"Blending" the University: Beyond MOOCs

SXSWeduWed., March 6, 2013

Gigi Johnson, EdDMaremel Institute @maremel

#BlendU#SXSWeduFlickr/PromoMadrid

1.What is "blended"? And what is a MOOC?

2.Rethinking time, place, and data politics

3.Reexamining the business models of higher education content

4.Rich opportunities and where my heart sings

4 FramesToday

4 FramesToday

First, what the heck is “Blended”?

“Blended” is…

Distance Education: Long Paths

KUHT . "Dr. Richard I. Evans." June 8, 1953. University of Houston Digital Library. <http://digital.lib.uh.edu/u?/p15195coll38,195>

More than 6 million students in the U.S. took at least one online course in 2010

Sources: Allen & Seaman, 2011; National Center for Education Statistics, 2010

31% of US Higher Education Students are Engaging Learning Online

Not Just “Those For-Profits”

235,000 enrollments in 1,200 courses

50,000 enrollments to 10,300 students in 70 degree and certificate programs

30,000 students for $6,000/year each

27,000 studentsOnline courses to 7,000 of its 31,000 students

Rio Salado College (AZ), with 40,000 students with its online programsOblinger (2012)

Live

Asynchronous

Synchronous

Anywhere

Blended: Where Online Expands F2F Options

Message Boards

Co-Located Classes

Blended Learning: More than a Decade of Research• 1999-2003: Program in Course Redesign

• $8.8mm from Pew• 30 colleges and universities • Quality matched or improved upon prior face-to-face courses,

and saved 20-84% of costs (Twigg, 2003) (http://www.thencat.org/PCR.htm)

• 2001: Temple University • 2002: University of Wisconsin

• 17 faculty redesigned their traditional courses into blended courses (Aycock, Garnham, & Kaleta, 2002)

• 2001: The Learning Technology Consortium• Blended learning programs at 9 universities: Indiana U, Virginal

Tech, U. of Delaware, U. of Florida, U. of Georgia, U. of N. Carolina, Notre Dame, U. of Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest.

US Dept. of Ed Meta-study: Blended Learning Can Be More Effective than Online or Face-to-Face (F2F)

• Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia and Jones (2010, revised)• Meta-study for the U.S. Department of Education • Evaluated studies with objective measures from 1996-2008

involving online, face-to-face, and blended courses, nearly all in higher education (versus K12). Online vs. FTF: Learning outcomes for online and face-to-face courses were statistically indistinct. Types of online learning and structures did not matter.

• Blended Learning vs. FTF: Blended learning did show statistically significant improvements in learning outcomes, especially connected with self-monitoring of student understanding and with reflection.

• Content delivery methods (e.g., lecture vs. use of video, live vs. embedded quizzes) made no significant differences.

• Improvements stemmed from projects involving collaboration, additional time spent versus the traditional classroom hours, and additional materials available for instruction and learning versus F2F course designs.

• Content delivery methods (e.g., lecture vs. use of video, live vs. embedded quizzes) made no significant differences.

• Improvements stemmed from projects involving collaboration, additional time spent versus the traditional classroom hours, and additional materials available for instruction and learning versus F2F course designs.

Diverse Blended Learning Paths

• CS50, at Harvard (now part of edx)• 615-student must-take class introductory computer science class• Virtual office hours, TA-scribed lecture notes, an evening phone hotline, and

two multimedia producers (https://www.cs50.net/)• Plaid Avenger, Virginia Tech (http://www.plaidavenger.com/).

• 3,000-student undergraduate world affairs course• Portfolio of 13 social media engagement assignments, plus just-in-time videos

and collaborative discussion boards to engage his students; 2 part-time TAs and a lot of data-scraping collaboration and automation

• University of Maryland, Baltimore County• 100 staff and faculty across the university to build a cohort around using digital

storytelling--New Media Studio (http://www.umbc.edu/studio/); (Community of Practice faculty profiles: http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories/profiles.php)

Oblinger (2012)

Now . . . MOOC-Expanded Content Ecosystems

ConnectivistMOOCs (cMOOCs)

2008 to today Often emergent, messy

learning Group exploration and co-

creation

Large-Scale University-Duplicated MOOCs (xMOOCs)

2011-now Knowledge tested and

reviewed Some mirror F2F class “Sage on the Stage” Increasing use of

subgroups and forced collaboration

http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-become-sustainable-model/

MOOC Paths

MOOC and Educational “Singles” as Freemium Cloud-based Media

14

Rethinking politics and social norms of time, place, and data

Time- and Place-Shifted Education

16

Multi-Modal “Classroom Management”

Impact of the Cloud on Education

Breaking time and space barriers

Local + Exclusive =Historical Barriers to Entry

What is a class?Jarring time and space definitionsClass -- needs a Beginning, Middle, and End?Alternative Reality Games as Classes?

Magic Buttons of Unquestioned Time

• Assigning class times and spaces• Measuring faculty and students on course

hours• Flipping classrooms to eat into non-class time• Artificial nature of Terms

• Why start in the Fall?• Why quarters or semesters except hiring and space?

Financial aid pushed into term system

Accelerate the quarters and helping public universities flex intake and support

The D-Word

• Diagnostics

• U of Phoenix – contact students just to check in

• Concept of Mass Personalization• Knewton and others

• Supervision

“If I wanted people to see my work, I would have gone into industry."

Static Interactive

Collaborative

Solo

Forums

PagesFiles

URLs

Webinar

Collaborative community

Publishing

Workshops

SurveysAssignments

QuizzesLesson

Books

Chat

Embeds

ProjectsE-portfolios

Personal

Storage

Time + Place + Data = Collaboration and Interactivity

Learning: Two-Way + Ubiquitous

• Cloud-Based Expansions• SaaS-led Ease of Entry• Commoditizable Systems without upfront

investments• BYOD as expected norm with browser based

engagement or simple downloads• Limits: Program marketing, overhead and

content costs, not time and place • 2012: Explosion of MOOCs

Learning Everywhere? The New Curators

Expansion by New Experts and Communities

Reexamining the business models of higher ed content

Two Campers and the Bear

Double Feature Challenge

Education: Pushed Between Pressures

AbundantCreation

University as Content Filter

Creative Community Source: Caves, Creative Industries, 2000

Physical costs and marketing as historical barrier to entryPhysical costs and marketing as historical barrier to entry

Question: What is the Special Sauce?

"Album": Black Box and Rock Walls

MailersWebsitesPurchased listsHigh

Schoolers

MagazineRankings

Alumni

Transparency Challenges in "Album" Model

Filter Package Accreditation Rankings: awkward

measures of input/output

Filter Package Accreditation Rankings: awkward

measures of input/output

Content Production Model: Live Classes

UniversityInstructorUniversityInstructor

Live Class ExperienceLive Class Experience

PublisherPublisherOther

UniversityInstructor

OtherUniversityInstructor

TextbookPaid by Student

TextbookPaid by Student

TA as Seminar Instructor and/or

Grader

TA as Seminar Instructor and/or

Grader

Blended/Flipped Video Production: Takes $ and a Village

UniversityInstructorUniversityInstructor

Blended Class Experience

Blended Class Experience

Publisher?University?

MOOC?

Publisher?University?

MOOC?MultimediaPaid by ??MultimediaPaid by ??

Syndication Models?Syndication Models?

Instructional designer

Instructional designer

TA as Community Manager

TA as Community Manager

AnimatorAnimator

Video Producer and Editor

Video Producer and Editor

Business Model Challenges

• Who owns what?• Syllabus vs. class vs.

PowerPoints vs. produced video

• Professor often not paid for course development

• Who buys and pays for what?• Production funding

from Publishers? Universities?

• Syndication – who has rights to reruns?

• IP within the class content vs. Fair Use

• Whose time?

Content Creation Cost and Risk

• Cost Elements for a live class vs. online• Lecturer Average Pay: $3-4K/class• Cost to record: $20-100K?

• No variable pay by volume . . . who benefits?

Challenges for the University as Organization• Organizational support structures – Built

to support classes with definite times, places, and historical rules

• Cost Structures – Who pays for the shift from F2F to blended?

• Faculty Development – Ghettoized in teaching and learning centers

• Rethinking faculty role(s)• Role of content experts, course designers,

instructors, and community managers• Teaching identity – who am I?

• Values of Time – What merits a class hour of work?

Content Licensing – Fragmented

OER •Big movements already in Open Educational Resources (e.g., Merlot, Connexion, a la Learning Registry and Gooru)•Thin marketplace for revenue-share or revenue-producing licensing (though on the horizon)•MOOCs -- Production costs w/o revenue model

• BIG brand dumping?

Blur of Publishing and Licensing•Books coming the other way – Publishers trying to lock schools into full packages of print and content delivery•Role of books and copyrighted materials in MOOCs – upside of the Freemium Model?•Bookstore model broken

• B&N aggregating university bookstores selling sweatshirts and brand logos• Course Readers next wave

Legal issues

• IP Ownership differs between universities• “Paying for Re-runs”• In-class IP and the role of readings and

simulations

Flickr/jjorogen

Decoding the Experience: Ease of Entry?

• Learning entry experience may be very different by course

• Need to build student skills for proactive learning

Template-driven student learner population encouraged by NCLB

COI – Community of Inquiry -- as more than magic dust Flickr/romana klee

Rich opportunities . . . and where my heart sings

Opportunity: Static to Context Rich

• Transactional, static learning• Relational, context-driven learning

• Building, continuing opportunity

Transactional, static

learning

Transactional, static

learning

Relational, context-

driven learning

Relational, context-

driven learning

Learning as Community

• Different skills in creating community• Community managers• Peer learning• Tribes and PLNs

• Concepts of learning together without an “end date”

Source: COI; Garrison et al 2000http://peeragogy.org/http://is.gd/v101peeragogy

Re-Containerizing Learning

• When does education end?• Continuing communities of practice• New Opportunities as co-learners beyond

the term? • Break from learning environment as

“alumni”

Education in a World of Search

Teaching taxonomies and domain rules, rich in context

My Own Passions in Blended

• Courses for change• Using context in asynchronous, distributed

learning• Action learning• Cross licensing great content• Impact on outside world

Continuing Conversations

Dr. Gigi JohnsonMaremel Institutegigi@maremel.com@maremel

Google Community: Blending the Universityhttps://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106888717177464309972

ADDITIONAL IDEAS

Related Links

• Steve Kolowich (Mar. 4, 2013), “Online Education May Make Top Colleges More Elite, Speakers Say,” Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.com/article/Online-Education-May-Make-Top/137687/

• Taylor Walsh (2010), Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses, Princeton Press.

• Diana Oblinger, Ed. (2012), Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies, EDUCAUSE. (free download at http://www.educause.edu/research-publications/books/game-changers-education-and-information-technologies)

• Chris Anderson (2008), Free: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business, Wired Magazine, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

• Barbara Means, Yukie Toyama, Robert Murphy, Marianne Bakia, and Karla Jones (2010, revised), Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, US Dept. of Education, http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

Training and Pedagogical Support

• Centers for Teaching Learning• Scholarship in Teaching and Learning

(http://www.issotl.org/SOTL.html) (http://ilstu.libguides.com/sotl)