Presentation in IFI research seminar 23.Nov 2011

1. Affordances of Virtual
Learning Environments
and Their Impact to
Teaching Presence
Mart Laanpere, martl@tlu.ee
Head of the Centre for Educational Technology
Institute of Informatics, Tallinn University
Presentation at research seminar of the Institute of Informatics, 22.11.2011

2. Evolution of VLE
• 1960: educational software
• Content integrated with software, replacing teachers, linear
• 1990: computer-supported collaborative learning
• Content is not important, learning is about communication and
collaboration, teacher as facilitator/moderator, scaffolding
• 1995: virtual classroom
• 3D-imitation of traditional classroom, blackboard, lecturing
• 2000: learning management systems
• WebCT: a set of existing publication/communication tools
• 2005: personal learning environments
• Blog-based PLE as alternative to closed, institutional LMS
• Privacy issues, poor tracking and analytics, few activity types
• 2010: EduFeedr, LePress, Dippler, learning ecosystem

3. Pedagogy-driven design of VLE
• Questioning pedagogical neutrality imperative for VLE: ICALT
2004 paper “The Second Thoughts on Pedagogical Neutrality”
• Pedagogy-driven design principles:
• Structure: based on pedagogical / instructional design model
• Vocabulary: metaphors instead of pedagogic terms
• Workflows: pedagogical activity patterns
• Pedagogy-driven design of IVA LMS:
• Structure: Jonassens’s 3C model
• Vocabulary: webtop, bookshelf, workshops…
• Workflows: 6 Thinking Hats, Progressive Inquiry, Peer review
• How to measure impact of the design? ICWL 2009 paper
“Evaluating pedagogy-driven design of IVA LMS with activity
pattern analysis”

4. Affordances
• My principles of pedagogy-driven design are actually hints for
affordances
• Initial concept of affordance (Gibson 1979): direct perception
without cognitive modeling, holistic relationship between
environment and perceiver, not physical properties nor their
mental representation, overcoming objective-subjective
dichotomy
• Cognitive turn (Norman 1988): real vs perceived affordances
• Embodied semiotics (O‘Neill 2008): pure experience > tight
coupling > Embodied schemas > Internalisation > Semiosis >
Expression > Mediation > Molar content
• Magnani & Bardone: affordances, cognitive niches and
chance-seeking

5. Affordances of VLE
• Golden rule of design “Don’t Make Me Think” does not always
apply for VLEs – Learning Environment should invite or even
force you to think (metacognition)
• Focusing on the structure should be based on instructional
design models and only on teacher’s side, as we do not want
to trade off self-regulation on the student side
• Vocabulary/metaphors should be replaceable by users, but
this is already implemented in Moodle – not interesting
• It leaves us workflows or learning flows, learning paths,
learning patterns, learning trajectories as the main lever for
designing pedagogy-driven affordances of VLE
• Current study: comparing IVA with Moodle and BlackBoard
using ontology of learning activities

6. Categories:
- Effective expression
- Open communication
- Group cohesion
Categories:
- Triggering event
- Exploration
- Integration
- Resolution
Categories:
- Design
- Facilitation
- Direct instruction

7. Impact on teaching presence
• Indicators:
• Design & organisation: setting curriculum and methods
• Facilitating discourse: sharing personal meaning
• Direct instruction: focusing discussion
• Mainstream approach: exploratory, qualitative, coding
• Rourke & Anderson: quantitative content analysis
• Built-in learning-related semantics: learning outcomes,
domain ontology, tagging, assignments
• Assignment types: reflection (unstructured/structured),
product (file upload), peer review, scaffolded discussion (6
Hats, Design Thinking, Progressive Inquiry), self-test

8. Discussion