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The Origin of Online Learning: Improving Long-term Memory on Quality Issues

Dr. Jon Baggaley, an emeritus professor at Athabasca University, Canada, presents a plenary paper at the 22nd CIAED-ABED International Congress in Sao Paulo on how to improve our long-term memory on quality issues in online learning.

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The Origin of Online Learning: Improving Long-term Memory on Quality Issues

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  1. Keynote Workshop Dr. Jon Baggaley Emeritus Professor, Athabasca U, Canada 22nd CIAED-ABED International Congress Sao Paulo (September 2016)

  2. Improving our Long-term Memory on Quality Issues Dr. Jon Baggaley Emeritus Professor, Athabasca U, Canada Plenary paper to 22nd CIAED-ABED International Congress Sao Paulo (September 2016)

  3. Recent Assessments of Online Learning “(T)here is very little good research on the best forms of online learning, and …there are no good studies on what constitutes bad online pedagogy…” Hunter Rawlings III (2013) President: Cornell University President of Association of American Universities Founding Member: Global Learning Council (2013 -)

  4. Recent Assessments of Online Learning “Distance education has existed in the United States for more than a hundred years...” (Note: 1 source cited) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016) Online Education: a catalyst for higher education Number of citations in report: 247 History of distance education: 1/247 citation Online education: 3/28 pages The term “distance”: 5 mentions in 28 pp.

  5. A Recent Author? • Vygotsky (1978): common citation of social learning theorist’s book Mind in Society • But Vygotsky died in 1934 • A new generation seems unaware of this • Modern mis-citations imply that Vygotsky’s ideas are more recent and even influenced by modern researchers The Forgotsky Effect

  6. The Origin of Online Learning? • In 2002: OpenCourseWare (OCW) Initiative launched by MIT • In 2008: “MOOCs bring new advances in scale…interactivity, sophistication, and personalization to distance learning” (using asynchronous video and forums, automatic assessments…) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016) Online Education: a catalyst for higher education

  7. The Origin of Online Learning? Keywords source: Educational Technology Abstracts, 1985-2010

  8. The Origin of Online Learning? Keywords source: Educational Technology Abstracts, 1985-2010

  9. The Origin of Online Learning? Keywords source: Educational Technology Abstracts, 1985-2010

  10. Quality Assurance in DE Centralised QA models: • Monash University, Australia • Athabasca University, Canada • Hong Kong Open University • Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia • Open University of Malaysia • Sukhothai Thammathirat OU, Thailand • Open University of the UK Jung, I. (2004), UNESCO report Widening Access to Quality Higher Education

  11. Quality Assurance in DE Collective and dispersed QA models: • PUCRS Virtual, Brazil • China Central Radio and TV University • Shanghai TV University, China • Indira Gandhi National OU, India • Korea National Open University • Anadolu University, Turkey • Pennsylvania State University, USA Jung, I. (2004), UNESCO report Widening Access to Quality Higher Education

  12. Quality Assurance in DE Also before the MOOC: • (1995) Brazilian Association for Distance Education founded • (2002) Brazilian Review of Open and Distance Learning launched • (2005) Regulations for DE implementation in Brazil issued in Decree No. 5.5622 (Ministry of Education) • (2007) Referenciais de Qualidade para Educação Superior a Distância (Ministry of Education)

  13. Quality Assurance in DE International DE guidelines are exemplified by the 107 “best practices” defined by the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU): • Policy and planning (7 practices) • HR recruitment and development (9 practices) • Management and administration (21 practices) • Learners (10 practices) • Programme design and development (6 practices) • Course design and development (14 practices) • Learning support (18 practices) • Assessment of student learning (15 practices) • Learning media (7 practices)

  14. Instructional Design Guidelines

  15. Instructional Design Guidelines Best practices guidelines have stressed teacher-student interaction for 100 years “…there are no good studies on what constitutes bad online pedagogy…” Is this why MOOCs typically disregard the need for teacher-student interaction??

  16. Instructional Design Guidelines • 2000: Massive open online courses were already being delivered in Asia and beyond • 2008: The new term ‘MOOC’ gave traditional educators the idea that online education is new • 2012-16: Commercial MOOC providers replaced teacher-student interaction with learner-constructed learning (asynchronous forums, students grading each other’s work, etc.) • Ironically, campus educators have traditionally criticised DE for impersonal methods and are now using the same methods in MOOCs

  17. How Much Has Been Forgotten? • 1950s-70s: Text-based DE began simply and evolved to programmed learning approaches • 1960s-80s: ETV production evolved from simple techniques to subtle aptitude-treatment interaction designs (ATI) • 1990s-00s: Online methods evolved steadily… • 2008: …but MOOC designs returned to basics… • 2015-16: …and subtler designs for different types of student are just now beginning to evolve • The findings of previous distance education research are being slowly rediscovered

  18. International Forgetting • Current neglect of best practices guidelines is particularly acute in international online DE development • In Big Media Little Media (1977), Schramm stressed the need for research studies ensuring appropriate DE pedagogy for different cultures and conditions • Relatively few cross-cultural studies have been conducted in relation to MOOC design • Negative public attitudes to DE in developing nations are unlikely to improve in this situation

  19. Improving our Long-term Memory on DE Quality Issues • MIT recommendation/1: Hire “a new breed of professional – the learning engineer”, foreseen by US scholar Herbert Simon (1967) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016) Online Education: a catalyst for higher education (Note: The learning engineer’s duties described by Simon are already standard in the work of the educational technologist.)

  20. Improving our Long-term Memory on DE Quality Issues • MIT recommendation/2: Groups should collaborate: “disciplinary experts, working in concert with experts in the broader learning sciences…” Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016) Online Education: a catalyst for higher education (Note: This recommendation was made in the ETV field by the European Broadcasting Union in 1967, and frequently since then.)

  21. Improving our Long-term Memory on DE Quality Issues • Ensure that research teams responsible for future DE policy and methods include social science and educational experts, and are not dominated by commercial interests • Base DE methods on traditional QA principles • Tighten reviewing criteria to prevent publication of articles overlooking the research literature • Improve consistency in literature citation • In general, prevent the DE ‘Forgotsky Effect’

  22. Sources • Baggaley, J. (2016, Sept). Sandcastle competitions. Distance Education 37(3). • Baggaley, J. (2007-16). Downloads of 15 Distance Education articles: www.tinyurl.com/JB-offprints • Baggaley, J. (2012). Harmonizing Global Education. New York: Routledge. • Baggaley. J. (2016). TV and Online Education: a 10-hour multimedia history of DE research: www.vimeopro.com/baggaley/home

  23. The MOOC of the Future

  24. Muito obrigado

  25. A Hundred Years of Media Education Dr. Jon Baggaley Emeritus Professor, Athabasca U Workshop at 22nd CIAED-ABED International Congress Sao Paulo (September 2016)

  26. A Hundred Years of Media Education Dr. Jon Baggaley Emeritus Professor, Athabasca U A) Gales of Change B) International Projects C) Predicting Trends D) Reactions to Change

  27. The Rise of the Latest Medium • “one of the most magnificent instruments for raising the quality of teaching” • “an instrument for general adult education, it could significantly upgrade the common culture” • “no innovation has marched so quickly and confidently into the field of learning. It moves into the future of American education as a major resource” • “a medium with so much potential, with so many needs to meet, and so many plans being made for it” Source: Dowling (1996)

  28. The Rise of the Latest Medium • “one of the most magnificent instruments for raising the quality of teaching” (Newsom, 1952) • “an instrument for general adult education, it could significantly upgrade the common culture” (Kurtz, 1959) • “no innovation has marched so quickly and confidently into the field of learning. It moves into the future of American education as a major resource” (ICR, Stanford U, 1962) • “a medium with so much potential, with so many needs to meet, and so many plans being made for it”(ICR, Stanford U, 1962) Source: Dowling (1996)

  29. Gale of Creative Destruction …a cyclic process of constant technological change. In Schumpeter’s analysis technologies rose and declined in 18-year cycles. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Schumpeter, 1942)

  30. New Terms for Old • Online graphic environments extend “a person’s ability in the virtual world to transcend space and time, to be anywhere, anytime, as or with anyone, is the principal attraction of the virtual world. It is very seductive.” (Jacobson, Sailing Through Cyberspace, 1993) • TV and film intervene “in the communication process in such as way as to extend a student’s sight and hearing through space and time” (Schramm et al., 1967)

  31. Decline of Old Principles • NOW:Universal Instructional Design: 9 principles Materials and activities need: accessibility; flexibility; straightforwardness + consistency; explicitness; teacher-student interaction; minimal effort; diverse approaches; tolerance for error; appropriate environmental space Chickering & Gamson (1987); Scott et al. (2003) • THEN: (All the above) + emphases on active, motivated learning; feedback/knowledge of results; retention and transfer; inter-learner collaboration; accommodation of cultural differences (15 principles: Schramm et al.,1967; . Vertov, 1920s; Bagley, 1911)

  32. Accommodating Cultural Differences • In 1967: Wilbur Schramm compared the most effective ‘best practices’ for educational TV in Algeria, Australia, Colombia, India, the Ivory Coast, Japan, Niger, Peru, Samoa, Thailand, and Togo. (Schramm et al., The New Media. UNESCO, 1967) • Today: Asian ‘mega-universities’ are preserving the old media (TV, radio) while developing new online ones. Western education substituted new media for old media in the 1990s, and has lost momentum in multimedia usage skills.

  33. IDRC PANdora Network (2005- ) 13-nation DE technology initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam 2

  34. IDRC PANdora Network (2005- ) Mongolia China Pakistan Bhutan Laos India Hong Kong Philippines Vietnam Thailand Malaysia Cambodia Sri Lanka Singapore Indonesia 3

  35. The Inaccessible World-Wide Web x Collaborating researchers in: 22 Asian nations PANdora project (2007)

  36. Web Hit Traceroutes

  37. Distance Learning Practices for Policy Recommendations in China and Mongolia x Collaborating research teams in: China, Mongolia PANdora sub-project/9 (2005-07)‏

  38. Conclusions 1) E-learning institutions require significant start-up funding from governments and/or companies 2) The Asian education tradition differs from western traditions, and local situation should be considered. 3) DE students are used to learning from lectures, not self-directed learning, so DE skills training needed. 4) ICT cannot improve teaching and learning without instructional design of e-learning course materials. 5) Asian DE institutions should create general standards for DE quality assessment. 6) ISO9000 method for effective quality assurance.

  39. Accessibility, Acceptance and Effects of Distance Learning Technologies in South Asia x Collaborating research teams in: Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka PANdora sub-project/1 (2005-07)

  40. Conclusions 1) The focus on online education in South Asia seems to have totally failed to take account of its general lack of accessibility and affordability. 2) While waiting for improved access to modern ICT facilities such as computers and the Internet, there is scope for more extensive uses of radio and TV, media freely available in all parts of South Asia. 3) The survey findings indicate that a careful mixture of ICT-based methods can help DE to expand rapidly in S. Asia, producing the trained workers the developing countries desperately need.

  41. The Cell-phone: an ubiquitous technology for m-Learning in Asia x Collaborating research teams in: The Philippines, Mongolia PANdora sub-project/2 (2005-07)

  42. Recommendations 1) Link SMS modules with the Web. • Strengthen student and teacher support. 3) As a DE tool, SMS can contribute to bridging the educational gap in developing countries. 4) SMS is user-friendly without a steep learning curve for teachers, students and administrators. 5) Need to address lack of SMS-based courseware. 6) Bottom-up approach to content development is effective and empowers more people. • Concerted R&D stakeholder efforts needed (government, telecoms, educators, NGOs, etc).

  43. MoodleTM Video Module

  44. Old-New Media Convergence • Old-new media convergence in Asia is making extensive use of new media (online methods, social media, cell-phones,etc.) in conjunction with traditional media (radio, TV, etc.)

  45. The Mobile Learning Tradition • 1919 to mid-1930s:agit-prop trains took multimedia (film, pamphlets, lectures, etc.) across the new Soviet Union for community development and propagandist purposes • Early ’20s: train project leader, film-maker Dziga Vertov, developed formative evaluation,instructional design,participatory development, capacity building, and action research methods to teach rural audiences for whom formal education was inaccessible

  46. Old-New Media are Converging… • Old-new media convergence in Asia is making extensive use of new media (online methods, social media, cell-phones,etc.) in conjunction with traditional media (radio, TV, etc.) • ‘Modern’ trends (e.g. connectivism, flipped learning) were fully developed decades ago • Conversely, multimedia m-learning 90 years ago was based on pedagogical principles not widely used with today’s new media

  47. …in a Century of -isms • There is enthusiasm in the developing-world for a “paradigm shift” to the “constructivist” models of westerneducators and consultants • Behaviorism, connectionism, connectivism, constructivism, essentialism, progressivism; Taylorism (etc. etc.): considered in isolation, each overlooks teaching-learning complexity • Ism-ism:“commonly seen in academia, where terms (ending with ism) are incessantly created and applied to every new situation. Ism-ists are too focused on labeling everything to appreciate anything”(Urban Dictionary, 2011)

  48. …as Old Principles are Reborn Without citation: • Copying another person’s work in full (clone) • Copying sections of another’s work • Changing words in copied work • Remixing work from multiple sources • Recycling one’s own work • Mixing cited sources and uncited passages (hybrid) • Mixing copied material with imperfect citation (mashup) • Including non-existent or inaccurate citations With citation: • Sources cited but work unoriginal (aggregating) • Sources cited but reliant on original wording/structure (re-tweeting) Turnitin.com (2012) Ten Types of Plagiarism

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