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Category: My Work

African Council for Distance Education 2014

June 8, 2014Written by terrya

Zambezi Valley

I was honoured to be invited to do a keynote talk at the 4th conference of ACDE in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. After sitting up for 2 nights on a plane (42 hour journey) I was very glad to reach the Elephant Hills hotel and a soft bed. The hotel overlooks the Zambezi River and the constant myst of the Victoria Falls can be seen about 3 km away.

Mist rising from Victoria Falls

The next day I took a tour of the Falls, and they did not disappoint. They reminded me a lot of Niagara – maybe not so tall, but wider and the same deafening roar as millions of gallons of water churn over the cliff.

I did my talk the next day entitled ” Using Open Scholarship to Leapfrog Traditional Educational Barriers And it went OK, but the elaborate formal greetings and pomp of the opening ceremonies, meant that my time was really constrained- though I did manage to squeeze in a joke and give away a copy of one of our open access, Athabasca University Press, Issues in Dist. Educ. series books. The afternoon was spent at a very interesting workshop present by UNESCO and Fred Muller in which he challenged the Open Universities of Africa to embrace and develop MOOC applications- rather than fear them as we seem to do. I was very impressed with over 200 MOOCs put together by 13 European OpenUpEd collaborators as a service- not profit see openuped.eu.

Generally the African Open Universities are focussed on quality production of print packages and support (tutorials, testing etc) in local learning Centres. They suffer from the same prejudice from educated elites, and the faculties of traditional universities, but of course their costs are much lower. It is clear to all that sufficient campus universities will never be built to accommodate the large and growing demand for higher education in Africa. Many of the presenters presented compelling cases for more support, but also presented evidence of the changes that their programs are making in the lives of disadvantaged students. All the participants seem to have a sense that they should be using more net based technologies, but judging from the general absence of laptops by all but a few of the conference delegates, I think that net access and literacy is an issue not only for students but for faculty as well. This has been a very short trip, but the kindness of new friends and of the Zimbabwe people I have met here at the hotel is long!

Design Based Research, MOOCs, My Work, Open Scholarship

Study-Buddy Study

May 8, 2014Written by terrya

1 Comment

I was delighted to get an alert from Google Scholar that some open publication had cited my work. I didn’t really plan on then spending an hour by reading through a thesis, writing the author a quick note and now this blog post. But learning opportunity strikes!

The publication was the MEd. thesis by Colin Madland, a grad student in our online MEd program specializing in online education and in this case the sample was drawn from MEd students. So lots of relevancy for me. Finally, the examination of a different model of student-student interaction always interests me.

I recommend this thesis as a fine example of clear writing, nice tie to practical and theoretical work, good clear questions (but do we really need formal hypothesis in Mixed method research?). The sample size was relatively small (<50) using an online, mostly author created, questionnaire. Thus the quest for significant differences wasn’t achieved for some questions (like the deep and surface learning measurement) but some powerful numbers and quotes about percie3ved value of the intervention.

The study context was the very common, paced, 100% online, graduate course with 20-30 students, using an LMS and occasional synchronous webconf. The innovative feature of the course was the focus on problem based learning activity wherein students were required to develop a detailed learning design for a known training or educational problem. For 5% “bonus mark” students could agreed to participate in a form of study-buddy pre-submission assessment and feedback on the final product(s) from the buddy and to create a 1-2 page reflection on the experience.

The results were generally positive about the study-buddy intervention, a claim Madland supported with descriptive survey means from Likert scale questions of value and use. Of course not everyone liked working with study buddies, so Madland tried on a learning style type designation of learners as bunnies (quick to get work done and handed in) and bears (plodding along to last second turn in.) As expected, bear/bunnies relationships had more problems, but the results were inconclusive, some bunnies got along with bears. I’m not big on learning style labelling, but my wife is convinced that Meyers Briggs, Enneagram and other ways to ‘know thyself” are invaluable, so what do I know…

The work concludes with has some very nice and practical recommendations for online teaching and course design. The study finds that study-buddy interventions is relatively cost effective, needs marks for incentives and generally “works”. However, it should NOT be made compulsory as some expect or demand more independence in online learning. Perhaps what is most important for administrators and teachers is that study buddies were reported to reduce marking/proof reading that consumes too much of the teacher’s time. This is an example of substituting student-student interaction for student-teacher interaction. Study-buddies seems to have both pedagogical and economic advantages. The research on peer teaching as long shown evidence of learning value, but most of this work has been done face-to-face. I would be interested in examining the tools used by the pairs (Google docs? social networks? LMS???) to support this type of 2 person work group.

For researchers, the data confirms the results of the meta analysis comparing learning effectiveness after various dimensions of increased student-teacher, student-content and student-student interactions (Bernard et al. 2014). Further it can be used to support my “Interaction Equivalency Theorum“. This form of structured student-student interaction substitutes for student-teacher interaction with roughly “equivalent” results. A group (even one with only 2 members) needs comfort and competence to function effectively in a performing a challenging task at a distance. Thus, the study-buddy experience is also a great learning activity for an increasingly distributed work force. Unlike student-teacher interaction, student-student interaction is scalable – though does require good tools and network efficacy to be used effectively by distributed students. Thus, one could also imagine these being added as optional learning activity for MOOCs.

So, well done Colin! I look forward to reading an article summarizing this work and for a blossoming of study-buddies online.

Terry

References

Bernard, R., Abrami, P., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Tamim, R., Surkes, M., & Bethel, E. (2009). A meta-analysis of three types of interaction treatments in distance education. Review of Educational Research, 79(3), 1243-1289.

Madland, C. (2014). Structured Student Interactions in Online Distance Learning: Exploring the Study Buddy Activity. (MEd.), Athabasca University, Athabasca Ab. Retrieved from https://dt.athabascau.ca/jspui/bitstream/10791/47/3/Structured%20Student%20Interactions%20FINAL.pdf

educational social software, MOOCs, My Work

Another research article on audio feedback

April 30, 2014Written by terrya

1 Comment

I’m a big fan of using audio feedback for marking of papers and proposals with my Education grad students. I use Adobe Acrobat to embed usually short audio comments (maybe 20-40 per paper) and a summary comment. I do it because it saves me time and generally my students report really liking it. It allows me to project more positive “teaching presence” and I think I am much better able to express complicated as well as short mechanical issues – QUICKLY! Too may educational technology based innovations or more general educational innovations actually cost teachers’ time -even after an almost inevitable time lost surmounting a sometimes steep learning curve.

Thus, I was pleased to see:

Cavanaugh, A., & Song, L. (2014). Audio Feedback versus Written Feedback: Instructors’ and Students’ Perspectives Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2). http://jolt.merlot.org/vol10no1/

This small scale study looked at postsecondary English teachers using audio (I think monologues using MP3) and not embedded (and IMHO much better Adobe Connect annotations). One teacher reported taking MORE time- but only because she wrote the comments by hand and then read them into the recorder (sigh…). Generally students liked the feedback assessed by interviews and a short survey.

This study helps us uncover the different (likely discipline centric) ways in which essays are marked. Teachers reported using and liking the audio for general, global comments, but text feedback for small mechanical issues that are common in English assessment (noting or correcting grammar issues as example). There are likely other differences amongst style of teaching, learning and assessment across disciplines and perhaps across different educational level and ages.

The article has no earth shattering surprises, but does confirm my earlier thoughts on audio feedback- so I like it. It also has one of the most extensive lit reviews (for a short paper) that does a good job of reviewing our last decade of use of audio feedback.

The biggest question though, is if audio is faster, is preferred by students and teachers, is very cheap to implement- why aren’t all teachers using.

Terry

Distance Education, My Work

Where is Higher Education’s Digital Dividend?

April 9, 2014Written by terrya

1 Comment

One doesn’t need to devour political or economic analysis, listen to experts or even chat with one’s friends to realize that the Internet has changed the way we produce and consume information and the myriad ways in which we communicate. Blogs, wikis and Facebook walls have granted to each of us –a multimedia printing press with global delivery capacity – at VERY low cost. Similarly we can engage in audio, video or text conversations with politicians, relatives, co-workers or “followers” at VERY low cost.

Given that education works by nurturing interactions and communication among and between teachers, students and content, it would seem logical that the costs of education, like its component interactions would also have drastically reduced in cost. However, this is not the case. Despite the possibility of a digital dividend students, in every country, are being met with heavy increases in the cost of education.Read More

Distance Education, MOOCs, My Work, Open Scholarship

Reflection on world's first Online 3 Minute Thesis Contest

January 29, 2014Written by terrya

1 Comment

Being a huge fan of succinct communications and plain language, I was drawn to the ideas behind the 3 Minute Thesis contests, developed originally (and trademarked??) at the University of Queensland in Australia and now supported international from http://threeminutethesis.org/. Since their development in 2008 the idea has spread globally with 3 minute thesis contests happening in many countries including Canada.

However, the origional model doesn’t really fit Athabasca University – or other online institutions, as these contests have all taken place on campus and face-to-face. Our students are located mostly in Canada, but we have students enrolled in many locations around the world as well. Thus, last fall I organized a small Online 3 minute Thesis contest using web conferencing for students in our own Master and Doctorate Program at Athabasca. With that positive experience, I wanted to expand and take advantage of the international scope of the Net, to invite colleagues and students from other online universities to participate (and of course help organize the event).

I recruited colleagues from Open University of Catalonia, Open University United Kingdom and DaVinci University of Mexico. We established a web site for the event, where we provided links to the rules, details of participation, a WIKI for organizing contestants names and titles of their presentations and provided links from YouTube recordings of other 3MT contests (not online) to serve as models.

Traditionally 3 Minute Thesis contest run at a single university and benefit from a wide variety of interdisciplinary contestants – the English student up against the Physics student. However, we decided to change the format slightly by focusing only on students researching in Education and given the specialized nature of these institutions, this is primarily focused on online learning, educational technology and other issues related to distance education. We wanted to create possibilities for collaboration and networking among our students, that likely would not have developed in a fully interdisciplinary contest.

How did it go? Well you might want to check it out yourself by listening to the recording at https://connect.athabascau.ca/p98796822/

Highlights and recommendations:Read More

Distance Education, My Work online three minute thesis

All MOOCs don't work for all students. Are you surprised?

November 19, 2013Written by terrya

Both the commercial and the unpaid online blog pundits have been having an armchair quarterback’s field day over MOOC poster boy Sebastin Thrun’s confession that his Udacity MOOC platform doesn’t work. None of this outcry from the “I told you so” critics is more biting (nor more witty) then the critique by Slate columnist Rebecca Shuman.

Shuman aptly blames Thrun, for blaming the students – they have personal problems, they don’t have access to multiple tablets and they are not Ivy League rich kids – suggesting that the MOOC depends on students who don’t really need them and who can learn under any conditions – as evidenced by their succeeding in crowded lecture halls their whole post secondary career.

But I don’t equate Udacity’s supposed failure with “ordinary” struggling students is evidence for the failure of online learning and Shuman’s contention that MOOCs can now be dismissed as “neoliberal wet dreams”. Shuman goes on to claim that distance education (at least in the form of correspondence courses) tells only a sorry tale of failure and that it has “never worked”. She may have trouble convincing the million plus students at the Open University of China, Anadola University in Turkey or Indira Gandhi National Open University in India that their education (largely print based ‘correspondence’) doesn’t and has never worked. Truman seems to argue that it is only elite students who can succeed at MOOCs, – discounting the 50+ years of research showing that distance education (including its latest instantiation in online formats) does work for many students- including the second chance, and poverty stricken. No form of education works for all students -including the ‘tiny, for-credit, in-person seminar”. Doesn’t everyone know of students from campus based schools that have failed to complete their program? Haven’t you ever dropped a course – I certainly have!

But perhaps most appalling is the staggering debt load, the wasted time and energy of both students and teachers and the coddling and cover up of poor teaching that marks much of campus based education today. That model is as badly broken and just as expensive as MOOCs driverless car !Read More

Distance Education, MOOCs, My Work, OERs

Accreditation – for Learning Accomplishment or for Presence and Persistence?

November 12, 2013Written by terrya

Offering degrees and certificates is the currency of higher education. Degree and certificates are very highly valued by students, parents, employers and postsecondary institutions. Despite occasional challenges to the authenticity of this form of learning recognition, attaining this final parchment is seen by both institutions and students as the culminating and arguably the only important manifestation of accomplishment, after years of study in higher education. The problem is that learning itself, much less wisdom, is not measured very well by these large scale certificates of generalized accomplishment.

One concern is that the degree as a unit of accreditation is much too large- does a four year BA in economics reflect the same amount of learning as a three year BA in classics? Does a BA obtained at a distance equate to the same learning as a BA delivered on a campus? These are very challenging questions to answer. Institutions are clear to set the number of courses required, the degree of specialization and the minimal grade scores for a degree, but these are, at best, very rough indicators of learning.

Efforts by the Mozilla Foundation to support institutional awarding of much smaller credentials (known as badges) certainly addresses part of the problem. The creation of a badge-full portfolio that details a student’s individual skills and knowledge accomplishments potentially provides a much more articulate and public record of accomplishment than a degree. However, these have (to date) been only sporadically adopted by higher education institutions despite student interest (see Santos, C., Almeida, S., Pedro, L., Aresta, M., & Koch-Grunberg, T. (2013).

The credential crisis has been exacerbated by the arrival of vast numbers of open educational resources (OERs) and more recently by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which provide a host of opportunities for learning- but to date only very limited opportunity for credentialing and public acknowledgement of that learning. MOOCs and OERs allow learners to participate in learning, either alone or in groups, from teachers and institutions around the globe. After watching an excellent Ted Talk, brushing up on your statistics skills by reviewing a Khan Academy video or enrolling in a 10 week MOOC, there is little doubt that learning can occur. But measuring and accrediting that learning is today, all but impossible. A few pioneering institutions are developing “challenge for credit” or credentialing examinations, but for most institutions this alternate (and potentially competitive) form of accreditation strikes too near to the heart of the current business model for comfortable adoption.

The OERu (http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/), a non profit collaboration of over 35 public universities, colleges and networks from around the globe is attempting to develop a better or at least an alternative model for teaching and credentialing. Each of the collaborating partners commits to providing a small number of courses, for free and independent study on the open net. Students are free to select and study any of these courses and if they choose to do so, they may apply to the delivering institution to write an examination or to do other work demonstrating accomplishment and in return they receive full course credit for that accomplishment. The content is available free of charge and efforts are made to allow for and encourage students to work cooperatively to locate and help each learn. The credential process requires examiner time and institutional effort to assess and to register this learning- thus the OERu partners can charge whatever fee for this service that they require. To date, the Open University of Catalonia is the only Spanish institution to join the OERu.

It is yet too early to measure how well this free learning opportunity, but paid for accreditation will be accepted- by students and employers and likely the most challenging, by postsecondary institutions themselves. But it is clear that we need credentials that are meaningful, that reflect real learning accomplishments, and that can be obtained at affordable cost by all students and life-long learners on our globe.

Distance Education, My Work, OERs, PLEs credentials, OERu

My participation in Online Instruction for Open Educators MOOC

October 27, 2013Written by terrya

1 Comment

Jenni Hayman (a friend and grad student here at Athabasca University) called a few months ago to talk about setting up a Canadian MOOC provider/supplier Wide World Ed. She is very enthusiastic, well meaning and anxious to test and develop a sustaining MOOC model (no easy task). She choose for her first MOOC the theme online education and Online Instruction For Open Educators has attracted a global audience of around 500 registrants. From the introductions, I see that these are mostly learning designers and teachers with wide levels of experience in online learning.

I wasn’t too surprised to get an email from Jenni, requesting that I join her in teaching this first MOOC along with Bonnie Stewart and Dave Cormier. We would each be responsible for one week of activities during the 6 week MOOC. I decided to focus this week 2 discussion on online learning theory, and just a bit self consciously, assigned 3 of my own papers for content. We decided to “book end” the week with an opening and closing web conference, as a way to pace the MOOC. One of the benefits of this MOOC for myself (and maybe the other participants) was to get a chance to see Desire2Learn’s (D2L) new MOOC development and delivery tool. D2L offers a cut down version of their popular commercial LMS and it seemed to work quite well. The system does write and read twitter theme with the #WWEOpen13 tag, but it many ways the tool set and the way that I used during my week, was more site based, with usual asynch threaded discussions, real time web conferences, that were recorded and made available in the MOOC platform and a place for sharing links and resources. Thus I think one could classify the MOOC as an xMOOC, but the smaller size, meant that I could keep on top of the discussions. At least in my week, there was no assigned activities, beyond the readings and discussions.

So Jenni suggested the final web conference should be at 2:00 PM MDT on Saturday. Saturday dawned, I prepared a few powerpoint slides to use as prompts and I was ready to go. And then….. My good wife decided the 1995 Volvo we are selling really needed to be cleaned and while I was at it why didn’t I clean up my messy garage. Well, the next thing I new it was 3:15 – completely missed my own session!

I’ve been reflecting on this failure to attend for the last 24 hours. This is my first missed session in 30 years of teaching in classrooms and online. It isn’t just the synchronous, as I’ve used web conferences in my classes for a number of years. It might be related to it being scheduled for on a Saturday afternoon, as it has been years since I have scheduled Saturday classes. And yes, my garage was a long time unswept and I did have to show off the Volvo to a prospective purchaser (he didn’t buy it :-(. But, I also wonder if it doesn’t reflect that I was doing this task as a volunteer. I don’t like to think that I’m driven only or even mostly by money, but….

In any case my apologies to Jenni and the class. I will be participating in the final week of the MOOC and of course new registrants are still welcomed to enrol

Distance Education, educational social software, MOOCs, My Work, Open Scholarship #WWEOpen13, moocs

Online 3 Minute Thesis Contest at Athabasca

September 30, 2013Written by terrya

I’m intrigued by this “speed dating” approach for disseminating and promoting thesis research. A thesis is a LOT of work, and results are usually buried in 150+ page tomes – thus the need for new scholars to be able to present their work succinctly and efficiently. The 3 minute thesis (originally developed at University of Queensland Australia) seemed like an ideal format for developing communications skills and confidence and be fun for both contestants and the audience. Other 3 minute thesis contests have been held F2F, however, Athabasca graduate students are located around the globe (literally) and so we needed to use a distributed platform to host the event. Of course, the organization of the event also had to be easy and inexpensive so as to fit into my busy schedule and budget as well.

In this post I detail how this, to my knowledge, world’s first online 3 minute thesis contest worked, with a hope that it inspires similar contests.Read More

Distance Education, My Work, Open Scholarship

How much time does it take to teach online?

July 23, 2013Written by terrya

7 Comments

How much time does it take to teach online?

I’ve long been fascinated by studies on time factors in online learning. The issues of teacher time are especially relevant given the high cost of teachers, the threat to the profession, MOOCs offering much less teacher-intensive education opportunities and my own online equivalency theory.

This study

Mandernach, B., Hudson, S., & Wise, S. (2013). Where has the time gone? Faculty activities and time commitments in the online classroom. Journal of Educators Online, 10(2). http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume10Number2/MandernachHudsonWise.pdf.

This study was done with 80 FULL TIME online teachers, teaching 4 online courses during the same semester. This is a much less common administrative format for online teaching in that most online teaching is done either by part time adjuncts or by teachers teaching both online and on campus.

Teaching in any context varies a great deal based on personal teaching style, use of synchronous tools, discipline, level and motivation of learners, support and funding for teachers and a host of other contextual factors. Nonetheless aggregate data is very interesting and helps paint the reality as well as vanquish some myths about online teaching. As expected the data confirmed that teachers did spend slightly more time online than literature reports for oncampus. (Averaging 44 hours/week for the 4 courses). But perhaps of greatest interest is the tasks that made up these 44 hours.

Distance Education, My Work time