Transcript Appropriate Technology for the Asian Distance Learner

Online Learning:
What have we learned?
Professor Robin Mason
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
Milton Keynes
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What is Online Learning?
 course content on the web
—
—
glorified CBT
designed and written specifically for the web
 course resources on the web
—
—
overheads and hand-outs
links to articles and websites
 course communication online
—
—
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email and discussion areas
collaborative activities and assessments
Evidence from Researchers and
Practitioners of Online Teaching
authored book
edited book with international group of authors
Jisc-funded research study
Practitioner created e-book
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Collis and Moonen (2001) Flexible
Learning in a Digital World
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Teaching and Learning Online (2001)
ed. J. Stephenson, Kogan Page
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JISC Study: Networked Learning
— http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/edres/csaltdocs.nsf
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Practitioner created e-book
 http://otis.scotcit.ac.uk/onlinebook/
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Contradictory Findings
due to different educational contexts
— campus/ remote learners; young/mature students;
curriculum areas
due to different uses of the term ‘online learning’
— content/communication; wholly/partially online
due to different research methodologies
— broad-brush large-scale surveys or small, contextualised
interviews
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1 Course Design
need for clear, unequivocal instructions
need for comprehensive guidelines
re-thinking lectures as activities
team approach to course design
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Course Design for the Web
capitalizing on unique features of the web
— hyperlinking rather than linear conception of
content
— links to additional, external resources
— must be kept up-to-date, can be changed on the
fly
— webcasting, simulations, video/audio clips for
specialist purposes
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2 Assessment
 individualisation continuum (learning contract - essays MCQ)
 course design continuum (aims and objectives = course
content = assessment)
 the art of assessment design (challenging assignment v/s
marking reliability v/s feasibility)
 balancing student centred approach with responsibility of
certifying achievement
 more innovative assignments are more open to cheating
and plagarism
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Good Practice in Assessment
 use a variety of assessment methods
 relate the assessment to the pedagogy
 make the aims, criteria and standards
explicit
 use authentic and holistic tasks
 opportunities to complete the feedback
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loop
Online Assessment
 web pages: projects, literature review,
collaborative pages
 conferencing: debates, simulations, discussions
 MCQ: matching,assertion/ reason, ranking and
sequencing, multiple right answers
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3 Mixed Mode
 combinations of face-to-face meetings with
online delivery has become standard
 purely face-to-face and purely online courses
will increasingly be reserved for specialist uses
 e-learning has already evolved to mean
enhanced learning (that is, learning enhanced
by electronic technologies)
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4 Teaching Online
 over-emphasised as a new paradigm
 training is needed as much because of lack of
emphasis on teaching in HE generally as
because online teaching is different
 online teaching has upset the apple-cart: what
is the role of the teacher in HE?
 online education is more revolutionary for
campus education than for distance education
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Online Education: The TimeConsuming Factor
 One of the few issues about which there is little
disagreement in the literature
 Is it a short-term phenomenon?
 Need to acknowledge that good teaching,
whatever the medium, never happens on the
cheap
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5 Learning Online
 Evidence hasn’t changed over nearly 15 years:
the more ‘adult’, the more ‘learning mature’,
the more motivated, the more self-confident,
the better they enjoy and benefit from online
learning
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Campus-based studies
 sometimes conclude that students feel they are
being ‘fobbed off’ with online education
 sometimes report greater interactivity with
online courses than ftf courses
 harder to generate online discussion because of
co-location of students
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Studies of Distance Education
 Studies based on distance students usually
show very positive results
— more interaction online and greater feeling of
community
 Still a hard core who resist online interaction
or who want to retain ftf tutorials
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6 Collaborative Learning
 requires organisation, good design and strong
leadership by the online tutor especially at the
beginning
 related to a whole course approach e.g.
scaffolding for group work
 it can work but not for everyone - significant
learning gains for some students
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7 Resource-based Learning
 when asked, students claim they don’t like
RBL because
— it is more work
— it is more difficult to study for exams
— it is often poorly supported
— it can appear that the teacher has abrogated the
instructor role
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8 Prior Learning or Experience
 motivation and open-ness to learning matters
more than any experience or prior learning
 the effect of prior experience with the Internet
and mobile phones will lead to greater demand
for good course design
 good course design engages the whole learner,
not just their cognitive centre
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9 Context, Context, Context
 It is still very difficult to ‘get it right’ the first
time
— need for pilots, ‘toe in the water’ experiments
 Aiming at a moving target
— technology, students, curriculum, staff
 So many variables
— access modes, prior experience, group sizes
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10 The Technology
 “The technology is the least important part of
the learning experience for students” (Yoni
Ryan in ‘Changing Faces of Virtual
Education’, www.col.org)
 Serious technical problems will certainly lead
to failure, but ‘good technology’ contributes
very little to the success of a course.
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New Demands
Demand for timely, accurate and personalised
learning and performance support
— ‘New’ learners want bite-sized chunks of
learning, not whole courses
— ‘New’ learners want learning tailored to their
context
— ‘New’ learners want just-in-tine learning
— Perishability of knowledge means that there isn’t
time to develop long courses
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Scenarios for the use of Learning
Objects
 content aggregation
 re-using existing course content
 creating your ‘own’ course
 designing templates for re-use
 creating modular courses
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Re-versioning existing content
The Open University’s perspective on re-use:
— re-shaping
— re-sizing
— re-purposing
— cross media redesign
— pre-versioning
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Multi-use graphical templates
Royal Roads University (www.royalroads.ca)
— assemble screens of web course content through
graphs, text etc in the learning object library
— using templates to develop interactive learning
objects
http://207.194.130.32/ELO/default.asp?newversi
on_name=Original
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Modular Courses
 Learning Objects according to R. Mason (:>
— the essence of a topic
— presented in a structured but condensed format
e.g. 6-8 web pages
 consisting of 3 elements:
— text, quotes, short examples
— exercises, self tests, interactive games or
simulations
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— further reading, web links and case studies
Arguments against Learning Objects
 dumbing down
 lack of coherent narrative
 “design by committee”
 misplaced resource
 abrogating role of the expert
 learning as lego bricks
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What We Know
 considerable consensus
— around student-centred learning (less in the
sciences)
— around the need for structuring the online
environment
— around the value of interactivity
— around the need for support, scaffolding to help
students adjust to the online environment
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What We Know
 we know little about
— how to engage students affectively
— how to design relevant, appropriate assessment
— whether to enforce participation in collaborative
activities
— how to create exciting, relevant online activities
in many curriculum areas
— how to teach more students in less resource with
higher quality!
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