Approaches to implementing and integrating Internetbased elearning

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Approaches to implementing and integrating
Internet-based e-learning

• Dr Jon Dron
• University of Brighton
• Jon.dron_at_brighton.ac.uk
• http//www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/staff/jd29/
• September 2003

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Ground rules

• Stop me if you dont understand
• Tell me if I am going too fast
• Interrupt me at any point
• This is a dialogue
• Feel free to disagree
• Tell me if you are bored
• I want to learn too!

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About me (selected highlights)

• Background philosophy degree, then singer
• 1992 MSc dissertation on hypermedia in
  education
• 1992-97 network/technical manager
• 1993 my first webserver
• 1995-97 W3Lessonware tools for creating
  web-based courseware
• 1997- lecturer in networking etc using web-based
  learning environments
• 1999-2001 funded project to create managed
  learning environment

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About me (more selected highlights)

• 1997-2001 PhD Self-organisation in network-based
  learning environments
• 2001- Course Leader for eSystems Design
  Technology FdSc
• Distance taught
• work-based
• distributed delivery
• mature students

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Context

• Faculty of Management and Information Science
• School of Computing, Mathematical and Information
  Sciences

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E-learning

• Learning facilitated through the use of
  Internet-based technologies

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General plan

• E-learning strategy of the University of Brighton
  and the perils of an MLE
• An example of integrating the Web into
  traditional teaching
• My course pedagogy, principles, practical
  concerns
• My research self-organisation of groups enabled
  through Web-based systems
• But this plan can (and maybe will) change!

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Terms

• VLE (virtual learning environment) typically
  includes content management, assessment,
  communication (real-time and asynchronous)
• MLE (managed learning environment) a VLE that
  contains features to assist tutors such as
  statistics, online marking etc and typically
  links to other information systems

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University of Brighton e-learning strategy

• Central strategy to move all courses to
  Blackboard MLE
• Integrated with other central systems
  (authentication, student records, module
  registration etc)
• Rolling development plan a portal to all
  University information systems
• Well-supported by learning technologies group
• Ongoing training workshops and tutorials
• Strong support of heads of school
• Focus groups, experience reports, seminars,
  conferences

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Blackboard benefits

• Shallow learning curve good for novice computer
  users
• Single unified interface similar pattern for
  all courses and modules
• Potential re-use and sharing of modules and
  courses
• Fairly good technical support

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Blackboard weaknesses

• Teacher-centric limited support for
  collaborative learning
• Many tools, none of them good (apart from
  management features for teachers)
• Shallow learning curve but very limiting for
  advanced users
• Very poor interoperability hard to extend
  functionality

• Encourages weak pedagogies
• Still too many using it simply for lecture notes
• Very hard to truly customise to individual needs
• Expensive
• Similar interface discourages diverse approaches
• Insufficient consideration of system effects

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My advice

• Commercial MLEs cost a fortune, provide limited
  functionality, limited flexibility and lock you
  in to their own systems so avoid Blackboard,
  WebCT, LearningSpace, Saba etc
• Consider open source, especially OKI (but maybe
  CampusSource)
• Dont build your own unless you can be assured of
  ever-lasting support
• Dont just add an MLE change everything

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Beyond Blackboard

• An example of using other technologies

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Reflective Use of Communication Technologies

• MA module
• Yearlong
• Self-referential students use communication
  technologies to reflect on using those
  communication technologies
• Very little theory mainly practice and
  reflections on it
• Strong ethos of collaboration and sharing

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Process

• Many communication technologies e.g. threaded
  forums, chat, instant messenging, video
  conferencing, shared whiteboards, MOOs, web
  publishing, groupware, Wiki-Wiki-Web etc etc
• Occasional workshops to learn to use technologies
  or to use technologies that cannot work from home
  (e.g. video-conferencing)
• Students write reflective diaries A.K.A. weblogs
  A.K.A blogs (using Nucleus)
• Assessment is via the blog (in the past also
  required web-based special study)

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Results the good news

• Happy students!
• Can often choose where and when to work
• Relevant to their lives and other learning
• Great learning community
• Students teach each other
• M-level learning with undergraduate-level
  teaching
• No plagiarism

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Results- the bad news

• Confused students not used to limited structure
• Poor fit with rest of the course timetabling
  problems, unfamiliar working patterns
• Constant struggle to motivate students to
  contribute

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Beyond Blackboard

• And back again

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eSystems Design Technology Foundation Degree

• eSystems Foundation Degree run mainly online via
  a custom-built VLE
• VLE built using Lotus Domino, ASP and PHP, in
  collaboration with staff and students highly
  specialised for the target group
• Foundation degrees are
• Work-based
• Level 2 (one year less than an honours degree)

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Why we went online

• Demographic issues
• Part-time, working students, studying Internet
  computing
• Pragmatic issues
• Coordinating 3 (now 2) colleges and the
  University of Brighton up to 80 km apart

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What we tried to do

• Central ethos build a learning community
• Learning is constructed by learners through
  dialogue with tutors and other learners
• Dialogue is mainly through asynchronous
  discussion forums
• Explicit use of Gilly Salmons 5 step model
• Static web pages provide content and structure
• Course administration and development handled
  through the same environment

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Why communication?

• Michael Moores theory of transactional distance
  it is not physical distance that matters
• Dialogue vs. Structure
• As structure increases, dialogue decreases and
  vice versa
• Also involves learner autonomy independent
  learners need less communication
• The eSystems degree was designed to explicitly
  rely on dialogue

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Dialogue and structure

• A low threshold approach to development
• Requires time and a strong ongoing commitment to
  maintaining dialogue

Structure
Development time
Dialogue
Delivery time
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Some benefits of online asynchronous communication

• Any time, any place (asynchronous, asyntopic) for
  students and tutors
• Time to reflect more thoughtful conversations
• A great equaliser (including the tutor)
• Conversations become a resource visible history
• Low threshold technology (not a time saver but
  easy to do)
• Caters for different learning styles

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What actually happened

• Dependence on structure rather than dialogue
  because
• Tutor unfamiliarity with method
• Lack of time (tutor)
• Lack of time (student)
• Student expectations (to be given information)
• Led to sporadic rather than embedded
  communication
• Vicious circle

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A strategy for change

• Salmon getting to step 5 and staying there
• Kolb underpinning work with explicit pedagogy
• Embedding dialogue

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Salmons model
Providing links outside closed conference

• Development

Supporting, responding
Facilitating process

• Knowledge construction

Conferencing
Technical
Moderating
Facilitating tasks and supporting use of learning
materials
Searching, personalising software

• Information exchange

• Online socialisation

Familiarising and providing bridges
Sending and receiving messages

• Access and motivation

Setting up system and accessing
Welcoming and encouraging
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Structuring the experienceThe Lewin/Kolb
Learning Cycle

• Reflective Observation
• Abstract Conceptualisation
• Active Experimentation
• Concrete Experience

Concrete experience
Reflective Observation
Active Experimentation
Abstract Conceptualisation
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Embedding dialogue a change in emphasis

• Learners have to start in Discussion board
• Week 1 used for dialogue only
• Tutor uses forum to initiate and monitor
  activities
• Schedule is more flexible topics over more than
  1 week
• Material is provided when needed
• Activities designed to fit learning cycle

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Building on experience

• Make sure early tasks are not too
  challenging/exposing
• State the rules of engagement, e.g. when you are
  available
• If no-one is contributing ask direct questions
• Always finish a posting with a question
• Discussions work best in groups of about 4
• Dont interrupt unless asked or you need to
  redirect

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Some other issues

• Maintaining dialogue new skills for tutors,
  timetabling problems
• Employer support necessary for success
• Learning technologists and technical support
  absolutely essential
• Now we have insufficient technical support (no
  money!) so must move to Blackboard which is a
  very poor fit to our needs.

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Transforming the environmentCoFIND

• http//www.cofind.net

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Traditional view of teaching
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A more realistic view
Libraries
Web sites
Practice and experience
Objects
TV
Places
Other teachers
Prior knowledge
Friends and family
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Learning without teachers

• Nearly 95 of adult learning occurs outside an
  institutional framework
• The average person spends around 200 hours each
  year on self-directed learning

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A self-organised view
Newsgroups
Web sites
Libraries
Self-teach materials
Practice and experience
People
TV
Places
Teachers
Prior knowledge
Friends and family
Objects
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Learning from the web

• A phenomenally rich source of learning resources
• but
• potential chaos
• a lack of direction
• a lack of support
• a lack of feedback
• problems with credibility

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We shape our dwellings and afterwards our
dwellings shape our lives (Churchill)
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CoFINDCollaborative Filter in N Dimensions

• Self-organising resource base
• Resources and metadata added by learners
• Qualities
• Metadata describing what is valuable in a
  resource
• The n dimensions of the collaborative filter

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What do you notice first?
How CoFIND does it

• This line
• This one
• This
• Or maybe this one?

Users are influenced by many things, including
size and list position
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A guided path
The screen is divided into four independent
sectors of topics

• Categorisations shaped by use

Selecting a topic increases its size whilst
simultaneously reducing the size of its
competitors
Users may add topics in any sector
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Expert help
A user selects a quality
Resources are returned in order of rating for the
selected quality

• Collaborative discovery of resources (web pages,
  people, books, ideas, places)
• Discussion mechanisms

Users may rate resources according to the
selected quality
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Stigmergy and CoFIND

• Varying font size and order of qualities, topics
  resources is influenced by and influences user
  behaviour
• Driven by stigmergy

• Sculpted by evolution
• survival of the fittest
• Manifestation of a group mind

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Concluding thoughts

• A learning environment is an ecology. change the
  rules and you change the ecology all of it
• Doing e-learning means changing the entire
  learning experience.

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More concluding thoughts

• The Web can change the way we communicate and
  hence how students learn
• Consider everything that will change as a result
  think technical, organisational, social,
  pedagogical, personal etc etc

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All video (c) Tim Brown, 2001 Used with
permission
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Some references

• My home page http//www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/staff/
  jd29/
• CoFIND research page http//www.cofind.net
• Nucleus (PHP blogging software)
  http//www.nucleus.org
• Wiki Wiki Web http//c2.com/cgi/wiki
• Kolb, DA 1984, Experiential Learning, Prentice
  Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
• Moore, MG Kearsley, G 1996, Distance Education
  A Systems View, Wadsworth, Belmont.
• Salmon, G 2000, E-moderating The Key to Teaching
  and Learning Online, Kogan Page, London.
• Mail me jon.dron_at_brighton.ac.uk