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.
- 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
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)
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PANEL SESSION: Engaging learners in a digital world: Identity, Devices and other matters
Ruth Wallace (CDU) - Engaging Learners in a Digital World
- 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
- co-author of the BYOT - Bring it on blog and book - Bring Your Own Technology
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:
- StarBiochem, Star***
- ilabs - pitches these as 'first hand experiences'...
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!)]
OHSGame - White Card - Mark O'Rourke (Victoria Uni)
- 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
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