Learning Design
eLearning Papers: Call for articles on Mobile Learning open until November 19th
While learning has always expanded beyond the walls of the classroom, the proliferation of devices and applications, which have greatly expanded when, where and how information can be accessed and stored, brings this issue to the fore. How have such devices had an impact in learning, and what role may they play in the future? This issue hopes to showcase practical examples and generate serious reflection on an emerging topic.
Today’s youth are growing up in a world very different from the world their teachers or parents knew when they were young. Where and how they learn is changing as mobile learning and social networking become part of their every day life. Ubiquitous access to social media, tools and knowledge resources is taken for granted, while passive teacher-directed work dominates life at school.
Open, social and participatory media have significant potential to transform learning and teaching. They offer numerous ways to communicate, collaborate and connect with peers. The range of free educational resources and tools is rapidly increasing. Cloud computing has enabled free or inexpensive access to applications that were once available only to those who were willing to pay premium license fees.
The gap between the potential and actual use of technology in education is a paradox. eLearning Papers seeks to facilitate the sharing of innovative and creative uses of technology to support learning among its readers. The upcoming 32nd issue focuses on mobile technology applications and their potential to enhance learning within the broad spectrum of education and training. Papers are welcome on any aspects related to the use of open, social and participatory media, cloud computing or mobile learning. Some suggested focus areas are listed below.
- How do mobile devices enhance learning and creativity?
- Mobile learning and creative classrooms
- OER for mobile learning
- Mobile learning management models and strategies
- Learning design for mobile learning
- Mobile learning platforms, devices and operating systems
- Authoring tools and technologies for mobile learning
- Content design and development for mobile learning
- Platform specific applications for learning
- Augmented reality in education
- Mixed reality and mobile devices supporting learning
- Mobile devices and schoolwork, in classrooms and beyond
- Mobile devices supporting performance and learning at work
- Low-tech mobile learning, e.g. the power of SMS
The article submission deadline is November 19th, 2012. The provisional date of publication is December, 2012. For further information and to submit your article, please contact: jimena.marquez@elearningpapers.eu
Guest editor: Prof. Dr. Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT
Patrick McAndrew: MOOCs "are only a part of what's happening” in Open Education
Patrick McAndrew, professor at the UK’s Open University and author of the article “Learning from Open Design: Running a Learning Design MOOC”, published in the latest issue of eLearning Papers, talks to us about his experience with Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Strongly involved in Open Education (OE) for the last 10 years, professor McAndrew believes MOOCs “are only a part of what's happening” in this field and there are still “lots of interesting developments to see”. He also points out that universities are currently feeling the pressure “to change”, but there is no doubt that they are also being “innovators”, trying to find new ways to “help learners and engage with people.”
Regarding the OLDS-MOOC (Open Learning Design Studio-MOOC) project which he introduces in his paper published in eLearning Papers 33, professor McAndrew says it has been a “rather stressful” but “rather exciting” nine-week rich experience, and invites the OE community to explore the material used to run this initiative, available online under a Creative Commons license.
MOOC Design Principles. A Pedagogical Approach from the Learner’s Perspective
The debate around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is much more focused on the social, institutional, technological and economical aspects than on the need for development of new pedagogical approaches that provide consistent guidance on how to design for this emergent educational scenario.
A new understanding of knowledge production and learning challenges the core of learning design, demanding innovative and appropriate approaches to teaching and learning. We present a set of learning design principles drawn from the learner’s perspective. They focus on empowering learners in networked environments for fostering critical thinking and collaboration, developing competence based outcomes, encouraging peer assistance and assessment through social appraisal, providing strategies and tools for self-regulation, and finally using a variety of media and ICTs to create and publish learning resources and outputs.
Learning from Open Design: Running a Learning Design MOOC
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) give an opportunity for providing access to subjects of mass interest but also allow more niche subjects (Beavon, Commas- Quinn, de los Arcos & Hauck, 2013) to reach a larger audience than the more usual context of small-scale post-graduate courses.
The OLDS-MOOC (Open Learning Design Studio-MOOC) is an example of such a course. Developed with funding from Jisc, in January 2013 a collaborative team from several universities presented a nine-week online course. The subject matter is learning design as an organised approach to online learning. This report considers the way in which the course was structured around as a project-based “pMOOC” in its approach to learning design, while also including alternative lighter routes. The impact it had on the team involved in developing and presenting the course is also briefly reviewed.
Open content for elearning: Cross-institutional collaboration for education and training in a digital environment
This article was originally published on the International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, Volume 8, issue 3.
The University of the West Indies Open Campus and Athabasca University conducted a pilot workshop to see if open educational resources (OER) could be used to construct curricula. UWIOC was interested in increasing distance education offerings and Athabasca University was interested in expanding programming to offer an online graduate program in Instructional Design. A workshop brought a team together to: come to a consensus on the format of module specifications, select appropriate resources, and to report on the feasibility of the approach. The team produced course outlines and specifications for modules using OER. The following were noted: Use of OER sped the aggregation of content; OER are not available for every topic; OER differ from the desired scope and academic level; they vary in media and content quality; and OER that lack clarity of authorship and copyright are difficult to include in courses.
EC-TEL 2013: Eighth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning
The European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) is a unique opportunity for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to address current challenges and advances in the field. Through EC-TEL, established and emerging researchers as well as practitioners, entrepreneurs, and technology developers explore new collaborations, strengthen networks, and complement their core experience. This year's theme is "Scaling Up Learning for Sustained Impact". We invite contributions for demonstrations, workshops and project meetings, as well as original research papers. A doctoral consortium will also be organized concurrently with the workshops. Please find all details at the EC-TEL 2013 website.
Issue 32 of eLearning Papers on Mobile Learning published!
The 32nd issue of eLearning Papers focuses on mobile technology applications and their potential to enhance learning within the broad-spectrum of education and training. The articles clearly demonstrate that mobile learning is moving beyond its early infancy.
This latest expansion is accelerated by the increasing penetration of smart phones and the ecosystems that they have enabled. In this environment, the student population has become more diffuse, but also more connected.
The issue features a wide range of topics, describing research ranging from eportfolios, serious games and OER for mobile learning scenarios. Furthermore, articles discuss the vendor’s perspective and describe two studies for developing and using mobile devices in advanced learning scenarios.
eLearning Papers 32 that has been guest edited by Prof. Dr. Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT and Tapio Koskinen, www.elearningpapers.eu, Director of the Editorial Board, includes the following articles:
Designing for learning in an open world
Gráinne Conole's book argues that in today’s technologically rich context, where content and services are increasingly free, we need to rethink approaches to the design of learning activities and content.
She introduces the concept of ‘open design’ and argues that making the design process more explicit and shareable will enable teachers to develop more effective learning contexts for learners and help make the intended design more explicit and shareable with other teachers and learners. It will help learners to make more sense of their educational provision and associated learning pathways.
Conole provides a number of illustrations of adopting an ‘open design’ approach, from a set of design representations through to the use of open, social and participatory media for sharing and discussing designs. She draws on the areas of learning design, pedagogical patterns and OER (Open Educational Resources) research to explore the creation, sharing and discussion of learning and teaching ideas and designs.
Task Furniture in Education - The research, design and development of innovative school furniture for classroom tasks, accommodating the latest technology and responding to new teaching methods.
Most task furniture in schools today is inadequate to meet the postural needs of students. With 88 million in full-time education in Europe alone and in the context of the proliferation of IT in the classroom and advances in teaching methods, posture, health and well-being of students is imperative.
The project emerges from ongoing and previous research undertaken in the Industrial Design Department at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin through its graduate school GradCAM and its international collaborators in the area of school furniture design and analysis. While there is a wide range of student task furniture available on the market today, most of it is inadequate to meet the postural needs of pupils and particularly in the context of the accelerating introduction of advanced classroom information technology.
European studies have found that 60% of school pupils experience back problems by the age of 16. The use of computers at home and in schools has changed the way that children and young adults learn, work and play. Yet, little emphasis has been placed on the health risks that arise from these changes in educational activity. The demand for appropriate school furniture is now urgent and in order to promote the health and well-being of future generations, the best possible school furniture is required. The introduction of European Standards EN1729 in 2006 has led to limited advances in pupil–centred furniture.
The aim of the project is to exploit the opportunity for knowledge transfer and new product development within a consortium of complementary researchers working in the field of Task Furniture in Education. ‘Task Furniture’ here refers to seating, desks and related items used by pupils in schools. The project is conceived and structured to research and develop new and innovative task furniture solutions addressing modern advances in teaching and learning, the integration of technology in the classroom and the postural implications for children and young adults in schools.
The initiative builds upon a strong foundation of the complementary experience and expertise in fields of research of the partners in TFE. In fulfilling the aim, it is intended to significantly narrow the gap between the known postural problems and the responses to them by the designers of the furniture currently available. Existing ergonomic research indicates serious long-term health problems being inflicted on children in our schools. This evidence only serves to highlight the corresponding deficit in design research that would examine creatively the potential for innovative, tested and proven, user-oriented furniture suitable for economic manufacture.
TFE commenced in January 2011 and run for four years. The total value of EU Commission funding is €1.33 million which will be matched by contributions from the partners. The project will be coordinated and led by researchers in NCAD in collaboration with academic and industry partners in Ireland, Germany, Portugal and the USA.