The Structure and Components for the Open Education EcosystemConstructive Design Research of Online Learning Tools

MA Hans Põldoja

OpponentProfessor Emeritus Terry Anderson,Athabasca University, Canada

CustosProfessor Teemu Leinonen

The Structure and Components for the Open Education Ecosystem

Hans Põldoja

9HSTFMG*agjjee+

Research context

• Technology-enhanced learning

• Open education

• Digital ecosystems

• Design

Research questions

• What are the main design challenges related to the open education ecosystem?

• What are the design patterns used in designing online learning tools and services for the open education ecosystem?

• What kind of structure and components are needed to create the open education ecosystem?

PILOT

LeMill

EduFeedr

LeContract

Age: 26

Education: Master student

Occupation: librarian

MariaMaria has studied information science and now she is doing her Masterʼs studies in interactive media. At the same time she has a full time job as a school librarian. Therefore she is interested in combining school assignments with her work as much as possible. At the same time she is a self-directed learner who likes to go in depth in topics that are interesting for her.

Goals:

Personalization: “It is hard to have a full time job and be a master student at the same time. If possible, then I try to choose assignments that can be connected with my work.”

Scaffolding: “I feel that often it is difficult to specify all the resources and actions that I have to make in order to achieve my learning objectives. Good examples from other learners help me to refine my contract.”

Awareness: “It was good that we had to review our learning contracts. This way I was constantly aware of my objectives and thinking about the strategy to achieve my goals.”

Photo by Alessandro Valli,taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquene/4435467897/

DigiMina

(Fallman, 2008)

Design Practice

Design Exploration

Design Studies

(based on Fallman, 2008)

Design Practice

Design Exploration

Design Studies

Tools

Educational practicesOpenness

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

PILOT

LeMill

EduFeedr

LeContract

DigiMina

Design cases

(based on Fallman, 2008)

Design Practice

Design Exploration

Design Studies

ToolsDesign patterns

Digital ecosystem

Educational practicesOpenness

1

2

3

4

5

1

2

3

4

5

PILOT

LeMill

EduFeedr

LeContract

DigiMina

Design cases

Results

Design challenges

• 9 design challenges for the open educational resources

• 8 design challenges for blog-based open online courses

• 5 design challenges for assessment and recognition of competencies

• Classified as pedagogical (8) socio-cultural (6) and technical (8)

Challenge 1: Digital learning resources are mainly used for individual learning and for presentations

In many cases digital learning resources are used by students for individual learning (reading, looking, playing, quizzes) or by teachers in their classes (presentations). It is a challenge to design OER tools and services that guide teachers away from the acquisition of knowledge paradigm to the participation and knowledge creation paradigms (Paavola et al., 2004).

Challenge 4: Lack of collaboration and peer production of learning materials

European teachers are not used to sharing their learning resources with other teachers. Often teachers think that their resources are not good enough for sharing in public. Also, teachers are worried about copyright issues. Some teachers would need external motivation to share their resources. Publishing a learning resource in the repository is an extra step that is often missed because of lack of time. There is always a threshold for joining an online community and starting to collaborate with other people. Most of the learning object repositories are designed for searching and publishing resources, not for collaboration.

Challenge 7: Providing localization and reusability while retaining authentic context

Localizing learning resources does not mean simply translating the content from one language to another. It is important that the learning resources provide authentic context for the target group. In the PILOT project, it was a challenge to design a template structure that would allow flexibility in localization, so that the teacher could decide which textual content and media elements should be edited or replaced in the localization process. From the technical perspective, localization is also related to versioning of learning resources.

Design patterns

• 12 design patterns for collaborative authoring of open educational resources (LeMill and PILOT)

• 12 design patterns for blog-based open online courses (EduFeedr and LeContract)

Patterns for collaborative authoring of OER’s

Pattern 1: Authoring template

This pattern deals with providing a clear structure for creating new learning resources. It may be difficult to start creating a new learning resource from the scratch. Having a certain predefined structure for new learning resources would help teachers to get started. A large collection of peer produced learning resources would benefit from having a consistent structure and layout. Consistent structure contributes to the quality of learning resources. On the other hand, it is important to achieve balance between predefined structure and flexibility for the authors. Therefore: The learning resource authoring tool should provide a set of pedagogical templates that scaffold teachers and content producers in creating new resources. LeMill provided six pedagogical templates for creating learning resources: web page, presentation, exercise, lesson plan, school project, and PILOT. Web page is a generic template while other templates provide a more predefined structure. Authoring templates consist of different types of sections that are called blocks in LeMill. For example, web pages in LeMill consist of text blocks, media pieces and embed blocks. The exercise template has additional blocks for various question types. Templates may also scaffold the use of new pedagogical methods, such as the PILOT template in LeMill. This is a central design pattern, that is related to a number of smaller design patterns. Learning resources based on authoring templates have a DRAFT (2) status, support EMBEDDING (3) and LINKEDNESS (4), are published under a SINGLE LICENSE (5), and could be developed into TRANSLATIONS (6) or ADAPTATIONS (7). Two special types of authoring templates are METHOD DESCRIPTIONS (8) and TOOL DESCRIPTIONS (9). As a central design pattern, authoring template is addressing a number of design challenges: (C3) assuring the quality of collaboratively created open educational resources; (C4) lack of collaboration and peer production of learning materials, (C5) lack of reuse, revising and remixing, and (C2) scaffolding the use of new pedagogical methods.

Short description

Conflicting forces

Recommended configuration

Related patterns and design challenges

Design challenges and patterns for collaborative authoring of OER’s

C1 Digital learning resources are mainly used for individual learning and for presentations

C2 Scaffolding the use of new pedagogical methods

C3 Assuring the quality of collaboratively created open educational resources

C4 Lack of collaboration and peer production of learning materials

C5 Lack of reuse, revising and remixing

C6 Multilingualism

C7 Providing localization and reusability while retaining authentic context

C8 Limited findability and poor usability

C9 Poor use of the underlying principles of the Web

P1 Authoring template

P2 Draft

P3 Embedding

P4 Linkedness

P5 Single license

P6 Translations

P7 Adaptations

P8 Method descriptions

P9 Tool descriptions

P10 Collection

P11 Teaching and learning story

P12 Featured resources

Design challenges Design patterns

Patterns for blog-based open online courses

Design challenges and patterns for blog-based open online courses

C10 Supporting learners with setting up their personal learning goals and strategies

C11 Keeping the learner motivation throughout the course

C12 The danger of over-scripting

C13 Establishing and keeping the community gravity

C14 The fragmentation of discussions in blog-based courses

C15 Lack of coordination structures for managing blog-based courses

C16 Lack of awareness support mechanisms

C17 Commenting and versioning of learning contracts

P13 Being open for lurking

P14 Open enrollment

P18 Blogroll

P19 Course tag

P23 Learning analytics visualizations

P15 Nicknames

P16 About page

P17 Personal learning contract

P20 Aggregated discussions

P21 Reflective assignments

P22 Summary posts

P24 Open badges for assessment

Design challenges Design patterns

Open education ecosystem

For this dissertation, the open education ecosystem is defined as a learning ecosystem that consists of tools, services, resources and stakeholders who share a common set of values. The core value that defines the extent of the open education ecosystem is openness.

(based on Gütl & Chang, 2008)

Open education ecosystem

Learning stakeholders of the open education ecosystem

Learning utilities of the open education ecosystem

Discussion

• Theoretical and practical implications: design of open educational tools and services

• (In)validity and (un)reliability: strict replication of research procedures

• Limitations of the study: more validation is needed

• Recommendations for further research: combining personal learning contracts, self- and peer-assessment, and open badges

Thank You!