Presentation by ETUG fall workshop 2013 Keynote: George Veletsianos

1. Beyond effectiveness &efficiency
Learning that’s good for the soul
George Veletsianos, PhD
Canada Research Chair
Associate Professor
School of Education and Technology
ETUG Keynote, Victoria, BC, November 2013

2. My research
Students’, Instructors’, and Scholars’
experiences and practices with emerging
technologies in digital environments
(e.g., social networks, open scholarship,
open courses/experiences)
To improve environments and practices

3. Emerging Technologies
• May or may not be new technologies
• Evolving, “coming into being”
• Go through “hype cycles”
• Not yet fully understood
• Not yet fully researched
• Potentially disruptive (but potential is unfulfilled)
(Veletsianos, 2010)

13. “Strong pressures to produce
mediocre instructional products
based on templates and preexisting
content.”
Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008

14. Two
Dominant
Narra-ves

15. Narrative #1
The latest technology as a panacea

16. Narratives #2
Online education = efficient mode
of delivery to
large numbers of students

19. “Examples of
outstanding [online] instruction
are hard to find.”
Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008

20. Courses can be effective and efficient…
But are they:
Transformational?
Socially just?

21. Truly Open Practices

22. Open Practices
• Faculty use social media to:
– Explore scholarly ideas
– Re-envision their identities as public intellectuals
– Share knowledge
– Debate & critique
– Advice & reflect
– Connect with other researchers
– Reach multiple audiences
(Kjellberg, 2010; Kirkup, 2010; Martindale & Wiley,
2005; Mewburn & Thompson, 2013; Veletsianos,
2012)

23. What scholarly activities do individuals
enact on social media?

24. What scholarly activities do individuals
enact on social media?
Announcements
Draft papers
Open textbooks
Syllabi + Activities
Live streaming
Live-Blogging
Collaborative authoring
Debates + commentary
Open teaching
Public P&T materials
Crowdsourcing
Veletsianos (2013)

26. These acts/activities question academic
traditions & the status quo

27. And circumvent systems…
PirateUniversity.org
ThePaperBay.com
Reddit.com/r/Scholar

29. “Places of gathering” and
“networks of care and bonding”
Veletsianos (2013)

30. #PhDChat

31. Project Engage!
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1138506

35. Sample project

36. Design considerations for powerful
learning
- Narrative & Storyline
- Sharing with others
- Design opportunities that allow engagement
beyond course activities (interacting with
experts/colleagues, authentic contributions)
- Open also means “being vulnerable” and
“putting yourself out there”

38. Contrast:
The other “open” practices

39. The xMOOC phenomenon as a
symptom
• MOOCs are “the billion $$ solution to a
problem we haven’t identified
yet.” (Siemens, 2013)
– A historically accurate perspective.
• “The history of our field is replete with
bandwagons, new technologies that were
the temporal panaceas... Bandwagons are
solutions in search of problems” (Choi &
Reeves, 2013).

40. If the MOOC phenomenon is not a
solution, what is it?
• A “symptom of a larger problem” (Marquis,
2013)
• A “symptom of the HE crisis” (Kendzior, 2013)
• A “symptom of the absence of educational
ambition among politicians” (Newfield, 2013)
• “A symptom of change” (Stewart, 2013)
• A symptom of “the seismic shifts that are
taking place in our profession” (Taylor, 2012)
• A symptom of “society’s degraded approach
to knowledge” (Leddy, 2013)
• “One symptom of openness” (Batson, 2013)

41. If the MOOC phenomenon is not a
solution, what is it?
• I propose that the MOOC phenomenon is a
symptom of pressures, failures, closed ears:
– Economic, political, privatization pressures
– Educators’ failures to create their own solutions
to educational problems
– Lack of impact of educational technology
research on learning design
– Lack of impact of educational technology
scholarship (to share our findings, to make
meaningful contributions to practice).

42. If the MOOC phenomenon is not a
solution, what is it?

43. Even so, the MOOC phenomenon
has made some contributions
• Elevated the profile of online education
• Raised the profile of free (perhaps open?)
education
• Elevated the profile of teaching (Collier,
2013)
• Exerted pressure on HE institutions to
innovate
• Provided impetus for more collaboration
within HE (e.g., at the institutional level)

44. Hence…
The MOOC phenomenon

45. What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Caveat
– Open courses vs. “Open” courses vs. Open
learning/participation
• Learners report
– benefiting from open course participation
(Hilton, Graham, Rich, & Wiley, 2010)
– Facing a number of obstacles (Mackness et al,
2011)

46. What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Institutional MOOCs demonstrate low
completion rates, <10% (Jordan, 2013)
• Big Data & Learning Analytics research
question traditional understanding of
“completion”
– Learners exhibit varied participation behaviors
(e.g., auditing, completing, disengaging,
sampling) (Kizilcec, Piech, & Schneider, 2013)
– Koller et al. (2013) argue that participants may
not necessarily intent to complete a course

47. What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• We lack an evidence-based understanding of
experiences with all open forms of learning/
scholarship
• Majority of the research on open online learning
conducted to date has been survey-based, focused
on learner behavior, and guided by tracking online
behaviors
• Reports from institutional offices are helpful, but we
need in-depth studies

48. What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Need multiple methodologies:
• Macro (Kizilcec, Piech, Schneider, 2013)
• Auditing, Completing, Disengaging, Sampling
• Micro (Ota, 2013)
• “[I was] left with a partial sense of
accomplishment and feelings of hollowness and
incompleteness.”
• In the frenzy surrounding the rise of “edtech” and
MOOCs, it seems that student voices and
experiences are rarely considered.

49. What is it like to participate in open online learning?
Veletsianos, G. (2013). Learner Experiences with MOOCs and Open Online Learning. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved on Sept
29, 2013 from http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com.

50. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

51. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

52. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

53. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

54. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

55. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

56. Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

57. To summarize…
• The realities of open online learning are different
from the hopes of open online learning.
• We only have small pieces of an incomplete
mosaic of students’ learning experiences with
open online learning.

58. Where do we go from here?
Design experiences, not products
Sharing
Storylines
Vulnerability
Design, develop, dream on.

59. Thank you!
Download these open access books:
http://tinyurl.com/book321
http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com

60. Thank you!
www.veletsianos.com
www.veletsianos.com/publications
@veletsianos on Twitter
veletsianos@gmail.com