This team of Italian researchers have developed a methodology to track ‘participative, social, cognitive and teaching dimensions of the learning process’ in asynchronous, text-based online teaching in a blended learning context.

Comment: A [...]]]> Persico, D., Pozzi, F. and Sarti, L. (2010) Monitoring collaborative activities in computer supported collaborative learning, Distance Education, Vol. 31. No. 1, pp. 5-22

This team of Italian researchers have developed a methodology to track ‘participative, social, cognitive and teaching dimensions of the learning process’ in asynchronous, text-based online teaching in a blended learning context.

Comment: A good review of the literature and some interesting suggestions on how to do this kind of analysis in a pragmatic way, such as the tutor classifying and tagging comments when reading. Still looks pretty labour intensive to me, though, for regular online teaching, although useful as a research tool.

Myth No. 1: ‘A university education is becoming so costly – in the USA – that it’s not worth the investment.’

Proto, R. (2010) Is college still worth the investment? HICE SCHOOL, 30 June

Randy Proto, the President and CEO of the American Institutes [...]]]> I came across some blogs about ‘myths’, so I thought I’d put them together.

Myth No. 1: ‘A university education is becoming so costly – in the USA – that it’s not worth the investment.’

Proto, R. (2010) Is college still worth the investment? HICE SCHOOL, 30 June

Randy Proto, the President and CEO of the American Institutes school group, does a pretty good demolition job on this myth on Joe Hices’s excellent blog. Randy points out that the average student college debt in the USA on graduation is about $20,000, less than the average loan taken out to buy a car. More importantly the lifetime return on investment is about $450,000 in earnings more for those with a bachelor’s degree over those without a degree. (The compound interest on $20,000 over 40 years is $140,000 at 5%, so you’re still about $7,750 a year better off with a degree, even if you had $20,000 to invest instead of paying to go to college). Furthermore 63% of jobs will require a degree by 2018.

The ELT@Traceyo blog drew my attention to a recent survey of k-12 classroom teachers in the USA commissioned by Walden University (Eduventures Inc. conducted the research)

Grunwald Associates LLC (2010) Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths: A Study on the Connection Between K–12 Technology Use and 21st Century Skills Minneapolis: Walden University

The report identifies five myths, all of which the survey indicated were untrue:

1. Teachers who are newer to the profession and teachers who have greater access to technology are more likely to use technology frequently for instruction than other teachers. I found it interesting that the report found the opposite: it was the more experienced teachers who were more likely to use technology.

2. Only high-achieving students benefit from using technology. I actually did research many years ago on students’ use of television at the British Open University that did indeed find the opposite. The students who benefited most from math television programs were in fact the ‘borderline’ students. The ‘A’ students didn’t need the extra help, and the fail students were so lost that even the TV programs didn’t help. However, the borderline students found the linking of the abstract formulae to real world examples in the TV programs helped their understanding. (For more on the role of video, see my book, ‘Technology, e-Learning and Distance Education.’)

3. Given that students today are comfortable with technology, teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning. The report states that: Teachers who use technology frequently to support learning in their classrooms report greater benefits to student learning, engagement and skills from technology than teachers who spend less time using technology to support learning. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? The psychologists call this cognitive dissonance. Once you make a decision, you tend to find evidence to support the correctness of the decision and ignore evidence to the contrary. It may be true that technology leads to better learning outcomes, but you need to measure the outcomes, not ask for opinions about outcomes.

4. Teachers and administrators have shared understandings [I think they mean 'agree'] about classroom technology use and 21st century skills. The report found that administrators overestimated technology use by teachers and were more supportive of the use of technology on the whole than were the teachers.

5. Teachers feel well prepared by their initial teacher preparation programs to effectively incorporate technology into classroom instruction and to foster 21st century skills. In fact, most teachers do not believe that their pre-service programs prepared them well in either technology or 21st century skills. Teachers place more value on advanced training programs. This doesn’t say much for Faculties of Education, who are supposed to provide pre-service training – but then this is Walden University, a private online university focused on adult learners.

Now I suspect that the report writers put up these ‘myths’ as straw men to be knocked down, but the findings themselves are valuable. As the excellent discussion of this report by ELT@Traceyo makes clear, though, the link between the use of technology and generic 21st century skills is less well made in the report. Tracey also notes that this was a survey of teachers in the USA, and wonders what the results would have been in other countries.

Baker, S. (2010) Hefce gives out extra places and takes back £20m from teaching funds Times Higher Education, June 25

Calhoun, T. (2010) Re-imagining Higher Education, Post-Recession SCUP Links Blog, June 27

Kamenetz, [...]]]> It’s funny how reports on the same issue arrive from completely different directions. These four all deal with the issue of innovation and higher education.

Baker, S. (2010) Hefce gives out extra places and takes back £20m from teaching funds Times Higher Education, June 25

Calhoun, T. (2010) Re-imagining Higher Education, Post-Recession SCUP Links Blog, June 27

Kamenetz, A. (2010) Online education an the laying on of hands Huffington Post, June 29

OECD (2010) The OECD Innovation Strategy: Getting a Head Start on Tomorrow Paris: OECD

Let’s start with a focus on the financial conditions that universities and colleges will be facing in North America and Europe over the next five years. One clear outcome from the recent G20 meeting in Toronto (apart from torched police cars and broken windows) is that governments are moving away from stimulus funding to deficit and debt reduction. This will vary from country to country. In Britain, many government departments are looking at a 25% reduction in funding. The Times Higher Education article highlights the first steps in Britain: a £20 million ($30 million) reduction in funding for university places. This comes on top of earlier cuts of £900 million ($1.35 billion) in December, 2009.However, it should be noted that $10 million was ‘protected’ for another 10,000 places, and the bulk of this money went to the Open University and the rest to ‘newer, teaching focused universities’.

The Calhoun article is an interview with Donald Norris and Linda Baer, who state that:

‘data from SHEEO (State Higher Education Executive Officers, who manage state funding to universities in the USA) demonstrate that the deficits facing states will be deeper than previous recessions, will last longer, and that there will be no bouncing back to normal like after the recessions of the past 30 years. The new normal will be diminished state appropriates, on average about 20% down over the next three years. This will require institutions not just to muddle through, but to reimagine themselves for the new normal.’ If higher education hasn’t established genuine financial sustainability through reinvention by 2020, we will have missed our chance to shape our future. Others will do it for us.

This is a multi-year campaign, not a single quick fix in response to mid-year budget cuts. It begins with establishing the need for establishing a sustainable vision for 2020 – financially, programmatically, organizational, and politically.  We expect that institutions will need to use the 2010-2013 period to launch processes of reimagination and reinvention, then progressively redirect their energies so that by 2020 they have leveraged innovations, achieved greater levels of academic and administrative productivity, fresh revenues, and an appreciation for the value propositions required in the new normal.  This is a tall order, but we cannot escape the implications of the times.

Then we have the response from the institutions. Anna Kamenetz, the author of KDIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education has an interesting blog in the Huffington Post, where she describes the negative reaction she got to her book from a panel at a conference in San Diego. Her response was:

If people who care about both quality and equality in higher education don’t get deeply involved in the use of technology to stretch the resources we have in order to educate everyone to the best of our ability and their abilities, then the future will be shaped by people with worse motives and visions.

In other words, she is arguing that public institutions will have to improve their productivity if they are to maintain quality with less rather than more money. This requires innovation in teaching and learning, the main message from our book about the strategic management of technology.

What is needed to support innovation? The OECD report argues that

‘in economically advanced countries future growth must increasingly come from innovation-induced productivity growth. Innovation encompasses a wide range of activities in addition to R&D, such as organisational changes, training, testing, marketing and design. Innovation is defined as the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, work-place organisation or external relations.’ [Does this not sound like e-learning?]

Although the OECD report is more focused on businesses, these statements apply equally well to universities and colleges. There are two aspects:

• preparing their students in such a way that students can foster innovation in the workplace when they leave
• ensuring that the necessary internal changes take place within institutions to support innovation in teaching. research and administration

Among the OECD policy principles for innovation are:

1. Empowering people to innovate

• Education and training systems should equip people with the foundations to learn and develop the broad range of skills needed for innovation in all of its forms, and with the flexibility to upgrade skills and adapt to changing market conditions. [In other words, faculty need to be trained in new skills, and new approaches to teaching.]

To transform ideas and inventions into innovation requires a range of activities, including organizational changes, organizational-level training, testing, marketing and design.

I believe that these policy principles apply equally well to our post-secondary educational institutions. Look also at what the OECD says about how to develop a culture of innovation and ask yourself if this would apply to your own institution:

People generate the ideas and knowledge that power innovation, and they apply this knowledge and the resulting technologies, products and services in the workplace and as consumers. Innovation requires a wide variety of skills, as well as the capacity to learn, adapt or retrain, particularly following the introduction of radically new products and processes. Empowering people to innovate relies not only on broad and relevant education, but also on the development of wide-ranging skills that complement formal education.

Does this apply to faculty?

Lastly, the OECD report also focuses on how curricula need to change to encourage the development of skills that lead to innovation in the workplace:

Formal education is the basis for forming human capital, and policy makers should ensure that education systems help learners to adapt to the changing nature of innovation from the start. This requires curricula and pedagogies that equip students with the capacity to learn and apply new skills throughout their lives. Emphasis needs to be placed on skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, user orientation and team- work, in addition to domain-specific and linguistic skills. The acquisition of skills is a lifelong process; it does not end with formal education. Schools lay a base for lifelong learning, but ongoing skills acquisition needs to be encouraged. This involves recognising all forms of learning and making them visible, including through qualification systems. Rewarding lifelong learning and making it attractive may help enhance participation.

Universities, colleges and vocational training centres are essential nodes in the innovation system, both producing and attracting the human capital needed
for innovation. These institutions act as essential bridges between players –businesses, governments and countries – in broader and more open systems of innovation. They also contribute to the local quality of life and thus can help to attract the highly skilled from around the globe. World-class institutions can be the anchor for clusters of innovative activity. The major policy challenge is to recognise the essential role of universities in the innovation enterprise rather than view them, as is all too commonly the case, simply as providers of essential public goods. This requires a greater focus of policy makers on ensuring independence, competition, excellence, entrepreneurial spirit and flexibility in universities.

In short, universities and colleges are critical to developing graduates that can support innovation in the work-place. Perhaps even more importantly, though, the institutions themselves will have to find ways to innovate to provide quality services with less money. The appropriate use of technology, as with innovation in other domains, will be an essential component of that process.

So some questions, dear readers:

1. Do our (public) institutions really need to change, or is this just the usual North American hype and hyperbole?

2. If they do need to change, are they up to it? Do they have the will, skills, knowledge and attitude to make the changes necessary?

3. Is e-learning an essential component of any needed changes, or could the institutions manage the necessary changes without a heavy reliance on e-learning?

4. What is needed to bring about any necessary changes in our institutions?

Over to you.

The University of New Brunswick

This has been a busy week for me, which accounts for the low number of postings. Earlier in the week, I was conducting a consultancy for the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and Saint John. (For readers outside Canada, Fredericton and Saint John are more than 4,000 [...]]]>

The University of New Brunswick

This has been a busy week for me, which accounts for the low number of postings. Earlier in the week, I was conducting a consultancy for the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and Saint John. (For readers outside Canada, Fredericton and Saint John are more than 4,000 kilometres from Vancouver. It takes about 8 hours to fly commercially – and yes, I’m still in Canada).

Why I was in New Brunswick

The University of New Brunswick is in the middle of a strategic planning process. As part of that process, I was invited to the university for two days, May 10-11, 2010, where I met with faculty and senior administrators, and made three presentations on e-learning and economic development.

In such a short visit, it is not possible to get an in-depth understanding of an institution’s strengths and weaknesses, or the context in which it works. Nevertheless, it is important to embed e-learning and the use of technology for teaching within the context in which it will operate.

I have therefore drawn together my thoughts from a very brief visit and tried to summarise them, so that they can be considered within UNB’s overall strategic planning process.

I really enjoyed my visit to UNB, where I was extremely well looked after, and in particular I wish to thank Lloyd Henderson for his detailed planning of my trip and good hospitality. I am also very grateful that the university has agreed to let me share my report to them with all my readers, as I believe many of your institutions will be facing similar challenges to those at UNB.

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada’s smallest provinces – about the same size as Ireland or Scotland or the Czech Republic – located on the Atlantic seaboard of Canada. Its total population is just under 1 million. About 80 percent of the land is covered with woodland inhabited by moose, bears and other wildlife. (Stephen Downes also lives there!) Workers in New Brunswick are paid about 15 percent less than the Canadian average, but house prices are also very cheap in comparison (average price $114,000 – compared to $450,000 in Vancouver). The three main cities are Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John. The province is fully bi-lingual (French and English).

New Brunswick has historically been heavily dependent on natural resources, such as forestry, fisheries, and mining, for economic development and jobs. However, even before the recent recession, these industries were in decline. In particular, Saint John has faced difficulties as its older industries – such as ship building – have been unable to compete in the world economy and have been closing. Current industries include brewing, electricity generation, transport/distribution, call centres and the largest oil-refinery in Canada.

In the 1990s, under the leadership of the premier, Frank McKenna, New Brunswick developed a small but internationally recognised high-tech industry, mainly in the Fredericton area. The Information and Communications Technology sector is now the second-largest business sector in the province with more than 700 new economy companies employing over 30,000 people and generating revenues of over $2.1 billion annually. The key sub-sectors are call centres, e-learning and games technology, e-business solutions, information and communications technologies and engineering solutions. The provincial government claims that New Brunswick is a leader in e-learning development and implementation. More than two million people around the world have taken online courses and advanced training offered by New Brunswick ’s public and private e-learning providers.

A major concern is that the overall population in New Brunswick is declining in numbers and getting older (immigration to New Brunswick is low by Canadian standards, with about 3% of the population foreign immigrants, compared with 15% nationally). In particular, many young people are leaving the province to find work elsewhere.

The University of New Brunswick

The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is one of the oldest universities in Canada, founded 225 years ago. UNB has about 11,400 undergraduate and graduate students on its campuses. UNB claims to have the best student-to-faculty ratio of Canada’s comprehensive universities.  It has two campuses, one in Fredericton, and one in Saint John. In a bilingual province, UNB is the main university for English speakers.

The University of New Brunswick has had a long history of distance education, and has about 4,000 course enrollments (about 400 FTEs) in fully online courses. About half of these are in non-credit programs through UNB Online, and the Certificate in Health, Safety and Environmental Processes has over 1,300 enrollments each year from all across Canada. UNB also offers a full Masters in Education online, with a large cohort of students in Trinidad and Tobago. Most of these fully online courses are facilitated through the College of Extended Learning, working in close collaboration with the faculties. These online courses are treated as extra load, with faculty receiving a stipend for the development and delivery of these courses.

In addition to the fully online courses, many courses on campus use Blackboard and other technologies to support conventional classroom teaching, although in general faculty are reluctant to offer credit courses fully online, as they fear this will cause face-to-face class sizes to drop below sustainable levels.

The university has a relatively new President, and he has taken the initiative to develop a new strategic plan for the university. I was invited to talk to faculty and senior administrators about e-learning and online learning as part of this strategic planning process.

e-Learning and economic development

Although UNB has a long history of distance education and some valuable online learning programs, e-learning has not been seen to date as a ‘core’ activity in a university that prides itself on personal contact with students and an intimate campus learning environment. UNB is atypical of many universities in North America, in that enrollments are declining, especially from high schools. There also are many other universities in the region competing for New Brunswick students.

However, the fastest growing part of the economy is the information and communications technology sector. Although ‘core’ computer science is an important part of that, corporate and commercial e-learning and electronic games are also important business sectors. Furthermore, if the university can develop more students with the skills and competencies needed in a knowledge-based economy, there is an opportunity for even greater economic growth in this sector, as graduates establish new, small companies in niche areas.

Furthermore, it may be a mistake to think that a move to e-learning might reduce on-campus enrolments, especially if the university focuses on hybrid courses, with a reduced face-to-face component, perhaps in the later years of undergraduate programs, as well as distance courses for students in New Brunswick who cannot easily get to the Fredericton or Saint John campuses on a regular 9 to 5, five days a week basis. In particular, with an already dynamic technology business sector, and an aging population, more flexible delivery focused on embedding ICT skills in a wide range of subject areas will attract more lifelong learners to compensate for the reduction in high school leavers.

Some suggestions for UNB

In order to foster further development of knowledge-based industries in the province, I suggested the following steps:

1. Greater incorporation of ICT and other 21st century skills (e.g. independent learning, problem solving) in a wider range of programs and subject disciplines.

2. A gradual move from almost entirely face-to-face courses in first year programs to hybrid or fully distance programs in the fourth year undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as develop more online non-credit certificate or diploma programs focused on the lifelong learning market.

3. Start gradually to redesign courses in this way on a program by program basis. Make sure the new programs are properly resourced (time for development + learning technology support).

4. Stop treating distance education courses as extra load, but integrate them into regular credit programming as part of a normal teaching load for instructors, perhaps supplemented with revenues from full cost recovery courses aimed at lifelong learners.

5. Look to partnership and consortia to leverage the development of online programs on an international basis.

6. Provide systematic and comprehensive training in pedagogy and educational technology for instructors scheduled to work on online programs.

7. Provide instructional and web designers to work in teams with instructors for the redesign of courses.

Conclusion

The development of a new strategic plan provides an excellent opportunity for UNB to leverage its advantages as an old, well established university with an excellent student/faculty ratio, into the development of programs closely aligned with the economic development of the province. E-learning could and probably should be an essential component of that plan.

This book is essentially a collection of essays by mainly Canadian authors, although there are also authors from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

Chapters

The book is organized as follows:

Foreword: Alan Tait [...]]]> Cleveland-Innes, M. and Garrison, R. (eds.) 2010 An Introduction to Distance Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning in a New Era New York/Abingdon UK: Routledge

This book is essentially a collection of essays by mainly Canadian authors, although there are also authors from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.

Chapters

The book is organized as follows:

Foreword: Alan Tait (UK Open University)

1. ‘Teaching and learning in distance education: enter a new era’: Marti Cleveland-Innes (Athabasca University, Canada), which is a short introduction to the chapters in the book.

Part I: The Industrial Era

2. ‘Foundations of Distance Education’: Randy Garrison (University of Calgary) and Marti Cleveland-Innes (Athabasca University). They argue that the foundations of distance education were established in an industrial era, but we are now entering a post-industrial era that ‘is not fully understood or adequately addressed by scholars in the field.’

3. ‘Organization and technology of distance education’: Gary Miller (Penn State University.) He summarises the main developments in organization and technology from the early correspondence schools through to television and teleconferencing consortia.

4. ‘Teaching and learning before the digital age’: Margaret Haughey (Athabasca University.) This chapter focuses primarily on the way that the British Open University changed the basis of teaching and learning in distance education through a systems approach.

Part II: A New Era

5. ‘Distance education in a post-Fordist time’: Heather Kanuka and Charmaine Brooks (University of Alberta). In this chapter, the authors relate constructivist teaching and learning to the concepts and philosophy of post-Fordism, and argue that in a post-Fordist era, distance education cannot achieve flexible access, quality learning, and cost-effectiveness, but only any two of the three.

6. ‘Beyond boundaries; the evolution of distance education’: Doug Shale (University of Calgary). This chapter is another spin on the same themes in Chapter 3.

7. ‘Teaching and learning in post-industrial distance education’: Karen Swan (University of Illinois Springfield). This chapter argues that the new technologies associated with online learning lead to pedagogical approaches, such as constructivism and communities of inquiry, that are fundamentally different from those associated with industrial-age distance education.

Part III: A Unified Approach

8. ‘The future of learning technologies’: Phil Ice (American Public University System).’Paralleling a review of where we have been and where we are going is a discussion of the underlying pedagogical possibilities of technologies that increasingly tie together physical worlds.’

9. ‘Blended learning’: Norman Vaughan (Mount Royal University, Alberta). This chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges associated with blended learning environments in higher education.

10. ‘The future of distance education: reformed, scrapped or recycled’: Terry Evans (Deakin University, Australia) and Brian Pauling (New Zealand). This chapter looks to the future possibilities for distance education and argues that distance education does have a future so long as ‘it adapts creatively to the changing technology, and the diversity and capacities of digital learners.’

Part IV: Summary and conclusion

11. ‘Leadership in a new era of higher distance education’: Marti Cleveland-Innes (Athabasca University) and Albert Sangra (Open University of Catalonia, Spain). This chapter ‘outlines the challenges in the current situation of higher education, the leadership issues and requirements for a new era in higher education, and the strategic planning that will support this process of transformation’.

12. ‘Conclusion’: Randy Garrison (University of Calgary) and Marti Cleveland-Innes (Athabasca University).

Other features

There are two other interesting features of this book. Each chapter includes a recognition a ’significant contributor’ to distance education related to the topic of each chapter, with a photo and short bio, presumably chosen by the chapter author. The significant ‘contributors to distance education’ include:

• Sarah Guri-Rosenblit
• Desmond Keegan
• Otto Peters
• Diana Laurillard
• Michael G. Moore
• Sir John Daniel
• Robbie McClintock
• Terry Anderson
• Randy Garrison
• Ron Oliver
• Andrew Feenberg

Each chapter also contains a glossary of terms and definitions; and questions for review and discussion.

Preliminary Review

The cover of the book states that this is ‘A perfect textbook for Educational Technology doctorate, Masters and certificate programs’. The book is certainly timely and useful, because there have been major developments in online learning and distance education in the last ten years, and this book does cover the main developments. It should certainly provoke a lot of discussion – indeed it needs to, because as I will demonstrate in later posts, some of the content is highly contentious.

Secondly, as is bound to be the case where most chapters are thoughtful essays on the historical development of distance education, there is a heavy focus on theory rather than practice. Now I have to say that I have always been uninterested to the point of hostility at attempts to create grand theories around distance education. For me, distance education is nothing more than a delivery method. It can be very good or very bad, objectivist or constructivist, open or closed, democratic or elite, and it can and does accommodate a very wide range of teaching methods and technologies. None of these dimensions (except perhaps the technological and organizational ones, and they keep shifting) are ‘intrinsic’ to or defining characteristics of distance education.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not hostile to theories of teaching and learning, to social and political theories, to epistemological and ethical issues in teaching and learning, and all these can be found in the way distance education has been applied, it’s just I struggle with the idea of distance education becoming (or needing to become) ‘post-Fordist’ in nature for example. I’d like to see some widespread evidence for this, rather than just a few examples. In other words, there is a lot of rhetoric in this book.

What’s been scratching away under my skin as I’ve been reading this book is that so much of what is written here doesn’t quite fit my experience of the development of distance education; it’s too neat and over-simplified, and yes, too theoretical, whereas distance education as it is practiced is rough, often very pragmatic to the point of being totally unreflecting, very diverse, and at the same time has been very much embedded in millions of students’ personal life experiences. None of this comes through very strongly in the book.

I also have to say that much of the writing in this book is not just Canadian, not even Western Canadian, but specifically from Alberta. There is nothing wrong with that per se, and indeed, I am pleased to see Canadian writers featured so prominently, but I would prefer in an introduction to distance education a much wider range of views and experience in distance education. What about distance education in developing countries, for instance, which is totally ignored in this book?

Yet despite my initial reactions, this is still a book well worth reading by anyone interested in distance education. There are many excellent chapters, as well as some exasperating ones. For this reason, I feel I need more space to discuss individual chapters, which I will do in subsequent postings.

I guess then in summary that it’s the title I’m bothered by. I would much prefer this to have been called: ‘Some interesting and provocative ideas about the nature of distance education and its development’, which is what the book is really about. By all means read it if you are studying distance education – but make sure you have some other books on the topic, as well.

I was involved in developing a post-graduate certificate in technology-based distributed learning which later morphed into a full Master in Educational Technology at UBC. Both [...]]]> I believe that we will see no real innovation, no fundamental change, in post-secondary education, at least from within, unless all instructors have basic training in teaching at a post-secondary level.

I was involved in developing a post-graduate certificate in technology-based distributed learning which later morphed into a full Master in Educational Technology at UBC. Both of these though were optional programs – you don’t need these qualifications to teach in post-secondary education. And as a result, most of the students in these programs are not tenured faculty in post-secondary education.

However, let’s suppose we had a benevolent dictatorship (some would argue we have that already in Canada) and he/she mandated that all post-secondary instructors must be qualified before they can teach in universities or colleges. What would such a program look like? Here are my thoughts on this.

Any training program is a balance between the minimum that a learner needs to know to operate effectively and the time available for training. A full one year master’s program will obviously cover much more ground than an eight week part-time program. Initial training does not have to be perfect and satisfy all requirements, because I see professional development as a continuous process throughout one’s career. I will concentrate here on what I consider the minimum that an instructor needs to know to teach effectively in post-secondary education (assuming that they already have a good knowledge base in the subject area):

• epistemology: understanding different kinds of knowledge, for instance the difference between objectivism (often reflected in the teaching of science and engineering) and the social construction of knowledge; a discussion of the nature of networked knowledge. Recognizing that there are differences in beliefs in how knowledge is validated and an understanding that there are different perspectives on this will provide a foundation for choosing appropriate teaching strategies in different domains of knowledge (science or arts, for instance);
• the biological basis of learning: a basic introduction to how the brain works, particularly regarding memory, cognition, and emotions (especially motivation); this will become important in interpreting the emerging field of brain research and learning
• learning theories (linked to epistemology), such as behaviourism, cognitivism, the social construction of knowledge, and possibly connectivism
• the design of teaching: applying theory to practice: this would include needs assessments related to learner differences, an introduction to instructional design, defining learning outcomes and objectives, learner activities (especially around the social construction of knowledge) and the link between learning outcomes, knowledge representation (see below), and assessment; using open content; course evaluation methods; different types of courses (face-to-face, blended, distance); and an introduction to course and program planning
• learning technologies: this would start with an assessment of the instructor’s current IT skills and up-skilling where necessary; the relationship between technology and knowledge representation; functions and structures of learning management systems and web 2.0 tools; relationship between different technologies and theories of learning; strategies for media and technology selection
• project work: designing, delivering and evaluating a course

Each of these areas would be worth the equivalent of three credits except the project, which would be worth six credits, and together would lead to a post-graduate certificate or diploma in post-secondary teaching (21 credits in all). Thus the program would be completed in under a year of full-time study, preferably as part of a graduate program.

To obtain a master degree in post-secondary teaching, the learner would need to add three elective courses (making 30 credits) as follows:

• electives: these might include a course on research in teaching and learning; on emerging technologies; on cultural and international issues in teaching and learning; on planning and managing courses; on the application of a particular technology tool; on teaching strategies for a particular subject discipline; or other topics of choice by the learner as independent study.

All programs would be available online, or face-to-face, or in a blended mode. There would be at least one institution in every state or province licensed to offer the program, and the program would be nationally recognised and a condition of employment as an instructor in post-secondary education.

So over to you. What would you include? Do you disagree with what I have included? Could you think of a more imaginative way to provide training?

And yes, I realise that this will never happen: who needs training in teaching anyway? Can’t anyone do this?

Special Edition: Connectivism: Design and delivery of social networked learning

Edited by George Siemens (Athabasca University) and Gráinne Conole (Open University)

The special issue will have its main focus on Connectivism and [...]]]> IRRODL (the International Review of Research on Open and Distance Learning) is now requesting contributions for peer review and possible publication in an upcoming special issue.

Special Edition: Connectivism: Design and delivery of social networked learning

Edited by George Siemens (Athabasca University) and Gráinne Conole (Open University)

The special issue will have its main focus on Connectivism and social networked learning in distance and open education.

Particular emphasis will be placed on emerging technologies, learning theory frameworks for digital learning, faculty development through distributed models, innovative pedagogical approaches, research on effectiveness and applicability of connectivism in various contexts, historical roots of social networked learing, and comparison studies between major learning theories in relation to connectivism.

The editors particularly welcome papers on:

•    Actor Network Theory in relation to social networked learning
•    Activity Theory
•    Critique of Connectivism as a learning theory
•    Design methodologies for social networked learning
•    Personal learning environments and learning management systems
•    Research agenda around Connectivism
•    Distributed learning in fragmented information environments
•    Open learning and transparent teaching
•    Epistemological foundations for networked knowledge

Authors are cautioned that the International Review of Open and Distance Learning is not soliciting manuscripts dealing with technology use in traditional classrooms.

Timelines:

March 30 – Call for Papers
May 30 – Call closed
July 30 – Peer review completed, revisions requested
August 30 – final copy due
October 30 – Issue released

Authors submit their manuscripts online by registering with IRRODL then logging in and following an automated, five-step submission process.

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Terry Anderson
Editor,
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

My review of the Tapscott and Williams article prompted this response from Ms Mandi Maodzwa-Taruvinga who is teaching in the School of Education, the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Mandi is also a Ph.D student within the Wits School of Education. Here in full is her [...]]]>

Student computer lab, Soshanguve Campus, Tshwane University of Technology

My review of the Tapscott and Williams article prompted this response from Ms Mandi Maodzwa-Taruvinga who is teaching in the School of Education, the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Mandi is also a Ph.D student within the Wits School of Education. Here in full is her response:

The debate between Tapscott and William’s on the one hand and Tony Bates  on the other concerning the need for and nature of  university reform is both captivating and amusing. It speaks to multiple university realities mainly anchored in the north though strands within the debate resonate in a different tone in southern Africa where isolated pockets of Northern realities might be found.

Tapscott and Williams advance a model of university pedagogy rooted in a constructivist, interactive and collaborative approach. This is an alternative to the dominant didactic conception of teaching with its disciplinary and teacher focus. For most educators especially those within schools of education, this is not new and has been proposed as the ideal for some time now  hence Bates frustration perhaps – that a well trodden discourse is being couched in new terms as though it were absolutely novel.  Tapscott and Williams re-contextualise the relevance of this model to ICTs. They argue that the old industrial model of pedagogy with its focus on student mass production that characterise the modern university, is becoming obsolete and needs to be replaced by “new model called collaborative learning”. Bates observes  that “we have seen a major enlargement of the higher education system, but basically we have not increased the number of tenured professors or even adjunct instructors to maintain the elite system of teacher: student ratios of 1:20, except in the most expensive Ivy League institutions.”

In the “new” thrust of collaborative learning Tapscott and Williams advocates for, there is “an entirely new modus operandi for how the subject matter, course materials, texts, written and spoken word, and other media (the content of higher education) are created.” They believe embracing collaborative learning and collaborative knowledge production will ensure a chance for universities to survive and even thrive in the networked, global economy of mass higher education. Tapscott and Williams explain how “collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows for student talk: students are supposed to talk with each other . . . and it is in this talking that much of the learning occurs.”  They further observe that “with technology, it is now possible to embrace new collaboration models that change the paradigm in more fundamental ways”!

Bates retorts, justifiably that “the basic problem is that you cannot use constructivist learning approaches with classes of 100 students or more. … No matter how much you divide the students into self-managing groups, it becomes an impossible task for the instructor to manage, and the quality suffers.”  Bates’ counter argument exemplifies how educators in developing countries are familiar with the discourse – practices germane to collaborative learning and its merits. Therefore, Tapscott and William appear to be stating the obvious and seem oblivious of the fact that large lecturer: student ratio poses a challenge of implementing this model.

It is possible that the Oxford and Cambridge tutorial method if combined with the  technology of the internet has enormous potential  to make students engage in meaning making and construction of knowledge. It is an approaching to teaching and learning which affords opportunities to reflect and develop a voice on the issues raised in lectures.  Indeed, learning dialogue needs to be sustained and social sites might be useful in this regard! However, this calls for more internet connected computer laboratories on our campuses to give students access to ICTs regardless of socio-economic backgrounds.  Even within this orientation, Bates, rightly, asserts that an intense and sustained engagement with students either online or in face-to-face in discussion requires keeping the students numbers down.

Keeping student numbers down is not a morally viable option in countries that have a mandate to open up access to higher education to those previously excluded. The ethics of spending limited financial resources on ICTs in a way which takes away resources that could have been spent on teaching, ensuring wider and genuine access is open to debate.

Rather than viewing  failure to widen access and  participation as a real threat to establishing a grip on higher learning Tapscott and Williams rather argue that “ failure to utilize the internet resources is resulting in universities losing “their grip on higher learning as the Internet is, inexorably, becoming the dominant infrastructure for knowledge—both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people— and as a new generation of students requires a very different model of higher education”.   This argument appears to be premised on the availability and access to Information and Communication Technologies within universities in-spite of their caveat that the pedagogical change they envisage is not “about technology per se”.

The insinuation that the internet poses a threat to universities’ grip on higher education delineates a distinct and different reality of the developed north compared to the largely developing south! In Southern Africa, universities have their student catchment areas large population swathes without access to electricity, piped water or basic transport infrastructure. The majority of potential first generation students come from these impoverished and marginalized communities.  In these contexts, how can universities possibly lose their grip on higher learning. The Southern African reality is different and  poses different set of questions and challenges.

These challenges relate to how we can  strike a balance between providing adequate teaching and learning resources, including ICTs, while providing other forms of support to ensure wide access, participation and high completion rates?  Macgregor in an article in University World News highlights how a major study by the Human Sciences Research Council reveals how “a shocking 40% of South African students drop-out of university in their first year…  Financial difficulties among the country’s large pool of poor black students are, unsurprisingly, largely to blame. First generation students from low-income, less educated families are the most likely to drop out.”    http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20071025102245380

I am reminded of one student on our campus who does not have accommodation because she cannot afford the fees. She has to travel 90km return journey home daily. The home is a shack with no electricity. If she wants to study at night she has to use candle light. The mother has to wait at a four – way stop at awkward times of the late evening to walk her home when she alights from public transport. The condition of her home can easily cause her to drop out. This, coupled with limited state resources, and a desperate shortage of high level skills sets the stage for a different take on the discourse of university reform.

Therefore, when Tapscott and Williams argue that for universities to succeed they “need to cooperate in the launch of a Global Network for Higher Learning”, it strikes a discordant note with the reality on the ground in Africa.  The proposal is viable to the extent that it represents an emergent paradigm in societies which are seamlessly wired between institutions of higher learning and the communities they serve. They further argue that “the combination of the Internet, the new generation of learners, the demands of the global knowledge economy, and the shock of the current economic crisis is creating a perfect storm for universities, and the storm warnings are everywhere”. Surely this paints the globe with a totalising, universalizing, objectivist and homogeneous narrative. The “new generation” of learners they refer to is in fact heterogeneous  not homogeneous. The global knowledge economy has created new contradictions and sharper and more subtle forms of inequality between the wielders of global knowledge capital, located at the metropolis and those operating at the “margins”. The majority of our students come from the socially, economically and technologically excluded and dominated periphery. The challenge for our universities is how to widen university access and engage these students in meaningful learning in ways that will resist and challenge the illusion of inclusion that the internet often brings to both educators and learners.

For most African universities the twin roles of research and teaching cannot be separated as they ought to symbiotically inform each other. Large class sizes are invariably taught through a combination of lectures and tutorials.  Not all universities in the world are offering students’ lectures that can be obtained online for free, from other professors as Tapscott and Williams suggest. Certainly not in Africa! Lectures are still sensitive to the need for relevance and context? While a lot can be said about the potential of technology to enhance pedagogy, this is no grounds for trivialising traditional and conventional arrangements within  university education.  Attempts are being made to “harness the new models of learning” within the context of large classes under very challenging and less than ideal conditions.  ICTs offer new opportunities to extend the discourse – practices of collaborative learning, critical thinking and individualized learning styles but they are not a panacea to the high lecturer: student ratio in Africa. The argument by Bates in relation to developing open content  that  “the limited teaching time of top research professors” should not be used in “lecturing on a regular basis” as this is not the best use of their time is an assertion that also needs unpacking  given the limited resources and skilled manpower available in African contexts.

The realisation that “most faculty do not have the resources to develop the required courseware” brings Tapscott and Williams’ proposal down to earth in what appears like a brief eureka moment.  They suggest that courseware design software “must be co-innovated globally through new partnerships”.  This is a good starting point for a proposal for the use of ICTs in a global network of knowledge. Without this partnership, universities at the margins of network societies would continue to be purveyors of the content and knowledge produced in the north. This perpetuates the necrophilic broadcast pedagogic model that Tapscott and Williams argue against in the collaborative model.

The emergence of the idea of an “engaged university has been an indication that universities and their faculties have long realized that they “cannot continue to operate as separate ivory towers but must work toward collaborative learning and collaborative knowledge production.”  What is crucial for the survival of the university is not just “changing the model of pedagogy and the model of knowledge production” as Tapscott and Williams assert.  I would argue from a southern perspective that it is more important to be imaginative about the pedagogy we employ in the face of limited resources and large student numbers.

The challenge of how to teach large student numbers in a cost efficient and cost effective way while giving them opportunities to engage meaningfully with the learning is a daunting one in developing countries. It also points to the need to rethink pedagogy and come up with models that make maximum utilisation of time available.  In thinking about these issues a number of questions arise. Is the Oxbridge tutorial model sustainable when the student numbers continue to increase without corresponding increase of tenured staff?  Will this not lead to the twin problems of lecturer burnout and compromise of the rigour required of the “rhetorical activity of academic knowledge”, an activity “which requires movement between the concrete to the abstract and back again, and a constant questioning of what we know”? Bates (14 Feb 2010 ). This is an educational dilemma!

Striking a balance between widening access and participation, acknowledging the potentialities and possibilities of ICTs and engaging in meaningful learning, knowledge production and dissemination outside the terms of the dominance of the networked higher education society should be a priority. It would be suicidal to let the technology paradigm of the dominant north dictate to us what utopia looks like! In Africa marginalisation and underdevelopment are real and yet we ought to forge ahead with the struggle for mass higher education for the development of “human capital” which has the capacity to learn, including learning through ICTs whatever the odds!  So the raison d’être for African universities ought to be act local and think globally! In this context it is possible to define and  attain excellence!

Reference:

Macgregor  , K  SOUTH AFRICA: Student drop-out rates alarming  28 October 2007 Issue: 0003 University World News The Global Window on Higher Education http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20071025102245380

I would be very interested to see if anyone is willing to take up Mandi Maodzwa-Taruvinga’s challenge of how best to strike ‘a balance between widening access and participation, acknowledging the potentialities and possibilities of ICTs and engaging in meaningful learning, knowledge production and dissemination outside the terms of the dominance of the networked higher education society.’

What kind or organizational model and pedagogy would that require?

Are there examples already in place that address this challenge?

And many thanks to Mandi for this very provocative and thoughtful response.

Subtitled: A Practical Guide for Online Instructors and Some Funny Stories Along the Way.

I’m not normally a procrastinator, but I’ve been putting off writing a review of this book for some time. The reason of course is that I wasn’t sure [...]]]> Smith, C. (2009) Who Let This Disaster in My Classroom? Eugene OR: Resource Publications (http://wipfandstock.com)

Subtitled: A Practical Guide for Online Instructors and Some Funny Stories Along the Way.

I’m not normally a procrastinator, but I’ve been putting off writing a review of this book for some time. The reason of course is that I wasn’t sure what to say about it, or whether even to include the review on my site. Let me start first by giving some factual information about the book.

What’s in the book

The book is aimed at online instructors. The jacket claims that the book ‘provides long overdue answers to your questions as an online instructor. It provides skill, strength, and the gift of laughter…’. It has 18 short chapters (the book is 122 pages long) that cover topics such as preparing students for online learning, online netiquette, how to handle difficult students, student excuses, being clear on your instructions to students, avoiding online teaching disasters through better communication, handling communications between students in online discussions, problems with group work, and so on.

What I liked about the book

It is clearly written and uses a lot of examples from Ms Smith’s own class. It is a refreshingly honest, no-holds-barred account of lessons learned from often painful experience. Mostly, I did not disagree with the main advice and conclusions she draws from these experiences. Lastly, I am indebted to Ms Smith for revealing the reality of online teaching in the United States of America.

What upset me about the book

For someone who has spent over 40 years in distance education, the book is deeply distressing. The book clearly reveals that instructors are often inadequately trained, courses are poorly designed, and students are subjected to really bad online learning experiences.

Let’s start with the author. The author had a background in technical writing. After completing an online Masters of Arts in Adult Education at the University of Phoenix, and with no prior teaching experience, she was hired as a part-time adjunct professor by two different colleges (which unfortunately but understandably are not identified). It appears from the book that the colleges provided no or inadequate orientation for students, and even less for instructors, in online learning. So here are Ms Smith and her poor students, thrown together into a new and challenging learning environment without any training. Is it any wonder that the book is about disasters in online teaching?

What is bad about the book

There is not a single reference in this book. No, not one. Ms Smith is clearly totally unaware of the extensive literature on online teaching, educational theories and methods, or methods of course design. There is no mention of how to facilitate the construction of knowledge in online discussions and in fact she is even unhappy with students being asked to think critically (because they misunderstand what that means). Although there is an occasional reference to online courseware, there is no mention of any learning management system, although reading between the lines I suspect that the colleges were using them. We have then a totally experiential, theory-free and trial and error approach to online teaching. (For a minimal list of references on online instruction, see the end of this post).

I was also unhappy about her continual whining about the students. The book is full of bad examples and very few good examples of students studying online. Many of the examples of ‘bad’ student behaviour – such as excuses for late work – would be just as common and familiar in a face-to-face class. Many of the problems Ms Smith faced were due not just to her inexperience and lack of training but to bad course design and lack of a professional approach by the colleges to supporting online teachers and instructors. Is it any wonder then that the students often appeared ‘ratty’?

Lastly, I’m afraid I didn’t find the stories funny at all, although it is often fun and funny teaching online. It was all too sad. However, maybe I’m losing my sense of humour.

The implications

All this is not the fault of Ms Smith. She was poorly trained or prepared by the college, and indeed you have to ask – as she does – why she was hired in the first place, but then, on reflection, she was probably as well if not better qualified than many other part-time adjunct instructors in two-year colleges. She tells it as it is, and has obviously learned a lot from her experiences. But if this is happening to any large extent in colleges in the USA or elsewhere, then there are major quality issues with much of the online learning that is taking place, all of which is easily preventable by going to the literature and following best practices.

I also have to ask: where are the accreditation agencies here? Why are they not requiring institutions to follow best practice in online learning – including ensuring that the instructors are properly trained or qualified to teach online? Is a different and higher standard being applied to for-profit institutions compared with public two-year colleges (yes, of course).

It was a great pity that she did not name the colleges. Indeed, from an ethical perspective, I believe this is essential. Colleges that do not prepare their students or instructors properly for online teaching should be named and disgraced, so students can avoid them.

Why am I reviewing this book?

First, I’m grateful to Ms Smith not just for sending me the book for review, but for letting it all hang out. We need to know that these things are happening. Second, as a resource book for training online instructors and teachers, it would be invaluable, in that it should generate a lot of discussion in class, so long as it is used alongside books that discuss best practice as well.

Books that Ms Smith should have read

Salmon, G. (2000) E-Moderating London: Kogan Page

Palloff, R. and Pratt, K. (2007) Building Online Learning Communities San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley

From the editorial:

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are meant to provide useful tutoring services for assisting the student. These services include coaching, assisting, guiding, helping, and tracking the student during problem-solving situations. [...]]]> The Journal of Educational Technology & Society, Vol. 13, No. 1 has a new edition out on the topic of Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

From the editorial:

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are meant to provide useful tutoring services for assisting the student. These services include coaching, assisting, guiding, helping, and tracking the student during problem-solving situations. To offer high-quality tutoring services, an ITS must be able to establish the correct student profile, then understand and diagnose the student cognitive as well as its affective state. This special issue of Educational Technology & Society presents recent works dealing with those matters.

I was curious to see that the topic of ITS is still alive. I remember that in the 1980s, huge sums of money were spent on research into the use of artificial intelligence techniques to develop automated educational tutoring, with almost no meaningful results (at least in terms of low cost reproducible tools). The basic problem at the time was that teachers were much more effective than computers in analysing and diagnosing learning problems and solutions, which are complex and have many possible causes and effects.

One new development now that is apparently being explored, according to this journal, is educational data-mining, to help identify intelligent tutoring strategies.

However, I still see problems in this approach to computerize the processes of learning. First there is a philosophical issue about the nature of learning. If learning is constructed, it is an intuitive and ‘fuzzy’ process whereas attempts to build computer models of human learning tend to be reductionist and by definition precise. Data-mining may provide ‘background’ or historical data about learners’ previous attempts at learning, but this does not necessarily mean they will predict future attempts at learning. Also, a fundamental premise of this approach is that there are what the computer scientists call ‘low’ and ‘high’ learners, in other words, those that get incorrect answers and those that get correct answers. But learning – even in the sciences – is not really like this (although as teachers we often try to make it so.) Learning is a complex process not easily or even properly reduced to mechanical principles. Lastly, there is the profound moral issue of whether we should be trying to replace human teachers with machines. Although I am a great believer in the value of technology for teaching and learning, I tremble at the thought of automated, machine-driven learning. (One article for instance tries to develop computer correlates for the processes that underpin social networking).

The irony here of course is that while it is almost impossible to get research funding now for qualitative studies of learning construction, computer scientists have plentiful sources of funding for this kind of research – even though it may be going (once again) into a black hole.