Theory and methodology of e-learning research

Theory and methodology of e-learning research Gráinne Conole PhD research day, 21/2/12 University of Leicester

Outline • An overview of e-learning research • Empirical evidence • Examples of current research • Theories underpinning the field • Methodologies

E-learning research • • • • • • •

Learner experience Teacher practice Social & participatory media Learning design Learning spaces Mobile learning Virtual worlds

E-learning research • • • • • • •

Learning analytics Use of Virtual Learning Environments Open Educational Resources Pedagogical patterns Digital literacies Creativity and technologies Openness

Cross cutting themes • • • • • •

Affordances of technologies Barriers and enablers Case studies of good practice Emergent technologies Changing practices Institutional implications

Learning spaces • Metaphors • • • •

Camp fire Watering hole Cave Mountain top

• Principle of learning space design

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• • • • • • •

Comfort Aesthetics Flow Equity Blending Affordances Repurposing

www.skgproject.com

New digital literacies Creativity

Play

Performance

Simulation

Collective intelligence

Judgement

Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking

Transmedia navigation

Networking

Appropriation

Multitasking

Negotiation Distributed cognition

Jenkins et al., 2006

Learner experience • Technology immersed • Learning approaches: taskorientated, experiential, just in time, cumulative, social • Personalised digital learning environment • Mix of institutional systems and Cloud-based tools and services • Use of course materials with free resources 8

Sharpe, Beetham and De Freitas, 2010

EDUCAUSE study • Students drawn to new technologies but rely on more traditional ones • Consider technologies offer major educational benefits • Mixed views of VLEs

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Teacher practices: paradoxes • Technologies not extensively used (Molenda) • Lack of uptake of OER (McAndrew et al.) • Little use beyond early adopted (Rogers) • Despite rhetoric and funding little evidence of transformation (Cuban, Ehlers)

Pandora’s box

What would it mean to adopt more open practices? Open design, open delivery, open research and open evaluation?

Open practices Open design

Open delivery

Pandora’s box

Open dialogue 11

Open research

Open design Shift from belief-based, implicit approaches to design-based, explicit approaches Learning Design A design-based approach to creation and support of courses

Encourages reflective, scholarly practices Promotes sharing and discussion

Course views Learning outcomes

Course map Pedagogy profile Course dimensions

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Task swimlane

But does it work? I find the document quite thoughtprovoking, especially as a starting point in this journey for developing good understandings It is iterative and so helps with ironing out any issues I could understand the learning design process and would feel able to use this when designing some learning activities 14

Open resources

Open courses: MOOC

Massive Open Online Course

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc http://mooc.ca/

Open accreditation

Peer to Peer University http://www.p2pu.org/en/

OER University

http://wikieducator.org/OER_university

Open dialogue: Cloudworks • A space for sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas and designs • Application of the best of web 2.0 practice for teaching • To bridge the gap between technologies and use • Teachers say they want: examples, want to share & discuss • Helps develop skills needed for engaging with new technologies’ http://cloudworks.ac.uk 18

Community indicators Participation Sustained over time Commitment from core group Emerging roles & hierarchy

Cohesion Support & tolerance Turn taking & response Humour and playfulness

Identity

Creative capability

Group self-awareness Shared language & vocab Sense of community

Igniting sense of purpose Multiple points of view expressed, contradicted or challenged Creation of knowledge links & patterns

Galley et al., 2010

Open scholarship Discovery Integration Application Teaching

Open Digital Networked 20

Boyer

Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/

Open research

The future of learning Just in time

Distributed

Collective

Personalised

Creative

Blurred

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Responsive

Open

Empirical evidence • Review of social and participatory media (Conole and Alevizou, 2010) • Review of e-learning pedagogies (Conole, 2010) • Review of TEL researchers (Conole, et al., 2011) • Networked learning ‘hotseat’ on theory and methodology (Conole, 2010)

Theory • • • • •

Activity theory Actor Network Theory Community of Practice Social capital Cybernetics

Activity Theory

Methodology • • • • • •

Case studies Evaluation Virtual ethnography Content analysis Action research Design-based research

My influences • • • • • • • • • • • •

Laurillard Salomon Lave and Wenger Engestrom Wetsch Cole Daniels Schon Atkins Seely Brown Pea Perkins

Tips • To do list, milestones, deadlines • Share drafts and get comments! • Present and get feedback at conferences • Network, network, network! • Publish as you go • Up to date bibliography, use ref software! • Nail your methodology

Final thoughts • Open, participatory and social media enable new forms of communication and collaboration • Communities in these spaces are complex and distributed • Learners and teachers need to develop new digital literacy skills to harness their potential • We need to rethink how we design, support and assess learning • Open, participatory and social media can provide mechanisms for us to share and discuss teaching and research ideas in new ways • We are seeing a blurring of boundaries: teachers/learners, teaching/research, real/virtual spaces, formal/informal modes of communication and publication