Home » Posts tagged 'Innovations in e-learning'
Tag Archives: Innovations in e-learning
62 matters relating to Social Media Learning
A call from a colleague with a major corporate and we talk social media learning for nearly three hours.
During this time I repeatedly search this blog, using the e-portfolio that it has become, sending charts and grabs from Picasa and from the iPad, creating a mind-map in Bubbl.us and balancing how the MA in Open and Distance Learning compares to the OU MBA he completed last year and the MRes he is doing now.
Just a phone call. We could have gone to Skype, Elluminate or even Google+. The phone freed up the laptop. Several photos picked up from workshops, as well as screen grabs, were emailed from the iPad which was also running.
INSERT IMAGE
Fig.1. Social Media Learning Mind Map
Timely as I am procrastinating over the ECA which will be on the use of Forums and Mobile devices in e-learning.
A reminder of how a synchronous conversation can achieve so much, especially when there were items set before our eyes to discuss.
We also discussed (I hadn’t the energy to take many notes. In retrospect I wish I’d recorded it):
- Belbin Team Roles
- Activity Theory
- Management Mindsets
- Silos
- Web 2.0
- Learning on the periphery
- Vicarious Learning
- Medical Market Research
- TV Production
- The role of an Alumni Board
- Narrative
- Research
- Assessment
- Blogs as ‘electronic paper’
It was invaluable to have the external point of view, someone from a global comany of thousands talking about social media learning. Looking at the devices we now have, such as smartphones and tablets, it was particularly interesting to be reminded of human nature, how devices may be used for things and in ways that they were not designed.
Whilst the iPad permits mobility, we often use it when static: in our favourite chair, recumbant on the sofa, even in bed or in the bath. Is this mobile learning? It’s hardly getting out of the house, drawing down data on the run using augmented technology to enhance the environment your in. And simply having content on an iPad so that you can using the touch screen to open and close the text, enlarging text, flipping the screen size between portrait and landscape all the time – the joy of its tactile nature. Unable to sleep I use the light from the iPad as a torch to sneak away from the marital bed and passed the children’s bedrooms and to find my way downstairs withouth having to put the landing light on.
It also was clear how both devices and approaches to learning cannot be isolated, we got our joint heads around Engestrom’s ‘Activity Systems’. The technology is complementary, the move to personalise everything through device and software choices.
I’d played Devil’s Adocat a couple of times suggesting that ‘nothing had changed’ only to come away agreeing that many of my behaviours were/are different as a direct result of Web 2.0. I have gone from learning in private, hunched over my books never showing it to anyone to a situations where, more like someone tending a public garden, or at least one seen from the street, people can see my thinking. Ironically, it is the end result that often fails to appear because I’m not about to post TMAs and ECAs online.
Some authors I quoted/cited during the conversation:
- Vygotsky
- Engestrom
- Richardson
- Moon
- Cox
- John Seely Brown
- Jonathan Swift
To which I subsequently add as a result of browsing the blog and so re-engaging with my own experience within the chronology of the module; it is this, after all, that is to be examined, rather than my knowledge from this and the preceding modules. A learning design fault?
- H807 You diddle about with every instrument in the orchestra and several that have just been invented.
- H808 You learn to conduct, or at least why a conductor is important (even if you can’t play an instrument or read music).
- H800 You learn to play an electronic keyboard
I quoted Swift as saying (paraphrasing) ‘I don’t know what I mean until I hear myself speak’. If anyone has any idea how to cite this please do offer your thoughts.
More authors to consider in this context (mobile learning, forums, e-learning, web 2.0):
- Haythornthwaite
- O’Reilly
- Weller
- Traxler
- Gregory
- Mason
- Sharpe
- Beetham
- Belshaw
- Hinchcliffe
- Bacon and Dillon
- Siemens
- Boyer
- Wenger
- Bruner
Other topics that we should have discussed:
- User Generated Content
- Collective Intelligence
- Apprenticeships
- Problem based learning
- Participation
- Demand Pull
REFERENCE
Cox, R. (2006) Vicarious Learning and Case-based Teaching of Clinical Reasoning Skills (2004–2006) [online], http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ esrcinfocentre/ viewawardpage.aspx?awardnumber=RES-139-25-0127 [(last accessed 10 March 2011).
A university in your pocket – the Open University VLE goes Smart and iPad
Where do we strand with the use of mobile devices in learning?
The Kukulska-Hulme et al 2011 report ‘Mature Students using mobile devices in life and learning’ may be a recent publication (International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning Jan-march 2001) but draws its conclusions on research undertaken in between May 2008 and April 2009.
Technologically, in relation to the potential for e-learning, has move on a great deal. In industry would we not expect a report, say from Nielsen or Monitor, to have been done in the last six months?
As Kukulskha-Hulme and her colleagues point out by 2009 PDAs were virtually extinct and we were about to experience the launch of the iPad. Since 2009 smart phones have graduated – they’re bright in many ways.
Like their users?
Bright people with the means quickly find ways to put these tools to work, extending their reach to their online course, for materials, forums and assessment alerts, to organise their study time around their diary.
‘In today’s global marketplace, educators must know the technology habits and expectations of their students, including those from other countries.’ (Kukulska-Hulme et al, 2001:18)
A growing body of students expect a component of their course to be managed using mobile devices.
I like this point from JISC. It supports the constructive view of learning
“Learners can be active makers and shapers of their own learning. They should be supported in using technologies of their own choice where appropriate”. (JISC, 2009, p.51)
It is interesting that the report notes that ‘mobile will not necessarily be readily adapted for learning’ (a 2008/2009 perspective) with reasons given as: ‘Ergonomic, pedagogical, psychological and environmental facts and the issue of cost’. (Stockwell, 2008)
Much more is possible today, and expected.
They do suggest that, ‘more widespread adoption by students and teachers is likely to follow’. (ibid 2011:19)
The report notes ‘notable minorities’
A notable major minority who ‘use the internet to download or upload materials.’ (major minority)
And a lesser minority, minority who ‘contribute to blogs and wiki and engage with virtual worlds.’ (ibid p.21) (minor minority)
‘Their age seems less important than their position as early adopters and instigators of change through their influence among their peers and through their networks’. (2011:19)
Which debunks Prensky and favour diffusion of innovations as a mode of study.
‘We were interested in gathering data that might challenge the still widespread opinion amongst educators that mobile devices are of little use for academic study. Activities such as web browsing, reading e-news, article reading, book reading, and note taking are valued in the academic world but often considered implausible on handheld devices.‘ (2011:20)
Which has indeed happened with smarter phones and the proliferation of the tablet (or slate) or iPad … whatever the term might be that we settle on.
‘Since the survey was developed, other devices including notebook computers and e-book readers have become popular, making it even more difficult to draw boundaries between ‘handheld learning’, laptop learning’ and ‘desktop learning’. (2011:21)
As if such a distinction was ever necessary? They are all computers, just different sizes, affordances and capabilities.
I liken this loss of boundaries, or the blurring, to drops of ink in a tank of water that gradually swirl about each other and merge.
MOBILE DEVICES ARE USED IN LEARNING FOR:
– Contact with others
– Access to information and answers
– Reading e-Books
– Listening to Podcasts
– Scheduling
Producers and consumers become ‘produsers‘
One survey shows that mobile devices are enabling users to create resources for teaching purposes, write blogs to keep their friends up to date with events, take and distribute photos and videos, and make and take notes and recordings’. (2011.31)
What is interesting is that there appear to be many ways in which users are employing technologies to generate products.
Bruns (2005) coined the term ‘produsers’ to denote both of these approaches.
‘Our findings indicate that institutions planning to offer mobile apps should build on the existing preferences of students for social communication. Listening to audio, watching video and reading short texts if the apps are successfully to enhance the learning experience’. (2011:32)
When students are offered appropriate mobile resources then they will use them. (2011:32)
‘Since the use of a mobile device represents a new technological means of reading books, articles and news, this might have an impact on how, and how much, students read, however further research would be needed’. (2011:33)
More research is always needed … in deed, with a longitidunal study this research would and should undertake to look at a cohort or students EVERY year.
REFERENCE
Bruns, A. (2005) ‘Anyone can edit’: understanding the produser. Retrieved from http;//snurb.info/index. php?q=node/s86
Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes, John Pettit, Linda Bradley, Ana A. Carvalho, Anthony Herrington, David M. Kennedy, and Aisha Walker. “Mature Students Using Mobile Devices in Life and Learning.” IJMBL 3.1 (2011): 18-52. Accessed (May 22, 2011)
Rogers, E.M. (2005) Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.) New York, NY: Free Press
Jones, C.R., Ramanau, R., Cross, S., & Healing, G. (2010) Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers & Education, 54(3), 722-732. doi. 10.1016/j.compendu.2009.09.022
The Open University Merry-go-round. Join a course, do another and never get off their life-long learning ride
Were I back on the H807 Merry-go-round, I’d love to do the Innovations in E-Learning module over again … indeed, given the pace of change maybe a three year refresher is required.
I’d have loved some of this:
And this:
And this:
Which was my third e-book purchase.
I have read it, highlighted it, reviewed it, shared notes via Facebook on it as I went along and will blog about it at length in due course. And Twitter this, and that. And respond to comments.
Most important of all, I am acting on this books advice which means I now have feed from Google Alerts, and Technorati amongst many other suggestions on how someone who feel they have a voice can find like minds.
Is looking at this better than reading the chapter around it?
Best of all is to share it and discuss with those who know better, or want to know better. My opinion is your opinion put through the kitchen-blender.
Reading E-Learning at the OU
Completing an MA in Open and Distance Learning with the Open University (UK). Picking up on a module I did in 2001, with another completed in 2010 (Innovations in E-learning.) Now preparing for ‘The E-learning professional’ which will run from Sept 2010 to Feb 2011.
H807: Innovations in E-Learning. Tutor Marked Assignment 3 – Reflective Writing and e-learning (or not).
I understood from the heading for TMA03 in H807 that ‘it is permissible to use an extract from a very long message.’ I therefore deleted the 900+ additional words that on two occasions occurred in a forum message.
The links/titling were absolutely as clear as anyone could wish them to be. A message per page.
My understanding of what makes ‘reflective’ writing is perfectly valid. It is open ended, not prescriptive – it is after all my mind that is coming up with these ideas, which is the entire point of it, to develop my personal understanding. I am trying to enhance my way of thinking, not adopt someonelse’s.
In relation to my continued dislike of the term ‘e-learning,’ it isn’t difficult to refer to plenty of current articles, including JISC that agree that the term is not universally agreed or accepted. Salmon referring to ‘e-lapsed’ time for an ‘E-tivity’ is palpably ridiculous. Academic os this ludicrous desire to ‘coin a word or phrase and a clichéd attitude regarding e-learning that anything with ‘e’ attached gains the ‘e-‘ branded values. Balderdash.
‘The first decade of the 21st century is already on the wane and we stand at an interesting point as regards the use of technology to support and enhance learning and teaching. The fact that we still refer to much of this enhancement as e.learning (and still disagree about what the term actually means) signals that the relationship between technology and learning is not as yet an entirely comfortable one.’ JISC 2007 (Introduction)
The lesson I have learnt is that it is vital to meet face-to-face, even to speak to someone through. Elluminate or on the phone where all kinds of important cues and nuances to understanding come into play: tone of voice, pauses, choice of words … and then facial expressions and body language when face-to-face. As occurred at an ASA workshop the other week, I simply couldn’t get my head around what the tutor was trying to say about Some aspect of Nutrition,I eventually left it, but a fellow student could see by my expression that I was just fed up of asking the same question and getting a numpty response that made no sense – this student made a far better job of explaining to me the point the tutor could not.
My quest is to discover why. Why is my nemis. Get me asking questions and I become driven to find answers, my answers.
If I keep asking ‘why?’ regarding the ECA, it will be because I haven’t had this ‘Bolen knot’ moment – I genuinely thought with TMA03, as occurred on about the 7th draft of TMA02, that this moment had occurred.
Assistance and support for academics
‘Academics expressed a clear preference for individualised assistance and support. This is intensive & expensive and the provision of such an approach is unsustainable.’
Kirkpatrick (2001:174)
REFERENCE
Kirkpatrick, Denise. International Journal for Academic Development, Nov2001, Vol. 6 Issue 2, p168-176, 9p (accessed 28 august 2011)
Mind Bursts 