Presentation identifies 8 trends in digital media that can be applied to the learning process and formal education pedagogy.
Also identified are 5 factors that positively impact student retention.
Examples of applications that use digital technologies to bolster positive retention factors are presented.
2. 1 New technologies are
redefining how, where
and when we learn.
These new worlds are
inventive, collaborative,
participatory,
and multidisciplinary.
3. 50-89% of students
use social networks to
communicate about
their classes.
Purdue created
Mixable, a study room
and course library
within Facebook where
students connect.
4. 2 Early and constant exposure to
digital technology is resulting
in deep shifts in modes
of learning for youth.
Complex digital play fosters
divergent thinking.
5. 3 The emerging digital culture
is in many ways a return to
pre-text discourse
patterns.
6. A New Era In History:
The Gutenberg Parenthesis
We’re used to this.
Now we live here.
7. 4 The blurring of traditionally
separate domains is causing a
re-examination of
formal education
practices and information
exchange.
8. Instructors are
on the Hotseat
Are you ready
to embrace
handhelds in
the classroom?
And alter your lecture content as questions
are shown in real time?
9. 5 Businesses and global
economies are acting as
monetary drivers for
educational change.
Annual budget: $6m for K-12 ed
$5m to online / science ed in 2010
$6.4m to innovative ed in 2010
14. 8 The practice of digital
curation is increasing in
value, and libraries are at the
forefront of academic
initiatives, helping separate art
from junk on the burgeoning
web.
15. The librarians pick the best websites
…that instructors use to guide students
to the most appropriate resources
Which
appear
on
SRJC
library
web
pages…
16. How Do We Use These Trends
To Retain Students?
Without
feeling like
edutainers?
24. Use Augmented Reality to Improve
Student Preparedness
An instructor invites his
students to an open house
before class begins.
Students have a picnic
and get to know each
other.
Retention:
Academic competence
Retention:
Sense of community
25. Campus of Hope
Retention: Fosters self direction, autonomy,
social integration, multidisciplinary
collaboration, knowledge creation
Use Augmented Reality to Integrate
Students into College Life
26. Retention: Increases student success,
academic readiness
Use Augmented Learning to Improve
Concept Understanding
27. Use Digital Story Telling to Create
Persistent Connections
Retention:
Sense of
community
Sense of
autonomy
Persistent
Connections
28. A chemistry instructor creates an online
round robin, giving students an equation
to balance. Once a student posts the
correct answer, the instructor changes the
equation until all the students have solved
the problem. All students can comment on
the problem solving strategy for each.
Use Online Discussion to Foster
Collaboration, Community
Retention: Peer encouragement,
persistent connection to classmates
29. Invite a Sense of Belonging with
the Human Presence
SBCC
SRJC Libraries
8 trends in digital media that can be applied to the learning process and formal education pedagogy
5 factors that positively impact student retention
Examples of applications that use digital technologies to bolster positive retention factors
Start by taking a look at one example of a use of holographic media to illustrate a concept in a way that engages several learning styles –visual, auditory, and even kinetic. Optical storage has been around since the 1980s, when CDs were introduced. In the late 1990s we caw improvements in optical storage as the DVD was introduced. As trends in data storage continue, we see three-dimensional data storage in the form of holographic media and the implications for the education sector are profound. How long will it be before these holograms will allow educators to show a model of a skeleton, or a beating heart?
What does this trend mean for educators? This is all about the transmission of ideas, of rich content, in ways that are no different than how we used to use a chalkboard. Where, when, how, and even what we are learning is changing. Teachers need to consider how to engage learners with content by connecting to their current interests as well as their technological habits and dependencies.
Link: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/landing_page
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality
Much of the social learning context that is so familiar to students is making its way into the traditional learning environment of education. This includes adopting the very collaborative and participatory aspects of online social interactions that are contributory and shared. The interactive environment that is created in the new digital learning contexts is challenging conventional notions in education of concepts such as individual authorship and subject authority. This trend is even calling into question the roles of teacher, student, and technology.
What is digital learning? Digital learning refers to the integration of electronic technologies that are often Internet based and often portable into the learning process. The concept of digital learning is different from instructional technology - -IT is being defined as the toolkit of applications that are predetermined and even institutionalized with little user discretion.
What does this participatory interaction look like when applied to the classroom context?
(Source: Future of Thinking)
Beyond Friending: Mixing work and play on Facebook. The widespread adoption and use of social networks creates an opportunity to improve student success by establishing an environment that would help students build a support network through connecting with people and sharing content from their courses, learning communities, and friends.
Higher education has responded by creating platforms for students to build and share their own personal learning environments using the social communication tools they already use. This mobile application allows students to mix and share their social and learning environments – a blending that is in accordance with the blended nature of their lives.
This peer to peer information sharing that happens on social networking sites is being adopted and developed into teaching methodology by an increasing number of innovative educators. These instructors are adapting the informal communication models of social networks for use in the context of formal education. (Future of Thinking, 25)
FERPA: Private groups, students invited to join through the registration process. At this point students can start discussions, share files, and create study rooms. Thereis no administrative authority determining what should be posted or discussed, and students are free to abstain from participating — just like on Facebook. Professors can join in, but do not have to.
Sources for statistics: Hodges, Charles B. If You Twitter Will They Come? EduCause Quarterly Magazine. 33(2): 2010. Web.
Gail Salaway, Gail, and Judith Borreson Caruso. Students and Information Technology, 2008. Educause Center for Applied Research Study, 8. 2008. Web.
This trend toward collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches to learning begins at an early age. "Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period of the history of the earth.” (Ken Robinson – renown speaker in creativity and former professor of education in UK). A six year old learning to play Pokemon masters third grade reading vocabulary in order to play online, customizes the game with digital graphics in a fashion previously considered sophisticated, makes friends through game play, memorizes hundreds of characters, learns the technology of software programs, develops familiarity with computer components through use of mouse, downloads of software and so on. Through this game play the child learned technical skills, gained visual, digital and reading literacy, developed social skills, practiced narrative making, and had fun. What is the shift that has occurred?
Can standardized education adapt to multiple ways of presenting answers? What are the ramifications of this early and constant exposure to complex digital social play for youngsters?
1. Multidisciplinary learning worlds of this nature foster divergent thinking; multiple approaches and solutions – something that is often at odds with the standardized education environment. We are seeing an increasingly customizable world, but still have standardized education system.
2. Students are increasingly familiar the use of multiple learning modalities and have increased expectations for learning experiences beyond the more traditional venues offered by higher education. K-12 has responded with rapid and unhampered adoption of digital media in classroom.
Ramifications for college-level instructors: This world creating different expectations among incoming freshman regarding their college experience.
Quick overview of the main concepts of the Gutenberg Parenthesis. The Gutenberg Parenthesis theory proposed by Professor L. O. Sauerberg of the University of Southern Denmark that postulates that the emerging digital culture that we are witnessing is akin to a return to the patterns of thinking that were central to human societies before the advent of the printing press. The age of textuality is being defined as the years between the 15th century when the printing press was invented to the 20th century when the Internet became a central mechanism for human communication. This concept proposes that the Gutenberg Parenthesis was essentially an interruption in the broader arc of human communication. The elements of 21st century digital communication more resemble those of an earlier age of orality, with fluid conversation, interruption, gossip, and exchange that moves away from the confinement of information manifest during the 500 years of the dominance of print.
Mention the Decameron Project.
Mention changes in attribution.
In 2001 we saw the development of the Creative Commons licensing which acknowledge and support the trend toward open information sharing while offering a new way to ensure credit and attribution, based on the desires of the original creator of the work. CC in effect lowers unnecessary barriers to research, and makes research, data and materials easier use.
Open Attribute browser add on: Displays license and attribution information for Creative Commons licensed content when an image is downloaded from the web.
New modes of learning, communicating and sharing information call into question traditional concepts of education environments. The connectivity of multiple learning worlds that is occurring is blurring the boundaries of traditionally separate domains of work, leisure, and higher education. We are seeing increasing demands for strategic and flexible learning options across the learning worlds in which we function. (Mehlenbacher, 22, 192)
Sir Ken Robinson observes that the current system of education was designed and conceived during the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and the economic conditions of the industrial revolution. Education was modeled on the interests of industrialized, and to some extent, even mimics factory processing: we educate children by batches, in a day that is formulated along factory production lines that emphasize standardization and conformity, with similar bells dictating activity chunks. How to we inject back into this learning context the ability to foster divergent thinking, or the capacity for creativity? How do we foster the ability to see lots of answers? How move away from mentality that there is one answer, and it is at the back of the textbook? We see business calling for this. Source: Ken Robinson talk.
Seeing shifts from teacher-directed whole-group instruction to user-generated, participatory learning environments. Today's kids learn and interact with others every time they go online.
Example: HotSeat
Example of using what can be considered to be a “disruptive” technology to improve and update education delivery and participation.
Purdue University integrates the social networking students are already familiar with to engage students in lecture. Professor creates a topic for the class, and then students submit thoughts, ideas, via twitter, mobile phones. In large classrooms, students feel intimidated asking questions, HotSeat eliminates that feeling, particularly in large lecture settings. It is real-time, updating constantly, so professor can address questions and topics right away, even change the course of class content based on class feedback.
Hotseat, a social networking-powered mobile Web application, creates a collaborative classroom, allowing students to provide near real-time feedback during class and enabling professors to adjust the course content and improve the learning experience. Students can post messages to Hotseat using their Facebook or Twitter accounts, sending text messages, or logging in to the Hotseat Web site. Students can log onto the Hotseat system from their laptops or mobile phones and can ask questions in real time as a lecture is being given. This is especially helpful in large classrooms where students might be intimidated asking questions. Since Hotseat is displayed on a screen at the front of the classroom, the professor and students alike can see the questions as they are asked. This enables the professor to address questions immediately and tailor his or her instruction to the class.
Remember those innovative, divergent thinking, creative youth a few slides ago? Examples are all around us of calls for creativity and companies are pouring money into education to help create youth that meet this need. We see President Obama’s recent call to innovation, Toyota’s add campaign to take their technology and use it as Ideas for Good. Windows 7, It was My Idea campaign to integrate and showcase all the user-generated suggestions.
Data has become recognized as one of a company’s most important assets, and writers at The Economist observe that business intelligence is the natural successor to the services such as accountancy and computing in the first and second half of the 20th century, respectively. Businesses are seeking digitally literate employees capable of performing data analytics that serve as the basis for tailoring business strategies. (Data, Data Everywhere Economist article)
The question becomes, how do educators prepare students to take their place in the economies of the 21st century when we can't anticipate what it will look like next week? How do we make educational institutions innovative, flexible, robust and collaborative? Private sector money is moving to education to help prepare students. Money moving to innovation.
Examples of monetary incentives to redefine the learning environment beyond the confines of student-teacher-textbook-curriculum: Since 2007, the MacArthur Foundation has been running a Digital Media and Learning Competition to promote science, technology, engineering and math across the country. Winners receive funding to use games, mobile phone apps, virtual worlds and social networks to create the learning labs of the 21st century. In September 2010, Google awarded 2010 to the Khan Academy which will be used to translate all the teaching videos into the major languages of the world. Part of Google’s Project 10 to the 100th, which gives 10 million a year to companies seeking to innovate for the common good.
Yelp had 41 million visitors a month and 15 million reviews. (Dec 2010). “Life-logging” is, well, now a way of life as geo-location social networking that allows users to share their experiences based on location has exploded.
Students use the tools of digital media to become investigators and producers of knowledge. They conduct research and gather information from a bevy of sources using the Internet. They construct their assignments – collaboratively or individually – and the dioramas and posterboards of yesterday have given way to student-created videos, podcasts, websites, and other digital portfolios. The show-and-tell of assignments and presentation of findings is now done using technology as a platform for both controlled and wide dissemination of their work. These tools, including all the resources available on web and mobile technologies, add to the student toolset. (Perlman article)
M-learning: “Anytime-anywhere-anyhow learning” . Differentiate e-learning from m-learning: E-learning can be real-time or self-paced, and is considered to be “tethered” (connected to something) and presented in a formal and structured manner. In contrast, mobile learning is often self-paced, un-tethered and informal in its presentation. (Source: Basics of Mobile Learning).
Networked Reality: The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices coupled with the creativity available through digital tools has generated a blended reality: we now use tools such as cell phones to operate in contexts that are a convergence between the physical world and the digital realm. What is augmented reality? Learning experiences that augment the real world with virtual information. Example of augmented reality: Classified ads for apartments to rent have morphed into geo-located cell phones that identify all the apartments for rent in a two block radius of where you are standing in New York City.
Unlike Virtual Reality (VR) that aims at replacing the perception of the world with an artificial one, Augmented Reality (AR) has the goal of enhancing a person’s perception of the surrounding world. Being partly virtual and real, the new interface technology of AR which is able to display relevant information at the appropriate time and location, offers many potential applications; these include aiding in education, training.” Source: Asia Research News, Augmented Reality: The Future of Education Technology
How do these translate to the academic world? Use of mobile handheld devices is already old school: higher educational institution s are arming incoming college freshmen with pre-loaded 20GB iPods with information each freshman would need to know – freshman orientation information, an academic calendar, even the college fight songs. (Duke) Upperclassmen have the option of borrowing an iPod for courses that incorporate them into their lesson plans. SRJC Library tour is another example. Adding a layer of geo-location, libraries are adding QR in the book stacks to guide students through LC classification. Students scan the QR code with the camera in their phone and download information about the subject area where they are standing. Similarly, colleges are developing geo-located tours that move a person from QR code to QR code, downloading audio information at each tour stop.
The next wave blends geo-location with digital data in handheld devices: Harvard has partnered with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students with badges and points for exploring the school and surrounding places of interest. The university is tapping into a hyper-linked local concept to encourage students to connect more with friends and professors through location-based game play, as well as to inspire campus visitors to explore the grounds and uncover tips or share to-dos.
Mobile and Geo are a marriage made in heaven. “Because of their relatively low cost and accessibility in low-income communities, handheld devices can help advance digital equity, reaching and inspiring populations ‘at the edges’ – children from economically disadvantaged communities and those from developing countries.” (Source: Basics of m-Learning doc)
What see on this slide is a QR code – Quick Response code similar to a barcode, and often called a barcode on steroids. Data encoded horizontally and vertically, allowing more to be captured in a small square. When read with the proper software, these can trigger an action, like launching a website, downloading information or a file. These are becoming more common by the minute. Take a bus in Alameda county and if you find a QR code, point your smart phone toward it and activate an option to download the first few chapters of a book. The possibilities for information delivery are just beginning to appear: Look for an apartment in New York City by combining the GPS system on your phone to identify where you are, and flash a QR code in the NYT to download a list of all apartments for rent in the classifieds in a radius of where you are standing.
Rapid adoption: to the point where can make your own QR codes. You can bet that soon you will see a QR code for the library in the Oak Leaf, and see library tours that move from code to code placed strategically in the library.
17 million children don’t have access to primary education. (need to substantiate that). However, wireless phone technology is readily available in lesser developed countries where land-line telecommunications are still untenable. An opportunity exists to bring education to those otherwise denied. To educators, to: In a group of villages in rural India, the Digital Study Hall uses mobile phones to create a community among isolated schoolteachers. About three times a week, a group of 80 teachers checks in to a phone network to discuss everything from what to do with children who never speak to the challenge of young girls’ dropping out when they are married off. The students sometimes use the network, too. They recently held a singing competition, a debate and an elocution contest. All on their cellphones. (Source: Green, Elizabeth. “Dial-a-Class.” New York Times. September 16, 2010. Web.)
Content farm producers like Demand Media, which owns eHow, have made a business of churning out endless amounts of low-quality content on the cheap. Rather than fully depend on its algorithm to detect content farms, Google released a Chrome extension Monday that enables users to block unhelpful sites from their results.
The current Internet platform has reached a saturation point of 4.3 billion addresses. A new platform was being launched last summer allow the Internet to grow exponentially. All indications are that the generation of digital data and information will continue in an unrelenting and accelerated pace, causing trend predictors to see the art of digital curation as an increasingly vital practice. The phrase “digital curation” refers to actions that maintain and add value to digital information over its lifecycle, including the processes used in creating the information. Finding the intellectual value of the products of multimedia learning activities, user generated web content, digital notes and other mass digitization projects creates new challenges for digital scholarship. For decades libraries have assisted scholars in finding and using valid resources, and this role in helping students navigate the overwhelming amount of information to curate the valuable gems becomes increasingly critical.
Student retention is a highly researched and well documented area of study. ACT, which has been conducting studies on student retention for the past 30 years, observed in its 2009 study that the most effective factors 1) assisted in increasing academic skills and performance (such as reading labs, tutoring and mentoring) or 2) were aimed at specific student populations, making connections between and building community among first-generation students. This PDA presentation selects five academic and “non-academic” factors:
1. Strong academic-related skills (e.g., student preparedness and study skills)
2. Strong social integration to college life
3. Use of augmented teaching programs (e.g., tutoring and mentoring programs, campus labs for reading, writing, math, remedial development coursework)
4. Social support and involvement; persistent connections to the academic community to prevent student drift and gradual disengagement
5. Academic self-confidence (Belonging, Competence, and Autonomy)
How build these learning environments that are conducive to retention? Those elements of enhanced social, emotional and academic peer support that emerge from digital media practices shore up the learning communities that are vital to retention.
Student Preparedness: Lumina Foundation: http://www.luminafoundation.org/our_work/student_preparedness/student_preparedness.html
Strong academic preparedness and study skills: They know how to structure their thoughts in an outline, to take notes to support their claims, and to internalize, digest, and articulate the key concepts in their own words.
Engagement is a key aspect of any student’s academic success. Participation in scholastic activities such as discussing coursework outside of class and working with other students on projects have a correlation with the student’s academic performance.
From Lotkowski ACT Report (2004) : A positive retention factor is the extent to which a student feels connected to the college environment, peers, faculty, and others in college, and is involved in campus activities.
These factors helped prevent student drift and gradual disengagement and resulted in stronger academic self-confidence. It is well established that “learning communities and cohort groups offer the structure for students to integrate and engage in the educational process. Through group interaction and group support, students are given a support structure that encourages retention. (Wild & Ebbers)
Students who feel they belong have a higher degree of intrinsic motivation and academic confidence. According to students, their sense of belonging is fostered by an instructor that demonstrates warmth and openness, encourages student participation, is enthusiastic, friendly and helpful, and is organized and prepared for class. Source: Freeman, Tierra M. and Lynley Anderman and Jane M. Jensen. “Sense of Belonging in College Freshman at the Classroom and Campus Levels.” The Journal of Experimental Education. (75)3, 203. Spring 2007.
What does a sense of autonomy in the learning process look like? It could be as simple as allowing students to select their own lab partners, choose from a set of alternate assignments, or elect what role they’d like to play in a collaborative project.
Verbatim-ish
Self-determination theory resonates with community college campus data, offering researchers and practitioners a way of thinking about the role of campus rules, practices, facilities, and climates in supporting or hindering student engagement. Even more than the “right” academic preparation or freedom from adult responsibilities of work and family, self-determination theory asserts that community college students who experience a robust sense of belonging, competency, and autonomy will naturally be more engaged. Source: conclusions of study: Scheutz, P. “Developing a Theory-Driven Model of Community College Student Engagement.” Chapter 2 in New Directions for Community Colleges. Winter 2008.
Marry those retention factors with digital media applications. Next section: highlights of examples of using digital media to present ideas differently, to encompass a wider range of learning styles, to develop a “richer palate” with which to reach students. Examples show ways to foster those positive factors that influence retention. Teachers have an opportunity, as librarians have, to play a transformational role in the integration of digital tools that facilitate student-teacher communication and bring educational resources to the most likely point of use in the learning environment.
Digital media applications in the learning context present opportunities for social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions and build innovations. (Schroeder) As such, we see 1) vibrant learning communities where digital strategies play a humanizing role in online classrooms and encourage student expression and 2) customizable, individualized mentoring and tutoring and other forms of supplemental instruction.
Use augmented reality to break down fear barriers of unfamiliar academic settings, foster a sense of belonging and collegial connections. Second Life: Multi User Virtual Environment. Augmented reality’s time to adoption is considered to be just two to three years out, as is game-based learning. (Source: Educause. The Horizon 2011 Report.)
Example above from University of Texas at Austin’s New Media Center.
Other examples:
New students take walking tours of the college library using Second Life avatars to familiarize themselves with the academic institution of the library.
An entire class meets in a Second Life classroom which then goes en mass to the campus library. The instructor uses this to reduce the fear barrier that keeps students from using effectively large academic libraries.
Students at the University of Michigan, Dearborn built an entire campus to envision a sustainable college community using a grant from the Ford Foundation. Participants are able to identify and develop charitable initiatives that build awareness of social needs, mirroring the real Dearborn community. One objective was to use this technology to conceptualize challenges facing Michigan’s food banks and to develop solutions than can later be implemented in the real world through partnerships. The project was multidisciplinary
Acknowledge value of face-to-face traditional tutorial centers. Extend value to digital world: instructors have embraced digital media tools to augment the understanding of core concepts that remedial students may need exposure to or that all students may need refreshers on to provide supplemental instruction, mentoring and tutoring.
Other examples of augmented learning programs:
Students are able to sign up for individualized research consultation sessions with specialized subject librarians to help them understand the research process, conceptualize their research topic. These sessions lessen the intimidation factors that can contribute to student drift and isolation, and help create a framework for assignment completion that is often new to first-year and under-prepared student groups. (Screenshot of Duke example? http://library.duke.edu/services/forms/resconsult.html)
Librarians serve as information coaches to students through instant messaging, e-mail and face to face interactions, providing individualized, one-on-one supplemental instruction and assistance with class assignments.
3. Libraries melding virtual learning centers with individual tutoring: http://virtual.yccc.edu/content.php?pid=127905&sid=1097621
Librarians increase academic skills by offering time management interactive tools to help students grapple with a framework for assignment completion. Librarians use online concept mapping, brainstorming tools.
Fosters students are alerted when classmate stories are live and can view on their mobile devices.
Other examples of digital story telling:
1. Ohio State University libraries collaborate with other departments to create the OSU Digital Storytelling Program. Students use still and motion pictures, graphics and images, voice and music to tell a story. Assignments range from personal narratives to class projects based on a topic or theme.
Student engagement is key to retention.
A distance learning instructor embeds brief video clips that are related to learning outcomes into weekly reading assignments to promote discussion. She uses publisher textbook sites, teacher tube and other credible sources to help student discern credible and authoritative sources for information in a variety of formats. After viewing video clips, students are asked to respond to questions with a minimum of two paragraphs and respond to at least two classmates.
A philosophy instructor mounts 12 discussion boards. In the first discussion, students introduce each other. The rest of the discussion boards focus on the most controversial, most difficult and most important course concepts.
Other Examples:
A psychology professor creates personal learning spaces that promote one-on-one communication between student and instructor. These provide special attention to each student and make the instructor more accessible, especially to academically timid students.
A computer science instructor offers group chats at different days and times on IM, increasing access to the instructor and fostering student connections with each other.
Human Presence Learning Environment at Santa Barbara City College
http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2010/07/human_presence_learning_enviro/
Hersh says he has proof that his system, in particular, works toward this goal. As part of his 2009 dissertation for Argosy University, Hersh studied the satisfaction and completion rates of a sample of 145 students in his "presence"-oriented learning environment compared to a similar sample taking their courses through a "traditional" LMS. That research "demonstrate[d] that students feel more satisfied in their online courses when they feel engaged through human presence design," Hersh wrote in a summary provided to Inside Higher Ed. "Further... students who find intrinsic satisfaction in their human presence courses tend to complete them at higher rates and with higher levels of academic success."
Effect on retention:
http://www.getideas.org/getinsight-blog/learning-social-web-increasing-retention-rates-human-touc
But the real significance of the innovation is in the study's results. The group of students who learned through the Human Presence Learning Environment, showed a 10% increase in class completions over the student group who learned through the traditional "out of the box" Moodle environment. The SBCC study demonstrates that the 'human touch' does play a role in a student's successful online learning experience.
FERPA
Many questions to answer:
“Should graded or optional work be posted on public sites? May peers post feedback on other students’ work? Is it acceptable to leave any kind of evaluative comments on public sites containing student work? Should access to student work be limited to those in the course? The answers to these questions may vary by institution, but FERPA places the burden of ensuring the privacy of the education record on the institution.”
Invite Nancy and Phyllis to present for shared experience. Phyllis can introduce; Nancy can take second section on student retention strategies and correlation with student success.
