Keynote Speaker: Erik Duval (Catholic University, Leuven, Belgium)
Erik was clearly invited to provoke and stir things up. His talk had 3 foci:
1) Open Learning
2) the end of the LMS
3) Learning Analytics
Open Learning
He is a member of the
Ariadne Foundation, and
GLOBE -
a one-stop-shop for learning resource broker organizations, each of them managing and/or federating one or more learning object repositories.
His Engineering classes are completely open.
- tries to prepare his students to solve problems that don't exist yet with technology that doesn't exist yet.
Q: "what does training for an unknowable future mean? what does it look like?
The LMS
- In short they should die! They block innovation and are closed to the rest of the web. Discourage collaboration between organisations and across geographical borders.
- In Erik's classes the learning platform is the open web.
Learning Analytics:
- data that students leave behind that can be tracked to improve their learning
- can be used to track all manner of web activity: blogs, Twitter, ie including non-LMS activity.
- uses Engagor: a commercial tool that offers social media analysis, including sentiment analysis - a description of the mood of blogs, Tweets based on language used! (Engagor have free 14 day trial).
- Recommended Resource: Public Parts by Jeff Jarvis
"
A visionary and optimistic thinker examines the tension between privacy and publicness that is transforming how we form communities, create identities, do business, and live our lives."
Panel: Challenges and opportunities for digital learning
Matt Farmer (Dept of Ed and Early Childhood Development - Victoria)
"Challenges can't be solved in the old ways."
" The new challenge is disruptive change."
We need to stop presenting information about the new world operating around the world of education as a cautionary tale about some future time because it is here now. Things are already, chaotic. messy and challenging. In the New Game
- disruption is normal
- one needs to harness the wisdom and power of the crowd
- we need to explore new business models
DAY 2
Ramona
Pierson - How predictive decision support is changing the face of schooling OR
Big
Data: Powering the Change we need
- investing
in education has pronounced effect on GDP
- Africa
is world's #1 user/developer of 5G wireless
- "the
world is exploding with content"
- technology
is changing children cognitively;
re plasticity of brain
- there's
the 'transformative' word again...
- 70% of
US prison population have LL an N problems
- degrees
are a buffer against poverty (of course there are other factors at play here)
- we
continue trying to maintain a book based system..."system change is a
necessity" "we have to change our teaching practices" - become
guides; facilitators more often
- govts
and corps need people with 21st century skills
What's
next? How do we move forward?
- help
teachers become more effective mentors/guides - HOW DO YOU DO THIS???
- part
of it is customizing the delivery
- use data to show learning needs of
kids/students??? - think she's advocating Learning Analytics and/or via APIs
that track/monitor/advocate data; and algorithms - v much a tech solution to
better/more effective learning
- capture
interests by taking students to places they cannot easily go - (harder to do
the less proficient students are proficient with technology)
[what
are 21st c skills?? (again!)] See below...
PANEL SESSION: Authentic
Assessment and Learning Analytics (Duval et al)
why
does everyone want to talk about assessment all the time???? my first task is
to teach - help students learn!!!! (Duval); assessment comes later (couldn't agree more.)
Group Discussion:
- what
are the drivers for the assessment driven model? are they still appropriate?
(Gary Putland) - accountability/risk aversion/efficiency/bang for buck
- observation from group member: until 21c skills are assessed lecturers will ignore them
- q from
audience: will assessment become something based on observation, against student created criteria? (rather than externally imposed standards)
Patrick Griffin (Executive Director of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project)
More on 21st century skills here. Very expensive book available here.
PANEL SESSION: Engaging learners in a digital world: Identity, Devices and other matters
- In
indigenous north the new season is thought to have arrived when the weather
changes! Not because it's March!
- technology
represents a linear version of knowledge - not true IMO; networked learning is
quite rhizomic
DAY 3
New
Models of Content Delivery - VijayKumar (MIT) beamed in via vc link; describes
himself as an educational futurist (!)
- Opportunities
for change
- educational costs are increasing
- new
forms of knowledge and information
- increasing
numbers of non-trad students
- we are witnessing the intersection
of Technology (networks, software, data, devices, community) and Open (tools,
resources, content)
Open
resources does not mean they are of inferior quality. Some examples:
Point: MIT have a great deal quality software that adds depth to their open materials
- Network
and open > new ways of configuring the learning experience (cf Weller)
- David
Wiley's 4 Rs of open: remix, revise, reuse, redistribute
- Access,
cost and quality - this combo has been disrupted by MOOCS (John Daniels)
- NOTE:
what do we keep from the old model of education???
Q: Why is
Open Content NOT a threat to traditional education?
A: Because an industry can be built around it???? offers opportunities; not a threat if you
can figure how to change!
Carl
Ruppin (in place of Delia Browne) - Copyright Law Reform and OER; Slides
- are
existing copyright laws now irrelevant? blocking use of OER resources? yes, and they
are too complex
- content
in digital environment is promiscuous
- in
Australia the compulsory fees to Copyright Ausralia (CAL) means nothing is free in the educational world (unlike other countries); students can do 'reasonable' things for free;
teachers cannot
- "current
copyright laws are broken"; reform needed, and OER plays a part in this
- Australian law Reform Commission is currently conducting a review of copyright law
- we
need to future proof the copright act for the digital economy
Nigel
Ward (Uni of Melbourne)
- nectar.org.au
(national eresearch on collab, tools and resources)
- building
several virtual labs
- this
is about big data and big science (Astronomy), but also Humanities Network
Project - will allow new forms of research across disciplines {check HUNIdatasets}
- building
a research cloud (which is now live)
NBN Education Trials
Debra
Panizzon (Monash), and Nathan Bailey (nvsesedu.au) - Virtual Science
(the
better the connection/video - the closer you feel to the action ie more
connected, less peripheral, not just an observer)
- class
connecting kids around Australia but taught from Melbourne - mvp! - uses Webex, and
video conferencing
- they
want to produce science creators
- [occurs to me that science can benefit from
NBN more than humanities ? (except see Music below!)]
- suitable
for VET learners who are more visual than verbal
- games
are good for education because they present challenges in the 'zone of proximal
development' that are achievable; and you get immediate response
Dror
Ben-Naim (Smart Sparrow) BEST
Network - Biomedical Education Skills and Training Network
- product is an example of adaptive tech - adapts to needs of ind students
- allows
educators to create highly interactive 'multimedia' content, data rich;
uses national medical image bank
Colin
Cornish - Australian Youth Orchestra
- they run
short residential courses where people can play together ie music can be a
collaborative process
- NBN
will allow people in regional areas - esp those with large instruments! - to audition
locally rather than have to travel to capital city - mostly for teaching
purposes
- access
to master classes; could hone into rehearsal of orchestras, with conductor
comments, etc
I'm noting a substantial shift in what I have decided is aggressive marketing on LinkedIns behalf. Ignore privately? Repeatedly send me reminders that someone has friended me? Despite numerous attempts to quell this unending stream it is the faceless communication that causes me to imagine deleting the application out of my life altogether. Your experiences similar?
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