Some innovations will need to be new technologies and vendor partnerships, while others will need enhancements or integration with existing legacy systems.
But if the approach to innovation doesn't sufficiently cater for the entangled nature. Will it make any difference?
How are they defining the experience, to include learning and teaching?
For example, a modern student experience personalizes the student experience by creating a digital user experience that eliminates the burden of administrative tasks and centralizes the student.
Still a focus on the individual, rather than the activity. Issues?
Technology can empower both students and faculty if it is freed of corporate control and returned to the public domain. W
But digital platforms and walled gardens are actively fighting against this (a challenge)
but the problem is the so called efficiency created by integrating technology is so far from it because of the reusability paradox and similar
Two types of situations have historically driven the development of EdTech interoperability specifications
I contend that we do not have such a mesh and are not making much progress toward it because the people who think about the learning journey coherence problem don’t tend to be the same people who think about data interoperability.
Does this capture all/or even the main part? The separation is certainly a big part. But I also wonder if the people that are thinking like this also appear to far down the organisational totem pole to not have the power (or more likely time) to do something about (probably made worse by being separated)
But integration via LTI itself mostly means single sign-on and grade return
Yes!! Not enough, especially from the user experience perspective.
It turns out that the way histology professors want to use and annotate images in the classroom is completely different than the way art history professors do.
Purpose is different, hence orchestration and perhaps the phenomena being orchestrate becomes different. (or at least in a perfect world would)
when LMS companies started adding half-baked blogs and terrible wikis to their products. It became instantly clear that almost nobody wanted to use these LMS-internal tool
Raising the question about why we might want to use the LMS-internal learning analytics dashboards. Especially when increasingly more of the learner activity is taking place outside of the LMS.
Of course, there’s always a trade-off between configurability and ease-of-use, particularly when you’re adding configurability to an existing product with an installed base that expects it to work a certain way
Hard is easy and soft is hard (Dron)
with Blackboard is to a classroom where all the seats are bolted to the floor
Blackboard as hard technology (Dron)
The fact that most computers nowadays are digital and not analog, which basically means that they use binary number system and binary logic, does say very little if anything at all about what characterises computers and their use in education. There is nothing digital to experience when using a digital computer, and from that angle the term ‘digital education’ is as uninformative as, say, phrases like ‘electric education’ (given the fact that computers use electricity), or ‘nuclear education’ (given the fact that some of that electricity is generated by nuclear power plants), or ‘Apple education’ or ‘Microsoft education’ (given the fact that such computers may use software from those companies[7]).
At one level this is correct, but does it underplay what the digital turn enables - i.e. data homogenisation and the subsequent benefits that provides.
If education isn't making use of that capability, then perhaps it isn't engaged in digital education. Digital education would actually involve taking advantage of the nature of digital technologies.
Education has, in a sense, always been hybrid, though what has changed over time are the modalities of hybridity and the technologies being used, bearing in mind that blackboards and textbooks are as much educational technology as tape-recorders and overhead projectors (Who remembers them?) and, more recently, computers
Yes, but begging whether the changes in the "modalities of hybridity and the technologies" introduce/enable differences. e.g. is the nature of digital technology different than previous technologies? Perhaps it promises to be different, but perhaps it hasn't delivered on that.
Conviviality occurs when we recognise the problems that each of us face, and relate them to our own problems, whilst recognising that working together can help us all.
How much do more corporate (and other) ways of working allow recognition of the problems of others? Rather than a focus on my own purpose?
The problem is that computer tools are generally not very good tools for doing the jobs they are intended to do. This is partly because the design of tools is generally shaped by the work-as-imagined by the software developers, not the work-as-done by the actual users.
But also because the opaque nature of tools (and other issues) make it difficult for the user to see and understand what the tool can do.
unlike the shovel which required the collective effort of many to dig a hole, the JCB could do the work of 100 people in one go
Again the question of shared goals. Is digging the hole really the goal? Or is it a broader aim for which the hole is required. Thus the JCB might still help with the broader goal that is collective at a higher level of abstraction.
Does the quality of the work become important? Digging a hole with 100 others is hard, repetitive work. Somewhat similar to clicking the mouse to drive software. Driving the JCB isn't as manual, requires more nouse and enables other outcomes (good and bad).
but each of us is pursuing personal goals and personal ambition
Are shared goals/ambition necessary to feel that work is "meaningful, cohesive, and enlivening"?
To use design for learning in higher ed as the example, I suppose this is really getting at the problem with the SET mindset where each of the people/groups involved are not explicitly working to the same specific goal.
All may have the same ultimate goal in some variation of "improve student learning". But their specific purpose, contribution and conception are different. More SET mindset makes this worse?!
Conviviality is a state of being between members of group whose work within that group is felt by all to be meaningful, cohesive and enlivening.
Which - as described below - is perhaps not a common "stage of being" for many teachers in higher education (not to mention corporate IT denizens more broadly)
TODO: Is this the basis for a question to ask people about the work and the tools that they do?
and it’s affordances (and drawbacks) are easily accessible
I'm seeing a need for what Nanard et al call a constructive template. Hence the CASA concept.
The "pattern" idea is at the learning design level. CASA is at the implementation level.
Think Lego pieces as opposed to a models instructions
That's a good description of the intent of patterns.
But I'm wondering if the level of abstraction is correct. Individual lego pieces strike me as too low level a component for a pattern. A pattern is more like a particular artifact constructed using lego blocks, rather than a model kit (that's been glued together). The collection of lego blocks can be pulled apart and modified to fit with local need. A model kit can't.
The best patterns aren’t “templates” but designed as pieces that can be constructed to suit the specific intent of a solution.
I do like Nanard, Narnard and Kahn's (1998) connection between patterns and *constructive templates*
The difficult part of developing patterns is getting them at the right level of granularity
My current thinking is that after a little bit of pump priming, arriving at the right level of granularity is something that happens over time by using the design approach, learning lessons, and refining.
This is the next step in my process – starting to map out these activities into patterns
In my language, this is the step from curriculum design to learning design and implementation. The type of patterns work you mention here would seem to have strong connections to the back-side of the ABC learning design cards (slides 13 and 14).
Given that learning and implementation are likely to be much more contextual, it might be better to focus local customisation at that level. Rather than providing alternatives to Laurillard's learning types?
Review
I could be wrong, but I assume Laurillard would put that under practice.
External Content
This is very different take from Laurillard's inquiry learning type, so I'm wondering if by excluding it you loose something. Laurillard does based her types on her conversational theory so missing something might be important.
In terms of "content" I think I see three different types
Laurillard combines #2 and #3 into acquisition. Not sure if #1 fits.
I'm not sure I'd make a distinction between #2 and #3, at least not at the design level
Interaction – Collaboration
I like this distinction. But interaction also suffers from prior use. e.g. "Students interact by clicking buttons". Hence interaction probably also needs to clarified to prevent misunderstanding.
Hence I wonder about using something like Collaboration and/or cooperation and explicitly linking to Downes' distinction.
Which is what I'm thinking I'd do if I stuck with the ABC learning approach and Laurliard's types. i.e. stick with collaboration but then offer Downes' distinctions as a clarification that it doesn't need to be collaboration.
them guiding the student t
Does the "guiding the student" task extend a beyond just course content?
When I hear that I think of the old distance education study guide. Which guided the student throughout the entire course and all the activities they had to do: content, interaction etc.
At some level the study guide is content, but it's more a wrapper/environment around all of the activities. Hence there might be a couple of quite separate tasks that need to be talked about.
Which current has my thinking that acquisition is probably a better term than course content
for mapping out a course, but there’s a lot of detail missing
Ahh, perhaps linking to comment above about curriculum, learning and implementation levels?
activity types rather than learning
I'm thinking there might be some value in sticking with "learning types" as a broader grouping than activity.
Learning types is something that is used at curriculum design. A much higher level. A much quicker process. A bit like what I understand the ABC learning design approach does. The output of this step is a course profile. A high level overview.
There are then a couple of more levels "below" curriculum design
The ABC Learning Design approach connects curriculum design with learning design via its learning type cards (see slide 14)
But the connection with implementation is a bit more tentative and contextual.
I'm wondering whether there is sufficient value in coming up with a different set of more abstract high level categories that I see as mainly useful at the curriculum design level. Does it help more with translation into the next levels?
I’ve started to work through some of my own types
I'm torn here. Laurillad's learning type set doesn't immediately jell. I'm thinking what's missing. What could be added. But then with the ABC learning design tools being built on top of Laurillard's work I'm wondering about the value of just using it for the value of being able to join a community and build on their work?
Well part of it is the requirement to think of content outside of an existing schema
Nice point.
The expert doesn't think about what it takes to develop the scheme they have.
I wonder if part of it is also whether the academic's schema they have of academics is the producer and consumer of content. i.e. research papers, talks, books etc. Hence teaching is just an extension?
Development time has been shortened as courses need to become more agile and pushed out faster than ever
Important need for learning design. A need we face. But is this the only need?
We can use it in our projects, but those projects can't scale to every teacher or course. What do they do? Goodyear argues that design for learning is a way for teachers to save the time challenge they are facing in higher ed (echoing the above need).
Is there an approach to design for learning that a sole teacher would adopt. There are some that (could) do design, but there are many others that don't/won't. How to get to them?
Just checked and most of this is echoing questions I raised in response to Joyce's talk.
Save time in teaching
Echoing the forward-oriented design idea, it's not just development that has become time constrained. Everything about teaching is time constrained, but at the same time is getting more complex for all the reasons Goodyear points out but also because the technological and support systems put in place by institutions aren't helping with this.
from my perspective
I wonder what the critical take on this perspective is?
Who is a formal and structured design process serving? Does it serve those employed as designers to better do/justify their job? What values and assumptions does it support?
Is it necessary only because of the on-going neo-liberal McDonald-isation of higher education. Gotta shift those "products" out quicker and better?
Does a formal design process end up equating to a McDonalid-isation of teaching in higher education. A vaniliasiation. A bit like the impact of the MOOC environments where they all look the same and use the same basic building blocks?
That's not the explicit goal here, but it can and has been in some circumstances. In the worst case scenario it does further belittle the role of the University academic. Academic becomes subject matter expert which then allows Universities to offer cheaper and more precarious employment to those folk.
the design process requires more formal and structured processes in order for quality to be achieved in this changed environment.
A lot of teachers are more bricoleurs than designers. Bricoleurs can appear to designers as merely engaging in MSU (making sh*t up - thanks Damo for that term) but are really making do with what is at hand (to mind?). Is the poor quality of what they do partially due to the poor quality of what is currently to hand at most tertiary institutions for learning?
Can more formal design processes also help these people?
How do we build the course out from that overview state?
Key question, but forward-oriented design from Goodyear & Dimitriadis suggest value in more than just building the course.
Suggesting learning design is more than answering the questions that follow in the text, but extends to how do we design learning experiences that help the teacher(s) implement, orchestrate, evaluate and re-design.
Nobody that I know in learning sciences is trying to invent a general dynamic medium for thought, because it’s so hard to get anything actually adopted and used in an impactful manner. I see Jim Spohrer’s work in Service Science as being part of the same paradigm — how do you actually get services designed and implemented that work in practice?
Need to explore this more
Functional decomposition is abstract. It contradicts the nature of the universe because it tries to violate the first law of thermodynamics. The first law states that you can never add value without sweating
Begging the question, "Why does it violate the law?". My answer would be that functional decomposition assumes you can break down the problem into building blocks and put them back together to get a functioning system. You can, but it comes with a cost. A cost that's problematic.
The problem is, doesn't this problem apply to any attempt to break a problem down into components? I guess the answer would be that by focusing on volatility you are taking into account the main "cost" that functional decomposition faces.
-a shared software library--and the application itself, I made the case for an intermediate layer that implemented what I called a "generic application"
What is the equivalent in an NGDLE type task?
The "generic application" is the common course site.