Personal Blogs

Thinking about this idea of knowledge being, in the constructivist and connectivisit view of things, personal and contextual, not independent and objective.  I have agreed with this view of knowledge for a long time and often got frustrated with the concept of “knowledge transfer” when it is used to mean “making sure people get the hang of certain facts” etc.

But the thing I have struggled with a bit is what this looks like and how to explain in meaningful terms what knowledge looks like when it is unique to the person holding it. So here’s a go.

I understand facts to be useful building bricks that may support our knowledge if we can combine them together in useful ways and apply and interpret them.  I am not sure that many things we think of as facts can still be proven to be objectively true and then you get into what truth is all about and William James and Karl Popper and so on but for now it’s probably OK that there is a concept that some things could be called facts.

So it might be a fact that when you are driving on UK roads, if you come to what is called a yellow box junction, you are not supposed to enter it unless the way out is clear (it is not a fact that you physically can’t or that you will definitely get prosecuted etc but it is reasonable to say it’s a fact that you are not supposed to. Even then, our understanding of this fact might vary.

Most drivers in the UK will have this fact in their memories with, perhaps, some degree of similarity in how they undertand it.  On its own though, it is still not very useful as knowledge.  When a driver is confronted with a yellow box junction, s/he will make a decision on what to do – possibly based not on this fact alone but on knowledge.  This means that the decision is guided by a number of things including this fact but also by other experiences of what happens if you do or don’t enter the yellow box, what the consequences are for you the driver and the drivers behind you and in the other parts of the road network and what value system you are working with at the time, i.e. whether you want to obstruct other drivers or help them, how quickly you want to get on your way etc.

This decision therefore might be guided by the use of a single fact but it might better be guided by knowledge – the driver’s understanding of that fact, combined with lots of other inputs and contexts that come to bear uniquely at that moment.

And all this is OK unless you want to live in a world with everything is fully defined and clear and black and white and there is only one way of arriving at decisions and the people who are best at making those decisions are the ones who are at the topic of the league table in terms of the number of “facts” they know.  Can’t see it working but it worries me that so much of our education seems to want this to be the case.

MOOCs and Connectivisim

Kop (2011) The Challenges to connectivism learning on open online networks: Learning experiences during a Massive Open Online Course

There has always been a triangle of interaction between learner, tutor and content/material; the age of learning has facilitated new ways for interactions to happen and heightened the emphasis on communication in the people-based interactions. Since the 1980s, learning has also been characterised by a greater emphasis on the learning theories that now underpin how we try to understand the phenomenon.

Connectivisim fits with the participation metaphor proposed by Sfard (1998) and taking the emphasis away from a body of knowledge and more toward “engagement of people in communication with each other” (p20).  Learning in this paradigm is enhanced by:

·       Aggregation – having lots of resources to work with

·       Relation – reflecting and connecting the content to something

·       Creation – making meaning by building an output such as a blog entry

·       Sharing – giving other learners access to the output.

Connectivism assumes self-directed learning, with the attendant expectations that learners will have the motivation to manage their time and their activities themselves.

An important factor in motivation to learn is the “presence” of the learner’s cognitive involvement with the content at a deep level as well as of other learners and, in formal environments, teachers.  In Personal Learning Environments, the teacher presence may be substituted by other “experts” within whom the learner can interact.

To make this type of learning happen, learners need various kinds of digital literacy.  They need to be able to work with and understand the networks they are in and search for and make value judgements about the resources they are using.

Kop’s study looked at two MOOCs in terms of the digital literacies required, the autonomy of the learner and the level of cognitive, social and teacher presence.

It confirmed the importance of these factors and demonstrated that it takes time for learners to build their confidence and competence to manage their learning and interact within the community they have joined.

Not all learners engaged with all four activities mentioned above – in particular, creation was something that only a minority completed visibly.

McAuley et al (2010) The MOOC model for digital practice  

MOOCs bring together three things - connectivity through social networking, expertise in a particular field and lots of free resources.

The fact that MOOCs are social media-based means that there is an automatic channel for promoting the existence of new MOOCs.

There are no rules for how MOOC practice needs to be conducted; it will be made available through a central site but learners may share and create through independent social media tools or centrally.

The MOOC model provides an “ecosystem” for exploring the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed in the digital economy and how people might develop them.

The authors identify three benefits from the scale of MOOCs:

·          The long tail or 80:20 aspect means that a learner who has very specific or obscure needs should find someone to work with

·          The expertise within the MOOC is being shared with the maximum number of people who might benefit from it

·          The work of the tutor in facilitating and guiding is shared across a wide body of learners.

They also highlight a number of issues which merit further exploration; including the educational impact of MOOCs, how deep it can be and whether it extends to peripheral participation, the role of interventions that might help to manage quality and the opportunities for revenue generation, if there are any.

Big OER and Little OER

Weller (2011) The Digital Scholar - How technology is transforming scholarly practice

(Chapters 7 & 9)

Big OERs are based on major projects, often HEIs, with explicit aims to achieve specific educational outcomes.  They are of high quality and are delivered in planned, consistent ways, for example through a portal which is designed for this purpose.

Little OERs originate from the activities of individuals or groups who are creating and distributing materials which may not have specific educational aims. There is no consistency in their production and quality may be low.

(page 105)

There may be an 80:20 relationship between these types of OER and their usage bases - traffic to many big OERs is "impressive" (page 109) and they represent a small proportion of OERs in terms of units but provide a very large volume of content to a large number of learners and reusers.  Little OERs will account for a high proportion of units but may serve a smaller part of the market (though it must be hard to tell as there is no definitive record by the nature of what little OERs are).

Some ways in which they differ in terms of value/offer:

Sustainability - Big OERs face major issues over their longevity, with all their attendant issues with the costs of development and distribution.  Little OERs are generated through passion, spare time and the need or desire to do something else (like air ideas or research) and will continue to emerge over time because they just can

Quality - where an OER is being delivered by a well known branded institution, its reputation acts as an incentive to ensure the educational quality and integrity of the product and the resources behind the project enable higher production values to be applied.  Little OERs may be of very high quality; some user-generators have access to very sophisticated equipment and software, have excellent production skills and are committed to the educational quality of their output - but this is never guaranteed. My personal view of low quality web material is that I want to use it less than material with higher production values regardless of the content because the medium, is something I don't want to notice - with good production I see the message and ignore the medium, with poor production I am distracted by things such as sound quality, poor images, bad use of language etc.

Reuse - if reuse is built into the design of an OER in terms of what the licence and the format allow, reuse is more likely to happen.  Weller states that Big OERs aim more for adaptation - large amounts of content are localised in some way, whereas little OERs tend to be aggregated for reuse - disparate items are pulled together and included in some bigger educational package (page 107).

Meeting needs - users may be more inclined to go directly to a Big OER that was designed for the purpose which they are seeking to achieve; little OERs may be more likely to be stumbled across although the searchability of the web might negate this assumption somewhat.  A fundamental difference is in the intent - Big OERs have clear and declared aims behind them which are coherent and which guide the creation of resources to meet these aims and therefore the needs of the users they were designed for.  Little OERs might also be designed for particular purposes but there is no coherence across the broad and diverse base of resources.

Creative Commons Licences

Attribution

CC BY

-          Very open and flexible – anyone can do anything with your work as long as they credit you – makes wide dissemination very easy

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

-          As Attribution but others have to licence the derived work under the same terms

Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-ND

-          Work can be copied but not changed

Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC

-          Like Attribution but work cannot be used for commercial purposes

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

-          Like Attribution-ShareAlike but work cannot be used for commercial purposes

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

-          Work can be shared, must be credited, no other uses allowed

I would have thought that the choice of licence would have to depend on what the author wanted to do with the work. 

I find the idea of CC BY very appealing for my independent work in the learning field because it enables the full benefits of web distribution in getting ideas out and enabling others to use them.

This would change if I have undertaken a unique and highly original piece of research and I had concerns about it losing its meaning but still wanted wide dissemination - this might take me to CC BY-ND.

OERs are major undertakings; they require a considerable amount of development and careful planning in order to get them established.  Once they are established they need continual participation and resourcing to keep going.

I think the biggest overall challenge for OERs therefore is whether they have a future and if they do, what this looks like.  A number of other students identified sustainability as one of the priorities for institutions looking at OERs; I would argue that it is the number one challenge and that there are a number of specific issues to consider when making sense of OER futures.

I looked at some articles which considered sustainability of OERs and found (unsurprisingly) that there are many common issues highlighted.

Downes (2007) considers methods of funding, models for distributing, using and reusing content, and ways of resourcing with staff as factors which impact the sustainability of OERs.

Albright (2005) lists a number of issues that will impact the future success of OERs including economic models, scalability, appropriateness of technologies and educational suitability

Caswell et al (2008) see the future of OERs as being based on a return to the original notion of community – they will need to acquire a life of their own and be driven by continual collaboration, contribution and use. They highlight funding and copyright/ownership issues as challenges faced by institutions running OERs.

My three big issues are economics, learner support and suitability of resources, all of which underpin many of the other issues.

Without the right economic model, OERs cannot exist.  Atkins et al (2007) state that a course from MIT’s OpenCourseware initiative costs £25,000 p.a. to run, all inclusive and that the future has to be in institutions being able to treat OERs as a small component of their business as usual activities.

I was at a seminar at Learning Technologies this year where it was suggested that commercial learning providers might get into OERs as a way of displaying their wares (some do things a bit like this already) and given the credibility benefits that OERs offer institutions (for example Caswell et al 2008 describe how new students are often aware of an institution’s OER and it can affect their choice of institution), it could be that they treat them as a marketing channel.  However they approach it, the economic question needs answering.

Assuming economic viability, the OER is still only sustainable if people make use of it and contribute to it.  It needs to be decided what the learner experience will be and this could range from merely being able to access, read and reuse educational resources (where minimal learner support is needed) to a fully moderated and supported course event (like the OpenLearn Open Education MOOC).  This model will determine how fit for purpose the OER is for the community at which it is aimed; if it is intended to allow people to derive educational benefit from it, it could be argued that provision of some level of tutor interaction is essential.

The educational suitability of its resources is the second element which will determine how fit for purpose the OER is and therefore how sustainable. This impacts the design of the resources in the first place (MIT OCW contains some materials which appear to be no more than the sharing of notes and slides designed for a face to face course – these may be interesting for someone trying to design their own course but may have reduced utility for an independent learner).  It also impacts the way they are kept up to date, incorporate learner feedback, new research etc. Again, the purpose for which it needs to be fit must be what drives the model for ensuring suitability.  And both of these are dependent on the OER being econmically viable.  

References

Albright, P. (2005) UNESCO (IIEP): Final forum report. 2008-09-01 http://learn.creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/oerforumfinalreport.pdf

Atkins, D.E., Brown-Seely, J. & Hammond, A.L., (2007). A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jenson, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). ‘Open Educational Resources: Enabling Universal Education’. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9/1http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/469/1001

Downes, S. (2007), 'Models for sustainable open educational resources', Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, vol. 3. Available from: http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p029-044Downes.pdf

Learning objects

Downes (2001) – Learning Objects: Resources for distance education

This article was written at a time when learning objects and associated concepts such as the SCORM standards were relatively new. 

Downes uses a basic economic argument to demonstrate that rather than creating identical tools to teach identical content within every institution, content should be produced once and able to be shared and reused.

He describes the now well-known standards of IMS and SCORM and how they sought to tackle reusability and interoperability.  For object data, he identifies HTML as a common authoring language but predicts (rightly) that specific tools will become more widely-used for particular course authoring purposes such as setting up quizzes.

He also covers the challenges faced at the time with multimedia – storage capacity and access to the right software were larger constraints then than now.

His vision is of vast repositories of objects which are open to educational instututions to teach core material in a way which is economically viable.

Elements of his vision have come true but learning objects did not materialise in exactly the way he predicts and this may be because they were driven more by technological expedience than pedagogical excellence.

Nichols (2003) A Theory for eLearning

The author argues that distance learning survived for several years without a theoretical basis but benefitted from acquiring one (thinkers in this area included Moore & Kearsley, Lockwood, Holmberg, Peters, Rumble, Rowntree & Mason).  By the same token, eLearning needs a theoretical basis – without it, eLearning practice cannot grow and thrive in a healthy and structured way.

He offers 10 hypotheses:

1.     eLearning is a means of education – not a mode – itc an be applied within various different modes (e.g. distance/face-to-face) different philosophies (cognitive, constructivist, behavioural).

2.     It offers forms of education that are unique and that complement existing modes.

3.     eLearning tools should be selected on the basis of the way something needs to be taught – technology does not come first.

4.     Pedagogical innovation is the main driver for advances in eLearning.

5.     There are two major uses for eLearning – presenting content and facilitating learning and teaching.

6.     eLearning works best when the tools are used as part of a properly designed and integrated model.

7.     It is important to consider the trade-offs of online vs offline before implementing eLearning.

8.     eLearning practice works effectively when thought has been given to how learners will engage with the tools and techniques.

9.     eLearning as an approach is consistent with the overall aim of education – to develop learners.

10.  eLearning must be driven and sustained by its role in improving pedagogy – the drivers cannot be economic, cultural, political, institutional etc.

Building a strong theoretical base will allow for the kind of debates that will strengthen eLearning practice and enable theories, principles and pedagogies to be applied across institutions.