Athabasca University is dealing with disruptive technologies by embracing open educational resources, massive open online courses, and connectivist learning approaches. The presentation discusses how these three technologies are disrupting traditional education models and provides opportunities for universities. Specifically, it outlines how content is becoming freely available, students now control their learning, and networks beyond the institution are important for knowledge sharing. The university aims to build learning networks and partnerships to take advantage of these disruptions.

1. How is your institution dealing
with disruptive technologies?
Terry Anderson, PhD
Professor, Athabasca University

2. Athabasca University,
Alberta, Canada
34,000 students, 700 courses
100% distance education
Graduate and
Undergraduate programs
Master & Doctorate
* Athabasca University
Distance Education
*Athabasca Only USA Accredited
University University in Canada

3. * Athabasca University
Alberta average
low temperature
in January -19 C.
Population density Canada - 3.36 people per sq km (35 million)
Thailand - 118.43 people per sq km (66 million)

5. • “Canada is a great
country, much too
cold for common
sense, inhabited by
compassionate and
intelligent people
with bad haircuts”.
– Yann Martel, Life of Pi, 2002.

6. Our 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.
• Current educational models do not scale for
lifelong learning for all residents of our planet.

7. Our 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.
• Current educational models do not scale for
lifelong learning for all residents of our planet.

8. Three Educ. Technology Disruptions:
1. Content Crash
2. MOOCs and OERs
3. Connectivist learning – Network
effects, Persistence and participation beyond
the course
Dealing with disruption

9. Content Crash

10. Posted on October 30, 2011 by G.E. Ross

11. Content:
A bargain even at 80% off??
Most of us like Free!

12. Cost of Content

14. • Cost to produce educational video
– 1995 - $1,000-$3,000 per minute
– 2012 – approaching zero

15. User Generated Content

16. Education was Based on
Old Models of Scarcity
P. Banbury 2009

17. Now: Anyone, Teaching Anything,
to Anyone
Lore.com

18. Educational Response
• Open Educational Resources
– Textbooks
– Learning objects
– Open Scholarship

19. South African open Text project
“innovative education project has enabled the
government to print more than 2.4 -million free
maths and science textbooks for a nominal
cost.” SA Times, Mar. 2012
Siyavula | Technology-powered Learning
"we are opening" in Nguni. www.siyavula.com/

20. Are Open Texts Associated with
Higher Marks?
“students in courses that used FWK textbooks
tended to have significantly higher grades and
lower failing and withdrawal rates than those in
courses that did not use FWK texts.”
Feldstein, et al.(2012). Open textbooks and increased
student access and outcomes. EURODL, 3. Retrieved from
http://www.eurodl.org/?p=current&article=533.

21. We need more than objects,
We need an OER culture
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/OER_Policy_Registry
http://www.poerup.info/

22. aupress.ca
Canada’s first
Open Access
press!!

23. But What about MOOCs??

24. • MOOC History by Alys
From
http://prezi.com/754uv3qpe_0k/mooc-
history/ a MOOC History by Alyssa Martin

25. MOOC Completion Rates??
• Coursera Course Computational Investing,
January 6, 2013 by Tucker Balch ,
• 53,265 enrolled
• Completed the course:
– 4.8% of those who enrolled
– 18% of those who took a quiz.
– 39% of those who submitted the first project.

26. Familiar Access rationale
• "If we continue to keep the barrier to entry
low, we’ll enable students to taste many many
courses, and that may be a good thing for
education.” Tucker Balch

27. MOOCs
• Free Access
• Who benefits from their
attention?
• Is partial
knowledge/learning
bad?
• The bar has been raised,
we have to add value
beyond content or
“subject matter content”

28. MOOCsd Through the Lens of
Online Learning Pedagogy
1. Behaviourist/Cognitive
– Self Paced, Individual
study
2. Social Constructivist –
Groups, LMS
3. Connectivist – Networks
and Collectives
Anderson, T., &Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of
distance education pedagogy.
IRRODL, 12(3), 80-97

29. xMOOCPedagogy
Gen. 1 - Cognitive Behaviourist
• Medium to high quality content
– Screen captures, video lectures, page turners
• Machine scoring of quizzes and assignments
• Optional testing (for fees) and emergent
accreditation
– Badges, challenge exams for credit

30. MOOC Challenges to
Traditional Schools
• Are our course really better than those from MIT?
• How interactive are our instructors?
• Do we accredit seat time, courses or learning?
• Will our students choose our fees over free?
• Is American learning (knowledge) the same as
Thai learning?
• Can we develop a business model from free
MOOCs?

31. 2nd Generation - Constructivist
• Online Learning Current model – continued
strong growth in US and globally
32% of higher education students now take at least one course online.

32. Constructivist Learning in Groups
• Long history of research
and study
• Established sets of tools
– Classrooms
– Learning Management
Systems
– Synchronous (video &
net conferencing)
– Email
• Need to develop face to
face, mediated and
blended group learning
skills
Garrison, R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical thinking in text-based
environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and
Higher Education, 2(2), 87-105.

33. Problems with Groups
• Restrictions in time, space, pace, &
relationship - NOT OPEN
• Often overly confined by leader 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
• “Pathological politeness” and fear of debate
Relationships
• Group think (Baron, 2005)
• Poor preparation for Lifelong Learning
beyond the course Paulsen (1993)
Law of Cooperative Freedom
NOT Scaleable

34. 3rd Generation: ConnectivistLearning

35. Connectivism
• Building knowledge networks with resources
and people.

36. Connectivist Learning
Network
Persistence
Effects
Accessibility

37. NOT Learning in a Bubble

38. Persistence
Rosetta Stone

39. 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

40. If you want to learn how to fix a pipe, solve a
partial differential equation, write
software, you are seconds away from
know-how via YouTube, Wikipedia and search
engines. Access to technology and access to
knowledge, however, isn’t enough. Learning is
a social, active, and ongoing process.
What does a motivated group of self-learners
need to know to agree on a subject or skill, find
and qualify the best learning resources about that
topic, select and use appropriate communication
media to co-learn it?
http://peeragogy.org/

41. Connectivist Learning
http://terrya.edublogs.org/2012/12/18/connectivy-your-course/

42. Walled Gardens (with windows)
• Connectivist learning thrives in safe learning
spaces with windows allowing randomness,
external participation and public presentation

43. Soft-to-hard
Into action… Generations 1-3
Sets, nets and groups

44. The Landing Platform
1,686 plugins available, our installation using about 90
Fairly strong development team, plotted roadmap
44

45. What is the Landing?
• Walled Garden with Windows
• A Private space for Athabasca
University – students, staff, alumni
• A public Place
• A user controlled creative space
• Boutique social network
• Networking, blogging, photos,
microblogging, polls, calendars,
groups and more
• A campus for Athabasca

47. group net set
Where to look first

48. Multiple rationales for This
Connectivist Space
collective
Sustaining ties
Cooperation
Making ties
Sharing
Ad hoc networks
Serendipity
Knowledge diffusion net set Interest -orientation
Social capital
Sense-making
Social presence
Collective intelligence
Intentional discovery
group
Courses
Committees
Research groups
Study groups
48
Centres and departments
48

49. • Bottom up control and Innovation
LMS
Andersen, Henriksen,Secher&Medaglia, (2007) "Costs of e-
participation: the management challenges",
ELGG
Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 1(1)29 - 43

50. Is Your Institution ready to
Exploit these opportunities??

51. http://www.amazon.com/Quality-Software-
Management-Anticipating-Change/

52. • How can your university
exploit and benefit from these
four disruptions?

53. Theories of Disruptive
Technologies
• Disruptive technologies:
– Lead to profound change
in the business model,
customer base or
functionality of an existing
organization
• Sustaining technology
– Increases efficiency or
effectiveness of current
product or process

54. Disruptive technologies
• “are typically:
– cheaper,
– simpler,
– smaller,
– more convenient to use" Clay Christensen (1997)
– access to new users (social justice?)
• Classic examples are the micro computer, digital
cameras or the innovations of the industrial model of
distance education.

55. Impact of Disruptive Technologies
• Student’s access to content and learning
activities no longer directly controlled by
institution
• Very significant reductions in costs of some
models of education
• Teacher role may be threatened
• Opportunities for “de-skilling” and further
industrialization of academic role

56. Excerpts from The Innovator’s Solution – page 183-4 -- PROCESSES:
”
“… Innovating managers often try to start new-growth businesses
using processes that were designed to make the
mainstreambusiness run effectively..the new game begins before
the old game ends.
Disruptive innovations typically take root at the low end of markets or
in new planes of competition at a time when the corebusiness still
is performing at its peak -- when it would be crazy to revolutionize
everything. It seems simpler to have onesize-fits-all processes.

57. Christensen, C., &Raynor, M. (2003). Innovator's Solution. Cambridge: Harvard
Business School.

58. A context for successful disruption
• An enduring Culture of Innovation
• Learning communities of practice within the
institution
• New partnerships, exploiting net tools
• Extensive use of OERs and cloud computing
• Constant work on testing and accreditation
• Are you building learning networks???

59. E-learning Readiness of
Thailand’s Universities (2011)
• A list of many “top down” recommendations!
• “Faculty support is essential, especially in
nurturinggrassroots ideas from the faculty
rather than imposing a top-down pedagogical
approach. Institutions must offer instructional
technology support to help faculty so that
theycan focus on the instruction rather than
the technology.” p. 130
E-learning Readiness of Thailand’s Universities. Comparing to the USA’s Cases
ApitepSaekow and Dolly Samson
International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 1(2), June, 2011

60. Learning as Dance
(Anderson, 2008)
• Technology
sets the
beat and
the timing.
• Pedagogy
defines the
moves.

61. • More flexible To control your
networked destiny you
must be more flexible
than your environment.
The Law of Requisite Variety
Ross Ashby (1956)

62. http://www.slideshare.net/terrya/new-pedagogies-new-technologies-disruptive-
threats-to-open-universities or http://tinyurl.com/9nxr74f
Your comments and questions
most welcomed!
Terry Anderson terrya@athabascau.ca
Blog: terrya.edublogs.org