This document provides an environmental scan and summary of approaches that school districts, states and other jurisdictions are taking to help students and teachers discover and access learning resources digitally. It discusses trends like blended learning, increased expectations for digital tools, and the growth of mobile learning. Recommendations include ensuring a user-friendly process, encouraging K-20 cooperation, and launching functionality in phases to allow organic growth. The main goal is to help students and teachers connect with quality online learning resources.

1. Environmental Scan
Digital Learns Project Phase II
Presentation to ERAC,
January 10, 2012
Cyri Jones, ZEN Portfolio Networks Inc.
Jay Collier, The Compass LLC

2. Context

3. Context
• Phase I – Vision
• Phase II – Environmental Scan
• Concurrently developed ERAC Commons
(May 2011) and Mobile Apps site (Jan. 2012)
– Seeing some of the social network components
and issues in action

4. “Big Picture” Architecture Elements

12. Project Team
Cyri Jones, Principal
Digital Learners Roadmap ZEN Portfolio Networks Inc., North Vancouver, BC
Phase II Proposal
Environmental Scan Jay Collier, Executive Director
The Compass LLC, Topsham, Maine
By ZEN Portfolio Networks Inc.
Sept. 30th, 2011 Niklas Eriksson, Mobile Usability & Learning
Faculty, ARCADA Polytechnic, Helsinki, Finland
Elena Kuznetsova
Researcher
Collaboration tool & Google Maps specialist
Source: VSB website home page

13. Goal

14. Phase II - Project Deliverables
• Digital Learners Roadmap – Environmental Scan
– Scope
• What approaches are school districts, provinces, states, etc.
using to help students and teachers discover and access
learning resources
• How have they funded their initiatives including possible
grant source info
• Best practices for how they have rolled-out these type of
initiatives
• Regions:
– Detailed Summary of what jurisdictions are doing in the US and
Canada
– Genera Summary of what jurisdictions are doing in Europe and
Asia

15. Phase II - Project Deliverables
• Complete by Dec. 15th, 2011
– Present results in visual format
• Word/PDF/Excel document with links to relevant sites
– Data focused
– Links to resources
– Some case studies where applicable
– Contacts included
• Summary PowerPoint presentation
– Trends & Conclusions
• Possibility of Google Map overlays showing regional
data trends (depending on time)

16. Process

17. http://connectlearn21.net/

18. Terms of Reference

19. Challenges

20. Implementation Gap
Compelling vision but how to implement?
http://www.bcedplan.ca/

23. Tight Technology Expiry Dates
Systems need to be flexible, adaptive and iterative with user input
to stay relevant, long planning cycles = irrelevant offering

24. Discovery of quality learning
resources
• Move to more granular
learning resources
• Millions of apps
• Billions of user generated
content items
• Need to support
personalized learning
• Crowdsourcing only
practical way to evaluate

25. Governance mismatch with IT
infrastructure economies of scale

26. Disruptive technology

27. Shrinking budgets

28. Environmental changing
at dizzying speed

30. Too Fast, Reactive

31. Too Slow, Deny

32. Quick and thoughtful

33. Good News

34. Opportunity
• Lots of expertise at hand here in BC
• Compelling vision at provincial level and local
level
• A lot of teachers and administrators
embracing change
• Many jurisdictions faced similar questions 3 to
10 years ago
– Lots of lessons learned

35. Trends

36. Collision between traditional face-to-face and online learning

37. Need to build a new, smart system from ground up
not just a “blend” that is “traditional face to face” + “online”

41. Education Trends
Blended Learning Consolidation of distance learning and face-to-face
classroom opportunities for accessing digital resources
and tools.
Raised expectations for digital tools in schools by Why can’t school tools be as usable as digital tools they
students and teachers. use in other areas of their life.
Mobile learning a game changer Students and teachers want to bring their personal
devices to the school and leverage.
Quality and quantity of learning resources Challenge is in finding the right resources for the task or
increasing learning outcome at hand.
Teachers and students becoming creators of Not just consuming traditional publisher content.
content, not just consumers Engaging project-based teaching involves creating
things and collaboration. Creative Commons licensing
facilitating this. Growth of service learning.

42. Education Trends
Repositories to registries Moving away from a siloed learning object
repository approach to one where only local
resources are stored, external resources hosted
with original content owner.
Growth of learning analytics Technology emerging to track para-data about
learning resources (e.g. ratings by teachers) and
consolidating to help filter. Ability to tie a learning
resource to specific learning outcomes and see
effectiveness of learning resource.
Consolidation of learning outcomes across Growing realization that most learning outcomes
jurisdictions from different jurisdictions are almost identical in
core subjects (e.g. Common Core initiative in US
with 42 states participating)
Cloud approach to learning technology Mirroring trend in other sectors, IT infrastructure is
delivery migrating from within the organization to external
providers saving money and improving service.

43. Education Trends
Innovations coming from outside traditional Organizations like Khan Academy are disrupting
education sector education sector. Traditional delivery approaches
are threatened with being redundant.
Growing awareness of important role of Many jurisdictions starting to set up social networks
social networked learning for their students and teachers.
Just-in-time instead of just-in-case learning Less important to “cover all the curriculum” than to
provide authentic, project based learning
experiences for students.
Importance of cross-functional teams Most meaningful work is done today in cross-
functional teams. Students need to go beyond
program and school siloes to get experience with
this.

44. Growth of Microsoft.edu

45. Growth of Google Apps for Education

46. Consolidation of New Google Design

48. Powerful Learning Resource Metadata
Sharing Approaches Emerging

49. +
The Learning
Registry
Project
Primary Funding from
US Dept of Education
US Dept of Defense

50. Learning Registry is a distributed
+ system that permits sharing of
metadata about learning resources...
© Copyright 2010 US Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative: CC-BY-3.0 20101022

51. …developed through an open
community process that engages
+ learning resource creators, publishers,
curators, and consumers.
© Copyright 2010 US Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative: CC-BY-3.0 20101022

52. Learning Registry is a data exchange
mechanism—not a destination
+ website, search engine, or
repository—upon which diverse user
services can be built.
© Copyright 2010 US Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative: CC-BY-3.0 20101022

53. © Copyright 2010 US Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative: CC-BY-3.0 20101022

54. Resource Paradata Profile 89 Career & Technical
Educators in California
included this resource
in a curriculum module.
Dynamic Summary
Source Website: Visit This resource has been
Reference URL: Visit
Times Viewed: 39 aligned 214 times to
Times Voted: 23
Times Rated: 6
Math Common Core
Times Favorited: 1 Standard Apply
Recommended: 2
Times Tagged: geometric methods to
climate (2)
global solve design problems
warming (6)
Usability Rating: 7.65/10
Star Rating: 3.75/5
Useful: Yes: 14
No: 9
Accurate: Yes: 2
No: 1 There are
Likes: Yes: 12
No: 2
16 discussion posts
Best Of 2010: that include this
3 on a scale of 1 (Best) and 50
(Worst) resource in the Middle
Most Useful: Resource Information
2 on a scale of 1 (Best) and 5 Title Anatomy of a Rover School Science group.
(Worst) Link http://www.teachersdomain.org/9-
12/sci/ess/eiu/rover/index.html
Description In this interactive activity from NOVA, learn about
Tagged As the sophisticated scientific instruments on two identical robotic rovers
that have explored Mars — Spirit and Opportunity.
Subject Keyword(s) Science
This
Science Mars Grade Level High School
Intended Audience Learner
resource
PBS Resource Type Instructional Material was voted #3 out of 5
Resource Format text, text/html
Space_Science Best Science
NASA Engineering
Interactives for English
Language Learners by
interactive design teachers in Florida
© Copyright 2010 US Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative: CC-BY-3.0 20101022

55. Learning Resource Metadata Initiative

57. Move from
Mentoring/
formal to Wikis Coaching
informal
Discussion Forums
learning Live Webcasts
Friending Recorded Webinars
Tagging
Video Conferencing
User Generated
Content
Workshops
Blogs Learnshops
Folksonomy
Networking Websites
Micro-blogging
Learning Audio / Podcasts
Webjams
2.0
Case Studies
Rating /
Comments Books
eLearning
Leadership Forums ILT (instructor-led/classroom)
VILT (virtual instructor/web) Professional Video
Virtual World (eg. Second Life)

58. Recognition for Informal Learning

59. Open learning content providers launching interactive tools

60. Growth of External Repositories and Learning Analytics

63. Pedagogy
changing

66. Learning
Analytics

69. http://lak12.sites.olt.ubc.ca/

70. Quality
improvements in
online learning

71. • In Carnegie Mellon's rigorously evaluated
online statistics course, students learned a full
semester's worth of material in half as much
time—and performed as well or better than
students learning from traditional instruction.

72. Move from
surface to deep
learning

73. Multiple channels
for same content

76. Preface by Seth Godin to popular e-Marketing Textbook

79. Growth in Open
Education
Resources

87. Case studies

88. • The future is already here — it's just not very
evenly distributed. – William Gibson

89. Summary
• Each region has mastered some aspects of the
overall vision, No one has mastered all the
components
• Main purpose
– Collaboration
– Communities of practice
– Finding learning resources
– Creating learning resources

90. Summary
• Main audience
– Students
– Parents
– Teachers
– Face to face students or online / distance learners
• Scale
– School district
– State / province

91. Learn Maine

92. NY Learns

93. Scotland’s Glow

95. Scotland’s eduBuzz

96. Edmonton School District

99. Digital Dashboard
– West Vancouver School District

100. Activity Feed and Network

101. Personalization – changing themes

102. It’s okay that not everything is strictly “educational”…

103. Individual profiles / portfolios

105. Activity Feed Customization

118. North Dakota

119. Minnesota

122. Oregon

125. California

127. Greece

128. Turkey

131. South Korea

134. “A contract between the Indian
government and Canadian development
partner DataWind, should put between
10 and 12 million devices in the hands of
students across India by the end of 2012,
according to Computer World.”
Source: VentureBeat.com

135. Recommendations

136. Recommendations
• Usability more important than any other factor!
• Ensure process is transparent
– Include early adopter users
• Education Camps
• Ning Network
– Should give big players Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM chance to bid as well as smaller players like Edmodo
and open source approaches like WordPress/BuddyPress and Drupal
• Encourage K-20 co-operation
• Get definitive regulatory policy statement from government / legal advice
• Tool that is best for elementary may be different than best one for secondary
• Break into phases
– don’t launch by pilot districts
– Instead launch by functionality
• Start with “low hanging fruit”
– Target early adopters
– Let it grow organically
• Don’t build a white elephant
– But do put in sufficient resources to realistically support
• Clarify role of ERAC and School Districts
• Make sure efforts are forwards compatible

137. Resources