Testing the limits of university teaching

MOOCs, Multimedia and Distributed Collaboration

George Roberts26/06/2012

Limits of navigation

• MOOCs• Multimedia for assessment• Distributed collaboration

Audiographic Simulcast• Blackboard Collaborate in use

• It is not that we ignore web-based and internet technologies at our peril… In truth, we ignore the traditional university at our peril. (M Roberts 2012)

Matters affecting UVa

Superposition of randomness

• superposition of randomness leading to a transforming experience

Related randomness?

• Identity• Community• Literacy

• Three topics:– MOOCs– Academic Multimedia– Distributed Collaboration

Old MOOCs, new MOOCs, red MOOCs blue MOOCs

MOOCsMassive Open Online Courses

Old MOOCs from 2008

• Explicit pedagogical perspective– Social constructivist, dialogic, actor networks

• Distributed, open source platform components– Wikis, WordPress, Moodle

• Intentional social media conversations– Twitter, Facebook, Blogs

• Open challenge to institutions– Access, environment, IPR, assessment

New MOOCs from 2011

• Tacit pedagogical perspective– Instructivist, pragmatic, realist, – Authentic: employment oriented

• Consolidated platforms– Incidental social media

• Institutional counter-position– Elite, neo-colonial (?)

Our MOOC• First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher

Education (FSLT12)

MOOC Problematics

• Old MOOC– Navigation, chaos, disorientation, exposure,

tuition

• New MOOC– Packaging, automation, two-tier

• All MOOCs– Motivation

MOOC benefits

• Old MOOC– Autonomy

• New MOOC– Authority

• All MOOC– Access, authenticity

MOOC Limits

• Identity– Embodiment– Preference: introversion extroversion

• Community– Serendipity

• Literacy– Genre, paralinguistics

Post-Text Problematics: Social Citation and Valorisation of Knowledge

Multimedia for Assessment

Presentations to virtual conferences

• Diverse practice– Audio enhanced

• Some excellent– But, some 2000

word essays on 12 ppt slides

• Markers unfamiliar with the genre– What is

scholarship in this medium?

Other Multimedia Assessment Examples

• Video essays– Sustained inquiry

• Multimedia learning journals– Reflective collection

• Audio feedback

Valorisation of knowledge

Multimedia scholarship

In 2003, Stephen Downes wrote

• multimedia computing … provides scholarly discourse with great opportunities, but also problematizes that discourse (Ingraham, 2000)

• large bodies of continuous text … are likely to remain the primary medium for the dissemination of scholarship (Ingraham & Bradburn, 2003)

• the 'electronic book' is likely to become the primary medium … for the dissemination of text-mediated scholarly discourse (Ingraham & Bradburn, 2003a), [and] disseminating educational multimedia.

But, let’s have a look at Downes 2003

Multimedia assessment limits

• Community– Traditions of the disciplines

• Identity– Our scholarly selves

• Literacy– The Genre is new– The links degrade, coping with transience

Being together in the bodyDistributed-collaborative learning sets

Distributed Learning Sets

• Explicit Intended Outcome– As a group produce a seminar addressing a

current issue in higher education learning and teaching

• Tacit Intended Outcome– Discover ways to work as a group, which allow for

distributed collaboration: across the three Brookes campuses and several other universities

Distribution in two ways

In small groups to collaborate in production of the seminars

– Forums, email, Google Docs, wiki

In Plenary to attend/review sessions– Matterhorn Lecture Capture + Podcast

Producer

Distribution issuesSmall groups

– Defaulted to Face to face• Disadvantage the minority

Plenary– Groups focused on own performances– Low attention/attendance to other groups

seminars• Substantial curriculum input missed

A controlled classroom environment isn’t a bad thing.

(Krauss 2012)

Distributed Collaboration Limits

• Identity– We know ourselves in the reflection of others

• Community– Cohesion through diversity

• Literacy– Paralinguistics

Discussion

• Turn to the person beside you – or to the chat stream in Collaborate

• In light of: MOOCs, Multimedia and Distributed Collaboration

• Where are your limits of navigation?

Disruptive?Technology

QUESTION: If SOPA/PIPA [or the Digital Economy Act in the UK] had been passed into U.S. law in 2002, would Wikipedia exist today? If either law had passed in 2012, would Wikipedia exist in 2022? Why or why not? Discuss.

If you cannot answer that question, you are not literate nor are you in control of your

life—even if you think you are.

Watersheds?

• Narrative ? > 50,000 years• Writing c. 5,000 years• Printing c. 500 years• Perspective c. 500 years• Steam c. 250 years• Mass literacy c. 150 years• Cinema c. 100 years• Internet c. 35 years

Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter, Perugino, 1481

Discourses around higher education are:

“… a field of competition for the legitimate exercise of symbolic

violence,

… an arena of conflict between rival principles of legitimacy, and

competition for political, economic and cultural power

(Bourdieu 1993, 121)

Literacy - including digital - is the practice of enunciation in a

community:

“speaking” in the broadest sense, projecting an identity

with, through and to others who concur

digital literacy cannot be separated from other

educational - or social, or economic, or political -

developments.

Digital literacy is far more than skills with keyboard & apps.

It is how we & our students negotiate the

ICT-mediated frontier between rival principles.

Limits of navigation

• MOOCs– Radical openness is not for

everyone

• Multimedia for assessment– Text citation and commentary asserts itself through

every fissure

• Distributed collaboration– We crave – and are good at – contact

Thank you

Dr George RobertsOCSLD, Oxford Brookes University

June 2012groberts@brookes.ac.uk