A summary of the various initiatives taking place this fall semester in universities trialling iPads. The article looks at the strengths and weaknesses of e-books such as the Kindle and analyses how the iPad may compare. Conclusion:

The iPad can certainly address [...]]]> Foresman, C. (2010) iPad gets the university treatment this fall Wired, July 24

A summary of the various initiatives taking place this fall semester in universities trialling iPads. The article looks at the strengths and weaknesses of e-books such as the Kindle and analyses how the iPad may compare. Conclusion:

The iPad can certainly address the speed and input issues that students complained about, and offers accessibility features for vision-impaired users. However, the device may suffer from similar problems with loading documents over the air and viewing more than one text at a time. But by combining its speed with the multitasking capabilities that will come in a fall update to iOS 4, the iPad may still prove to be a workable solution. If it works as well as expected, carrying an iPad would sure beat lugging 40lbs of books and a laptop all over campus.

This article takes a broad look at the use of wikis, particularly for academic scholarship/research, compared with student applications, and asks why greater use has not been made of wikis by faculty for this purpose. One reason seems to be the relative anonymity of a wiki [...]]]> Kolowich, S. (2010) Whither wikis? Inside Higher Education, July 14

This article takes a broad look at the use of wikis, particularly for academic scholarship/research, compared with student applications, and asks why greater use has not been made of wikis by faculty for this purpose. One reason seems to be the relative anonymity of a wiki – academics don’t get individually recognized for their contributions, which says a lot about the rewards system and culture of universities. However, there also seem to be more valid issues around ‘credibility’ and ‘authority’ of open wikis (such as Wikipedia).

Within the topic of e-learning, there are at least two wikis that I think have been very successful, but both were developed by recognized ‘experts’, at least in their initial formation, although both are openly published, i.e. anyone can read, but only ‘experts’ contribute.

The first is the Re.Vica wiki on virtual campuses. This has developed an extensive wiki on virtual campuses around the world, and provides an excellent reference source on what is happening in different countries. The other is the Penn State Online Learning Global Snapshot, where several teams of people, both from within Penn State’s World Campus team, and other interested parties, built a picture of online learning in each of six continents (North and South America have different teams). The Online Learning Global Snapshot was slightly more open to contributors, as those from outside Penn State who were interested were encouraged to contribute, without any overt selection process (as far as I know). I have found both these projects extremely valuable in getting up to the minute overviews of what’s happening in different countries regarding e-learning.

In summary, in terms of getting rapid updating and knowledge of developments in a particular academic field, wikis are probably the least well exploited yet most promising of all web 2.0 tools. There are certainly ways in which issues of credibility and authority can be addressed without losing the uniqueness of the format. I see wikis as a half-way house between individual blogs and peer-reviewed academic journals. Each has their value, but each also needs their own minimum standards and practices to ensure quality and reliability.

Following the meeting, he produced a very interesting document for HEQCO entitled: A Research Framework for the Online Learning Institute aka A [...]]]> Maxim Jean-Louis, the President of Contact North, was one of the participants in the recent HEQCO meeting to discuss possible areas of research that would inform the development of a new Ontario Online Institute.

Following the meeting, he produced a very interesting document for HEQCO entitled: A Research Framework for the Online Learning Institute aka A Process to Take the Ontario Online Learning System to the Next Level. He has agreed to share a condensed version of this paper, a full copy of which can be obtained from Maxim on request. Each recommendation is linked to HEQCO’s mandate.

The Seven “Big” Applied Research Challenges

1.    Significantly improving the level of student engagement in online learning courses. (Program and Course Quality Issue)

2.    Rethinking the practice of instructional design to move away from content/skills mastery into higher level skills and competencies – moving learners to Level 5 literacy. (Program and Course Quality Issue).

3.    Partnering with RIM, Apple, Google and others to develop next generation “apps” to better enable innovation for mobile learning. (Innovation Issue)

4.    Developing the processes map for rapid course development – what does it take to develop better courses in half the time? (Systems Design Issue)

5.    No Ontario post-secondary institution has online learning at the core of its strategic intent. What would it take for an institution to shift its focus to this and see its role as securing one third of its students online by 2015 and more than half by 2020? (Systems Design Issue)

6.    What are the appropriate metrics for the accountability of online courses and programs in terms of quality, cost-effectiveness and value? (Accountability Issue)

7.    What online learning practices are best suited and are effective for Aboriginal learners at the post-secondary level? (Accessibility and Quality  Issue)

The Management of Innovation – the Other Focal Point for Research

A study of an Innovative Management process requires us to understand:

• The resilience and resistance of established systems
• The readiness of institutions, organizations and networks for change
• The barriers to change
• The re-engineering of expectations, processes and resource allocation
• The leadership and change management skills of key personnel

Measuring quality

Finally, Maxim had some very interesting things to say about measuring quality, arguing that Ontario needed to measure quality according to the fitness of purpose of an institution. Maxim’s suggestions on quality are so useful that they need a separate posting.

Conclusion

The intent is to stimulate a dialogue – a challenge to see a research agenda as part of the process of creation (hence the focus here on applied research) of the institute. Rather than being independent and to the side, Maxim argues that this agenda should be a critical piece of the jigsaw used to design and build the new institute. If evidence based decision making is to occur, he argues that it is key that the seven big questions be used to guide applied R&D investments to issues that not only matter, but where evidence could make a real difference to practice.

This article leaves me as depressed as a Netherlands soccer supporter. Elluminate follows another Canadian product (WebCT) into Blackboard’s maws, and Wimba as well.

I’ve deliberately waited a few days before commenting on this, because my immediate reaction was unprintable. At the end of the day, [...]]]> Kolowich, S. (2010) Blackboard’s big buy Inside Higher Education, July 8

This article leaves me as depressed as a Netherlands soccer supporter. Elluminate follows another Canadian product (WebCT) into Blackboard’s maws, and Wimba as well.

I’ve deliberately waited a few days before commenting on this, because my immediate reaction was unprintable. At the end of the day, I found myself asking: does this really matter?

It does if you believe competition between commercial products is important for innovation and development. This further consolidates commercial e-learning software into an increasing monopoly, with the inevitable shift in the balance of power between Blackboard and its clients, resulting in even higher prices and less adaptation to individual customer needs. It doesn’t matter though if you believe the life of commercial learning management systems are limited, or that synchronous technologies aren’t very useful. So let’s unpick these things.

First, I don’t think LMSs are going away, although they are likely to change considerably. They’re not going away because they provide a number of functions that institutions and instructors find useful, such as integration of student records between administrative and teaching functions, and a ‘lazy’ instructional design model (just load up the LMS). Although we may see a gradual move away from transmission of information to more constructivist teaching processes, there is still an argument for a web based class site that however you describe it looks very much like a learning management system.

However, I do think this move will drive even more institutions towards open source learning management systems, mainly for price reasons, but also because of their ability to adapt more to individual customer needs, and especially their ability to integrate other open source tools as they become available.

Second, what are the implications for synchronous teaching? I have to say that I can’t get worked up about synchronous online teaching, because with the technology in its current state, it tends to lead to instructor control, with most communications between instructor and students, rather than between students. However, it is useful for meetings and for delivering keynote lectures, without having to travel. My fear is that Blackboard will now attempt to do what they tried to do with Desire2Learn, and take out a generic patent for all online synchronous teaching software, but they may not be successful. I think it will be difficult for Blackboard to stop other vendors from entering the field, because synchronous conferencing tools have wider use beyond education. However, if Blackboard shuts down Elluminate and Wimba, and incorporates Adobe Connect, then we will be in trouble.

The third issue is the extent to which instructors and learners will start to design and build personal learning environments relying entirely on non-commercial or ‘free’ web 2.0 tools. Although I think this will happen gradually, it will require a level of knowledge of learning theory and new web technologies that is beyond that of many current instructors or even institutions; in other words, an end run around Blackboard won’t happen quickly without better instructor training and better institutional incentives to innovate in teaching.

On balance, then, I think these acquisitions will have an overall negative effect on the pace of innovation and change in our institutions, but it won’t stop the long-term changes that are needed. Nevertheless, it’s a sad day for e-learning, and for Canada as well as the Netherlands.

For another opinion on this, see also:

Kim, J. (2010) Initial reactions to Blackboard buying Wimba and Elluminate Blog U Inside Higher Education, July 7

An article about a really interesting project, TeachME, by faculty in the University of Central Florida’s college of education to use avatars of students, based on four main adolescent student personality types, to train pre-service teachers. The avatars are not automated, though, but [...]]]> Kolowich, S. (2010) Avatars to teach the teachers Inside Higher Education, July 7

An article about a really interesting project, TeachME, by faculty in the University of Central Florida’s college of education to use avatars of students, based on four main adolescent student personality types, to train pre-service teachers. The avatars are not automated, though, but controlled by ‘live’ interactors, who role-play as students.

The context

OK, I’m not James Stewart, and it wasn’t Washington, and this posting’s a little late, due to other things, but this is a report on my presentation to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology on June 9.

The committee was studying access to post‑secondary education, and the theme [...]]]>

The context

OK, I’m not James Stewart, and it wasn’t Washington, and this posting’s a little late, due to other things, but this is a report on my presentation to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology on June 9.

The committee was studying access to post‑secondary education, and the theme of the day was distance learning. Besides myself, Thomas Chase, Vice-President Academic, Royal Roads University, and Lori Van Rooijen, Vice‑President, Advancement, of Athabasca University were also making presentations. We each had a maximum of seven minutes to make a presentation, followed by 90 minutes of questions from the 12 senators that led to responses from the three ‘witnesses’.

When thinking about what I wanted to say, I tried to take into account the Canadian Federal government’s relatively restricted jurisdiction over post-secondary education, which is mainly a provincial responsibility, although the Federal government does play an important role in providing financial aid to students and funding research. I was also aware that my two colleagues from Royal Roads and Athabasca would cover many of the issues associated with access to distance learning.

The presentations

Thomas Chase started, and drew attention to the Royal Roads pedagogical model: a blended, cohort‑based, team‑focused approach to learning.  The majority of RRU’s graduate programs are organized around a series of intensive on‑campus residencies lasting two or three weeks and involving the full cohort in team‑based learning that is centered on problem‑solving: in a word, active and experiential learning for highly motivated and very mature students.  These residencies alternate with distance‑learning segments during which students work online with their team under the guidance of a faculty supervisor.  The emphasis is on discovery and problem‑solving rather than rote learning or memorization. He claimed that the RRU model, therefore, keeps the total cost of post‑secondary education down by reducing the personal and professional dislocation associated with traditional face‑to‑face delivery on an urban campus.

In my presentation, I focused not so much on distance education itself, but on the need for more flexible access to post-secondary education for all students, and in particular to ensure that students had flexible access throughout life. We need a public policy debate about how lifelong learning should be paid for. Should they be subsidized to the same rate as student coming out of high school or should lifelong learners who have already been through the system pay full cost? Should fees be student-related or program-related?

I also pointed out that unlike nearly every other country in the OECD, Canada does not have a national strategy to support e‑learning or the use of technology in teaching. As a result Canada has lost its lead in e-learning and is slipping behind countries such as Australia and the UK.

My main point though was that Canada needs much more innovation in post-secondary teaching and especially in how teaching is delivered, to meet the needs of a vastly different market today from the one the system was originally designed for. A major problem is the lack of incentives for change, so I suggested the following, relatively low cost actions the Federal government could take to encourage change in our post-secondary institutions:

• Create a virtual national centre for digital learning (some of its possible functions are included in the following suggestions)
• Use federal funds for innovative national program delivery: programs that could be delivered across the country in a hybrid mode, with individual institutions providing the local support but a centralized online component that will be shared across institutions.
• Establish a national depository or centre for Canadian open content
• Establish competitive national awards for innovative instructors and programs.
• Establish a national credit bank to enable free movement of students between Canadian public post-secondary educational institutions

In conclusion, I argued that there was a lack of an appropriate federal‑provincial structure to support flexible delivery of programs, particularly across provincial borders.

Lori Van Rooijen, Vice‑President, Advancement, Athabasca University stressed the importance of distance education, as offered by AU, in increasing access and flexibility, especially for working adults, and those too far removed from a local institution. As well as distance, socio-economic and cultural differences and the digital divide were also barriers to access. She noted that many student funding mechanisms apply only to full‑time students.  That automatically reduces opportunities for part‑time study.  While some funding is available, more funding programs targeted at the part‑time learner would encourage more people to pursue university or college education. She also argued for more funding in research and development that supported innovation and knowledge-based industries. Pointing out that two‑thirds of Athabasca University’s students are from outside the Province of Alberta, but Athabasca is a provincial institution, she argued that provincially-based funding and credit transfer strategies do not fit easily with the context of distance learning, which is national, not provincial, in its reach.

Discussion

Looking at the transcript of the ensuing discussions, few fundamentally new points were added, but further examples were given that highlighted or clarified some of the points already made.

What next?

I’m not sure. We were the last of several meetings devoted to the topic. The transcript will be analysed by Federal government staff, together with all the other evidence presented, then I guess the committee will write a report with some recommendations that will go to the government for consideration.

Overall, it was an interesting experience, but it was rather like throwing paper boats into a river – I’m not sure where they will end up.

The value of a blog

Lastly, I was curious how I came to be asked, as I don’t represent any particular institution or lobby group. Apparently, one of the staff analysts found me as a result of an Internet search on distance education. So, if you are interested in a free trip to Ottawa (and I suggest you get out more if that’s your goal), keep on blogging!

The Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) offers a range of applied and academic programs that span the spectrum of safety – from prevention to response and recovery. The JIBC offers Canada’s only Bachelor’s Degree in Fire and Safety Studies, which had 80 students enrolled from across Canada and other countries in 2007/08. In 2007/08, [...]]]>

The Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) offers a range of applied and academic programs that span the spectrum of safety – from prevention to response and recovery. The JIBC offers Canada’s only Bachelor’s Degree in Fire and Safety Studies, which had 80 students enrolled from across Canada and other countries in 2007/08. In 2007/08, JIBC instructors were in more than 160 communities in BC delivering basic and advanced programs to 11 BC Government ministries and 200 municipal agencies. Student numbers are over 32,000 annually, with more than 6,000 students in online programs. Although its headquarters is in New Westminster, just south-east of the City of Vancouver, 47% of JIBC students live outside Metro Vancouver and Victoria.

JIBC has a long history of online and distance learning. In particular it has a lot of experience in developing low cost digital simulations. I invited Ron Bowles, a specialist in JIBC’s School of Health Care, to describe some of the work he is doing.

Ron Bowles

Curriculum, in its traditional sense, refers to the structure and documents that describe a course – its goals, objectives, content, lessons, and evaluations. William Pinar (2004) changed the way we look at and talk about curriculum when he posed curriculum as an active process –the lived experience, the course (or path) that we run. In this sense, our learning activities, including simulations, are the paths that we, as instructors and course designers, create – the roads that lead our learners from where they are to where we want them to be.

Simulations are constructed experiences which replicate, in some fashion, selected elements of authentic or “real” worlds. Educational simulations often focus either on contextualizing or integrating previously-learned skills and knowledge. In other words, whatever “it” is – simulations help us put “it” all together and/or try “it” out in a more or less realistic way. In many applied fields, simulations are critical steps on the path to professional practice.

Online simulations use multiple forms of media to create “virtual” worlds where users (learners) “perform” actions. The range of online simulations is vast, from simple text-based case studies to avatars interacting in immersive 3D environments. Indeed, when we hear about online simulations, we tend to think of complex multimedia environments.  But online simulations need not be rich, extensive, nor expensive to be effective. Simple simulation-based online activities can dramatically enhance learners’ engagement with content and foster significant learning.

The School of Health Care at the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) develops and delivers recruit and ongoing education programs for paramedics. Paramedics in Canada must master the assessment and management of over 200 injuries and conditions. Generally, learners study these conditions in texts, then practice assessing and managing selected “calls” in classroom-based simulations before encountering “real” patients in a hospital setting. Finally, in the practicum, recruit paramedics put “it” all together in “real” ambulance calls under the direct supervision of experienced practitioners.

While this path is certainly effective, it is also somewhat narrow. Recruit paramedics perform perhaps 50 simulations in their programs, and participate as partners or patients in another 100 or so. They encounter a few dozen patients in their clinical rotation and perform somewhere between 50 and 150 ambulance calls in their practicum. The selection of simulations in the curriculum necessarily focuses on common types of calls (such as heart attacks) or uncommon calls that have high consequence of error (such as emergency child-birth). Thus, learners do not get opportunities to practice many of the 212 conditions they study. Put in the context of the pathway metaphor – simulations in our curriculum pretty much stick to the main roads (as “effective” and “efficient” curricula should, some might argue).

Online simulations provide an opportunity to both enrich the learners’ overall journey and create “side trips” to explore more fully the range of injuries and conditions paramedic recruits must master. The JIBC has developed a number of integrative simulations that focus on overall management of common injuries and conditions <click here for a sample: http://access.jibc.bc.ca/logic/programs/pcp/06_CC_250/06_CC_250e_LA_01_p9a.htm > , including, even, management of a multiple patient situation <click here to view: http://access.jibc.bc.ca/logic/MCI/MCI_Media/MCI.htm >. These simulations use a “turned-based” architecture in which learners encounter multimedia information followed by an action-based question: “what would you do next?” The scenarios have a “preferred path” with branching at critical decision points. Critical errors lead to poor outcomes (e.g. the patient deteriorates or dies).  Incorrect or suboptimal choices between these branch points trigger “wrong-answer feedback” then loop learners back to make better choices. These online simulations parallel classroom simulations, both in their emphasis on integration and contextualization and in focusing on common calls and high-risk situations.

These simulations are relatively simple and inexpensive to develop. However, their cost becomes prohibitive when implemented across the breadth of the paramedic curriculum. The Primary Care Paramedic program currently has over 20 of these simulations. While they have enriched the learners’ journey, they have merely widened the existing path. Learners are still left on their own to explore the fields and forests of their discipline.

Even simpler simulations, however, can be used to practice precursor components of a complete ambulance call. For each injury or condition, paramedics must memorize a definition, internalize a list of signs and symptoms, be able to recognize and distinguish these key features on “real” patients, and adapt the principles of managing each condition to the situations in which they encounter it in the field. Each of these steps lends itself to short online “mini-simulations” – similar to the skill stations and drills that learners use to master the psychomotor skills they employ in classroom-based “full simulations.”

The JIBC has developed a series of these short, repetitive case-based learning activities, including term/definition drills, < click here for sample drills: http://access.jibc.bc.ca/logic/programs/pcp/08_CC_252/08_CC_252e_LA_04_08.htm >. case-based application drills, and, finally, short scenarios in which the learners identify the condition and choose an appropriate set of management actions. <click here for sample drills: http://ccess.jibc.bc.ca/logic/programs/LaOGIC/PCP220/03PrimaryDrills/220Drill2Launch.htm >.

Simple, cost effective learning activities such as these enrich the learners’ journey and provide opportunities that simply aren’t available in a time-constrained classroom. These online “drills” provide footpaths and stepping stones to the areas in-between the main roads of the curriculum. While they are, on their own, relatively simple learning activities, they encourage learners to better explore, engage, and seek connections across the breadth and depth of their disciplines. Such opportunities allow us to see learning as more than a journey and consider curriculum as a potential space of exploration that includes, but is not bounded by the paths we create.

References

Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is Curriculum Theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates.

Many thanks to Ron for this. If you have any questions about this, please contact Ron directly at: rbowles@jibc.ca

I don’t normally cover k-12 (too much extra work and not my area of expertise) but I liked this web site  about St Marys City Schools (Ohio) Mobile Learning Technology.

Scott Newcomb <Scott.Newcomb@smriders.net> sent me this information.  He is a fourth grade teacher in St. Marys, Ohio, which has been involved in a Mobile [...]]]>

I don’t normally cover k-12 (too much extra work and not my area of expertise) but I liked this web site  about St Marys City Schools (Ohio) Mobile Learning Technology.

Scott Newcomb <Scott.Newcomb@smriders.net> sent me this information.  He is a fourth grade teacher in St. Marys, Ohio, which has been involved in a Mobile Learning project for the last two years, using smartphones in the classroom.  Every student in the school district from 3rd grade to 6th grade has their own mobile learning device.  They will be adding seventh grade next year.  Their goal is to have a mobile learning device in every students’ hand from 3rd grade to 12th grade!

There’s also a nice, brief video on the project at http://www.vzwbusinesstools.com/mobilelearning/

Thanks, Scott, for sending me this – great stuff and well done!

This is really a posting for Canadian readers, but we’re not too proud to take suggestions from anywhere!

I have the honour of being invited by the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Science and Technology to give my views on what should be done to increase access to post-secondary education in Canada, [...]]]>

This is really a posting for Canadian readers, but we’re not too proud to take suggestions from anywhere!

I have the honour of being invited by the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Science and Technology to give my views on what should be done to increase access to post-secondary education in Canada, on Thursday this week.

Unlike others invited to present, I represent no particular interest groups (except me). I’m therefore very open for your suggestions.

Regular readers of this site will know what my views are on this (see Six priorities for Canadian e-learning in 2010). I will be arguing that campus-based institutions need to provide more flexible delivery of their programs to accommodate changing demographics and the fact that a majority of Canadian students are now lifelong learners. This means redesign of courses to include hybrid learning. I will be pushing also for a national centre for digital learning that focuses on policy and priorities for technology-based teaching in Canada.

But these are just my ideas. I’d really like to hear from you about what you think the Federal government (which has limited powers regarding post-secondary education, mainly a provincial responsibility) should do. But I need your comments as soon as possible, as I leave for Ottawa on Wednesday.

Some people have bad hair days; I have bad research days, i.e. days when bad research dominates the news headlines (the media are as much to blame as the researchers). It started this morning with a [...]]]> Science Daily (2010) Empathy: College students don’t have as much as they used to, study finds Science Daily, May 29

Some people have bad hair days; I have bad research days, i.e. days when bad research dominates the news headlines (the media are as much to blame as the researchers). It started this morning with a CBC report from researchers at the University of Bristol that coffee does not help wake you up in the morning. Now from personal experience, I KNOW this not to be true, and sure enough, after reading the report carefully, I wouldn’t give it a Tim Horton’s timbit.

Then this report also hit the national headlines. I don’t have a problem with the actual results; students may well have less empathy with their fellow students than students did in the 1970’s. What bothers me is the interpretation that this is due to social media. There’s not one iota of evidence in the original report to link the two; it’s pure speculation on the part of the researchers, and as a Globe and Mail article put it, could it not be that these students grew up in the George W. Bush era, when ‘me’ was the predominant cultural value (but then, I’m being as guilty as the researchers – I have no evidence for this interpretation, either!).

I’m a psychologist by background and I have only one piece of advice about psychological research: don’t believe it, unless you have read the article very carefully. 99 times out of 100, the results are correlational rather than causal. In other words, it could all be down to chance and the results would be different the next time round. Even when the results are sound, the explanation or interpretation is likely to have no empirical basis.

For another really scary research project, read the next article on The impact of digitization on the study of literature. Three really bad research articles in one day.