Open source and collaboration equals better VLEs

One thing that could be done to a much greater extent is collaboration on Open Source solutions for Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). I know that this is done already, especially at university level, but there are still a lot of money wasted in investments in expensive proprietary solutions that can not be modified without expensive consultants, as well as there is a lot of money wasted on “in house” development and adaptations that are not shared with others. This is especially offensive when tax money is wasted - which is often the case.

Open Source collaboration could be much more organized and better financed at the national level. Stronger incentives need to be created for collaborating in this way, which would for certain benefit the progress in general.

So far, the main part of all innovations within software for Technology Enhanced Learning have originated from Open Source projects!

 

The media Zoo

In this film Twofour Communications and The Beyond Distance Research Alliance based at The University of Leicester presents The media Zoo - an immersive teaching and research environment in Second Life. Gilly Salmon, Professor of E-learning & E-learning Technologies at Leicester gave us this film at the conference Online Educa in Berlin, november 2007.

Do you have any experiences of learning in Second Life? Can you tell us about it?

 

Net-based learning needs to involve decision makers

I’ve been to many conferences about net-based learning and have created a wide contact network thanks to them. I come home every time with new ideas, good examples and countless links to interesting projects. The discussions are valuable and inspiring.

However, it’s not so easy to put these good ideas into practice back home. The people who make the decisions seldom if ever attend these conferences and are not convinced of the advantages of flexible learning. Issues that seem self-evident at the conference are far from so when you sit down to talk to heads of departments about where they should invest their often limited resources next year.

Net-based learning at many universities is still a grass-roots movement with teachers and IT developers working often with project money. Few institutions have integrated this into their core activities though there are I’m sure some excellent exceptions.

The question is how do we get the real decision makers to attend this type of conference so that they can hear how much good work is going on and realise that we have to move from pioneer status to mainstream? It would be interesting to know how many university principals and heads of faculty are present in Berlin just now.

 

Good old Web 2.0

I get a feeling that we often apprehend technology as developing faster that it actually does. The Web 2.0 phenomena is an interesting example of this. When Web 2.0 suddenly appeared, as it seemed out of nowhere, there was actually nothing sudden or even new about it. Web 2.0 is in fact mainly based on “old” technology.

The picture of the Web 2.0 technology cloud illustrates this  quite well.

What had changed was actually our conceptions of how technology can be used and how different (regarded individually rather simple) technologies can be combined to produce an added value. In fact, this has been a rather slow process that suddenly hit the critical hype-mass and became Web 2.0 with the people.

 

Develop more epistemic games

This post is written by Gunilla Svingby, Malmö University, Sweden.

The traditional schools have difficulties in engaging students and in reaching their goals. Students are engaged in video games and web communities working with enduring and complex technical tasks. It should be obvious that traditional schooling is on the verge of becoming an anachronism. The self- amplifying nature of technological and cultural developments is undermining the base of a school that was formed to fit the demands of early industrialization.

The educational system was historically based on the idea of a fixed set of knowledge, values and skills preparing the students for working life. Declining results on international tests indicates that the system is unfit for today. An obvious action to meet the declining results has been the restoring of the traditional school focusing on a core of subject knowledge, order, discipline, and extended testing. I argue that this is playing a game that is already lost. Youth need to be prepared for a very different labor market, where different qualities are required. Besides basic skills they need to be prepared to be innovative, solve new problems, work together, and create new solutions.

This is where the Swedish project URSMART enters the scene. Research has shown that children’s popular culture demands complex thinking, technical language, and sophisticated problem-solving skills. Consider the complex problem solving and decision making required to play a video game like Age of Mythology.

Modern games allow players to modify the game, creating their own scenarios and maps. They pick up the beginnings of value-added technical skills.

But what about the children who do not have these opportunities? A new equity gap is emerging. Boys at large and boys from families with good economy will have an advantage over for instance immigrant girls. Games as those planned for URSMART may be a way to bridge the equity gap. The project carries the potential of developing tools that may be used by students and their parents - in order to capitalize the learning potential of a good game. A concept worth imitate is the Epistemic Games concept pursued by David Williamson Shaffer and others at Madison University, Wisconsin, USA. As Shaffer say: These games are not just any old games. They are knowledge games aiming to foster rigorous learning for innovative work. They are fun because they are about innovation and mastery of complex domains. Epistemic games are about knowledge, but they are about knowledge in action-about making knowledge, applying knowledge, and sharing knowledge. Epistemic games are rigorous, motivating, and complex because that’s what characterizes the practices of innovation upon which they are modeled.

Most of those games are not available for common use. There is a need to develop and research such games. The need is strengthened both by the fact that the content of many of the commercial games are far from relevant to traditional school subjects or to contemporary workplaces and the fact that they attract girls to a much lesser degree than boys. A non commercial project like URSMART has the potential to develop games that attract both boys and girls allowing them to learn by building knowledge together using advanced technology.

 

Modular is the future?

It is a problem that virtual learning environments (VLEs) are perceived as something that are installed centrally (silo-like) to be used by teachers and students as is (referring back to my last post, Where do VLEs come from and where are they heading?).  VLEs should not just “be there”, they should be assembled when needed, put together and adapted to specific pedagogical needs. And, in fact there is an interesting ongoing development towards modular VLEs. This is actually a trend that affects most application fields of IT. In general modularity (in its most ideal form) means that a VLE are viewed as a (distributed) toolbox from which different tools (or components/modules) can be chosen and assembled to form a loosely coupled learning environment with the look and feel of a VLE, but that actually consists of small parts provided as services by different providers - much like the parts of a machine is forming the machine or like Lego. This is of course still a vision, but it is far from unrealistic and we can already see examples of this happening. As a concept this development can be compared to Learning Objects, which doest really work as supposed (yet?), but anyway, as a concept…

Underlying is a technological development that, in the long run, will most likely mean a lot for learning technology.  To some extent it is actually the same technology that constitutes the basis for the kind of services that often goes under the name Web 2.0. Technologies such as RSS (blogs and pods), light-weight protocols like XML-RPC and technologies for rich web-based user interfaces (Ajax) and so on. But also more comprehensive technology platforms such as for Web Services. This may seem overwhelmingly technical (and it is technical), but the knowledge about this is really important for mapping pedagogical requirements to technology. Modular approaches makes it possible to actually adapt technology on the fly, and adaptability is one of the missing links in many VLEs (and especially in LMSs). However, one of the most important conditions for this to happen are (the right) standards - standards for learning technology based on generic technical standards - so that we know that we have agreed upon how our services and components are supposed to interact from an educational perspective. Such work is actually already going on in projects like the e-Framework, IMS, and The Open Knowledge Initiative.

 

Where do VLEs come from and where are they heading?

That is a question that is seldom asked, even though it is a relevant question. If we learn about the history of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) it will be easier for us to understand some of the underlying reasons for the state of things. This will in turn make us better equipped to analyze problems and to understand why they are problems as well as to (hopefully) better understand how to address them. Many schools (or rather municipalities) are currently investing a lot of money in VLEs, and especially in a type of products that are often referred to as “learning platforms”. Those learning platforms are in reality often Learning Management Systems (LMSs), which are (in my world) a type of VLE.

So, what is problematic about that? Are there any problems at all? I would say that there are problems and that we need to be aware of them! However, before I start to problemize I will give you a retrospective view of the history of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and VLEs. Beware of simplifications!

It all started (roughly) during the Second World War. There was an urgent need to train soldiers in a more efficient way and one appealing idea was to use technology - not computers at first though. Behaviorists like Skinner and Thorndike led this development and they were quite successful in their attempts to make training more efficient using technology. The training needs of the army were also well meet by behaviorist learning theories and the opportunities that the technology offered.

The development continued after the war and it eventually led to what we now know as instructional design (ID). ID had (and still has) a great impact on the development of TEL. As a result of the research and development of ID the concept of Programmed Instruction (PI) was introduced in the late fifties. In the bleeding edge of this development were theories and ideas such Skinners frames of instruction, ultimately to be realized by teaching machines. The underlying idea was quite simple and based on a “chunking and sequencing” approach that we can still recognize. Learning material was divided into smaller chunks (frames) that were sequenced together in a logical sequence that could be managed by the computers (and other machines) that were available at the time. The learning material was often based on a question-answer model or a fill-in-the-blanks approach, each unit ending with a small test. Eventually programmed instruction evolved into programmed learning (PL) and by that it also moved on into regular education (i.e. into the classroom). Both programmed instruction and programmed learning emphasized a type of learning that was self-paced and self-contained, managed by the learner. Those approaches were in fact similar to many of the approaches that are still in use.

In the eighties and nineties there was a trend towards specialized training software – or educational software as some prefer to call it. This was software developed for a specific learning purpose, but it turned out to be very expensive to produce. Eventually programmed learning evolved into computer-based training (CBT) and computer-based learning (CBL).

In the nineties there was a multimedia and CD-ROM revolution and most things turned into multimedia. Resulting in that people got used to flashy content with rich media and interactivity. Even though the multimedia era marked a significant change, many CD-ROM productions were actually just educational software in a sexier package.

Another significant technology that had its breakthrough during the eighties and the nineties were Hypertext. This was actually a significant development for TEL and we now know that Hypertext eventually led to a paradigm shift and it certainly became much simpler to produce digital learning content. In fact, some people even said that Hypertext and instructional design was the same things. Irrespective of that, Hypertext provided a relatively simple way for non-programmers to make their own representations of instructional designs (or pedagogical designs) and to produce instructional material - or learning content as I prefer to call it. Hypertext based tools like HyperCard and ToolBook became popular and changed the way in which learning content was developed.

In the mid-nineties it was time for the biggest breakthrough of them all: the breakthrough of the Internet and the Web! Computer-based (as in computer-based learning etc.) became web-based (as in web-based learning etc.). The breakthrough of the web actually turned things over quite a bit. Time and distances were no longer issues, and learning and education suddenly became a global affair. System borders that were previously perceived as clear suddenly became unclear, moved, or even disappeared.

A need to collaborate and exchange information and digital learning content suddenly appeared and standards and frameworks were developed, through initiatives such as ADL SCORM, IEEE LTSC, and the IMS Global Learning Consortium, in order to make easier for learning related systems to exchange data and information.

Experiences from previous production of educational software showed that it tended to become very expensive and that content must be reusable and relatively context independent in order to minimize costs and redundancy. This eventually resulted in the concept of learning objects. In short, learning objects is a modular concept for he delivery of digital learning content. The learning object concept  has adopted many ideas from previous developments within the ID-movement. One of the fundamental ideas of learning objects is chunking and sequencing. In order to actually make learning objects (re)usable the representation of ID (basically representing how LOs are sequenced together) needed to be separated from the actual content and not hard-coded into the content, which was the case with earlier approaches. When digital learning content became movable and reusable (at least in theory there was an urgent need for somewhere to put it. Voila, the LMS was invented. Interesting to point out is that this development forced a separation of the content, the pedagogical context and the VLE. Previous approaches mixed them – with some exceptions. LMSs were from the beginning mainly an environment for administrating learning and learning content, with a strong administrative focus. This has changed over time, and many LMSs have extended their functionality with tools for collaboration, communication and a variety of other more learning specific tools.

However, suddenly,  just when LMSs  started to settle, Web 2.0 appears and there was immediately troubles in paradise. In fact there have been problems all the time, but now they were becoming compromising. Even though it appeared to be suddenly, Web 2.0 is not a revolution, but rather an evolution. If Web 2.0 exists at all? Technically there is not much new about Web 2.0, but it marks a change in how technology is perceived and used. New combinations and uses of technology occurs all the time under the Web 2.0 umbrella.

The picture below (from http://www.frepa.org/)  illustrates the development of TEL.

So, what are the problems with the state of things as they have become?

In fact there are infrastructural problems as well as pedagogical problems that need to be discussed. Obviously they are interconnected in a complex web of dependencies.  Some of the more notable problems that we are facing are for example:

• When everything else is becoming more and more horizontal the LMS represent another information silo.
• LMSs normally come with a predetermined set of functions that does not necessarily fulfill the pedagogical needs of schools. Many of the LMS ideas arose from needs within industry and school needs are often fundamentally different.
• Considering the pace of the technological development, there is no way that LMS vendors can keep up he pace. Many LMSs are becoming like Swiss army knifes: they are capable of doing a lot of different things, but only half bad and they are actually only good at a few things.
• Being an information silo makes it harder for LMSs to function together with other systems or services. This makes the LMS Web 2.0 incompatible. After all, one of the core underlying ideas of Web 2.0 is to free information from systems and to be able to connect different services on the web to create an added value in the shape of new services. Google maps is one example of this approach. Other services are using Google maps to create new services by combining their own services and information with Google maps. My hometown (Umeå) is one example of that. It exists in 3D on Google maps and the 3D models are now used as a planning tool. Do Google know about this? I don’t think so, but that is also the point.
• As LMSs usually comes with a fixed set of functions and a predetermined structure, they tend to limit the ways in which learning can be approached. There is an impending risk that LMSs add pedagogical restrictions and limitations rather than being a dynamic pedagogical tool, managed by teachers and students.
• As long as LMSs are unable to interact with things like blogs, Wikis, ePortfolios, and so on, the learning infrastructure will become more and more heterogeneous and splintered, which makes it harder to manage, which is not exactly what teachers need.

If I wanted to be provocative, and I obviously want to be that, I would say that LMSs (and the LMS concept) are Web 1.0 in their very essence.

The question is how  those issues can be dealt with? There is  a need to start discussing those issues and  take them into account when planing learning infrastructure and implementing VLEs!

I do of course have the right answer :), but I don’t want to revile it quite yet…

 

Swedish teaching in Second Life

What is the significance of role-play in a 3D environment for learning? What are the pros and cons? Look at a beginners’ language course on the virtual Swedish embassy in Second Life.

The Swedish Institute want your opinion on this subject! Leave a comment on the blog!

Write comments directly here on our blog, or record your reflections and views for publication.

Send your reflections to swedishlearningspace@gmail.com for publishing. Your recorded “posts” should not be longer than 1 minute, or if you want us to publish a written post - do not write longer than 1500 letters. We reserve the right to edit every post.

 

New challenges in online education

Swedish Agency for Networks and Cooperation in Higher Educations challenge is to understand how to plan for future ventures within technology supported learning & training. In which areas do we need more knowledge and who should participate in this work? How can research within cognition, neurology and pedagogics contribute? And is development moving toward game-based learning, wiki methods or 3D worlds?

Write comments directly here on our blog, or record your reflections and views for publication.

Send your reflections to swedishlearningspace@gmail.com for publishing. Your recorded “posts” should not be longer than 1 minute, or if you want us to publish a written post - do not write longer than 1500 letters. We reserve the right to edit every post.

 

Net Communities in support of local democracy

How can a combination of flexible study circles and net communities support local democracy and active citizenship?

• Is it possible to use communities as platforms for more open discussions in public debates?
• Is it possible for a community to increase the contact between citizens and local politicians?

See one example where non-formal study associations use the modern net community to highlight local social questions.  The film is made by The Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning. We want your comments in this subject!

Write comments directly here on our blog, or record your reflections and views for publication.

Send your reflections to swedishlearningspace@gmail.com for publishing. Your recorded “posts” should not be longer than 1 minute, or if you want us to publish a written post - do not write longer than 1500 letters. We reserve the right to edit every post.