Something Old. Something New:

Supporting Lecture Delivery with Digital Tools. Expanding Communities of Practice with

Social Media.

In other words:

How can we use new technologies of distribution and social support to create effective and

pedagogically useful online teaching environments?

The investigation centers on analysis of the online learning offered by Harvard University,

Penn State University and MIT

what lessons should we consider when adapting new technologies to old teaching

methodologies ?

How may these environments change the way we teach ?

The three study programmes represent three different approaches to online learning:

Lecture based[CS50: Harvard & EdX]

Community based[Learning Creative Learning: MIT & P2PU]

Practice based[Design- Artifacts in Society: Penn State &

Coursera]

Scale ?

• 74 + MOOCs from Universities• 300+ courses• 3.5m+ users• 30% Science, 30% Arts & Humanities, 25%IT

rest – Business & Mathematics

M. Mitchell Waldrop and Nature magazine

MIT: learning creative learning• Mitch Resnik Programme leader• Discursive rather than technical. • Strong use of SCRATCH and online remix community • Very small group onsite - 15 students• Strong emphasis on social activity and online remix of others work, • Xxperimental, using commons tools and mixed technologies.• Using available tools, Google+ Communities, Google Docs, YouTube, Google

Hangouts, Chat• Andragogy focused with hi level motivation, low incentive to keep engaged. • High technology barriers and mixed results from presentation• High level of disengagement. Swamped Google+ community. No credits for

online:• 11 sessions , 5– 8 hours per week• Not assessed

MIT / P2Pu• Programme trying to organise sub groups of social activity and discussion

on course work, trying to spawn micro communities of practice, mooc • Very experimental approach, participatory activity, side channel extends

chat. Presenters invited to participate in online chat.• Different approaches to online learning • Highlights issues of Goal orientation and justification and motivation,

Versus personal discovery and exploration

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrsIICQ1eg8

Learning Creative Learning - Session 5 - Open Learning

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9HM80cv160&feature=c4-feed

EdX / Harvard CS50• David J Malan programme leader• Organised, Excellent onsite resources, • Clear pedagogy and Internal organisation BEFORE open access and online, • Clear scope & interfaces, less emphasis on community, community is physically

based on campus, clear courseware through standard interface, technical proficiency.

• Standard directed delivery lecture , workshop example, project, test etc• Standard work environment provided – preconfigured linux appliance • Graded & Assignments/time based• Time orientated course materials.• Credits awarded• 11 weeks structured, 8 hours per week

Coursera/ Penn State• Karl T Ulrich Programme Leader• The content delivered via short videos created for the course• The videos are explanations of ideas, and use artifacts from many

different sources• The videos are supplemented by readings from free digital textbook• Each week includes a design challenge focused on a design problem of.

The work for the course is DOING design.• Centered on sequence of challenges that result in creation of new

artifact. • Free• Statement of accomplishment• No formal credits• 8 weeks 5-10 hrs per week

• https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/design/recoded_videos%2F1a.%20What%20is%20Design-sep2012%20%5B3e88bfde%5D%20.webm

These courses are offered by universities that should be expected to be delivering both first class content and state of the art technology.

Each programme uses different methods of dealing with key issues:

scale, temporality,

support systemssynchronous/asynchronous delivery.

In UK Higher Education we work with a lecture-oriented pedagogy:

fixed student cohort fixed academic team

fixed locationspecific duration

fixed outcomes and success criteria

Evaluating them it becomes clear that the balance in effective delivery may lie between having a clear pedagogic process to indicate

appropriate technology directions and reflecting on how technology reframes

pedagogic discourse.

These two issues are considered against the makeup and ongoing needs of UK educational

institutions.

As Andrew Delbanco raises in his recent article.

Education is an industry that has seen almost no productivity gains in the last hundred years

What lessons and practices can we gain from these examples as we proceed to design our

own online teaching environments?

MIT P2PU, Coursera and EdX work in the context of andragogy, the teaching of adults,

This allows for a broader range of academic approaches, motivations and goals.

these courses incorporate digital tools to disseminate lecture material in a time-shifted

pattern and use tools to facilitate online communities of practice.

Motivation is optional

estimates suggest that less than 10% of enrolled learners complete

What each approach shares is what we have come to understand about software

development and unfocussed applications of technology.

Pedagogic process is being challenged by the beginnings of post-industrialisation of education, the market place and the

disruptive effects of cheap communications technologies.

Investigation of Scope is paramount in using resources effectively

Effective execution costs

UX counts for almost everything

Daniel Buzzo

Senior Lecturer in Creative Technologiesdaniel.buzzo@uwe.ac.uk