conole score
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TRANSCRIPT
Theory and methodologyGráinne Conole
SCORE presentation, 27th January 2011
Impact
Technology
Changes
Drivers
Organisationalstructures
Roles and skills Learning & teaching
Funding Initiatives New technologies
Research
Theory Practice
Policy
Linking research to theory, practice and policy
Research
Practice
Info
rms
Resources
Improves
LearningEnhances
Networks
Builds
Strategy
Gui
des
Policy
Shapes
TheoryDevelops
Development
Consolidates
Contextual factors• Funding and policy drivers• Cultural dimensions• Subject-specific aspects• Current hot topics–Accessibility and social inclusion–Widening participation– Lifelong learning–Open Educational Resources– Learning Design–Personalised Learning Environments–Use of new social and participatory media–New business models–Plagiarism, digital rights, IPR–Digital scholarship
Underpinning technologies• New and emerging technologies–mobile and ubiquitous– intelligent agents– social and participatory media
• Understanding the media–multiple forms of representation– different characteristics of media
• A distributed electronic environment– standards and interoperability– infrastructure and architectures
• Access to information– structuring and distributing information– integrating different portals, gateways and resources– exploiting the different communication mechanisms
Pedagogical aspects• Student and staff experiences• Best methods of
– representing information– designing and accessing resources and learning activities– encouraging communication and collaboration– integrating with other learning and teaching methods
• Development issues– new forms of literacy needed (Jenkins et al., 2006)– mechanisms for skills updating and development
• Understanding the affordances of technologies• Exploring the potential for new forms of pedagogy
Organisational issues
• Developing models for–mapping institutional structures– supporting institutional processes– sharing knowledge– distributing information– supporting change– engaging different stakeholders
• Awareness of external factors• Understanding changing roles and identities• Linking strategy and practice
Common characteristics
• Change• Political dimension• Interdisciplinary• Access and inclusion• Convergence and interoperability• Interactivity
Reality check on OER research
• Vision: free resources for education• Significant investments (UNESCO, Hewlett, JISC)• Focus to date mainly on developing repositories• Now many high quality resources available• BUT: Not much evidence of uptake and little reuse• Evaluation given us deeper understanding of
barriers and challenges
Olnet and OPAL projects
Discipline issues
• Variety of feeder disciplines– education research, cognitive psychology, instructional design,
computer science, business and management, philosophy, semiotics, critical discourse analysis
• Benefits –wealth of methods and approaches– different perspectives
• Drawbacks– no shared language and understanding– lack of cohesion to the area
Research questions
• Most effective ways to develop OER?• Intellectual property issues?• Barriers and enablers to development and use?• Models of production, QA etc?• Sustainable business models?• Accessibility, inclusion and cultural issues?• Pedagogical models?• How to evaluate?
Conole and McAndrew, 2010
Theoretical frameworks
• Drawing on broader theoretical frameworks from Social Sciences
• Socio-cultural perspective dominate• Activity Theory, Actor Network Theory,
Communities of Practice, Systems Thinking, Distributed Cognition
• New learning theories: constructivist, situative and connectivism
Key names
• In the field: Laurillard, Salmon, Mayes, Oliver, Reeves, Luckin, Duval, Goodyear, Cantoni, De Laat, Hawthornthwaite, McConnell, Anderson, Wiley, Siemens, Downes
• More broadly: Vygotsky, Engestrom, Laurillard, Collins, Patton, Lave, Wenger, Rogoff, Boden, Gardener, Wertsch, Cole, Schon, Becher and Trowler, Salomon, Suchman, Kay, Dowling and Brown, Strathern, Daniels, Latour, Nardi, Salomon
Methodological approaches
• Ethnography and virtual ethnography• Case studies• Action research• Evaluation• Design-Based Research
Methods
• Surveys• Interview• Learning analytics• Focus groups• Content analysis• Audio and video logs• Diaries
Choice of research methods
• Tension between – Focus on evaluation or research– Quantitative vs. qualitative approaches
• Choice of methodologies – Has an impact on outcomes– Tends to be based on previous experience, favoured methods
• Approaches– Exploring individual case studies– Developing generic models– Undertaking systematic reviews– Applying specific theoretical perspectives– Active involvement and action research – Accounting for context - Activity theory, Actor Network Theory
Discussion - additional questions
• What additional OER research questions are there?
• What other theoretical perspectives are OER researchers drawing on?
• What other methodologies are OER researchers using?
• What other methods are OER researchers using?
Themes
• The good and the bad of ICT• Speed of change• New collaborations and discourses• User focussed• Changing practice• Wider impact
Theme I• The good and the bad of ICT– Institutional vs. loosely coupled systems– The affordances of technologies– Appropriateness, fit for purpose– Ownership vs. open source– Simplifying the complex– Balance of content and activity
Theme II• Speed of change, the Web in 2011– Explosion of Web 2.0 (and 3.0 and…)– Immense amounts of information – New tools and resources – The Web for nomads– Predicting the unpredictable– Researching where the light is – A world beyond the Web
Conole and Alevizou, 2000
Theme III• Supporting new collaborations and discourses– New distributed Communities of Practice – Self-sustaining Communities of Practice– Interacting with the media – Tailored and contextualised – Making sense of it all - new forms of digital literacy
and the power of narrative
Theme IV• Harnessing needs, understanding end users– Adaptive and personalised – Ethnographic approach to users – The (semantic) web of meaning – Supporting the whole learning cycle– The perpetual beta– Developing for the unknowable
Theme V• Changing practice– Reflective research/practitioner– Changing roles – Passive to interactive technologies– The need for new organisational structures and
processes– How do you motivate people to do this? – New methodologies for design and evaluation
Theme VI
• Wider impact– New models for society – Blurring of boundaries – Distributed cognition – ‘Compelling’ experiences– A changing world– Technology is here and will continue to have an
impact
Changing context of research
• Changing nature of academic discourse• Increasing influence of the blogosphere• Wikis for collaborative co-construction• The power of social and participatory media– Twitter– facebook– LinkedIn– Sykpe– Audio and video conferencing
Implications for research
• Reaching a larger audience, higher profile• Harnessing Web 2.0 technologies• Tension between open & traditional publishing• If it’s not online people won’t read it• What are the new indicators of esteem? • New forms of distributed collaboration• Making raw data openly available
Open practices
• Collective intelligence• The wisdom of the crowds• Peer critiquing and dialogue• Collective aggregation• User generated content• Distributed cognition• Multiple postings & communication channels• Community formation• Digital personas• Digital scholarship• The network effect
Expansive knowledge domain
Death of expertise/everyone an expert
Hierarchy & control less meaningful
Multiple pathways/lost in cyberspace
Increasingly complex digital landscape
Beyond ‘digital space’/New metaphors
Content distributed, everything is miscellaneous
Multiple (co-)locations/loss of content integrity
Collective intelligence
Social collective/digital individualism
Free content & tools, open APIs and mash ups
Issues re: ownership, value, business models
Paradoxes created by the digital
Conole, 2009, Keynote, ASCILITE conference
References• Conole, G. and McAndrew, P. (2010), A new approach to supporting the design
and use of OER: Harnessing the power of web 2.0, M. Edner and M. Schiefner (eds), Looking toward the future of technology enhanced education: ubiquitous learning and the digital nature.
• Conole, G. (2010), Theory and methodology in networked learning, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2881
• Conole, G. (2010), Review of pedagogical models and frameworks, report for the HEFCE e-learning task force, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2982
• Conole, G. , Scanlon, E., Mundin, P. and Farrow, R. (2010), Technology enhanced learning as a site for interdisciplinary research, report for the TLRP TEL programme, April 2010.
• Conole, G. (in progress), Designing for learning in an open world, draft chapters available http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2155
• Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (2010), Review of Web 2.0 tools and practices, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf
Blog: www.e4innovation.com