1.
New ecologies of learning: design,
digital literacies, spaces and metaphors
Gráinne Conole, University of Leicester
ALDinHE conference, Leeds
2nd April 2012

2.
Outline
• Technologies trends
• Learner experience
• Open practices
• Teacher practice and paradoxes
• Strategies for change
– The VLE as a Trojan horse
– New approaches to design
• Metaphors

3.
Technological trends
• Mobiles and e-books
• Games-based learning &
learning analytics
• Gesture-based learning &
the Internet of things
• Personalised learning
• Cloud computing
• Ubiquitous learning
• BYOD (Bring your own device)
• Digital content
• The flipped classroom
http://learn231.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/trend-report-1/

4.
Peer Open
critiquing
User
Collective
generated
aggregation
content
Networked Personalised
Social media revolution www.heacademy.ac.uk/asse
s/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alev
The machine is us/ing us ou_2010.pdf

5.
Gutenberg to Zuckerberg
• Take the long view
• The web is not the net
• Disruption is a feature
• Ecologies not economics
• Complexity is the new reality
• The network is now the computer
• The web is evolving
• Copyright or copywrong
• Orwell (fear) or Huxley (pleasure)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/2617472088/
http://memex.naughtons.org/

6.
Learner experience
• Technology immersed
• Learning approaches: task-
orientated, experiential,
just in time, cumulative,
social
• Personalised digital
learning environment
• Mix of institutional systems
and cloud-based tools and
services
• Use of course materials
with free resources
Sharpe, Beetham and De Freitas, 2010
http://www.educause.edu/studentsAndTechnologyInfographic

7.
Promise and reality
Social and
participatory media
offer new ways to
communicate and
collaborate Not fully exploited
Wealth of free Replicating bad pedagogy
resources and tools
Lack of time and skills

8.
Open practices
Open resources Open courses
Pandora’s box
Open scholarship Open research
8

9.
Open resources
http://www.oer-quality.org/

10.
Open courses
Massive
Open
Online
Course
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc
http://mooc.ca/

11.
Open accreditation
Peer to Peer University OER University
www.p2pu.org/en/ wikieducator.org/OER_university/

12.
Open scholarship
• Exploiting the digital network
• New forms of dissemination
and communication
• Promoting reflective practice
• Embracing the affordances of
new technologies
Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/

13.
Open research

14.
Citation indicators

15.
Teacher practices: paradoxes
• Technologiesnot extensively
used (Molenda)
• Lack of uptake of OER
(McAndrew et al.)
• Little use beyond early
adopters (Rogers)
• Despite rhetoric and funding Pandora’s box
little evidence of
transformation (Cuban,
Ehlers)
15

16.
The VLE as a Trojan horse
• VLE as a safe nursery slope
• Shift from content to
activities
• Promote reflection and
collaboration
• Mobile VLE
• Integration with cloud
computing

17.
Blackboard audit
• Data
– Online survey (260 returns)
– Departmental visits
• Key findings
– Used as content repository
and administration
– Pockets of innovation
– More support needed on
effective design strategies
– Tension between teaching
and research
– Usability issue

18.
Blackboard+ at Leicester
BB plus Google+
Maths video-lets
Prof-casts
History conundrum Voicethread

19.
LearningDesign
Shift frombelief-based, implicit
approaches todesign-
based,explicit approaches
Learning Design
A design-based approach to
creation and support of
courses
Encouragesreflective,scholarly
practices
Promotessharing and discussion
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/

20.
Conceptualise
What do we want to design, who for
and why?
Carpe Diem:
7Cs of learning Design
Consolidate
Evaluate and embed your design
http://beyonddistance.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/carpe-diem-the-7cs-of-design-and-delivery/

21.
How to ruin a course

22.
Course features
Group A – not included
Group B – used to some extent
Group C – significantly present
http://linoit.com/home

23.
Course map view

24.
Pedagogy profile view
• Assimilative
– Reading, viewing, listening
• Information handling
– Manipulating data
• Communicative
– Dialogic interactions
• Productive
– Creating an artefact
• Experiential
– Practicing, mimicking
• Adaptive
– Modeling or simulation
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2459

25.
Metaphors
Ecologies
Spaces
Memes Rhizomes
http://e4innovation.com/?p=489

26.
Ecologies
• Co-evolution of
tools and users
• Niches
colonisation of
new habitats
• Survival of the
fittest

27.
Memes
An internet meme is something
That spreads like wildfire on the
Web (Blackmore)
To describe the interaction What makes us different
with digital technologies Is our ability to imitate
The Internet allows for
The unprecedented
Spreading of ideas
Issues in terms of
convergence of thought

28.
Spaces

29.
Rhizomes
A rhizome is a stem of a
plant that sends out
roots as it spreads.
Describes the way that
ideas are multiple,
interconnected and self-
replicating. A rhizome
has no beginning or end
like a learning process
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2011/11/05/rhizomatic-learning-why-learn/

30.
MSc in Learning Innovation
Dissertation
Case Studies of Innovation
Research Design and Methods
Learning Design
Technology-Enhanced Learning

31.
Conole, G. (forthcoming), Designing for learning in an open world, New York: Springer
Chapters available on dropbox
grainne.conole@le.ac.uk