Ressources pour mettre en oeuvre la culture numérique dans l’enseignement supérieur

NB : Cette page a été élaborée en lien avec et à destination des participants à la journée pédagogique de l’ISFSC, le 21 mai 2013.
Voici les diapositives utilisées en support pour cette activité :

Pour comprendre la culture numérique :

Michel Serres,

• Eduquer au XXIème siècle, article : http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2011/03/05/eduquer-au-xxie-siecle_1488298_3232.html
• Les nouvelles technologies, révolution culturelle et cognitive (conférence vidéo): http://youtu.be/ZCBB0QEmT5g

Pour assurer une veille sur les technologies éducatives dans l’enseignement supérieur :

• Curation « pédagogie et technologie » de Bruno De Lièvre (UMons) : http://www.scoop.it/t/pedagogie-2
• Curation « Réseaux sociaux et pédagogie » de Valérie Quenet : http://www.scoop.it/t/les-usages-pedagogiques-des-reseaux-sociaux

Pour mettre en oeuvre la culture numérique :

• Beaudin-Lecours, A., Delisle, I., Desrochers, M.-J., Germain, G., Giroux, P., Lachapelle-Bégin, L., Martel, C. et J.-L. Trussart. (2012). Guide d’utilisation pédagogique des médias sociaux : http://guidems.labovte.ep.profweb.qc.ca/
• Miller, A. (2013). Faire ses premiers pas vers la classe inversée : http://www.infobourg.com/2013/05/09/faire-ses-premiers-pas-vers-la-classe-inversee/
• Doladille, E., Vous, nous, ils, l’e-mag de l’éducation (2011). Facebook en classe : http://www.vousnousils.fr/2011/05/04/comment-utiliser-facebook-en-classe-505395
• Le blog du prof geek : http://profgeek.fr/
• Centre de ressources pour la création de ePortfolio : http://iportfolio.fr/
• Outil de ePortfolio : http://eduportfolio.org/
• Raymond, J.-L., NetPublic (2012). Dossier thématique sur le partage social de signets à but pédagogique (social bookmarking). http://www.netpublic.fr/2012/05/usages-pedagogiques-du-social-bookmarking/
• Canet, F.; Agence des usages des TICE (2013). Le partage de signets pour la collaboration et l’apprentissage : http://www.cndp.fr/agence-usages-tice/que-dit-la-recherche/le-partage-de-signets-pour-la-collaboration-et-l-apprentissage-60.htm?utm_source=feedly
• Pour organiser des sondages informatisés en classe : http://www.mqlicker.com/

Nuage de tags web 2.0

Activity 25 – My understanding of Open education – final

Now the Open education course arrives at the end, I try to put order in my understanding of this evolving concept. Compared to the activity 3‘s map at the very beginning, I notice that my final map is more plentiful and meaningful now 😉

You’ll find a dynamic explanation of this map in the following video :
NB : I recommend to watch the video in full screen as the texts are really small.
NB2 : Please excuse (at least) one spelling mistake (or is it a game in order to catch your attention during the presentation ? 😉

In this map, I propose my own definition of what Open education could mean today (you’ll notice that this definition is still evolving, as I want to write words differently each time I think about it) :

Open education is an approach of learning, teaching and knowledge that relies on values of openness and thus, aims at

• decrease as much as possible all kinds of barriers to education (geographical, social, financial, hierarchical…),
• stimulate individuals to build new knowledge and own meaning within communities,
• share ideas and outputs so that they can be used by others.

This highlights what I found particularly interesting in what I discovered during this course :

• The meaning of the concept seems to me well more relevant now, at the age of digital culture. I’ve never understood quite well the meaning of the word « open » in the classical expression « open and distance learning ». Now, the idea of openness appears clearer for me; it’s the openness we find in the 2.0 practices : sharing one’s own ideas, creations, convictions… without barriers of statut, background, localisation etc.
• Digital age, modifying so deeply the entire society, implies new educational needs. We need a deep change in the way people learn and get skilled. Open education could be a relevant alternative to classical Higher Education.
• The core of the Open education concept relies on values. It is a state of mind, a conviction, rather than a scientific concept.
• This conviction is very far, maybe at the opposite, from the most frequent state of mind in Higher Education : it disrupts the ideas of « knowledge owner » (the professors, the institutions…), knowledge transmission, knowledge creation…; it challenges the notion of local teaching institutions.
• Between all changes already done (open educational resources, online learning, open courses…), institutional MOOCs are, from my point of view, the sign that something different is happening now : a lot of (not to say all) HE institutions, and especially the most prestigious ones, are now thinking, speaking… and even experiencing new forms of open education. It’s a change of scale : from small and local initiatives to an international buzz. Will this be the real start of Open education ?

Activity 14 : Comparing MOOCs

We are invited to compare a connectivist MOOC, for example Change.mooc.ca and an institutional MOOC, for example a Coursera one. I participated in a Coursera MOOC lately, the EDC MOOC (e-learning and digital culture) and I’d like to take it for analyze. I hope it’ll bring shades in the debate opposing xMOOCs and cMOOCs.

	Change.mooc.ca	EDC MOOC
Organisators	3 individuals (private initiative)	5 teachers from University of Edinburgh, within the Cousera platform
Learning activities	– resources to learn (videos, scientific and folk publications…) – discussing, debating, creating… through social medias and networks	– resources to learn (videos, scientific and folk publications…) – discussing, debating, creating… through social medias and networks
Assessment	none	– final assignment : a digital artefact to be created by the participant – peer reviewed based on 5 quality criteria (grade and qualitative feedback)
Accreditation	none	– a nominative Statement of Accomplishment, if final assignment submitted in due date

Analysis

1) This parallel highlights well the new « institutionalisation » of MOOCs (in Weller’s words, Weller, 2012) led by companies like Coursera, edX, Udacity… : this course is not an individual initiative but an official one, signed by a university rather than by teachers in their own names; there are forms of assessment and accreditation, like in a « real » course in a Higher Education school. This MOOC tend to an official image.

The EDC MOOC relies on two labels : the University of Edinburgh label and the Coursera one. Those two institutions are better off offering quality courses; they both could be hurt in their reputation if courses delivered do not fit standards of Higher Education, especially as courses are followed by thousands of learners all around the world. Following Daniel (2012), I see in this institutionalisation of MOOCs a trigger for teaching quality, by means of reputation challenge. Of course, we could discuss what is quality in Higher Education…

2) Concerning the pedagogical model, I know this EDC course is not representative of usual Coursera courses. Those – you can see that if you explore courses descriptions randomly in the Coursera catalog – are usually designed on a transmissive model : lectures (in video format and/or texts to read), quizzes or exercices and final exam. However, EDC course doesn’t fit this format, it applies the pedagogical model that McAuley, Steward, Siemens and Cormier (2010, p.23) propose for connectivist MOOCs :

•  » High levels of learner control over modes and places of interaction,
• Weekly synchronous sessions with facilitators and guest speakers,
• The Daily email newsletter as a regular contact point for course participants. The Daily includes a summary of Moodle forums, course participant blogs, Twitter discussions re-lated to the course, etc.
• Using RSS-harvesting (gRSShopper) to track blogs of course participants,
• Emphasis on learner autonomy in selecting learning resources and level of participation in activities,
• Emphasis on social systems as effective means for learners to self-organize and way-finding through complex subject areas,
• The criticality of “creation” – i.e. learners create and share their understanding of the course topics through blogs, concept maps, videos, images, and podcasts. Creating a digital artifact helps learners to re-centre the course discussion to a more personal basis. »

Thus, a connectivist approach seems to be possible even in a Coursera context. There is room for openness and pedagogical experiment, even in an institutional MOOC context. It’s up to university partners to bring their own vision of what they consider a quality MOOC course. « With [distance teaching faculty] support, MOOCs provide a great opportunity to develop new pedagogy » (Daniel, 2012).

3) In the debate opposing cMOOCs and xMOOCs, I see mostly the common denominator : they pursue a shared intention – to share knowledge in the most large and open way ; to provide learning opportunities to every learner who wants to learn, without admission barrier. They differ however in the mean of reaching their intention : cMOOCs aim to « prepare people for participation in these very complex chaotic knowledge settings that most of us live in these days » (Siemens, 2012) ; xMOOCs aim to « give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few » (Coursera website, page « about »). Future will show if this intention is really humanist and not only economic…

So I would see cMOOCs and xMOOCs as two different ways of offering open education :

	cMOOCs	xMOOCs
Learning outcomes	developing digital, social and intellectual Web 2.0 skills; « to choose an answer » (Cormier, 2012)	acquiring knowledge; « to find an answer » (Cormier, 2012)
Topics	open and prospective topics, where knowledge is still to build through experience, debate, analysis, identification of patterns…	basic topics or, at least, topics where knowledge is formalized, stabilized, delimited; introductory courses
Pedagogical model	connectivist approach, building one’s own knowledge by sharing and discussing with others	traditional approach : clearly structured, closed to what you find in classrooms, reassuring
Expected effective audience	learners with prerequisites in digital skills (Kop, 2011)	larger audience, less digitally skilled learners

If the specific goals, methods, target audiences… are acknowledged, polemic about « real », « noble », « pure »… MOOCs should decrease and make room for intelligent experimentations and research.

References

Cormier, D. (2012) Interviewed by Martin Weller on 15 October 2012 for Open University. YouTube hangout at http://youtu.be/l1G4SUblnbo (accessed 13 April 2013).

Daniel, J. (2012) ‘Making sense of MOOCs: musings in a maze of myth, paradox and possibility’, Journal of Interactive Media in Education, no. 18 [online]. Available at http://jime.open.ac.uk/ jime/ article/ view/ 2012-18 (accessed 13 April 2013).

Kop, R. (2011) ‘The challenges to connectivist learning on open online networks: learning experiences during a massive open online course’, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, vol. 12, no. 3 [online], http://www.irrodl.org/ index.php/ irrodl/article/ view/ 882 (accessed 13 April 2013).

McAuley, A., Stewart, B., Siemens, G. and Cormier, D. (2010) The MOOC Model for Digital Practice, Charlottetown, University of Prince Edward Island, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Knowledge synthesis grants on the Digital Economy. Also available online at http://davecormier.com/ edblog/ wp-content/ uploads/ MOOC_Final.pdf (accessed 13 April 2013).

Siemens, G. (2012) Interviewed by Martin Weller on 15 October 2012 for Open University. YouTube hangout at http://youtu.be/l1G4SUblnbo (accessed 13 April 2013).

Weller, M. (2012) ‘MOOCs Inc’, The Ed Techie, 28 May [online], http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/ no_good_reason/ 2012/ 05/ moocs-inc.html (accessed 13 April 2013).

Activity 7 – Key issues in OER

Open education relies on open educational resources (OER). According to Atkins, Brown & Hammond (p.4), « OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge« . Weller (2012) follows the distinction proposed by Hoyes (2009) between big and little OERs, arguing there’s a continuum in granularity, quality, and intended learning intentions.

• « Big OERs are institutionally generated ones that arise from projects such as Open Courseware and OpenLearn. These are usually of high quality, contain explicit teaching aims, are presented in a uniform style and form part of a time-limited, focused project with portal and associated research and data.
• Little OERs are individually produced, low cost resources. They are produced by anyone, not just educators, may not have explicit educational aims, have low production quality and are shared through a range of third party sites and services. » (Weller, 2012)

The OER movement, and the Learning Objects movement before him – I would be interested in deepening the relatedness and differences between those two movements, following for example Robertson (2010) – pursue a humanist goal :

• « The intent of this new Hewlett Foundation program component was to catalyze universal access to and use of high-quality academic content on a global scale » (Atkins, Brown and Hammond, 2007, p. 1);
• « We hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in. » (page « About Coursera », Coursera website);
• « Open content has the potential to change the playing field when it comes to every individual’s right to education« . (Hatakka, 2009).

I find that a priority key issue about this OER movement would be the analysis of whether this goal is succeeding or not :

• Who are the people effectively learning through OER ? How many are they in the world ? What are their profile ? Are they learners with the most special needs, those who can’t benefit from regular forms of education, in schools and universities ?
• How could we answers such questions ? How could we measure uses of OERs, especially from little OERs ? How could we evaluate their impacts ?
• Is the question of impacts of OERs relevant ? Can educational resources, which are only pieces of a puzzle, have an impact by themselves ? Do teachers take advantage of the wealth of educational resources to build high-quality and economic courses for their learners ?

About this last question, a beginning of an answer : Hatakka (2009) observes and analyses the lack of use of OERs by teachers in developing countries (well, also in developed countries to tell the truth). He highlights eleven categories of inhibiting factors for reuse of educational resources made by others. The major obstacle seems to be deeply grounded in the teaching profession : teachers consider their job is to create learning resources for their learners. Thus they are not willing to use someone else materials. « They want to incorporate their own ideas, their innovations and their perspective in the content » (Hatakka, 2009, p. 14).

Is it because teachers don’t take advantage of OERs in their courses that some organizations have started to offer entire open courses ? Are the MOOC organizations as Coursera, edX… the third trial to offer education to most needing people (after the Learning Objects trial and the OER trial) ? Will this trial be more effective ? Will it reach the desired public and enlarge the individual’s right in education ? How will we be able to observe and measure such impacts with evidence ?

References :

Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Report to the Williman and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Coursera Company (29 March 2013). About Coursera. Coursera website. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/about.

Hatakka, M. (2009). Build and They Will Come ? – Inhibiting Factors for Reuse of Open Content in Developing Countries. EJISDC, 37(5).

Robertson, J. (2010). Are OERs just Re-usable Learning Objects with an open license ? John’s JISC CETIS blog.

Weller, M. (2012). The openness-creativity cycle in education – A Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

Activity 3 – My understanding of open education

We were invited to read the following article about the concept of openness in education. This article is about the actual meaning of openness, wich is much larger than the idea of open access – distance education, from the period of the Open University foundation.

Weller, M. (2012). The openness-creativity cycle in education – a perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

I find very attractive the description of the « open scholar » (see on the map below). I feel it’s a position fundamentally different from the most frequent (for the moment) position of scholars : to protect jealously their data and creations, anxious for theft and plagiarism.

Here are the main ideas I retain from this interesting article :

Starting the Open Education course

I am a Belgian woman in her thirties, working in a university as a faculty developer. MOOCs are really challenging for the future of Higher Education so I try different MOOC courses in order to feel, from the inside, what learning through a MOOC is like.

My first MOOC experience was the French speaking ITYPA : Internet, Tout Y est Pour Apprendre. I must say I was completely lost in this so unstructured environment… I switched off quicky 😦

Recently, I attended with much pleasure the EDC MOOC : E-learning and Digital Culture, from The University of Edinburgh, in Coursera. I was just as much lost but driven by the final assignment we were asked. This goal, and clearly organized resources to watch and read, helped me to attend the entire course. And in the end, it was a exciting experience !

Here you can see my digital artefact produced for the EDC MOOC final assignment :

With the H817 Open course, I’m curious to try another MOOC and see what is going to be the same / different from my previous experiences. In particular, I’m really curious about the badges we are proposed to acquire. Seems (to me) motivating in terms of goals to achieve… Let’s wait and see.