Going digital: re-

conceptualising textbooks

Terje VäljatagaCentre for Educational

TechnologyInstitute of Informatics

Tallinn University2013

Photo: S. Fiedler

Where do I come from?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sebastianfiedler/5217832006/

Centre for Educational Technology

- Established 1996 in the Faculty of Education

- 2002 moved to Open University as e-learning service provider

- 2005 became the R&D unit within the Institute of Informatics

- Financed only by research and development projects

Centre for Educational Technology

- Staff: 25 researchers, including 10 from abroad (Germany, Austria, Portugal, Italy, Cape Verde, Jordan, Georgia), designers, developers

- Focus: education + technology

- R&D projects in Technology - Enhanced Learning, Human – Computer Interaction

Centre for Educational Technology

- MA programs: Human Computer Interaction; Educational Technology; Teacher of Computer Science, School ICT Manager

- PhD program: Information Society Technologies

- Labs: Apple Lab, Interaction Design Lab, Digital Safety Lab

Centre for Educational Technology

Centre for Educational Technology

Our philosophy:

-Social shaping view on technology and co-evolutionary development: human needs, imagination, and activity in turn will shape the further development of technology and new human abilities emerge

-Technology transfer without appropriate cultural transfer is not sufficient

Centre for Educational Technology

Our focus:

-Continuously expanding digital transformation not only poses challenges related to new technological instrumentation, it also requires fundamental shifts and formidable changes from old habits and mindsets to new approaches of learning and working

Going digital …

Estonian Strategy for Lifelong Learning 2020:

-Shift in teaching and learning paradigm

-Competent teachers and school leaders

-Meeting the job market needs

-Higher participation rates, effective funding models

-Digital turn in formal education system

Going digital …

Digital turn in formal education system:

-Integrating digital culture into teaching and learning

-Quality digital learning resources for all curricula

-Access to digital infrastructure, including 1:1 computing

-Digital competences of teachers and students

Going digital …

- The change in educational legislation (PGS §20, Dec 2012) requires all textbook publishers to release also digital versions of their textbooks and workbooks

- European Union open educational resources vision

http://www.screentekinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Old-Computer.jpg

Evolution of technology

Going digital…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/4404293469/

http://www.flickr.co

m/photos/judybaxter/45972760/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/45972760/

Going digital…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmreesescott/8381132964/

Educational technology generations

1. generation

2. generation 3. generation

Software architecture

Learning software

E-learning environments (Moodle)

Distributed learning ecosystems

Pedagogical approaches

Behaviorsim Cognitivism Knowledge building, self-regulation

Content, learning materials

Integrated Separated from software

Learning objects, e-textbooks, remixing

Access to technology

Computer class

Computer class, internet and computer at home

Ubiquitous, mobile personal devices

BYOD - Bring your own device

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/6153522068/

BYOD - Bring your own devicehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ulez/5429220347/

Going digital …

Current e-textbooks …

… in a digital, mainly PDF format (e-textbook)

… in a specific form (iOS apps and epub, etc.)

… logically ordered teaching and learning providing a synthesis of current knowledge

Replication of existing practices, models and behaviors, where traditional values, beliefs and practices prevail

Hardly any room for learners to construct and build their own knowledge through interacting with a collection of widely distributed artifacts, people and environments

Drawbacks with e-textbooks

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhobkirk/8343092496

Drawbacks with e-textbooks

Not using inexhaustible potential of technology for different configurations and purposes

Do not support different screen sizes and are pedagogically limited

Hardly allows any interaction, manipulation and remediation facilitated by various configurations of technologies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/6153522068/

Drawbacks with e-textbooks

- The evolution of the textbook is exclusively triggered by economic forces from the printing press to digital production …

- … and from digital production to digital distribution …

- … leaving teaching philosophy, pedagogical approaches and technological potential untouched

Going digital …

The extent to which a learner gains the same pedagogical benefit from a printout of the digital content as from the content itself is the extent to which nothing of pedagogical value by using the Web has been done

Going digital …

Davy (2007): cluster professionally authored related content items around a specific learning objective – textbook broken down into its components that can be accessed in a number of different ways

Butler (2009): e-textbooks as aggregations of various materials, not just what a publisher has aggregated in a single book

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abstractmachine/6732650555/

Going digital…

Pedagogical challenges:

-Trialogic learning: collaborative knowledge building resulting with shareable digital artefacts

-Learning in design mode vs belief mode

-Flipped classroom, game- and project-based learning

-Self-regulated learning, changing role of the teacher

-Re-conceptualising e-textbookshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/dhillan/

3848315549

Learnmix

The goal is …

… to re-conceptualize the e-Textbook

as aggregations of both

professionally authored and user-contributed content

accessible through a wide range of artifacts

Learnmix

It tackles …

1. … Human-computer interaction design challenges: Ubiquitous computing interaction, ecologies of artifacts

- Computing, not computers, will characterize the next era of the computer age

- It is less and less about the devices and more about the activities we can accomplish with and through technology

Learnmix

Previously there was one technology, one application, one user, all packaged into one fairly stable unit

There is now an ever changing configuration of technologies, applications and actors

Learnmix

It tackles …

2. … Pedagogical challenges: moving away from replicating traditional classroom-based teaching practices and knowledge transmission model

- enabling learners to become actively engaged constructors of their own experience and understanding of phenomena, building new knowledge by interacting with artifacts, people and environments

Learnmix

Focus on ubiquitous interaction design and ICT implementation in schools (on primary, secondary and gymnasium level) …

… from the perspective of technology as mediators facilitating the active engagement of participants in knowledge building process

Learnmix

Moving towards the direction, where …

… learners develop not only knowledge-building competencies but also skills to modify and adapt their ecology of artifacts as needed to suit their purposes or interests

… remediate and remix the selected mediators to create new representations, relationships and expressions

… develop dispositions to work at idea improvement (content and its representation)

Dr. Terje Väljataga

Centre for Educational Technology

terje.valjataga@tlu.eehttp://terjevaljataga.eu

Thank you for your attention!