Keynote at the 2013 FITSI Conference (University of New Hampshire).
Summary: We live in opportune times. We live at a time when education features prominently in the national press and discussions focusing on improving the ways we design education are a daily occurrence. Stanford President John Hennessy notes that “a tsunami” is coming – and Pearson executives are calling the impending change an “avalanche.” We are told that “education is broken” and that technology provides appropriate solutions for the perils facing education. But, what do these solutions look like? Will these be the times that capture Dewey’s and Freire’s visions of education? Will these be times of empowered students, democratic educational systems, learning webs, and affordable access to education? Or, will these be the times where efficiency, venture capital, and market values dictate what education will look like? Is technology transforming education? If so, how? During this keynote presentation, I will highlight how learning and education are (and are not) changing with the emergence of certain technologies, social behaviors, and cultural expectations. Using empirical research and evidence I will discuss myths and truths pertaining to online education and present ways that faculty members and educators can make meaningful contributions to the future educational systems that we are creating today.
Interactive Powerpoint_How to Master effective communication
Online Learning Myths & Truths
1. Dr. George Veletsianos
Assistant Professor of Learning Technologies
Curriculum & Instruction – College of Education
University of Texas at Austin
Keynote at the 2013 FITSI Conference – University of New Hampshire
Online Learning Myths & Truths
3. What do you want your students’ learning
experiences to be like?
4. Our challenge/imperative
To design [online] learning experiences
and opportunities that are effective,
fulfilling, inspiring, meaningful, caring,
empowering, and democratic.
9. Yet, at times, it feels like déjà vu with a
dose of more of the same…
10. “Motion picture is destined to revolutionize our education
system …in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely,
the use of textbooks”
“Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going
to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error”
11. “Strong pressures to produce mediocre
instructional products based on templates
and preexisting content.”
Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008
12. Courseware
=
“Shovelware” ?
Morrison, G., & Anglin, G. J. (2006). An instructional design approach for
effective shovelware: Modifying materials for distance education. Quarterly
Review of Distance Education, 7(1), 63–74.
To:
collect information and shovel it into an application such as…
a learning management system to create a ‘course’
(Morrison & Anglin, 2006)
14. Do learning outcomes differ between
online and face-to-face education?
(media comparison study)
15. No
The research says
The mode of delivery does not
correlate with learning outcomes
Media comparison studies “No
significant difference” phenomenon
20. “Tennessee will run two
kinds of courses –
traditional and online –
side-by-side, and the
results will be
compared.”
“Tennessee will run two
kinds of courses –
traditional and online –
side-by-side, and the
results will be
compared.”
21. … but conversations surrounding pedagogy
and alternative ways to “do education” are
ongoing*
* most of the time
24. YoTeach! is designed to introduce first-year sociology students to
the practices of sociologists. Promotes student inquiry, discussions
and analysis of real-world data, and the creation of multimodal
projects that demonstrate student findings.
25. YoTeach! is designed to introduce first-year sociology students to
the practices of sociologists. Promotes student inquiry, discussions
and analysis of real-world data, and the creation of multimodal
projects that demonstrate student findings.
26.
27. Technology molds pedagogy. Pedagogy molds
how we use the technology.
Doering & Veletsianos (2008); Veletsianos (2010, 2011)
28. Technology molds pedagogy. Pedagogy molds
how we use the technology.
Doering & Veletsianos (2008); Veletsianos (2010, 2011)
33. “Whether the practice is called
outsourcing, contracting out, or
privatizing, the impact is the
same. Food services, health
care, the bookstore…endless
array of activities that
universities used to manage…”
Kirp, .L (2003). Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
50. Openness (OER)
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) are
any type of educational materials that are
in the public domain or introduced with an
open license. The nature of these open
materials means that anyone can legally
and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share
them.”
UNESCO
51. Source: GAO U.U Government Accountability Office, June 6 2013
http://gao.gov/products/GAO-13-368
52. Provider Cost
Netflix – 20,000 Movies and TV $7.99 / month
Hulu Plus – 45,000 Movies and TV $7.99 / month
Spotify – 15 million Songs $9.99 / month
CourseSmart – 1 Biology Textbook $20.25 / month
Source: David Wiley (2012).
http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent/wiley-15432979
54. No
The research available says:
“substitution of open textbooks for traditional
textbooks does not appear to correlate with a
significant change in student outcomes”
Wiley, D., Hilton III, J., Ellington, S., & Hall, T. (2012). A preliminary examination of
the cost savings and learning impacts of using open textbooks in middle and
high school science classes. The International Review Of Research In Open And
Distance Learning, 13(3), 262-276.
59. “The online space is anonymous and odd. It lacks
opportunities for meaningful interaction &
collaboration”
Myth
60. “The open web is a scary place.
Why should I put myself out there?”
Networks
Serendipity
Diverse audiences
What will I find if I search for you? Your latest
research? An out-of-date university webpage?
61. “The open web is a scary place.
Why should I put myself out there?”
62. “The open web is a scary place.
Why should I put myself out there?”
63. Scholarly Identity & Participation
“I made it [Facebook] this hybrid space ... and sometimes it's
really annoying. … I keep thinking I should be writing or
looking at data, and I'm doing this! … I created the
conundrum that I live in now.”
“My position [as a professor] is building a community of
teachers that I talk to ... where you can share, and so
[participation in these spaces] makes total sense.”
“All the [expletive] is not really worth it. … I think that it's okay
for students to not know everything about their professor. …
[These practices] add to the complexity of those who
struggle with the home-work balance and the ... technology
pull. … I don't have time for you. “
Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2013
65. Back to our challenge/imperative
To design [online] learning experiences
and opportunities that are effective,
fulfilling, inspiring, meaningful, caring,
empowering, and democratic.
66. What are some activities/practices that have
worked for you?
74. Online Teaching Advice
• Keep it interesting by using a diverse
array of activities
– Discussions
– Video narratives (e.g., elevator speeches)
– Debates
– Digital stories (e.g., comic strips)
76. Online Teaching Advice
• Introduce learners to professional
communities
– Twitter groups e.g., #phdchat
– Professional listservs e.g., Tomorrow’s Professor
– Blogging communities
– Social Networking Sites (e.g., LinkedIn
discussion groups, Facebook groups)
– Ask students to attend a virtual conference
and do X (reflect/summarize/etc)
77. Online Teaching Advice
• Draw connections to recent news, to
what’s happening outside of the
course
– Email link to a newspaper article and
draw connections to class or ask students
to reflect upon it
– Share a story from NPR relevant to the
class
78. Online Teaching Advice
• Create digital artifacts as a class (and
make available to others for free)
– E.g., E-books and online textbooks
82. Online Teaching Advice
• Use music, share music, create class playlists…
– For social presence
– For learning & assessment
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2010). Hot for teacher: Using digital
84. Image attribution
• Open http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthileo/4826783509/
• Ben Stein in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off:” http://blog.teacherparlor.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/bueller_stein.jpg
• Crowd http://www.flickr.com/photos/18378655@N00/613445810
• Before NOW then
http://www.flickr.com/photos/muffin9101985/3563796585/
• Unicorn
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Invisible_Pink_Unicorn_black.svg
• Teacher writing on
blackboardhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Teacher-
writing-on-blackboard564.jpg
Unless otherwise noted by the original images, content is provided under a CC Attribution Non-
Commercial Share Alike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).