Terry Anderson, Professor,Canada Research Chair in Distance Education

Introduction

Terry Anderson’s CV in Wordle Tag Cloud

Introduction

Values

• We can (and must) continuously improve the quality, effectiveness, appeal, cost and time efficiency of the learning experience.

• Student control and freedom is integral to 21st Century life-long education and learning.

• Education for elites is not sufficient for planetary survival

Something there is that doesn’t love a a wall, that wants it down”

Robert Frost

Boundless Learning

• Boundless Content• Boundless Connections• Bounding the Boundless

Boundless: having no bounds; unlimited; vast www.yourdictionary.com

Image by Jack Ruttan

Learning• Behaviorist : Learning occurs when new behaviors or changes in behaviors are

acquired as the result of an individual’s response to stimuli.• Cognitivist: Learning is a change in knowledge stored in memory.• Constructivist: Learning is the process where individuals construct new ideas or

concepts based on prior knowledge and/or experience. Leilani Carbonell-Pedroni in 2001

• Connectivist:– Learning is building networks of information, contacts and resources that are applied to

real problems. (Anderson, 2009)– the learning of knowledge - is distributive, that is, not located in any given place (and

therefore not 'transferred' or 'transacted' per se) but rather consists of the network of connections formed from experience and interactions with a knowing community. Downes, 2006

– Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. – Learning (does he mean knowledge??) may reside in non-human appliances. (Siemens,

2004)

• “Learning is the lifelong process of transforming information and experience into knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes.” Jeff Cobb, 2009

Boundless Access to Learning Content

• Open Educational Resources (OERs)• Open Courses• Free resources

OER Definition• “open provision of

educational resources enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.”

– UNESCO 2008 http://www.unesco.org/iiep/eng/focus/opensrc/opensrc_1.htm

Types of OERs• Learning objects, units, textbooks, scholarly articles

IRRODL.org• Multimedia objects (Flash etc.)

• Courses, programs full curriculum

• Tools, FOSS

Boundless Opportunity to Re-purpose OERs

• Reuse - Use the work just exactly as you found it.

• Rework - Alter or transform the work

• Remix – Combine work with other works

• Redistribute – Share with others.– Dave Wiley

http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/355

Millions of OERs are available

ProjectGutenberg

Who Pays for Free content?

1. ‘Freemium: free & “pro” versions1. 1% of users support all the rest

2. Advertising: provide a special audience3. Cross-Subsidies: free lunch if you buy beer4. Zero-Marginal Cost: online music5. Labor Exchange: Digg or Google 4116. Gift Economy: $$$ aren’t everything

Wired: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all

Chris Anderson’s Taxonomy of Free

Is Language a Boundary?

• Of course, if not I would be talking Finnish!• But re-use/re-mixing does occur across language:• “In LeMill, where the content is created by teachers,

we find the users create and share material both within the language community and across them, indicating that the purpose of the platform fits and supports the typical activities that the meta-community carries out in order to achieve its goals.” – Vuorikari, & Koper, (in press) Journal of Educational

Technology & Society

The Political Economy of Peer Production Michael Bauwens

• produce use-value through the free cooperation of producers

• a 'third mode of production' neither for-profit or public

• NOT exchange value for a market, but use-value for a community

www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499

Prod-Users:From production to produsage

Axel Bruns 2008

• Users as active participants in production of artifacts:• Examples:

– Open source movement– Wikipedia– Citizen journalism (blogs)– Immersive worlds– Distributed creativity - music, video, Flickr

Boundless Access to Open Courses

Alec Cuoros Open Access Course: Social Media & Open Education (Fall 2009)

George Siemens & Stephen Downes

Introduction au technologie émergentesDave Cormier

Boundless Opportunity to control the Social Construction of Technology

• Education Technology is, by definition, technologically mediated and thus is influenced by technological determinism

• BUT…. • Interpretative Flexibility

– each technological artifact has different meanings and interpretations

• Relevant Social Groups– many subgroups can be delineated

• Design Flexibility– A design is only a single point in the large field of technical

possibilities• Problems and Conflicts

– Different interpretations often give rise to conflicts between criteria that are hard to resolve technologically

• (Wikipedia, Sept, 2009)

Boundless access through Open Access Books

Upcoming Emerging Technologies in DE edited by George Veletsianowww.irrodl.org

Currently, somewhat bounded access to Free Courses

Boundless Access to Individuals asfree tutors

• http://www.khanacademy.org/

See calculus derivatives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAof9Ld5sOg

Boundless Access Using Open Access Journals

• Open Access Journals have increased citation ratings:– Work in progress with Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Ferne

University, Germany– Analysis of Google citations for 12 Distance Education

Journals (using Harzing’s Publish or Perish tool)– 6 open access, 6 commercially published– Early results show roughly equal citations/paper, but

recent gains in citations by open access journals

Boundless Opportunity to write and assign Assign Open Textbooks

Boundless Access to Learning Networks

Net presence means Creating and Sustaining Social Capital

• “Relationships, more than information, determine how problems are solved or opportunities exploited.” Looi 2001, P. 17)

Boundless Interaction over Research

Boundless Opportunities to create and connect to Networks

EnablingOpenScholarship

Boundless Connections through Web 2.0 Applications

http://www.go2web20.net over 3000 apps 28

Boundless opportunities to comment, tag, share and connect with others

• Bookmarking and Annotation add value• Cite-u-like, Brainify, Diigo, Delicious etc• VLE additions like Margenalia.

Placing Boundaries on the Boundless

Good fences make good neighbors” Robert Frost

Placing Boundaries on the Boundless

A good fence helpeth to keepe peace between neighbours; but let vs take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keepe vs from meeting.[1640 E. Rogers Letter in Winthrop Papers (1944) IV. 282]

Boundless Opportunities for

• Unanticipated consequences• Challenges of net privacy/presence• Emergent adaptation by students and teachers• Misuse and exploitation

Creating Boundaries by Recommendations/input of others

Boundless Opportunity to be effective Change Agents

• Open scholars develop tools and techniques to help cross-pollination, sustain and grow effective learning networks.

• Open Scholars help birth new institutions and reform existing schools

From (Looi 2001).

Boundless Opportunities to “help” students

• ““We’re trying to really understand the true behavior of the student … and then use that information to be able to make informed, data-driven decisions about how we can help students.” Adam Lange, Rio Salado College

Boundless Opportunities to waste time

Save Time by using the efforts of others

I haven’t got the time to save!

Boundless living requires effective information management

• “Personalisation will respect the fact that information use is individual and contextual: in terms of information and knowledge, one person’s overload is another’s life blood”. (Bawden &Robinson, 2009 p. 187)

Social Networking helps us create our own boundaries

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TextText

Stepanyan, Mather & Payne, 2007

Boundary Controls in Elgg

Open Net

Athabasca University Athabasca Landing

E-PortfoliosProfilesGroups/NetworksBookmark

CollectionsBlogs

Media lab

Secondlife campus

AUspace

AlFrescoCMS

Moodle

Library

Course Development

ELGG

MY AULogin

Registry

OERs, YouTUBE

DiscoveryRead & Comment rights

Single Sign on

CIDER

Research/Community Networks

Sample CC Course units and Branded OERs

PasswordsPasswords

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”

Chinese Proverb

Terry Anderson terrya@athabascau.ca

http://cde.athabascau.ca/faculty/terrya.php

Blog: terrya.edublogs.org

Your comments and questions most welcomed!