This document provides a state of the art review on training teachers in blended learning and eLearning. It begins with an overview of e-learning, including examples of best practices for online teacher collaboration. It then reviews the field of learning design research, approaches to sharing good practice, and representations and tools to support the design process. A significant portion of the document focuses on the Open University's Learning Design Initiative (OULDI), including the development of tools like CompendiumLD and Cloudworks to visualize and share learning designs. It concludes by acknowledging other related initiatives at the OU and potential next steps building on OULDI's work.
1. State of the Art report on training teachers, blended learning
& eLearning
Gráinne Conole, The Open University, UK
4/2/10
Status: Draft for discussion
Executive summary..................................................................................3
An overview of e-learning: promises and challenges.....................................5
Introduction – the emergence of e-learning........................................................5
Examples of best practice for teacher online collaboration ..................................7
How you motivated and encouraged teachers to participate................................11
How to promote a culture of sharing and collaboration amongst teachers............15
A review of Learning Design research ......................................................19
The emergence of Learning Design as a research field.......................................19
Approaches to sharing and promoting good practice.........................................24
Learning objects................................................................................................24
Case studies.....................................................................................................25
Open Educational Resources............................................................................26
Support centres and professional communities.................................................27
Representations............................................................................................29
Toolkits and pedagogical planners...................................................................31
Pedagogical patterns......................................................................................35
The OU Learning Design Initiative...........................................................36
The OUDLI methodology...............................................................................38
CompendiumLD – a tool for visualising designs...............................................40
An update on CompendiumLD..........................................................................43
Cloudworks..................................................................................................50
Methodology.....................................................................................................52
Theoretical perspectives...................................................................................54
An overview of the Cloudworks site..................................................................56
Key concepts....................................................................................................57
Principles..........................................................................................................59
Some statistics and use of the site....................................................................60
Evolving theoretical framework.........................................................................62
1
2. Staff engagement and support........................................................................63
The OULDI Toolbox..........................................................................................64
Workshops .......................................................................................................65
Conclusion........................................................................................................69
Engagement with the OU university community................................................69
Related initiatives at the OU...........................................................................70
The JISC Curriculum Design Project.................................................................71
Course Business Models project.......................................................................72
OLnet................................................................................................................74
A Framework for Preparing Teachers to Teach with ICT...................................76
Perls in the Clouds............................................................................................78
OPAL (Open Educational Quality Initiative).......................................................80
Other collaborations and international work......................................................81
Building on OULDI in 2010 and beyond at the OU............................................83
Conclusion.............................................................................................83
Acknowledgements.................................................................................83
References.............................................................................................84
Appendix A: The Learning Activity Taxonomy..........................................89
2
3. Executive summary
The purpose of this ‘state of the art’ review is to provide a foundation for the
work being undertaken as part of the ‘framework for preparing teachers to
teach with ICT’ (the EUPT3 project). The review will help contextualise the
work being undertaken in the project and ground it in the broader research
literature and other initiatives of relevance in the field. The review in particular
will provide a summary of the work undertaken to date as part of the OU
Learning Design (http://ouldi.open.ac.uk). It is anticipated that the tools and
resource OULDI has produced which form a core foundation for the EUPT3
project.
The review begins by describing the emergence of e-learning as a distinct
field of enquiry and in particular the theoretical and methodological
approaches which help define the field. It describes some of the ways in
which technologies are being used to support learning, providing a critique of
the positive affordances of modern technologies. It articulates some of the
challenges with effective uptake and use of technologies in education and
summarises some of the strategies used to address these issues.
It then focuses on learning design as a new field of inquiry that has developed
in recent years as a potential means of addressing these issues and in
particular bridging gap between the rhetoric around the potential impact of
technology and its actual use in teacher practice. It describes four main
approaches that have been used to promoting sharing of good practice:
learning objects, case studies, Open Educational Resources (OER) and
support centres/professional communities. It then describes some of the work
that has been done to explore the different ways in which designs can be
represented and in particular the use of visualisation. Toolkits and
pedagogical planners designed to provide support and guidance to the design
process are then described. Finally related, but highly relevant research on
pedagogical patterns is mentioned.
The final section focuses on the OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI) and
3
4. particular the work on the development of a visualisation tool for design
(CompendiumLD), a social networking site for sharing learning and teaching
ideas and designs (Cloudworks), approaches to fostering staff engagement
and support and finally related initiatives at the OU.
4
5. An overview of e-learning: promises and challenges
Before focussing on the substantive area of learning design and more
specifically the work of the Open University Learning Design Initiative, this
section provides an overview of the wider context within which this work sits.
Introduction – the emergence of e-learning
Research into the use of technology in an educational context and indeed for
the full spectrum of learning from formal to informal/non-formal contexts has
become increasingly important since the birth of the Internet and the general
increase of the impact of technology on all aspects of our lives. This is a fast
moving area, with new sub-themes of research emerging constantly as new
technologies arise and their implications/potentials are considered.
Terminology therefore is problematic because it is also constantly changing
as researchers try to use terms that give an indication of their particular
perspectives and areas of interests. Terms over the years have included
educational technology, computer-assisted learning, learning technology, e-
learning, networked learning and technology-enhanced learning. For the
purpose of this review the term e-learning will be used, as we believe this has
the broadest scope and most closely fits with the areas of interest in the
EUPT3 project. Conole and Oliver (2007) define e-learning as:
The term most commonly used to represent the broader domain of
development and research activities on the application of technologies to
education.
E-learning is now a well established and vibrant research area. A review of
this scope cannot possibly hope to cover the full spectrum of research
activities; instead the intention here is to focus on highlighting key research
reports/books, journals and conference.
A number of edited collections provide a useful synthesis of current thinking of
the filed; Conole and Oliver provide an overview of contemporary
perspectives in e-learning (G. Conole & Oliver 2007). Authors in the edited
collection take a particular stance on different aspects of the field
5
6. (pedagogical, technical and organisational), these positions are then critiqued
by other experts in the field. A complementary edited collection by Andrews
and Haythornwthwaite covers a broad spectrum of issues from both policy
and practice perspectives, as well as associated theoretical and
methodological issues (Andrews & Haythornthwaite 2007). Conole provides
an updated positional paper on these issues as an initial trigger for a recent
debate as part of the Networked Learning conference ‘hotseat’ series (G.
Conole 2010). The positional paper is available from
http://www.slideshare.net/grainne/theory-and-methodology-in-networked-
learning, the rich debate within the networked learning hotseat forum is
available at
http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/index.php/forum/forum?id=8.
In addition a parallel debate is going on in the cloudworks site.
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1954, In particular the positional
paper traces the origins of the underpinnings for the e-learning field, drawing
in particular on perspectives from Oliver et al. (Oliver et al. 2007) who argue
that there are a range of different epistemological positions adopted by
researchers in the field and that these have profound implications for how the
field will be researched. They argue that this is often explained in terms of the
‘paradigm debate’, and framed as a contrast between qualitative and
quantitative methods; although go on to qualify that this is a rather crude
distinction; i.e. qualitative data can be interpreted in a positivist way and
quantitative data can be used to yield understandings beyond the specific
numerical data. They argue that
‘We need to consider how different philosophical positions would interpret
the kinds of data generated by particular empirical methods.
‘Methodology’ describes this relationship, and must be understood
separately from ‘methods’, which are the techniques used to collect and
analyse data (This will include things like interviews, questionnaires,
observation etc.) Methodology determines whether the implementation of
particular methods is successful or credible. Indeed, according to Agger,
“methodologies can’t solve intellectual problems but are simply ways of
6
7. making arguments for what we already know or suspect to be true”
(Agger, 2004, p. 77).
To do this, methodology codifies beliefs about the world, reflecting ‘out
there’ or ‘in here’ positions.
The view that knowledge is hard, objective and tangible will demand of researchers an observer
role, together with an allegiance to methods of natural science; to see knowledge as personal,
subjective and unique, however, imposes on researchers an involvement with their subjects and a
rejection of the ways of the natural scientist. To subscribe to the former is to be positivist; to the
latter, anti-positivist.
(Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000: 6)
Such commitments and interests arise from historical, cultural and
political influences, which collectively shape traditions of research that
provide the context for current work (e.g. Conole, 2003). These have
profound implications for the topics that people study and the kinds of
conclusions they are willing to draw. (Oliver et al. 2007, p.9).
The positional paper goes on to describe the breadth of ‘birth’ disciplines that
e-learning researchers originate from and how this then translates into a rich
set of epistemological positions, methodologies and theoretical perspectives.
Common approaches that have been used extensively in e-learning include:
socio-cultural perspectives such as Activity Theory, Actor Network Theory,
Cybernetics and Systems Thinking and Wenger’s notion of Communities of
Practice. However as the field is beginning to mature, researchers are starting
to caste a wider network in terms of theoretical perspectives to provide new
insights and understandings into complex emergent patterns of behaviour
with new technologies.
Examples of best practice for teacher online collaboration
The section on ‘Promoting and sharing good practice’ describes the different
strategies that have been used o encourage greater innovation in pedagogy
and more use of technologies. Strategies have ranges from relatively simple
provision of resources – such as learning objects or Open Educational
Resources through to ore specific case studies describing practice or
community-based support mechanisms and networks. This section points to
some recent specific examples of reviews of the use of technology.
7
8. In the last five years or so there has been an explosion of text-booked aimed
at practitioners that provide advice and guidance on using technology, along
with more theoretical grounded research texts. It would be impossible to
provide a comprehensive overview of this work, so a select to illustrate the
breadth will be provided.
As outlined earlier terminology associated with ‘e-learning’ is in a constant
state of flux. Different terminologies give an insight into the particular
perspectives being focused on. For example in terms of collaborative online
learning research around the sub-fields ‘networked learning’ and ‘computer
supported collaborative learning’ (CSCL) are particular relevant. Steeples and
Jones provide an edited collection articulating networked learning research
and describing some of the main fields of inquiry (Steeples & C. Jones 2002).
Koshman et al. do much the same for CSCL (Koschmann 1996)(Koschmann
et al. 2002) and McConnell outlines research on Computer Supported
Cooperative Learning (McConnell 2000). Jones et al. provide a useful
summary of the development of this field and in particular the distinction
between cooperative and collaborative learning (Chris Jones et al. 2007).
Within these sub-fields extensive research has occurred since the early
nineties on studying online learning environments, with a particular focus on
asynchronous discussion forums. There is a general underlying constructivist
and collaborative learning perspective associated with much of this work. The
work has yielded insights into some of the barriers to successful online
collaboration, as well as some of the strategies that have emerged. Salmon’s
five-stage e-moderating framework is one of the most popular (Salmon 2000).
It provides a simple to understand 5-stage framework for facilitating online
collaboration. There have also been a range of books which take a more
theoretical perspective – providing an overview of key research in the field.
Laurillard’s ‘rethinking university teaching’ acted as a bit of a watershed text
as it was published around the time of the birth of the Internet (Laurillard
2002). Of particular note is Laurillard’s conversation framework, which
provides an elegant description of the interactions that occur between teacher
and student. This has been extensively quoted and used as a basis for
8
9. framing teaching interventions and guidance, see for example this interactive,
visual representation of the framework
http://www2.smumn.edu/deptpages/~instructtech/lol/laurillard/).
More specifically in terms of e-learning the edited collection ‘Contemporary
perspectives in e-learning research’ provides an overview of the field from a
UK perspective. The book spans the different sub-domains of research in the
field – divided into research focusing on pedagogical, technical and
organisational issues (G. Conole & Oliver 2007). Andrews and
Haythornthwaite provide a complementary text which provides a broader
international perspective (Andrews & Haythornthwaite 2007). There are now a
bewildering array of texts which provide more of a practitioner focus around e-
learning (or the related term ‘blended learning). Because of the explosion of
the filed, more specialised texts with a particular technology focus are also
beginning to emerge – see for example Stefani et al.’ book on e-portfolios
(Stefani et al. 2007), Weller’s overview of Virtual Learning Environments
(Weller 2007) and Richardson’s book on some of the new web 2.0 tools (such
as blogs and wikis) (Richardson 2008). Add to this reviews of the field and
individual research papers results in a rich, but bewildering collection of
information. Fortunately a number of professional bodies and specialised
support services have emerged which act as filters and indicators of quality –
some of these are discussed later.
With the emergence of more socially orientated and participatory
technologies, often referred to as ‘web 2.0’ tools, new directions of inquiry
have begun to flourish. Downes gives an early critique of the potential of
these technologies for learning (Downes 2005) and Alexander provides one of
the first textbooks exploring the use of these for teaching and learning(B.
Alexander 2006). More recently two comprehensive reviews have been
undertaken by the Institute of Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS)
surveying examples of the use of web 2.0 tools in education. Redeccker looks
at learning 2.0 in formal educational contexts (Redecker 2008), whilst Ala-
Mutka considers the use of these tools in non-formal and informal learning
contexts (Ala-Mutka 2009). The reviews include a database of over 200 case
9
10. study examples from across Europe. De Freitas and Conole consider the
implications of these new technologies from the learner perspective and
consider the ways in which the affordances of these new technologies can (or
might) map to good pedagogical principles (collaborative, dialogic learning,
inquiry-based learning, etc.) (De Freitas & G. Conole 2010). They give some
specific examples (drawing on Redeccker and Ala-Mutka’s reviews as well as
more broadly of how specific case studies give illustrative examples of how
these technologies are beginning to be taken up.
Table 1: Table reproduced from De Freitas and Conole
Theme Case study Brief description of case Potential impact upon
area study education
Scaffolded
VEOU (Willis et Virtual CPD and scaffolded Potential to change the ways in
al., 2004) support for publication which professional CPD is
delivered, offering more tailored,
personalised and just-in-time
training
Open
E-Bank – towards Access to open learning Democratisation of education in
truly "Open materials designed to terms of content production and
research”, (Cole support tutors and learners delivery. Wider access to
et al., 2006) alike materials for casual learners and
MITOpenCourse to support informal learning as a
Ware ‘taster’ for formal learning
qualifications
Cumulative
CCK09 An experimental course in What is the role of traditional
(Siemens, 2009) - which both the content and educational institutions in a
Education for expertise was free world in which content and
free! expertise is increasingly free?
Social
Cloudworks Social networking for an Social networking applied to
(Conole and educational context education has the potential to
Culver, change the ways in which
forthcoming) teachers exchange information;
with the potential to lead to
proactive sharing and reuse of
educational resources
Authentic environments
WISE project – Authentic real-time Scope for training in new and
(SecondReiff modeling environment in realistic environments.
Aachen School of Second Life for Pedagogic models include
Architecture); Architecture and medical exploratory learning (ELM),
Stanford Medical students inquiry learning and problem-
School based learning approaches
simulations using
Olive platform
(cited in Ala-
Mutka et al.
2009)
10
11. inquiry learning
Personal Inquiry Development of inquiry- Through independent learning
Project based learning skills for approaches peer learning is
Fostering (Kerawalla, et al., students to enhanced their encouraged and analytical skills
2009) understanding of Science may be fostered
Enhancing life experiences
Mundo des Young people in hospitals, The potential for these tools to
estrellas (cited in interactive gaming, life support lifelong learning
Ala-Mutka et al. swapping and sharing of opportunities and enhance life
2009); JISC experience; MyPlan project experiences
MyPlan project providing tools for lifelong
(de Freitas et al., career decisions and
2009) educational choices using
visualisation of learners’
timelines
(www.lkl.ac.uk/research/m
yplan)
Broadening access
Notschool and Notschool for virtual home The impact of this includes
Schome projects schooling for disaffected outreach to children and
(cited in Ala- children and Schome excluded, talented learners.
Mutka et al. project for gifted and Using familiar media based
2009) talented kids metaphors rather than traditional
school based metaphors new
learners may be reached
New forms of
CSCL Structured pedagogical Broader application of
collaboration
pedagogical patterns to support differentpedagogical patterns and other
patterns forms of collaborative scaffolded forms of pedagogical
(Hernández et al., activities have the potential to transfer
forthcoming) good practice from research into
practice in an effective way.
Automation of such patterns can
be embedded in pedagogy tools
Co-construction of
Wlker’s Collaborative co- Blurring research and teaching:
understanding
Wikinomics construction of examples of how the web can
(cited in Ala- understanding of provide access to scholarly
Mutka et al. Economics materials and give students the
2009), The opportunity to observe and
Decameron Web emulate scholars at work
((http://www.bro
wn.edu/Departme
nts/Italian_Studie
s/dweb/dweb.sht
ml)
Aggregating and
Wikipedia Co-construction of New tools provided for learners
sharing content
knowledge through at all stages, and interaction
collaboration and iterative between learners and publication
development of shared knowledge
How you motivated and encouraged teachers to participate
The previous section has provided a broader overview of some of the ways in
11
12. which technologies is being appropriated in education. It paints a picture of an
exciting, evolving rich technologically mediated environment to support
learning. Indeed I have previously argued that the affordances of these new
technologies seem to map surprisingly well to what is considers in modern
educational research to be ‘good pedagogy (See Table 2).
Table 2: Comparison of technology characteristics and pedagogy
Trends in the use of technologies Pedagogical drive
New Web 2.0 practices From individual to social
Location aware technologies Contextualised and situated
Adaptation & customisation Personalised learning
Virtual and immersive 3D worlds Experiential learning
Google it! Inquiry learning
User generated content Open Educational Resources
Badges, World of Warcraft Peer Learning
Blogging, peer critique Reflection
Cloud computing Distributed Cognition
Despite this take up of new technologies has not been widespread, beyond
basic technologies (Word, Email, Powerpoint, simple use of the Web,
Interactive Whiteboards) harnessing the full richness of technologies remains
the domain of enthusiasts and early adopters. The reasons for this lack of
uptake are complex and multi-faceted, more often to do with cultural,
organisational and pedagogical issues than the technologies per se. A
number of more detailed critiques explore these issues in more detail
(Hedberg 2006) (Zemsky & Massy 2004) (Davis et al. 2007) (Ramage 2001)
(Russell 2001) (G. Conole 2007)(M. Brown et al. 2007), only a summary of
the issues is described here.
In reality making effective use of technology is complex and time consuming,
there is no magic quick-fix bullet, indeed teachers are daunted by the sheer
variety of possibilities (the volume is indeed immense as the pointers to the
research literature in this review indicate). They don’t know where to start.
They are concerned about failing. Despite the fact that technology errors are
becoming less and less common as the tools and software improve and
become more embedded in day to day practice, introducing a new innovation
in a real-teaching context requires an element of a leap of faith that it will
12
13. work, courage and assurance that support and back up will be available if
there are problems. Even if the technologies themselves work, there is no
guarantee that the intervention will be pedagogically successful. If there is
one overriding message from the research literature it is that success is more
about how the technology is used, in a particular context that is important.
Furthermore devising such an appropriate and contextually relevant
intervention means the teacher needs to research the possible options, adapt
to the context, trial and evaluation. All of this requires both the skills to
undertake these steps and the time to implement them. In short – time, skills
and support emerge as the three factors most likely to have an impact on
whether technologies are taking up or not.
The above is not intended to be unduly depressing, but is intended to cut
through the hype about technology and take a realistic stance on what is
possible. These means we need:
• To be mindful of the complexity inherent in design a learning activity –
the components involved and multiple decision paths that can be
taken.
• Be aware of the set of new skills that are needed by both teachers and
learners to make most effective use of new technologies
• Articulate and address barriers to uptake.
The complexity of the design process: A Learning Activity Taxonomy development
by Conole (Conole, G. 2008), illustrates just how complex a learning activity is
(See Appendix One). It was iteratively developed through working with a
series of teachers as they worked through a learning design process. It shows
the complex set of factors and decision points that need to be made as part of
the design process. Experienced teachers, who draw on their wealth of
expertise and knowledge and understanding of their students and the subject
domain to devise effective learning activities, do much of this at an
unconscious level. In essence they are drawing on a small sub-set of
combinations of the taxonomy, treading tried and tested pathways through the
13
14. options. Strategies for support group work, mechanisms for stimulating
brainstorming activities, scaffolds for longer-term project work. The plethora of
new technologies and how they can be used opens up the possibilities but
now also means that they have to make their design practice more explicit
and they have be grapple with understanding how these technologies can be
used.
New skills: Jenkins lists twelve skills which he argues are necessary to be
able to take part in what he refers to as today’s ‘participatory culture (Jenkins
2009). They are play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking,
distributed cognition, judgement, transmedia navigation, negotiation and
visualisation. This list clearly shows the multifaceted nature of digital
literacies. Jenkins defines participatory culture as being about involvement
and participation, about being able to create and share work and about peer
mentorship and support. He goes on to suggest that this has immense
potential educationally; providing opportunities for peer-to-peer learning,
diverse cultural expression, skills development across different contexts and a
changing attitude to the notion of intellectual property. In his view and in the
view of others like Seely Brown (J. S. Brown 2001) embracing this
participatory culture is essential. If this is true we do need to ensure teachers
have the appropriate time and support to be able to develop and use these
skills
Barriers to uptake: In a recent paper Conole considers the barriers to uptake of
technologies, drawing on the broader literature on resistance to change and
innovation (G. Conole 2010). She sites the following as commonly cited
examples for lack of adoption:
‘I haven’t got time’, ‘My research is more important’, ‘What’s in it for me?’,
‘Where is my reward?’, ‘I don’t have the skills to do this’, and ‘I don’t
believe in this, it won’t work’. Common resistance strategies include saying
yes (and doing nothing) or undermining the initiative and/or the people
involved. Depressingly classic mistakes are repeated over and over again: an
over emphasis on the technologies and not the people and processes; funding
for the technology developments but not use and support.
A better articulation and understanding of these barriers will enable us to
14
15. develop strategies to address them; to explore ways in which teachers can
have the time to experiment, to look at mechanisms to support them and
provide guidance and pointers to examples and to help them develop the new
skills needed to embrace these technologies.
How to promote a culture of sharing and collaboration amongst
teachers
Web 2.0 technologies - with their emphasis on sharing, networking and user
production, seem to have immense potential to support new forms of
discourse to support teachers. Indeed when asked what they would find most
helpful to enable them to think more creatively about their teaching, most
teachers say "give me examples, in my subject area" and "point me to
relevant people I can discuss these issues with". However uptake and use of
web 2.0 sites such as blogs, social networking and wikis by teachers for
sharing and discussing practice has being marginal so far. The Cloudworks
site (see later) is one example of a means of providing a shared collective
space for teachers, harnessing the web 2.0 affordances of new technologies.
This section provides a more generic overview of some of the broader themes
around sharing.
Teachers now have a multitude of ways in which they can communicate and
collaborate through different technologies. Alongside the established
communication channels of the telephone, email, forums and texting, the
emergence of web 2.0 technologies in recent years has added blogging (and
microblogging), wikis, social networking sites and virtual worlds but also free
internet-based Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and in particular popular
tools such as Skype which enable virtually free, internet-based
communication. Similarly information can now be distributed in multiple
locations, and packaged and presented using a range of different multimedia
and visual representations. Sophisticated repositories now exist for everything
from shopping categories to repositories of good practice and free resources.
RSS feeds and email alerts enable users to filter and personalise the
information they receive. Social bookmarking and tagging means that
collective value can be added to digital objects, concept and mind mapping,
15
16. tag clouds and data-derived maps are only some of the ways in which
information can be presented in rich and multifaceted ways.
Within this context we are seeing a number of trends:
• A shift from the web as a content repository and information
mechanism to a web that enables more social mediation and user
generation of content.
• New practices of sharing (see for example: images: flckr; video:
YouTube and presentation: slideshare), and mechanisms for content
production, communication and collaboration (through blogs, wikis and
micro-blogging services such as Twitter). There are also social
networking sites for connecting people and supporting different
communities of practice (such as Facebook, Elgg and Ning).
• A network effect is emerging as a result of the quantity of information
available on the web, the multiplicity of connectivity and the scale of
user participation. New possibilities for sharing and 'network effects'
that are emergent from this new scale.
Specifically in terms of new practices and ways of teacher interacting, I would
like to highlight the following:
• Peer critiquing – the ability to openingly comment on other people’s
work. This has become standard practice within the blogosphere for
instance and is being used in general society (for example many
journalists are now active bloggers, traditional book writing is being
supplemented by writers’ blog inviting potential readers to comment on
the evolving plot), by academics (through self-reflective blogs on digital
scholarship and research ideas) and in a teaching context (with
students keeping their own reflective blogs or contributing to a
collective cohort blog). Peer critiquing and self reflecting via blogs and
e-porfolios is particularly useful for training teachers, as a space to
reflect on and make sense of their practice and as a means of making
explicit connections between educational theory and actual practice.
16
17. Making these opening available (or available to a more limited peer
set) means that others can comment on, provide advice and support,
as well as correlate these reflections with their own experiences.
1. User generated content – there are now many different tools (many free)
for creating content (ranging from those which are primarily text-based,
through to rich multi-media and interactive tools), meaning that the
web is no longer a passive media for consumption but an active,
participatory, production media. Sites such as YouTube, Flickr and
Slideshare facilitate simple sharing of user-generated content and
embedded code functionality means this content can be
simultaneously distributed via a range of communication channels.
This has significant implications in a teacher context; not only are
teachers now able to create their own content, but so potentially are
learners.
2. Collective aggregation - hierarchy and controlled structures make little
sense in an environment that consists of a constantly expanding body
of content that can be connected in a multitude of ways. Collective
aggregation refers both to the ways in which individuals can collate
and order content to suit their individual needs and personal
preferences, as well as the ways individual content can be enriched
collectively (via tagging, multiple distribution, etc.). Social
bookmarking, tag clouds and associated visualisation tools, tagging,
RSS feeds and embedding code all enable collective aggregation to
occur. This provides another means of harnessing understanding
across a teaching community and a means of sharing the burdening of
exploring and making sense of the waste wealth of information that
might inform teaching practice.
3. Community formation – clearly the connectivity and rich communicative
channels now available on the web provide an environment for
supporting a rich diversity of digital communities. Boundaries of
professional and personal identity are eroding and the notion of tightly
17
18. knit Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998) are giving way to a
spectrum of communicates from individualistic spaces through loosely
bound and often transitory collectives through to more established and
clearly defined communities (See (Dron & T. Anderson 2007) for a
more specific discussion of collectives, networks and groups in social
networking for e-learning). Harnessing web 2.0 technologies for
teacher communities has immense power, as is discussed later in
terms of the Cloudworks site.
4. Digital personas – each of us is having to define our own digital identity
and how we present ourselves across these spaces. The avatars we
choose to represent ourselves, the style of language we use and the
degree to which we are open (both professionally and personally)
within these spaces, give a collective picture of how we are viewed by
others and can have unintended consequences. Both teachers and
learners need to be aware that their digital traces cumulatively says
something about how they are perceived and that this includes the use
of social networking for non-professional or educational purposes. The
blurring of the identity boundaries across these digital spaces
challenges traditional norms of teacher as authority and learner as
recipient.
Returning to the heading of this section, namely ‘how can we promote a
culture of sharing and collaboration?’ I think there are two main aspects.
Firstly we need to be aware of the technologies and more importantly the
different ways in which they can support interaction and communication (as
outlined above). Secondly we distil lessons learnt from existing research that
has tried to promote sharing and collaboration – what worked and what didn’t.
Thirdly we need to combine these to create new interventions to support this
and then trial, evaluate and improve on these interventions. This is at the
heart of the approach we have adopted in the creation and use of the
Cloudworks site, which is discussed in more detail later.
18
19. A review of Learning Design research
This section provides a summary of some of the key related learning design
research, before focusing specifically on the work undertaken as part of the
OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI).
The emergence of Learning Design as a research field
Learning Design (or designing for learning) has emerged as a distinct field of
research in the last five years or so. It’s origins can be trace back to research
at OUNL in the Netherlands and in particular the work of Rob Koper and
colleges on the development of an educational modelling language and the
1
emergence of a new IMS standard for Learning Design (Koper & Tattersall
2005). However the field has since broadened from this relatively narrow
technical scope to encompass a much broader field of research, which is
concerned with the development of tools, methods and resources for helping
practitioners design educational offerings more effectively, with a desire to
ensure good pedagogical practice and to encourage great uptake and
innovation in the use of technologies for learning and teaching. Cross and
Conole (2008) provide a simple overview of the field and also see Beetham
and Sharpe, 2007 and Lockyer et al. for recent edited collections on the field
(Helen Beetham & Sharpe 2007); (Lockyer et al. 2008)). As Conole argues
(Grainne Conole 2010):
New technologies have the potential to enhance the student learning experience significantly;
offering new ways in which students can communicate and interact with each other and with
their tutors. However, the shear variety of new technologies available now is bewildering.
Those tasked with designing the learning experience need new forms of guidance to take
advantage of the affordances of new technologies and to make pedagogically informed design
decisions. Learning design as a research field has emerged in the last five years, as a
methodology for both articulating and representing the design process and providing tools and
methods to help designers in their design process (see Beetham and Sharpe, 2007; Lockyer et
al., 2008 edited collections).
The field emerged because of a realisation that there is a gap between the
potential of technologies for learning and their actual use in practice (Conole,
2008a). Conole, Oliver et al. (2007) have argued that this gap between the
potential of technologies to support learning and the reality of how they are
1
See http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/index.html for more on the IMS
LD specification
19
20. actually used and that this is due to a lack of understanding about how
technologies can be used to afford specific learning advantages and to a lack
of appropriate guidance at the design stage:
Practitioners have a multitude of learning theories that guide the development of learning
activities…. In addition, … there is a rich variety of ICT tools that can be used to support the
implementation of these. Despite this, the actual range of learning activities that demonstrate
specific pedagogic approaches (such as constructivism, dialogic learning, case- or problem-
based scenarios, or socially situated learning) and innovative use of ICT tools is limited;
suggesting that practitioners are overwhelmed by the plethora of choices and may lack the
necessary skills to make informed choices about how to use these theories. (Conole, Oliver et
al., 2007:101)
Teachers lack the necessary skills to make informed judgements about how
to use technologies and are bewildered by the possibilities. In a series of
interviews with teachers, focusing on their design practices, we gained a
richer understand of existing design practice (Cross et al., 2008). What is
evident is that design is a creative, messy and iterative process. Teachers rely
heavily on prior knowledge and experience in their design practice and rarely
followed any kind of formal design method process. This isn’t problematic in
situations where the teachers are working within known parameters, but is
problematic when they need to derive new designs within an increasingly
complex learning context, where there is an almost infinite number of
resources and tools they can draw on. Indeed closer scrutiny of a learning
activity reveals that it is made up of a significant number of sub-components,
which need to be considered in the design process (Conole, 2008). These
include the type of pedagogy being used, the context in which the learning
activity will be enacted, the types of intended learning outcomes associated
with the activity, the nature and number of tasks to be undertaken by the
learner, the associated tools and resources they will use and any formative or
summative assessment. Furthermore each of these sub-components have
inter-dependencies; the kinds of pedagogy chosen will influence the tasks
undertaken by the student; different tools have different affordances and will
influence the learning experience, assessment is often a key driver in learning
and hence the nature of the assessment has a significant influence on the
way in which the learner will engage with the learning activity.
The term ‘Learning Design’ in this broader connotation has been adopted in
20
21. particular by researchers in the UK, but also researcher work emerging out of
Australia. It emerged, in part as a means of address the perceived gap
between the potential of technologies and their actual use in practice. This
gap is due to a range of inter-connected issues including technological
(immature tools, lack of interoperability etc.), organisational (barriers and
enablers to uptake, cultural barriers) and pedagogical (lack of understanding
of how to apply esoteric educational models or frameworks). More often than
not, designers do not have the appropriate expertise in advance design
methods or a deep understanding of the potential affordances of technologies
and hence tend to primarily adapt existing practice. Case studies and other
forms of guidance often do not provide much help, as they are often not
presented in a format suited to the designer’s particular needs at that moment
in time. Learning design research may provide a means of addressing these
issues by providing a structured methodology for guiding the design process.
It is seen as adopting a more holistic, ‘whole learning and teaching’
perspective, than the related field of enquiry on instructional design, which
tends to be targeted more on the production of materials.
Six reasons why adopting a learning design approach might be beneficial
were identified (Conole, 2009):
1. It can act as a means of eliciting designs from academics in a format that
can be tested and reviewed with developers, i.e. a common vocabulary
and understanding of learning activities.
2. It provides a means by which designs can be reused, as opposed to just
sharing content.
3. It can guide individuals through the process of creating new learning
activities.
4. It creates an audit trail of academic design decisions.
5. It can highlight policy implications for staff development, resource
allocation, quality, etc.
6. It aids learners in complex activities by guiding them through the activity
sequence.
21
22. Learning Designs seeks to design taking account of the whole learning
experience and has an emphasis on activity-based rather content-based
design. JISC supported a programme ‘Design for learning’:
The vision for the Design for Learning Programme, was to bring the technical
development and the effective practice strands of JISC e-Learning
Programme together, ensuring that the conceptual and practical
implementation of 'design for learning' is informed by what is known about
effective pedagogic practice.
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/designlearn
.aspx)
An important related term to Learning Design is the concept of a Learning
Activity (Conole, G. 2008). Learning activities are those tasks that students
undertake to achieve a set of intended outcomes. Examples might include:
finding and synthesizing a series of resources from the web, contributing to a
‘for and against debate’ in a discussion forum, manipulating data in a
spreadsheet, constructing a group report in a wiki or summarizing the salient
points of a podcast. Beetham (in Beetham and Sharpe 2007) views learning
activities in relation to the design process:
as a specific interaction of learner(s) with other(s) using specific tools
and resources, orientated towards specific outcomes. (Beetham and
Sharpe, 2007: 28)
Conole provides a detailed description of the components that make up a
learning activity (Conole, 2008; see also Appendix One) and argues that:
Learning design refers to the range of activities associated with creating a learning
activity and crucially provides a means of describing learning activities. Agostinho
(2006) describes it as ‘a representation of teaching and learning practice documented
in some notational format so that it can serve as a model or template adaptable by a
teacher to suit his/her context’. Learning design provides a means of representing
learning activities so that they can be shared between tutors and designers. For
example this might consist of illustrating learning activities in an easy to understand
way (as a diagram and/or text) so that they can be a) shared between a teacher and a
designer, b) repurposed from one teacher to another, c) serve as a means of
scaffolding the process of creating new learning activities or d) provide the tools for
practitioners to capture their innovative practice in a form that is easy to share so that
they have ownership of the problem and solution. Such a scaffold might be in the
form of an online tool to provide support and guidance to a teacher in the steps
22
23. involved in creating a new learning activity – including tips and hints on how they
might use particular tools.
The JISC Designing for Learning provides a useful synthesis of the JISC-
funded research projects and developments around learning design at that
time in the UK (http://dfl.cetis.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Shared_Resources2).
Beetham provides a concise summary of the programme (H. Beetham 2008)
and provides the following summary of lessons learnt from it:
• Design for learning practices are very variable, depending on
departmental and personal preferences and historical precedents
• Educational design tools are rarely experienced by practitioners as
pedagogically neutral or as flexible enough to accommodate their existing
practice
• There is a need for tools that support collaborative design,
contingent/responsive design, and effective sharing of design processes
and outcomes
• Consultation with practitioners about the best ways of representing and
sharing designs found conflicting demands for rich, narrative
representations that could articulate complex educational intentions and
outcomes, and for contextualised, bite-sized representations (e.g. learning
objects, toolkits) that could readily be recontextualised and re-used
• There is a need for focus on people and processes if design practice is to
be transformed
• Effective interventions in the educational process are likely to be:
accessible, adaptable, contextualised for and owned by communities of
practice, developmental (oriented towards professional learning), focused
on designing for learning.
• Models of teaching/learning can be broadly classified as associative,
constructive (individual focus) constructive (social focus) and situative:
approaches to design for learning can be mapped against these models
Building on this programme, JISC are currently supporting a related set of
activities around Curriculum Design: As part of their Curriculum Design
23
24. programme, JISC provide the following definition in terms of curriculum (JISC,
nd):
‘Curriculum design’ is generally understood as a high-level process defining
the learning to take place within a specific programme of study, leading to
specific unit(s) of credit or qualification. The curriculum design process leads
to the production of core programme/module documents such as a
course/module description, validation documents, prospectus entry, and
course handbook. This process involves consideration of resource allocation,
marketing of the course, and learners’ final outcomes and destinations, as
well as general learning and teaching approaches and requirements. It could
be said to answer the questions ‘What needs to be learned?’, ‘What
resources will this require?’, and 'How will this be assessed?'
Approaches to sharing and promoting good practice
If you ask teachers what they would find most helpful for them to make better
use of technologies to support their practice, the answer is invariably ‘give me
some examples (in my subject area preferable)’. Over the past ten years or so
a wealth of resources have emerged to support teacher practice. This review
cannot hope to provide a comprehensive overview of this and instead will
focus on providing an illustrative range of types of resources, as well as some
examples of relevance to learning design.
The resources are divided into four main types:
• Learning objects
• Case studies
• Open Educational resources
• Support centres and professional communities
Learning objects
Learning objects as a term gained prominence in the nineties (Wiley & others
2002) (Littlejohn 2003). The exact definition of a learning object is somewhat
disputed (Polsani 2003) but for the purposes of this review it is termed ‘a
digital resource which has some element of intentional learning associated
24
25. with it’. The MERLOT database is probably one of the earliest available on the
web (http://www.merlot.org). Learning object repositories gained prominence
over the nineties with the emergence of both institutional and national-level
repositories, examples include: JORUM (http://www.jorum.ac.uk/), WISC-
online (http://www.wisc-online.com/), and GEM (http://www.thegateway.org/).
(GLOBE (http://www.globe-info.org/) provides a meta-search facility across
other learning object repositories. The Reusable Learning Object CETL (http://
www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk/joomla/index.php) has a specific focus on the development and
use of learning objects. They have developed a comprehensive RLO
repository, along with a set of more generic templates that can be adapted.
They have also produced a tool for authoring learning objects, GLO maker
(http://www.glomaker.org/).
Case studies
Teaching by nature is a narrative-based profession, we learn through dialogic
exchange with others, through sharing stories. Therefore the use of examples
of good practice has always been an important part of teacher professional
practice. It’s use in an educational technology context can be traced back to
the nineties when it was realised that the web offered an excellent medium to
capture, categorise and share good practice. Harvey et al., describe the
evaluation of three projects in the min-nineties aimed at supporting and
enhancing teacher practice (Harvey et al. 2002). One of these, SoURCE,
focussed on the development and population of a series of case studies of
teacher practice (http://www.source.ac.uk/). The project gave considerable
consideration to appropriate metatagging of the entries and each was based
on a case study template and contributors were encouraged to participate via
a fee. The vision behind SoURCE was to develop a national-level library of
case studies and although in many respects the work was ahead of its time, it
was an indicator of future developments as there are now a plethora of
repositories of good practice, examples include: the OTIS repository of case
studies (http://otis.scotcit.ac.uk/), the e-learning centre library of case studies
(http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/casestudies.htm), and
the series of effective practice guides and case studies produced by JISC
which synthesise key features across their development programmes
25
26. (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_practic
e.aspx). More specific examples for learning design include: the AUTC
learning design website
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_practic
e.aspx) and the World Bank Institute has a website which includes a set of
tools for learning design, these include tips and hints, a FAQ list and a series
of associated resources
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_practic
e.aspx).
Open Educational Resources
The concept of ‘learning objects’ has on the whole been replaced in recent
years by the term ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER). Crudely the main
different is the inherent indent that these resources should be made freely
available and there is now a well-established international community of those
interested in producing, using and researching OER.
Commission by the Hewlett foundation, Two key reports provide a
comprehensive review of the development of the OER movement, describing
many of the major initiatives in the field and some of the key achievements
(Atkins et al. 2007) (Hylén & Schuller 2007). Iiyosh, Kumar and Seely Brown
(2008) through an edited collection, consider the wider notion of ‘openness’
and what it might mean in an educational context (Iiyoshi & Kumar 2008). As
with learning objects the exact focus of the term is contested, but for the
purposes of this report the OECD definition will be used:
digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students
and self- learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research
(OECD, 2007:133).
MIT, with their OpenCourseWare initiative
(http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm) are credited with
being the first university to declare that they were going to make a significant
amount of their content freely available, resulting in a swath of rhetoric about
the importance and potential of OER (Caswell et al. 2008) (M. S. Smith &
26
27. Casserly 2006). In 2006 the Open University, UK followed suite with its
OpenLearn initiative (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk).
Funding and support for these types of initiatives has been support in
particular by the William and Flora Hewlett foundation and also OECD and
UNESCO. More recently, the UK, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) have initiated a large-scale
call on the development of OER, building on existing initiatives such as
JORUM and OpenLearn.
According to OECD (2007) over 300 universities worldwide are engaged in
the development of OER with more than 3000 open access courses. There
are numerous initiatives and consortia involved in this area; examples include:
the OpenCourseWare consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/). The
China Open Resources for Education (CORE) consortium
(http://www.core.org.cn/cn/jpkc/index_en.html ), the Japanese OCW
Consortium. (http://www.jocw.jp/ ), the ParisTech OCW project.
(http://graduateschool.paristech.org/) and the Irish IREL-Open initiative (http://
www.irel-open.ie/).
Support centres and professional communities
The final category I want to touch on is the emergence of support centres and
professional communities that have a specific role to provide advice and
guidance to teachers on using new technologies. The variety of organisations
and initiatives that have at least a partial remit concerned with ICT in
education is extensive so this section intends only to give a flavour of some of
the examples.
Although the names differ, many institutions at tertiary level now have
individuals or indeed centres that cover this remit (educational technologists,
instructional designers, educational developers, learning technologists, etc.).
At the school level it is common to have an ICT appointed coordinator
responsible for ICT policy development, who often acts as the point of contact
for ICT developments in the school. In addition many countries also have
national level centres or organisations. In the UK BECTA is the agency
27
28. responsible for covering ICT developments in Schools and Further Education
Collages, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) covers the tertiary
sector. Both organisations commission research studies and projects related
to the use of technology in education, host events and seminars and in the
case of JISC provide a number of support centres and advisory services. The
HE academy in the UK also has a strand of ICT-related activities, as well as a
series of 24 subject support centres. In America there are a number of
professional organisations, which promote and support both research and
practitioner activities in the field. These include Educause
(http://www.educause.edu/), the Sloan Foundation (http://www.sloan.org/) and
AECT (http://www.sloan.org/). In the UK there is a professional body called
ALT (http://www.alt.ac.uk/), and in Holland an equivalent organisation SURF
(http://www.surffoundation.nl/en/Pages/default.aspx) combines many of the
functions of ALT and JISC. ASCILITE (http://www.ascilite.org.au/) in
combination with the ALTC-exchange (http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/)
performs a similar function in Australasia. In mainland Europe through the
framework programmes in particular there have been a range of networks and
initiatives, the most recent is STELLAR (http://www.stellarnet.eu/), a network
of excellence that sets out to strengthen the capacity in technology-enhanced
learning research across Europe. In addition IPTS
(http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/) is one of seven scientific institutes across
Europe, which produces reports and policy perspectives on ICT in education.
In addition it is worth mentioning that a number of projects and initiatives have
specifically focused on support community build. Examples include LeMill
(http://lemill.net/) a web community for finding, authoring and sharing Open
Educational Resources, European Schoolnet (http://www.eun.org/web/guest)
which aims to show how information and communications technology (ICT)
can support change in teaching and learning, teachernet
(http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/) an education site for teachers and school
managers, teacher TV (http://www.teachers.tv/) a video channel for teachers
and Web 2.0 for teachers (http://www.protopage.com/web2point0forteachers)
a web site of tools and resources for teachers.
28
29. Representations
One of the fundamental issues in learning design research is how to
represent the curriculum; what representations might be useful, for what
purposes and for whom? A major area of activity in the field has been work
exploring the different ways in which learning and teaching ‘practice’ can be
captured and represented. The JISC Pedagogical Vocabularies project review
pedagogical vocabularies in use within the UK post-16 and HE communities
(JISC Comms n.d.). As part of this work Currier et al. produced a report on the
review of pedagogical vocabularies (Currier et al. 2005), categorising them as:
controlled vocabularies (consisting of a “prescribed list of terms or headings
each one having an assigned meaning), flat lists (lists the terms without
making any relationships between them explicit), glossary (a list with
explanations of abstruse, antiquated, dialectical or technical terms), subject
headings list (similar to thesauri in that they list terms for indexing resources
for the purpose of discovery), taxonomy (monohierarchical classification of
concepts), classification scheme (arrangement of concepts into classes and
their subdivisions to express the semantic relations between them; the
classes are represented by means of a notation), thesaurus (controlled
indexing language formally organized so that the a priori relationships between
concepts (for example as “broader” and “narrower”) are made explicit), topic
map (organized around topics, and each topic is used to represent some real-
world thing), ontology (a model for describing the world that consists of a set
of types, properties, and relationship types), and folksonomy (allow users to
assign their own natural language indexing terms to resources (in this context
known as ‘tagging’). The system organises its interface by clustering the
terms and/or the tagged resources.)
The Mod4L project (http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/mod4l/) identified a range
of representations that practitioners use to present practice (Falconer &
Littlejohn 2006). These included taxonomies and matrices, visual
presentations (flow diagrams, mind maps), and case studies or lesson plans.
They concluded that use is complex and contextualised and that no one
presentation is adequate.
29
30. Representation at the level of learning activity was now fairly well understood,
and consensus is beginning to emerge about representations more generally
across the curriculum. Conole (Grainne Conole 2010) provides an overview of
recent thinking on representations, categorising representations into three
levels: the micro-level (referring to learning activities - typically a few hours
worth of activity), the meso-level (referring to aggregations of activities or
blocks of activities - weeks or months worth of activity) and the macro-level
(referring to whole curriculum designs). She then discusses seven common
representations across the three levels:
1. Textual summary and keywords
2. Content/topic map
3. The Task Swim-line representation
4. Design method: Pedagogy profile
5. Design method: Principles/pedagogy matrix
6. Component-based map
7. “At a glance’/Course map
The first two of these are standard representations that have been used in the
design and representations of courses for a very long time. Representations
3-7 however are new representations emerging from recent learning design
research. Aspects of these are discussed in more detailed under the section
about the OULDI work. In addition see the ‘Describing the Curriculum’
cloudscape on the cloudworks site
(http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloudscape/view/1907).
She also argues that representations can have different formats, can be used
to describe different aspects of the design lifecycle. Firstly representations
can be based on different formats. These can include different types of text-
based representations (e.g. case studies or narratives), visualisation
representations (e.g. node-link types representations, design schema or
metaphorical), numerically focussed (e.g. pie or bar charts based on
underlying numerical data), representations based on other forms of media
(e.g. audio or video) or representations can be a combination of the above.
30
31. Secondly, representations can occur at different levels. Designs can describe
small-scale learning activities (which might describe a few hours worth of
learning) or scale up to a description of a whole curriculum (across a three-
year undergraduate degree course or a one-year masters course). Thirdly,
representations act as filters or lenses foregrounding or hiding particular
aspects of the design. For example, the focus might be on the nature of the
tasks being undertaken and associated tool and resources, on the
overarching pedagogical principles, mapping different components of the
design or relating to specific data (such as financial or student performance
data).
Toolkits and pedagogical planners
Not surprisingly a significant amount of interest has been around the
development of tools to instantiate learning design. These range from those
closely aligned to the more technical IMS LD specification to those that are
more focussed on providing support and guidance to practitioners in terms of
informing their design decision processes. A selected are described here;
focus on those that give an indication of the range of types of tools and
including those that have been used and reference to a significant degree.
Britain provides a useful overview of Learning Design focusing primarily on
the more technical use of the term and associated tools (Britain 2004). Britain
provides a useful comparison of the tools available at the time for
implementing IMS LD. These included: include CopperCore, Reload,
EDUBOX, LAMS (see below), EduPlone, and Lobster. For the purpose of this
review the focus is more on the user-orientated tools for guiding learning
design practice, and specific examples are described in more detail below.
One of the earliest examples of a tool for supporting learning design was the
visual tool, LAMS (Learner Activity Management System). It is described as:
LAMS is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering
online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly
intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning
activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group
31
32. work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration
(http://www.lamsinternational.com/).
Two distinct advantages of LAMS are i) it’s visual interface – which enables a
practitioner to sequence the learning activities the students are going to do, ii)
that it is a fully functionally runtime environment. A limitation of the LAMS
system is that because it is a runtime environment the core objects a designer
manipulates are tool-focussed and hence do not take account of the fuller set
of factors that need to be considered when design a learning activity (the
pedagogical approach, the learning outcomes, the types of tasks the students
will undertake, etc.). Nontheless the LAMS system has attracted considerable
interest and has a worldwide community of users.
Another early example of a tool that was designed to guide practitioner
practice was the Dialogplus toolkit (Conole and Fill 2005, Fill, Conole and
Bailey forthcoming, Bailey et al., 2006). It was designed to provide the user
with support and guidance, so that they adopt a more reflective approach to
design and hence produce more pedagogically informed learning activities.
The toolkit is underpinned by learning activity taxonomy (Conole, 2008) that
consists of three main components:
• The context within which the activity occurs; this includes the subject,
level of difficulty, the intended learning outcomes and the environment
within which the activity takes place.
• The pedagogy (learning and teaching approaches) adopted. These are
grouped into three categories – associative (acquisition of skills through
sequences of concepts/tasks and feedback), cognitive (construction of
meaning based on prior experience and context) and situative (learning
in social and/or authentic settings).
• The tasks undertaken, which specifies the type of task, the (teaching)
techniques used to support the task, any associated tools and
resources, the interaction and roles of those involved and the
assessments associated with the learning activity. In particular the
types of tasks which a student might do as part of the learning activity
32
33. are described in detail and grouped into six categories; assimilative
(attending and understanding content), information handling (e.g.
gathering and classifying resources or manipulating data), adaptive
(use of modelling or simulation software), communicative (dialogic
activities, e.g. pair dialogues or group-based discussions), productive
(construction of an artefact such as a written essay, new chemical
compound or a sculpture) and experiential (practising skills in a
particular context or undertaking an investigation).
Figure 1 shows a screen shot from the toolkit. Users are guiding through the
components of a learning activity that they need to consider. These include
generic details such as subject, level of difficult, pre-requisites, teaching and
learning methods and environments. They then describe in detail the
sequence of tasks associated with particular learning outcomes. A
disadvantage of the tool is that the interface is not very intuitive and to be
really useful it needs more expansive help and guidance resources. In
addition, the linear nature of the design of the toolkit does not align with real
teacher-design practice, which is messy, iterative and intuitive.
Figure 1: Screenshot from the DialogPlus toolkit
As part of the JISC ‘Designing for learning’ programme, two pedagogical
planners were funded: Phoebe and the London Pedagogical Planner.
Developed by Liz Masterman et al., Phoebe adopts a similar approach to
DialogPlus by attempting to provide a comprehensive online resource of tips
33
34. and hints to support decision making. It is wiki-based and provides a valuable
set of guidance’s on the different components of a learning activity. The
following text available from the JISC website provides a summary of the tool
(http://www.jisc.org.uk/publications/reports/2008/phoebefinalreport.aspx):
Intended for practitioners working in FE, HE and ACL, the Phoebe tool brings
together the key components of a learning design (or lesson plan), prompts
teachers' thinking, allows them to record ideas and requirements, and makes
it easy to cross-reference components as they design the activities that make
up a learning experience. It offers both flexible and guided paths through the
planning process, and provides access to a wide range of models, case
studies and examples of innovative learning designs.
Phoebe has similar disadvantages to Dialogplus, in terms of a non-intuitive
user interface and a linear, sequential navigational route for the design
process. The sister tool, developed by Laurillard et al., the London Pedagogic
Planner (LPP) instead adopts more of a modelling perspective through
mapping tasks to resources and attempting to align the design with specific
pedagogical approaches. It is attempting to adopt a user-orientated approach
and plans to integrate the tool with the LAMS tool, described above:
This development of the pedagogy planner begins, therefore, with lecturer's needs, in
order to bridge the current gap between the technical origins of the 'learning design
specification' and the reality of the teaching context. This means it must make use of
an existing learning activity design environment, populated with existing support
tools, so that collaborating lecturers have the opportunity to test it against their
current practice, and engage in further specification of their requirements. Engaging
lecturers at the start should help to secure their longer-term involvement and a
sustainable product. This iterative approach to user-oriented design should then
produce a working model, as well as clear requirements for further development of
the learning design specification and its implementation in support tools for lecturers.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy/phoebeplanner.aspx
The modelling approach underpinning restricts to some extent how the tool
can be used and the results that are returned. In initial versions of the tool
many of the parameters were ‘pre-configured’. The planner also focuses more
on helping to plan formal, ‘traditional’ learning activities – with an emphasis on
timetabled and sequential work. Both these pedagogic planners and the
DialogPlus toolkit consist of a combination of examples and supporting text to
guide practice. However, they differ not only in the specific content and
examples but also in their underpinning approach.
The lessons learnt from the development of Phoebe and LPP are now being
taken forward in a new TLRP TEL-funded research project – LDSE (Learning
Design Support Environment) (http://www.tlrp.org/tel/ldse/):
The project is based on four key assumptions: i) teachers will be required to
use progressively more TEL; ii) the teaching community should be at the
forefront of TEL innovation, and not cede responsibility to other professionals;
iii) the development of new knowledge, in this case about professional
practice, should be carried out in the spirit of reflective collaborative design;
and iv) the same technologies that are changing the way students learn can
also support teachers' own learning in new ways. Computer-supported
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35. collaborative learning has long been established as an important form of TEL
for students; we believe it is equally applicable to teachers' professional
development…. We are working with practising teachers to research, and co-
construct, an interactive Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE) to
scaffold teachers' decision-making from basic planning to creative TEL
design.
Pedagogical patterns
A closely aligned but distinct area of research is work on the development of
pedagogical patterns. As discussed earlier, case studies provide rich
contextually located exemplars, which are valuable in that they describe the
details of a particular pedagogical intervention. The drawback is that precisely
because they are so contextually located they may be difficult to adapt or
repurpose. Pedagogical patterns provide a specifically structured means of
describing practice building on the work of the Architect Alexander (1979) by
presenting the design in terms of a problem to be solved (C. Alexander &
Language 1977)(C. Alexander et al. 1977), see for example Goodyear (P.
Goodyear 2005) and the Pedagogical Patterns project
(http://www.pedagogicalpatterns.org/). Goodyear and Retalis provide a recent
edited collection of research work in the field (Goodyear & Retalis, 2010) and
an evolving set of resources and links is available from the Cloudworks site
(http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloudscape/view/1905). In terms of making
a more explicit connection between the learning design and pedagogical
patterns work, Conole and Jones describe a case study that is represented
both as a pedagogical pattern and a visual learning design (G. Conole & C.
Jones 2010). More recently, via the Olnet initiative work has been undertaken
to explore the connection between linking OER, learning design and
pedagogical patterns (Dimitriadis et al. 2009)(G. Conole et al. 2010). There
are a number of hypothesis we are testing out with this new work (Figure 2).
Firstly, that application of methodologies from Learning Design and
Pedagogical Patterns research to the design and reuse of OER may help to
increase uptake and use of them. Secondly, that OER have implicit designs
and that if these are made explicit, they can be shared (and hence
repurposed) more easily. Thirdly, that active representation of the design
process through a visualisation tool (like CompendiumLD) that draws on
existing resources (such as Open Educational Resource repositories) and
35
36. design methods (from learning design and pedagogical patterns research)
can help guide and inform the design process. The outputs of the design
process (an OER and an associated design) can then be shared back into the
community via appropriate repositories and social networking sites.
Figure 2: Illustration of the design cycle for OER
The OU Learning Design Initiative
The OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI) (http://ouldi.open.ac.uk)
started with institutional strategic funding in 2007. The original work
focused around two key questions (G. Conole 2009):
• How can we gather and represent practice (and in particular innovative
practice) (capture and represent practice)?
• How can we provide ‘scaffolds’ or support for staff in creating learning
activities, which draw on good practice, making effective use of tools and
pedagogies (support learning design)?
Underneath these top level questions are a number of sub-themes:
• Can we develop a new methodology to describe learning activities?
36
37. • Can we develop a range of tools and support mechanisms to help
teachers design learning activities more effectively?
• Can we agree a shared language/vocabulary for learning design, which
is consistent and rigorous, but not too time consuming to use?
• How can we provide support and guidance on the creation of new
learning activities?
• What is the right balance of providing detailed, real, case studies,
which specify the detail of the design, compared with more abstract
design representations that simple highlight the main features of the
design?
Since then, the initiative has been developing a methodology for learning
design. The aim is to produce a range of tools, methods and approaches to
help teachers make more informed design decisions. Tools produced include
CompendiumLD, which is a visualisation tool for design and Cloudworks, a
social networking site for sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas
and designs. The work is underpinned by an ongoing programme of empirical
work, aimed at getting a richer understanding of educational design
processes. Data collected includes interviews, surveys, observations, web
statistics, focus groups, as well as gathering data at workshops and other
events we run. The empirical data informs the three main strands of our work:
representing pedagogy, guiding the design process and facilitating the
sharing and discussing of designs. Conole (2009) describes the origins of
OULDI. Conole, Brasher et al. (2008) describe CompendiumLD and how it
can be used to help make designs more explicit. Conole and Culver (2008)
describe the design and evaluation of the Cloudworks site. Related to this
work is the OLnet initiative (http://olnet.org), which aims to provide a global
network of support for researchers and users of Open Educational Resources
(OER). An important strand of OLnet’s work is to apply learning design and
pedagogical patterns research to an OER context. Initial findings from this
work are described elsewhere (Conole and McAndrew, 2009; Dimitriadis et
al., 2009; Conole et al., submitted).
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38. In terms of the OULDI research work, we define learning design as:
A methodology for enabling teachers/designers to make more informed
decisions in how they go about designing, which is pedagogically informed
and makes effective use of appropriate resources and technologies. This
includes the design of resources and individual learning activities right up to
whole curriculum level design. A key principle is to help make the design
process more explicit and shareable. Learning design as an area of research
and development includes both gathering empirical evidence to better
understand the design process as well as the development of a range of
resource, tools and activities.
We see ‘learning design’ as an all encompassing term to cover the process,
representation, sharing and evaluation of designs from lower level activities
right up to whole curriculum level designs. In previous work (Conole and
Jones, 2009) we identify three levels of design: micro, meso and macro,
drawing on Bielaczyc (2006) and Jones (2007). In our terms, the micro-level
refers to learning activities (typically a few hours worth of activity), the meso-
level to aggregations of activities or blocks of activities (weeks or months
worth of activity) and the macro-level to whole curriculum designs.
The OUDLI methodology
We are adopting an iterative methodology focusing on two areas of activity in
parallel: a) capturing and representing practice - through user consultation
and case studies and b) supporting learning design – by gathering relevant
resources and ideas about design, through the development of online tools for
visualising and guiding design and through a series of associated workshops
offering participants the opportunity to explore the resources and tools we
have developed. Our approach to the development of a learning design
methodology is characterised by four overarching principles:
• Development of a Learning Design (LD) methodology to help guide
teachers in the creation and reuse of learning activities
• Identification of appropriate scaffolds to support the design process
and mechanisms for deploying these through appropriate channels
(which might include staff development guidelines, LD workshops or
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39. integrated help within an adaptive LD tool)
• Articulation of different forms of representation to articulate the design
process
• Development of a shared language and set of representations for
learning activities so that individuals or small teams can discuss and
share ideas or interrogate repositories of good practice and case
studies.
Empirical evidence has included the collection of user requirements, case
studies, in-depth interviews, evaluation of workshops and focus groups and
in-depth evaluation of holistic course design. Forty-four case studies were
captured through in-depth interviews with course leaders. The focus was on
the pedagogies used to achieve specific learning outcomes and the use of
tools (blogs, wikis, e-assessment, etc.) to support learning activities (Wilson,
2007). A structured template was used to capture the case studies and guide
the interviews, this was derived from a previously developed learning activity
taxonomy (Conole, 2007), which articulates the different components of a
learning activity. Interviews were semi-structured around a number of core
themes: contextual data (level, subject, etc.), details about the learning activity
being described and the sub-tasks involved, pedagogical approaches
adopted, and barriers and enablers to the creation of the activity (both
technical and organisational). Interviews were transcribed and thematically
analysis; a visual representation of the learning activity being described in
each case study was produced, along with a narrative case study account
based on the structured template. These diagrams and narratives were then
validated with each interviewee and collated into an internal website.
More recently we have carried out a series of interviews with
teachers/designers to gain a better understanding of the ways in which they
go about designing learning activities. We deliberately choose to interview a
wide range of teachers - from those who have shown an explicit interest in
adopting a learning design approach to those who have to date experimented
to only a limited (or in some cases no) degree with using technologies.
39
40. Whereas the case studies Wilson gathered focused on tools in use, the
interviews with teachers were more concerned with the process of design.
The interview focussed around five themes: How do teachers go about the
process of design? How do they generate ideas and what kinds of support do
they use? How do they share their designs with others? What are the barriers
to design? How do they evaluate their designs? The interview protocol is
given in the appendix. Interviewees were selected to give a representative
sample across: subject disciplines, level of experience of use of technologies
for teaching and learning, experience of using CompendiumLD, and covered
a range of levels of expertise in teaching. Data collection occurred over a
three-month period. Each interviewee was initially approached by email and
then a time was chosen for the face-to-face interview. The interviews lasted
around an hour and were transcribed and were analysed for emergent
themes and compared with the data collected from the case studies. Cross et
al. describe the early results of analysis of this data (Cross, et al., 2008).
Analysis focused initially on looking for relevant data around the five main
themes of the interviews outlined above. Interviews were read and reread and
emergent themes identified, and then later consolidated, representative
quotes were selected.
CompendiumLD – a tool for visualising designs
One of our core software tools to date is a tool for visualising designs,
CompendiumLD (See Figure 3). This is an adaptation of an existing
mindmapping/argumentation tool developed by KMI in the OU UK
(Compendium). Brasher et al. (2008) provide more detailed information on the
tool and associated technical development; only the salient features are
described here.
40
41. Figure 3: Screenshot of CompendiumLD
The existing tool offered a good basis on which we could work with and a
robust working prototype with which to try our thinking on visual
representations for design. Compendium supports the creation of a range of
visual mapping techniques, including mind maps, concept maps, web maps
and argumentation maps (Okada and Buckingham Shum, forthcoming), which
we felt offered the potential for a range of flexible approaches to the design
process. Compendium comes with a predefined set of icons (question,
answer, map, list, pros, cons, reference, notes, decision, and argument). The
creation of a map is simple; users drag icons across and drop them onto the
main window thus creating a node. Relationships between the nodes are built
up by dragging between nodes thus creating a connecting arrow. Each node
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42. can have an associated name attached and displayed; if a more detailed
textual description is associated with the node an asterisk appears next to the
node. If the user hovers their mouse over this the content inside the node is
revealed. Other types of electronic files can also be easily incorporated into
the map such as images, Word files or PowerPoint presentations. The
reference node enables you to link directly to external websites. Icons can
also be meta-tagged using either a pre-defined set of key words or through
user generated terms. Maps can be exported in a variety of ways from simple
diagrammatic jpeg files through to inter-linked websites.
Compendium provides a utility by which users can create and share new sets
of icons, for use as nodes. These sets, know as 'stencils', contain 'items'
where an item defines certain properties of a potential node such as its image
icon and label. In the standard version of Compendium, each item inherits the
behaviour of one of the standard node types. These standard node types are
node which has an icon, text label and other descriptive textual information,
link node which links from a node to another node, and view which is a
collection of nodes and can be displayed either as a map or a list. There are
several different mechanisms by which a user can interact with nodes. These
include drag and drop (e.g. to instantiate a node as described in the
preceding paragraph), double-clicking (e.g. to display and edit details of a
node including its text), right-clicking (to display a menu offering actions and
operations to apply to the node), left-click (to select a node, or allow other
menu driven operations to be executed on the node). We adapted
Compendium to make it more explicit in terms of its use for learning design
and this version of the tool is referred to as CompendiumLD – it includes
additional functionality such as tailored LD stencil sets and in situ help. In
CompendiumLD, behaviour specific to learning design has been implemented
for these modes of interaction as explained in the next few paragraphs.
The following text describes recent developmental work for CompendiumLD.
It is adapted from text provide by Andrew Brasher (lead technical developer
for CompendiumLD) for a recent OULDI report.
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