Personal Blogs

Strange week, what with the school inspectors coming from Nursultan and international staff still speculating on their futures in the face of your typical post-Soviet need limit even the most basic information to those at the base of the hierarchy, even if it shoots you in your own foot.  This was the week when suddenly local teachers (just to appear to be following policy) wanted in on my classes, even though I had been shouting and screaming for team teaching all year to no avail.   

This week we were asked to read Nichols' (2003), A theory for eLearning, and review his 10 eLearning hypotheses.

It was really interesting reading because it puts the reader in the position of looking back at how much eLearning has developed since those times, whilst at the same time, in many instances, showing us how far we can potentially go, as in some ways, not much has changed.   At the same time, Nichols provides a retrospective on the two decades prior to its writing, with references as far back as the early eighties, when distance learning and more dislocated and email contact with your tutor were such an innovative break from learning only in the four walls of colleges and universities.  We can see how focussed theorists were in those days by how staunchly most of the hypotheses have weathered time since then. For example, the major terms and concepts (pg 2-3) of Online learning; eLearning; Mixed-mode/blended/resource-based learning; Web-based, Web-distributed or Webcapable and Learning Management System (LMS).  

Hypothesis 1: eLearning is a means of implementing education that can be applied within varying education models (for example, face to face or distance education) and educational philosophies (for example behaviourism and constructivism).

Hypothesis 2: eLearning enables unique forms of education that fits within the existing paradigms of face to face and distance education.
Hypothesis 3: The choice of eLearning tools should reflect rather than determine the pedagogy of a course; how technology is used is more important than which technology is used.
Hypothesis 4: eLearning advances primarily through the successful implementation of pedagogical innovation.
Hypothesis 5: eLearning can be used in two major ways; the presentation of educational content, and the facilitation of education processes.
Hypothesis 6: eLearning tools are best made to operate within a carefully selected and optimally integrated course design model.
Hypothesis 7: eLearning tools and techniques should be used only after consideration has been given to online vs offline trade-offs.
Hypothesis 8: Effective eLearning practice considers the ways in which end-users will engage with the learning opportunities provided to them.
Hypothesis 9: The overall aim of education, that is, the development of the learner in the context of a predetermined curriculum or set of learning objectives, does not change when eLearning is applied.
Hypothesis 10: Only pedagogical advantages will provide a lasting rationale for implementing eLearning approaches.

I fully agree with most of the hypotheses, mainly because I have used eLearning to achieve teaching/learning goals quite extensively and so I have experience of the basic hypotheses - that is is a method rather than an approach in itself and can fit with different approaches - online and face-to-face or 'situated'.  In course H880, we learned in theory and in practice how pedagogy should determine its use, not technology determining the pedagogy.  So, hypothesis 4, that ‘eLearning advances primarily through the successful implementation of pedagogical innovation’ resonates with me because pedagogical innovation is far more interesting to me that technology as, for one,  in my teaching context, technological innovation is limited by institutional (e.g. restrictions on the use of phones in the classroom - unlike in some university contexts in which I've worked) and there are fewer opportunities and resources to use technology (again, unlike in some university contexts in which I've worked).  Therefore, I get more out of developing my approaches to teaching and I find it more interesting anyway as for me, it is the essence of the teaching role - not promoting the latest app or hardware, which might be eye-catching and engaging at first, but whose novelty soon wears off. 

I may take some issue with the 'absolutist' terms in which eLearning is referred to in hypotheses 6 and 9, where a course comprises a pre-selected format and content (I guess that could be argued to be a top-down approach, using a traditional course design method).  Though I am not sure whether the model has ever been ever successfully applied and adopted longterm by any institution, connectivism (e.g. Siemens, 2005 and Downs, 2005) is a more bottom-up approach, with learning more tailored to the individual's personal learning network (PLN).  It constitutes a completely different proposition in terms of course 'design' and of course, it did not emerge until 2 years after the writing of the Nichols (2003) article.  As well as reading the articles below, the reader can learn more about connectivism by studying the section on this learning theory from the FutureLearn course, Learning in the Network Age. 

References
Downes, S. (2006). Learning networks and connective knowledge. Collective intelligence and elearning, 20, 1-26. Chicago
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. ASTD Learning News, 10(1). Chicago
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Chicago