umuc orkand lecture 2009
DESCRIPTION
A RealMedia capture of this talk is available at http://marconi.umuc.edu/ramgen/tvstudio/umuc/lecture_series_021909.rmTRANSCRIPT
Content and Connections: New Opportunities for
Formal Education
Terry Anderson, PhD Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education
Orkand Distinguished Lecture Series
Lecture Overview Intro and compulsory opening joke Compelling case for use/re-use of open content New models of connected learning New Roles for our Educational Institutions
“Canada is a great country, much too cold for common sense, inhabited by compassionate and intelligent people with bad haircuts”. Yann Martel, Life of Pi, 2002.
Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada
* Athabasca University
Fastest growing university in Canada
34,000 students, 700 courses
100% distance education
Graduate and Undergraduate programs
Master & Doctorate – Distance Education
Only USA Regionally Accredited University in
Canada
Athabasca University
Values We can (and must) continuously improve the quality,
effectiveness, appeal, cost and time efficiency of learning. Learner control and freedom is integral to 21st Century
formal education and life-long learning. Education for elites is not sufficient for planetary survival
“Today’s learners want to be active participants in the learning process – not mere listeners; they have a need to control their environments, and they are used to easy access to the staggering amount of content and knowledge available at their fingertips”
EduCause Horizon Report 2009
The compelling Case for Openness
Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. –
Terry Foote, Wikipedia
Open Education Resources (OERs) Vision + Affordance
“At the heart of the open educational resources movement is the simple and powerful idea that; the world’s knowledge is a public good in general the World Wide Web provides an extraordinary
opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse that knowledge.”
Hewlett Foundation Smith, & Casserly. The promise of open educational resources. Change 38(5): 8–17, 2006
OER Granularity
Diagrams, photos Articles (Open access publications) Games, simulations, activities Units of learning (IMS LD) Units and courses Programs
Special Issue of IRRODL edited by Dave Wiley fall 2009
OER’s are Open (Mostly) Meaning you can:
Augment Edit Customize Aggregate and Mashup Reformat Re-published
But they need to be licensed – not just put online
See Scott Leslie’s 10 minute video at http://www.edtechpost.ca/gems/opened.htm
A Tale of 3 books
Open Access
100,000 + downloads &
Individual chapters
500 hardcopies sold @ $50
Free at aupress.org
Commercial publisher
934 copies sold at $52.00
Buy at Amazon!!
E-Learning for the 21st
Century Commercial Pub. 1200 sold @ $135.00 2,000 copies in Arabic Translation @ $8.
Reading OERs Ebooks – just around the corner?
Reading OERs Espresso Book Machine
Binding: Perfect-bound books, indistinguishable from the bookstore copy.
Page-Count: 40 to 830 pages.
Speed: A 300-page book in less than 4 minutes.
File Format: Standard PDF for book block and cover.
Books can be downloaded from the web, or in person from CDs, flash drives, etc.
Cost $.03 /page
Reading Green - “Each of the books printed and sold… will save 5.8 kilograms in carbon emissions,”. Kanter 2008
Problems with OER
Little take up by conventional teachers Too little reward and recognition for authors Too few learners, by themselves, actually engage with
the content Trouble breaking away from dependence on text
books Undeveloped business case Too few teachers remix and repost content Too difficult to upload, tag and share
Solution?? Vibrant communities of Produsers??
Our own Experiment: Course development based on OER’s
4 Athabasca University courses: Nursing, Communications (Writing for the Theatre) English for Business, & Educ. Tech
Vastly different results Critical variable was the attitude of the developer(s)
Christiansen, J., & Anderson, T. (2004)
Feasibility of course development based on learning objects: Research analysis of three case studies. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Education,
What is missing? Clear pedagogical goals Culture of development, sharing
and remix Network and social software
Solutions Lack of Business models
Reducing dependence on text books? How much does current production
cost? Can we engage students to produce
high quality content? Are ads more palatable than fees?
The Emerging Political Economy of Peer Production: Michael Bauwens
a 'third mode of production' different from for-profit or public production by state-owned enterprises.
Its product is not exchange value for a market, but but use-value for a community of users
“produce use-value through the free cooperation of producers who have access to distributed capital”
www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499
Prod-Users - From production to produsage - Axel Bruns (2008)
Users become active participants in the production of artifacts:
Examples: Open source movement Wikipedia Citizen journalism (blogs) Immersive worlds Distributed creativity - music, video, Flickr
Produsage Principles produsage.org
Community-Based –the community as a whole can contribute more than a closed team of producers.
Fluid Heterarcy – produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledge, and may form loose sub-groups to focus on specific issues, topics, or problems
Unfinished Artifacts –projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished;
Common Property, Individual Rewards – contributors permit (non-commercial) community use, adaptation, and further development of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital they gain through this process
“open education is not just about disseminating resources that can be localized in many ways to improve education in local contexts, but also about an opportunity toward broadening and deepening our collective understanding of teaching and learning. “Toru Liyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar 2008
OERs as Disruptive Technologies
Christensen (1997, 2008) studies innovation and the impact of disruptions
A disruptive technology “transforms a market whose services are complicated and expensive into one where simplicity, convenience, accessibility and affordability characterize that industry” p. 11
Unless steered by very wise leaders organizations will “shape every innovation into a sustaining innovation - one that fits processes, values, and the economic model of the organization - because organizations cannot naturally disrupt themselves” p. 74
Open Educational Resources
Produser Model Ex. WikiEducator
Open participation Emergent governance Unrestricted licensing Mass growth potential
Produser/Consumer Ex. MIT OCW
Restricted participation Staff production
Institutional governance Non commercial license
Mora, M. (2008)
Short Case study: Open University UKʼs Development of Open Learn openlearn.open.ac.uk
Rationale Opportunity: The risk of doing nothing when technology and globalization issues
need to be addressed. A testbed for new technology and new ways of working way to work with external funders who share similar aims and
ideals A chance to learn how to draw on the world as a resource.
Brand Promotion A route for outreach beyond current student body Demonstration of the quality of Open University materials in new
regions.
Open Learn Example http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/
490 units
Social Learn: to devise means to put ourselves out of business - before our competitors do!!
“For 3000 years education has made the learner adapt to the system. SocialLearn [1] aims to reverse this and make the education system adapt to the learner.”
Make the formal informal, and the informal formal.
Web 2.0 tools, attitudes, learning designs
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sociallearn/ Martin Weller
Creative Literacies driving Web 2.0:
“The ability to experiment with technology in order to create and manipulate content that serves social goals rather than merely retrieving and absorbing information”
p. 107 Burgess, J. (2006) Learning to Blog. Uses of Blogs Bruns &Jacobs
We are producing content How best to harness this creativity?
65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube every day
Facebook 24 million photos uploaded daily
50 million blogs, 50% written by under 19 year olds Scientific America 229(3) 2008 &
FaceBook Home
OERs concluded We have opportunity, tools, demand and capacity to
revolutionize the production and distribution of powerful learning content.
But Education is more than content, how do we organize ourselves for effective learning?
Steven Warburton, 2007
Group Network
Social Learning Taxonomy of the Many
Dron and Anderson, 2007
Collective
31
Group Network
Social Learning Taxonomy of the Many
Collective
LMS
Web 2.0 Tools
Semantic Web Tools
Social Learning Each of us participates in Groups, Networks and Collectives. Learning is enhanced by exploiting the affordances of all three
sources of social learning. Issues, memes, opportunities and learning activities arise at all
three levels of granularity. Tools are designed and often work best at particular levels, but
can always be appropriated
Formalize the formal Informalize the formal (Martin Weller)
Choosing the right tool?
http://www.go2web20.net 2806 logos as of Feb.16, 2009
OR
1. Formal Education and Groups:
Classes, cohorts & collaboration Leads to increases:
completion rates, achievement satisfaction as compared to individualized
learning Collaborative projects forge strong links Familiar logistic challenges similar to
institutional, campus-based learning Can operate ‘behind the garden wall” to allow
freedom for expression and development Refuge for scholarship
Formal Learning and Groups Long history of research
and study Established sets of tools
Classrooms, Learning Management
Systems Synchronous (video &
net conferencing) Email
Need to develop face to face, mediated and blended group learning skills
Groups as Communities of Practice Wengler’s ideas of Community of Practice
mutual engagement – synchronous and notification tools joint enterprise – collaborative projects, “pass the course” a shared repertoire – common tools, LMS, IM and doc
sharing
Distributed Group Tools
Problems with Groups
Restrictions in time, space, pace, & relationship - NOT OPEN
Often overly confined by teacher expectation and institutional curriculum control
Usually Isolated from the authentic world of practice
“low tolerance of internal difference, sexist and ethicized regulation, high demand for obedience to its norms and exclusionary practices.” Cousin & Deepwell 2005
Group think (Baron, 2005) Poor preparation for Lifelong Learning
beyond the course
Paulsen (1993) Law of Cooperative Freedom
Relationships
Challenges of using new social software tools for group tasks
Control Pacing and Deadlines Support Privacy Assessment Ownership and perseverance
Groups are necessary, but not sufficient for quality learning.
2. Formal Learning with Networks
42
Networks create and sustain links between individuals creating flexible communication and information spaces
Networks link diversity, span boundaries, enable communication among disparate individuals
Each of us may belong to many networks Networks can connect self-paced and independent
learners to cooperative study activities
Network: An integrated system of resources and people
Networks
43
Provide resources from which students’ extract and contribute information
In school one should learn to build, contribute to and manage one’s networks
Transparency provides application and validation of information and skills developed in formal learning
Provides role models for new students Networks last beyond the course - basis for
ongoing support and advise from alumni and professional communities
“People who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas” Burt, 2005, p. 90
Communities of Practice
Distributed Share common interest Self organizing Open No expectation of meeting or even knowing all members
of the Network Little expectation of reciprocity Contribute for social capital, altruism and a sense of
improving the world/practice through contribution
(Brown and Duguid, 2001)
Communities of Practice
Distributed Share common interest Self organizing Open No expectation of meeting or even knowing all members
of the Network Little expectation of reciprocity Contribute for social capital, altruism and a sense of
improving the world/practice through contribution
(Brown and Duguid, 2001)
Networks
Groups are Managed - Networks Emerge!
47
Networks cannot be controlled like a group - requires new types of learning activity and leadership
Meritocracy nor autocracy Need to both amplify and extinguish interactions Facilitate quality knowledge and artifact construction Stimulate emergent behaviours and adaptation
The New Yorker September 12, 2005
Building Networks of Practice in Education
Motivation – marks, rewards, self and net efficacy, net-presence
Structural support Exposure and training Transparent systems Wireless access, mobile computing
Cognitive skills – content + procedural, disclosure control Social connections, reciprocity
Creating and sustaining a spiral of social capital building Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998)
Network Pedagogies
50
Connectivism Learning is network formation: adding new nodes, creating new
paths between people and learning resources “Learning can reside outside of ourselves (within an
organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn are more important than our current state of knowing.” Siemens, G. (2007)
Complexity Learning in environments in which activities and outcomes
emerge in response to authentic need creates powerful learning opportunities
Learning at the edge of chaos Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
See the Networked Student by Wendy Drexler
Social Software works to facilitate and build Networks
51
Networks combine personalization with socialization creating transparency (Dalsgaard, 2008)
Focus is on the individual’s spaces and the way they share and expose their space to others Reflections (blog) Tagged Resources (photos, links, tasks) Accomplishments (portfolio, artifacts) Sharing and growing interests and skills Finding friends, study buddies (profiles) Scheduling, coordinating Collaborative work spaces (wikis, doc sharing)
Network Tool Set (example)
52
Text Text
Stepanyan, Mather & Payne, 2007
Access Controls in Elgg
Brainify.com Social tagging network for students
Networks force Individual Ownership and Construction
“Networks in contrast (to groups and communities) make no claims about the type and character of the links between nodes” Chris Jones, (2004)
This forces network participants to more actively engage in their own network development, off loading the responsibility from teachers and empowering learners to build and manage their own networks
"the network contains within it antagonistic clusterings, divergent sub-topologies, rogue nodes" Galloway and Thacker, 2007 p. 34
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeblet/423397690/
“There is crack in everything, that's how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen
Researching Educational Networks of Practice
How to sustain input beyond the course ? What type of control is needed to support and grow
trust and provide sufficient privacy? Control and evaluation ? Appropriate tool sets ?
3. Collectives: Harvesting the Wisdom of Crowds
58
3. Formal Education and Collectives
59
Collectives used to aggregate, then filter, compare, contrast and recommend.
Personal and collaborative search and filter for learning Smart retrieval from the universal library of resources – human and
learning objects Allows discovery and validation of norms, values, opinion and “ways of
understanding”
“a kind of cyber-organism, formed from people linked algorithmically…it grows through the aggregation of Individual, Group and Networked activities” Dron & Anderson, 2007
Problem with very weak ties Information, communication and interaction with those
we share very weak ties is likely of most value, because they have access to resources and connections that we do not. But they are also least likely to want to expend energy sharing their data.
Collective applications work best when we contribute for our individual gain, affording harvesting for collective gain
Ex. Social bookmarking
Collective Tools
61
Collective Examples: Determining our Effect
62
Analysis of blog postings using semantic and matching techniques Potential uses:
uncover suicidal ideation mental health of the community understand evolving communication genres
measure impact of popular memes understanding and predicting early adopters
See Mishne, & de Rijke (2006) Capturing Global Mood Levels using Blog Posts
Collective Example: Terry’s Store at Amazon
Drachsler, H., Hummel, G., & Koper, R. (2009). Identifying the Goal, User model and Conditions of Recommender Systems for Formal and Informal Learning. Journal of Digital Information, 10(2)
Explicit
65
Explicit recommender systems:
Collective filtering of stories and comments Customizable by individuals to set quality of comments
displayed Critical mass essential but demonstrates how informed
readers collectively filter for each other “6,000 or 7,000 comments on a busy day that other
people write (and review) and just a dozen stories of just a paragraph or two that we actually generate,” Rob Malda, Founder Slashdot
Collective Examples for Educational Application
Artifact Ranking systems: Google Search; CitULike; Tag Clouds: What do collectives find of interest? Recommendation Systems: People like me, like ….. Wikis: Contributions from the crowd Folksonomies: Bottom up and emergent classification
systems Voting and auctions: Perfect market? Prediction Markets: Net based psychology and sociology
Hive mind? Borgs? Group consciousness?
69
Collectively managing planet Earth What does it mean to be aware of each other?
Collectives operate as mirrors to monitor and learn from our collective selves (Spivack, 2006)
Are We what we click? “If you want to understand
the new connected world and how we choose to live in it, Look no further than our Internet behaviour; after all, we are what we click" p 203” Tancer, (2008)
Behaviours (online searches, paths etc.) viewed collectively offer powerful insights into human behaviour
Collectives, Privacy & Identity Best way to protect personal integrity is by creating a
robust but realistic web presence. Your actions are being mined, best to be a miner rather
than a lump of coal! Active social net users are more socially active and
integrated than non users (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007)
Use of Blogs reduces feelings of alienation and isolation among online learners (Dickey, 2004)
When perceived interest and benefits increase, willingness to provide personal data increases (Dinev & Hart, 2006)
Net
Calendar Assignments Grades Syllabus Discussions?
Blogs E-portfolios Resources Course and social Communities
Learning Content
Net
Calendar Assignments Grades syllabus
Blogs E-portfolios Resources Course and social Communities
Learning Content
GROUPS
NETWORKS
Collectives
Where will I find the Time?
Is this stuff just a big fad that I can safely ignore?
Clay Shirky (2008) social surplus of time “Two hundred billion hours of television watching, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television”
School is not the primary learning context. By using all the resources of content, places, groups, networks and collectives we prepare students for a life and a love of learning.
Content Connections
Research
“The class is not the primary learning event. It is life itself that is the main learning event. Schools, classrooms, and training sessions still have a role to play in this vision, but they have to be in the service of the learning that happens in the world.
Etienne Wenger
"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
Chinese Proverb
Terry Anderson [email protected]
Blog: terrya.edubogs.org
Your comments and questions most welcomed!
Network Politics The mere existence of this multiplicity of
nodes in no way implies an inherently, ecumenical or equalitarian order". P. 13 Galloway and Thacker, 2007
Networks used to wage war on both states and terrorist resistance
The more the West continues to perfect itself as a monolith of pure, smooth power, the greater the chance of a single asymmetrical attack penetrating straight to the heart” p. 17
Internet Singularity
Ability to Create Digital Artifacts
Human Knowledge
Ability to Analyze the Online World
Gary William Flake Microsoft / MSN http://flakenstein.net/lib/flake-singularity.ppt
“ Primary cause is claimed to be ubiquitous computing, democratization of computing resources, and iterative processes of creation and discovery becoming continuous.”
On average, the production and provision of the distance learning courses consumed nearly 90% less energy and produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions (per student per 10 CAT points) than the conventional campus-based university courses