the role of multi-access learning in mainstreaming open education

The Role of Multi-Access Learning in Mainstreaming Open Education

Valerie Irvine | Tanya Little | Rich McCue | Michael Paskevicius @_valeriei | @TanyaL77 | @richmccue | @mpaskevi - UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA TIE RESEARCH LAB

Online/Open Access• Google Doc for shared comments:

https://goo.gl/6xNcOh • For an extended discussion post-session, visit

the video room link:Google Hangouts Video: https://goo.gl/avnVLI

• Please use #opened15 for connecting

The Technology Integration and Evaluation (TIE) Research Lab

Multi-Access: A Brief Overview

FACE TO FACE ONLINEOR

FACE TO FACE ONLINE*AND*BLENDED

F2F ONLINEMULTI-ACCESS

Thesis from JOLT paper The (MOOC) movement has been introduced as an undeniable

force in higher education, and the authors argue that it is distracting leadership from focusing on alternative options for supporting the needs of learners who demand both personalization and real access to learning opportunities.

• Irvine, Code & Richards, 2013

The Monsters of Education Technology

One of my great ed-tech fears: seeing MOOCs, hailed as the “big new thing” in ed-tech, build their online classes on technologies that look exactly like the LMS. That is: a student signs up for a course. A course that has a beginning date and an end date. Despite the adjective “open,” the course is behind a wall.

• Watters, 2014, p. 98

https://blendsync.org/

http://designstudio.educ.msu.edu/

Multi-Access Configurations Adaptable for Open Access

Shared portals

Personal portals

Autonomous telepresence

(Bell, Sawaya & Cain, 2014)

Review of Instructor Perceptions •Question:

–Would you be open to having non-registered open online students audit a multi-access course with or without additional instructor marking?

The Perspectives on Open

Topics Mentioned• Workload• Student Engagement• Quality of Learning• Technology & User Interface Limits• Privacy• Culture of Openness

Workload

It wouldn’t be difficult at all if we had the physical structures to allow it. The physical and the technological structures to allow it.

Sessional Instructor 4

Student Engagement• What happens if you run into potentially some protocol problems. Are

we allowing them (open access students) to participate? If so, how much?...These are the questions I would ask. Some people are so keen, they want to talk. Thank you, but really you’re not my focus. Everybody else here is ... I guess I can always mute them out, but ... that kind of defeats the purpose.•That means philosophically I don’t have a problem with it, given some

of the protocol to make sure it works and privacy issues are addressed and they (open access students) can’t overtake my class.

Sessional Instructor 2

Student Engagement For me teaching is relational and I try to build a relationship with every student that’s in the class and if I’ve got 15-25 that are registered and paying for it and the other 5-10 are kind of dipping in or out or whatever, I don’t know.

Professor 1, Language and Literacy

Quality of LearningBecause the more perspectives we have in a learning situation, I think the richer the learning environment becomes, so I think having people who aren’t necessarily 5th year education students adds to the quality of the discussion of the topic, of the learning environment.

Sessional Instructor 4

Tech & User Interface LimitsI think you would want to make sure that it isn’t taxing the limits of the system, whether it’s the screen presence. I think that right now is something that limits the access already, so having someone else come on online...

Sessional Instructor 1

Culture of OpennessI am pretty open about what I do. I don’t feel any need to protect what I’m doing. I don’t feel any need to be proprietary about what I am doing. Teaching is a game where you want to share and if (it) helps (to) share, I’m comfortable with that.Sessional Instructor 2

Case studies

Next steps for authentic live synchronous full spectrum multi-

access participation...

Tools Enabling Synchronous & Asynchronous Open

Kubi

vGo

Double

Moderator controlled

Participant controlled

Institutional & Ad Hoc Tools

Kubi

vGo

Double

Learner Discussions

Tool Iteration

Seat eXchanger

Online/Open Access• For an extended discussion post-session, visit the

Google Doc: https://goo.gl/6xNcOh -or- Google Hangout: https://goo.gl/avnVLI

• Please use #opened15 for any online sharing• Slides will be at http://slideshare.net/virvine • Follow us at @_valeriei @TanyaL77 @mpaskevi

@richmccue• Email: virvine@uvic.ca

Discussion • Who will teach open?

– Will professors ADD a course to their teaching load?– Potential to increase diversity by making courses layered

into open• More personalization will diffuse risk of appeals for

“sameness” of experiences/opportunities if they don’t participate in open experiences

• Access to discourse rather than just resources used during the course of education