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educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology

As I’ve touched on recently, I’m very interested in exploring the capacity of blogs to enhance and support the educational process, both from the standpoint of independent learning and exploration, and adaptation to more traditional classroom activities. However while the former is easily implemented, the latter requires much more consideration and there have historically been some holes in my vision that needed fleshing out.

With Monday’s launch of Prologue, a new possibility has been injected into the mix that I’d like to explore here for a moment.

Pedagogy and learning objectives aside, the main challenge for educators using blogs in their courses is how to keep track of them all. By nature blogs function completely independently of one another, so the prospect of monitoring the individual blogging activities of several dozen or more people presents a substantial time investment for instructors and students alike.

So much so that this could impact upon the effectiveness and sustainability of the exercise. Thus the need for a central blog portal is introduced.

Instructors could of course create a static web page with a full list of student names, blogs and links - but this would only act as an index. It would do nothing to aggregate the information contained in the blogs, nor establish or reinforce the feeling of a dynamic, interactive student network.

Using RSS would be another option, and is a far better one than a static blog list. However this too represents a perhaps unnecessary task, because students would be required to add the feeds of every single one of their classmates into a feed reader. Furthermore, every student would have to repeat the same process; it couldn’t be done just once.

The third, and arguably the best, option would be the creation of a Prologue blog to act as a central hub or portal. In this case the instructor would act as editor with all students added as approved contributors. This would enable several important activities:

First and most significantly, notification of student activities could be centralised. Students would be able to post and locate updates on anything from announcements of new blog posts or study sessions, questions, general anecdotes, useful links, or news stories. Instructors could also use this as a dissemination point for assignments, or a way to start discussions and answer questions.

Additionally, unlike the RSS option, the establishing of the portal would only have to be done once because it’s a shared space.

Second, Prologue features several different filtering options for locating specific subjects. For example clicking on the name of a post author will bring up all their posts, which means instructors could easily track the activities of each individual student.

Third, and in the same vein as the second point, Prologue’s tagging option enables further organization. Using this feature instructor’s could establish a naming convention for categorising posts on specific assignments, student groups, course sessions, or academic years.

Importantly, each tag is assigned a unique URL that will bring up all posts tagged with the same term. Tags are also allocated their own unique RSS feed that can be added to any feed aggregator. Students and instructors then have the choice between a single aggregated feed for the whole portal, and a narrowed feed filtered by a specific tag.

Fourth and significantly, the organisational opportunities present in Prologue have powerful implications. They highlight the fact that instructors need not create a different hub for every class, but could in fact have a single portal for all their courses. This is extremely significant from a student perspective, because it would substantially expand their potential support network and access to information by pointing them to work of their predecessors.

Over time this could be developed into a massive knowledge base of information on related subject matter.

I’m extremely interested in the idea of using blogs in higher education and believe the opportunity to create, organise and maintain their own blogs could provide students with a tremendous opportunity for deeper exploration in subjects of interest. My theory is that the creation of their own unique virtual space would inspire a greater sense of ownership in not just the course, but the subject matter as well; and this could in turn lead to a greater synthesis, appreciation, and retention of information.

In reality however I am currently unfamiliar with any examples in which blogs have been used in this manner. A proper research mind dictates objectivity, therefore one of the many investigative tasks I’ve set for myself is to locate real world examples in which blogs are being used to support learning and teaching, either as a tool for documenting student progress, a research journal, presentation page, collaborative portal, or other activity.

I will post synopses of anything I find here.

One such course, ENGL 112, run by Elizabeth Clark, is scheduled to commence this semester at Mesa State College in Colorado. Elizabeth described the first assignment in her blog, 4RxT (”Using Blogs As Research Journals“).

Students will be asked to review a series of websites and video clips covering blog use, history and basics, and then complete a series of activities - not unlike those you’d find in offline assignments.

• “Brainstorm a list of topics you’re interested in using for your research project this semester….

• Write three paragraphs about the topic you’ve selected: (1) identify your topic and explain why you chose it, (2) discuss what you already know about your topic, and (3) discuss what you don’t know and want to learn about the topic….

I would be very interested to see what emerges from this experience and have submitted a comment on her blog requesting/encouraging her to post a summary when the semester is complete - or better yet, an ongoing account of the discoveries and hurdles that arise.

The prospect of a public discussion on classroom experiences may be a bit too much to ask however, so it remains to be seen whether we’ll hear anything further from this.

Update: Just to clarify, because I didn’t write this post nearly as well as I had in my head - it is the integration of blogs into coursework and/or research activities that I’d really like to delve into.

This is the most significant aspect of an integration, because in order to be truly effective from an educational standpoint, use of blogs can’t just be thrown into the mix on a superficial level. Careful consideration and planning must be given to educational aims and outcomes, ways of measuring and/or assessing these outcomes, methods of tying the online aspects back into traditional face-to-face settings, and the more esoteric vagueries of how to inspire the growth of an online community that focuses on (or includes) a dozen or more student blogs.

The theory of blogs in education is an inspiring thought; the reality is undoubtedly much more complicated.

It’s days like this that you realise how data-hungry today’s web has become.

Stupidly, I overshot my download cap for this month - way overshot it - and have been relegated to the lowest of low dial-up connection speeds until the first of February. The result has been painfully slow internet navigation. This has driven me largely offline out of frustration.

At the same time though it’s provide a unique insight into the realities of dial-up, and the limitations of low-speed internet connectivity. This in turn has lead me to thinking about the digital divide.

When people talk about the digital divide they refer to the growing issue of technology haves and have-not’s. In this world, users who have access to computers and internet - and importantly, have the skills to effectively use them - have begun to excel in the digital age, whereas the portion of the population without access is being increasingly isolated and left behind.

As Wikipedia describes:

“The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology, as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.”

In the most extreme cases, households have no computer, no internet, and lack the skills in use of the technology. However the digital divide arguably contains shades of gray, in which certain aspects are present, yet others are not.

In the case of internet connection speed, my experiences have highlighted the realities of high-speed versus low-speed data connectivity. Typically I have a 1.5 mbps download rate. When I initially upgraded to this it was amazingly fast; but equally amazing was how fast I started to take it for granted.

Fast forward to one week ago when my download speed was reduced to 60 kbps download and you have a major reality check. Pages that used to load in a virtual instant took half a minute to load, or would sometimes time-out and fail to load at all.

Importantly, it became clear that the reduction from high-speed to dial-up rendered many sites unusable. This included data-intensive content such as streaming video on sites like YouTube and Google Video; web conferencing/VOIP applications like Skype; and graphic intensive or photosharing sites like Flickr.

In an instant a substantial portion of the web became inaccessible, despite the fact I had a computer with an internet connection. Even some largely text-based pages were unavailable as a result.

When you place this discussion within a framework of distance education, or flexible education the implications are severe. The Wikipedia article continues:

“Technology offers a unique opportunity to extend learning support beyond the classroom, something that has been difficult to do until now. ‘The variety of functions that the internet can serve for the individual user makes it ‘unprecedentedly malleable’ to the user’s current needs and purposes’”

The internet has a phenomenal capacity to expand learning outside the traditional walls of the classroom through use of images, streaming video, web conferencing, virtual worlds, blogs and wikis. However the reality of digital divide introduces a learning field which is anything but level, and there are major issues of accessibility and equal opportunity.

So the issue for educators and the Australian government is how to bridge this divide the most effectively - and hopefully eliminate it completely.

eDNA has a fantastic podcast interview available featuring Lindy McKeown and Jo Kay covering use of Second Life in education. The interview discusses the pedagogical/learning models possible in SL, how they see its place relative to other technologies such as emerging social software (e.g. blogs and wikis), and more “traditional” eLearning applications such as Learning Management Systems; and some of the hurdles faced by educators in uptake and use of the application.

In some ways Second Life, and to a large degree social software/web 2.0 tech in general, epitomise the cultural shift currently occurring across higher education in which the so called “digital native” students are arriving in droves in a space occupied largely by educators with far less knowledge of emerging technology. The challenge for eLearning specialists and educational technologists then seems to be finding effective ways to bridge the gap in awareness, expectations, technical knowledge levels, and importantly comfort levels.

The later is arguably the most challenging issue.

For example, I first approached Second Life with a skeptic’s view of its use in education but I must admit my personal experiences, and those expressed in this podcast, have begun to change this perception recently.

Educators on the other hand are likely to be far more skeptical and reluctant than I - both from the standpoint of Second Life’s relevance to education and its similarity to online or MMORPG gaming and the necessary system resources necessary to participate in the world and construct its regions.

I think one of the key perceptional changes that will need to occur before these sorts of technologies are more widely adopted is a shift away from teacher-focused models (”I talk you listen“, and/or “Here is the lesson plan for the semester“) and more towards learner-lead exploratory models. This is where the delineation between the LMS and emerging technology such as social software and Second Life are the most pronounced and profound.

Any attempts to generically lump Second Life and virtual worlds with the LMS in the generic “I do eLearning basket” should be avoided. eLearning has well and truly reached the stage where the subtleties and sub-sets need to be recognised and factored into planning. The eLearning portfolio is now filled with a host of disparate systems, each of which offers its own strengths and weaknesses. It is not one-sized fits all.

In a virtual realm choice is king. Users have a myriad different options available to them and can explore just about anything they wish. The possibilities are virtually endless (no pun intended). So the sorts of formalised structures you see in an LMS will not translate well to virtual worlds. To do so would be a disservice to students and learners because it would constrain their opportunities, under-utilise the tool and devalue its potential.

To me this highlights the importance of modeling best practice by educational technologists and eLearning specialists. To effectively represent virtual worlds and properly demonstrate its potential from a learning and teaching standpoint, programs like Second Life must be shown to educators and not just explained. Trying to cover this realm on paper is like trying to explain a photograph. Even the most eloquent prose cannot fully depict the world; the experience itself is its own greatest advocate.

Even more important than demonstrating Second Life though is the fact it is essential that instructors and educators be encouraged to dive in and experiment for themselves. If we are to successfully make the shift from teacher-focussed to student-lead, instructors need to walk the same path to realise its value. Simply hearing the arguments is not good enough or effective enough.

References:

• Overview: Second Life as an educational tool: Episode 9
• The transcript of the podcast is available here: View Transcript
• Listen to the MP3 Episode9-E-learningInsights.mp3 9Mb

This discovery just in:

“Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.”URL: http://open.yale.edu/courses/index.html

Wow, ok this is impressive. The few course sessions I looked at included MP3 audio downloads, streaming video, video downloads (hi and lo bandwidth), and HTML transcripts. I haven’t looked at the quality of the video yet, but George Siemens indicates they have “Great video quality and talented presenters.”

There also seems to be surveys, syllabii, and other misc downloads available. Quite a comprehensive package really - and all offered under a Creative Commons license.

The site is Plone powered too I might add.

It’s fantastic to see the gradual trend in higher education to openly share course materials with the general public - and in the case of universities like Yale to devote so much attention to detail and quality. It’s a testimony to their dedication to education and it doesn’t hurt their profile either.

Siemens indicates his one complaint was a lack of two way interactivity between people accessing the material, which effectively renders the site a one-directional source of information. All the same it’s a fantastic example of mixed-format information dissemination using both digital and traditional media (e.g. print based) and hopefully yet another step towards a more open international university system without walls.

Connexions is “a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc.”

The module I’ll be looking at first is a featured listing called “Understanding Basic Music Theory”

This is one of the modules referenced by a recentCNN.com article. CNN indicated the content has been viewed nearly 7 million times. According to the summary, this module is:

“An expanded version of “Introduction to Music Theory”, this course includes a review of common notation and an introduction to the physics behind music theory, as well as the basic concepts of music theory and a few slightly advanced but very useful topics, such as transposition.”

What will be interesting to see is how similar Connexions is to university-implemented LCMS’s (Learning Content Management Systems) such as Blackboad Vista, Sakai, and Moodle. These LCMS’s are used within the context of specific university courses - most frequently with a defined start and end date, and more noteably include methods of assessment such as assignments, quizzes and tests.

Connexions’ open source model means material is available to all learners worldwide, which immediately expands the potential audience of the content, however it also presents some interesting implications for the concept of assessment and evaluation.

It will be interesting to see if such tools exist in Connexions, or if the tool is intended more for information dissemination / content distribution. I’m hopefuly that at a minimum, courses include self-assessment options to help students improve and locate areas of confusion where further study is necessary.

It is important to note too that despite the online content being “free”, instructors are given the opportunity to derive an income from their content via the option to order printed copies of their material.

Nonetheless it’s arguable that income generation is more of an afterthought to those who make their content available on Connexions and that the main aim and focus is on the learning process itself and the sharing of knowlege.

Reflecting on the comments across the last several posts on the SANTEC blog, this year’s “Blogs for quality learning in developing contexts” is turning into an excellent introduction to the technology for new users.

Many of the participants so far have come from regions/institutions where the concept of blogging is extremely new. As a result, much of the discussion and interest so far has been on the fundamentals. Topics covered so far have included reasons for blogging, barriers or reluctances to use, and usage fundamentals.

A great graphical representation of the scale of possibilities with blogging technology has been provided by Tony Carr, who is facilitating the seminar over the next few days (Image shared under a Creative Commons License).

It kind of reminds me of a mantra one of my instructors drummed into our heads at uni “Once you know what to think, you’ll know how to act.”

Planned activities fall into three parts:

Part 1: We will introduce ourselves and learn about the history, nature and types of blogs. We will then start our own blogs on the SANTEC website. (16th - 18th May)Part 2: Time to blog (18th - 21st May)

Part 3: Learn about some of the advanced practices of effective blogging. (21st - 23rd May) If you’ve been blogging for a while why not join us and share your experience?

Today was the first day of SANTEC’s “Blogs for quality learning in developing contexts” online seminar. SANTEC, which stands for The Society and Network for Technology in Education through Collaboration

“is an enabling network of educational technology practitioners with an interest in educational technology in developing environments. The aim of SANTEC is to be a community of practice that facilitates and supports collaborative ventures and effects synergies amongst members.”

Due presumably to the timezone issues that arise from SANTEC being international and web-based, the seminar is asynchronous in nature. Discussion takes place via a threaded forum as well as blog posts and commenting. So if you missed the first day like I did don’t worry, you can review what was discussed via the forum and blog entries.

Admittedly I’ve only just learned of SANTEC’s existence within the last month, however I’m hopeful that I’ll come out of this experience with some additional insight into what other’s are doing to further the cause of blogs and social software in learning and teaching. I’ll try to write up a synopsis of the events when the flame has been extinguished on the 23rd.

In the meantime if you’d like to swing by for the fun, please refer to the following:

Dear colleagues,We’re pleased to invite you to join us for our next SANTEC online seminar on “Blogs for quality learning in developing contexts” which I will lead from 16th - 23rd May. The seminar will be chaired by Philip Uys. Please feel encouraged to post this invitation on your website and to circulate it to colleagues who may be interested.

This event takes the form of an online workshop which introduces the use of blogs for research, teaching and for personal web presence. We will learn about the history, nature and types of blogs and start our own blogs. There will be an opportunity to learn and apply some of practices of effective blogging and to share experiences of blogging for teaching and research.

To join the seminar you can just login to the SANTEC site at http://santec.uwc.ac.za on 16th May and follow the link to our seminar blog. If you haven’t been there before registration is easy and quick.

Kind Regards

Tony

Tony Carr
Staff Development Co-ordinator
Centre for Educational Technology
University of Cape Town
phone: +27216505033
e-mail: tony.carr@uct.ac.za