Stuart C Berry Camosun College Business Faculty & Doctoral Candidate - Athabasca University

Stuart C Berry

Camosun College Business Faculty&

Doctoral Candidate - Athabasca University

May 5, 2011

Enhancing Learning Environments:Making course archives available for current and

future learning

The Use and Value of an Online Archive

Enhancing Learning Environments:

Making course archives available for current and future learning


Evolution of an Existing Online CourseFrom One Iteration to the Next

Course Iteration 1 Course Iteration 2

Course Materials Course materials

Assignments Assignments

Class Contributions

The Course Archive

Start with clean environment

Removed - LostRemoved - Lost


Enhancing Learning Environments:

Making course archives available for current and future learning

How can we capture, use, and reuse

artifacts contained within course archives

created as a result of the ongoing

interaction of learners within networked,

online learning environments?


Questions to Frame This Presentation

•As a student would you use an archive, built over

time, by former students/faculty in your course?

•How might you see yourself using such an archive?

•How useful would an archive be to you?

•What barriers can you see in using or

accessing an archive?

Defining Terms



Artifacts

Artifacts are everything that is recorded and

captured as a result of the interactions of all of

the participants of the online course.

Artifacts includes contributions from the teacher,

learners, and all materials brought into the

learning environment.


Artifacts

Artifacts can include threaded discussions, files

including assignments or external objects, blog

postings, synchronous and asynchronous

conversations.

This includes items added in current or past

sections of a course.


The Archive

An archive is a non-linear repository.

Artifacts contained in an archive are not necessarily

held within a single location.

An archive is an overarching term encompassing a

themed but disconnected group of objects.


The Archive

An archive is an organic and evolving repository

of artifacts that becomes a dynamic part of a

course.


The Archive

The nature of an online learning environment

generally determines the location and relationship

of the artifacts within the archive.

Structured environment “LMS”

Versus

Open environment “Social Networked or Mediated”

Theoretical Foundation



Theoretical Foundation of Study

Knowledge creation: A means of generating

competitive advantage

Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory

… including Ba, the place or space within which tacit

understandings are shared (Nonaka and others)

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge (Polanyi)



Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory:

…maps out different paths by which organizations

create and capture the process of knowledge

generation.



Organizational knowledge creation theory:

…examines the processes inherent in knowledge

creation including elements believed necessary to

support the generation of new knowledge while

ensuring that these knowledge processes become

embedded in the organization allowing for continued

knowledge growth and development.




“A central purpose of organizational knowledge

creation theory is to identify conditions enabling

knowledge creation in order to improve innovation

and learning” (Nonaka, von Krogh, & Voelpel,

2006, p. 1185).




The use of course artifacts by current and future

learners is potentially an enabling condition for the

development of knowledge and the related

processes supporting knowledge creation in the

online classroom.



Examine the process of knowledge creation in online

learning environments

Can this theory be applicable within another domain?

i.e. From management to education

Research Questions



Research Questions - Summary

• How can an online archive support knowledge

creation and the learning process?

• What value can an online archive offer learners?

• What are the potential challenges to the access

and use of the archive?

Research Methodologyand Environment



Research Model

Design-Based Research – a qualitative study

Based on work by Herrington, McKenney, Reeves and Oliver, (2007)

Four Stage Approach: (Anderson, 2005; Bannan-Ritland, 2003)

•Informed exploration

•Enactment

•Evaluation within a local context

•Development of design principles


Research Model

The design-based research model supports

interventions in existing environments with the intent

of developing new theories and practices to influence

learning and teaching in natural settings (Barab &

Squire, 2004).


Research Environment

The Intervention:

Redesign elements of two consecutive sections of an

online Master’s course. Alter course to have learners

use content of an existing two year course archive

held within a bounded social networked learning

environment (ELGG**) and add their artifacts in the

process.

(** an open source social networking platform)



ELGG

(an open source social networking platform)



ELGG

A social networked learning environment providing:

A sense of security

A sense of bounded openness

Access Controls

Control is in the hands of the user



Access Controls

Research Themesand Challenges



Research ThemesInitial Broad Themes

Supporting Knowledge Creation• A resource of common examples• Support for those willing to spend the time

and look at the archive beyond the course assignments

Value of the Archive• Must have direct and tangible benefit

Challenges to the Use of the Archive• The course structure and assignments• The learning environment


Research Challenges

•Research proposal did not originally anticipate

issues related to the learning environment (a

learning management system (LMS) versus a

socially networked learning environment). The

only available choice for the study of the use of a

course archive was through a social networked

learning space. The LMS was not designed to

house and reuse an archive.


Research Challenges

•It appears that we have acculturated learners in

terms of online learning environments through the

use of LMS’s and learners are greatly challenged by

the structure of the social networked learning

environment. (familiar vs unknown)

•At times learners appear lost and disoriented

and repeatedly express concern over the efficacy of

the networked learning environment.


Research Challenges

•A challenge to get students to engage with the

archive so that they can begin to understand it and

its relation to them and their learning. (Issues such

as time, perceived value, and the relationship of the

contributions of unknown learners/non-experts to

the learning environment).


Research Challenges

•There is an apparent disconnect between

seeing the potential value of the archive from a

distance versus actually spending time in the

archive and getting to know what it contains and

how it can be of value to the learner. (The archive

perceived as a great idea but not accessed

because??)


Research Challenges

•A tendency to search for answers (a quick fix)

versus looking for thinking or process in the archive.

•Limited understanding of protocols for tagging

and subsequent searching.

•Even at the graduate level there is the

appearance that the course is more about doing the

assignment and moving on and less about the process

of learning.


Research Challenges

Attitudes toward the archive

•I want to figure things out myself: I want to learn

on my own and don’t want to be influenced by the

processes of those who went before.

•I think time becomes a quintessential piece of the

puzzle… but keeping up with the 30 odd students

in my own cohort leaves little time to reflect on

what ghosts have said.


Research Challenges

The archive has targeted value as long as the time

spent results in a direct benefit to the learner in the

course.


Research ChallengesDeveloping New Theories and Practices

What elements are needed to build a course that

contains a meaningful archive that has a high ease-

of-use factor, is searchable/accessible, and contains

evidence of the tacit and explicit understandings of

learners and ultimately supports learners as they

learn from those who went before?


Future Online CoursesFrom One Iteration to the Next

Course Iteration 1 Course Iteration 2

Course Materials Course materials

Assignments Assignments

Class Contributions

The Course Archivea living resource

Dynamic, Growing, Evolving


Developing New Theories and PracticesComing Full Circle……..

•As a student would you use an archive, built over

time, by former students/faculty in your course?

•How might you see yourself using such an archive?

•How useful would an archive be to you?

•What barriers can you see in using or

accessing an archive?

Enhancing Learning Environments:Making course archives available for current and

future learning

Thank You --- Questions? Discussion?

Stuart C Berry

May 5, 2011

Documents

Stuart C Berry Camosun College Business Faculty & Doctoral Candidate - Athabasca University