Future of Education in the Age of Technology Struggles

1. Rethinking the Educational System (or at least small parts ) Thomas Ryberg (ryberg@hum.aau.dk) @tryberg (twitter) Professor - E-Learning Lab – Center for User Driven Innovation, Learning and Design Dept. of Communication and Psychology Aalborg University, Denmark The Future of Education

2. Future of Education • The future of education is often viewed through the lens of dawning and emerging technologies, so perhaps I should be speaking of: • And how they might revolutionise or disrupt education Robots Artifical Intelligence (AI) Learning Analytics Coding Curriculum Big Data MOOCs

3. However…. I am not going to do that! • We assume educational technologies will bring benevolent changes to education • better learning, student-centred pedagogies, enhance motivation, will prepare students for the ‘future’ • But ‘future’ is not a set path – future of education is a struggle, and technology might mislead us! • Will highlight the dark sides of educational technologies • Also the opportunities they offer for PBL - and what PBL has to offer to educational technologies! • Will provide two examples/ideas of digital PBL practice

4. In #EdTech Huge gaps between: Vocaldiscourses of imminent and radicalchanges • Game-changers, disruptions, paradigm-shifts, 2.0s, don’t miss the train The actualqualitativechangestechnologies have broughtabout in edcuation and the speed of thosechanges The same ‘train of thought’ seems to return to the station without realising it has beentherebefore…a city ring

5. #EDTECH IS BIG BUSINESS IT’S FULL OF: But alsounrealised potential…

6. But let’s start by going (Of educational technology)

7. “There must be an industrial revolution in education in which educational science and the ingenuity of educational technology combine to modernize the grossly inefficient and clumsy procedures of conventional education.” - Sidney Pressey, 1924, inventor of the Automatic Teacher, the first electronic device used in schools The motion picture is destined to revolutionizeour educational system and...in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. —Thomas Edison, 1922

8. Prof. C. C. Clark of New York University conducting a class from his home (1935) “The scene will be a commonplace one tomorrow, without a doubt, when television will be as indispensable to our every day home life as the radio program receiver is today.” (The April 1935 issue of Short Wave Craft magazine) Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/predictions-for-educational-tv-in-the-1930s-107574983

9. “Tomorrow our whole radio broadcast background, so far as the listener is concerned, will be changed when television becomes a common everyday convenience. Not only will various subjects be taught or lectured upon and brought into our homes, but the latest styles in men’s and women’s clothes, furniture, etc., will be flashed on our home television screen, and dozens of other advertised products, travel tours, etc., as well.” Nailed it! ….With the advertising…. Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/predictions-for-educational-tv-in-the-1930s-107574983

10. 1954 Oftenheard and recited in relation to X learningtechnology….Laptops, Ipads, MOOCs (individual, self-pacedlearning) http://www.idealearninggroup.com/blog/history-of-elearning-e-is-for-evolutionary

11. History of #edtech not a neat and orderly progression – rather a strugglebetweenperspectives / pedagogical ideals (Weller, 2007) • Broadcastview • Deliver or make content and resources globally available - on demand • Self-paced, individualised • Reuse, scalability, cost efficiency (reducing the role of the teacher) • Also: Control, standardisation, institutionalisation, industrialization • Mainstream • Discussionview • Knowledge through dialogue, collaboration and communcation • Mutual dependency or relations between students and between students and facilitators • Groups, intimacy, relations, cooperation and collaboration – dependency in time • Fringe Jones, C., & Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L. (2009). AnalysingNetworked Learning Practices. In L. Dirckinck-Holmfeld, C. Jones, & B. Lindström (Eds.), AnalysingNetworked Learning Practices in Higher Education and Continuing Professional Development (pp. 10–27). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Weller, M. (2007). Virtual learning environments : effective development and use. London: Routledge.

12. But maybe we need to rethink? Sage on the stage – Guide on the side • Are these dichotomies the main challenges we are facing in education? • And will educational technology help us resolve these? Behaviourism - Constructivism Transmission - Transformation Teacher centred – Student centred Acquisition – Participation

13. The real struggle? • Perhaps struggles are between: • Market-driven or community-driven Education and Educational Technology Kolmos, A., & Holgaard, J. E. (2015). Design of virtual PBL cases for sustainability and employability. In Global Research Community: Collaboration and Developments (pp. 312–323). Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Retrieved from http://vbn.aau.dk/files/219797251/Global_research_community_collaboration_and_development_final.pdf

14. You say #EdTech won’t change education as we know it!?

15. Perhaps…I dunno…. What I do want to say is: Technology will not radically reshape education to become egalitarian, progressive or student centred… Radicalideas of educationwill!.... Technology might even reinforce a market driven perspective and inequality PBL was (and is) a prettyradicalideawithineducation and thus a uniqueopportunity for us!

16. Question – 2 min • Have educational technologies transformed pedagogy in your institutions? • For better or for worse? Or not at all?

17. Some contemporary examples • MOOCs • Big Data & Learning Analytics • Often educational technologies are emphasised through the rhetoric of ‘public good’, but these qualities are slowly displaced by a ‘market’ perspective

18. MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses • 2008: Experimental MOOCs (cMOOCs) • Developed within Academia, No official learning goals or credits. Non-commercial • Readings and distributed activities in digital spaces • 2012: Popularisation of MOOCs (xMOOCs) • Ivy-league university company spin-offs (udacity, coursera) promise to ‘disrupt education’ and ‘opening up education to the world’ • Timed and paced, clear syllabus and learning goals, short targeted video-lectures, quizzes, machine-assessment or peer-grading • Concerns: • xMOOCs built on a pedagogy developed in Open Universities since the 60s – however often failed to include the insights developed by existing research • Highly individualised - little incencitive to collaborate • Bottle-neck problem – reducing need for teachers ( ‘academic precariat’) • ‘Open’ – But are course material open, who owns data and work? • Unclear business-models – free, freemium, course diploma • Neo-colonialism – rather than capacity building - benefitting the ‘haves’ over the ‘have nots’ • More than disruption it was perhaps a clever way of entering traditional market for educational technology

19. Big Data & Learning analytics • Concerns: • Technology focus - less on pedagogy and learning • Ethics and privacy regarding students’ data – and who owns the data? • Less on how data can be used by students – mainly institution and teachers • Less on supporting analysis of ‘collaboration’ – mainly individual focus • Success examples about identifying ‘at risk’ students - facilitate management more than improving learning practices • How do measurements impact our ways of understanding learning and teaching – an overemphasis on what *can* be measured rather than what *should* be measured (e.g. complex problem solving and collaboration) • “Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs” • Promises of: Optimising learning for the learner, and teachers’ understanding of the learner. • Often associated with MOOCs with 1000+ participants and the (big) data they produce throughout a course

20. The magic mirror of EdTech • A mirror reflecting our wishes and desires leaving the darker sides out of view • MOOCs & Flipped learning also hailed by university managers as a way to cut costs and staff • As PBL researchers and practitioners we see potentials for collaboration and problem solving, but can easily miss darker sides • Individualised learning and erosion of the group as a site for collaboration – unbundling and micro-degrees

21. We need to take charge and shape the future of digital PBL • Navigate in the digital age without loosing the uniqueness and strengths of PBL • How to develop PBL models and practices that challenge the ‘market’ view of education and promote sustainable education? • Mode 3 – hybrid learning model or The Ecological University (Barnett) Jamison, A., Kolmos, A., & Holgaard, J. E. (2014). Hybrid Learning: An Integrative Approach to Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, 103(2), 253–273. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20041

22. *Personal learning networks* *Mass collaboration*Both challenging – in some ways – how we understand collaboration and group work within PBL and collaborative learning But are also possibilities Emerging modes of work & Learning

23. Challenge! Complexmaasive social and personalnetworks

24. Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) Ego-centricnetworksformedthroughe.g. social network sites (facebook, twitter, pinterest) Traversing and harvesting the ego-centricnetwork for information, ideas, and resources (and contributing) The individualperson’sability to form and sustain a personallearningnetwork Manystrengths and potentials – but heavilyindividualisednotions of learningunderpinning the ideas of PLNs

25. Mass collaboration Diffuse, uncoordinatedmass of peoplecontribute to sustained or more ephemeralconstructs Sustained: Wikipedia, Open Source, Some MOOCs Ephemeral: wild-fire or flash activites – #resist – eruptions and burst of hectic activies – short-lived activation of massive networks Manystrengths and potentials – but what is the quality of the contributions, how to get an overview, diffuse and chaotic, no joint goal – requiresknowledge and literacy to draw from and makesense of (information overload)

26. Challenges to PBL: How do weensurethatgroup and projectworkremains an importantlearningexperíence in a globalisednetworkedworld That PBL remains an anchoring point for students learningexperiences and somethingwhichmeaningfullyconnects the threads

27. Challenges to PBL: How do wemediatebetween and knittogether the individualisedpersonallearningnetworks of the students and engagethem in meaningfulmass-colaborations We have a ‘wealth of personallearningnetworks’ in semesters and courses and we have a ressource in students thatcanengage with others in masscollaborations on importantsocietalchallenges (environment, fightingpoverty)

28. Two examplesHow we can rethink personal learning networks and mass-collaboration from a PBL Perspective Flipped semester Collaborative Open Online Projects (COOPs)

29. Flipped Semester • Development project in AAU (together with Profs. Kolmos, Busk Kofoed, Myrup) • Currently three 5 ECTS courses + 15 ECTS project • Relations between courses and semester project challenged • Flipped Courses might further aggravate this tension • Rethinking the relations between courses and projects as a flipped semester 5 ECTS course 5 ECTS course 5 ECTS course 15 ECTS project

30. Flipped Semester problem • ‘Problem’ and ‘Problem analysis’ as main vehicle of the semester • Courses and lectures to become online resources that students can access • Self-developed internal as well as recommended external • Material and courses students identify • Time and activities organised as workshops, discussion groups, seminars, peer-critique and learning • Use of ICTs & social media to enable students to share, annotate, collaborate, connect and produce • Developing a learning community between students and teachers/facilitators • But also students create Personal Learning Networks 5 ECTS course 5 ECTS course 5 ECTS course 15 ECTS project

31. AAU online resources External recommended resources Students’ self-selected ICTs & Social Media to: share, annotate, collaborate, connect and produce seminar workshop discussion Peer-critique workshop seminar discussion Collaborative sensemaking and learning – developing a learning community problem Project group Project group Project group 15 ECTS project

32. COOP – Collaborative Open Online Projects • Collaborations between universities, NGOs, industry to identify relevant grand challenges • Global real-world and open-ended problem in a local context • Interdisciplinary globally distributed groups work together with local students and researchers • Collaborate and build an online learning community through ICTs and Social Media • Learning driven by the problem and scaffolded by seminars, discussion groups, researcher interaction • Student groups produce a small project to gain credits

33. COOP – Collaborative Open Online Projects • Alternative to market-driven MOOCs and ‘courses’ as main form of learning • Not a course & curriculum - deep engagement with a global problem • Problem is driver for learning in and between groups building a commited learning community • Collaboration at scale learning in the group as well as learning from and with other groups • Forming both small collaborative group networks as well as large-scaler complex, learning networks

34. Shaping and rethinking the future of education • The mode 3 university will not emerge on its own – it will be a struggle! • Strong push for individualisation of education and EdTech reinforces this! • Critical to maintain central values of PBL: groups, collaboration, knowledge building, critical thinking, reflexivity, ethics • Develop PBL models and practices that uses technology in a sustainable way • Develop digital PBL practices, but: • Ask difficult questions of education: Who are we benefitting, who are we leaving out • Ask difficult questions of educational technologies: Whose interest do particular technologies serve, who owns the technologies and the data? What are the vested interests? • Be aware of the magic mirror of EdTech!

35. Distilling educational technologies through PBL philosophy and values Big Data Social Media MOOCs Learning analytics Coding PBL – philosophy and values Provide valuable inputs to the future development of educational technologies – for industry and education Hype Educational technologies to support: groups, collaboration, knowledge building, critical thinking, reflexivity, ethics Marketisation Learning analytics to empower students by improving collaboration and critical reflection Social media to support community building and group work

36. Thank you – questions and comments?

37. References for pics • CC-licensed material from Flickr – starring in no particular order and some not used..: • https://flic.kr/p/8R3pxY • https://flic.kr/p/dB91Ut • https://flic.kr/p/8dvw75 • https://flic.kr/p/qsLSmd • https://flic.kr/p/dzRrDS • https://flic.kr/p/6VNKXh • https://flic.kr/p/cmeJ4 • https://flic.kr/p/4TyeQM • https://flic.kr/p/aKUcW • https://flic.kr/p/dHs5hE • https://flic.kr/p/8KL7E5 • https://flic.kr/p/am3MHH • https://flic.kr/p/FvPnH • https://flic.kr/p/e6nbU • https://flic.kr/p/5Btq14 • https://flic.kr/p/PVNng