Open and Flexible Global Education for All: What Role for Social Media and E-Learning 2.0?

Open and flexible global education for all: what role for social media and e-Learning 2.0?

Hudson, B., Umeå University, Sweden

Laanpere, M., Tallinn University, Estonia

Co-authors: Lõssenko, J., Estonian Information Technology Foundation, Estonia

Nurmela, S., University of Turku, Finland

Fernandez Michels, P., University of Catalonia, Spain

Popov, O., StockholmUniversity and KTH, Sweden

Summary

This paper addresses the potential of social media and 2nd generation e-learning (e-Learning 2.0) in developing open and flexible education in an international context. In particular it draws on the recent experiences of participants in implementing the use of social media and e-Learning 2.0 in everyday teaching practices and learning processes across a range of educational contexts through their shared experiences as partners in the European Commission Transversal Programme project e-Jump 2.0. A framework of action research has been developed to support associated professional and educational development and the sharing of practice amongst the participants through the documentation of small scale action research projects. The paper provides an outline of the aims of the project overall and short overviews of the courses which have been developed. Furthermore it outlines our approach to research and evaluation which is at early stage of development at this time. We are especially interested in the success factors and obstacles related to raising the competence and confidence of teachers in the use of e-Learning 2.0 and in engaging teachers in the processes of action research across national boundaries, different cultures and widely varying time zones.

Introduction

A framework of action research has been developed to support associated professional and educational development and the sharing of practice amongst the participants through the documentation of small scale action research projects. The contributors to this paper are especially interested in the affordances and constraints (Greeno, 1994) of social media and Web 2.0 applications and also the success factors and obstacles associated with engaging teachers in active online learning communities.

The paper outlines the aims of the project overall and provides short overviews of the courses which have been developed. Furthermore it outlines our approach to research and evaluation which is at early stage of development at this time. We are especially interested in the success factors and obstacles related to raising the competence and confidence of teachers in the use of e-Learning 2.0 and in engaging teachers in the processes of action research across national boundaries, different cultures and widely varying time zones.

The project aims

The main goal of the project is to connect various learning communities across Europe through the implementation of 2nd generation e-learning in higher and vocational education. In particular the project aims to:

promote e-Learning 2.0 and raise the competence and confidence of teachers by developing e-courses for the teachers,
enhance and develop the courses further through trialling with teachers and other staff of higher and vocational education,
develop a framework for action research by the participants
identify the success factors andobstacles of the courses and e-Learning 2.0,
establish sustainable networks of teachers of higher and vocational education
publish the outcomes of action research in the form of reports in order to share practice and experiences in the use of e-Learning 2.0,
share the results and resources of the project with wider community through the development of a database in which all the metadata and modules of the e-courses will be included.

The project has consisted of four broad phases involving development, trialling, evaluation and dissemination & exploitation. The initial phase involved seven case studies which aimed to critically review and carry out a comparative analysis of European action research projects concentrating on teacher training in the field of ICT and e-learning. The three e-courses were developed and subsequently trialled between November 2008 and March 2009. These have been followed by an action research project phase between March and May 2009 and it is intended that the action research reports will be published as an outcome of the project. The courses will be revised in the light of evaluation and will also be localised by translating the core aspects into several languages including Estonian, Swedish, Finnish and Russian. Furthermore it is intended that a database will be created for dissemination and exploitation of the e-courses which will include all the modules and metadata of the courses.

The courses

New Technologies of e-Learning 2.0

This course is centrally concerned with the design, development and evaluation of teaching, studying and learning processes that are supported by the use ICT and social media applications. The course content focuses on the use of Web 2.0 and in particular on the ways in which this allows users to create content in such a way that allows others to both read and write to a such a web environment. Social media is seen as a feature of Web 2.0 involving tools that are used to communicate in different settings such as one-to-many (blog or podcast) and many-to-many (wiki). A major feature of social media is that it enables people to connect together, providing a space in which they can interact and share ideas, experiences and knowledge. Such use ICT and social media applications can be seen to encourage social networking (Buchberger et al., 2005) and active and inquiry-based approaches to learning. The course has utilised a range of software tools combined with a diversity of hardware devices which have been used to promote access to learning resources within an open and flexible learning environment. Furthermore the course content has been structured around the pedagogically orientated themes of My Learning, Collaborative Learning, Mobile Learning and Multimodal Learning which has each formed one module at Advanced (Masters) level and credit rated under the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This course development has been led by UmeåUniversity.

New Assessment Methods

This course emphasises a learner-centred view of assessment and the use of social media in assessment. It aims to create new opportunities for learning with social media and to promote social interaction and a shift from a “knowledge-receiving” role as a student to an active and “knowledge-creating” one. The use of a wiki and process writing has aimed to make learning processes transparent and learning outputs as sustainable wiki-based articles. It is seen that assessment, rather than teaching, has a major influence on students’ learning. Assessment practices direct attention to what is important and have a powerful effect on what students do and how they do it. However traditional assessment practices have not focused very much on the processes of learning or on how students will continue to learn after the formal summative assessment has taken place. There have been many innovations in assessment such as portfolio assessment, self- and peer assessment, authentic assessment but to date there has been little impact in bringing these approaches together around the major purpose of equipping students to learn for the long term. Students also need to develop their own repertoire of assessment related practices that they will be able to use when confronted with learning challenges throughout their working lives (Boud & Falchikov, 2007, 5-7). This course is also credit rated under ECTS and has been led by the University of Turku.

How to Design, Implement and Evaluate an E-Learning Project

This course focuses on the aspects of design, implementation and evaluation which are seen as the three fundamental axes that constitute the process of developing e-learning projects. Every action related to them has consequences in order that the final result matches the intended objectives and fulfils the stated criteria for quality and success. The main objective of the course is therefore the capacity building in concrete fields of action and decision taking. It has adopted a predominantly practical approach in which the learner and his or her active and collaborative tasks hold a fundamental role. The course is aimed at teachers in higher and vocational education, who are interested in developing or improving their skills in designing and implementing courses or learning units based on the use of virtual tools and environments offered through Web 2.0 tools and applications. In order to design, implement and run an e-learning project (program, course or unit) over a considerable amount of time with high indicators of quality, sustainability and acceptance, it is important to understand the main factors that influence in the development and the carrying out of such a project. The course enables participants to identify these factors (such as context, target group, training needs and objectives, available tools and technology, pedagogical considerations, roles, human resources, financing, time, etc.) and to keep them in the foreground during the entire design process. It invites participants to apply design and implementation skills to a sample unit for their own teaching and learning context and offers opportunities to explore, use and experience the affordances of Web 2.0 tools for concrete purposes. Based on the implementation of the sample unit, the course invites participants to carry out action research in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the explored strategies, procedures, tools and environments for ICT-supported teaching and learning. This course is also credit rated under ECTS and has been led by the Open University of Catalonia.

Action Research Framework

The framework for conducting action research has been designed in two phases, with the first phase (November 2008 to March 2009) consisting of action research planning and the second phase (March to May 2009) involving participants in carrying out their own action research projects. The first phase has been designed as a module on Action Research Planning and the second as a module in the form of an Action Research Project.

The Action Research Planning module has been structured around the process of action research planning. This involves the identification of the key developmental goals and research questions, research methodology and methods, issues related to research ethics, review of relevant literature and an activity plan. The course of study has been structured around a number of moments through which participants share their ideas and provide peer feedback to others. Each participant has had the support of an Action Research study supervisor in order to provide one to one tuition and support. The approach to the design of the course is based on a didactical design framework (Hudson, 2008a) which extends the traditional instructional and learning design models by addressing the complexity of the teaching-studying-learning process. Teaching is conceptualised broadly as the activity that teachers engage in whether as course designers, facilitators, coaches, mentors etc., whilst studying is seen as what students actually do and learning is seen as the outcome of these complex processes. In particular the aim is to focus attention on the design of teaching situations, pedagogical activities and learning environments. This approach is framed within a cyclical process of didactical design which involves analysis, design, development, interaction and evaluation.

This Action Research Project 2.0 focuses on putting ideas in action through conducting an action research project that involves the application of resources and tools which utilise Web 2.0 and social media applications by integrating them into the design and development of teaching situations, pedagogical activities and learning environments. Educational action research is seen as providing a framework for thinking systematically about what happens in teaching situations and learning environments, implementing action for change and monitoring and evaluating the effects of the action with a view to continuing the development for improvement. The submission of work for final examination will be through an Action Research Report of approximately 3000 words. Best papers will be selected for further refinement and publication in the e-Jump 2.0 Compendium of Research during autumn 2009.

Approach to research and evaluation

Our approach to the research and evaluation is based on a Design Research framework as outlined in Hudson (2008a). Data will be collected from a range of sources including questionnaires, interviews with participants, analysis of online communication and also of the documentation by participants of their own action research projects.

Our theoretical framework for analysis of success factors and obstacles draws on Greeno’s (1994) concept of affordances which are perceived by individuals and seen as preconditions for activity and also as conditions for constraints. In thinking about the term activity, we take a starting point from the perspective of Vygotsky (1962) who wrote about activity in general terms to describe the personal and voluntary engagement of people in context - the ways in which they subjectively perceive their needs and the possibilities of a situation and choose actions to reach personally meaningful goals. In this context a social media application may be seen as seen as a technical artefact which mediates human activity and interaction (Wertsch, 1994) and also as a medium for communication that provides affordances as a precondition such activity.

In addition we are especially interested in better understanding the new learning environments that are made available through the use of ICT, social media and e-Learning 2.0. In particular we are interested in designing for social presence (Garrison and Anderson, 2003) and teacher presence (Hudson, 2008b) through the use of social networking applications. We are also interested in developing the “pro-active role of educational researchers and practitioners in designing and developing of these new tools in order to gain the better balance between technological and pedagogical dimensions of e-learning” (Hudson et al., 2005, p7) and also in the dialectical relationship between the development of the social and technical infrastructure (Hudson and Laanpere, 2009).

With regard to social networking, boyd and Ellison (2007) define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. Unlike boyd and Ellison (2007) we do employ the term "networking" which we see as relationship initiation within a specific community of practice and as a process for which it is possible to design in terms of affordances for the development of social and teacher presence and also for the development of online community (Hudson, 2005; Buchberger et al., 2005; Hudson 2006a & 2006b).

Furthermore we find the principles of connectivism as articulated by Siemens (2004) as a potentially fruitful way of conceptualising the nature of the human activity that takes place, and the cultures which develop, within such digital environments. In relation to such, Brown (2002) has suggested a wider interpretation of a distributed learning environment, which he describes as a "learning ecology" that is defined as “an open, complex, adaptive system comprising elements that are dynamic and interdependent”.Furthermore, Siemens (2005) has described the main characteristics of such a learning ecology in that it is informal, tool-rich, consistently evolving, trustworthy, simple, decentralised and highly tolerant towards experimentation and failure.The action research that has been carried out within E-jump 2.0 project has had the aim of creating such a learning ecology that facilitates learning by facilitating the making of connections: connections between knowledge artifacts, people and tools.

Conclusion

This paper has been written as a background for the Round Table by the same title, which aims to provide a forum for discussing and sharing the experiences of participants in implementing the use of social media and 2nd generation e-learning (e-Learning 2.0) in everyday teaching practices and learning processes in a range of educational contexts. It is intended that this will provide a space in which the contributors will provide short accounts of their recent experiences which will include a description of the context, philosophy and approach to development and some reflections on the possibilities and problems arising based on recent practice during 2008-09 and in the light of initial findings from the research and evaluation process.

References

Boud, D. & Falchikov, N. (ed) (2007) Rethinking Assessment in Higher Education. Routledge. 978-0-415-39779-7.

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11.

Brown, J.S. (2002)Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn.United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) Journal, 16, 2. [WWW document] URL on 7th March 2009).

Buchberger, F., Hudson, B., Laanpere, M. and El Gamal, A. (2005) Analysis of Success Factors in Network Building: Study of the European Research Network for ICT in Schools of Tomorrow (eRNIST) project, European Education Research Journal, 4, 3, 256-312. [WWW document] URL (Visited on 7th March 2009).

Garrison and Anderson, (2003) E-Learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice. London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Greeno, J. G. (1994) Gibson's affordances, Psychological Review, Vol. 101, 2, pp. 336-342.

Hudson, B. and Laanpere, M. (2009) Educational design for online social and teacher presence: the dialectical relationship between the development of social and technical infrastructure, Paper to Symposium on Designing for open learning environments: what role for social media and e-Learning 2.0?,European Conference on Educational Research, ECER 2008, University of Vienna, 28-30 September 2009 (Under review)