Achieving Mass Adoption of Learning Design: Challenges and Reflections

1. Are we ready for mass adoption of Learning Design?James DalzielProfessor of Learning Technologyand Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)Macquarie Universityjames@melcoe.mq.edu.auwww.melcoe.mq.edu.auKeynote Presentation for the 2008 European LAMS Conference, Cadiz, Spain, 26th June, 2008

2. Overview • A Vision for Educators of the Future • What is Learning Design? • Challenges to overcome • Challenges that remain • Some personal reflections

3. A Vision for Educators of the Future • Educators agree how to describe sequences of educational activities (ie, lesson plans) • Educators create “digital lesson plans” that make it easy to run educational activities on computers • Educators share good “teaching ideas” (digital lesson plans) with their colleagues • Educators are free to adapt, localise and improve good teaching ideas from others • By collectively sharing and improving good teaching ideas, educators could revolutionise education

4. What is Learning Design? • “Learning Design” (LD) has several different meanings: • A descriptive framework • A type of e-learning software • An approach to supporting effective pedagogy

5. What is Learning Design? • Learning Design as a descriptive framework/language/notation system • Technical examples (IMS LD, LAMS XML, LDL, etc) • General examples (structured lesson plans, patterns, etc) • Key concept: able to represent many different pedagogical approaches (“pedagogical neutrality”) • Greatest potential, but hardest to understand

6. Date of manuscript unknown. Held in Florence, Italy. Photo by Asiir 17:00, 13 February 2007, Wikipedia.org First page of the manuscript of Bach's lute suite in G Minor. Wikipedia.org

7. What is Learning Design? • Learning Design as e-learning software • Arose from limitations with existing e-learning software, especially Course Management Systems (CMS) • Focus on collaborative learning activities • The missing dimension of SCORM/courseware • Key concept: sequencing of activities • Learning Design systems are radically different to Course Management Systems “under the hood” • Workflow engine vs groups-based website management

8. What is Learning Design? • Learning Design as an approach to supporting effective pedagogy • Describing and sharing good ideas for teaching and learning • Helping educators to consider new approaches to improving student learning (ie, taking some risks!) • Giving advice to educators on appropriate course design, tool choice and activity structures to meet student learning needs • Key concept: Not focused on pedagogical neutrality • Supporting educators with effective approaches to teaching

9. Educators Sharing Effective Learning Designs Learning Design Software Learning Design Descriptive Framework

10. Challenges overcome • Learning Design Descriptive Framework • Technical: • EML, IMS LD, LAMS XML, LDL, etc give us real examples of a technical framework • New work on mapping and underlying concepts/ontology • General descriptive; • Structured lesson plans, AUTC Learning Design graphics, educational patterns, etc give us non-technical examples • Early work on combined face-to-face + technology descriptions (eg, LAMS “offline activities” information field)

11. Challenges overcome • Learning Design software • Far more difficult than anyone imagined, but… • Real examples in LAMS, Coppercore/ReLoad, etc • Eg, LAMS Community has 3200+ members, 86 countries, 280+ sequences, 7300+ downloads, 3600+ forum postings • LAMS integrations with Course Management Systems (eg, Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT, Sakai, .LRN, Microsoft Sharepoint) • LAMS “Tools Contract” provides a framework for “LD aware” tools • V2.1 branching, optional sequences, new grouping – more flexible • Some LAMS features that matter for LD adoption • Preview: Allows for iterative LD authoring by non-technical educators • Automatic tool instantiation: Allows sequences to run immediately • Progress bar: Loads next activity for students, so they don’t get lost

12. LAMS 2.1: Example of Branching (Interactive Whiteboards – Role play)

13. Challenges overcome • Sharing Effective Learning Designs, eg: • LAMS Community – repository and discussion • AUTC Learning Designs website exemplars, etc • Lessons from LAMS Community experiences:Direct re-use vs inspiration • The affordances of Learning Design systems havefostered more activity-centric learning (vs content-centric)

14. Challenges that remain • Learning Design Descriptive Framework • Technical: • Still early days – much more work to be done • Tool setup/invocation • Global properties vs tool properties • Easy interoperability across different LD systems • Descriptive • If you only have 1 or 2 pages, what is essential to convey to another teacher? (cf music notation)

15. Challenges that remain • Learning Design software • A very long list of desirable features… • “Deep” integration with Course Management System (ie, LD authoring and sequencing engine, but CMS tools) • Basic tool interoperability for sharing designs across systems • Looping and other non-linear structures • Including open game-like environments • Role-based LD-aware activity tools • Eg, handing moderation of a Chat to a student

16. Challenges that remain • Sharing Effective Learning Designs – the big challenge: • What mixture of learning platforms, activity tools, course and activity advice, learner needs identification, design sharing communities, design templates and/or ready-to-use sequences will crystallise mass adoption? • Or, is the problem elsewhere? (lack of teacher rewards for sharing and re-use; too focused on teacher control of learning; no clear evidence of educational benefits to justify teacher extra effort; IP concerns about sharing; other?)

17. LAMS Activity Planner • New project (finally funded!) to explore implementation of an Activity Planner for LAMS • Activity Planner components: • A library of templates • A decision process to help educators select a template • Including advice • Easy content creation/editing for the chosen template • (And features to allow experts to create their own planners)

18. LAMS Activity Planner: Selecting a template

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

20. Some personal reflections • We have enough LD technology, although there is much more worthwhile work that could be done • But… radical ease of use remains critical • Creating an activity planner for busy educators • Where choices are driven by timing, computer access and collaboration constraints of the teaching context • Focus on small sequences that instantiate “good ideas” for small group (class/tutorial) teaching and learning

21. Some personal reflections • Would there be value in creating topic-specific activity planners? • Eg, a suite of sequences for the main topics of introductory psychology – including easy editing to “tweak” content • (And full LAMS authoring is available if desired) • Where are the textbook publishers? • They represent existing “re-use” of educational content on a huge scale, but little work on prepared activities (vs content) • We don’t need all publishers – just one….

22. Some personal reflections • Some approaches assume educational designers can “talk pedagogy” to busy educators “up front” • My sense is that normally designers need to earn trust first • (Unless new course, major redesign or major problems) • One way to earn this trust is helping with a small, practical implementation of a new teaching idea • A wider pedagogy discussion comes after a small success

23. Are we ready for mass adoptionof Learning Design? Yes…No…If only…