Balancing Simplicity and Complexity in Learning Design: The Challenge of Pleasing Everyone

1. Powerful LAMS vs Simple LAMS: The challenge of pleasing everyoneJames DalzielProfessor of Learning Technology, and Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)Macquarie Universityjames@melcoe.mq.edu.auwww.melcoe.mq.edu.auKeynote presentation for the Second International LAMS Conference, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, November 26th, 2007

2. Overview • Not just another educational technology • Why Learning Design is of fundamental importance • Why Authoring and Monitoring are separate • Sharing “pedagogical know-how” • Introducing LAMS V2.1 via Role Plays • Branching, conditionality, tool outputs • Balancing simplicity and complexity

3. Not just another educational technology • The goal of Learning Design is the systematic description of teaching and learning processes • So they can be “run” with students using a prepared design • So that good practice ideas can be shared among educators • While there are many innovative technologies in education today, none are so fundamental in their goals • Almost any innovative tool could be incorporated into a Learning Design (ie, Learning Design provides a foundation) • …and Learning Design is not limited to educational technology, it can apply to all teaching and learning processes

4. Not just another educational technology • Learning Design is sometimes misunderstood as an educational approach like constructivism, PBL, etc • Rather, Learning Design is something new – it is a way of describing (and running) flows of educational activities, independent of particular educational theories • It describes the what and how of education, not the why • Of central importance to Learning Design is capturing the detail of how teaching and learning activities are conducted, so another educator could replicate this

5. Authoring and Monitoring? • Learning Design separates the creation of activity sequences from their instantiation with particular groups • This allows for sharing, re-use, adaptation, etc • This is unlike a typical LMS, where there is no separation – you edit your live course directly • This distinction is still not well understood by LMS addicts • This separation is powerful for sharing/re-using good ideas; but makes running a course more complex • Eg, create an “abstract” group in author; then later specify who

6. Sharing “pedagogical know-how” • A Learning Design need not describe every possible detail of a teaching and learning process • But it needs enough for another educator to understand/replicate • For me, a Learning Design authoring system needs to balance two goals: • (1) Be easy enough for a typical educator to use and understand • (2) Be powerful enough to capture important “process” details

7. Sharing “pedagogical know-how” • Example – Role Plays • Role plays are a great for helping students think through complex issues from different perspectives • Typically involve three main stages • Pre-role play exploration of designated role • Role play proper (playing your role in response to a scenario while interacting with others playing their roles) • Post-role play reflection on lessons learned/debriefing • Important “Process” elements include the timing of stages, private vs public discussion areas, and the nature of role groups • Role plays have helped drive the concept of Learning Design

8. From CETIS Pedagogy meeting July 2003: Modelling of Versailles Role Play

9. Reload Learning Design editor/authoring: Supports complex designs, but requires deep knowledge of the IMS Learning Design specification

10. Example of IMS LD XML output from Reload to be processed by Coppercore

11. The problem • It may be possible to describe complex “process elements” in IMS LD/Reload, but not in a way that is easily understood by typical educators • On the other hand, a visual sequence in LAMS authoring might show the key activities, but lack the ability to implement complex “process elements” like private areas • Can we find a way to implement complex process elements while retaining a simple and visual experience? • (No, but we’ll try…)

12. Interactive whiteboard adoption role play • Available in LAMS Community - developed as an adaptation of an earlier role play (on LAMS adoption) • Considers the adoption of interactive whiteboards in a typical secondary school from the perspective of 4 roles • “Pro” teachers – who are very keen on IBs • “Con” teachers – those concerned about wider adoption of IBs • School management – see both benefits and issues • Students – like IBs when well used, dislike tech for tech sake • Three main stages: Pre-role play role preparation, role play proper, then post-role play reflection

13. LAMS V1: Adopting Interactive Whiteboards in schools – Role play (from LC)

14. Interactive whiteboard adoption role play • LAMS V1 problems: • No control on access to activities in optional box – anyone could go into the wrong private role area (by mistake or deliberately) • Reason: LAMS needed all students to do the same task; couldn’t allow different groups to do different tasks to the exclusion of others • Also, grouping only had random allocation option • Too grey

15. LAMS V2: Adopting Interactive Whiteboards in schools – Role play

16. LAMS V2: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Sub-group generic text problem

17. LAMS V2: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Group naming problem

18. Interactive whiteboard adoption role play • LAMS V2.0 problems: • Each role had own private area, but instruction text had be written in a “generic” format, as each role group had the same text and had to infer the application to their specific role • Groups could be hand-allocated, but were named sequentially (Group 1/2/3/4), not in a meaningful way (Pro/Con/etc) • Both of these factors meant that although the sequence could work, it wasn’t always clear to students what to do

19. Interactive whiteboard adoption role play • Introducing LAMS V2.1 alpha (still fixing bugs): • Branching • Teacher allocated • Group-based • Tool-output based (MCQ & Forum so far, more to come) • Sequences in optional • Student choice of one or more sequences • “Branching” is always teacher or system driven (ie, automatic from the student’s perspective); optional sequences allows for student choice “branching”

20. Key concept before we start: Properties bar in Authoring (click on it to open)

21. So… this is the LAMS V2 (not 2.1) approach – ie, no branching

22. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Role tasks replaced by Branching

23. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Inside branching for role tasks

24. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Naming of branches

25. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Setting up role groups

26. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Naming role groups

27. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Branching type = groups

28. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Warning on save – incomplete

29. LAMS 2.1: Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Mapping groups to branches

30. So… after launching the Role Play sequence in Monitor, a Learner can now access it…

31. Interactive Whiteboards – Role play: Student view of Forum (private for Pro Teacher role)

32. LAMS 2.1: Alternative branching approach: Teacher choice instead of group-based

33. LAMS 2.1: Alternative branching approach: Launch in monitor, then allocate to branches

34. LAMS 2.1: Teacher allocating students to branches by hand in Monitor

35. LAMS 2.1: Alternative branching approach: Student view of Branch 2 (“con” teacher)

36. LAMS 2.1: Alternative branching: Tool-output based branching based on Vote (using MCQ)

37. Imagine using Vote to create new “yes” and “no” subgroups for extra resources & forum

38. LAMS 2.1: Tool-output branching: Creating conditions from tool outputs

39. LAMS 2.1: Tool-output branching: … then mapping conditions to Branches

40. Branching summary • Three types of branching • Group-based • Teacher choice • Tool output (& conditions) • Can have multiple groups, multiple branching activities, multiple sub-groups applied to one branch, “skip” option for branching (no task for some learners) • Tool outputs can be Boolean (either/or) or Scores • Current tools are MCQ and Forum; more to come • “Vote” example was dodgy use of MCQ (for now)

41. LAMS 2.1: New Optional *Sequences* feature (under optional; properties for settings)

42. LAMS 2.1: New Optional Sequences - allows students to choose 1 or more sequences

43. Pedagogical uses of new features • Can assign different students to different topics • Each group investigates a different aspect of a phenomenon, then reports findings back to the whole class • Can use Branching with Tool Output (and Skip) to provide remediation tasks for only some students (eg, quiz score < X, then do branch remediation activities; otherwise skip branch) • Can allow students to choose from different optional sequences (according to topic, skill, thoroughness, etc) • Can seek student opinion (eg, Role Play Vote), then create group tasks that respond to different opinions

44. Future features (?) • More advanced branching, grouping, tool outputs • Tool outputs: more current tools, new types of output, new tools • More complex conditions (multiple conditions, algorithms) • “Actionable” roles within tools • Different functionality by role (eg chat moderate/participate/view only) • Map “sequence level roles” to actionable tool roles • Link actionable roles to branching, grouping, tool outputs • Looping • Complex issues yet to solve (what constitutes task completion?) • In the meantime, new Live Edit feature in 2.1 allows ongoing edit of some tasks even after students enter (Noticeboard, Chat, Notebook, Submit Files, Share Resources); therefore Stop point + set of editable tasks could provide some elements of looping

45. From animation of new Live Edit features for LAMS 2.1 (see resources)

46. Simplicity and Complexity • LAMS has tried hard to make Learning Design simple, within the constraints of the concept (eg, separation of author & monitor) • Drag and drop authoring remains a very expensive part of our development, and LAMS could exist without it, but we keep developing it because of the simplicity that comes from visualisation • Branching is a powerful new feature, but also adds complexity, some of which is unavoidable • But… we welcome any feedback on how to make things clear and simple – particular now as we start to finalise branching • We’ve provided comprehensive technical and user wikis to help • Also, the power for branching adds to the case for simpler authoring templates like the Activity Planner • No funding during 2007; hope to make progress in 2008

47. LAMS V2 Technical Wiki

48. LAMS V2 User Documentation (Teacher) Wiki

49. LAMS Activity Planner: Selecting a template

50. LAMS Activity Planner: Filling out the key content for a selected template