Derek’s Blog

The Ministry of Education have just released an annotated bibliography providing an overview of the literature on tertiary Learners' Participation, Retention and Success in e-learning. The bibliography includes a large selection of research literature which consisted of both published research from journals, books and the internet and ‘grey’ literature that included project reports, unpublished theses and dissertations and reports commissioned by government agencies.

This is timely and welcome addition to the evidence base for e-learning, and much of while the context is tertiary education, there are principles identified that could just as easily apply to e-learning activity in the school sector and elsewhere. 

Key findings of the annotated bibliography are (italicised thoughts my own):

• Teaching practices and pedagogies, institutional support and student characteristics and attitudes are all critical in tertiary learners’ retention and success in e-learning.  Of particular importance are appropriate teacher-student interactions.  Courses need to be designed to incorporate e-learning’s strengths.  This includes selecting appropriate technology and ensuring that e-learning is linked to assessments and authentic learning experiences.

The importance of pedagogy, support and student characteristics has long been identified in the distance education literature, and is no surprise that it emerges again here in the context of e-learning. Arguably the same applies to face-to-face contexts. The key issue is how we work to ensure practices in each area are effective and explicitly addressed in our programme planning and teaching.  It's good to see the emphasis on selecting appropriate technology, which can only be done where there is a in-depth understanding of the pedagogical principles being pursued and applied. I've run numerous workshops with this focus, and inevitably what appears to be a straight forward exercise becomes more involved as participants work to identify the affordances of various technologies and then match these to pedagogical practices (which are often not well-defined either).

• For best results, institutions need to provide ‘user-friendly’ systems, processes and appropriate pastoral and technical support.  Students also need motivation, self-direction and independence as well as having prior experience in e-learning.  Students with positive attitudes towards technology tend to do better in e-learning than learners with negative attitudes towards technology.  

This strikes at the heart of the whole concept of a 'learner-centred' approach. So many of our institutional systems and processes have been designed primarily to meet the needs of the institution, not the learner, and so conspire to alienate learners. face-to-face systems are no better, but at least in a face-to-face campus situation learners are able to 'fit the mould' more easily by asking peers or simply 'following the crowd'. When the comforts of physical proximity are taken away, the anxiety of students is increased, and so our systems for support and guidance need to be robust and designed with them in mind. Ask anyone who has completed their degree by distance recently!

• E-learning provides additional flexibility to traditional delivery by allowing students to study at a time, place and pace of their choosing.  E-learning can also reduce isolation by better connecting learners to their peers, teachers and institutions – especially for learners studying part-time or through distance education.

Increasingly we're seeing the light dawn on teachers and institutions that e-learning is not a binary option – that a blended approach is really what we need to seek to achieve so that learners can participate in their learning across a the whole continuum of experience, from completely at a distance (and online) to face-to-face. The e-learning categories introduced by the TEC in NZ a decade ago were a step in the right direction in acknowledging this. In the compulsory sector schools are increasingly looking to use LMSs as a means of making learning materials available to students outside of scheduled classroom time, and to provide ongoing support and feedback by using the forums and other features. The other key point in this conclusion is that the online environment is not only about connecting students with the organisation, but also with other students. The explosion of participation in social networking sites provides the best evidence of how effective the online environment can be for engaging students with one another – our task as educators is to find how we can harness that for good in an education context.

• E-learning can provide greater access to a wider range of resources and experts than is available through traditional delivery.  The fact that all students can equally access these experts and resources is of benefit to non-mainstream learner groups e.g. disabled students.  

This conclusion is a bit of a no-brainer really. We've seen this sort of thing happening regularly in school classrooms across the country for some years. The main obstacle is breaking down the mental models of some teaches who see themselves as being the font of all knowledge, and responsible for the 'quality control' of everything their students are exposed to. 

• The evidence supporting younger learners being more successful than their older peers in e-learning is inconclusive.  While some studies support the assertion that younger learners are more effective in e-learning, others do not.

Interesting to see this conclusion here – I'm sure there will be some sort of research that evidences the fact that under-grad students draw a lot of their enthusiasm and energy from being 'on-campus' and part of the physcially-proximate network – linked to understandings about maturity and hormones perhaps – but where the focus is actually on 'learning something' my observation is that age is no barrier. Again, in the schooling sector, learners right down to primary school are demonstrating their competence in using the online environment to access and participate in authentic learning experiences. Perhaps there's also an age-ist slant here that assumes older learners (like myself) may be less likely to participate in e-learning approaches. Again, I'm not so sure the argument hangs on age so much as motivation for learning.

The bibliography is available from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/learners-participation,-retention-and-success-in-e-learning-an-annotated-bibliography. The bibliography will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field as a valuable point of reference!

This will also be of interest to all those attending the upcoming Distance Education Association of NZ (DEANZ) conference in Wellington, 11-13 April. Still time to register!

A significant part of my job involves designing, developing, delivering or helping plan for approaches to professional development. There's no doubt in my mind that effective professional development is the critical difference between high performing schools and those that aren't.

Sadly, there are still examples of professional development I see occurring in schools that suffer from the following:

• PD isn't linked integrally to the school's strategic plan
• PD focuses almost exclusively on addressing individual needs, rather than school (and student) needs
• There's no requirement for participation or accountability for outcomes, and staff are free to 'opt-out'

A recent paper from the McKinsey foundation reinforces the view that we need to break the habit of ineffective professional development for teachers. They studied a range of school systems at the national, state, and local levels, as well as other leading educational institutions and public- and private-sector organizations, highlighting five promising ideas that were identified from the studies:

1. Base the PD program on a vision of effective teaching;
2. Segment teachers and deliver PD strategically;
3. Make coaching the centerpiece of PD;
4. Move from “push” to “pull,” so that teachers get what they want, when they want it; and
5. Only offer PD with demonstrated impact.

A key issue for me in reading the report is the realisation that while these ideas may appear 'obvious', they don't represent what may be regarded as 'traditional' approaches to PD in schools. This is what McKinsey refers to as 'breaking the habit'. The fact is that, through custom and practice, many of our approaches to PD are developed through habit, rather than intentional decisions to achieve better outcomes. The good news is that habits can be broken, and the McKinsey report provides some useful strategies for what we can do to replace them. 

I blogged recently about the elephant in the room, drawing attention to the impact on learning across a school system where teachers are given the option of 'opting out' of strategically determined actions and plans. This, along with ineffective approaches to PD cannot be tolerated. Aside from the fact that it's a waste of time and valuable resources to invest in less than adequate PD, it has a lasting and devastating impact on what could otherwise be a high performing school system, resulting in high(er) achievement for all of the students whithin it. Let's learn from the research of McKinsey and others, and ensure our teachers and learners get the best.

A big thank  you to the National LIbrary for publishing this guide providing information, activities and ideas to confidently create a remix from material you know you have the rights to reuse.

The guide shows students why copyright and licensing exist, how they work, and how they can apply licences to their own work through simple information, suggestions for activities, and links to more resources. By using it, you and your students will be able to participate in the global remix community while demonstrating creativity and integrity.

These are all important skills and understandings for students to learn about – and this guide provides useful information for teachers with strategies and ideas for how to do this. 

The Free to Mix guide was written to support the Mix and Mash competition in 2011, and it has now been updated with new content specific to the 2012 competition, focusing on categories teachers are most likely to be interested in – digital storytelling, photo remix and infographics.

I had the pleasure of attending the seminar hosted by TorqueIP in Wellington recently where Sam Gliksman shared his thoughts about building an effective school BYOD plan.

The event was extremely well attended, as were similar events in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch, which illustrates the amount of interest there is in this topic. Gliksman spent some time establishing the context for considering BYOD (perhaps could have glossed over this bit more quickly as most of the crowd would have heard this already) before moving on to make a case for the educational benefits of using mobile technologies in classrooms, including those owned by the students themselves. He covered off issues like control, filtering, security, wireless access and the digital divide, providing useful illustrations of what can/might be done in a school context.

Overall I found it a useful event – particularly for the amount of conversation it stimulated among those present. A disappointment was probably that while Glikman made an excellent case for mobile devices in the classroom, I felt he missed an opportunity to explore more explicitly the pedagogical advantages of student-owned (BYOD) devices over class sets that are owned by the school (apart from the economic argument which was referred to).

Thanks to TorqueIP for putting these seminars on through the country.

I presented the model shown in the slideshow above to a group of teachers representing most of the secondary schools in Christchurch yesterday. The event was held by the GCSN, focusing on our strategic planning for the year as we look at the possibilities of working together in a fibre-enabled network, with video conferencing facilities now available in each of their schools. 

The concept of how we make pedagogically driven decisions about technology investment is a question I encounter regularly in the work I do – and I shared this framework in a blog post last year after it had been developed in conjunction with schools I've worked with. That post provides an explanation of the framework which I won't repeat here. 

The slides towards the end of the show above have lines connecting the various parts of the diagram, which, working from the top, reflect how you can use the framework to represent, in a simple way, how you can arrive at a technology investment decision based on a pedagogical need. 

For example, the need to enable students to access information as a part of an inquiry programme when and where they need to links LEARN with UBIQUITY, which in turn links to MOBILE DEVICES as distinct from desktops as this allows access to the information at their desks or wherever the inquiry is being carried out – which in turn requires WIRELESS connectivity to ensure these devices can connect to the WWW without requiring wires etc. 

And so similar 'stories' can be mapped onto the framework – it's value is in providing a map for articulating such stories in order to clarify and justify technology investment decisions. 

it's always useful at the start of a school year to come across resources that might be useful in the school programme. This one from National Geographic Education came to me through TES Online, and is intended to support Geography Awareness week (which I wasn't aware existed). 

The parent guide provides an excellent overview of the sorts of activities and challenges you can set kids to do – it would make a superb resource for teachers also to incorporate some of these activities into a classroom programme. 

The resource is designed to invite individuals or teams of students, families, or friends to explore their own communities anew through geographic eyes by undertaking a series of “missions.” These missions emphasize geographic skills such as photography, storytelling, mapping, and taking action. Complete missions and earn points toward badges in each of the skills, demonstrating that you are able to see your community and the rest of the world with deeper understanding.

NB: You need to create a TES account to access the resource, but it's straight forward and extremely worthwhile doing so.

Sometimes it's just reassuring to listen to the wisdom of people like Noam Chomsky. If you've got a spare 20 minutes settle down with a coffee and watch this video in which he discusses (notes in italics my own):

1. The purpose of education: contrasting two different perspectives, (a) the 'enlightment' (where the highest goal in life is to inquire, create, quest for understanding etc.) and (b) "indoctrination" (where from childhood people need to be placed in a framework where they'll comply with instructions etc. – ref The Crisis of Democracy)
2. Impact of technology: while the technological change we are currently experiencing is significant, the impact of the technologies of the early 1900s is greater in terms of the transofrmational shifts in society. Technology is basically 'neutral' (like a hammer) and can be used for good or bad – we need to have sound frameworks that underpin our use of the internet, for example, when searching for information. 
3. Whether education should be perceived as a cost or an investment: Do we want to have a society of free, creative, thinking individuals, or people who can increase GDP?
4. The value of standardised assessment: reflecting on the shifts in educational thinking from passing on knowledge or passing the test. Learning that engages and excites us is of a lot more value than passing tests. It's not what we 'cover' (in order to pass the test) but what we 'uncover'.  

Presented at the Learning Without Frontiers Conference - Jan 25th 2012- London (LWF 12)  

Two decades ago when I was involved in working with pre-service an in-service teachers, introducing ICTs into their work in teaching, we talked a lot about learning with, through and about the technology. 

• Learning with – involved the use of tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, 
• Learning through – involved the use of email, audio graphics, video conferencing (yes, we used it then too!)
• Learning about – involved computer studies, early programming with Seymour Papert's Logo, Basic, and some early networking classes.

I've been watching with interest the speculation about what is happening in England, with the announcement by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State (Minister) for Education, proclaiming that the current ICT curriculum in England's schools is a "mess" and must be radically revamped. From September it will be replaced by a flexible curriculum in computer science and programming, designed with the help of universities and industry.

Now there are a lot of differences between how things have been approached in England re the use of ICT in schools compared with what we've done in New Zealand – for instance, we haven't (yet) succumbed to having an 'instrumentalist' checklist of ICT skills that need to be addressed by schools – but we do have similar pressures being brought to bear regarding the impact of all the expendititure on ICT PD that we've had, and the (apparent) failure of our current school systemt to produce the numbers of students entering computer studies programmes at tertiary level as we'd like to see. 

As I read through the articles from the BBC and the Guardian etc, I see lots of the familiar arguments – schools have the ICTs, but lack of teacher capability limits the way they are used etc. According to one report, out of 28,000 teachers who qualified (in the UK) in 2010, just three had a computer-related degree – wouldn't surprise me that the numbers are similar here in NZ. The claim by Gove and his mates is that pupils need to understand computers – not just how to use them. 

I'd certainly not disagree with that – however, I do react to the fact that this often (as appears to be happening in the UK) polarises people and we see a sort of "either-or" scenario developing – where we should be thinking of "this..and". yes, we need to be supporting and developing more programmers and preparing young people for careers in this area (most of which don't exist yet) – but we also need to keep up our efforts in ensuring that ICTs are used routinely to collect, collaborate, create and share information and ideas as a part of the learning process (a view supported by the writer of this blog).

I guess that as long as individual teachers and schools (and many within the Ministry of Education) continue to see ICT as something 'optional' or 'additive', and to be left to the discretion of each school etc., we're never going to act with any passion or conviction about the importance it will (and is?) play in the lives of our students as they grow to become fully productive adults in society. For an interesting perspective on that take a look at this article by Thomas Friedman (of Flat Earth fame) titled So much fun. So irrelevant.

We need to somehow keep this all in perspective – and the concept of 'with', 'through' and 'about' has lasted the test of time in my view. We need to ensure we're addressing all aspects in our programmes – using ICTs in all ways imaginable to enable learning, and providing opportunities for students to learn about the technologies they use, to become empowered through understanding how they work to then contribute to their further development.

The biennial conference of the Distance Education Association of New Zealand is being held in April this year at Te Papa in Wellington. As a member of the DEANZ exec and organising committee, it's excting to see the lineup of conference speakers and delegates. While not usually a 'big' conference, this is an opportunity for those with an interest in sharing experiences and pursuing understandings of open, flexible and distance education to do so in a more intimate environment. 

Featured speakers at this year's conference include:

• Professor Paul Bacsich – Canterbury fellow visiting the University of Canterbury e-Learning Lab in 2012
• Professor Kwok-Wing Lai – Professor of Education, University of Otago
• Dr Diana Oblinger - President and CEO of EDUCAUSE
• Dr Caroline Seelig – Chief Executive, Open Polytechnic of New Zealand
• Ken Kay – CEO EdLeader21 (joining by video conference

This is a great line-up, and along with the myriad of workshops and paper presentations, will make this a very stimulating conference as we've enjoyed in previuous years

Registrations are still open – and with the growth of interest in open, flexible and distance learning in all areas of the educaiton sector in New Zealand, this will provide an excellent opportunity to engage with others in the field, to go beyond the fascination in the tools and technology, and delve deeply into the issues around the changes we're seeing in our education system as these practices are adopted more widely. 

I'm also the convenor for the DEANZ award which will be presented at the conference. Applications are still open for the 2012 DEANZ award, which is open to individuals or groups in New Zealand, or New Zealand citizens living overseas, who have completed a project that meets the criteria of the Award. Awards are given for projects that;

• Advance understanding of best practice in e-learning, distance, open and flexible learning in New Zealand.
• Are original or innovative in concept or application.
• Are relevant to and whose outcomes are useful to the e-learning, distance, open and flexible-learning community.

Applications for the DEANZ Award 2012 should be linked to the conference theme. Interpretations of the theme will be broad, but should include reference to one or more of…

• Resilience
• Relevance
• Reform

For further details download the guidelines and application form - you've still got a fortnight before applications close

A highlight for me at Learning@School conference was the opening address by the newly appointed Minister of Education, Hekia Parata.