Final Assignment Tsci 2009 2010 C.P. Rozenberg

Research Centre for Digital Education A proposal for research on the future of digital learning environments Charly Rozenberg 295682 Erasmus University Rotterdam Class: Trends and Strategies of the Creative Industries 2009-2010 Lecture: Matthijs Leendertse Hand in: January 15th, 2010 On paper and via blog http://joindigitallearning.blogspot.com

Index Abstract page 3 Introduction page 3 New media page 3 Media wisdom page 4 Technical options page 4 Wisdom of crowds page 5 Costs page 5 Theoretical perspective page 6 Methodology page 6 Conclusion page 6 Financial proposal page 7 Literature page 8 Extra Reflection page 9

Abstract The world of education is changing. There is free use of information from the internet, fast emerging of new technologies and increased use of digital tools in the classroom. But how can the quality and consistency of education be guarded for the future, with the evolving new ways of teaching. This paper shows several developments that need to be kept in mind when researching the future of education. From open source software to peer production, it leads to a methodology called backcasting that can be used to research the possibilities for the future. Introduction The world is full of new media. We have pc’s, laptops, smartphones, wireless internet, digital television channels. You name it and there is a possible way of retrieving all sorts of information. All these new and technological advanced options make us capable of reading and learning much more information nowadays then we ever imagined. This pitch is looking what can be done in the future to incorporate the new media into the educational system. What is new media? What needs to be thought of when considering new media in education? This pitch revolves around the question: What are possibilities for the future of digital learning environments? This means that we first look at what is new media? When we know what is new, we can research possibilities for the future. After describing some possible things that can be used in the future, we will discuss the methodology for future research. New media New media is about refashioning old media and creating a new experience of retrieving the same message (Lister, 2009:47). Adding new abilities to old media and converging old media together creates a new way of delivering a message. A word for this creation of new media is remediation (Lister, 2009:47). The internet is the best example of the convergence of old media. On the internet, one can read newspaper articles, watch television, listen to radio and that all at the same moment. You can even create your own world have your own input out there for everybody to be read. This creates a lot of possibilities for education. Information that is to be reached by everybody is a very interesting idea for education. You can think of new ways for teaching, learning, education and the creation of new sources

for education. With new media, a student now can create its own world of education, where the student can learn what he or she wants and learn it on their own pace. A critical note here comes from a research by Ophir et al (Ophir, Nass, Wagner, 2009). From their research into the use of new media and the convergence of media, they found that people that are doing a lot of things together at the same time, cannot concentrate well when doing one task. It means, that when people are multitasking, they forget how to concentrate on one thing. Thus, when bringing new media into the classroom, we have to think of the fact that multitasking might not bring the preferred effect of learning to students. Technical options With the emergence of new media, new technologies arise that carry or connect to these new media. In the business of education, this means that there are new ways for education. As we already have seen, there is the internet. A computer for everybody in the classroom is another option. These are all new tool for teachers and students. With these new tools, education can be improved. A problem with new technologies is that people have the tendency to lag behind. New technologies need to be implemented in a way that everybody can work with it, especially in education. If a teacher does not know how to work a computer, the lessons fall short of educational value. Students have to keep up with new technologies, or they will not learn what is required. For a future with new education, there needs to be education on how to use new media. Media wisdom The Dutch government understood that new media is the future, but that people have to keep up with it in order to keep up with education. The government recognized that the internet (as example of new media) is a powerful tool that can be used for education, but that people have to learn how to use it. Users on the internet can put everything they like online and not everything is good. The users are “important actors in virtually all elements of on line services.” (Slot & Frissen, 2007). So to educate the users, especially the people in the world of education, from children to teachers, the government has put up a program, Media Wisdom, to educate on how to use new media (Plasterk & Rouvoet, 2008).

Wisdom of crowds, peer production Educating on what is the right information is a good and important step in learning what is good and what not, because of the fact that everybody can put information online. But that is also a powerful instrument that can be interesting for education. Wikipedia is such an example where everybody can put information online and where people can learn from. Lister argues that ‘the wiki process offers knowledge that is part of an ongoing conversation’ (Lister et al, 2009: 207). Why not use it then for education? Or at least create a world that the educational field accepts as “true”. Wheeler points out the idea of Illich, ‘to establish learning webs where everyone could share their expertise with their communities and learn from each other as the need arose’ (Wheeler, 2009). Another point that comes with the wisdom of crowds is peer production. Teachers now can use a vast space of information that is created by experts and use it in their lessons. Teachers can help each other out on new education methods or give each other tips on how to present a new subject in class. Costs Unfortunately, with new inventions and creations, new and maybe higher costs are there to deal with also. First, there are some logical things. There are high costs of new tools for classrooms. Computers that are needed to connect to the new information can be very expensive and the education on how to use all these new things take also a lot of time (and money). Ots shows that ccompanies that were once founded as an altruistic collaboration to launch new creativeness, are now faced with huge money investments and branding to keep up to technological standard (Ots, M: 2008). One can see that schools and other public spaces in the world of education will have a lot of costs to. Open source media is a solution in cutting costs. Open source means that everybody can use the media for free or for far less then in a commercial setting. Benkler shows that open-source media is a solution for cutting cost (Benkler, p: 5). It is now also possible to cut costs on books, distribute free information over the internet. In the end the educational information will become cheaper, easier available and probably qualitatively better because it is perfectly adapted to what a student needs or want to learn. It also like ‘Minksy's dream come to a reality, where you can imagine all the books in a library actually starting to talk to each other. It's the interconnections between ideas that teaching is really all about’ (Baraniuk, 2009).

Theoretical perspective The perspective from what we have seen so far, is one of remediation. There is actually nothing new in education. Children need to learn what is set as required, teachers have to teach it. But the way it is tough has changed. As Listers says, from the old comes the new (Lister, 2009; p. 58). It is not a linear way of learning from the past and creating new things, but a genealogical way (Lister, 2009; p. 58). It means that, in the case of education, the way we teach things evolves with the time and the technologies that are at our hands. Media use in education is not something new, but through remediation and the digitalization of media creates for education a new learning environment. Methodology To research the possibilities for the future, I would like to advise to use a backcasting methodology. Leendertse et al (2009) describes this method in his paper on education for the future. Backcasting aims to outline a future situation and evaluate the preferences of people for that future to test the feasibility of this desired future (Leendertse 2009; p. 5). Thus, by researching different scenarios for the future, the best possible way can be choosen. Via backcasting, you first specify milestones that need to be conquered to change the future. Putting them on a timeline, you create a roadmap of what to achieve in the future. (Leendertse, 2009; p. 6). Via interviews, literature research and expert advices, you can create the possible future that you want. In the case of education, specify what you would like to see in the future of education and see if these specifications can be reached. Conclusion The future is wide open for education and it’s challenging to change the future for the better, for better education. Creating new and challenging education is a lengthy process and all the options and possibilities need to be researched carefully. New and digital education bring also about policy changes. What is to be taught, is it open for everybody and it is a reflection of what people need to know (Cuilenborg, 2007). In the end, this research is about the future of the delegation of knowledge in a new era.

Financial proposal The cost of the research is based on the time it might take and the cost of the researcher. The estimated time of the research is two months. This includes setting up the research, making all the contacts, taking the interview, making evaluations and of course making the conclusion and advice for the future of education. A researcher costs €80 an hour. This is a junior consultant within the Research Centre for Digital Education under supervision of a senior consultant who leads multiple researches. Costs: €80 per hour for 1 consultant Time: 2 months (based on full time work, 40 hours a week) Total costs: €25.600

Literature Lister, M., J. Dovey, S. Giddings, I. Grant & K. Kelly (2009) New Media. A critical Introduction. Second Edition. London: Routledge (ISBN: 0-415-43160-3) Benkler, Y. (2006) The Wealth of Networks 2006 Slot, M. & V. Frissen (2007). Users in the Golden Age of the Information Society. In: Observatorio Journal. 3 (2007), pp. 201+224 Ots, M. (2008). Media and Brands: New Ground to Explore. In: Ots M. (ed.) (2008) Media Brands and Branding. Jönköping, Sweden: JIBS. Pp. 1-7. Van Cuilenburg, J. (1999) ‘On competition, access and diversity in media, old and new: some remarks for communications policy in the information age. In: New Media & Society vol. 1, issue 2, p. 183-207 Leendertse, M., M. Manschot & A. de Korte (2009). Creating the ideal ICTenabled learning space. Paper presented at the International Conference of Education, Research & Innovation in Madrid, November 16-18 2009. Ophir, Nass, Wagner. September 15, 2009. Cognitive control in media multitaskers. PNAS 106 (37). Richard Baraniuk’s presentation for TED on open-source learning. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_baraniuk_on_open_source_learning.html. Wheeler, S. 2009. Blog about learning technology. http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/

Reflection The main thing that had to have gone better was my own planning. There was enough time but, as it is a student’s habit, planning fell short. The concepts of the literature was something I understood quit well and also the search for literature was not hard. I had a great resource through the blog that we created (http://joindigitallearning.blogspot.com) as a group for the Trend and Strategies class. My main focus was to show that there are a lot of options for digital learning, but that when researching the field, one has to specify what is important and to focus on that. In the end, I thought it went quit well, but I always make so hard on myself when I’m not working by the planning and thus creating personal stress.

Final Assignment Tsci 2009 2010 C.P. Rozenberg

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