Fortnightly Mailing

Moodle-based provision wins Times Higher Award for "Most Imaginative Use Of Distance Learning"

Behind the par-for-the-course language in this 16/11/2006 press release from the University of Derby lies the fact that Derby's Learning Through Work provision, run for/in collaboration with Ufi/learndirect - one of the world's largest scale providers of online learning - is implemented using the Open Source VLE Moodle.

LEX: new reports from the UK into the learner experience of e-learning

Image from LEX Report

Much of the discourse about e-learning is between people with ideas about how to organise and deliver it. The JISC-funded LEX project gets beyond this because its focus is on how learners experience e-learning. LEX is also interesting because it is the joint work of an unusual combination of organisations: Glasgow Caledonian University, and the London-based Open Learning Partnership (a small educational charity dedicated to opening up learning opportunities for all), whose collaboration started in the course of an earlier JISC part-funded project that I managed called Union Education Online. The main authors of the LEX study are Linda Creanor and Kathryn Trinder from Glasgow Caledonian University, and Doug Gowan and 
Carol Howells from the Open Learning Partnership, with Terry Mayes having had what looks to have been a decisive influence over the study's research methodology.

A key purpose of the LEX study was to:

"create materials and resources that by reflecting learner voices would be of real assistance to course designers, tutors and support staff making use of ICT"

The two main outputs from LEX are now freely available. They are:

1. The LEX Report [800 kB PDF], a coherently structured, comprehensive 45 page report on the LEX findings, which concentrated on the following research questions:

• What might characterise effective learners in an e-learning context? (e.g. IT skills, confidence, technology-rich background)
• What beliefs and intentions do effective learners display? (e.g. understanding of the teaching and learning process and their role within that, personal motivation, emotional aspects of technology use)
• What strategies do effective learners display? (e.g. managing their learning, fitting life around learning, coping with problems, willingness to engage in e-learning)

2. The LEX Guides [450 kB PDF], a clearly written set of short guides for the different main actors in e-learning -  Learner, Author and designer, Support staff, Manager, Tutor - which, refreshingly, are richly illustrated with quotes from the learners who took part in the study.

It is the way that learners are given a voice by this work that is most important: both documents deserve to be widely read and used; and this work shows clearly the value that can flow from of cross-sectoral collaboration in e-learning R&D, collaboration that is, sadly, much reduced within JISC-funded projects as a result of  the Learning and Skills Council's recent decision to cease to contribute to this aspect of JISC's work.

Simple email and asynchronous conferencing still have a lot going for them

In the mid-late 1990s I was quite closely involved in starting off some online distance learning courses which have stood the test of time, including the South Yorkshire FE Consortium's Learning To Teach On-Line course (LeTTOL) and, the Sheffield College's GCSE English Online; and I have written previously about the range of online courses that the college now runs.

These courses are characterised by:

• reliance on email and asynchronous text-based conferencing for most of the learner/learner and learner/tutor interaction;
• modestly designed, simple, web-based learning materials,  developed at a relatively low cost per learner hour of material;
• course development, maintenance, and delivery in the hands of a team of tutors;
• more-or-less all team members required to complete the LeTTOL course.

The college's courses are outstandingly successful in two senses. They:

• reach learners who would not normally manage to start, let alone stick with, a college course;
• have unprecendently high examination pass-rates.

Of course you can read too much into awards. Plenty of organisations do not bother to enter for them, which does not mean they have nothing good to show; and there are examples of awards being won for suspect activities. Nevertheless, I think it is significant that on 9/11/2006, in a bid organised by the South Yorkshire eLearning Programme (eSY), against competition mainly from the corporate sector, the English Online team and eSY won the national 2006 Award for the "best example of supporting learners on-line", organised by the magazine e-learning age. Currently I am encouraging Julie Hooper, who leads the team at The Sheffield College, has agreed to write a Guest Contribution for a future issue of Fortnightly Mailing. (See also Donald Clark's drinking champagne from shoes, a report from the awards ceremony.)

Web 2.0: the key to wealth? Zoho, Lala, Guba

Nice piece from 20/10/2006 by Ivor Tossell in the technology section of The Globe and Mail poking fun at the Web 2.0 world, and drawing a parallel with the situation during the first dot.com boom. Excerpt:

"Broadly speaking, the term refers to sites that fill their pages with user-submitted content, like blogs or photos or comments, and play up the Web's social-networking potential. Enthusiasts heralded Web 2.0 as a breakthrough in digital democracy, letting everyday users create media content. It also happened to be a heck of a lot cheaper to let users generate content (or, frequently, steal it) than to pay people to write the stuff.

Web 2.0 sites have gained a degree of legitimacy, thanks especially to a few high-profile success stories, like the formerly Canadian photo-sharing site Flickr.com, which Yahoo bought last year. And in their success, they've spawned an entirely entertaining cult of conformity, with cookie-cutter start-ups emerging weekly, laden with funny names and purposes that are all more of the same. Yet they keep popping up, and they keep getting funded. This, my friends, is where the money is -- if you toe the line."

Via The Top Ten Lies of Web 2.0, from where the image below is culled, and Stephen Downes.

27/4/2007. See also Charlie O'Donnell's Top Ten Reasons Why Web 2.0 Sucks.

Manchester - free afternoon workshops on technology, media, communities and learning

Previous Guest Contributor Mark van Harmelen is the person behind a series of 10 afternoon workshops on Technology, Media, Communities and Learning run by the Manchester University School of Computer Science, between now and mid March 2007. If I lived in Manchester I'd try to get to some of them.

ALT's 2006 Conference: MP3s of keynote speeches and theme leader summings up

Reasonable quality audio files, alongside copies of all but Stephen Heppell's presentation,  are now available on the Association for Learning Technology web site (I work for ALT half-time), or below, and they represent a mix of sometimes quite provocative material. Stephen Heppell, in particular, has a good dry sense of humour, and strongly questions whether conventional institutionally based education has much of a future. (And most of the time you find yourself wanting to believe him even if at the back of your mind you guess that the evidence may be a bit thin.) Tim O'Shea asserts the long term strength of big research universities. Diana Oblinger comments on how today's learners are different, and draws on EDUCAUSE's excellent work on building design.  The end of conference summings up by the theme leaders, who are drawn from a wide range of roles, provide a good insight into what makes the ALT conference worth attending.

• Stephen Heppell's 7/9/2006 keynote: 19 MB, 65 minute MP3;
• Diana Oblinger's 5/9/2006 keynote: 1.5 MB PDF 25 MB, 88 minute MP3;
• Tim O'Shea's keynote 6/9/2006: 5.5 MB PPT 16 MB, 56 minute MP3;
• Terry Anderson's summing up from "next generation technology" theme: 3.6 MB PPT 21 MB, 73 minute MP3;
• Phil Candy's summing up from "next generation learners" theme: 0.3 MB PPT 13 MB, 44 minute MP3;
• Gilly Salmon's summing up from "next generation learning" theme: 0.8 MB PPT 9 MB, 33 minute MP3;
• Chris Yapp's summing up from "next generation providers" theme: 3.7 MB PPT 19 MB, 68 minute MP3.

Open University "OpenLearn": MIT with pedagogy, or MIT without the completeness?

From the Hewlett Foundation's Open Educational Resources – Making High Quality Educational Content and Tools Freely Available on the Web

In March I reported on the Open University's announcement that it would be making some of its content "open", supported by a large grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In July I included a summary from a presentation I attended by Jason Cole and Martin Dougiamas about the OU's use of Moodle. Since then progress has been swift and impressive.

On 25/10/2006, the OU launched OpenLearn "free and open educational resources for learners and educators around the world". [Hewlett Foundation media release.] Yesterday I heard a presentation to the HEFCE "eLearning Partnership Board" (on which I represent ALT) by Professor David Vincent, who is the OU pro Vice Chanceller responsible for the initiative. 

Solution Watch - reviews of Web 2.0 tools for education

Solution Watch:

"surveys the new generation of the web, reviewing and providing in-depth walkthroughs of today's best products and services. Owned and maintained by 19 year old Brian Benzinger, Solution Watch aims for writing quality reviews of products and services that are of benefit to its users."

Today Solution Watch published the 3rd and final in a series called "Back to school with the class of Web 2.0". The series contains numerous short reviews of mainly free web-based tools for teaching and learning. Part 1 - 29/9/2006. Part 2 - 6/10/2006.

New Zealand's Open Source ePortfolio Project. Guest Contribution by Meredith Henson.

Meredith Henson is eCDF ePortfolio Project Manager based at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand.

The ePortfolio Project is charged with developing an open source ePortfolio application and to provide implementation strategies for the New Zealand tertiary sector.  We are however developing the system with consideration to an international focus and appeal.

This project is a collaborative venture funded by New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Commission’s e-learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF), involving Massey University (lead provider), Auckland University of Technology, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, and Victoria University of Wellington.

EDUCAUSE on Blackboard: patenting a community creation is anathema to our culture

On 26/10/2006 EDUCAUSE (which has around 2000 mainly US institutions and 200 businesses in membership, and which plays a similar role in the US to ALT, UCISA, SCONUL, and parts of JISC and JANET rolled into one and grown in size) released the full text of an unprecedently no holds barred letter to Blackboard Inc. concerning the Blackboard patent, originally delivered to the company on 9/10/2006.

Two sections of the letter, which is worth reading in full (along with the wide range of feedback on it) in this article in Inside Higher Education, stand out:

"Our community has participated in the creation of course management systems. A claim that implies this community creation can be patented by one organization is anathama to our culture."

"We believe that Blackboard should disclaim the rights established under your recently-awarded patent, placing the patent in the public domain and withdrawing the claim of infringement against Desire2Learn. We believe this action would be in the best business interests of Blackboard and in the best interests of higher education. We do not make this request lightly or underestimate the courage it will take to implement. However, we believe it is the right action for your corporation and our community."

According to Inside Higher Education, Blackboard’s 26/10/2006 response was:

"Blackboard has been (and remains) a long time supporter of Educause and the important role it plays for the academic community, but we are disappointed that Educause, an industry organization, is taking public positions on its members' intellectual property and enforcement efforts. We are proud of our innovations and believe protecting Blackboard’s intellectual property is tantamount to the success of the company and the evolution of the industry at large."

Note. Other posts about the Blackboard patent:

• 25 January 2007 - United States Patent & Trademark Office orders re-examination of Blackboard Patent;
• 9 December 2006 - Two contrasting views about software patents. A debate between Eben Moglen and Blackboard's Matt Small;
• 2 December 2006 - Blackboard: two separate re-examination requests to the US Patent and Trade Mark Office; and an application to the Court from Desire2Learn for a stay in proceedings;
• 27 October 2006 - EDUCAUSE on Blackboard: "patenting a community creation is anathema to our culture";
• 16 October 2006 -  John Mayer interviews various lawyers with patent knowhow;
• 10 September 2006 - The new "post-patent" environment for e-learning: a perspective. Guest contribution by Jim Farmer;
• 9 September 2006 - Blackboard's work for IMS;
• 8 August 2006 - Did the US Department of Justice know about the patent when it cleared Blackboard's acquisition of Web CT?;
• 26 July 2006 - Blackboard's US Patent 6988138.