Unit 2—Section 4: A technology conundrum: application to context

We started this unit by reflecting on the rapid changes in technological choice and access. Many tools share core affordances; there are however many subtle differences that result on some preferring one VLE or another; others feeling more comfortable in visual/audio synchronous tools and others in text. We've already hinted at the possibly different conceptualisations of learning embodied in the functional structure of Blackboard, Moodle or a wiki. It is interesting that over the years of running this course unit, despite changing technologies, we have returned to two early sets of guidelines for technological choice from Rowntree (1992) and Bates (1995), and we have done similarly again this year. They cover similar ground. Bates (1995) came up with the acronym ACTIONS, standing for:

• Access—how accessible is a particular technology for learners? How flexible is it for a particular target group?
• Costs—what will it cost to mount such a course. (Not just the purchase of VLEs such as Blackboard! Despite increeasing access to open source applications, there are clearly 'human' cost issues that are often quite difficult to ascertain.)
• Teaching and learning—what kinds of learning are needed? What kinds of instructional approaches best meet these needs? What are the best technologies for supporting this teaching and learning? (Think about the types of thinking that informs your subject teaching: does a particular technology or set of technologies support these understandings or does it drive practice that you may not always feel is conducive to learning?)
• Interactivity and user friendliness—what kinds of interaction does the technology enable? How easy is it to use?
• Organisational issues—what are the organisational requirements, and the barriers to be removed before this technology can be used successfully?
• Newness—How new is the technology? Is it stable? Is it likely to still be around next year?
• Speed—How quickly can the courses be mounted? How easy is it to change the materials when mistakes are found, or it needs updating?

Rowntree (1992) asks:

1. What kinds of learning do we want learners to do? (These days we might ask: What kind of learning do learners want?)
2. Which medium (or combination of media) might best enable this?
3. Can we make these media available to learners at a time and a place that would suit them?
4. How might learners feel about using these media?
5. Do the learners have the skills to use the media?
6. Will staff support be able to work effectively with learners using these media?
7. Shall we have sufficient control over the content and teaching approach of the media?
8. What can we afford?

A few comments to prompt reflection around these questions.

What kinds of learning do we want learners to do?

This is an important issue and goes back to the origins of the use of technology in learning. It's important that we think very carefully about pedagogic fit and facilitating appropriate methodology (cf Conole et al's framework). We also want to think about how we want the learners to relate to each other and to the teachers on the course. How is all this best achieved? 

Which medium (or combination of media) might best enable this?

Not always an easy choice, but options for choice are clearly so much wider nowadays. Key issues to deciding whether the optimum medium is actually used (e.g. think about delivering video or using sound) relate to teacher willingness to create, assemble or search for appropriate resources. Searching can still be time-consuming; access to local technical support is likely to be a decisive factor in assembling or creating resourcing. The whole issue about interacting with onscreen content is another debate. What do learners do onscreen? What do they print off? How are the affordances of the online environment exploited? Is there content that is really best printed off and worked on away from the screen? Do students now download material on to a tablet? Should we deliver resources directly on tablet technologies rather than online?

 
Can we make these media available to learners at a time and a place that would suit them?

This is an important consideration. It is no good having large and grandiose plans about using technologies, if your learners are not going to be able to effectively access such materials. Is online access as reliable as we need for totally online delivery? Related to this is Bates' question about how new the technology is. We have experienced challenges delivering streaming video to end users on broadband and modems as well as on Windows and MACs. We also continue to experience bandwidth issues with trying to use a tool like Adobe Connect. Moreover, not everyone wants to sit at a computer doing their learning. Some people only have time in the early morning, or late at night when children and spouses are in bed, or only have time to study on the train to work. And don't forget access issues for some of the Web 2.0 tools we think are globally available but in fact blocked in certain countries. All these things need to be considered.

How might learners feel about using these media?

On a course like this one, it would be surprising to find a lot of resistance to technologies, but people may have their preferences which work efficiently for them and then wonder why we should bother with such strange worlds as Second Life, for example. People might be happy enough with different technologies, but might be worried about the way that the material is fed to them in a more lockstep fashion than they have been used to. Others might prefer this more controlled approach.

Do the learners have the skills to use different media?

Not everyone is an adept user of ICT, though we have to recognise this as a very different assertion to just 5 years ago! We are reaching a time when almost all undergraduate students in universities grew up digital and in may countries they are walking round with smart phones, tablets and sophisticated laptops. Still being an adept user on a day-to-day basis does not mean learners automatically find their way round an online environment that seems to require specific ways of navigating or manipulating content; or are able to easily download and use different components you may integrate into your course delivery. Learners need to 'set themselves up' for effective study and this requires conscious decision making about the type of tools, and some induction to their use so they are 'ready to study'. This may also include conventions of use within a specific course.

Will staff support be able to work effectively with learners using these media?

How courses are staffed could be varied: you providing everything; you plus technical or learning support; a team of tutors who are not the same as the course designers? Rowntree's question seems to assume that you have "staff support" for the learners that is independent of you as tutor. However, who provides the support is not so much the issue; it is more about whether learners have access to support in their interactions with digital content, suggesting this is a variable that traditional face-to-face learning contexts didn't encounter.

Shall we have sufficient control over the content and teaching approach of the media?

This is an important consideration, but is, interestingly a changing picture. Control can relate to choice of teaching material and production of teaching material. Teachers may generate their own content, if they have the skills to do so; they may exploit content provided by others, such as online textbooks or multimedia produced by publishers. Whether they have the flexibility to choose what they want to do may also depend on institutional directives.

Flexibility is a key notion here (taking us back to Collis and Moonen). Teachers often lament that generic textbooks never quite do what they want to address learners' specific needs and traditional flexibility was supported by access to a photocopier. Bates' final point reminds us that digital content can be quickly updated and changed, though published digital content may still not provide for that flexibility. This also raises interesting questions about the nature of publisher materials and many publishers are indeed looking at providing more flexible options to make their material compatible with digital, VLE-based delivery. However, we need to reflect on implications for the skills that teachers may need to possess to maintain control over digital content.

What can we afford?

Both Rowntree and Bates refer to this as a specific factor. Costing the development of online learning material is extremely difficult though institutions need to come up with some notion of this and some of the articles referred to in this topic raise the cost issue not only in terms of production but also in terms of end user costs. But its complexity is one that we at Manchester have never really been able to grapple with very clearly either! So much depends on not only 'visible' costs of producing materials, employing tutors, technologies required, but also on the models of learning that one aspires to. Where interaction is integrated to the learning approach, for example, this alone has time and cost implications that are very different to a more traditional, individual learning, correspondence model. Providing for synchronous tutorial activity for large numbers of distance learners around the world has particular costing implications (c.f, our discussions about optimum sizes of tutorial groups - online learning doesn't necessarily bring with it economies of scale. These variables are also reflected in literature that has tried to offer specific models.

The final aspect of this picture needs to being us back to the growing 'fuzziness' between distance, online, distributed, blended and our observations that digital delivery is no longer being exclusively focussed on as facilitating distance learning. It is appearing in all modes of learning and so the cost questions become even more difficult to address. Indeed even in this 2008 JISC research, Tangible Benefits of e-Learning: Does investment yield interest? the lack of upfront discussion about tangible costs (rather than benefits) suggests those questions have almost been bypassed.

Note the JISC publication is an executive summary, but it provides links to fuller report and case studies. See for example http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/case-studies/tangible/tb-background These also illustrate the range in scale of different e-learning initiatives. The JISC website in general is a really useful site for those interested in learning technologies of all types. You may want to start your explorations with JISC InfoNet.

As you have been reading this you may well have started to think about your own experiences of course design with digital technologies and hopefully many of these ideas will have resonated.

Unit 2: Task 6 – Thinking about change and disruptive technologies

I have asked you to explore the world of a MOOC as part of this course unit and this was partly because this is the latest manifestation of distance learning and partly because they are a technology that have perhaps done more than anything to get universities to think about DL, even it has failed to challenge their model of education. In preparation for the synchronous session for this unit I'd like you to reflect on your experiences so far and be ready to come and talk about them in the synchronous session and relate your thoughts to any reading you have done.

If you haven't joined in a MOOC yet, you need to get started!

For reading (and viewing) on MOOCs, their origins and different opinions, then you could:

...start with this wikipedia entry on George Siemens that also mentions Stephen Downes, considered the originators of the idea of the MOOC. There is also a website run by them that provides MOOC news. There is also a useful introductory guide from Universities UK.

The article by George Siemens makes mention of Tony Bates who worked for many years at the Open University and is mentioned above. He writes interestingly about the issues. Another ex-UK Open University academic is John Daniel where you can find a number of recent articles on his blog. The article that most people mention is the one at the bottom of the page, which came out back in 2012: Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility.

Then there is Daphne Kohler from Coursera talking on TED and you can hear Simon Nelson from FutureLearn talking about his vision for MOOCs:

Another article you might consider is by Grainne Conole available as a pdf. This explores learner experience and quality and makes use of the term 'disruptive' in the title. A term often associated with technology in education in general, but is only that has been used a lot in relationship to MOOCs and higher education.

You might want to use the Bates and Rowntree frameworks above as a framework as you read and view.

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