etug fall workshop 2013: beyond effectiveness &efficiency
DESCRIPTION
Presentation by ETUG fall workshop 2013 Keynote: George VeletsianosTRANSCRIPT
ETUG Keynote, Victoria, BC, November 2013
Beyond effectiveness &efficiency
Learning that’s good for the soul
George Veletsianos, PhD Canada Research Chair
Associate Professor School of Education and Technology
Students’, Instructors’, and Scholars’ experiences and practices with emerging
technologies in digital environments (e.g., social networks, open scholarship,
open courses/experiences)
To improve environments and practices
My research
• May or may not be new technologies
• Evolving, “coming into being”
• Go through “hype cycles”
• Not yet fully understood
• Not yet fully researched
• Potentially disruptive (but potential is unfulfilled)
(Veletsianos, 2010)
Emerging Technologies
“Strong pressures to produce
mediocre instructional products
based on templates and preexisting
content.”
Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008
Two Dominant Narra-ves
Narrative #1
The latest technology as a panacea
Narratives #2
Online education = efficient mode
of delivery to
large numbers of students
“Examples of
outstanding [online] instruction
are hard to find.”
Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008
Courses can be effective and efficient…
But are they:
Transformational?
Socially just?
Truly Open Practices
• Faculty use social media to: – Explore scholarly ideas – Re-envision their identities as public intellectuals – Share knowledge – Debate & critique – Advice & reflect – Connect with other researchers – Reach multiple audiences
(Kjellberg, 2010; Kirkup, 2010; Martindale & Wiley, 2005; Mewburn & Thompson, 2013; Veletsianos, 2012)
Open Practices
What scholarly activities do individuals enact on social media?
Announcements
Draft papers
Open textbooks
Syllabi + Activities
Live streaming Live-Blogging
Collaborative authoring
Debates + commentary
Open teaching
Public P&T materials
Crowdsourcing
What scholarly activities do individuals enact on social media?
Veletsianos (2013)
These acts/activities question academic traditions & the status quo
And circumvent systems…
PirateUniversity.org
ThePaperBay.com
Reddit.com/r/Scholar
“Places of gathering” and “networks of care and bonding”
Veletsianos (2013)
#PhDChat
Project Engage!
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1138506
Sample project
Design considerations for powerful learning
- Narrative & Storyline
- Sharing with others
- Design opportunities that allow engagement
beyond course activities (interacting with
experts/colleagues, authentic contributions)
- Open also means “being vulnerable” and
“putting yourself out there”
Contrast: The other “open” practices
The xMOOC phenomenon as a symptom
• MOOCs are “the billion $$ solution to a problem we haven’t identified yet.” (Siemens, 2013) – A historically accurate perspective.
• “The history of our field is replete with bandwagons, new technologies that were the temporal panaceas... Bandwagons are solutions in search of problems” (Choi & Reeves, 2013).
If the MOOC phenomenon is not a solution, what is it?
• A “symptom of a larger problem” (Marquis, 2013)
• A “symptom of the HE crisis” (Kendzior, 2013) • A “symptom of the absence of educational
ambition among politicians” (Newfield, 2013) • “A symptom of change” (Stewart, 2013) • A symptom of “the seismic shifts that are
taking place in our profession” (Taylor, 2012) • A symptom of “society’s degraded approach
to knowledge” (Leddy, 2013) • “One symptom of openness” (Batson, 2013)
If the MOOC phenomenon is not a solution, what is it?
• I propose that the MOOC phenomenon is a symptom of pressures, failures, closed ears: – Economic, political, privatization pressures – Educators’ failures to create their own solutions
to educational problems – Lack of impact of educational technology
research on learning design – Lack of impact of educational technology
scholarship (to share our findings, to make meaningful contributions to practice).
If the MOOC phenomenon is not a solution, what is it?
Even so, the MOOC phenomenon has made some contributions
• Elevated the profile of online education • Raised the profile of free (perhaps open?)
education • Elevated the profile of teaching (Collier,
2013) • Exerted pressure on HE institutions to
innovate • Provided impetus for more collaboration
within HE (e.g., at the institutional level)
Hence…
The MOOC phenomenon
What happens “on the ground” with open learning/participation?
• Caveat – Open courses vs. “Open” courses vs. Open
learning/participation
• Learners report – benefiting from open course participation
(Hilton, Graham, Rich, & Wiley, 2010) – Facing a number of obstacles (Mackness et al,
2011)
What happens “on the ground” with open learning/participation?
• Institutional MOOCs demonstrate low completion rates, <10% (Jordan, 2013)
• Big Data & Learning Analytics research question traditional understanding of “completion” – Learners exhibit varied participation behaviors
(e.g., auditing, completing, disengaging, sampling) (Kizilcec, Piech, & Schneider, 2013)
– Koller et al. (2013) argue that participants may not necessarily intent to complete a course
What happens “on the ground” with open learning/participation?
• We lack an evidence-based understanding of experiences with all open forms of learning/scholarship • Majority of the research on open online learning
conducted to date has been survey-based, focused on learner behavior, and guided by tracking online behaviors
• Reports from institutional offices are helpful, but we need in-depth studies
What happens “on the ground” with open learning/participation?
• Need multiple methodologies: • Macro (Kizilcec, Piech, Schneider, 2013) • Auditing, Completing, Disengaging, Sampling
• Micro (Ota, 2013) • “[I was] left with a partial sense of
accomplishment and feelings of hollowness and incompleteness.”
• In the frenzy surrounding the rise of “edtech” and MOOCs, it seems that student voices and experiences are rarely considered.
What is it like to participate in open online learning?
Veletsianos, G. (2013). Learner Experiences with MOOCs and Open Online Learning. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved on Sept 29, 2013 from http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
Results
• Learners – questioned institutional/instructor commitment, – identified a need for improved instructional design, – praised responsive MOOC instructors, – criticized instructors who were not visible, – valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, – appreciated the opportunities for open learning.
To summarize…
• The realities of open online learning are different from the hopes of open online learning.
• We only have small pieces of an incomplete mosaic of students’ learning experiences with open online learning.
Where do we go from here?
Design experiences, not products Sharing Storylines Vulnerability Design, develop, dream on.
Thank you!
Download these open access books:
http://tinyurl.com/book321
http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com
Thank you!
www.veletsianos.com
www.veletsianos.com/publications
@veletsianos on Twitter