LearningLocker LRS – version 1.0 now available

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Learning Locker has left beta and is now at version 1.0. This may be a significant milestone in a series of developments that could profoundly affect the future of online learning and perhaps the whole educational system.  

Learning Locker is an open source implementation of a TinCan (xAPI) learning record store (LRS). It provides a repository to record information about learning activities and outcomes, using open standards for import and export. That’s about it: some sorting and search tools, some export facilities, and the means to store information about learning from other applications. While other xAPI LRSs already exist, this open source implementation seems the most promising so far, the most feature-complete, and the most likely to see widespread adoption. OK, unless you are a learning technology geek I realise that this might sound rather dull and arcane, but the potential for disruption, especially given widespread support for the experience API (xAPI) standard in a wide range of applications, is quite high. Amongst other things:

  • it is a critical part of the infrastructure to free us from the mediocre monolithic silos of learning management systems which, in educational systems till now, have typically been the place where learning activities occur, content is produced, and progress is recorded. By separating the function of recording progress from the means of delivery, it massively increases the range of information and applications that can be used in an integrated way for education, from games to social media systems, MOOCs to traditional classroom activities, and everything between. It allows a great many more forms of progress to be recorded at any level of granularity, from solving a puzzle in a game to looking at a web page, from doing an exam to writing a thesis. It makes it significantly easier to switch between platforms.
  •  it allows any and every kind of evidence of learning to be recorded, of great benefit to lifelong learners wishing to provide evidence of,  and to reflect on and to plan a learning journey. Freeing such data from guarded silos means learners can control their own learning records, keeping them in a cloud, on their own servers or their own computers, transferring them as and when they wish. This goes far beyond the basic functionality of an e-portfolio system, but integrates beautifully with one. It, or something very like it, is a vital piece in the move towards truly open learning at a level that has the potential to disrupt the traditional education and training system.
  •  it makes possible a wide range of analytics for the benefit of learners (and, potentially, for the benefit of teachers and organizations) that go far beyond the structured assessment and activity records that can be captured by an LMS. From finding people with a particular set of skills to analyzing holes in your own learning to organizational learning profiling, the possibilities are huge.

This just scratches the surface of the potential of this technology and standard, and it is just going to get better. More information about Learning Locker is available at http://learninglocker.net

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/learninglocker/learninglocker

Enough with the lecturing – US National Science Foundation (NSF)

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Here is a brief report on a somewhat less brief meta-study that claims to show lectures are less effective than active learning approaches in STEM subjects. The report makes a claim that this is an important study. Well, kind of – it will no doubt be cited a lot. This is one of those studies that most educational researchers, including me, would very much like to be correct. Most of our theories and models suggest that lecturing is a truly dumb way to teach. Unfortunately, however, this study does not really show that. We know, and this study confirms in its data, that some lectures work really well some of the time for some students. We also know that active learning approaches do not always work better and sometimes work worse. The study makes the claim that, on average, more active trumps more passive (there are very few blacks and whites in this, it is all on a spectrum, which the study does not very effectively cater for). Sadly, however, it uses a skewed sample because (as this perceptive article highlights very nicely) active approaches typically rely on great, passionate teachers who know how to educate in order to implement them well. And guess who gets to write studies comparing active learning and lecture approaches. Even comparative studies, such as the sort that typically compare a previous run of a course with a newly minted active version, are bound to show this bias. Compare what it is like to teach a course that feels stale with one that is not only new, based on ideas you believe in (which the study, to its credit, attempts to control for) but also (as active learning approaches do) allows your own skill as a teacher to shine. This is systemically biased data.

A message I have been trying to hammer home for some time is that it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results. The softer, more malleable, more student-led a course becomes, the more that is required of the skill and passion of the teacher to be responsive and helpful, which means that such courses can be truly awesome or terrifically awful, depending on the people involved. Published research tends to come from those who are more skillful and interested in teaching because those that are not do not normally publish papers about it, so the results available to meta-studies are inevitably skewed.

Lectures are hard, rigid teaching technologies that, together with technologies like textbooks, exams, designed outcomes and timetables, are built to cater for mediocrity in teachers. Great teachers can surpass the limitations an educational system imposes, but some learning happens as a result of process design even when the teacher is truly dire. A dire teacher in an active learning context will leave students confused, lacking direction and demotivated even more than one who just lectures badly.  Furthermore, lectures can have genuine value. I have no great objections in principle to occasional lectures as long as they take up no more than a few minutes of a learner’s day, and as long as lecturers start with the assumption that no direct learning will result from them. Lectures can be good catalysts, a reason to get together, and can help structure studies and thinking, even if they are almost useless for directly learning facts or skills. Just occasionally, not enough to justify their use, they can even inspire and motivate. It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

Address of the bookmark: http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=131403&org=NSF&from=news

Affinity space – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Terry Anderson drew my attention today to the concept of the ‘affinity space’ from James Paul Gee (always an interesting writer), which bears a marked resemblance to our understanding of the set as a social form for learning, and with which I was previously unfamiliar. This is certainly something I need to investigate further. At first reading I think the affinity space is a (large and probably the most important) subset of what we mean by a ‘set’ – it is concerned with people sharing an interest and a normally virtual space but otherwise having no social connection to speak of, which is exactly how we distinguish set from net social forms.  It is also a close cousin of communities of interest and interest (or interest-based) networking, that are very much in the same area but that gained their names from people with perspectives slanted by where they already had expertise and experience. I like the term ‘affinity space’ far better than those terms for the reasons mentioned in the Wikipedia article, which are very similar to the reasons we went for the term ‘set’.

Our concept of the set additionally recognizes learning value in sets that are not directly or only concerned with the kinds of affinity mentioned in the article – e.g. those of people of similar, greater or lesser abilities, those of people simply near to one another, those where personal attributes like culture are significant – which becomes more significant when thinking about how collectives emerge or are formed from sets. Also, we are keen to emphasize the continuous fuzzy boundaries between sets and groups (e.g. tribes, religions, Goths) and between sets and networks (e.g. circles of friends, college alumni), seeing most such collections of people as occupying blended or overlapping social forms. But this is a useful concept that I suspect we will use in future to characterize one of the purest forms of set used for learning purposes and one that has most relevance in an online context. Whatever the minor distinctions, and whether the concepts turn out to be almost the same or just similar, I am glad to know that others, especially those with the intellectual muscle and creativity of Gee, think it is an idea whose time is well upon us.

Address of the bookmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_space

Journal of Interactive Media in Education – Open for Learning Special Issue

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A special issue of JIME on open learning with 5 chapters (full disclaimer: including one by me and Terry Anderson) from a forthcoming book edited by Chris Pegler and Allison Littlejohn, ‘Reusing Open Resources: Learning in Open Networks for Work, Life and Education’.

I’ve skimmed through the pre-publication draft of the book from which these articles are taken and (not counting our own chapter, about which I may be a little biased) I’m impressed. It has some very important topics, some excellent authors, and a great pair of editors. Deserves to do well.

Terry and I were concerned when responding to the call for chapters about the irony of a book on openness appearing as a closed publication. It is therefore very pleasing that, at least for these five chapters, it is walking the talk. JIME is a fine journal and has been open since it was unfashionable to be so, so I am delighted to at last have an article appear there and congratulate Chris and Allison on a job very well done.

Address of the bookmark: http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/jime/issue/view/2014-ReusingResources-OpenforLearning

Americans' Trust in Online Higher Ed Rising

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Thanks to Larbi for this one –

In the US, it seems that a steadily rising number of people believe in the quality of online education. This is despite the fact that, in the US, online education is all too often equated with somewhat tarnished institutions like Phoenix and a range of smaller shady or worse private providers (apparently I can get another doctorate in the US for a mere $25, according to spam I have received) that have not done wonders for the cause. It would be interesting to know what the results might be in countries that have a more visible tradition of high quality distance education provision, like Canada, the UK, India, Turkey, the Netherlands, etc.

In my (very direct) experience, students with distance taught qualifications are, on average, more self-starting, highly motivated and skilled when compared with students taught more conventionally. I’d definitely be one of the employers who would favour an online qualification over a traditionally taught one, all things being equal. But, as for any qualification, I’d look very closely at which institution it came from.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.gallup.com/poll/168416/americans-trust-online-higher-education-rising.aspx

Online proctoring raises privacy concerns « Spartan Daily Spartan Daily

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Interesting commentary on privacy concerns using ProctorU, a third-party monitoring service for online exam taking. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it is indeed highly invasive and suggests some notable privacy concerns, but is not too far removed from what we already do for face-to-face exams. The biggest problem for me is the notion that an exam itself is a solution to the accreditation problem, not that there is yet another sophisticated and somewhat dubious weapon in an unwinnable arms race. In all its summative guises, the exam is a technology that is well past its sell-by date. We need better, more authentic, less-invasive, less expensive, less easily corruptable methods of accreditation. 

Address of the bookmark: http://spartandaily.com/119401/online-proctoring-raises-privacy-concerns

Good chapter on getting rid of grades

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From Joe Bower, a good, straightforward summary of most of the reasons not to grade learners, and some sensible suggestions about how to largely avoid using grades etc within a system that requires them. Though situated in a face-to-face school context, this very closely matches my own views on the subject and the methods I use to get around a system that is built on grading.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.joebower.org/2014/03/heres-my-chapter-from-book-de-testing.html

It’s Anyone’s Game in the Consumer Electronics Playing Field

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Great report from Accenture on the results of an International survey (not including Canada but a good basket of developed countries represented) on use of consumer electronics from 2013. The big takeaways are:

  • Consumers are focusing on fewer, multifunction devices
  • Consumers are not locked into a single platform
  • Cloud-based services are increasing
  • Mobile devices are consumerizing IT in the workplace

The report is very well presented and easily digestible, and is packed with interesting statistics and analyses of trends. As someone with more than a passing interest in technologies and technology trends, I found something fascinating on almost every page. Understanding, reacting to and, ideally, anticipating such changing patterns is going to be vital to Athabasa University as a primarily online learning institution.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/2013-Accenture-Consumer-Electronics-Products-and-Services-Usage-Report.pdf

Interview with Terry Anderson

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Steve Wheeler (a fine contributor to the world of online learning himself with a blog worth subscribing to and a very active Twitter presence with a Twitter handle that beats most) interviews our own Terry Anderson about distance learning and Terry’s views on related topics.

Disclaimer: this includes good plugs for both the Landing and books that I have contributed to and that I have cowritten with Terry, plus Terry is a good friend of mine. But he is also, as Steve says, “one of the famous figures of contemporary education, and his list of achievements is lengthy.” It’s worth reminding ourselves from time to time that we have a very good percentage of the most significant thinkers and researchers in distance and online education in the World here at Athabasca University, of which Terry is one of the great leading lights.

Address of the bookmark: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.ca/2014/03/interview-with-terry-anderson.html?utm_content=buffer457d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The Web Index

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An interesting set of statistics about access to the Web as well as many other metrics relating to use, availability and freedom on the Web, ranking nearly every country on various different scales. Canada makes a mediocre showing at 15th overall, with a disappointing nearly-80% having access, and falling well short of perfect on most other metrics too. The recent CBC report that ranks Canada 53rd in the world on upload speeds is also sobering. Like all such statistics, these need to be looked at critically and considered in context, but it is none-the-less a good starting point for discussion. See http://www.webfoundation.org/projects/the-web-index/ for more on the project, and how the figures are calculated.

Address of the bookmark: http://thewebindex.org/data/all/scores/