Essentially, learning design establishes the objectives and pedagogical plans, which can then be evaluated against the outcomes captured through learning analytics

Common elements within all learning designs include the following:

• A set of resources for the student to access, which could be considered to be prerequisites to the learning itself (these may be files, diagrams, questions, web links, prereadings, etc.)

• Tasks the learners are expected to carry out with the resources (prepare and present findings, negotiate understanding, etc.)

• Support mechanisms to assist in the provision of resources and the completion of the tasks; these supports indicate how the teacher, other experts, and peers might contribute to the learning process (e.g., such as moderation of a discussion or feedback on an assessment piece; Bennett et al., 2004)

Checkpoint analytics is the snapshot data that indicate a student has met the prerequisites for learning by accessing the relevant resources of the learning design. For instance, checkpoint analytics would relate to metrics such as log-ins into the online course site, downloads of a file for reading, or signing up to a group for a collaborative assignment. Although these forms of analytics may be valuable for providing lead indictors of student engagement, they do not, in isolation of other data, provide insight into the learning process or understanding of how students are learning and what they are learning. As checkpoint analytics exclusively measures access to the resources included in a learning design, its value lies in providing teachers with broad insight into whether or not students have accessed prerequisites for learning and/or are progressing through the planned learning sequence (akin to attendance in a face-to-face class).

Data on whether or not students have accessed prereadings or organized themselves into groups for upcoming assignments could be considered checkpoints that indicate whether the foundations for learning have been established, and thus checkpoint analytics concentrates on highlighting which students have completed these learning prerequisites and which have not.

Process analytics gives direct insight into learner information processing and knowledge application (Elias, 2011) within the tasks that the student completes as part of a learning design. For example, social network analysis of student discussion activity on a discussion task provides a wealth of data that can offer insight into an individual student’s level of engagement on a topic, his or her established peer relationships, and therefore potential support structures.

The articulation of the nature of support available within learning designs helps to interpret process learning analytics. These supports give an indication of what roles we can expect to see learners and teachers taking within collaborative spaces such as discussion forums (e.g., whether we would expect exclusively student-to-student interactions in a group discussion on construction of a group assignment or facilitator-centric interactions in the Q&A portion of the forum). In this way they help to provide an expected configuration based on what support was built into the learning design.

General Approach & Philosophy:

DS106

DS106 is one of the most innovative MOOCs in terms of its use of technology. It is a digital storytelling course where learners are able to keep their blogs and combine it with the main course blog. There are also additional feature such as alignment banks and radio station that students can use for broadcasting purposes.

The DS106 website claims that it will "Develop skills in using technology as a tool for networking, sharing, narrating, and creative self-expression". Learners will be able to create and frame your digital identity.

As an open participant, you choose to do what you do where you can, by sharing your work, and most importantly commenting on the work of others.

Coursera

Coursera offers a much more curated online learning experience. Their learning platform provides courses and degree programs created by some of the most well-respected universities and academic institutions in the world, including Duke, Stanford, UPenn, the University of Michigan, and many more. Each course is taught by one of the institution’s top instructors.  Coursera’offers a wide range of courses and awards ranging from a certification to a complete degree.

Coursera offers its users three different learning options. Students can choose between single courses, specializations (a series of courses designed to improve a single skill) and degree programs. Specialization programs typically take between 4 to 6 months to complete, while degree programs can take up to three years. The following table compares and contrasts DS106 and Coursera in terms of technology, pedagogy and philosophy.

Conclusions

Coursera offers expertly curated classes created by some of the most well-respected educational institutions in the world and taught by top instructors. As a result, the courses are more expensive than other online learning platforms. However, In my opinion, Coursera is the best choice for an online student looking for a certification or degree from one of the best schools in the world.

 References:

https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=127588

https://medium.com/@adiyagil/udemy-vs-coursera-vs-lynda-the-ultimate-comparison-70586665dca5

For your blog content and other material you produce, consider which of the Creative Commons licences you would use, and justify your choice.

Before I consider which of the creative commons licenses I would use for my blog, for example, I would take the following factors into consideration;

• Understand how a Creative Commons (CC) license affects my copyright.
• Understand my commitment.
• Decide how I want to be attributed.
• Know why I might want to use a creative commons license, as opposed to reserving all rights.
• Examine the options.
• Choose the license that best suits my purposes.

After considering the above factors, I would choose a Creative Commons Attribution -ShareAlike 2.0 Licence for my blog.

Under the creative commons license, I can decide how I would like my blog to be adapted. The ShareAlike aspect of the license would require anyone using my work to share it under the same license so that others can benefit.

In terms of the commercial use of my blog, persons can use my blog commercially for training and it can be repackaged and sold. There is no restriction on commercial use.

In terms of attribution, anyone using my work has to attribute it to me as the original creator. The URL of my blog post can be attributed as the main source.

I chose the above-mentioned license since my main aim and objective is to be able to share and make a contribution to the web. I have benefited a lot from the web with other people’s work so why can’t I also make a contribution? I think open education is all about knowledge sharing and I will be most elated to be able to contribute in that regard.

The rationale behind the commercial use of my work is simply to get more exposure. By the re-use of my work I will be able to have more users view my work, so although I may not directly benefit monetarily it will certainly augur well for me through the use of my URL. Additionally, the raw nature of my blog post may not necessarily be in a developed state for commercial use. The development of my work by other users may require time, resources and skills that I may not be able to give at this point in time, therefore, if others are getting paid to put in the required work and resources to refine the product and get paid for their hard work I can only see it as a positive contribution.

Cognitivism

The main proponents of cognitivism

A summary of cognitivism’s strengths

The limitations of cognitivism (i.e. what this theory does and does not account for)

Cognitive overload - the way in which information is presented can over or under load working memory.

Useful predictions or implications of cognitivism

Bibliography

The main proponents of cognitivism

Cognitivism is a theory that focuses on how information is organised, received, stored and retrieved by the mind. The mind is an information processor like a computer and information should be organised, sequenced and presented in a meaningful manner to the learner.

Ausubel (1960) and Bruner (1966) are the main proponents.

Bruner thought that learners should be allowed to explore the learning material themselves in a less restrictive way than Ausubel. Here the teacher is a facilitator and the skills learnt by the student can be applied in other situations, this is because he believes that people learn better if they discover things for themselves. In addition, Bruner believes even young children can understand complex information if it is introduced correctly. Information is introduced in a simplified form and then developed over time.

Ausubel thought that teachers should present learning material in a more structured way and advocated a more methodical approach. The teacher would present material in a final form, taught directly.

Examples of cognitivist tools- mindmaps (graphic organisers), chunking information into manageable information, teaching strategies (e.g. mnemonic devices, colour coding).

A summary of cognitivism’s strengths

The strength lies in situations where learners are to be trained such that they accomplish a task the same way on a number of occasions, for example, all members of a customer service department or a call center must be able to respond the same way to similar queries.

Cognitive studies have useful practical applications in everyday life. The cognitive approach is probably the most dominant approach in psychology today and has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts.

The cognitive approach also provides objective evidence through controlled scientific study as a result cause and effect relationships can be discovered producing more valid results.

The cognitive approach can be combined with many other approaches and areas of study to produce, for example, Social learning theories, cognitive neuropsychology and artificial intelligence (AI).

The limitations of cognitivism (i.e. what this theory does and does not account for)

Internal processes are not necessarily related to changes in behaviour, i.e. how do you know that internal processes are what leads to the change in recorded behaviour.

High-quality instruction must be based on the student’s existing mental structures to be effective as previous knowledge and understanding are pre-requisites to learning new knowledge and actions.

Effective instructional strategies require the creation (or use of technology) of scaffolding that supports cognitive principles, e.g. appropriate and relevant metaphors to help learners organise and relate knowledge, understanding and use of mind-mapping tools.

Cognitive overload - the way in which information is presented can over or under load working memory.

Which methods of assessment are appropriate and relevant to determining the level and extent of knowledge and understanding. How do you measure understanding?

Useful predictions or implications of cognitivism

1.Strategies should be used to allow learners to perceive and attend to the information so that it can be transferred to working memory.

2.Strategies should be used to allow learners to retrieve existing information from long-term memory to help make sense of the new information.

3.Information should be chunked to prevent overload during processing in working memory.

4.Other strategies that promote deep processing should be used to help transfer information to long-term storage.

5.Online learning materials should include activities for the different learning styles, so that learners can select appropriate activities based on their preferred style.

6.In addition to activities, adequate supports should be provided for students with different learning styles.

7.Information should be presented in different modes to accommodate individual differences in processing and to facilitate transfer to long-term memory.

8.Learners should be motivated to learn. It does not matter how effective the online materials are, if learners are not motivated, they will not learn.

9.Encourage learners to use their metacognitive skills to help in the learning process.

10.Online strategies that facilitate the transfer of learning should be used to encourage application in different and real-life situations.

Bibliography

Ertmer, P.A. and Newby, T.J. (2017) In:  Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology. Ed. West, R.E. Pressbooks. Chp 11.  [eBook] Available: https://lidtfoundations.pressbooks.com/front-matter/introduction/

Chapter 11: Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Constructivism - worth a read. Reviews the learning theories in sequential order.

Note: the article was originally published in 1993, then re-published in 2013.