Y. Dimitriadis, P. McAndrew, G. Conole & E. Makriyannis

Ascilite 2009, Auckland7th December 2009

The problem: Rich array of tools and free resources, but lack of uptake

A potential solution: “Open Design” Building on existing work

◦ Learning Design: The OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI)

◦ Open Educational Resources: The OLnet initiative◦ Pedagogical patterns: Collaborative Pattern Language

Putting them all together: Repurposing a Spanish OER

Open Design in action – findings from a series of workshops

Common reactions: ◦ “I haven’t got time”◦ “My research is more important”◦ “What’s in it for me?”◦ “Where is my reward?”◦ “I don’t have the skills to do this”◦ “I don’t believe in this, it won’t work”

Common resistance strategies:◦ I’ll say yes (and do nothing)◦ Undermine the initiative◦ Undermine the person involved◦ Do it badly

Classic mistakes:◦ Emphasis on the technologies, not the people and processes◦ Funding for technology developments but not use and support

OER Little reuse

Array of technologies

Not fully exploited

How can we design learning activities that make effective use of technology and that are pedagogical informed?

How can weGuide the design process?Distil best practice and represent designs?Harness the potential of OER?Facilitate dialogue around designs

Learning designLearning design

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources

Pedagogical patterns

Pedagogical patterns

Formalising designRange of representationsDialogue around designs

Free resourcesInherent designsStudent view

Abstracted best practiceSolutions to a problemLanguage as related problems

A methodology for enabling teachers/designers to make more informed decisions in how they go about designing, which is pedagogically informed and makes effective use of appropriate resources and technologies◦ Covers design of resource and individual learning

activities up to whole curriculum level◦ Helps make the design process more explicit and

shareable◦ Includes resource, tools and activities

Design methods:schema & patterns

Tools: Visualisation & guidance

Events:

Cloudworks: sharing & discussing

Seeing curriculum differently◦ Not content-focused◦ Alternatives to simple text-

based descriptions◦ Different views to

foreground different aspects

◦ Recognising design at different levels – from activity to whole course

◦ Visual – tables & diagrams, descriptive & metaphorical

Visualising the design process

Helps to make it more explicit

The method is an important as the tool

CompendiumLD tool – specialised design icons and in-built help, good for mapping activities

Learning activity

Output

Learning outcome

Resource

Role

End of activity

Task

Tool

Task swimline viewRoles – student, tutor, Tasks – read, discuss, Tools and resourcesOutputs

AdvantagesMakes design explicitMaps out designSharable with othersGood at activity level

Derived from Alexander’s work Structured case studies of good practice

◦ Capture experience ◦ A set of solutions associated with recurring problems◦ Examples and visual representations that help a better

understanding for their use in a new context Structured format

◦ Introduction◦ Context◦ Problem headline◦ Solution◦ Metaphorical picture◦ Similar patterns

Aggregated into languages

Have developed a CSCL pattern language for collaborative learning

Patterns include:◦ Jigsaw◦ Think-pair-share◦ Pyramid

WebCollage tool

Basic definitionThe open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes (UNESCO 2002)

Broader definitionLearning resourcesCourseware, content modules, learning objects, learner support & assessment tools, online learning communitiesResources to support teachersTools for teachers and support materials to enable them to create, adapt and use OER; training materials for teachersResources to assure the quality of education and educational practices (UNESCO 2004)

Network

Research

Fellowships

From producing open resources to use of open resources•Build capacity•Find evidence•Refine the issues

Theoretical perspective: socio-cultural

Theoretical perspective: socio-cultural

Evidence base(Interviews, surveys,observation, web stats, expert panels, focus groups)

Development(Resources, methods, tools, session types, interventions)

Trialing (Workshops & conferences, project partners)

Socio-cultural: mediating artefacts (MA) Range of educational mediating artefacts: help

find resources, to design a learning activity New technologies: greater range of MA and

new ways to connect and communicate A socio-cultural approach: helps articulate the

MA and look at the context of use – rules, community, division of labour, as well as look over time at the evolving system as user-practice changes and co-evolves with the technologies

Designer DesignHas an inherent

Learning activityor OERCreates

Mediating artefacts

Mediating artefacts1.Content: OER repositories like Openlearn2.Methods: Pedagogical patterns3.Visualisation: CompendiumLD, Cmap etc. 4.Sharing: Cloudworks site

Can we develop new innovative mediating artefacts?How can we make the design more explicit and sharable?

User – can now repurpose

Designer

OER

Design

Creates

Deposits

Deposits

Learner A

OER

DesignLearner B

Tutor

Chooses

UsesQuiz + beginners route

UsesQuiz + advanced route

Repurposes & deposits

Process designPrior designs & resources New designs

Content (OER repositories, etc)

Methods (Pedagogical Patterns)

New OER & designs

Visualisation (CompendiumLD)

Sharing (Cloudworks)

Objectives◦ Awareness of resources to support the design of OERs◦ Exploration of the value of pedagogical patterns and

learning design◦ Introduction to Open Educational Resources, Pedagogical

Patterns and Learning Design Format

◦ Thinking about design◦ Using visualisation to represent design ◦ Representing an OER as a visual design◦ Make the OER more collaborative◦ Evaluation and reflection

Activity◦ Think of a resource you created◦ Describe its inherent design◦ Share with neighbour◦ Discuss with the wider group

Findings◦ Variety of design representations◦ Poor understanding of how to design◦ Different personal preferencesDesign implicit, difficult to representDifferent representations highlights

different aspects of the designValue of visual representations

Think-pair-share pedagogical pattern

Introduction to the Task swimline representation

Exploration of a paper-based visual design

Demonstration of the CompendiumLD Tool for visualisating designs

Explore the introduction to social work practice OER (K113)

Represent the design of the OER visually using the CompendiumLD notation

Comparing the design representations ◦ Extract:

http://titan.tel.uva.es/wikis/yannis/images/2/29/K113-map1.jpg

◦ Extract: http://titan.tel.uva.es/wikis/yannis/images/0/06/K113-map2.jpg

Explore the collaborative pedagogical patterns Use the patterns to make an aspect of the OER

more collaborative

Understanding the value of representing designs

Using representations effectively in the design process

Communicating designs with others Interpreting other people’s representations

Patterns enabled them to think about combination of patterns to enrich the content

Added value in use of design patterns by novices to acquire design skills and domain knowledge

Design patterns acted as building blocks, providing users with a better understanding, adapting resources to context, making information accessible in multiple schemas and providing interoperable elements enabling different interpretations and patterns to be applied.

Many people involved but want to thank in particular:◦ Yannis Demitriadis – Olnet visiting professor◦ Patrick McAndrew - Director of OLnet◦ Elpida Makriyannis – Olnet researcher◦ Andrew Brasher – CompendiumLD developer

Funders◦ The William and Flora Hewlett foundation, the

JISC, the Open University for strategic funding

References Conole, G., and McAndrew, P. (2010), A new approach to

supporting the design and use of OER: Harnessing the power of web 2.0, M. Edner and M. Schiefner (eds), Looking toward the future of technology enhanced education: ubiquitous learning and the digital nature.

◦ Conole, G., McAndrew, P. and Dimitriadis, Y. (submitted), ‘The role of CSCL pedagogical patterns as mediating artefacts for repurposing Open Educational Resources’, in F. Pozzi and D. Persico (Eds), Techniques for Fostering Collaboration in Online Learning Communities: Theoretical and Practical

Sites◦ Olnet: http://olnet.org◦ OULDI: http://ouldi.open.ac.uk◦ Cloudworks: http://cloudworks.ac.uk◦ CompendiumLD: http://compendiumld.open.ac.uk◦