Peter SheaSLN Senior Researcher

Associate ProfessorEducational Theory and Practice &

College of Computing and InformationUniversity at Albany

The new media ecology The nativity story in the digital age

The “media ecology” for learningis changing…

Overview Brief update on ongoing activities New activities Future directions

Survey research Fall 2010 – 3542 responses to Fall 2010 survey Fairly wide distribution of campuses Student continue to report high levels of satisfaction

and learning… Reports are (going) on SUNY Research.net

Top Respondents to Survey

Overall Satisfaction“Overall, I was very satisfied with thiscourse.”

Overall Learning“Overall, I learned a great deal in thiscourse.”

Other active researchprojects DOODLE study of online attrition (multi-campus)

Jen Boisvert, Pam Cultbertson (Ualbany) Study of the effects of “student surveillance”

Dan Knox (SUNY System/UA) Design experiment of online v blended course

Linda Ryder (HVCC) Participant motivation to contribute to OER

Lenore Horowitz (SCCC) Cultural differences in temporal aspects of OLL

Steve Klingamann (Morrisville) Chinese Language Lab

Lilia Cai-Hurteau, Shoubang Jian, Anna Zhou(UAlbany)

Additional CoI analysis Additional analysis of Fall data will look at “learning

presence” Which is also the subject of our other main strand of

research…

Content Analysis Work Continuing investigation of the concept of “Learning

Presence” in the Community of Inquiry Frameworkbased on earlier survey work…

Teachers and learners share roles but… They are clearly not identical… Building on literature in “self regulated learning”

Instructional DesignFacilitation ofDiscourseDirect Instruction

Positive AffectInteractionCohesion

Higher order thinkingResolutionIntegrationApplicationOf ideas…

What’s missing? 70% of “variance” in CP predicted by SP + TP (at

least according to online students) Distinct role of the learner seems missing What do good learners do? They “self regulate”…plan, monitor, act strategically,

reflect on learning Not a component of the CoI model…

•Forethoughtand planning•Monitoring oflearning•LearningStrategy Use

Coding Online Discussion Analyzing tasks that may or may not result in self/co-

regulation of learning Hypothesis is that students will be more likely to self-

and co-regulate learning when they are given moreresponsibility for tasks

Coding Sheet for “LearningPresence”

GoalsUnderstand: Nature Patterns ImpactOf online learner self- and co-regulation

Initial Results Finding more forethought/planning, monitoring, and

strategy use in activities that require students tocollaborate

The highest levels were found in areas wherestudents worked together to develop group projects

When students are asked to organize their learningrather than “discuss” they plan, monitor, andstrategize…

Learning Presence inPreparation Areas versusDiscussion Areas

Learning Presence So what? Does it matter? Does it correlate with outcomes? For example, course grade?

It does…Variables

Course Grades Learner PresenceTeachingPresence Social Presence

CognitivePresence

Course Grades -- .49** .246 -.138 -.037

Learner Presence.621** --

TeachingPresence .476** .528** --

Social Presence .469** .762** .771** --

CognitivePresence .488** .697** .863** .870** --

Table 1. Zero-order and Partial Correlations Among the Study VariablesNote. ** The correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed); The partial correlations are highlighted online one.

Correlation To estimate the relative contribution of each of the

four constructs from the CoI model in predictingcourse grades, we computed the partial correlationsbetween final course grades and each construct,controlling for the rest of the constructs.

Learning presence and final course grades aresignificantly correlated (r = .49, p<.001), after thevariance attributed to social presence, teachingpresence and cognitive presence is accounted for.

So…? Students who are exhibiting more

Planning Monitoring Strategy use

Are getting better grades Maybe these behaviors should be actively nurtured,

fostered, prioritized in the Teaching Presenceconstruct

Next steps Look outside discussions for LP (Reflective Journals) Also going to combine LP research with social

network analysis Try to understand how pedagogy impacts where

students are in the online conversations Using a tool called “Snapp”

Seamlessly integrates into Blackboard

An online discussion – note thatI led this one…

I started thisone…

I click on “favorites” and select“Snapp”

Hypothesis: If I lead thediscussion…I am at the centerof the interaction…

Here Iam…

Hypothesis: When studentsgenerate discussion, they are atthe center of it…

I’m over here now

Need to do a lot more We need to look at more discussion types to

understand how to make learning more “learnercentered”

Need data on grades Interview data on experience How does temporal dimension (synchronous v

asynchronous) impact position in/shape ofdiscussion?

Other stuff I am following…

Times have changed Trends that are impacting the future of education – Chronotopic Shift – 4 examples Digitization of everything

Books? What are those? Mobile Learning – can’t wait… Gesture based computing

Minority Report meets Xbox Multimedia Search – don’t think Horizon saw this

coming…

And if you don’t believeme…

Digitization of EverythingBooks? What are those?

First “bookless” library on a college campus…

Mobile Learning Mobile learning of course

who is this guy?

I’m looking forward to BB doing this. Only for real. http://www.blackboard.com/Videos/Blackboard-Mobile-

Learn-iPad-Commercial.aspxMaybe not on the bike…

Gesture based computing Horizon Report did catch this…an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-wLOfjVfVc

Multimedia Search: Qwiki Qwiki funded by Eduardo Saverin (co-founder of

Facebook) Recently doubled size of staff Moved to San Franciso

Thank you!

Brief comment on influence ofthis research agenda Work supported by SLN have reached a very wide

audience and has been cited 100s of times…