Theory and methodologyGráinne Conole

SCORE presentation, 27th January 2011

Impact

Technology

Changes

Drivers

Organisationalstructures

Roles and skills Learning & teaching

Funding Initiatives New technologies

Research

Theory Practice

Policy

Linking research to theory, practice and policy

Research

Practice

Info

rms

Resources

Improves

LearningEnhances

Networks

Builds

Strategy

Gui

des

Policy

Shapes

TheoryDevelops

Development

Consolidates

Contextual factors• Funding and policy drivers• Cultural dimensions• Subject-specific aspects• Current hot topics–Accessibility and social inclusion–Widening participation– Lifelong learning–Open Educational Resources– Learning Design–Personalised Learning Environments–Use of new social and participatory media–New business models–Plagiarism, digital rights, IPR–Digital scholarship

Underpinning technologies• New and emerging technologies–mobile and ubiquitous– intelligent agents– social and participatory media

• Understanding the media–multiple forms of representation– different characteristics of media

• A distributed electronic environment– standards and interoperability– infrastructure and architectures

• Access to information– structuring and distributing information– integrating different portals, gateways and resources– exploiting the different communication mechanisms

Pedagogical aspects• Student and staff experiences• Best methods of

– representing information– designing and accessing resources and learning activities– encouraging communication and collaboration– integrating with other learning and teaching methods

• Development issues– new forms of literacy needed (Jenkins et al., 2006)– mechanisms for skills updating and development

• Understanding the affordances of technologies• Exploring the potential for new forms of pedagogy

Organisational issues

• Developing models for–mapping institutional structures– supporting institutional processes– sharing knowledge– distributing information– supporting change– engaging different stakeholders

• Awareness of external factors• Understanding changing roles and identities• Linking strategy and practice

Common characteristics

• Change• Political dimension• Interdisciplinary• Access and inclusion• Convergence and interoperability• Interactivity

Reality check on OER research

• Vision: free resources for education• Significant investments (UNESCO, Hewlett, JISC)• Focus to date mainly on developing repositories• Now many high quality resources available• BUT: Not much evidence of uptake and little reuse• Evaluation given us deeper understanding of

barriers and challenges

Olnet and OPAL projects

Discipline issues

• Variety of feeder disciplines– education research, cognitive psychology, instructional design,

computer science, business and management, philosophy, semiotics, critical discourse analysis

• Benefits –wealth of methods and approaches– different perspectives

• Drawbacks– no shared language and understanding– lack of cohesion to the area

Research questions

• Most effective ways to develop OER?• Intellectual property issues?• Barriers and enablers to development and use?• Models of production, QA etc?• Sustainable business models?• Accessibility, inclusion and cultural issues?• Pedagogical models?• How to evaluate?

Conole and McAndrew, 2010

Theoretical frameworks

• Drawing on broader theoretical frameworks from Social Sciences

• Socio-cultural perspective dominate• Activity Theory, Actor Network Theory,

Communities of Practice, Systems Thinking, Distributed Cognition

• New learning theories: constructivist, situative and connectivism

Key names

• In the field: Laurillard, Salmon, Mayes, Oliver, Reeves, Luckin, Duval, Goodyear, Cantoni, De Laat, Hawthornthwaite, McConnell, Anderson, Wiley, Siemens, Downes

• More broadly: Vygotsky, Engestrom, Laurillard, Collins, Patton, Lave, Wenger, Rogoff, Boden, Gardener, Wertsch, Cole, Schon, Becher and Trowler, Salomon, Suchman, Kay, Dowling and Brown, Strathern, Daniels, Latour, Nardi, Salomon

Methodological approaches

• Ethnography and virtual ethnography• Case studies• Action research• Evaluation• Design-Based Research

Methods

• Surveys• Interview• Learning analytics• Focus groups• Content analysis• Audio and video logs• Diaries

Choice of research methods

• Tension between – Focus on evaluation or research– Quantitative vs. qualitative approaches

• Choice of methodologies – Has an impact on outcomes– Tends to be based on previous experience, favoured methods

• Approaches– Exploring individual case studies– Developing generic models– Undertaking systematic reviews– Applying specific theoretical perspectives– Active involvement and action research – Accounting for context - Activity theory, Actor Network Theory

Discussion - additional questions

• What additional OER research questions are there?

• What other theoretical perspectives are OER researchers drawing on?

• What other methodologies are OER researchers using?

• What other methods are OER researchers using?

Themes

• The good and the bad of ICT• Speed of change• New collaborations and discourses• User focussed• Changing practice• Wider impact

Theme I• The good and the bad of ICT– Institutional vs. loosely coupled systems– The affordances of technologies– Appropriateness, fit for purpose– Ownership vs. open source– Simplifying the complex– Balance of content and activity

Theme II• Speed of change, the Web in 2011– Explosion of Web 2.0 (and 3.0 and…)– Immense amounts of information – New tools and resources – The Web for nomads– Predicting the unpredictable– Researching where the light is – A world beyond the Web

Conole and Alevizou, 2000

Theme III• Supporting new collaborations and discourses– New distributed Communities of Practice – Self-sustaining Communities of Practice– Interacting with the media – Tailored and contextualised – Making sense of it all - new forms of digital literacy

and the power of narrative

Theme IV• Harnessing needs, understanding end users– Adaptive and personalised – Ethnographic approach to users – The (semantic) web of meaning – Supporting the whole learning cycle– The perpetual beta– Developing for the unknowable

Theme V• Changing practice– Reflective research/practitioner– Changing roles – Passive to interactive technologies– The need for new organisational structures and

processes– How do you motivate people to do this? – New methodologies for design and evaluation

Theme VI

• Wider impact– New models for society – Blurring of boundaries – Distributed cognition – ‘Compelling’ experiences– A changing world– Technology is here and will continue to have an

impact

Changing context of research

• Changing nature of academic discourse• Increasing influence of the blogosphere• Wikis for collaborative co-construction• The power of social and participatory media– Twitter– facebook– LinkedIn– Sykpe– Audio and video conferencing

Implications for research

• Reaching a larger audience, higher profile• Harnessing Web 2.0 technologies• Tension between open & traditional publishing• If it’s not online people won’t read it• What are the new indicators of esteem? • New forms of distributed collaboration• Making raw data openly available

Open practices

• Collective intelligence• The wisdom of the crowds• Peer critiquing and dialogue• Collective aggregation• User generated content• Distributed cognition• Multiple postings & communication channels• Community formation• Digital personas• Digital scholarship• The network effect

Expansive knowledge domain

Death of expertise/everyone an expert

Hierarchy & control less meaningful

Multiple pathways/lost in cyberspace

Increasingly complex digital landscape

Beyond ‘digital space’/New metaphors

Content distributed, everything is miscellaneous

Multiple (co-)locations/loss of content integrity

Collective intelligence

Social collective/digital individualism

Free content & tools, open APIs and mash ups

Issues re: ownership, value, business models

Paradoxes created by the digital

Conole, 2009, Keynote, ASCILITE conference

References• Conole, G. and McAndrew, P. (2010), A new approach to supporting the design

and use of OER: Harnessing the power of web 2.0, M. Edner and M. Schiefner (eds), Looking toward the future of technology enhanced education: ubiquitous learning and the digital nature.

• Conole, G. (2010), Theory and methodology in networked learning, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2881

• Conole, G. (2010), Review of pedagogical models and frameworks, report for the HEFCE e-learning task force, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2982

• Conole, G. , Scanlon, E., Mundin, P. and Farrow, R. (2010), Technology enhanced learning as a site for interdisciplinary research, report for the TLRP TEL programme, April 2010.

• Conole, G. (in progress), Designing for learning in an open world, draft chapters available http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2155

• Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (2010), Review of Web 2.0 tools and practices, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf

Blog: www.e4innovation.com