Terry Anderson Alt C Final

Association for Learning Technology
Manchester, UK,
8-10 September 2009
Terry Anderson, Ph.D.
Canada Research Chair in Distance Education

Introduction
Terry Anderson’s CV in Wordle Tag Cloud

Anderson & Anderson,( submitted for publication)

Presentation Overview
Brief scan of the environment
Taxonomy of the Many
The Open Scholar

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.

Harmonizing Disruptive Technologies
“Managing and aligning pedagogical, technical and administrative issues is a necessary condition of success when using emerging technologies for learning”
But it takes leadership and disruption
Gregor Kennedy et al. , Melbourne Educating the Net Generation: A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy , 2009

Recent history of Higher education Innovation
Last systemic innovation was the emergence of the community colleges and open and alternative colleges of the 1960’s
Last 40 years of reform:
Examples: Problem based learning, faculty development, community, collaborative, technology enhanced learning
Peripheral and outside of main stream rewards and strategic planning
“ We can no longer pursue an add-on approach to the changing faculty role”
Rice, Eugene. (2006). From Athens and Berlin to LA: Faculty Work and the New Academy

Promising Signs
Ubiquity and multi-functionality of web 2.0
Growth of openness and online resources, OERs
Increasingly effective pedagogical models and learning activities
Real educational alternatives – including private sector
Death and retirement

Aligning with 21 Century students
Students are NOT deeply digitally engaged, empowered, nor skilled and certainly not homogeneous
But they “arrive at college with well-established methods of sorting, doubting, and ignoring”
“odd kind of student — one who appears polite and dutiful but who cares little about the course work, the larger questions it raises, or the value of living an examined life” Tom Clysdale, 2009 Wake Up and Smell the New Epistemology
Or is the life that we examine in formal education?
We can no longer maintain interest and enthusiasm based on respect and superior knowledge

Net presence means Creating and Sustaining Social Capital
“Relationships, more than information, determine how problems are solvedor opportunities exploited.” p. 17 Looi2001)

Choosing the righttool(s)?
VLE
http://www.go2web20.net over 3000 apps
12

Taxonomy of the ‘Many’ – A Conceptual ModelDron and Anderson, 2007
Group
Conscious membership
Leadership and organization
Cohorts and paced
Rules and guidelines
Access and privacy controls
Focused and often time limited
May be blended F2F
Metaphor :
Virtual classroom
13

Formal Learning and Groups
Long history of research and study
Established sets of tools
Classrooms,
VLEs
Synchronous (F2F, video & net conferencing)
Email
Need to develop face to face, mediated and blended group learning skills
Garrison and Anderson, 2001

Critical Tools for Group Learning Environments
Collaborative tools
Document creation, management, versioning
Time lines, calendars,
Strong notifications
Security, trust
hosting on institutional space?
Behind firewalls, away from search engines
Decision making and project management tools
Synchronous and asynchronous conversations/meetings

Groups as Communities of Practice
Wengler’s ideas of Community of Practice
mutual engagement – synchronous and notification tools
joint enterprise – collaborative projects, “pass the course”
a shared repertoire – common tools, VLEs, IM and doc sharing

Online communities are a means to help preserve and continue the interests, knowledge and culture of a group bound by common interests. Looi, C. K. (2001)
Looi, C. K. (2001). Enhancing learning ecology on the Internet Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17(1), 13-20

Distributed web 2.0 Group Tools

Problems with Groups
Restrictions in time, space, pace, & relationship - NOT OPEN
Often overly confined by teacher expectation and institutional curriculum control
Usually Isolated from the authentic world of practice
“low tolerance of internal difference, sexist and ethicized regulation, high demand for obedience to its norms and exclusionary practices.” Cousin & Deepwell 2005
Group think (Baron, 2005)
Poor preparation for Lifelong Learning beyond the course
Relationships
Paulsen (1993)
Law of Cooperative Freedom

From Groups to Flocks ?? Michael Wesch
Do groups still only make sense in education?

Frontiers of Group Learning
From systems designed to tack, control and lead learners, to systems designed to motivate and inspire learning.
What motivates learners?

Personal and social relevance
Opportunity to do well and be recognized
Chance to meet cool people and engage in cool activities
Disequilibrium (Dewey)
Rewards - formal education’s last strategic advantage

Frontier College Archives

Groups Summary
Groups are necessary, but not sufficient for quality learning

Group
Network
Shared interest/practice
Fluid membership
Friends of friends
Reputation and altruism driven
Emergent norms, structures
Activity ebbs and flows
Rarely F2F
Metaphor: Virtual Community of Practice
23

Networks add diversity to learning
“People who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas” Burt, 2005, p. 90

Collaborative Learning In Groups
Cooperative Learning in Networks (Paulsen, 2008)
Compelling, not compulsory activities

Google Wave ??

Communities of Practice
Networks
Distributed
Share common interest
Self organizing
looser aggregation defined by a range of loose and tight links
No expectation of meeting or even knowing all members of the Network
Little expectation of reciprocity
Contribute for social capital, altruism and a sense of improving the world/practice through contribution
(Brown and Duguid, 2001)

Transparency
The ability to view and share thoughts, actions, resources, ideas and interests of others.
“radically increase learner awareness of others’ learning activities in the PLE”
Marc van Harmelen Manchester PLE
Dalsgaard, C., & Paulsen, M. (2009) Transparency in Cooperative Online Education

Major Challenges in Creating Incentives to Sustain Contribution to Networks
The New Yorker September 12, 2005

"the network contains within it antagonistic clusterings, divergent sub-topologies, rogue nodes" Galloway and Thacker, 2007 p. 34
“There is crack in everything, that's how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeblet/423397690/

Connectivist Learning
emergent practice, rather than prescribed education.
Helping and scaffolding students to construct, connect, explore and mash resources and people to create contexts, that induce learning.
George Siemens

Network Pedagogies
33
Connectivism
Participatory Pedagogy- Students as content-co-creators, peer teaching
Complexity
Learning in environments in which activities and outcomes emerge in response to authentic need creates powerful learning opportunities
Learning at the edge of chaos
Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
See the Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

Student Organized Networks

Network Tool Set (example)
t
36
Stepanyan, Mather & Payne, 2007

Access Controls in Elgg

Voicethread.com

Network Learning EnvironmentSummary
Cooperative versus collaborative
Compelling but optional interaction
Persistence
Transparency
Finding, building and enriching connections inside and outside of the “course”

Group
Network
Collective
‘Aggregated other’
Unconscious ‘wisdom of crowds’
Stigmergic aggregation
Algorithmic rules
Augmentation and annotation
More used, more useful
Data Mining
Never F2F
Metaphor:
Wisdom of Crowds
40

Formal Education and Collectives
41
“a kind of cyber-organism, formed from people linked algorithmically…it grows through the aggregation of Individual, Group and Networked activities” Dron & Anderson, 2007
Collectives used to aggregate, then filter, compare, contrast and recommend.
Personal and collaborative search and filter for learning
Allows discovery and validation of norms, values, opinion and “ways of understanding”
Educational semantic web
“They follow not the logic of the network but of the set. They are aggregations that appear in some ways as a single entity” Dron & Anderson, 2009.On the Design of Collective Applications

Aggregation
Data Mining
Online
Actions
Filter &
Select

Collective Tools
43
Crowd Sourcing

Collective Examples

Groups
Networks
Taxonomy of the Many
Collectives
Dron and Anderson, 2007

Personal Learning Environments
Easy to use
Personally configurable
Gadgets, widgets
Push and pull data
Multiple machines, portable
Reflective spaces,
Creating net presence and social capital

Dron & Anderson,
2008

Social Learning 2.0 Applications in Educational Contexts

Open Scholar
“the Open Scholar is someone who makes their intellectual projects and processes digitally visible and who invites and encourages ongoing criticism of their work and secondary uses of any or all parts of it--at any stage of its development”.
Gideon Burton Academic Evolution Blog

Open Scholars Create:
A new type of education work maximizing:
Social learning
Media richness
Participatory and connectivist pedagogies
Ubiquity and persistence
Open data collection and research process
Creating connections

Open Scholars Use and Contribute Open Educational Resources
Because it saves time!!!

Open Scholars Self Archive
Quality scholarship is peer and public reviewed, accessible, persistent syndicated, commented and transparent.

Open Scholars Apply their research

Open Scholars do Open Research
Open Notebook: a laboratory notebook that is freely available and indexed on common search engines. …it is essential that all of the information available to the researchers to make their conclusions is equally available to the rest of the world.
—Jean-Claude Bradley

Open Scholars Filter and Share With Others

Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives

Open Scholars Publish in 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

Open Scholars Create Open Access Books
Upcoming Emerging Technologies in DE edited
by George Veletsiano

Open Scholars comment openly on the works of others
Bookmarking and Annotation add value
Cite-u-like, Brainify, Diigo, Delicious etc
VLE additions like Margenalia.

Open Scholars Build Networks

Open Scholars Lobby for Copyright Reform
Source: swiss-copyright.ch

Open Scholars Assign Open Textbooks

Open Scholars Induce Open Students
Students as co-creators
Students gaining experience as writers, authors and teachers
Getting over the use, but don’t contribute barrier
Students engaged in meaningful work
Extensive literature on value of peer instruction - especially for gifted students
Empowering learners as future teachers

Open Scholars support Open Students OpenStudents.Org

Open Scholars Teach Open Courses
George Siemens & Stephen Downes
Introduction au technologieémergentes
Dave Cormier
Alec CuorosOpen Access Course: Social Media &
Open Education (Fall 2009)

Open Scholars Research Openness

Open Scholars are Change Agents
Open scholars develop tools and techniques to help cross-pollination, sustain and grow effective learning networks.
From (Looi 2001).

Open Scholars Battle with Time
Save Time by using the efforts of others
I haven’t got the time to save!

Open Scholars are Involved in the Future
Through personal experience we forge an ecology of lifelong learning.

Conclusion
“Open Access is more than a new model for scholarly publishing, it is the only ethical move available to scholars who take their own work seriously enough to believe its value lies in how well it engages many publics and not just a few peers.”
Gideon Burton, Academic Evolution Blog

Slides available on CrowdVinehttp://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/attachments/0000/4595/ALT-C_Final.pptx
Your comments and questions most welcomed!
Terry Anderson terrya@athabascau.ca
Homepage: http://cde.athabascau.ca/faculty/terrya.php
Blog: terrya.edublogs.org