Weeks 8 and 9. A10 Planning tools for design

We were introduced to 2 tools for planning learning and teaching sessions which take you through the process of the design process (so respnding to Conole’s issues of capturing learning activities in order for re use). Both tools were text based so I would say, from Conole’s article, that they aren’t the best tools for resuse or repurposing because I tended to keep them in context and they are very learning outcome focused.

The two tools were

The Phoebe planning tool and the London Pedagogic Planner. and we were asked to look at one and try and map out the same activity from Week 1 as we did with CompendiumLD, the visual mapping tool.

I decided to go with pot luck and downloaded LPP. However, generally I’m one for instant gratification and within a few minutes found it too complicated so went along to Phoebe instead. First good point about Phoebe over LPP was that there was nothing to download as it’s web based! You could also easily see where to start when logging in, did you want to create your own design or view someone elses. So it’s acting well as a mediating artefact as you can look at others while or before you write your own.

I really liked how the instructions for each panel was visible as you were writing in it whereas on LPP I would have had to find the help section separately which makes me resist using the help function. The tips and guidance section was invaluable to me, it helped me to know what to write but also provided definitions and description of different theories/pedagogies and links to further reading.

I liked the WYSIWYG editors for free text entry in each panel, the LPP one was very restrictive and the help in terms of what to write where was lacking.

I liked that you could hide a panel if it was n/a.

As Conole stated, the disadvantage of this text based version is that you cannot see the flow of tasks within the activity or divide tasks up between individuals in a non-linear fashion.  It is no different to writing a word document or writing on a piece of paper.

I didn’t explore LPP enough, but it sounds from what Sharon said it forces you to link activities to learning outcomes etc which Phoebe didn’t do and there did seem to be some repetition. It seems there might be different version of Phoebe that might allow for some interlinking to go on.

Phoebe has a collection of templates you could use and you can create a templates too.

I think these text based tools would be good for creating a template for your own institution so you could make sure you have the same information about each activity/module across all your modules on a programme enabling review, testing and handover to new course leaders (which is a common occurrence). however, it would be very time consuming, whatever medium you used, to create a diagram or table for every learning activity!

Have the H800 authors done this? Has anyone been this thorough in documenting their courses? Perhaps good for a staff development trainer, designing a 1 day leadership course, but maybe not for a 60- point OU course with 32 weeks with an huge number of learning activities…perhaps it would make the designer be more lean in the way the activities are divided up if they had to do all this admin as well.

Weeks 8 and 9 – A 9 Forms of representation of design

My notes from reading:

Conole, G. (2008) ‘Capturing practice: the role of mediating artefacts in learning design’ in Lockyer, L., Bennett, S., Agostinho, S. and Harper, B. (eds) Handbook of Research on Learning Design and Learning Objects: Issues, Applications and Technologies, pp.187–207, Hersey, PA, IGI Global.

Forms of representation = classification of different types of representing learning design

• Key issues:

1. Capture and representation of activities

2. Mechanisms for scaffolding the design process for other designers.

Mediating Artefact (MA) is the form of representation for abstracting information e.g. models, diagrames,, case studies.

MA are used to inform the process of learning design.

There is a gap between the potential of new technologies and their actual use. Sharing good practice is a way to reduce that gap quickly.  There is a lack of understanding in how technology advantages learning and a lack of guidance on how to design learning activities with these new tools.

Learning Design is a methodology for guiding the design process.  The range of activities associated with creating learning activities (LAs) and provides a means of describing LAs to share, repurpose and scaffold the process of creating new LAs.

Benefits of LD as a way to share practice are:

• Designs respresented in a suitable way for testing and review
• Allows reuse
• Guides individuals through the process of creating new LAs
• Audit trail of decisions
• Highlights policy, resource or staffing issues
• Aids learnings in complex activities by guiding them through the activity.

Issue 1 – capturing and representing practice

This enables adaptation and resuse of learning activities.  The need to abstract essential and transferable properties is key, to be used in other contexts.

The term mediating artefacts is used because their mediating role in terms of how they mediate subsequent design activities.

MAs differ in format – textual, visual, auditory, multimedia; degree of contextualisation; level of granularity and degree of structure.

Types:

• Narratives and case studies – tend to be difficult to adapt
• Vocabulary tables – describes different components of the activity using key words eg 8ELM and HLM
• Diagrams and iconic representations – quick over of key features, emphasis on connections, movement and interrelationships (eg Compendium LD)
• Models – Models usually ways of represnting a pedagogical approach. eg Kolb learning cycle or Salmon’s emoderating framework.

Issue 2 – MA as a means of understanding LAs and supporting practice

A key accepted part of Learning design is the sharing of good pracgice and repurposing of one LA into a new LA to keep up with the fast need to integrate technology into course design.

Meta Mediated Artefacts – 3 types

• Aggregates of examples of MAs – a repository
• Scaffolds – eg tips, hints, guides, processes taken from the aggregates
• Mixed – both aggregates and scaffolds/supporting texts

A new LA can be constructed from a individual MA or from a meta MA.

MAs are based in the sociocultural perspective where learning activities are contextually bound. Activity theory is used to highlight the relationship between different actors, tools and resources.

MAs probably not used in isolation, but a combination/selection of MAs are used as one will probably not be able to satisfy the needs of the new user completely.

Textual representations are usually more contextualised so harder to adapt without further exploration, they are more time consuming to use but they do offer more detail.

Visual respresentations are faster to use, but have less detail but are easier to adapt to any context. They enable you to see the flow of the tasks at a glance. You can read case studies in more depth if you want to understand the decision making process and actual activity better. There is  a lack of the contextual information that grounds the decisions made in the diagrammatical versions. Eg who is the learner and what are their characteristics and needs, what kind of course is it.

Weeks 8 and 9 A8 Comparing the schemas for design

As the notes state the first two schemas are crudely simple and teaching centered. The 2D matrix makes you plump for categories of learning, not really enabling the flexibility of covering lots of pedagogies. The 3D matrix enables you to picture the activities along three continua which is much better as no activity is just one thing or another, but at least a triangle of features (as in the Conole matrix). There may well be more continua that should be considered. The 3D model would be a useful tool for ensuring a learning activity is pedagogically sound and gives the learning developer a good case to present to academics when reviewing their modules.

The HLM schema is much broader, and allows a much more creative approach. The focus is on what the student will actually do in the learning process and how the tutor will support that. It’s much more student oriented. Some drawbacks were overlaps between the 8 learning events and the verbs being used in each event. I liked the suggested verbs; it helped me to understand what each event meant without the authors having to write a complex definition of each event which would only confuse my amateur mind; although again many verbs were used in more than one event so clarity of what each verb really means pedagogically is required.

I can see how the HLM fits in with Activity theory better than the previous 2 schemas and I could also see how the first 2 schemas could feed into the HLM. For example, in the comments column I was driven to use Conole’s matrix here.

I agree with Kathy that overall ” one of their limitations is how daunting I found the thought of putting them into practice, because of the level of detail required”, as I’m not sure I could persuade others to use it and couldn’t see me using it in practice because of the detail but will help me to (behind the scenes) become a better elearning developer.  Also as Kathy says “It strikes me that applying schemas like this to course design, learning activity by learning activity, is a very slow and detailed process.  It leaves me feeling quite daunted though it has opened my eyes to the complexity of how to represent learning in models of learning design.”

I liked Sharon’s comment about keeping the simple 2d schema to hand to help check/control new ideas for elearning resources “I think I’d probably keep this schema to hand so that when someone suggests using a video, for example, we can perhaps maximise its potential rather than focusing on one type of learning.”

Sharon also makes a good point about making sure everyone in a project team using these schemas understands the terminology in the same way.

I can imagine using them to help me understand and analyse learning design in a different role to that I am in now. As a newcomer to elearning, I’ve found these practical tools really interesting and engaging. Cynical colleagues of mine would hate them (perhaps teaching your grandmother to suck eggs) but I’m aware that learning design needs this kind of input to keep practices up to date. I look forward to developing my knowledge of learning design using tools like these, so that learning design becomes second nature to me in the future. Although I really liked HLM, I would suspect that academics might find the design and flashcards a little condescending however from the point of few of someone learning about elearning and having been swamped in academic articles in Block 1, these were a welcome change.

As Sharon and Simon said, these schemas are useful for focusing on “the teacher and student roles rather than the technology”

They certainly lend themselves to my learning style which is activist/pragmatist, enabling practice working of learning design, instead of reflective and theoretical approaches.

Allan, S. (2009) Forum contibution to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A8 1 April 2009 10.57

Clark, S. (2009) Forum contribution to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A8 4 April 2009 10.26

Doncaster, K. (2009) Forum contribution to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A8 30 March 2009 13.46

Weeks 8 and 9 – Reflecting on Activity 3 – Compendium LD

I’ve learnt about how to draw the arrows between the nodes in CompendiumLD and when I went back to my map to add the arrows I ended up completely redesigning my map, it is no longer linear.

I tried my best to keep the learner in the centre, but due to the connections, the FORUMS ended up being at the centre, however I organised it.

My earlier post showing my original version is here, and interestingly my design I think now is more like a learning design and less like a process and contains the complexity I was earlier questioning.

So here is my new version:

Weeks 8 and 9 Activity 7 Learning Events Model

The 8 learning events model (8LEM)

developed by LabSET. Takes a learning centred view of design, where as A6 and A7 take a teaching centred approach. It identifies types of learning focusing on what the student will be doing.

Focus on 8 characteristics of learning from the learner and designer perspectives.  The Activities are Create, imitate, practice, explore, receive, debate, experiment and meta-learns.

Taken from http://cetl.ulster.ac.uk/elearning/hlm.php

The 7 around the outside are types of activities – what the student will be doing. Meta learning, in contrast, is cognitive – thinking and reflection.

The Centre of Institutional E-Learning Services at the Uni of Ulster has adapted the 8ELM model to the Hybrid Learning Model (HLM).

HLM is a series of flashcards for each event, which articulate the teacher and learner perspectives.

Eg describes the role for each teacher and learner for each event and gives an example.

I used this tool to analyse the reflective model of modules we use on the MBA. I found it a really intersting and practical exercise to help me understand the learning design of these activities. As a new comer to elearning design I can see this helped me to understand learning, I really liked the modern graphics which made the tool fun to use. However, the cynic in me doubts that academics and more experienced elearning developers would respond to this as positively. But as I said, it’s a good tool for new comers or very keen activity developers/academics.

I enjoyed the practical nature of this tool but struggled sometimes where I wasn’t sure exactly which event each task fitted into. There were overlaps in whether a task could be one event type or another. Neither could I distinguish the different between resources and tools in the HLM Grid . For the comments column I would like to use Conole’s 3d matrix as this would depict the pedagogical nature of the task as well (see earlier blog post).

Weeks 8 and 9 A6 Three Dimensional Mapping framework

Mapping tools and activities to pedagogy

Conole et al 2004

- pedagogical framework that abstracts three main dimensions of learning.Mapping tools and activities to pedagogy

3-D Mapping Framework

Three dimensions are continuums where the learning activity can sit anywhere along each. Individual or social learning, passive or active learning, information or experience based.

So a tool does not have to be labelled 2 dimensionally but it can lie somewhere along a spectrum.

Try to indicate the location of the following ‘tools in use’ on the three dimensions (or continua) of the framework in Figure 2:

1. A blog as a reflective diary
2. A blog as a collective resource for collating references within a student group
3. A web search; i.e. students search the web and collate resources against a given set of criteria
4. A drill and practice exercise; i.e. students work through a set of resources and then complete a formative self-assessment
5. A structured online debate; i.e. students choose a side for or against an issue, post their views and read other postings
6. Use of an eportfolio; i.e. students gather evidence against learning outcomes in a portfolio
   

Weeks 8 and 9 Different schemas for thinking about design A5

A5 Mapping digital media to four facets of learning

Mapping across pedagogy, tools and activities is a key aspect of any design process, the relationship between these things and how this helps us improve learning.

Criticisms of tools – technology driven.

Focus should be on pedagogy then the tool

2D matrix which helps designers think about the use of tools mapped to aspects of learning.

Matrix uses 4 aspects of learning and any learning activity should include one or more of these elements. It is a crude, yet simple schema for thinking about how tools can be used to help the designer think about how certain toolls can encourage certain pedagogical aspectgs of learning.

1.       Thinking and reflection

2.       Experience activity

3.       Conversation and interaction

4.       Evidence and demonstration (Though synthesising learning through formative/summative assessment).

Tools and a description of their use in a particular context For example: an individual blog being used as a reflective diary or a group-based blog being used to collect a set of class resources to support a particular course.	Types of learning
	Thinking and reflection	Experience and activity	Conversation and interaction	Evidence and demonstration
Discussion forums used as places to discuss subject content	X		X
Online self assessments tests at the end of each lesson	X			X
Video clips used as interviews with guest speakers		X
Blogs used as learning diaries	X			X
Online classroom revision tutorials	X		X
Online classroom group work			X
Wikis for collaborative report writing			X	X
Wikis for sharing information			X	X
Discussion forums for online group work			X	X

Weeks 8 and 9 A 4 Finding and sharing resources

A look at online resources and repositories for teaching documents, data and case studies. The three were:

Cloudworks – a social networking site for sharing learning and teaching ideas.

The OU Learn About guides – a quick reference guide to different learning topcis 

Educause 7 things you should know about series, which had a 2 page description of different elearning software such as Ning, FaceBook etc which I think would be handy for quickly finding out what things are that you hear mentioned The 7 things described for each Web tool are:

1. What it is
2. Who’s doing it
3. How does it work
4. Why is it significant
5. What are the downsides
6. Where is it going
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning

Weeks 8 and 9 A3 Using a design tool

This activity involved familiarising us with software that acts as a visualisation tool to depict learning activities. It is called CompendiumLD

We used one of the activities we had done in Week 1 to have our first attempts at creating a map of the activity.

• Some people’s maps were very linear, where others were much more complex. I wondered if the complex ones meant that the activity was complex and therefore not a good design; I wonder if simplicity is best? My design was linear, but I expected little else from my logical approach to just about everything. See below for my first atempt.  Paul wanted to show the complexities of the interactions between people and activities and tools, which I think his map does very well. But it’s not so easy for the reader to interpret but maybe a good starting point to see how you can streamline your activity.
  Marianne took a great approach, in that she made the mapping process a generic one, she took out all specific references to the actual activity thus creating a model for using in other learning contexts.

The idea behind graphically representing an activity is so that you can see who is involved where and what

The tool lets you drag the icons you want on the “canvass”, label them and create links between icons. Icons include task, activity, resources, people involved in the activity, learning outcomes, outputs, online tools, stop points, questions, debates, notes, links, decisions etc. When designing your activity you should take into account each step required by student/tutor/other, and where that step takes place and with what resources/tools. Perhaps using the Activity Theory as a checklist to ensure you’ve considered all parts of the activity. You can even add on the amount of time you think each node on the activity map might involve.

You can easily click and drag things around to reorder or redefine the learning process so it’s a handy tool for that.

Sharon made some good suggestions for how she could use it in her work, which relate to my work:

• Use it to map navigation through a website for students
• Getting students to use it to “show their thought processes as they move through a task”
• To use it as a visual aid when I’m giving presentations

And I added the idea to use it for project planning.

Weaknesses identified

• It doesn’t represent any tacit learning, or learning that takes place in your own environment, especially for online distance learners.
• It doesn’t take into account situations where the student doesn’t engage in the activity fully.
• The software won’t come naturally to people not used to a graphical approach to thinking and processes. (eg Frauke’s comment)
• Deciding which icons to use
• Learning a new way to “lesson plan” (Keith’s comment). I find it difficult to imagaine academic staff using this, but with a team of people involved in the design process, including a Project manager or learning technologist, there would be someone who could do it
• I didn’t like that there were so many options, I suspect I’d appreciate these options when I become a more experienced user of the tool but in finding my way round it the first time, there were too many tutorial/guides to read and interpret so I gave up and just used trial and error to do it. As Frauke said, I was a bit confused about the differences between Task and Activity but worked it out in the end.

As Simon said, the main strength of these maps are the ease of understanding and representation ” I didn’t have any trouble understanding the maps, and I suppose that’s the point of the software: being able to abstract the learning activity in order for it to be reusable by another teacher”

Allan, S. (2009) Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 2 April 2009 10.07
Aquilina, K. (2009) Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 2 April 2009 18.29
Bach, M. (2009) Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 3 April 2009 17.00
Clark, S. (2009) Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 1 April 2009 23.07
Constable, F. (2009) Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 1 April 2009 11.15
Kenney, P. (2009 Forum posting to H800 les6 09 W8_9 A3 1 April 2009 23.11

More on Creation of new courses at WBS

Further comments from staff at WBS:

Academics have the freedom to change module to suit their expertise/preferences as long as meets learning outcomes when they inherit it from others.

Learning outcomes should be general enough to enable this and also give the examiner the flexibility to judge whether or not a student has met the learning outcomes well enough when marking.

New ideas for modules and content come from experience. New teachers tend to inherit existing modules, but as they teach the module and learn what the students want they can change it or apply to create new modules and they can put their influence into it.

Ideas for big changes and innovation come from very senior and very respected people with the influence to make such changes.  The core modules exist because they are a core requirement of the course, but beyond Yr 1 UG, the lecturers can be more creative and respond to student needs.

This academic felt that the teaching v research conflict that the last academic told me about was unfounded. Person B

Another person told me about the bigger picture is that the drive for new models and new courses come from:
a) where subject groups OWN the course, eg  a Masters in Finance, they take the responsibility of keeping it up todate and competitive, and in existence. On the MBA, where I work this is more difficult as the whole course is not owned by one group so it’s hard to lead developments and change.  This reflects what I found from my first interview, in my last blog entry, that each academic doesn’t know what the other modules are doing. Whereas on a Specialist masters programme, because it is owned by one closeknit group of academics, they can design the modules and electives together. Recruitment onto Masters programmes, has the knock on recruitment onto Doctoral programmes which is really big business, and thus creating the experts of the future.

Another example was the re-write of the masters where a change in the staff structure created a change in the content, staff changes lead to changes in expertise which lead to changes in module content.

I really enjoyed having this informed and indepth discussions with professionals I work with, the impact on being on MAODE is starting to materialise.