#ascilite 2010

The topic is trending in twitter - though not all tweets are equal, some are twivia.

Ascilite 2010

The problem with this excellent conference program is that I can’t be in three or four places at once. The range of topical and well-grounded elearning r&d work on offer is of the usual high standard.

Day one

9.35 Skipping over a day of workshops followed by a socially rich reception at UTS (Sydney University of Technology) stunning refurbished city centre facility – the events opened with a keynote by Professor Jan Herrington. Jan reviews the 20+ year old model of authentic and constructivist learning in the context of emergent technologies, concluding that the model is more important than ever in a rapidly transforming educational landscape. Discussion of the need for further research and how studies can be conducted is included. A great mix of practical and entertaining examples of what 'authentic learning' really means.

11.00 A sponsor presentation from Blackboard, one of the dominant designs in Learning Management Systems (LMS) carries the enigmatic title ‘the nexus of your enterprise VLE (virtual learning environment)’. The focus is on transition from the LMS to a more diverse VLE, and how their product supports an open and powerful enterprise approach as it evolves and grows. I can tell the presenter is a sponsor. He's wearing a tie.

11.25 Presenters from a number of Australian universities address the question ‘is teaching and learning in virtual worlds worth the effort?’ The answer is yes and no. Yes because learners have access to the virtual equivalent of high risk situations and collaboration across distance. No because it comes at high cost, at the top of a steep learning curve and sometimes lacks sound theoretical frameworks. This truly is an emergent technology that either has to get easier and more accessible or fail to enter the mainstream. Its a nice change to have avatars in whacky clothes and hairstyles instead of Powerpint. My tweet that it needs to graduate from mediation through a keyboard raises the response that joysticks work as well. Wicked!

13.00 The Ascilite AGM reports another successful year and a healthy financial position. New Executive members have come on board and the prospects all look excellent. Rob Philips has a question!

14.00 A vendor presentation from The Learning Edge shows how to create a content rich (!) and integrated learning environment using the Pearson suite of products.

14.40 Glenda Cox, University of Cape Town, talks about sustaining innovations in educational technology from the perspective of the institutions innovators. The Centre for Educational Technology (CET) uses various mechanisms to support the individuals who drive the innovations so they don’t have to travel the hard road of the lone enthusiast, and the institutions achieves higher return on investment in start up grants. This is the same topical area I’m working with a group of ACODE reps on at the moment, so this is an opportunity to cast a wider net.

15.30 The first serious clash in my viewing schedule involves four competing streams: ‘Tinkerers, learning organizations and sustainable innovation’ from Deirdre Wilmott at Deakin University, ‘Transforming the teaching of science and engineering report writing’ featuring an ALTC (Australian Learning and Teaching Council) funded project from Helen Drury at Sydney University, ‘A scholarship programme for academic staff to develop exemplary online learning tasks’ from Tony Herrington (Curtin University) and colleagues a symposium on ‘Teachers, technology and design’ from Peter Goodyear and various colleagues. I’ll use the opportunity to read proceedings and meet with colleagues to discuss the sessions I can’t attend. I tend to favour the symposium format at conferences, as its generally more engaging.

ACODE workshop - Open Educational Resources

I always find ACODE meetings fruitful - a group of senior university reps meet to engage with topical issues in elearning. No institutional politics, no need to convince anyone that elearning works.

The workshop on Open Educational Resources on November 11^th was no exception – in fact, the outcomes were more productive than anticipated. A working group convened to further explore the topic of my most recent publication ‘how to promote sustainability of elearning initiatives’. This challenge has been around since at least 1990. Start up grants are used up, and where does support come from then? Options include commercialization, institutionalization and limping along on the smell of an oily rag! None of which seems to be ideal. My ALT-J article (Gunn 2010) offers one solution. Guthrie et al (2008) offer a different one. Either way, the problem hasn’t gone away.

Other unanticipated outcomes were more challenging – opinions I didn’t know I had came shooting to the surface and caused a great deal of discomfort for someone in my profession.

The open educational resources (OER) movement brings a very different perspective to issues of sustainability, reuse and ownership. An OECD report defines the term OER as ‘materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research’. I often wonder if formal definitions are necessary. Things remain what they are without such descriptions, though the academic community and others insist on applying them.

Anyway, the concept of open access is useful - compelling even – and is more than a blip on some distant horizon. At the end of the day, decisions about the future of this movement may not be made by academics or governments.

After formalities, the workshop opens with some future gazing by Prof James Taylor from Uni of Southern Queensland. So many more students are going through tertiary education that open scholarship will provide the only viable (cost-effective) means of sustaining access on the scale required. This statement is set against the backdrop of a news report I watched at Auckland airport the same morning. Thousands of students kicking in the door of conservative party headquarters in London because of recently announced education budget cuts and the end of fee capping. Prof Taylor has a good point about long term viability, but where does that leave the academic community as we know it? Chasing the dinosaur perhaps?

Clearly in a stroppy mood that day, a session on ‘ethics and intellectual property’ left me wondering if we have to try to squeeze absolutely everything into existing shapes and systems. Statements described as ‘anarchy’ and ‘provocation’ from the floor tell me the answer is ‘yes we do’ - unfortunately though - not ‘yes we can’! The walls are breaking down, even as we maintain the illusion of security within.

A really provocative question surfaced in a lively presentation from OER Foundation Director Wayne Mackintosh. ‘Why would you replicate the loaves and fishes episode if the hungry couldn’t afford to eat them?’ Nice analogy Wayne! I think the answer lies somewhere on the capitalism - politics continuum. It was cool to see an e-book being pulled together so quickly and easily from freely available resources, but will we really look back and wonder why it took us so long to get on the sustainable / renewable resource bandwagon. Or will we be too engrossed in licking the wounds of redundancy for the question to even arise?

With such disturbing thoughts buzzing around, an albeit highly informative session on creative commons licensing smacked of the establishment attempting to survive in a rapidly changing world. What happens if authors don’t specifically grant permission at the point of creation? Are they guilty until proved innocent?

Another session featured some interesting case studies including one where students created OERs as their course assessment. The high point of the workshop for me was when the student / presenter learned how many hits that work had attracted. Discussion and a call to action rounded off a stimulating day, which is recorded in more ‘conventional’ thought forms in the workshops section of ACODE’s website at http://acode.edu.au/activities.php Though I have to note that some areas of the site are not... open… for public viewing.

#hz10anz

Strategic Technology Summit and pre-launch of 2010 Horizon Report for Australia and New Zealand, Massey University, Wellington, 30^th September 2010.

There's a lot of opinion and information in this post. For a ‘quick fix’, I've presented key points from the launch in illustrated ‘exec summary’ style, with background notes on the New Media Consortium, production of Horizon Reports and discussion points from the local event. This follows my own thoughts on the subject. All comments welcome.

Visit the NMC website for more - and more accurate information - my note taking is far from perfect.

IMHO

In recent years, the global elearning community has become familiar with - and perhaps even reliant on - the annual series of Horizon Reports; the product of an ambitious attempt at technology future gazing from Texas based New Media Consortium (NMC). The reports are released under Creative Commons License by a small but perfectly formed organization, which is ‘too small for politics’ according to Vice President, Community & Chief Technology Officer Alan Levine! So we are all officially jealous on that score (thanks for the line, Milan), though probably not of NMC’s commitment to making realistic predictions on the new technologies that will move from horizon to mainstream educational use in the short, medium and long term.

Evidence is consistent; the only reliable prediction is that change will happen. Some of it will come out of left field and take most of us by surprise. Some will produce what Edward Tenner (1996) calls ‘the revenge effect’. Memories of wasted $millions and outrageous hype about online education are just a decade old. The ‘thwarted innovation’ explanation from Zemsky & Massy (2004) feels like salt in a wound to that era’s genuine elearning innovators who failed to attract even minimal funding for sound projects. So how can a group of even the most experienced researchers and practitioners attempt to forecast the future in a reliable and systematic way? The answer for NMC lies in broad consultation and a collaborative tool (wiki) that was itself just rising over the horizon just a few years ago.

Both online and face to face consultations seem to serve the purpose well. For most of us, it’s sheer pleasure to strip out institutional ‘stuff’ and engage with respected colleagues about real issues that confront us all. In this instance, discussing trends and opportunities, identifying critical audiences and projects of local significance wasn’t too hard. But I sensed the energy flagging and focus hazing over when it came to action plans to progress projects and involve key players. It might have been me losing the plot towards the end of an action packed day, but the discussion seemed to shift to answer an easier question: how can we disseminate the Horizon Report within the local context? Not really the purpose, but I guess if we all knew how to promote new technology and educational change, we’d be doing a more effective job than we currently are. One point in particular pushed my buttons. It’s easy to say and convenient to believe that professional development is the critical missing factor. From where I stand, I see environments conducive to innovation; that foster engagement; encourage risk taking and experimentation as equally important - and notable by their absence. Can anyone name an elearning innovation that grew from professional development alone? Or a professional development strategy to reconcile a conceptual mismatch between pedagogy and the affordances of new technology? Only time and experience can really transform practice!

Great ideas were put forward for discussion though, as the images below demonstrate. My own small but imperfectly formed contribution to the proposed new technology dissemination initiative is this post, which I hope will raise some thoughtful comments, constructive criticism, productive discussion, and best of all, some positive action!

Exec sum

Horizon reports are produced annually to identify key emerging technologies expected to impact on education in both the immediate and longer terms. Collective views on the topic from an experienced Australasian advisory board in 2010 are summarized as follows. (Click on images to view full size)

· 1 year or less, electronic books and mobile devices;

· 2-3 years, augmented reality and open content;

· 4-5 years, gesture based computing and visual data analysis.

There is, of course, variation across disciplines, institutions and the sector, as new technologies always present challenges and catalyze change, something tertiary institutions - fairly or otherwise - are not renowned for embracing quickly :-)

Challenges – (I’ll comment on later in the post…)

· There is a need for professional development around new technologies;

· There is conceptual mismatch between pedagogical practice and the design of new technologies;

· Formal instruction in key literacy skills is required;

· Learners value knowing where to find information more than knowing it.

The day in brief

CEO Larry Johnston opened the day with seven points to sum up current trends:

· Computing is in 3 dimensions;

· Games are reality;

· Keyboards are for old people;

· The machine is us;

· Collective is the new intelligence;

· The network is everywhere;

· The people are the network.

In context

Larry continued with an outline of the consultative process used to generate the reports - anyone can apply to join an advisory board and dynamic membership is preferred. The entire process is recorded in a wiki so transparency is assured. The reports are written with decision makers in mind, though they appeal to a much broader readership. NMC has clocked up around 600K readers, nine languages and a pretty impressive accuracy rate since the first Horizon Report came out in 2004. ANZ 2010 is the third Australia – New Zealand edition.

He used a metaphor - illustrated with exquisitely shot photographs of a waterfall - to explain the purpose of the reports. The first shot used a fast shutter speed to freeze cascading water on a blurred background at a split second in time. A wider shot and long exposure showed how the water moved and found its way around obstacles encountered in the flow. Clever shots and a powerful metaphor!

By the end of an engaging talk, I was mentally comparing the NMC to JISC - The UK based Joint Information Systems Committee, which promotes leadership in elearning through various strategies and sponsored activities. Different set up but similar aims.

Trends

Talking of trends, Gartner’s hype cycle seems to have entered the elearning vernacular as a stock phrase. What it represents is an initial phase of high visibility that wanes as the world at large realizes this new technology isn’t quite the revolution or paradigm shift early enthusiasts (or enthusiastic vendors!) believed it might be. Interest wanes, then utility kicks in to drive a more reasoned level of adoption.

Group think

Discussion groups focused on analysis of the significant challenges and action plans going forward. An engaging and visually rich system of voting with red and yellow sticky dots showed trends using a quaint, last century alternative to the now ubiquitous SRS / clickers. I didn’t get a shot of the graphs with votes on the hype cycles for each of the chosen technologies, but can report there were some similarities and some key differences to votes on the same issues in Australia earlier in the week.

The popularity of proposals put forward by groups is outlined below.

Group 1 sought a balanced view of the potential of new technologies, including notes of caution such as biological studies that show potential physical harm, and commitment to open content and educational resources.

Group 2 recommended a communication and engagement package to help organizations understand, engage with and apply new technologies, and encouraged NZ membership of Horizon Report advisory boards.

Group 4 supported a DEANZ initiative on strategic forecasting for the tertiary sector to 2016; active participation from existing professional bodies; promotion of the KAREN high speed educational network and research and development around student portals to support mobile access.

Group 5 wanted to champion creative commons licensing in a shared digital repository environment and disseminate Horizon Report content.

Group 6 focused on broad communication and engagement at senior level through NZ Vice Chancellors’ Committee (now known by a new name?)

Credits

Massey University, Ako Aotearoa, ACODE and the Ministry of Education sponsored the Wellington event. The delegates list included many of the usual suspects for NZ tertiary elearning with a few notable (and regrettable) absences. A proposal for a national forum for discussion of emergent technologies is now doing the rounds. I second that, and volunteer to assist with organization. What existing forum could be extended to support this? Ako Aotearoa seems an obvious umbrella organization, and ACODE one of a number of potential organizers.

Afterthought

The day was rich on interpersonal and visual dimensions – Larry is also a photographer. Another evocative image was a futuristic, holograph display of expensive wristwatches in a department store. A bit of irony there, since net-geners don’t invest in ‘single function devices’ like clocks and wrist watches! Seems they prefer clicks to ticks - and lots of them on every gadget!

Academic literacies

A new project on 'embedding academic literacies into university curricula' will feature on this blog in the coming months. This fits the elearning theme because the educational strategies to be developed and described would not be feasible without technology.

Like many research projects, this one features an ongoing literature review. Key finding from a NZ Ministry of Education funded project Lighting the Way provide useful reference points from an adult literacy perspective. My first observation is that some of the best practice recommendations would be hard to implement in a large scale university context, e.g. a learning plan for every learner would be particularly challenging in large first year courses. Others may not be so relevant, e.g. family literacy programmes. There are, however, many useful sources (and many hours of reading!) in the 126 page Foundation Literature Review.

After the usual executive summary, scope and methodology sections, the main body of this Review covers:

• Quality;
• Participation and retention;
• Features of provision;
• Reading;
• Writing;
• English for speakers of other languages;
• Numeracy; and
• Literacy contexts.

The conclusions include a section on 'developing a cycle of research that informs policy and practice'. This reflects the design-based research approach, which is popular, though not always practiced, by the tertiary elearning community; a situation in focus for another research work-in progress with Caroline Steel from University of Queensland. Comings (2003, p9) is quoted as follows.

"In his paper on establishing an evidence-based system, Comings (2003, p. 9) proposes a process that follows a set of recurring cycle of steps in order to improve the links between research and practice:

* a review of existing research and professional wisdom to inform the design of baseline models for teaching and support services that conform to the best available evidence

* evaluation of these baseline models to establish outcomes and impact

* practitioners using the results to inform and make decisions about their practice

* practitioners’ experiences of putting the models into practice are shared

* based on this review, additional research is undertaken, thereby leading to a constant revision of the model(s).

He argues that this process can not only lead to refining existing models of practice, but also allows new alternative models to be explored and provides a sharper focus for professional development."

Comings, J. (2003). Establishing an evidence-based adult education system. Cambridge MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education.

More reflections on this project will follow. Feel free to comment and invite discussions.

Watch this (scholarship of elearning) space

I attended the 2010 SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) Commons in Satesboro Georgia in March. This was quite a shift of focus for me, as I have only attended elearning / distance education conferences in the last ten years. As well as learning acronyms from a different discourse (and making up one of my own), I came away concerned that academic development (my field of professional practice) elearning (my specific focus) and the scholarship of teaching and learning (my broader focus) are creating silos without interconnecting tunnels. A more productive path would be to collaborate in the same way we recommend to colleagues from across the disciplines who are interested in pedagogical research. Hence, my newly created acronym SoAP for the scholarship of academic practice.

I am working on two publications as a result of the Statesboro conference. One is an opinion piece titled 'From a SoAP Box' accepted for the September issue 15(3) of the International Journal of Academic Development and echoing the sentiment expressed above. The other is a collaborative piece that will be submitted to The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This article, co-authored by speakers at an opening panel at SoTL Commons, aims to offer contemporary perspectives on SoTL from Israel, New Zealand. Denmark, the West Indies and the USA.

An extract from my contribution:

The scholarship of teaching and learning is key to successful elearning strategies. National and institutional aims to promote the use of technology in teaching and learning are not new. Computers have been a feature of educational design since the 1960s. Drivers are often practical as well as pedagogical, because scale and diversity challenge faculty to find creative ways to apply principles of scholarly teaching. Evaluation is a critical element, as new approaches need evidence to show they are different, perhaps better, and at least as effective as other methods.

Evidence is also needed to offset the kind of speculation that comes with every new technology. Observers predict a future where traditional institutions and teaching methods are replaced by convenient, contemporary, computer facilitated learning. For a recent example, see Tapscott & Williams (Educause Review, January/ February 2010). These predictions are generally flawed, because they make no reference to the scholarship of teaching, and often miscalculate the rate of diffusion of new technologies'.

The article will be submitted for review in April, and subject to acceptance, will appear in the journal later in 2010.