RIDE 2010 Keynote: Open Educational Resources and Learning Spaces: research questions

Open Educational Resources and Learning Spaces

Josie Taylor, Professor of Learning Technology, Director, Institute of Educational Technology

The Open University

The Open University, UK

• Higher education needs to prepare itself to exist in a more open future by embracing openness and the implications for change that it entails

• These changes are likely to be profound• However, we don’t yet fully understand what they are,

or what the impact on organisations or students is likely to be

OpenLearn at The Open University• 2006 – William and Flora Hewlett foundation provided

us with funds to investigate sharing educational resources and more open approaches

• Our definition of OER:

“The 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.”

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk

OpenLearn

• Designed on a model analogous to the open source software movement

• >11million unique visitors have used OpenLearn since 2006

• Gradual build of user base

Studies by OLNet• Patrick McAndrew and the OLNet team at the OU• Analysis of user behaviour, targeting those who used

the site more heavily, supported by follow-up interviews and monitoring of activities taking place with the open content

• The results from one of these studies (n = 2,011) highlighted two distinct clusters of learners: "volunteer" students and "social" learners.

Volunteer students

The volunteer students sought the content they wanted to learn from, and they expected to work through it. These learners were most interested in:

– more content – tools for self-assessment– ways to reflect on their individual learning.

Social Learners

The social learners were less motivated to work through the content. Rather, they seem to see learning as a way to meet people with shared interests. This cluster of learners ranked communication tools more highly and were more interested in advanced features on the website.

What are these learners trying to do?

• How might they frame those tasks?• How will they know when they have succeeded? i.e.

what ‘counts’ as success?• What will be the quality of the experience?• How can we best support them?

Massive challenge for new learners on a trajectory

Lots of other stops along the way...

What is this process?• It is not just a process of skill acquisition• These are profound developmental stages for the

individual• There are equally profound issues for the academy –

what is a university for?• In a completely open world, who determines what is

(or should be) of value?• Who holds the power to say ‘this is worthy’? Will that be

determined by the employment market?

Digital Literacies (Mary Lea & Sylvia Jones 2011)

• Learners bring a wealth of experience to bear – some appropriate, some not

• Learners are engaged in meaning-making• Recognition of the central role of texts in construction of

knowledge and practice of learning• Potential shifts of power between learners, communities

and institutions• Role of the institution is critically important• Boundaries of ‘texts’ are more fluid and unstable than in

previous times

Improving our understanding of student behaviour? • ‘Rich accounts in the literature of students’ use of

technology’• ‘No detailed or in depth examination of what students

actually do in contexts when using different applications, or how meanings are being made from, and through, engagement with digital technology’

• ‘Recognition of the central nature of texts both in the construction of knowledge and the practice of learning’

Lea and Jones (2011)

Building on 25 years of previous studies• Learning programming:

• Taylor, J., PROLOG project 1983-88

• Learning from multimedia: • Laurillard, D., Plowman, L., Taylor, J., Stratfold, M.,

The MENO project: Multimedia, Education and Narrative Organisation (1996 – 2000)

• Mobile Learning:• Sharples, M., Taylor, J., McAndrew, P., Vavoula, G.,

MOBIlearn (2004 – 2008) Mobile Learning

Also building on ...• Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education.New York: Free Press.• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: the development of higher

psychological processes.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.• Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical

approach to developmental research.Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.• Engeström, Y. (1996). Perspectives on activity theory.Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.• Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Harvard University

Press, Cambridge MA

Multimedia, Education and Narrative Organisation (MENO) 1996 - 1997

• ESRC funded - Diana Laurillard, Lydia Plowman, Rose Luckin, Matthew Stratfold

• Close observational study of learners using multimedia to learn about Darwinian theory (Galapagos)

• Examining the impact of different interfaces on the same material

• Young students (A-level/first year undergrad)

Bruner’s use of narrative (1996)

• a connected sequence of events

• the representation of those events

• a mode of thought (‘a primary act of mind transferred to art from life’)

Bruner'I have found it impossible to distinguish sharply what is a

narrative mode of thought and what is a narrative 'text' or discourse.'

Bruner, Culture of Education, 1996

Definition of narrative in MENO

‘Narrative is a process of both discerning and imposing structured meanings which can be shared and articulated’

Lydia Plowman, Diana Laurillard, Matthew Stratfold, Rose Luckin, Josie Taylor (1998/99)

Narrative guidance and construction

• Guidance (explicit/implicit)– Offered by the teacher– Offered by the multimedia system– Offered by other materials– Offered by the interface

• Construction (explicit/implicit)– A process brought to task by learner– Needs to be carefully scaffolded

3 versions of the Galapagos application

• Linear:– students led through each sub-task in sequence.

Close to traditional narrative in film/TV• Resource Based:

– offers no guidance, closest equivalent being an encyclopaedia

• Guided Discovery:– offers guidance in breaking down the task, but

narrative line not as strong as Linear version

Narrative Guidance: Navigating Galapagos

Linear

RBL

GDL

Summary of studies learning from digital resources • Less experienced learners benefit from explicit

narrative support to assist in process of narrative construction, which can be effected through interface design

• Leaving (even quite experienced) learners to drive their own learning resulted in incomplete coverage of all the necessary material

• Need to explicitly support the development of this literacy

Support ‘Volunteer’ students

• Structure interfaces to optimise narrative construction by learners

• Have experts providing services, offering narrative guidance

• Provide some explicit pathways through materials, with options to branch and return

• Provide implicit support embedded in the interface that influence learners implicitly

Pask: Conversation Theory (1975)

o Conversation is the converse of control. o Concepts are exchanged in a conversation and often

some public concept is shared … o ‘But may just as well lead to enrichment by divergence

(of our personal concepts) as to convergence...' (1987)

o Cybernetic view of conversation: participant might be a computer or a person (or anything else)

Members feel some connection – they care

Contribute when you want

Space in which learning happens

Ecological approach (Jenkins 2004)• interrelationship among all the different communication

technologies and– the cultural communities that grow up around them– the activities they support.

• Interactivity is a property of the technology, while participation is a property of culture.

Affinity Spaces: James Paul Gee (2009)

Gee’s distinctions

Formal education system• Conservative• Static• Structures to sustain are

institutional • Remain little changed over long

periods of time• Communities are bureaucratic

and often national• Does not allow for easy

movement in and out

Informal affinity space• Experimental• Innovative• Structures to sustain are

provisional• Can respond to short-term

needs and temporary interests• Communities are ad hoc and

localised• Allows for easy moves in and

out of informal learning communities

Support Social Learners• Provide ‘affinity space’ for learning• Ensure it is populated with a rich mix of people (look at

the ecology of the community to make it sustainable)• Optimise conversations between peers • Optimise conversations between learners and experts• Allow people to come and go easily

What is the role of pedagogy?

….

…to guide media use, development and integration

1970's 1980's 1990's 2000's

Broadcastcourse related

TelevisionInteractivePrint media


RadioTutors

f2f/phone/post


Television

InteractiveVideocassette


Radio

InteractiveAudiocassette

InteractivePrint media

InteractiveVideocassette

InteractiveAudiocassette

InteractiveintegratedMultimedia

Print media

Outreach TVA/V digital

media

social media

Web 2.0

Support mediaconferencing/

email

Tutorsf2f/phone/

post

Tutorsf2f/phone/

post


email

Non courserelated TV(outreach)

Internet/Web 1.0

On-line and postal delivery

InteractiveintegratedMultimedia

Disk-based media and postaldelivery


email

Broadcast and postaldelivery

Broadcast and postaldelivery

Print mediaTutors

f2f/phone/post

Web 3.0 andbeyond

VirtualWorlds

Mobile technology

SocialLearn

• This work is at the heart of our SocialLearn project, an affinity space optimised for learning

• Pilot running from November 10 – Mar 11 with staff in the area of professional development (~ 11k staff potentially)

Research questions– What is required to establish a successful distributed

community of learners?– What is required to ensure sustainability of learning

communities, and to support their growth?– How can the community determine and agree ‘what

counts’ as learning and how it should be ‘counted’ and ‘accounted’ for?

– How are leaders identified, and supported in these communities?

Control• Who is in control?• Does it matter?

– Who decides what is of value?– Who decides what counts?