People are Not Generalizable Cogs in a Wheel

One of the issues that we are trying to get at with dual-layer/customizable pathways design is that human beings are individuals with different needs and ever-changing preferences.

That seems to be an obvious statement to many, but a problematic one when looking at educational research. Or more correctly, how we use and discuss research in practical scenarios.

For example, when ever I mention how instructivism and connectivism can also be looked at as personal choices that individual learners prefer at different times, the response from educators is usually to quote research generalizations as if they are facts for all learners at all times:

More advanced learners prefer connectivism.
People that lack technical skills are afraid to try social learning.
Learners with higher levels of self-regulation hate instructivism
Students that are new to a topic need instructor guidance.
Student-centered learning makes learners think more in depth.

While many of these statements are true for many people, the thing we often skip over in education is that these concepts are actually generalized from research. It is not the case that these concepts are true for all learners, but that they have been generalized from a statistically significant correlation. That distinction is important (and often ignored) – because studies rarely find that these concepts are 100% true for 100% of the learners 100% of the time.

But practitioners typically read these generalizations and then standardize them for all learners. We lose sight of the individual outliers that are not included in those numbers (and even of the fact that in the data there is variations that get smoothed over in the quest for “generalization”).

Then, of course, we repeat those experiments with different groups and rarely check to see if those outliers in the new experiment are different types of people or the same.

We also rarely research courses where learners have true choice in the modality that they engage the course content, so do we ever truly know of we are finding the best options for learning in general, or if we are just finding out what learners will do to make the best out of being forced to do something they would rather not?

Are we losing sight of the individual, the unique person at the center of educational efforts?

My research is finding that, when the given freedom to choose their learning modality (instructivism or connectivism), learners stop falling into such neat categories that often comes out of research. For example, those that are advanced learners with high self-regulation and well-developed tech skills will sometimes prefer to follow an instructivist path for a variety of reasons. Or, for another example, sometimes learners have already thought through an issue pretty well, and therefore forcing them to go through student-centered learning with that topic is a boring chore because they don’t need to be forced to think about it again. Or. for even another example, some learners with low self-regulation and low tech skills will jump head first into connectivism because they want to interact with others (even though the research says they should have been too afraid to jump in).

edugeek-journal-avatarWhen you actually dig into the pathways that individuals would choose to take if one is not forced on them, those individuals tend to defy generalization more often than expected. But when you point this out, the establishment of education tends to argue against those findings all kinds of ways. We like the comfort of large sample sizes, generalizable statistics, and cut and dry boxes to put everyone in. I’m not saying to abandon this kind of research – just put it in a more realistic context in order to make sure we aren’t losing the individual human behind those generalizations.

Instructivism vs Connectivism vs Social Learning

One of the things that I mentioned in the wrap-up hang out for HumanMOOC is getting at how people understand educational theories and their own preferences for learning. This is connected to how many educators will typically choose a theory of learning that they like best, and then assume it is best for all learners at all times. Until, of course, they are forced into learning in another theory that they don’t like by someone else that has decided that that theory is the best for all learners at all times, which is when they realize that maybe we are all different and maybe we should find ways to let people make their own path through learning.

This is, of course, one of the goals with dual-layer/customizable pathways design. We don’t force instructivism or connectivism on learners (or even a single pathway of our own design that is a mix of both). Nor do we treat one modality (like connectivism) like its an external thing that we embrace as a “backchannel” to the course if it happens. We create two valid modalities for learners to mix and change (or ignore) as they choose. And then we say that “every choice is awesome!” even if the learners don’t choose the options we would have.

Now, I do have to note that saying that “every choice is awesome!” is not the same as saying “every tool is awesome” and that we should not give feedback to the companies that offer the tools we use. I have given hundreds of points of feedback to all kinds of companies (as you can see in the archives of this blog). In my experience, the companies that ignore you are the ones that are most likely to turn around and use your idea (Blackboard is infamous for this). Those that listen to your ideas typically are just trying to look good on public blogs – they talk like they are listening and then change nothing more often than not. Just a bit of free advice from someone that has (and continues to) give out a lot of critique to ed tech companies.

One of the common problems with designing a course is that you have to use words to communicate what you want people to do. But people already have attached meaning to those words, which may or may not line up with commonly accepted norms. “Social Learning” is a term that I find causes the most confusion with customizable pathways design. Many, many people think that instructivism is not social at all, and that all social learning is connectivism (and connectivism has to be social in order to be connectivist).

The problem is – neither concept is true. Instructivism can be social, and connectivism does not have to be social.

In the literature, instructivism is sometimes connected to closed lectures and multiple choices tests, but for the most part it is connected with instructor-led content and activities. This can be anything from discussion forums (which can be social) to group assignments to Twitter activities. Yes, a Twitter activity in a course can be instructivist. If an instructor tells learners to go out and create a Twitter account, and then gives them a list of things to Tweet and respond to in order to fulfill an assignment, that is instructivism… and it is social. Social presence is a large field of research that is basically dedicated to figuring out how to improve an instructivist paradigm with social learning designs.

On the other hand, while connectivism is often very social, it doesn’t have to be social to still be connectivist. For example, go back to one of the foundational papers on connectivism (and probably one of the most quoted) and look at what connectivism is. Did you notice the part in there about off-loading learning to non-human agents? What this means is this: a learner can do a Google search on a topic and end up reading a Wikipedia article about the topic and that is still connectivism. They were not social at all, but they connected to the knowledge of others to learn about a topic. The connection occurred with a non-human agent.

Or think of it this way. Connectivism also involves the nurturing of connections for learning. You can follow hundreds of people on Twitter or in a RSS Reader and learn all kinds of things from them without ever commenting or responding. You are being connectivist, but not social. Or, you could even be social with people by tweeting “good luck!” when, say, someone tweets about getting a new job. This action is social, and it is building your connections (and therefore part of connectivism), but it is not social learning.

Of course, any connectivist worth their salt in WordPress will tell you that social learning is much, much more robust than independent learning. My point is just that not all connectivist learning is social in nature all the time.

Another part of connectivism is making sense of chaos and complex networks. So of course, being social helps. But at times, you have to wrestle with these things yourself as well. I can tell you for a fact that one of the founders of connectivism does not share all of his sense making socially. He does some, but not all. He wrestles with some of it in his head or while thinking about various things he reads online. Because that is also a part of connectivism – working on your own from time to time. Maybe even connecting with some instructivist content and being guided.

The problem is, we are all at different places at different times when going through the same topics. Forcing (or even encouraging) all students to get out of the LMS and into social learning is ignoring sociocultural differences and contextual needs of the individual students. It is also enforcing an instructor led pathway on all students. So yes, in many ways, forcing all learners to go and do connectivist activities (or even trying to trick them into doing so) is really an instructivist methodology behind the scenes. Which is not bad for the learners that want that, but horrible for those that do not.

In education, we tend to create false dichotomies between two sides that we think are diametrically opposed to each other. In the open learning world, there are many that label connectivism as “always good” and instructivism as “always bad.” Unfortunately, the world is not that simple, that black and white. The data that I have collected after two dual-layer MOOCs reaching tens of thousands of students would indicate learners are not that simplistic. Many learners find extreme value in instructivism… as long as it happens at a point that they choose, not one that is forced on them.

edugeek-journal-avatarAlso to note, this post is talking about course design. We have found that many learners prefer a mix of both modalities. The line between instructivism and connectivism is often a bit mixed, or permeable, or whatever you want to call it, to them – and that is just fine. While we are figuring out this customizable pathways design thing, we have to talk about the design a lot more in order to figure out what works. So understandably, that begins to conflate design considerations with learning experience in many learners minds. Someday we can hopefully get through all of that and let the design fade into the background.

Every Choice is Awesome. Every Path is Cool When You’re in #HumanMOOC

It is hard to believe we are already in the last week of HumanMOOC and I have failed to blog any thoughts or reflections on the whole process. Keeping a customizable pathways course running is quite the undertaking, so I unfortunately had to spend more time on the design and technical sides than the interactive and reflective sides. The feedback and interaction I have been able to partake in has been incredible, and I wanted to reflect on that a bit.

HumanMOOC, like DALMOOC before it, was designed according to what has been called the dual-layer model, the customizable modalitities model, and the pathways model. This evolving-name model is basically designed to deal with one huge issue in education:

This issue being that the biggest problem with education is people.

You see, if we were all computerized robots, educators could just figure out a solution for upgrading us all and it would work for everyone. But we are human, and we all have different preferences, different experiences, different likes, different dislikes, different needs, and so on. Because of these differences, some of us become seen as experts in certain areas by others, creating a scenario where some people have knowledge about some things that others want to gain.

These differences create informational power imbalances that manifest themselves as courses, schools, and universities. Those that control the information, grades, and courses that anyone needs to obtain that knowledge typically create a singular path to obtaining that knowledge and set themselves up as the regulator of that pathway. Of course, this pathway may take many forms like a stream – branching off and coming back, looping around, joining several other streams together, etc. But ultimately, those in control of the stream determine what it does no matter what course it takes. Some people refer to this stream as instructivism, with some estimates placing it as the dominant mindset behind 70-90% of all college education.

Which is not a bad thing to those that like instructivism (and there are many people that do). But the fact that all learners are forced to follow one path ignores the main problem with education (that people are different and prefer different paths).

Many educational theories have arisen to create an alternate learner-centered version of education. Some of these are really just illusionary at best – with students having choices that are still tightly controlled by the instructor or utilizing social media tools under strict specifications. Theories like connectivism are the most learner-centered, but implementing connectivism in a course also often takes away the choice to just follow the instructor that some learners (especially those that are new to the topic at hand) might want.

And so we have this problem in education that most research is trying to solve: how to deal with us being human and all wanting different things. Maybe we create ways to trick people into all wanting the same thing? Or maybe we can standardized everything for the most learners possible? Or maybe we can create personalized systems to serve up one of 50 pre-defined paths and create the illusion of customization? Or maybe scale instructivism or connectivism to the most people and ignore those that don’t fit the one we chose?

So all of this leads to the pathways course design of DALMOOC and HumanMOOC that basically creates parallel modalities, one that is instructivist and one that is connectivist. Course participants can choose one or the other (or both) at any point and change as they like. Those that want to create their own path through the topic (much in the same way one would wander through a garden and take in the sights and sounds and smells as you like when you like) can do so when they like, and those that want to follow a structured path through the topic can find the stream inside the garden and follow it. And switch at any time.

Of course, this kind of choice is a different paradigm for most, and typically brings about some confusion and panic from participants:

I don’t want to miss anything, but there is too much to take in.
I don’t like the LMS, but I still go in there because I don’t want to miss anything.

I don’t like Twitter, but I still go there because I don’t want to miss anything.
I don’t like discussion forums, they are not social.
I don’t like Twitter because discussion forums are more social.
Can we add Twitter to the LMS? The LMS is not social enough.
Can we add a blog hub to the LMS? (or insert Facebook page widget, Google+ integration, etc).
Can you stop pushing Twitter? Its a confusing non-linear mess.
I find blogging boring, can you just publish course content to the blog nub?

And so on. All of these are valid questions and valid points. They have all been said to me at some time between both courses so far. But as you might have noticed, many of these statements are directly contradictory to each other. So which ones are right and which aren’t?

The answer is: “Every choice is awesome! Every path is cool when you’re in #HumanMOOC (or any pathways course)”.

The first thing that many people tend to worry about is “missing anything.” That is a legitimate concern in a course – we are taught to pay attention to everything and to finish everything in order to pass. We are used to being able to do everything because we are required to do everything. But the truth of the matter is, we end up forgetting a lot of what we don’t miss, and also end up missing a lot more than we know. Have you gotten to read every paper turned in to every course you have been a part of? Were you able to hear every class discussion, or every word of the lecture? At some point, we all miss some part of any class and still end up “completing” the course (whatever that may mean).

Unfortunately, a byproduct of being a part of everything is that most people aren’t really a part of everything. Even in a class of 15 students, only a few of them will participate in course discussions while the rest sit in the background. You can only have a few people active in any group type of activity before some start fading to the background. That fading into the background is missing something, even though you might be present.

On the other hand, one of the byproducts of creating so many avenues to participate in for HumanMOOC is that more people can be an active part of something, rather than a few people being active in the one option and the rest just being passive observers. Of course, that means that no one person can do everything. Its just something that has to be accepted as okay, a shift in thinking that says “I will be active in my corner of the course and let the other ones go.” The trade off is that more people can become active in more corners because there are more corners in the first place (an unlimited amount, really).

The other trade-off is that we have to become okay with not liking something that others do like. Not everyone will like any one tool, buy most people are surprised to find out that people actually like the tool they don’t. Those that like to work in the garden of connectivism will usually be shocked to find out that some people like the controlled nature of the stream… or that they even may make that choice knowing that the garden exists.

From what I have generally seen, those that are in the stream of instructivism like that pathway, are aware of the garden of connectivism, typically do not like it’s chaos, and are annoyed by any attempt to trick them out into the garden. Either that, or there are others that are just afraid to try out the garden. Those that are mostly roaming free in the garden are oblivious to the idea that people actually like the stream, and are shocked to find people that choose to be there. Of course, most people tend to mix both but not get why they need the choice, even when faced with the idea that others choose a different mix of the two modalities that differs from theirs at different times, and it is actually the presence of choice that allows that mixture to happened on an individualized basis for all learners in the first place.

So, when asked why we don’t add a Twitter feed into the LMS, or post the LMS content on the Google Plus page, or use a Facebook page for content, or embed the blog hub into the LMS, or require blogging of all learners, or any other combination of the two modalities, the answer is simple: choice. We can’t just pick and choose which tool to bring into the other (that would force an instructor decision on all learners) – we would have to bring them all together into one spot. But this would have the effect of dampening (if not destroying) the option of choice. If we embed a Twitter feed into the LMS, then learners in the LMS stream can no longer choose to not participate in the garden. It is being forced on them front and center. They can ignore it, but even that is a barrier that they have to go around. As much as I love Twitter and connectivism in general, to place a Twitter widget into the LMS would be a way to put my epistemology into every part of the course. Learners can ignore it, but the chances of that are pretty small.

So that is why the pathways design has a Neutral Zone, not because this zone can actually be a neutral space free of power dynamics and instructor bias, but it can expose the power dynamics behind the tools and designs so that learners can make a choice between tools by fully understanding what those choices mean. Its a choice made from a neutralized playing field. But after that choice is made, we have to avoid bringing choices they didn’t make into the pathway of the choice they did make.

edugeek-journal-avatarUltimately, we (education in general) need to get a to place where, no matter what epistemology/ontology/etc the instructor subscribes to, they at least design a course that says “Every choice is awesome! Every path is cool when you are part of my class!” – even if that choice means going down an instructivist path when they want them to go connectivist, or vice versa.

Words That Don’t Work: Courses as Neutral Zones

Sometimes the words we choose to describe something just don’t quite work as well as we would like. Its not that they don’t work at all, its just that they fall short – and academics love to pick apart where words fall short. Or even more so where we have differing definitions of various concepts.

At the LINK lab, we have been working on some ideas that are… innovative? Maybe. Different? Kind of, but not quite. Hard to categorize? Probably so. Things like dual-layer courses, customizable modalities, and neutral zones, that take existing ideas and put a spin on them in ways that are hard to classify at times. Its pretty easy to write these off as very limited ideas – MOOC innovations that will probably disappear when MOOCs die (for the third time…. or was it the fourth? I’ve lost count).

But for us, many of these are ideas that will transfer to education in a broader sense, to possibly even become theories in their own right.

For example, the idea of a dual-layer neutral zone would transfer to a bigger concept of courses as neutral zones. But let’s be honest – courses are not neutral. The technology used is not neutral. Any form of content (textbooks, videos, lectures, webpages, etc) is not neutral. The learners are not neutral, and neither are the instructors. Yes, yes – I know that we all feel that we are fair and unbiased and equality-minded. But even the most equality-minded person is still not neutral. People claim all the time to be “agnostic” in terms of certain tools or pedagogies or frameworks, but come on. Those that say that are either lying to themselves or are just not informed enough to know what the positions are.

But the goal of creating neutral zones is to bring those biases, opinions, and perspectives out into the open. To stop pretending that they aren’t there and to deal with them head on. When a learner can look at two pathways, one that is controlled by the instructor and one that is controlled by themselves, they have to make a conscious choice between two different power dynamics. They may not be able to understand the nuances of instructivism and connectivism, but they can understand enough to choose between following the instructor’s prescribed pathway and creating their own pathway. We all need both at different times in our education. The problem is that most pedagogical models contain the assumption that all learners in each class need to follow one pedagogical modality for that content: All learners need to listen to this lecture. Then all learners need to form groups and do a student-centered lesson. Then all learners need to come together to discuss this topic. Learning isn’t that simplistic, and the dual-layer, customizable modality, neutral-zone driven design paradigm is about designing for complexity. It re-focuses the design on the human being at the center of the design and technology, instead of putting pedagogy and tools at the center.

edugeek-journal-avatarSo, choosing a term like “neutral zone” is problematic because there is no way to create a neutral zone. But on the other hand, the hope is that by exposing the biases and epistemologies and ontologies behind the modalities, learners will be able to understand the importance of choosing one modality over another based on their specific needs at that moment at any given time in the course. This zone, whether in MOOCs or traditional brick and mortar classrooms, become neutral because all biases are open on the table, not because they don’t exist.

But someday, someone will need to come up with a better, more accurate term.

Digging Into What “Choice” is in Customizable Modality/Dual-Layer

After digging more into the idea of “neutral zone” in dual-layer / customizable modality learning design in the last post, I wanted to touch a bit on what “choice” means in this design. “Choice” has several really different levels of meaning in learning, and if you try to create the wrong kind of choices in dual-layer design, you are really just defeating the purpose (not necessarily in a bad way, but just in unnecessary ways).

All learning requires some type of choice, usually situated in the lesson itself. When you create an assignment, there is usually some level of choice to what specific topic the learner chooses to complete the assignment. Some instructors even give choice over the format of the final artifact. A few even give learners the choice of social assignments vs. individual assignments. These are all really great choices to give learners. However, these are not the choices that a Neutral Zone are designed to foster.

Basically, all of these types of situated choices are still occurring in one modality (layer). The epistemological foundation of this modality is instructivism – the instructor is still guiding the overall path of the course, with specific places for divergent side paths. This is a great way to design courses for certain learners at certain times.

However, when considering sociocultural theory, we know that different learners have different needs at different times (and those change for learners on any given day). Some learners on some weeks may not need to be guided by instructors at all. Or the options that are given by the instructor do not match their sociocultural learning needs that week. And so on.

The goal of the customizable modality design is to give learners a more meta level choice of epistemological learning design. They can be guided by the instructor when needed, and create their own experience when needed. Or both.

Therefore, the goal of the Neutral Zone is not to replace one or both of the modalities, but to form a thin guide post to point to the layers that are possible. In general, a basic diagram of this process might look like this:

dual-layer-choice-1

However, the two options that are represented here are not quite that simplistic in actual design. The instructor-led layer could itself be designed using situated choices, double-loop learning, etc. And the connectivist layer would not look that organized. A more accurate representation of the possibilities would be like this:

dual-layer-choice-2

Learners that choose either self-regulated or instructor led pathways would then have all of the choices built into either design by the instructor and/or the tools they use. The instructor-led path could still have choices (simple or complex) situated along the pathway . The self-regulated design would have many pathways (many that are intentionally in there, and many even outside of that).

However, while many learners could choose choose either modality, some might go beyond that in a way that mixes both pathways. It may even be the case that design of one layer/modailty will lead learners to the other layer/modailty. Some learners may create a custom path that could become one of thousands that may look something like this:

dual-layer-choice-3

On top of this, some learners may not even take a linear path, but decide to pick and choose parts of the course as they see fit:

dual-layer-choice-4

These charts also highlight why we sometimes refer to this overall design process as customizable modality.

The basic way to design for this is to create a compentency for the week. Then you 1) provide a platform (like ProSolo) that facilitates the social learning layer/modality; and 2) have the instructor design a lesson that will guide learners to complete the competency and place it in a platform like EdX. Ideally, you would also have tools (including a neutral zone and others) that will connect the platforms in ways so that learners can turn in work for either tool and it is posted in both.

Theoretically, you can also focus in on any number of epistemologies in place of instructivism and connectivism. You could have cognitivism and social constructivism be the two modalities. You could have more than two – creating entire pathways for behaviorism, cognitivism, and connectivism for example (if you really want to take the time to design and align those three).

edugeek-journal-avatarThe importance of this design is that it taps into the research into heutagogy – teaching your learners how to learn. Giving learners choices over what assignments to do doesn’t really reach a level of truly knowing how to learn. Making choices (hopefully someday guided by recommendation systems for scaffolding) on which epistemology to use digs deeper into learning how to learn.

Designing a Neutral Zone in Dual-Layer (Customizable Modality) MOOCs

One of the design aspects we ran out of time for in the first offering of DALMOOC was the “glue” to pull the two layers together (and the scaffolding and support that would have accompanied that). The original idea was to utilize a daily email that would display various work from course participants as well as being a constant reminder that learners had a choice in how they engaged the course content.

However, this idea has evolved more into a centralized course website that just displays the competencies for that week, the modality choices that can be made, links to the platforms that support those modalities, and some suggested artifacts from other learners to dig into (and maybe connect with those learners). This website would serve as the “Neutral Zone” to provide scaffolding and other support for learners to navigate the dual-layer design.

Whatever form it takes, this “Neutral Zone” space is very important for various reasons:

  1. Learners would be encouraged to realize that there is a choice of how they engage the course content and/or activities. This Neutral Zone would encourage learners to think and learn about how they learn, a process that is important to heutagogy (learning how to learn). If we hide too much of the design process, learners lose the opportunity to expand their skills in this area. Of course, you never want the design of the course to be too clunky or complicated, but smoothing it all out to where there are no conscious choices by the learner is basically just another form of instructor control.
  2. The intent of dual-layer is not to encourage learners to pick the best of two pathways based on instructor’s epistemology, but to realize their own preferences. The term “dual-layer” does imply that one layer might be better or higher than the other. And to many people, one usually is. But those opinions vary widely based on a complex, ever-changing set of sociocultural implications that is different for different learners on different days. This is why some of us that are working on this idea have started using terms like “customizable modalities” more often. Modalities is a better descriptor than layers because it does not imply hierarchy. Cusomizable is probably better that dual because a) there could theoretically be more than two “layers,” and b) it better implies that learners are building an individualized pathway that can change over the duration of the course. Coming back to a Neutral Zone often during the course could encourage the learner (and especially the instructor) to realize that all modalities are valid pathways, and that they can be changed as needed (by the learner) during the course.
  3. Using a specific learning platform usually keeps learners in that platform and encourages preference for that platform. DALMOOC used EdX for the instructivist layer/modality and ProSolo for the connectivist layer/modality. While it would be easy to build the Neutral Zone out of either EdX or ProSolo, the ideal space would be outside of both. Learners often stay within the platform they start in, so it would be a constant effort to pull learners into the other modality. This constant effort to trick them into the other modality could be seen as a enforcing the instructor’s epistemology on the learner, something the customizable modality paradigm tries to avoid. Additionally, many platforms (like EdX) are designed to be sticky, to find ways to keep learners in that space as much as possible. This is not what you want in a customizable modality design. Of course, too many tools can make for a confusing process, so ultimately this Neutral Zone website would need to support single sign on for all other services utilized.
  4. Using a Neutral Zone could lead to the next step of learners owning their data for the course. Of course, the term “Neutral Zone” is misleading in that no technology is ever truly neutral. But when an instructor uses a platform like EdX as abase for their course, they lose control over the data they generate in that course. When learners work in that area, they also lose control over the data they submit. Moving to a Neutral Zone could set the ground work for learners to own their own domain. In other words, they could sign on the the class with their website and then choose what data and artifacts they share with the course, rather than being forced into a contained system.

edugeek-journal-avatarA lot of this is pie in the sky thinking, and I realize that. But there is always a tendency with education that those in charge of the class like to pull learners into their preferred epistemology regardless of if that is what the learner needs or not. Additionally, we also face the tendency of pulling learners into platforms that only support one modality over another, even if that modality is not best for the learner. The overarching aim of having customizable modalities is to resist these tendencies by encouraging true individualized educational pathways for learners as much as possible.

(image credit: dis nfo, obtained from freeimages.com)

DALMOOC 2.0 Re-Design

At some point, there probably will be a DALMOOC 2.0. I can say that with confidence because we are already having discussions about it. But the timing, format, etc are still a bit fluid right now. However, we (the DALMOOC team, not a royal “we”) have put a lot of time and thought into improvements and redesign. From my end as instructional designer, there are several issues I would like to address. This post really serves as a list for me personally, but might be of interest to others.

Instructivist Layer

  • The content later of DALMOOC had a good amount of focus on the facts of Learning Analytics (pedagogy) as well as a good focus on the how to learn about Learning Analytics (heutagogy). There is more discussion on ramping up the heutagogical side of the equation some more, which I think is great.
  • Where the design mostly fell flat on this layer was the assessments. They were tied to multiple competencies per week and left a bit open as to how to participants would complete them. We really need to focus on one assessment activity per week (or even every two weeks). This may mean reducing the number of competencies to one per week, or utilizing sub-competencies.
  • Additionally, since this is the more guided layer, the one assignment we create probably will need to have more guidance for how to complete it. That is the point of instructivism after all.

Connectivist Layer

  • This layer probably suffered the most from not have a good solid “glue” between the layers, so a lot of the re-design will be addressed in “The Glue” section next.
  • The assessment/artifact part of this layer also suffered from having so many competencies to complete, so focusing those into one artifact will help immensely.
  • The assignment bank was unevenly utilized, and that needs to be fixed. Having more focus on the competencies would help with this, also. The idea would be that the assignment bank gives various scenarios, artifact ideas, or data sources to use when working on artifacts to complete each competency. But what the bank contains could actually be different each week. One week that looks at, say, the history of data analytics could have a bank of ideas how to explain the history (video, paper, interactive timeline, blog posts, etc). The next week that looks at how to perform SNA could have a bank of sample data sets to use. Or a bank of scenarios of where to get data from. Finally, each bank would have a “do your own thing” option to point out to learners that in this layer they can come up with their own ideas.
  • Group connections and formation needs a lot of work, but the “Behind the Scenes” section will look at some of that.

The Glue

  • The original intention was to have a weekly/daily email that provided a connection point for all participants, as well as stepping out points and scaffolding for people that wanted to try out social learning for the first time. These emails never happened. And we found out that not everyone reads email (shocking, I know). So a new idea is being floated around.
  • This idea is to have a centralized website for the class. This website only displays what is being worked on that week (but with a menu to get to older content and the syllabus, of course). Basically, think a blog with a simplified theme that only shows one post at a time. This site intros the competency for the week, with options to choose which layer the participant is interested in. Selecting a layer would display links and instructions for what to do next for that layer (view videos in EdX, create goals in ProSolo, etc.). There would also be a link to a scaffolding area for people that want to try the connectivst layer but need guidance.
  • The information on this site would be blasted out to email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Whatever avenue people want to use to be informed that a new week of the course is posted.
  • Finally, this glue site would have a list of people that it recommends for you to connect with, as well as a list of Tweets and Blog Posts that interest you. Hopefully this could be personalized for each user – based on your activity, interests, skill levels, etc. More on that in the “behind the scenes.”

Behind the Scenes

  • The biggest changes to make all of this run smoothly need to be programmed behind the scene. For example, the glue site would need to support single sign-on between EdX, ProSolo, WordPress, Google, etc. Once you sign in, any link you click on should take you to something that you are already signed into.
  • Ultimately, it would be best to create the possibility for this sign-on could be handled by individual websites, so people can own their work and data for this course.
  • A more detailed Profile would be helpful. Using profile data along with course activity/posts/tweets/etc, various programs could recommend specific people for you to connect with, or even specific Tweets or blog posts you might like to read. These algorithms/programs/etc would be working behind the scenes to help find people and content for participants to connect with. At least, for those that choose to opt-in.
  • We are also pondering if we need to add better group tools into the glue site to help people with group activities. Or maybe add that to ProSolo. Plug-ins like BuddyPress for WordPress could create all kinds of tools for groups to use, at least for those that don’t want to find their own.
  • The teams working on QuickHelper and ProSolo also have some great ideas for improving their tools – but I won’t spill any beans on those because they can explain those ideas better than I can.

The Matrix

  • We had an initial course narrative based on The Matrix, but time prevented fuller development of that.
  • The red pill/blue pill metaphor seemed to help many understand course structure. We could possibly integrate that into the Glue website. For example, click on the red pill for one layer and the blue pill for the other. Maybe even create a purple pill metaphor for the scaffolding steps between the two.
  • Other things could be added – use quotes from the movie to explain things here and there. Add Matrix like graphics to the visual syllabus and videos. Have a distracting moving Matrix background. Someone could dress up as DALMorpheus and talk in riddles. And so on. I did make a mock-up of all of these ideas for a “Glue” website. As a warning, this takes the course narrative to Jim Groom extreme levels – which I love. But others don’t, so don’t expect DALMOOC 2.0 to look anything like this. But if we went full tilt on all of these ideas with the course narrative and glue website, it might look something like this.

edugeek-journal-avatarSo, any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc would be greatly appreciated.

(image credit: Flavio Takemoto, obtained from freeimages.com)

Ed Tech Skeuomorphs and Dual Layer MOOCs

Have you ever wondered where those tiny handles come from on some maple syrup bottles? The ones that are too little for most fingers that are strong enough to lift the bottle? This is a specific example of a skeuomorph – something that retains design elements from structures that were only necessary in the original design. Recently I read a random article about maple syrup bottles that reminded me of this word, and made me think how we have so many of these in ed tech.

Many LMSs are full of skeuomorphs. The LMS itself might be in danger of becoming a skeuomorph. We have tools online that host content much better. We have better tools for facilitating interaction. We certainly have tools that are more ADA compliant. We have better tools for creating social presence. We have better methods for protecting privacy online. And so on.

Of course, what might be a skeuomorph to one may not be a skeuomorph to another. Those that have some experience in a topic might find a linear instructivist path through course content to be a skeuomorphic design paradigm that hinders their ability to determine their own learning. A person that is new to the topic might find it a perfect fit.

Maybe I am stretching the analogy of skeuomorphs in Ed Tech a bit too far. But the reason I love the dual layer design that we have been working on with various LINK lab MOOCs is that it allows those that need certain design elements to still utilize them, while others that find them to be left over design structures from when they needed more instructivism (and now don’t) can skip them and dig into a more relevant learning designs.

The problem with our first stab at the dual-layer model was that the interface was too complex and difficult for many participants to find what they needed in the moment. So the next set of MOOCs to utilize a dual-layer design will focus on simplification of that user interface. What is needed is a system that will direct learners who need guidance and instruction to that instruction, while those that already know the content to some degree – who might find an instructivist path to be skeuomorphic – are led to the more connectivist, sense-making, chaotic side.

On one level – this is pretty easy. Find a clean, minimalist WordPress theme, remove a few elements that still might be distracting, and set it to only display the most recent post. That post will contain the basic outline of what needs to be accomplished that week, links to the the place where the two layers will occur, and links to previous posts for those that are behind. The other level that is more difficult is working behind the scenes to make sure that all of the tools that support the various layers integrate in a seamless way for a smooth end user experience. Well, not necessarily difficult as much as time consuming to map out logically and then program. Anyone that knows programming knows that is can happen as long as the tools that are used are willing to co-operate (and many are).

Looking at the graphic used in the previous dual-layer DALMOOC, this simplified interface would be in place of the “Main Weekly Email” at the top. There would also need to be some work to make sure that all of the tools in the rest of the diagram work seamlessly. This structure would probably also mean running a lot of the main registration and log-ins through this simplified interface (which may or may not be okay with some entities involved). Instructional design would also need some tweaking to make sure that the design also flows smoothly.

edugeek-journal-avatarThe basic idea is to simplify the end user experience as much as possible to let each participant decide how much complexity to add, what path to take, what is skeuomorphic to them in their context, and how to connect with others in the course.

(image credit: Sara Karges, obtained from freeimages.com)

Structuring the Initial Week of a MOOC (or An Online Course)

One of the topics that we get asked frequently about MOOCS is how to structure the initial / first / orientation week (including everything from the design of the syllabus to the “on-boarding” / scaffolding process to introductory content). And for good reason – that first series of interactions can seriously influence large numbers of learners to keep going or give up. Obviously, since you created the course, you want people to continue going and not give up. I can go through what we did with dalmooc and then offer some ideas that arose from that process.

Our general strategy was to have an orientation week (or “week 0”) before the first week of class officially started that was dedicated to on-boarding people with the course design and structure. This is generally when people would be looking at the syllabus anyways. But the reason that we didn’t make that Week 1 was that many people who take MOOCs are so self-directed that they are ready to jump in an figure it out as they go along (or advanced enough with MOOCs that there is nothing to figure out). We knew that we had to balance the needs of the new learners with the desires of experienced learners, without alienating either group or those in between. Having to sit through a bunch of orientation videos the first week would just chase off several advanced learners. They might intend to come back later, but that break in momentum would mean that many won’t. So the orientation was shifted to pre-course.

This orientation was basically a series of videos and Google Hangouts that covered course structure, introductions, a design, and assessments. I know that many courses do not cover the design process, but I am glad we did. In my opinion, part of creating an open course means that you also cover the design process. This way people can easily replicate your work at a later date. Here are the videos and Hangout archives for those that are curious:

 

 

 

 

The week 1 video was moved up to week 0 because we felt that it fit better in that spot, and the assessment video was created to answer some FAQs about that topic. These videos mainly served as ways to introduce the instructors and basic topics to the participants as well as to expand on the visual syllabus.

I have discussed the visual syllabus in this blog in several places. Some of the relevant posts to this topic are listed here:

Other posts in that series might also be of interest for other reasons depending on where you are in the design process. George Siemens’ reflection on the first week of DALMOOC also covers many issues that affected our design decisions and highly recommend reading his reflections.

A couple of quick notes about the technical side of creating the visual syllabus (which you can skip if you are not interested). It was built utilizing a self-hosted WordPress installation using the incredible services of Reclaim Hosting. We used the Pictorico theme, but I customized / hacked the front page that you see. I basically copied the source code from the original theme home page to a new file (index.html), cut out the distracting elements, and added the parts you see. Those are technically square images on the front page, but I used Fireworks to add a circle overlay to make them easier to distinguish. I also added the numbers in Fireworks, and found the background/header images on freeimages.com. The diagrams throughout the syllabus were also built in Fireworks (PhotoShop, GIMP, or other graphics programs would also work – probably even better) and sliced into squares to add the pop-up links. Those pop-ups are a WordPress plug-in called Fancybox that works well..

So, enough of the technical side. The actual instructional design of the syllabus is the important factor. George Siemens really wanted the visual syllabus aspect for dalmooc. He wanted to avoid the wall of text. I also went for scaffolding the syllabus in a way that should be easy for completely new learners to tell where to start, but had enough there to guide more experienced MOOC participants to the parts they wanted. Too much text on the first page would still mean “wall of text.” So the roll-over effect for those first page images (they came as part of the theme we picked) were perfect – you get the info when you need it, but its not there to stress you out when you don’t need it.

The visual diagram might seem to be a necessity for a complex course design like the dual-layer design, but in reality I would say that every course really needs one. Don’t assume that your learners can visualize your course flow just because it seems simple to you. What you see as simple might be due to a cultural norm that doesn’t translate to other cultures (not only your social/geographical culture but also your institution’s institutional culture).

I’m also a fan or roll overs and pop-ups that expand the content (as you can tell). That really helps with not only the new learners that need scaffolding, but also with non-linear thinkers that want to remix your intended order on the spot. With Federated Wikis gaining momentum, I think this ability to reorganize content as the learner sees fit will be a big deal. While pop-ups aren’t truly “remixable” content, they do allow a pick-and-choose method that comes close.

The general idea for the design of the syllabus was to scaffold participants into the overall structure of the course: start with “basic” and go deeper and deeper into various levels. Additionally, I took a cue from Jim Groom and DS106 and utilized a visual metaphor for the course. DS106 uses these metaphors (ds106zone, thewire106, etc) to add personality and presence to courses. Yes, even a course itself can have presence. Time constraints kept us from carrying this metaphor through the rest of the course, but I would suggest any course take this idea and fully implement it.

So to wrap up with some final thoughts on design and the first week of a MOOC (which could also apply to any course, really):

  • Never assume that something makes sense to everyone just because they signed up for your course. Keep the complete newbies in mind as much as the self-directed learners. Too many college courses are designed more on the self-directed learner end. Which means you probably end up explaining a lot of the same basic stuff over and over and over again, right? Think about it.
  • At the same time, don’t force the self-directed learners to go through everything that the newbies need to. Consider non-linear learning paths, dual-layer approaches, connectivism, etc. If you don’t have access to something like Ning or ProSolo to accomplish the connectivist layer, you can always use something like the BuddyPress plug-in for WordPress or a self-hosted installation of Known to accomplish the same structure.
  • While visual and video elements are important for breaking up content, don’t forget that not everyone has perfect sight. Keep accessibility mandatory.

edugeek-journal-avatarI think I am leaving out a few ideas that I had on this issue, but this post is already long enough. If you have any questions on specific design decisions or technical details, I would be glad to answer them. With access to a good instructional designer, knowledge of basic html, and basic experiences with a graphics program you should be able to accomplish much of what we did in your MOOC orientation/syllabus.

(image credit: Flavio Takemoto, obtained from freeimages.com)

The Mirage of Measurable Success

The last post that I wrote on measuring success in MOOCs created some good, interesting conversation around the idea of measurable success. The most important questions that were asked had to deal with “why even offer dalmooc if you don’t know what measurable success would look like?”

That’s a good question and one that I think can be answered in many ways. Honestly, the best answer to that question is “because four world-renowned experts wanted to teach it and a lot of people signed up to take it.” To me, especially in the informal realm of education where dalmooc existed, that is one of the biggest measurable signs of success. We live in a world that is so full of compulsory education and set degree plans that we forget that choosing to sign up for an informal voluntary learning experience is measurable success in itself. Over 19,000 people initially said “that sounds interesting, sign me up,” with over 10,000 signing in at one point or another to view the materials. Hundreds of participants were active on Twitter, Facebook, EdX forums, ProSolo, Google Hangouts, and other parts of the course. All voluntarily.  To me, that is measurable success.

Another area of measurable success, although definitely more on the qualitative side, is what I covered in the last post:

So maybe when the participants use words like “blended” or “straddled” or “combined,” those statements in themselves are actually signs of success. In the beginning, some claimed that DALMOOC was more cMOOC than xMOOC, but by the end others were claiming it was more xMOOC than cMOOC. Maybe all of these various, different views of the course are proof that the original design intention of truly self-determined learning was realized

To clarify this a bit more, there are those that thought that dalmooc was more instructivist / xMOOC:

And then there were those that thought it was much more connectivist / cMOOC (myself included)

So to me, that is another realm of measurable success – learners came out of the experience with vastly different views on what happened. That was a goal we had.

However, I know that when people talk about “measurable success,” they are usually referring more to standardized test results, student satisfaction, completion rates, and – the holy grail of education – grades! The elephant in the room that many people won’t deal with, but we all know is true, is that these measures of success are often a mirage.

Standardized tests are probably the biggest mirage of all. The problem is that a score of 90% on a test really only means that a learner was able to mark 90% of the questions correctly, but not necessarily that they actually understood 90% of the material. They may have only understood 60% of it and guessed the next 30% correctly. The fact that the right answer is somewhere in a list of multiple choice answers should negate their usefulness as a way to measure success, but our society still chooses to ignore this problem. Then you can add into this mix that most multiple choice questions are poorly written in ways that give away the answers to people that are taught how to game them (like I was).

Then there is the problem of coming up with questions for tests. Some tests contain, say, two questions about the core knowledge that learners should have gained and then a whole lot of related trivia that they could just Google if needed. Yet they could still get the two essential questions wrong and all the rest correct and will be labeled as “mastering” the concept. Rubrics for papers or projects often do the same thing – giving most points to grammar and following instructions and few to actual content mastery. Someone could write a great paper that shows no knowledge of the topic at hand but still pass because they got all other areas perfect.

Add to this that we would compare two children to each other based on this false sense of “success.” One child could have tanked a test based on the trivia but got all of the core content correct and still be labeled as less successful than the one that got the trivia right and core knowledge wrong…. just because its all on the same test. Oh, and let’s not forget the practice of giving similar or equal weights to all questions on a test when not all questions are really equal. Again, two learners could get the same score, but one only answered the easy questions correctly while the other answered all of the challenging ones correctly.

And speaking of different learners, there is always the oft-ignored problems of cultural bias in testing and learning.  Are learners not testing well because they didn’t learn, or were there cultural references on the test they didn’t get? Did a learner really learn the content, or were they just able to quickly memorize some factoids because of some weird thing Aunt Ida said about planets that helped them connect the new information to this weird family quirk? Are they being labeled as smarter because they are or because their weird Aunt Ida gave them a memory that helped them memorize?

Most of what we call “measurable success” in education is really just a mirage of numbers games. For those like me that fell on the privileged side of those games, it was a great system that we probably want to fight to keep. And we are probably most likely the ones now in control, so….

Now, of course, this is not to say that learning isn’t happening. This is more about how most institutions measure learning and success. I believe people are always learning formally and informally, even if its not always what they had intended to learn. It just takes a lot of time, effort, and money (yes – money!) to truly assess learning, and the educational field in general is being tasked with the opposite. “Do better assessment with less money, less time, and less effort (ie people power)!” No real easy answers, but there is a problem with the system and the culture that drives that system that needs to be addressed before “measurable success” becomes a trustworthy idea.