people while they are learning and building knowledge.
    • tatiluna
       
      Why would this "binding force" be that different from what binds people together in different kinds of relationships outside of collective learning?  Everyone has their own personal reasons for learning from and sharing with the collective, and these reasons are pretty similar to the reasons people learn and share in "real world" or more traditional situations.
  • Becoming competent could be viewed as the ability to perceive the links between these loosely related knowledge fragments
    • tatiluna
       
      The way one navigates the knowledge on the internet expertly could be a metaphor for or, perhaps, a reflection of, how the brain creates a network of knowledge  to become an expert in any environment or domain.
  • how social technology tools can impact learning
    • Tai Arnold
       
      Is this not the point of the whole business?
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  • Perhaps more importantly, if learning is to become more self-regulated, rather than teacher-regulated, what sorts of mindsets do learners require to take control and self regulate their own learning (Zimmermann & Schunk, 2001).
anonymous

Why You Must Define the So-What of Learning - 6 views

  • If employees or students believe learning occurs only in an annual classroom course, amphitheater lectures or the annual array of mandatory e-learning offerings, how does that unleash the collective intelligence hidden throughout the workforce? An organization’s definition of learning must include formal, informal and social modalities to ensure employees are being counted on to contribute their intellect, ideas and knowledge back to the ecosystem.
  • Let’s first start with by defining learning, such that employees and students are aware they don’t have to wait for a course to learn. They don’t have to search the LMS as the only viable way in which to increase their knowledge.
anonymous

The learning organization: an often-described, but seldom-observed phenomenon | Harold ... - 7 views

  •  
    In my experience, these three indicators would suggest a true learning organization: People at all levels are narrating their work in a transparent environment The daily routine supports social learning Time is made available for reflection and sharing stories
Keith Hamon

Between the By-Road and the Main Road: Bold Schools: Part I - Learner as Knowmad - 1 views

  •  
    When we conceive of learner as knowmad, the traditional roles assigned to teacher and student become less relevant, necessary, and linear.  The knowmad is mobile and learns with anybody, anywhere, anytime.  As such, the place we now know as school may be too small and perhaps unable to contain the range of learning engagements necessary for those with nomadic tendencies.  Rather, think of the extended community--one that is physical, virtual, and blended-- as potential learning spaces that our knowmadic traveler composes, accesses, participates in, abandons, and changes.
Allan Quartly

Teaching in Social and Technological Networks « Connectivism - 6 views

  • How can we achieve clear outcomes through distributed means?
  • How can we achieve learning targets when the educator is no longer able to control the actions of learners?
  • A curatorial teacher acknowledges the autonomy of learners, yet understands the frustration of exploring unknown territories without a map.
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  • A curator is an expert learner. Instead of dispensing knowledge, he creates spaces in which knowledge can be created, explored, and connected.
  • Learning is an eliminative process. By determining what doesn’t belong, a learner develops and focuses his understanding of a topic. The teacher assists in the process by providing one stream of filtered information. The student is then faced with making nuanced selections based on the multiple information streams he encounters. The singular filter of the teacher has morphed into numerous information streams, each filtered according to different perspectives and world views.
  • Course content is similarly fragmented. The textbook is now augmented with YouTube videos, online articles, simulations, Second Life builds, virtual museums, Diigo content trails, StumpleUpon reflections, and so on.
  • Fragmentation of content and conversation is about to disrupt this well-ordered view of learning. Educators and universities are beginning to realize that they no longer have the control they once (thought they) did.
  • However, in order for education to work within the larger structure of integrated societal systems, clear outcomes are still needed.
  • How can we achieve clear outcomes through distributed means? How can we achieve learning targets when the educator is no longer able to control the actions of learners?
  • Thoughts, ideas, or messages that the teacher amplifies will generally have a greater probability of being seen by course participants.
  • Each RT amplifies the message much like an electronic amplifier increases the amplitude of audio or video transmitters.
  • A curatorial teacher acknowledges the autonomy of learners, yet understands the frustration of exploring unknown territories without a map. A curator is an expert learner. Instead of dispensing knowledge, he creates spaces in which knowledge can be created, explored, and connected.
  • In CCK08/09, Stephen and I produced a daily newsletter where we highlighted discussions, concepts, and resources that we felt were important. As the course progressed, many students stated they found this to be a valuable resource -a centering point of sorts.
  • Today’s social web is no different – we find our way through active exploration. Designers can aid the wayfinding process through consistency of design and functionality across various tools, but ultimately, it is the responsibility of the individual to click/fail/recoup and continue.
  • Fortunately, the experience of wayfinding is now augmented by social systems. Social structures are filters. As a learner grows (and prunes) her personal networks, she also develops an effective means to filter abundance. The network becomes a cognitive agent in this instance – helping the learner to make sense of complex subject areas by relying not only on her own reading and resource exploration, but by permitting her social network to filter resources and draw attention to important topics. In order for these networks to work effectively, learners must be conscious of the need for diversity and should include nodes that offer critical or antagonistic perspectives on all topic areas. Sensemaking in complex environments is a social process.
  • After all, why should we do the heavy cognitive work when technology is uniquely suited to analyzing and generating patterns?
  • I’d like a learning system that functions along the lines of RescueTime – actively monitoring what I’m doing – but then offers suggestions of what I should (or could) be doing additionally. Or a system that is aware of my email exchanges over the last several years and can provide relevant information based on the development of my thinking and work. With the rise of social media, and with it the attention organizations pay to how their brand is being represented, monitoring services such as Viral Heat are promising. Imagine a course where the fragmented conversations and content are analyzed (monitored) through a similar service. Instead of creating a structure of the course in advance of the students starting (the current model), course structure emerges through numerous fragmented interactions. “Intelligence” is applied after the content and interactions start, not before. This is basically what Google did for the web – instead of fully defined and meta-described resources in a database, organized according to subject areas (i.e. Yahoo at the time), intelligence was applied at the point of search. Aggregation should do the same – reveal the content and conversation structure of the course as it unfolds, rather than defining it in advance.
  • Filtering resources is an important educator role, but as noted already, effective filtering can be done through a combination of wayfinding, social sensemaking, and aggregation. But expertise still matters. Educators often have years or decades of experience in a field. As such, they are familiar with many of the concepts, pitfalls, confusions, and distractions that learners are likely to encounter. As should be evident by now, the educator is an important agent in networked learning. Instead of being the sole or dominant filter of information, he now shares this task with other methods and individuals.
  • By determining what doesn’t belong, a learner develops and focuses his understanding of a topic. The teacher assists in the process by providing one stream of filtered information. The student is then faced with making nuanced selections based on the multiple information streams he encounters. The singular filter of the teacher has morphed into numerous information streams, each filtered according to different perspectives and world views.
  • Given that coherence and lucidity are key to understanding our world, how do educators teach in networks? For educators, control is being replaced with influence. Instead of controlling a classroom, a teacher now influences or shapes a network.
  •  
    Unpacking the role of the teacher in connectivism
kathleen johnson

Why Learning Should Be Messy | MindShift - 2 views

    • kathleen johnson
       
      They have always been interconnected. We just could not see it until we had the internet.
  • “If you were to hike the Appalachian trail, which would take you months and months, and you reflect upon it, you do not divide the experience into the historic, scientific, mathematic, and English aspects of it. You would look at it holistically.”
  • In practice, this means the elimination of English, mathematics, history, and science class.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • arrange the curriculum around big ideas, questions, and conundrums
  • Diana Laufenberg, former teacher at the Science Leadership Academy, described to me, “The role of inquiry is the starting point of learning.
  • School-based education has always been about telling and getting of information, rather than exploring or investigating
  • the pedagogical unit of Brightworks is the arc, which is divided into three phrases.” Each arc, he says, has a central theme.
  • first phase of the arc is called exploration
  • The second phase is expression
  • take the ideas to completion — within the deadline
  • The final phase is called exposition, where the public gets to view what the kids have done.
  • “The point is to see the topic in as many ways as you possibly can,” says Tulley.
  • “T-shaped” students
  • depth in a particular field of study but also breadth across multiple disciplines.
  • David Kelley, whose mission is to transmit “empathy” into his students to encourage them to see the human side of the challenges
  • The school concentrates on four areas: the developing world, sustainability, health and wellness, and K-12 educatio
  • Similarly, the M.I.T. Media Lab has an anti-disciplinary approach to learning
  • “Suppose you and I decided to build a boat. Our hypothesis might be: we can build a boat under $30 using recycled materials and sail it across the Hudson River. Our teacher or mentor can help us shape that to ensure that the challenge meets our cognitive and intellectual development
  • At the Brightworks School, students will leave with an iPad, filled with all the projects they completed in their term
  • The role of the teacher in project-based learning as Laufenberg likes to say is an “architect of opportunity.
  •  
    Joichi Ito, director of the M.I.T. Media Lab, told me that rather than interdisciplinary education, which merges two or more disciplines, we need anti-disciplinary education, a term coined by Sandy Pentland, head of the lab's Human Dynamics group.
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