This document provides an overview of contemporary perspectives in e-learning research. It discusses the evolving e-learning landscape including new technologies, learner experiences, and pedagogical approaches. It also examines open practices in resources, courses, scholarship, and research. Key topics covered include the shift from Gutenberg to digital technologies, disruptive innovations, mapping pedagogies to technologies, and metaphors like ecologies, spaces, memes, and rhizomes for conceptualizing e-learning.

1. Contemporary perspectives in
e-learning research
Gráinne Conole, University of Leicester
University of Hertfordshire
21st March 12012

2. Outline
• The e-learning landscape
• Affordances of new technologies
• From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg
• Learner experience
• New pedagogies
• Open practices
• Teacher practice and paradoxes
• Strategies for change
– TheVLE as a Trojan horse
– New approaches to design
• Metaphors

3. The e-learning landscape
Emergent technologies
and affordances
Theory and methodology
E-pedagogies, strategies
and learning design
Resources, OER and
Pedagogical Patterns
Evaluations Interventions

4. Technological trends
• Mobiles and e-books
• Games-based learning &
learning analytics
• Gesture-based learning &
the Internet of things
• Personalised learning
• Cloud computing
• Ubiquitous learning
• BYOD (Bring your own device)
• Digital content
• The flipped classroom
http://learn231.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/trend-report-1/

5. Peer Open
critiquing
User
Collective
generated
aggregation
content
Networked Personalised
Social media revolution www.heacademy.ac.uk/asse
s/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alev
The machine is us/ing us ou_2010.pdf

6. Gutenberg to Zuckerberg
• Take the long view
• The web is not the net
• Disruption is a feature
• Ecologies not economics
• Complexity is the new reality
• The network is now the computer
• The web is evolving
• Copyright or copywrong
• Orwell (fear) or Huxley (pleasure)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/2617472088/
http://memex.naughtons.org/

7. Disruptive technologies
• Characteristics
– No central ownership
– Ecology of abundance
• Examples
– The web
– Napster
– Malware

8. Learner experience
• Technology immersed
• Learning approaches: task-
orientated, experiential,
just in time, cumulative,
social
• Personalised digital
learning environment
• Mix of institutional systems
and cloud-based tools and
services
• Use of course materials
with free resources
Sharpe, Beetham and De Freitas, 2010
http://www.educause.edu/studentsAndTechnologyInfographic

9. The essence of learning
Reflection Dialogue
Collaboration Application

10. A pedagogy framework
Social
Information
Informal Formal
Experience
Individual

11. Mapping e-Pedagogies to technologies
Pedagogies Technologies
• Problem-Based Learning (PBL) • Virtual Worlds (VW)
• Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) • Google
• Didactic (Did) • E-Books
• Reflection (Ref) • Blogs, e-Portfolios
• Dialogic Learning (Dial) • Discussion Forums (DF)
• Collaboration (Collab) • Wikis
• Assessment (Ass) • MCQs
• Communities of Practice (CoP) • Google+
• IBL – social • Twitter
• User-Generated Content (UGC) • Youtube

12. Social
Information
Informal Formal
Experience
Individual

13. IBL/Twitter Social PBL/VW
CoP/Google+ Dial/forum
Dial/Skype Collab/Wiki
Informal Formal
Ref/Blog Ref/e-Portfolio
IBL/Google Did/e-Book
UGC/YouTube Individual Ass/MCQs

14. Social
Information
Informal Formal
Experience
Individual

15. Ref/Blog Experience PBL/VW
CoP/Google+ Ref/e-Portfolio
Dial/Skype Dial/Forum
Informal Formal
IBL/Twitter Coll/Wiki
IBL/Google Did/e-Book
UGC/YouTube Information Ass/MCQs

16. Mobile learning
E-books
Study calendars
Learning resources
Online modules
Annotation tools
Podcasting
16 Communication mechanisms

17. Inquiry-based learning
My community
The Personal Inquiry project
Inquiry-based learning across
formal and informal settings
Sharples, Scanlon et al.
http://www.pi-project.ac.uk

18. Virtual genetics lab
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMfHZUNpZY&feature=youtu.be
The SWIFT project

19. Promise and reality
Social and participatory
media offer new ways to
communicate and
collaborate
Not fully exploited
Wealth of free resources
and tools Replicating bad pedagogy
Lack of time and skills

20. Open practices
Open resources Open courses
Pandora’s box
Open scholarship Open research
20

21. Open resources
http://www.oer-quality.org/

22. Open courses
Massive
Open
Online
Course
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc
http://mooc.ca/

23. Open scholarship
• Exploiting the digital network
• New forms of dissemination
and communication
• Promoting reflective practice
• Embracing the affordances of
new technologies
Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/

24. Open research

25. Citation indicators

26. Open accreditation
Peer to Peer University OER University
www.p2pu.org/en/ wikieducator.org/OER_university/

27. Teacher practices: paradoxes
• Technologiesnot extensively
used (Molenda)
• Lack of uptake of OER
(McAndrew et al.)
• Little use beyond early
adopters (Rogers)
• Despite rhetoric and funding Pandora’s box
little evidence of
transformation (Cuban,
Ehlers)
27

28. TheVLEas a Trojan horse
• VLEas a safe nursery slope
• Shift from content to
activities
• Promote reflection and
collaboration
• MobileVLE
• Integration with cloud
computing

29. Blackboard audit
• Data
– Online survey (260 returns)
– Departmental visits
• Key findings
– Used as content repository
and administration
– Pockets of innovation
– More support needed on
effective design strategies
– Tension between teaching
and research
– Usability issue

30. Blackboard+ at Leicester
BB plus Google+
Maths video-lets
Prof-casts
History conundrum Voicethread

31. Learning Design
Shift frombelief-based, implicit
approaches todesign-
based,explicit approaches
Learning Design
A design-based approach to
creation and support of
courses
Encouragesreflective,scholarly
practices
Promotessharing and discussion
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/

32. Conceptualise
What do we want to design, who for
and why?
Carpe Diem:
7Cs of learning Design
Consolidate
Evaluate and embed your design
http://beyonddistance.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/carpe-diem-the-7cs-of-design-and-delivery/

33. How to ruin a course

34. Course features
Group A – not included
Group B – used to some extent
Group C – significantly present
http://linoit.com/home

35. Course map view

36. Pedagogy profile view
• Assimilative
– Reading, viewing, listening
• Information handling
– Manipulating data
• Communicative
– Dialogic interactions
• Productive
– Creating an artefact
• Experiential
– Practicing, mimicking
• Adaptive
– Modeling or simulation
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2459

37. Collaboration
37

38. Metaphors
Ecologies
Spaces
Memes Rhizomes
http://e4innovation.com/?p=489

39. Ecologies
• Co-evolution of
tools and users
• Niches
colonisation of
new habitats
• Survival of the
fittest

40. Memes
An internet meme is something
That spreads like wildfire on the
Web (Blackmore)
To describe the interaction What makes us different
with digital technologies Is our ability to imitate
The Internet allows for
The unprecedented
Spreading of ideas
Issuesin terms of
convergence of thought

41. Spaces

42. Rhizomes
• A rhizome is a stem of a
plant that sends out
roots as it spreads.
Describes the way that
ideas are multiple,
interconnected and self-
replicating. A rhizome
has no beginning or end
like a learning process
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-learning-why-learn/

44. MSc in Learning Innovation
Dissertation
Case Studies of Innovation
Research Design and Methods
Learning Design
Technology-Enhanced Learning

45. 28 – 30th March 2012
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/beyond-distance-research-alliance/festival

46. Conole, G. (forthcoming), Designing for learning in an open world, New York: Springer
Chapters available on dropbox
grainne.conole@le.ac.uk