{"id":4513,"date":"2015-02-27T14:16:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T19:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/2015\/blog-re-imagining-digital-learning-re-cycled-ideas\/"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:15:21","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:15:21","slug":"blog-re-imagining-digital-learning-with-re-cycled-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2015\/blog-re-imagining-digital-learning-with-re-cycled-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: Re-imagining digital learning\u2026.with re-cycled ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Isa G, EDC Instructional Designer <\/em><\/p>\n

With the promising title of \u201cDigital Learning Reimagined\u201d, Ryerson University\u2019s Chang Centre for Continuing Education held a small conference on Feb. 19 . Five speakers presented in 15-minute, TED-Talk style bursts, complete with red circular carpet and headset mic sans<\/em> podium.<\/p>\n

The first official speaker, Audrey Watters<\/a>, gave a pre-sell of her upcoming book \u201cTeaching Machines\u201d. While showing 19th century historical images of how futuristic education would electrically imbed knowledge into passive students\u2019 heads, she reminded us that these predictions have all been incorrect, and she questioned educational technology and instructional design (such as why educators even invented multiple-choice test questions?), without offering any concrete solutions or prophecies herself. She announced the need for greater and more equal access to technology to bridge racial and gender divides amongst socio-economic disadvantaged students. She and the next speaker both disparaged the \u2018brogrammer\u2019 culture of Silicon Valley, where the homogeneity of white, privileged male employees who make design decisions affect learning technology and students globally.<\/p>\n

George Veletsianos\u2019<\/a> talk highlighted the results of his online learning study, led by Royal Roads University. He recited his research findings of students of global MOOCs, that repeat many other studies: online course participants study at odd hours of the night because they lead busy lives, and learners tune out or stop watching course videos after four or five minutes. His enthusiasm about mining data from Learning Management Systems (which track every student click) was echoed by the other event speakers. Four of the speakers discussed the great ability of an LMS to track student pathways and to use the data to redesign courses for better student flow and knowledge acquisition.<\/p>\n

Findings from research completed by Phillip Schmidt<\/a> from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab also indicated oft-heard implications for digital learning. Based on his research, he claims effective learning requires the Four P\u2019s: Passion, Play, Projects and Peers. He verified that students who are passionate about subjects learn more, that project-based learning results in different types of learning, and that students learn valuable information from social interactions (including illegal activities, such as placing a fire truck atop an MIT building in the middle of the night!).<\/p>\n

The role of risk-taking and the importance of making mistakes were underscored by the concept of Play, a theme also explored in depth by Jeremy Friedberg<\/a>, a conference presenter from Spongelab Interactive.<\/p>\n

In pitching his products, he echoed the importance of the role of \u2018play\u2019 and gamification concepts to encourage learners towards motivation. Through his company\u2019s work, he emphasized cross-discipline, multi-subject learning through the use of storytelling, rewards and online videogames. He too underscored the ability of the system to track learner activity to lead to changes in behaviour, and insisted that the data from his products show useful insight about how participants learn, which could lead to future design implications. He also raised the issue of pushback from administrators and government, who require this data to affect change at the institutional level.<\/p>\n

The most imaginative re-imagining came from speaker Stephen Downes<\/a>, the co-creator of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). As a bearded, grey-haired Jerry-Garcia-lookalike, Downes admitted he\u2019d been accused of being a \u201cTechno-communist\u201d and spoke of freedom and choice as necessary elements for students of the future. He envisaged the advent of personalized learning, where students will someday choose their own software, tools and content path, rather than a professor or an instructional designer doing so. In his future of digital learning, he predicts the LMS will be a simple black box, from which students will choose their own learning path.<\/p>\n

Although the need<\/em> for \u201cinnovation\u201d in education was expressed many times at the conference, actual widespread adoption of new ideas has not yet arrived – we will have to wait and see how educators and designers will re-define the learning of tomorrow, and just how those digital native learners<\/em> will fare as they hit post-secondary institutions of higher learning, by then, hopefully re-imagined, innovative and interconnected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Isa G, EDC Instructional Designer With the promising title of \u201cDigital Learning Reimagined\u201d, Ryerson University\u2019s Chang Centre for Continuing Education held a small conference on Feb. 19 . Five speakers presented in 15-minute, TED-Talk style bursts, complete with red circular carpet and headset mic sans podium. The first official speaker, Audrey Watters, gave a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlog: Re-imagining digital learning\u2026.with re-cycled ideas - 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