Open Technology, Open Education:
The Future of Teaching and Learning
James Dalziel
Professor of Learning Technology and Director,
Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)
Macquarie University
[email protected]
www.melcoe.mq.edu.au
This presentations is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Keynote Presentation for “Thinking Globally, Delivering Locally” NSW DET Conference, March 23rd, 2009
Overview
• Sharing Good Teaching Ideas
• Open Education
• Case Study: LAMS
How I Became a Better Teacher
• Encouraging student discussion
– The “Pyramid” technique
• Introductory Psychology: Milgram’s Obedience study
– How many people would obey?
Sharing Good Teaching Ideas
• Student learning benefits when teachers share good
ideas with each other
– Quality teaching - by teachers, for teachers
• Sharing can include:
–
–
–
–
Resources (articles, websites)
Lesson plans
Teaching techniques
Technology
Sharing Good Teaching Ideas
• Sharing teaching ideas is similar to sharing recipes:
–
–
–
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It comes naturally
You don’t expect payment
You can adapt recipes to suit your situation
You can pass on to others the recipes you have received
….sometimes your adapted version
• Sharing good teaching ideas is probably as old as
sharing recipes!
Sharing Good Teaching Ideas
• Technology enhances teacher sharing in several
ways:
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Quickly search very large collections of information
Easier to share with those at a distance (email, websites)
Online communities of practice
Open educational technologies for teaching and learning
Challenges
• Teachers
– Little time for sharing
– Few rewards for sharing
• Legal
– Traditional copyright blocks sharing & adaptation
– Traditional software licenses may limit sharing
• Government
– Need to foster more innovation in teaching & technology
Open Education
• The Cape Town Declaration provides a statement of
principles of free sharing for open education
– www.capetowndeclaration.org
• “everyone should have the freedom to use,
customize, improve and redistribute educational
resources without constraint”
– Free to use (no cost)
– Freedom to change
Open Education Example: MIT OpenCourseware
Open Education Example: Moodle LMS
Open Education Example: Wikipedia
Open Education Example: Connexions – Free Textbooks
Free Books: Download full PDF from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712pref1.pdf
Open Education & FOSS
•
Apart from sharing and adaptation of open education
resources, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is
contributing to Open Education in two ways:
1. Education sector adoption of general FOSS systems, such as
operating systems (Linux), web servers (Apache), desktop tools
(Firefox, Open Office, etc)
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Focus on cost reduction and open standards
2. Education specific FOSS systems, such as Learning Management
Systems (Moodle) & others
–
Focus on education system innovation
Case Study
• We have had two great successes and one
significant failure in open education to date
• The first success is the development and adoption of
open source course management systems like
Moodle and Sakai
• The second success is the open sharing of
educational content, such as OpenCourseware
(from Ch 24: “Sharing Learning Design: Sharing Pedagogical Know-How”
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712pref1.pdf )
Case Study
• The failure is our difficulty in describing and sharing
good pedagogy – the teaching and learning
processes that foster deep approaches to learning
• How can instructors benefit from the good teaching
ideas of their peers, and how can these ideas be
easily instantiated in online courses?
Case Study: Learning Design
• Learning Design is a new approach to describing
teaching and learning processes in a structured way
• Typically describes sequences of student activities
(scaffolding of content + collaboration)
– A sequence applies to a class/week/topic (not whole term)
• Focus on sharing and re-using good sequences
• Often implemented online with technology
– But becoming a general framework for face to face and online
Case Study: Learning Design
• Learning Design is particularly useful for pedagogical approaches
that have a structured process, eg:
– Inquiry Based Learning, Role Plays, Problem Based Learning
• Learning Design focuses on how educators structure activities to
foster student learning
– LAMS is the leading Learning Design system used by thousands of
teachers in over 80 countries and translated into 27 languages
• LAMS can integrate with LMSs & Portals
– For students, link(s) from course area to the relevant sequence
– Teacher single-sign-on and easy authoring and launching
Example: Inquiry Based Learning
“What are the qualities of an effective teacher?”
Step 1: Answer question, then reflect on others’ answers
Step 2: Vote on a list of qualities, consider collated votes
Step 3: Discuss responses to Steps 1 & 2
(Stop)
Step 4: Read an expert’s view on the topic
Step 5: Discuss expert’s view compared to class view
(Stop)
Step 6: Personal reflection (or essay if assessment) on initial
question, based on initial views, class discussion & expert view
Can be run face to face with no technology, or fully online, or a mix
Example: LAMS Authoring for “Qualities of an Effective Teacher”
Example 1a: Inquiry Based Learning
“What are the qualities of a great leader?”
Step 1: Answer question, then reflect on others’ answers
Step 2: Vote on a list of qualities, consider collated votes
Step 3: Discuss responses to Steps 1 & 2
(Stop)
Step 4: Read an expert’s view on the topic
Step 5: Discuss expert’s view compared to class view
(Stop)
Step 6: Personal reflection (or essay if assessment) on initial
question, based on initial views, class discussion & expert view
Example 1a: The overall Learning Design remain the same, but…
Example 1a: …. editing of content within individual activities
Example 1b: Inquiry Based Learning
“What are the qualities of energy efficient engines?”
Step 1: Answer question, then reflect on others’ answers
Step 2: Vote on a list of qualities, consider collated votes
Step 3: Discuss responses to Steps 1 & 2
(Stop)
Step 4: Read an expert’s view on the topic
Step 5: Discuss expert’s view compared to class view
(Stop)
Step 6: Personal reflection (or essay if assessment) on initial
question, based on initial views, class discussion & expert view
Example 1c: Inquiry Based Learning
“What are the qualities of an effective e-learning system?”
Step 1: Answer question, then reflect on others’ answers
Step 2: Vote on a list of qualities, consider collated votes
Step 3: Discuss responses to Steps 1 & 2
(Stop)
Step 4: Read an expert’s view on the topic
Step 5: Discuss expert’s view compared to class view
(Stop)
Step 6: Personal reflection (or essay if assessment) on initial
question, based on initial views, class discussion & expert view
Example 2: Role Play
“Should a K-12 school roll out interactive whiteboards?”
Step 1-4: Introduce role play; scenario; tasks; roles
Step 5: Break students into role groups (pro teachers, con teachers,
school management, students)
Step 6: Reflect on own role in private journal
Step 7: Shared Q&A about ideas within role group
Step 8: Forum about ideas within role group
(Stop)
Step 9: Main role play (all roles together in Forum to discuss)
(Stop)
Step 10: Vote on whether roll out should proceed or not
Step 11-13: Reflect on role play experience & strengths/weaknesses
Example 2: Role Play - Adoption of Interactive Whiteboards
Example 2a: Role Play
“Should the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates to 1%?”
Step 1-4: Introduce role play; scenario; tasks; roles
Step 5: Break students into role groups (Federal Reserve Chair; US
President; Mortgage Insurer; Investment Bank)
Step 6: Reflect on own role in private journal
Step 7: Shared Q&A about ideas within role group
Step 8: Forum about ideas within role group
(Stop)
Step 9: Main role play (all roles together in Forum to discuss)
(Stop)
Step 10: Vote on whether to cut interest rates or not
Step 11-13: Reflect on role play experience & strengths/weaknesses
Example 2b: Role Play
“How could peace be achieved after WW2?”
Step 1-4: Introduce role play; scenario; tasks; roles
Step 5: Break students into role groups (US, Russia, Germany,
France)
Step 6: Reflect on own role in private journal
Step 7: Shared Q&A about ideas within role group
Step 8: Forum about ideas within role group
(Stop)
Step 9: Main role play (all roles together in Forum to discuss)
(Stop)
Step 10: Vote on whether to accept peace proposal or not
Step 11-13: Reflect on role play experience & strengths/weaknesses
Sharing Learning Designs
• LAMS Community (www.lamscommunity.org)
– Community sharing, adaptation and improvement of Open
Education Learning Designs
– Approximately 4,000 members, 86 countries, 320 shared
sequences viewed 11,000 times, 4,000 discussion postings
LAMS Community – View of various communities & forums
LAMS Community – Repository Summary
LAMS Community – Detailed view of individual sequence
Case Study Summary
• LAMS is an open education system for creating,
sharing and running “digital lesson plans”
• The LAMS Community encourages teachers to share
their LAMS sequences with other teachers to benefit
student learning
• Macquarie University made LAMS free for the public
good of education
Conclusion
• Teaching and learning can be more effective if
educational materials, software, lessons plans, etc,
are freely shared among educators to use and adapt
• Learning Design applies these concepts to teaching
and learning processes (“digital lesson plans”)
• Open Education is quite new, but not really….
Further LAMS Information
• To try LAMS, sign up at:
http://demo.lamscommunity.org/
• To Learn more about LAMS, visit:
http://www.lamsfoundation.org/
• To get involved with LAMS, email:
[email protected]