Create Your Own Custom Characters for Online Training

In this blog we’ve learned how to create custom characters with clip art. We’ve also learned to create our own illustrated characters in PowerPoint. And today, we’ll learn another way to create custom characters.

A few months ago, Mike Taylor, one of our community managers had a great post on how to create your own graphics for your online training courses. It was one of those posts so good that I want to make sure it didn’t slip through the cracks.

You can watch his tutorial below to see how easy it is to create custom characters using simple shapes.

Click here to view how to create custom characters.

Here are some free downloads to help you get started:

Here’s the PowerPoint file that Mike used. You can use it to follow along with what he shows or deconstruct the images and build your own. Here are the individual image files if you want to use the characters Mike created. I isolated the characters and saved them in the .png format. If you want to edit them, you’ll need to use Mike’s file. However, I recommend creating your own and working from those. This way you learn to make your own and you always have quick access to the starter characters.

These types of characters work great for safety training and for procedural training where you have to show step-by-step sequences. They’re easy to understand and easy to create. The key is to keep them simple.

Can you use these characters? How would you use them in your own training? What characters and industries would you add?

Your next step is to watch the tutorial and practice building your own characters. This way when you need a custom character you can quickly make it. If you do create your own characters, please share with the rest of us so we can see what you did.

July 24-25: Little Rock, AR. Teaching with Technology Symposium 2014. I’m doing a few sessions: What is Interactive E-Learning, How to Build an Effective Community, and PowerPoint for E-Learning. Learn more here.

August 12-14: Madison, WI. 30th Annual Conference on Distance Learning & Education. PowerPoint workshop.

We’re doing a series of community workshops. Join your peers in learning more about elearning. I’m fine-tuning the agenda and will have more details shortly. The first day will focus on general elearning topics and the second day will focus on Articulate specific topics. They’re all practical with lots of hands-on activities.

The space is limited, so make sure to sign up before they sell out.

September 10 &11: Denver, CO. E-Learning Heroes Roadshow. Hands-on activities that explore general course design as well as a boatload of Articulate tips and tricks. Sign up here before it sells out.

September 22 & 23: Minneapolis, MN. E-Learning Heroes Roadshow. Hands-on activities that explore general course design as well as a boatload of Articulate tips and tricks. Sign up here before it sells out.

October 21 & 22: Boston, MA. E-Learning Heroes Roadshow. Hands-on activities that explore general course design as well as a boatload of Articulate tips and tricks. Sign up here before it sells out.

October 7 & 8: Dallas (ASTD). Two rapid elearning workshops. Sign up here.

Day 1: PowerPoint’s for E-Learning

Day 2: Building Interactive E-Learning with Articulate Storyline.

October: Las Vegas (Devlearn). How to Make Community Part of Your Training.

Post written by Tom Kuhlmann

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Learning theories and online learning

Figure 3.3. Adults learning in groups in a constructivist manner – and assisted by technology

Chapter 3 of my open textbook on ‘Teaching in a Digital Age‘ is about theory and practice in teaching for a digital age, which I am still in the process of writing. I have to admit that I approached writing about learning theories with some dread. In particular I was concerned (in order of dread) that:

this will appear incredibly boring/lack originality, because it has been done so many times before by other, more qualified authors (but then those that already know this stuff can easily skip it)I’m not sure that theories of learning actually drive teaching (although surely an understanding of how students learn should do so)I would have to deal with connectivism somehow, and I am certainly not an expert on that topic – but maybe that might be an advantage in bringing it to the attention of people who have previously shown no interest in it, and how it differs from previous theoriesit could be argued that past learning theories are made irrelevant by digital technologies (and I certainly don’t agree with that point of view.)

In the end, I can’t see how a discussion of learning theories can be avoided. Unless readers of the book have this basic understanding of the different views of learning, they will not be in a good position to make choices, especially regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning. In particular, I see a danger of becoming dogmatic and blinkered by unchallenged assumptions about the nature of learning that results from not exploring alternative theories. But lastly, as Kurt Lewin said, there is nothing more practical than a good theory. A good theory helps us make informed decisions in areas of uncertainty. So, I am sharing here my first draft with you. Please note this is just part of the whole chapter, which also includes the following:

Teaching and learning stylesDeep vs surface learning.Learner-centered teaching, learner engagement.What we know about skills developmentCompetency based learning.Learning design modelslearner characteristics: digital natives and digital literacyare we right to fear the use of computers for teaching?Summary of research on teaching.

Also, Chapter 2 discusses the nature of knowledge, and in particular different epistemologies that underpin different theories of learning. However, theories of learning are more than enough to chew on for the moment.

“…there is an impressive body of evidence on how teaching methods and curriculum design affect deep, autonomous, and reflective learning. Yet most faculty are largely ignorant of this scholarship, and instructional practices and curriculum planning are dominated by tradition rather than research evidence. As a result, teaching remains largely didactic, assessment of student work is often trivial, and curricula are more likely to emphasize content coverage than acquisition of lifelong and life-wide learning skills.”

Knapper, 2010, p. 229

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” Kurt Lewin, 1951, p. 169

Most teachers in the k-12 sector will be familiar with the main theories of learning, but because instructors in post-secondary education are hired primarily for their subject experience, or research or vocational skills, it is essential to introduce and discuss, if only briefly, these main theories. In practice, even without formal training or knowledge of different theories of learning, all teachers and instructors will approach teaching within one of these main theoretical approaches, whether or not they are aware of the educational jargon surrounding these approaches. Also, as online learning, technology-based teaching, and informal digital networks of learners have evolved, new theories of learning are emerging.

With a knowledge of alternative theoretical approaches, teachers and instructors are in a better position to make choices about how to approach their teaching in ways that will best fit the perceived needs of their students, within the very many different learning contexts that teachers and instructors face. This is particularly important when addressing many of the requirements of learners in a digital age. Furthermore, the choice of or preference for one particular theoretical approach will have major implications for the way that technology is used to support teaching.

In fact, there is a huge amount of literature on theories of learning, and I am aware that the treatment here is cursory, to say the least. Those who would prefer a more detailed introduction to theories of learning could, for an obscene price, purchase Schunk (2011), or for a more reasonable price Harasim (2012). The aim of my book though is not to be comprehensive in terms of in-depth coverage of all learning theories, but to provide a basis on which to suggest and evaluate different ways of teaching to meet the diverse needs of learners in a digital age.

Although initially developed in the 1920s, behaviourism still dominates approaches to teaching and learning in many places, particularly in the USA.

Behaviourist psychology is an attempt to model the study of human behaviour on the methods of the physical sciences, and therefore concentrates attention on those aspects of behaviour that are capable of direct observation and measurement. At the heart of behaviourism is the idea that certain behavioural responses become associated in a mechanistic and invariant way with specific stimuli. Thus a certain stimulus will evoke a particular response. At its simplest, it may be a purely physiological reflex action, like the contraction of an iris in the eye when stimulated by bright light.

However, most human behaviour is more complex. Nevertheless behaviourists have demonstrated in labs that it is possible to reinforce through reward or punishment the association between any particular stimulus or event and a particular behavioural response. The bond formed between a stimulus and response will depend on the existence of an appropriate means of reinforcement at the time of association between stimulus and response.  This depends on random behaviour (trial and error) being appropriately reinforced as it occurs.

This is essentially the concept of operant conditioning, a principle most clearly developed by Skinner (1968). He showed that pigeons could be trained in quite complex behaviour by rewarding particular, desired responses that might initially occur at random, with appropriate stimuli, such as the provision of food pellets. He also found that a chain of responses could be developed, without the need for intervening stimuli to be present, thus linking an initially remote stimulus with a more complex behaviour. Furthermore, inappropriate or previously learned behaviour could be extinguished by withdrawing reinforcement. Reinforcement in humans can be quite simple, such as immediate feedback for an activity or getting a correct answer to a multiple-choice test.

Figure 3.1 YouTube video/film of B.F. Skinner demonstrating his teaching machine, 1954

You can see a fascinating five minute film of B.F. Skinner describing his teaching machine in a 1954 YouTube video, either by clicking on the picture above or at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTH3ob1IRFo

Underlying a behaviourist approach to teaching is the belief that learning is governed by invariant principles, and these principles are independent of conscious control on the part of the learner. Behaviourists attempt to maintain a high degree of objectivity in the way they view human activity, and they generally reject reference to unmeasurable states, such as feelings, attitudes, and consciousness. Human behaviour is above all seen as predictable and controllable. Behaviourism thus stems from a strongly objectivist epistemological position.

Skinner’s theory of learning provides the underlying theoretical basis for the development of teaching machines, measurable learning objectives, computer-assisted instruction, and multiple choice tests. Behaviourism’s influence is still strong in corporate and military training, and in some areas of science, engineering, and medical training. It can be of particular value for rote learning of facts or standard procedures such as multiplication tables, for dealing with children or adults with limited cognitive ability due to brain disorders, or for compliance with industrial or business standards or processes that are invariant and do not require individual judgement.

Finally, it should be noted that behaviourism, with its emphasis on rewards and punishment as drivers of learning, and on pre-defined and measurable outcomes, is the basis of populist conceptions of learning among many parents, politicians, and, it should be noted, computer scientists interested in automating learning. It is not surprising then that there has also been a tendency until recently to see technology, and in particular computer-aided instruction, as being closely associated with behaviourist approaches to learning, although we shall see that this does not necessarily follow.

An obvious criticism of behaviourism is that it treats humans as a black box, where inputs into the black box, and outputs from the black box, are known and measurable, but what goes on inside the black box is ignored or not considered of interest. However, humans have the ability for conscious thought, decision-making, emotions, and the ability to express ideas through social discourse, all of which may be highly significant for learning. Thus we will likely get a better understanding of learning if we try to find out what goes on inside the black box. Cognitivists therefore have focused on identifying mental processes – internal and conscious representations of the world – that they consider are essential for human learning. Fontana (1981) summarises the cognitive approach to learning as follows:

‘The cognitive approach … holds that if we are to understand learning we cannot confine ourselves to observable behaviour, but must also concern ourselves with the learner’s ability mentally to re-organize his psychological field (i.e. his inner world of concepts, memories, etc.) in response to experience. This latter approach therefore lays stress not only on the environment, but upon the way in which the individual interprets and tries to make sense of the environment. It sees the individual not as the somewhat mechanical product of his environment, but as an active agent in the learning process, deliberately trying to process and categorize the stream of information fed into him by the external world.’ (p. 148)

Thus the search for rules, principles or relationships in processing new information, and the search for meaning and consistency in reconciling new information with previous knowledge, are key concepts in cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is concerned with identifying and describing mental processes that affect learning, thinking and behaviour, and the conditions that influence those mental processes.

© Agile Development Blog, 2013

Figure 3.2: Some of the areas covered by cognitivism, based on Bloom’s taxonomy (1956). Note that this becomes a reductionist exercise, as psychologists delve deeper into each of these cognitive activities to understand the underlying mental processes.

Cognitive approaches to learning cover a very wide range. At one end, the objectivist end, cognitivists consider basic mental processes to be genetic or hard-wired, but can be programmed or modified by external factors, such as new experiences. Early cognitivists in particular were interested in the concept of mind as computer, and more recently brain research has led to a search for linking learning to the development and reinforcement of neural networks in the brain. In terms of practice this concept of mind as computer has led to several technology-based developments in teaching, including:

intelligent tutoring systems, a more refined version of teaching machines, based on analysing student responses to questions and redirecting them to the appropriate next steps in learning. Adaptive learning is the latest extension of such developments;artificial intelligence, which seeks to represent in computer software the mental processes used in human learning (which of course if successful would result in computers replacing many human activities – such as teaching, if learning is considered in an objectivist framework.)pre-determined learning outcomes, based on an analysis and development of different kinds of cognitive activities, such as comprehension, analysis, synthesis, and evaluationcertain instructional design approaches that attempt to manage the design of teaching to ensure successful achievement of pre-determined learning outcomes or objectives.

On the other hand, many other cognitivists, coming from a more constructivist epistemological perspective, would argue that mental states or even processes are not fixed but constantly evolving as new information is integrated with prior knowledge, and new strategies for seeking meaning are developed by the individual. Thus teachers who place a strong emphasis on learners developing personal meaning through reflection, analysis and construction of knowledge through conscious mental processing would represent much more of a constructivist epistemological position. It is here that the boundaries between cognitivist and constructivist learning begin to break down.

Cognitive approaches to learning, with a focus on comprehension, abstraction, analysis, synthesis, generalization, evaluation, decision-making and creative thinking, seem to fit much better with higher education than behaviourism,  but even in k-12 education, a cognitivist approach would mean for instance focusing on teaching learners how to learn, on developing stronger or new mental processes for future learning, and on developing deeper and constantly changing understanding of concepts and ideas.

Put simply, brains have more plasticity, adaptability and complexity than current computer software programs, and other factors, such as emotion, motivation, self-determination, values, and a wider range of senses, make human learning very different from the way computers operate, at least at the moment. Education would be much better served if computer scientists tried to make software to support learning more reflective of the way human learning operates, rather than trying to fit human learning into the current restrictions of behaviourist computer programming.

Nevertheless, cognitivists have increased our understanding of how humans process and make sense of new information, how we access, interpret, integrate, process, organize and manage knowledge, and have given us a better understanding of the conditions that affect learners’ mental states.

Both behaviourist and some elements of cognitive theories of learning are deterministic, in the sense that behaviour and learning are believed to be rule-based and operate under predictable and constant conditions over which the individual learner has no or little control. However, constructivists emphasise the importance of consciousness, free will and social influences on learning. Carl Rogers (1969) stated that: ‘every individual exists in a continually changing world of experience in which he is the center.’ The external world is interpreted within the context of that private world. The belief that humans are essentially active, free and strive for meaning in personal terms has been around for a long time.

Constructivists argue that individuals consciously strive for meaning to make sense of their environment in terms of past experience and their present state. It is an attempt to create order in their minds out of disorder, to resolve incongruities, and to reconcile external realities with prior experience. The means by which this is done are complex and multi-faceted, from personal reflection, seeking new information, to testing ideas through social contact with others. Problems are resolved, and incongruities sorted out, through strategies such as seeking relationships between what was known and what is new, identifying similarities and differences, and testing hypotheses or assumptions. Reality is always tentative and dynamic.

For many educators, the social context of learning is critical. Ideas are tested not just on the teacher, but with fellow students, friends and colleagues. Furthermore, knowledge is mainly acquired through social processes or institutions that are socially constructed: schools, universities, and increasingly these days, online communities. Thus what is taken to be ‘valued’ knowledge is also socially constructed. Thus knowledge is not just about content, but also values. One set of values are those around the concept of a liberal education. According to this ideology, one of the principal aims of education is that it should develop a critical awareness of the values and ideologies that shape the form of received knowledge. This then suggests a constant probing and criticism of received knowledge.

One consequence of constructivist theory is that each individual is unique, because the interaction of their different experiences, and their search for personal meaning, results in each person being different from anyone else. Thus behaviour is not predictable or deterministic, at least not at the individual level. The key point here is that learning is seen as essentially a social process, requiring communication between learner, teacher and others. This social process cannot effectively be replaced by technology, although technology may facilitate it.

It can be seen that although constructivist approaches can be and have been applied to all fields of knowledge, it is more commonly found in approaches to teaching in the humanities, social sciences, education, and other less quantitative subject areas.

The concurrence of both constructivist approaches to learning and the development of the Internet has led to the development of a particular form of constructivist teaching, originally called computer-mediated communication (CMC), but which has developed into what Harasim (2012) now calls online collaborative learning theory (OCL). She describes OCL as follows (p. 90):

‘OCL theory provides a model of learning in which students are encouraged and supported to work together to create knowledge: to invent, to explore ways to innovate, and, by so doing, to seek the conceptual knowledge needed to solve problems rather than recite what they think is the right answer. While OCL theory does encourage the learner to be active and engaged, this is not considered to be sufficient for learning or knowledge construction……In the OCL theory, the teacher plays a key role not as a fellow-learner, but as the link to the knowledge community, or state of the art in that discipline. Learning is defined as conceptual change and is key to building knowledge. Learning activity needs to be informed and guided by the norms of the discipline and a discourse process that emphasises conceptual learning and builds knowledge.‘

This approach to the use of technology for teaching is very different from the more objectivist approaches found in computer-assisted learning, teaching machines, and artificial intelligence applications to education, which primarily aim to use computing to replace at least some of the activities traditionally done by human teachers. With online collaborative learning, the aim is not to replace the teacher, but to use the technology primarily to increase and improve communication between teacher and learners, with a particular approach to the development of learning based on knowledge construction assisted and developed through social discourse. This social discourse furthermore is not random in OCL, but managed in such a way as to ‘scaffold’ learning, by assisting with the construction of knowledge in ways that are guided by the instructor, that reflect the norms or values of the discipline, and that also respect or take into consideration the prior knowledge within the discipline.

Connectivism is a relatively new theory of learning or epistemology (there’s not even agreement about which it is), it is still being refined and developed, and it is currently highly controversial, with many critics. Siemens, Downes and Cormier constructed the first massive open online course (MOOC), Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2011, partly to explain and partly to model a connectivist approach to learning. More recently, Downes (2014) has spelled out, in a presentation called The MOOC of One, some of the relationships between individual learning, the contribution of individuals to knowledge and its flow, and networks of learners, within a broad interpretation of connectivist theory. In this presentation Downes sets out some design principles for  connectivist ‘courses’ or cMOOCs, such as:

learner autonomy, in terms of choice of content and how they choose to learnopenness, in terms of  access to the course, content, activities and methods of assessmentdiversity: varied content, individual perspectives and multiple tools, especially for networking learners and creating opportunities for dialogue and discussiointeractivity: ‘massive’ communication between learners and co-operative learning, resulting in emergent knowledge Figure 2.1: A map of connectivism, © Stephen Downes, 2011 (accessed via pkab.wordpress.com)

Connectivists such as Siemens and Downes tend to be somewhat vague about the role of teachers or instructors, as the focus of connectivism is more on individual participants, networks and the flow of information and the new forms of knowledge that result.. The main purpose of a teacher appears to be to provide the initial learning environment and context that brings learners together, and  to help learners construct their own personal learning environments to enable them to connect to ‘successful’ networks, with the assumption that learning will automatically occur as a result, through exposure to the flow of information and the individual’s autonomous reflection on its meaning. There is no need for formal institutions to support this kind of learning, especially since such learning often depends heavily on social media readily available to all participants.

There are numerous criticisms of the connectivist approach to teaching and learning, which include:

there is no control on the quality of content, or on contributions from participants;assessment strategies, such as peer assessment, are primitive and unreliable, thus making reliable or valid recognition of achievement more difficult;the kinds of learning that take place in connectivist MOOCs or courses are not necessarily academic, in the sense of meeting the requirements for academic knowledge, as defined in Chapter 2;many participants struggle with the lack of structure and are overwhelmed by the volume of content generated by other learners;most students need a high level of explicit support in learning from an ‘expert’ teacher and this is lacking in connectivist coursesthis kind of learning requires learners already to have at least some level of more formal or traditional education before they participate if they are to fully benefit from this kind of learning experience (and there is substantial evidence that MOOC participants tend to have an already high level of post-secondary education).thus this kind of learning is more appropriate for non-formal learning or communities of practice than for formal education.

Some of these criticisms may be overcome as practice improves, as new tools for assessment, and for organizing co-operative and collaborative work with massive numbers, are developed, and as more experience is gained. More importantly, connectivism is really the first theoretical attempt to radically re-examine the implications for learning of the Internet and the explosion of new communications technologies.

Different theories of learning reflect different positions on the nature of knowledge. With the possible exception of connectivism, there is some form of empirical evidence to support each of the theories of learning outlined here.

However, while the theories suggest different ways in which all people learn, they do not automatically tell teachers or instructors how to teach. Indeed, theories of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism were all developed outside of education, in experimental labs, psychology , neuroscience, and psychotherapy respectively. Educators have had to work out how to move from the theoretical position to the practical one of applying these theories within an educational experience. In other words, they have had to develop teaching methods that build on such learning theories. The next section of the book examines a range of teaching methods that have been developed, their epistemological roots, and their implications for teaching in a digital age.

Your feedback on this will be invaluable. In particular:

are theories of learning still relevant in a digital age? Is it important to discuss these?is the description of the various theories accurate and useful; if not, what should be changed?are there important theories or theoretical positions that have been missed?

Bloom, B., Englehart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W. and Krathwohl, D. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain, Longmans Green, New York, 1956

Downes, S. (2014) The MOOC of One, Stephen’s Web, March 10

Fontana, D. (1981) Psychology for Teachers London: Macmillan/British Psychological Society

Harasim, L. (2012) Learning Theory and Online Technologies New York/London: Routledge

Knapper, C. (2010) ‘Changing Teaching Practice: Barriers and Strategies’ in Christensen Hughes, J. and Mighty, J. eds. Taking Stock: Research on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Toronto ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press

Lewin, K. (1951) Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers. D. Cartwright (ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Rogers, C. (1969) Freedom to Learn Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.

Schunk, D. (2011) Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (6th edition) New York: Pearson

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2020 Vision: Outlook for online learning in 2014 and way beyond

 Taking the long view

Doug Saunders in the Globe and Mail on  January 4 wrote an interesting piece on prediction, entitled: “Gadgets alone don’t make the future.” Having shown how amazingly accurate technologists in 1961 were in predicting what technologies would roll out in the future, he also showed how poorly they predicted how these gadgets would impact on our lives. In summary:

‘We are very good at guessing where our inventions might lead. We are very poor in understanding how humans might change their lives….the decision of what kind of life to live between the screens remains a political one, shaped not by our inventions but by our own decisions.’

Last year I spent some time discussing the value of predictions. One point I didn’t mention is the limitation of predicting just one year ahead, because you can’t identify the long term directions, and so often you’re driven by what happened in the very recent past, i.e. last year, because that’s the latest and often only data you have. More importantly, though, looking one year ahead assumes that there is no choice in what technologies we will use and how we will use them, because they are already entering our society. Also, this is likely to be the last year in which I make predictions for the future. I will be 75 in April, and I plan to stop all paid professional activities at that point (although I will keep my blog, but more as a journalist than as a practitioner).

So this seems to be a good point to look not just at 2014, but where we might be going five to ten years from now, and in doing this, I want to include choice or human decision-making as well as technological determinism. In other words, what kind of online learning do I expect in the future, given what I know so far?

The disappearance of online learning as a separate construct

In 2020, people won’t be talking about online learning as such. It will be so integrated with teaching and learning that it will be like talking today about whether we should use classrooms. In fact, we may be talking much more about classrooms or the campus experience in 2020, because of online learning, and how it is changing the whole way that students are learning. There is likely to be heated discussions about the role and purpose of campuses and school buildings, the design of classrooms, and who needs to be there (teachers and students) and more importantly what for, when students can do so much of their learning online – and generally prefer to, because of the flexibility, and of their control over their own learning. The big changes then are likely to be on-campus, rather than on-line.

Steelcase Node Classroom

Multi-mode delivery concentrated in fewer institutions – but more diversity

Quite a few public and smaller private post-secondary institutions will be gone or radically transformed by 2020. Particularly at risk are smaller, low status state or provincial universities and colleges or their campuses in metropolitan areas, where there is local and regional competition for students. They will have lost students to more prestigious universities and high status vocationally oriented institutions using online and flexible learning to boost their numbers. Government will be increasingly reluctant to build new campuses, looking to more flexible and more cost effective online delivery options to accommodate increasing demand. Nevertheless, politics will occasionally trump economics, with small new universities and colleges still being created in smaller towns away from the larger urban areas. Even these though will have much smaller campuses than today and probably as much as 50% of all course enrollments online, often in partnership with more established and prestigious universities through course sharing and credit transfer.

Those institutions that have survived will be offering students a range of choices of how they can access learning. Courses or programs will be deliberately designed to accommodate flexibility of access. Thus students will be able to decide whether to do all their studying on campus, all of it online, or a mix of both, although courses or programs are likely to have a common assessment strategy (see below). This will not be driven so much by academic or even political decisions, but by students voting with their feet (or mouses) to study at those institutions that provide such flexibility.

Multi-purpose, open delivery, with multiple levels of service and fees

Content will be multi-purposed, depending on a learner’s goals. Thus the same content can be part of a credit-based degree-level course, program or competency, part of a non-credit certificate or diploma, or available as open access. Learners will also be able to choose from a range of different course or program components, dependent on their needs and interests. Because most content will be open and modular, in the form of open textbooks, open multimedia resources, and open research, institutions will offer a variety of templates for courses and programs built around open content. For example, for a degree in physics, certain topics must be covered, with a strong recommendation for the sequence of study, but within those core levels of competency, there will be a variety of routes or electives towards a final degree, where broadly based learning outcomes are set, but multiple routes are offered for progress to these outcomes. Those content components can be accessed from a wide range of approved sources. It is the competency and academic performance of the learner that the institution will accredit.

Most institutions will have an open education portal, that contains not only a wide range of open educational resources, but also a range of open services, such as program templates or free academic guidance for specific target groups, as part of their enrollment strategy. Although such portals are likely to include materials from a wide range of sources from around the world, special emphasis will be given to open content developed by their own faculty, based on their latest research or scholarship, as a way of branding their institution. iTunesU, MIT’s Opencourseware, OpenLearn, and MOOCs are early prototypes, but content quality in the future will be greatly improved in terms of pedagogical and media design to accommodate online learners. Also states and provinces will also establish system-wide portals of open educational resources, particularly at the k-12 and two year college level (see eLearnPunjab and open.bccampus.ca as prototype models).

Because academic content is almost all open, free and easily accessible over the Internet, students will not pay tuition fees for content delivery, but for services such as academic guidance and learning support, and these fees will vary depending on the level of service required. Thus students who want a traditional course that covers guidance on and access to content, tutorial help, access to campus facilities, feedback and assessment will pay full fee (some of which may still be government subsidized in the public system). Students who want just open access will pay nothing, but will get few if any support services, and if they need a formal assessment, they will need to pay for this (although again this may be subsidized in a public system). Other students may want feedback and some form of continuous assessment, but will not want to pay for full tutorial support.

There are several consequences of this increased flexibility. Some institutions will specialize in small-class, on-campus education at high cost. Others will focus on high quality delivery through a variety of delivery modes, with a particular emphasis on course design and learner support. Some institutions will focus on low cost, competency-based open access programs, supported by businesses requiring specific skilled labour, and a few institutions will be specialists in fully online distance delivery operating on a national or international basis, at a lower cost but equally high quality as campus-based institutions. The majority of institutions though will become multi-purpose, multiple delivery institutions because of the economies of scale and scope possible.

Goodbye to the lecture-based course

In most institutions, courses based on three lectures a week over 13 weeks will have disappeared. There are several reasons for this. The first is that all content can be easily digitalized and made available on demand at very low cost. Second, institutions will be making greater use of dynamic video (not talking heads) for demonstration, simulations, animations, etc. Thus most content modules will be multi-media. Third, open textbooks incorporating multi media components and student activities will provide the content, organization and interpretation that are the rationale for most lectures. Lastly, and most significantly, the priority for teaching will have changed from information transmission and organization to knowledge management, where students have the responsibility for finding, analyzing, evaluating, sharing and applying knowledge, under the direction of a skilled subject expert. Project-based learning, collaborative learning and situated or experiential learning will become much more widely prevalent. Also many instructors will prefer to use the time they would have spent on a series of  lectures in providing more direct, individual and group learner support, thus bringing them into closer contact with learners.

This does not mean that lectures will disappear altogether, but they will be special events, and probably multi-media, synchronously and asynchronously delivered. Special events might include a professor’s summary of his latest research, the introduction to a course, a point mid-way through a course for taking stock and dealing with common difficulties, or the wrap-up to a course. It will provide a chance for an instructor to makes themselves known, to impart their interests and enthusiasm, and to motivate learners, but this will be just one, relatively small, but important component of a much broader learning experience for students.

Goodbye to the written exam – and welcome to the final implementation of lifelong learning

For most post-secondary qualifications, written exams will have been replaced by assessment through multimedia portfolios of student work. These will show not only students’ current knowledge and competencies, but also their progression over time, and a range of equally important skills, such as their ability to work collaboratively, self-management of learning, and general communication skills. Assessment will be mainly on a continuous, on-going basis.

As well as change in the method of assessing learning there will be greater variety in the range of accredited qualifications. Degrees, certificates and diplomas will still be important, but these will be complemented with a wide range of assessments of informal or non-formal learning, such as badges, some offered by post-secondary institutions, others offered by employers’ organizations or co-operatives of professionals. University and college diplomas and degrees will increasingly be seen as milestones on the journey to lifelong learning, and for demographic and economic reasons, the lifelong learning market will become a much larger market than the high school leaver market.

This means academic departments will need to develop programs and courses that range from introductory or foundational through undergraduate degrees to professional masters to lifelong learning, again using similar content modules adapted to different markets, as well as creating or adapting new content, based on the latest research in a field, for these newer markets. Much of the lifelong market will lend itself to online and hybrid learning, but in different structures (short modules, for instance) than the undergraduate and higher degree market. Universities and colleges will increasingly compete with the corporate training industry for these post-postgraduate learners, who will be able and willing to afford top dollar for top-level lifelong learning opportunities, based on the latest research coming out of universities, government and businesses.

However, a large part of the lifelong learning market will become occupied by communities of practice and self-learning, through collaborative learning, sharing of knowledge and experience, and crowd-sourcing new ideas and development, particularly assisted by an evolution of what are now known as cMOOCs. Such informal learning provision will be particularly valuable for non-governmental or charitable organizations, such as the Red Cross, Greenpeace or UNICEF, or local government, looking for ways to engage communities in their areas of operation. These communities of learners will be open and free, and hence will provide a competitive alternative to the high priced lifelong learning programs being offered by research universities. This will put pressure on universities and colleges to provide more flexible arrangements for recognition of informal learning, in order to hold on to their current monopoly of post-secondary accreditation.

Image: © Etienne Wenger, 2010

New financial models

Because most content will be freely accessible, and because students will pay incrementally for a wide variety of services, new financial models will need to be developed, to support the flexibility and range of services that students will increasingly demand and require. The biggest move is likely to be away from block funding or enrollment-driven funding by government towards pay-for-service through student fees for teaching. There will be further separation of the funding for research and teaching (this has already happened in some countries, such as in England and Wales.) As a result government financing may well change, so that students are given a post-secondary grant at the age of 17, and have the right to decide how to spend that grant on post-secondary education, rather than funding institutions directly for teaching.

This may have some unexpected benefits for academic departments. Under this model it makes much more sense to fund programs directly from fees for the program, than to pool grants and fees centrally then break out money for teaching and filter it down through the departments. Thus program fees or service fees  would come to academic departments (or more accurately the program areas) directly, then the programs would pay for university services such as registration and financial services on a direct cost basis, plus a percentage for general overheads. This is already happening in some public universities at post-graduate levels, where tuition fees for online professional masters more than cover all the costs, direct and indirect, of a program, including the cost of full-time research professors who teach on the program.

This model would also have two other benefits. It would put pressure on service departments, such as HR, financial services, the Registry, etc., to become more cost-efficient, because direct costs to programs become more transparent. Second, since online students do not need a range of campus services such as campus building maintenance, lighting, and heating, it would lead to the different costs of online vs campus-teaching becoming more transparent and comparable, with an economic incentive to move more towards the most cost-efficient delivery model.

There are also disadvantages. Some model would be needed to support more expensive programs to deliver, or programs that are specialized but important in a university community. However, a program-based financial model may help save small departments who are struggling for minimal enrolments from their local market. Online courses can open the market to regional or international students and offer the chance of collaboration and partnership with other institutions, through course and student sharing.

The disaggregation of institutional activities required for the flexible delivery of programs in a world where content is free offers opportunities for rethinking how teaching and learning is funded.

Systematic faculty development and training

Since content will be freely accessible, institutions’ reputation and branding will increasingly depend on the way they support learners. This will put much greater emphasis on instructors having good teaching skills as well as subject expertise. Thus most universities and colleges will require faculty to have assessed teaching skills before tenure or permanent appointment, and equal attention will be given to teaching expertise as research in promotion. This will mean incorporating teaching practice and methods within most post-graduate subject areas, college instructors having compulsory pre-service teacher training, and regular faculty having systematic ongoing professional development as new technologies and new teaching approaches develop over time. The immediate benefit of this will be better student retention rates and higher quality learning outcomes.

Devolved decision-making and organizational models

A move to program-based funding, the need for effective course designs to attract students, the differentiation of services, the increased professionalism in teaching, and freely available open content will result in a move to systematic program planning and team teaching. A typical team will consist of a senior research professor, several junior or adjunct professors, an instructional designer/project manager and a media/web designer. The senior faculty member, in collaboration with the other team members, will be responsible for decisions about curriculum content, methods of learner support, and assessment standards. The team will develop assessment criteria and rubrics, and where necessary hire additional instructors for learner support and marking of assessments , under the supervision of the senior faculty members.

One consequence will be the disappearance of central centres for teaching and technology, except in small institutions. Instructional design staff will be located in program areas and will be responsible with academic faculty for faculty development activities, as well as with overall course design input. There will be increased demand for media designers, while instructional designers will be in less demand in the future, but still necessary to support faculty, especially as new learning technologies develop.

Student privacy, data security and student online behaviour will become more difficult

Learning will increasingly be delivered through student-owned devices, and learners will increasingly integrate social life, work and study in a seamless manner. Services will increasingly be delivered through the cloud. Security agencies, Internet-based companies and knowledge-based companies will constantly be seeking access to student data, especially student learning performance and online behaviour, as this information will be increasingly valuable for state security and commercial reasons. As a result it will become increasingly difficult for institutions to protect student data and their privacy. This may turn out to be the biggest challenge for students, institutions, and government in the next 20 years and could seriously inhibit the development of online learning in the future, if students or faculty lose trust in the system.

The future is about choices

This is my view about where we could be going with online learning in the next five to ten years. However, I will not be making the decisions, as I am retiring in April. If you do not like this vision, then you are in a position to influence a different kind of vision. Although as McLuhan says, we are shaped by our devices, we also shape the world around these devices. The worst thing we could do is to leave it to computer scientists to decide our future.

The value such a vision lies not in its detail, but in identifying some of the key choices or decisions that will need to be made. So here are the decisions that are thrown up by this vision for the future, for students, faculty, institutions and government (and some of these, such as those about campus facilities, should be being made right now):

Students and learners

at this point in my life, what are my learning goals? What is the best way to meet these? Where can I get advice for this?do I need a qualification and if so, what kind?what is the best way for me to access this learning? On-campus; online; or a mix of both?what kind of learning support do I need?how much do I want to – or must I – pay for these services?what institution or other method of delivery will provide what I want? Where can I get independent advice on this?how can I protect my privacy when I am online studying?

Faculty and instructors

why do students need to come to campus? What am I offering on-campus that they couldn’t get online? Have I looked up the research on this?what teaching methods will lead to the kind of learning outcomes that students will need in life?what should be my role if content is freely available online?what kind of teaching spaces do I need for what I want to offer on campus?how should I best use my time in teaching? In what kind of teaching activities can I really make a difference for students?if I create new or original content for my teaching, should I make it openly available to anyone to use?what methods of assessment should I use in a digital age? How do I assess prior or informal learning?what kind of courses or programs should we be offering for lifelong learners?what do I need to know about student data, and the protection of student privacy?what training or professional development do I need to ensure that I can meet the learning needs of my students?

Institutions

what kind of campus will we need in 10 years time?what proportion of course enrollments are likely to be accessed off-campus?what will be the best way to accommodate more students – online learning or more buildings?what kind and number of teaching spaces will we need?what partnerships or strategies should we adopt to protect our enrollment base?what are our strategies and policies regarding open educational resources?what is our strategy for lifelong learning?what financial models should we put in place to encourage innovation in teaching and to attract students?how do we ensure that faculty have the skills necessary for teaching in a digital age?how can we best reward innovation and high quality teaching?what kind of organization and staff do we need to support faculty in their teaching?how do we best protect student data and privacy (as well as our staff’s) in a digital age?

Government

what kind of post-secondary system, in terms of institutional differentiation, program delivery and innovations in teaching, do we need in a digital age?how many, and what kind of, campuses do we need when students are also studying online? What is the best way to accommodate expansion in the system?how can we best support system-wide open education, to reduce costs and increase quality?how should we fund post-secondary education in a digital age? How much and what should ‘first-time’ students pay for themselves? What should lifelong learners who have already been through the system pay? What funding models would encourage innovation in teaching and help improve quality?how can online learning help to increase the productivity of the post-secondary educational system? What can we do to encourage this?what does government need to do to protect student data and student privacy?

What’s YOUR vision?

I won’t be around to make or influence these decisions, but most of you will. Are there decisions I’ve missed? What decisions would you make? What’s your vision for the future?

If you are willing to share just one response to any of these questions or decisions, this will be very much appreciated. Because the future will be increasingly about sharing knowledge.

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No. 6 aha moment: the convergence of online learning (from the periphery to the core)

Joseph Kim's blended learning class at McMaster University

This is the seventh in a series of posts about the most seminal ‘discoveries’ in my researching and working in educational technology, where I discuss why I believe these ‘discoveries’ to be important, and their implications specifically for online learning. The others to date are:

My seven ‘a-ha’ moments in the history of educational technology (overview)

1.  Media are different.

2. God helps those who help themselves (about educational technology in developing countries).

3. Asynchronous is (generally) better than synchronous teaching

4. Computers for communication, not as teaching machines

5. The web as a universal standard

What was the discovery? (1995)

Not so much a discovery as a realization. This was the year I moved to a campus-based university, the University of British Columbia (UBC), after 25 years working solely in dedicated, open distance education institutions (the UK Open University and Open Learning Agency in British Columbia). The move was partly driven by a growing realization that the technologies being introduced into distance education, and especially online learning, would eventually transform campus-based teaching as well. This is just beginning to be fully realised 18 years later, through developments such as hybrid learning. However, the realization in 1995 was also accompanied by a unique opportunity to work in a major research university (some might call the realization cognitive dissonance). How did this come about?

In 1994, the government of British Columbia decided to hold back 2% of all post-secondary institutions’ operating budgets, and 1% the following year, to be placed in a fund to stimulate innovation in teaching in BC’s universities and colleges. This amounted to several million dollars in the case of UBC, so they decided to develop a comprehensive plan for teaching innovation, based mainly on the use of technology. Faculty and departments were asked to put forward specific proposals which went into the proposal to the government, and UBC received back all its ‘lost’ funding. This lead to the creation of a Centre for Educational Technology, which was set up originally to co-ordinate and support the innovation and research activities. One of the projects partially funded through this initiative was the development of WebCT, which was later bought out by Blackboard. I was hired (separately) as Director of Distance Education and Technology, but with an ‘unwritten’ mandate also to help with the development and application of learning technologies on campus.

Why is ‘convergence’ significant?

We are now at the point where in almost all subjects, students need to develop skills of knowledge management, the ability to find, evaluate, analyze, and apply information. They need to become adept at using the Internet for doing this. Furthermore these are not generic skills, but are deeply embedded within a particular subject domain. Thus such skills need to be integrated within the teaching of nearly all subjects.

In addition, there are now particular digital technologies that are essential within professional areas such as business, health, engineering, and education. Students (and faculty) need to be aware of the use, value and limitations of such technologies, which means embedding them within the teaching and learning. This applies whether the courses are offered on campus or at a distance.

The need to integrate digital technologies into nearly all courses, and the resulting convergence between online and campus activities, have significance for campus-based institutions, fully online institutions, and particularly for Continuing Education and Extension departments/divisions.

Significance for campus-based institutions

In a stretch of six months, I will have been invited to 13 universities across Canada to advise them on their use of learning technologies and strategies for online and especially blended or hybrid learning. We are now seeing a major transformation of teaching where online learning in particular is moving from the periphery to the centre, particularly in the form of hybrid learning (as I predicted in my Outlook for online learning for 2013).

This is forcing a major re-thinking of the standard, lecture-based teaching model. Since students can now access the lectures at home through lecture-capture and online video distribution, many interesting questions are being asked, to which we still  do not always have good answers:

What can the university or college offer that will make the morning commute for students worthwhile (not to mention faculty)?How can institutions leverage more fully the benefits of the campus when students can do much of their learning more conveniently, and often more effectively, online?For which students is fully online more appropriate than blended or hybrid learning?What factors should drive the move to hybrid or fully online learning? Where do MOOCs fit within an institution’s strategy, if at all?How do you decide what is best done online, and what face-to-face?Is lecture capture the best way to use the online time?What are the quality standards for hybrid learning?Could the campus as a whole be made a more creative and student-centered space for learning?What are the implications for the use of space, and in particular for future classroom requirements, of an increased move to hybrid or fully online learning?What are the implications for faculty development and training?What are the resource and governance implications of such a change?Do we still need campus-based institutions? If so, what are the clear benefits over any time, anywhere learning? Is it worth the extra cost?

Thus the convergence of online and face-to-face teaching is immensely significant for campus-based universities and colleges.

Significance for distance education institutions

As brand name campus-based institutions move to wholly integrate online learning, where does this leave the dedicated distance and open universities such as the UK Open University? In fact, the DE universities in general have been very slow to adopt online learning for a variety of reasons, including concerns about access, especially in open universities, heavy investment in print and print inventories, and general inertia and bureaucracy associated with institutions built around mass production models.

Even more of a threat though to open and distance universities is the eroding of their market as campus-based institutions become more flexible through the use of hybrid and online learning.

Another threat comes from a related but different direction, and that is the increasing use of open educational resources and MOOCs from brand name campus universities.

We have recently seen at Athabasca University how these factors are starting to play out.

Ironically, I suspect that it will be much harder for these large, bureaucratic institutions to change quickly than many campus-based universities (as sclerotic as they are). Open and distance education universities will need urgently to find new teaching paradigms, new business models, and new markets if they are to survive, which some are doing, such as the UK Open University and the Open University of Catalonia.

Significance for Continuing Education and Extension departments

Distance education and more recently online learning have often been located in Continuing Education departments, even when the programs have been for credit as well as for non-credit.

However, as on-campus Faculties and Schools start to increasingly develop hybrid learning, the division between hybrid and fully online learning will start to break down. Once a Faculty or School has put more than half of its curriculum online, it is not a major step to offer the course or  program fully online as well, thus increasing the potential market. It does not make sense in such circumstances to have a separate division managing the online component. Indeed, it was such thinking that eventually led to me having to leave the University of British Columbia in 2003, because the university, quite rightly, wanted to integrate distance learning within its mainstream activities.

For many Continuing Education departments, the loss of credit-based online programming, and in particular the challenge of MOOCs (why pay for a non-credit online course when you can get one for free from Harvard?), will require a major rethinking of Continuing Studies’ budgets and above all their purpose. (Would it be too much to hope that they could return to being a free, open public service subsidized by the rest of the university, instead of the other way round?)

Conclusion

There’s a lot of talk about MOOCs transforming higher education. However, the real transformation is not coming from MOOCs (although they are helping) but from more traditional forms of credit-based online learning penetrating the heart of the enterprise. This is forcing faculty and institutions to re-think their whole approach to teaching.

Initially, much of it will be a straight transfer of lectures to online delivery, but over time, faculty will find new ways to re-design their teaching to integrate better online and face-to-face teaching, thus increasing effectiveness and leading to better and different learning outcomes. Significant indeed.

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Why are some public universities charging more for online courses?

Overheads constitute almost 50% of campus-based operational costs

Haynie, D. (2103) U.S. News Data: Online Education Isn’t Always Cheap, August 28

What

This report caught my eye: A 2013 survey conducted by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Learning House, which will be published this October and involved 400 public universities, concluded that :

more than 60 percent charged the same tuition for face-to-face courses as they charged for online courses. Thirty-six percent of the schools charged more for online tuition.

This was also backed up by a USNews survey of 300 public universities. 

The average per credit, in-state cost for an online bachelor’s program is $277, compared with $243 per credit at brick-and-mortar schools.

I’m also aware that some Canadian institutions also have a premium fee or an additional charge for the online version of a face-to-face credit course.

Why

According to Susan Aldridge, a senior fellow at AASCU:

The courses cost more to develop, take more time to develop and take more time for the faculty to teach. In order for students to succeed in these online courses, 24/7 technical support, reference librarians, writing labs, automated degree plans and tutoring need to be available.

And Ray Schroeder adds:

schools often have to train their faculty to teach effectively on online platforms – an expensive, ongoing endeavor

Really?

Online learning costs more than classroom teaching? Not in my experience. Once again, it depends: on how you cost programs, on how you design your online courses, and how you deliver your face-to-face classes.

John Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, believes that online education is cheaper for colleges to provide because they don’t have to invest in creating or maintaining facilities. Those savings, he said, should outweigh the cost of any initial investment in technology.

If my online students aren’t going to take advantage of the cafeteria, going to the student union, participating in the extracurricular activities and we don’t have the building costs, why isn’t it cheaper?

In other words, the overheads are lower for online teaching than they are for classroom teaching – and since overheads constitute almost 50% of operational costs on a campus-based university, this is a significant factor.

And Ray says:

Most faculty members come prepared to teach face-to-face. They need substantial training and support in order to teach effectively. It’s not a one-time training.

Sorry, Ray, the first part of your statement is the problem. Many faculty do NOT come properly prepared to teach face-to-face. In fact what we are doing is expecting a lower standard for face-to-face teaching by not preparing them properly, while having to do it for online instructors.

In essence, online learning changes the cost structure of teaching. It does need more start-up investment and so there is a cost of change. If you have small online class numbers, it probably will cost more to go online. However, if you have too many students to accommodate on campus, going online will reduce your costs per student and there are some economies of scale as online enrollments increase. This is why it’s important for institutions to track the costs not only of going online, but the real cost of their campus-based classes, including overheads and faculty development (or lack of it).

Lastly, even if online learning is more expensive for the institution (which it needn’t be) there is an equity issue here. Why should students pay more for the same end-product just because it is packaged differently?

What do you think?

Does your institution charge more for online credit courses? If so, why?

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No. 7 aha moment: strategy matters in online learning

© Bates and Sangra, 2011

This is the eighth in a series of posts about the most seminal ‘discoveries’ in my researching and working in educational technology, where I discuss why I believe these ‘discoveries’ to be important, and their implications specifically for online learning. The others to date are:

My seven ‘a-ha’ moments in the history of educational technology (overview)

1.  Media are different.

2. God helps those who help themselves (about educational technology in developing countries).

3. Asynchronous is (generally) better than synchronous teaching

4. Computers for communication, not as teaching machines

5. The web as a universal standard

6. The convergence of online learning (from the periphery to the core) 

What was the discovery? (1997)

Having worked as a manager by this time for 7 years, I was beginning to understand the bigger picture regarding the planning and management of learning technologies, and it wasn’t pretty. For educational technology to be used effectively, it has to be planned and managed well, and there were almost no specific guidelines at the time. Almost everything was left to the IT people. This had to change. Academics had to get involved as well.

How did this come about?

Part of my responsibility when I was at the Open Learning Agency between 1990-1995 was strategic planning. In fact I was sent on a very useful three day course on strategic planning offered by the American Management Association, but in reality at OLA my main responsibility was not so much to set strategy but to implement what the executive decided (and to be fair, I was part of the executive). This involved lots of Excel spreadsheets with deliverables and dates, but the strategies changed so often it started to become a meaningless exercise – the approach was far too much like the central planning of the Soviet Union, where plans were made but they failed to match reality. What OLA really did was driven mainly by external events, and how staff at the director level responded to them.

When I went to UBC, the approach to planning was very different, because of the culture of a university. In 2000, the then VP Academic, Dr. Barry McBride, sent out a note to all faculty which among other things stated:

We need to pay increased attention to IT and learning.  While I am convinced that IT will have a significant effect on teaching and learning, I am not convinced that we fully appreciate the opportunities and pitfalls…….In response to the IT challenge, we need to do several things but chief among them are the following: first, encourage a wide discussion about the possible role IT will play in learning at UBC and second, implement an appropriate process to support the vision that emerges from that discussion.  We must ensure that the process is responsive to the views expressed by colleagues.

He then created a committee (with the interesting name of ACCULT – Academic Committee for the Creative Use of Learning Technologies) with experts in using technology from various areas (the CIO, the Director of Distance Education, two or three faculty with experience of using LTs – including Murray Goldberg, who had developed WebCT, and representatives from the Library, student services, and a student representative.) The committee was chaired by Neil Guppy, the AVP Academic Planning, a position that had been created earlier with specific responsibility for learning technologies. among other things.

Thus it can be seen that at UBC:

leadership identified the issue, a senior administrator was appointed with a specific mandate to manage issues around learning technologies, a committee of experts/interested people was established to develop vision and strategy, a process to involve faculty across the university in setting a vision, or, as resulted, a set of visions, for the use of learning technologies was establisheda committee developed a range of strategies and actions that would facilitate the implementation of these visions, and this was subsequently approved by Senate and the Board of Governors. 

This is a good example of what I mean when I talk about the governance of learning technology or online learning.

The approach was also very different from that at OLA, with UBC focusing particularly on faculty developing vision and goals for learning technologies, rather than the administration setting goals and the ‘workers’ trying to find ways to implement what in fact were are a continually changing set of goals and strategies (and a continually changing external environment that the administration was continually responding to.)

Why is this significant?

The default model in many institutions had previously been to leave individual faculty to decide how to use learning technologies, and for the IT department to respond as best they could to these demands. In best case scenarios this would lead to the CIO developing an IT strategy that covered both administrative and academic needs, but was almost always underfunded and priorities could not be set (except by the CIO). There was no pressure or encouragement for faculty to use learning technologies, and no attempt to use best practices or identify success or failure in individual faculty initiatives.

In fact, we have seen online learning in particular now starting to converge with campus-based activities, so it has become increasingly important for institutions to develop plans and strategies for online learning and learning technologies. Experience and research now suggest what this process should look like. Here are the lessons I’ve learned about this (this is a summary of the main points from Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning).

leadership is essential. The Board and the institutional executive team need to support a move to greater use of online learning, and they all need to be on the same page about this. However, the main role of leadership is to provide overall direction and broad goals for online learning (e.g., to enable more flexible access to programs) and especially to focus on the governance structure and governance processes for learning technologies, but allow the decisions on the right mix of delivery and learning technologies to be made by faculty (preferably at the program level).vision and strategic thinking about online learning is more important than detailed plans or targets. In other words avoid setting a goal of 100 fully online courses by 2014, but think strategically about where and for whom online learning will provide the most benefits.faculty need to be engaged primarily in developing a vision for teaching and learning with technology, and for implementing that vision, again preferably as a team at the program level.decisions about delivery models should take place through the same process as deciding about content (i.e. at the program level)the role and design of online learning will vary according to the needs of the students targeted and the requirements of the subject area, which is why the delivery model and the choice of specific technologies must be driven by faculty, supported by professionals such as instructional designers.a high level committee with representatives from all areas affected by the use of learning technologies needs to be established todeal with priority-setting for resources to support the use of learning technologies,set policies or strategies for learning technologies, such as for intellectual property, protecting student privacy, or for open educational resources,ensure that the necessary support for faculty and students is in placeto ensure that data and evidence is collected about successful and unsuccessful strategies, actions and innovations.this committee needs to be ongoing, as learning technologies will continue to develop, and the external world will continue to change, requiring strategic responses from the institution as a whole.faculty training and professional development is essential and also needs to be systematic and mandatory for online teachingrewards need to be put in place for innovative teaching, and a strategy needs to be developed to ensure that successful innovations are spread across the institution where they are appropriate.

It can be seen that decision-making about learning technologies will take place at all levels in the institution. Good governance will ensure that the right kind of decisions are taken at the right level by the most appropriate people.

Conclusion

The planning and management of learning technologies are essential, but they can be done well or they can be done badly. In knowledge-based organizations such as universities and colleges, the full engagement of ‘front-line workers’ such as faculty and students in decision-making and especially setting a vision for teaching and learning, is paramount, but faculty and students need to be supported, so strategy, decision-making, priority-setting and training and development needs to be ongoing and continuous if learning technologies and online learning are to be used effectively.

Next

A bonus! The ninth (and last) post in this series will be on the importance of web 2.0 technologies for online learning. Coming next week at all theatres.

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