Athabasca University have renamed their Master of Education in Distance Education (MEd DE) to be a Master of Education in Open, Digital and Distance Education (MEd ODDE). As I had graduated in 2017, I was able to pay a small fee to have my certificate replaced. This is the cheapest extra two letters I ever got after my name, but does this now make me Odd -e?
Athabasca is the only university I could find which has digital and open in the name of the degree. The use of "distance" seems a bit dated. The second "Education" in the name seems a bit redundant: perhaps "Learning" could replace the second one.
Modify existing free open source educational software to combine the features of Asynchronous and Synchronous learning delivery.
Current
learning management software provides delivery in one of two modes:
Asynchronous, where the student can use the materials in their own time
(example: Moodle), or Synchronous, where the students and instructor are
online at the same time (example: Big Blue Button).
An
approach has been proposed combining the features of both Asynchronous
and Synchronous in the one package: "... synchronization of the
asynchronous learning process ..." (Worthington, p. 619, 2013). This has
been investigated with a small proof-of-concept (Worthington & Wu,
2015). An attempt was made in a previous ANU group project to expand
this, but difficulties were experienced integrating Moodle and Big Blue
Button.
Tools have matured since 2015 and it is proposed to
make another attempt to build an Async-Sync Learning System (ASLS),
beginning with a simple use case:
"A teacher in the new ANU Collaborative Learning (CLE) Building
gives their class a set time to complete a quiz and then discuss it.
Students participating remotely via the ASLS complete the quiz at the
same time and take part in the discussion with the students in the room (synchronous mode).
After the class, the teacher presses "Publish" and the lesson recording
is made available to students who could not take part live. A student
watching the recording later (asynchronous mode) has the same
amount of time to complete the quiz as one in the live class. They can't
fast forward past the quiz to the discussion, until they completed the
quiz (due to the synchronization feature of the software).
After they complete the quiz, the student can contribute to the
discussion, and access what the other students who were in the room and
participating remotely live, or later, said."
Any
materials produced by the project will be under an open source license
available for free use. Students will have the option to enter the
project in the Innovation ACT competition and set up a company to
support the product.
References:
Worthington,
T. (2013, April). Synchronizing asynchronous learning-Combining
synchronous and asynchronous techniques. In Computer Science &
Education (ICCSE), 2013 8th International Conference on (pp. 618-621).
IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2013.6553983
Worthington,
T., & Wu, H. (2015, July). Time-shifted learning: Merging
synchronous and asynchronous techniques for e-learning. In Computer
Science & Education (ICCSE), 2015 10th International Conference on
(pp. 434-437). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2015.7250285
Aims
Investigate forms of learning delivery
Modify existing open source software to provide Asynchronous and Synchronous functions in the one package
Requirements
Experience with, or interest in, education would be an advantage.
e
Worthington, T. (2017). Digital Teaching in Higher Education:
Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology,
Innovation and the Environment. Lulu. com. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/digital_teaching/
A recent item in the journal Nature (Sharples, 2016) listed Athabasca University (AU) in Canada, as one of four institutions worldwide pioneering global open
education A few weeks ago I completed a Master of Education in Distance Education (MEd DE) at the AU Centre for Distance Education. I selected Athabasca because they have more than two decades of experience specializing in using e-learning to teach how to do global on-line education. Now I intend to use what I have learned to help move Australian Higher Education on-line by the end of the decade.
Being an International DE Student
The AU MEd took just over three years, part-time, entirely on-line. Mostly I completed one course per term, three terms per year. For two terms I did two courses at a time, but this was very hard work and not a practice I would recommend.
During my studies I created 2,291 files totaling 458 MB on my
laptop computer. In addition I created twelve Mahara on-line journals to record my private reflections: one for the program and one for each course, with about one hundred postings in each (1,200 postings in total, made up of about 100,000 words). Keeping a private journal was a good way to keep notes for use in contributions to course forums (which are assessed) and for my e-portfolio (discussed later).
While AU recommends the Microsoft Office suite, I found the free open source Libre Office was an adequate substitute. One paid application I found useful was the Grammarly grammar checker. AU also provided access to Moodle, where most course notes were provided, text based interactions took place and assignments were submitted. Access to Mahara was provided for preparing an e-portfolio (I also used Mahara for my private journals). Adobe Connect was provided for synchronous (real time) audio "webinars" and for presentation of the capstone e-portfolio. Moodle, Mahara and Connect were adequate. My wireless modem running (at times) at 256 kbps, was adequate to undertake the course.
Capstone e-Portfolio
In place of a conventional masters thesis, I completed a Capstone e-Portfolio using Mahara. This presents five artifacts, covering six
competency areas (as specified by Hoven, 2015):
In a webinar at the end of the program I presented my e-portfolio and then spent thirty minutes answering questions. This was a nerve racking process, much as it would have been in a face-to-face session.
Working with Students and Instructors On-line
For just over three years I worked on-line with Athabasca students, mostly in Canada, but also in Europe and Asia. I was the only Australian in my student cohort and at times it felt a little lonely. However, I had the pleasure of meeting two of my professors face-to-face, when they were a key part of international education conferences. Rory McGreal was a keynote speaker at ICOFE 2015 in Hong Kong. Agnieszka Palalas is President of the International Association for Mobile Learning (IamLearn), which ran mLearn 2016 in Sydney.
Courses
The MEd requires all students to complete five core courses (from MDDE601 to 605), then electives or research/thesis courses. I chose electives about open, mobile and international education, as well as program evaluation and ending with the required e-portfolio capstone (in place of a dissertation):
Unlike Australia masters programs, which segregate "coursework" and "research" students, all AU MEd students first enroll in a common program, undertake core courses and only then choose a thesis (research) or e-portfolio (coursework). I started with the intention to do quantitative research. However, after completing the core courses, I decided on project-based coursework (as discussed in my e-portfolio).
During my studies, the program changed to incorporate a larger
capstone electronic portfolio. This changed from being something tacked on the end of the program, to a semester long course in itself. As one of the students during the transition, I had the choice of either option. Fortunately I chose the full course option, as preparing an e-portfolio proved to be surprisingly difficult. AU is still refining this process, and more scaffolding (treating the e-portfolio as a series of assignments) I suggest would help.
Results
One of the most useful aspects of the AU MEd was studying while also working in the field. Like my fellow students I am an experienced teacher and could not only bring that experience to the courses, but also immediately apply what I was learning. As part of the MEd, I updated my ICT Sustainability course, designed an on-line innovation course. Also I produced two conference papers (on e-learning for Asia and a new e-learning paradigm).
Part of studying in this way is the increased confidence which comes from learning by doing. I have been able to help students preparing their e-portfolios for ANU Techlauncher. program, as not only had I learned the education theory, but also prepared an e-portfolio in practice.
My intention is to continue to put what I have learned into practice, helping Australian universities move their education on-line, using group work, peer assessment, and e-portfolios.
Re-skilling Academics for e-Learning
Most higher education in Australia will, I suggest, be provided via some form of e-learning by the late 2010s. This is not suggest that classrooms and campuses are obsolete, but that most students will study by blended learning, with the blend about 80% on-line and 20% in a classroom. The difficult part of this transition will not be technology: Australia and New Zealand are world leaders with the Moodle learning management system and Mahara e-portfolio package (both available free).
The problem is to educate tens of thousands of academics in effective teaching techniques and to convince more senior academics that this is a valid form of education. I hope to be able to assist with this, by having teaching recognized as a specialization for computer professionals, so we can then lead the e-learning revolution.
ps: Suggestions for Improving the MEd
The Athabasca University MEd (DE) courses were very similar in format to the on-line courses I had taken at USQ and run for the Australian Computer Society and ANU. To this AU added the capstone e-portfolio. This format works well for students who are mature, motivated career professionals.
I suggest the AU MEd could be improved by:
Four terms a year:
Doing more than one course at a time greatly increases the difficulty
of study. To increase the rate of completion, I suggest four terms a
year. Having a long "summer" holiday makes little sense for working
part-time students around the world.
Quizzes: Learning management systems have provision for automated quizzes. These are useful to help the student learn the basics. A quiz each week for a small number of marks (1%) helps keep students studying.
Peer Assessed Forums:
Having a small amount of marks (10%) for student contributions to forums
is useful. However, this is a burden for instructors to mark. I suggest
having peer assessment using the in-built LMS feature for this.
Allow Instructors to Update Materials: Minor corrections will need to be made to course materials during a course, particularly correcting broken hypertext links. Instructors should be given access to the LMS to make these changes without having to refer them to administrative staff.
Use e-Portfolio in All Courses: An e-portfolio is a powerful learning technique, but one which is very difficult to master. I suggest having the students start on e-portfolios in the introductory
course, including the practice of peer review. This then could be used in all courses.
Address MOOCs: The MEd syllabus concerns conventional on-line distance education courses. There needs to be some mention of other formats, particularly MOOCs. Instructional designers need to learn how to face the question of: why do we need you to design and run a course when we can get a MOOC for free?
Introduce Assessment: What is an "average" grade needs to be explained to students. This is so students, particularly international students, can have reasonable expectations.
Scale Fees: Athabasca's fees for international students are less than an Australian student pays for a domestic Australian program. Increasing the fees, where a student can afford to pay, would allow the university to pay for more instructor time and also help ensure the financial viability of the institution. Athabasca already has a form of fees for different regions, with students from Greece and Eastern Europe paying a lower rate for the course through the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology.
Greetings from the the University of Technology Sydney, where Professor Anthony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, speaking on "Learning to Improve: Sustainable Improvements in Learning Systems". He started by talking about the provision of a public water supply in New York City, claiming that "nothing like this had ever been done before" (which seems an exaggeration as the Romans had a public water supply thousands of years ago). This was used as an analogy for education, saying that that needs a similar large scale public effort. Professor Bryk suggests looking to manufacturing, services design, health-care for inspiration to improve education. Given the problems being experienced in US manufacturing and health-care, these would be the last places I would look to for good examples.
Australia has a state based, nationally funded, school system. It seemed to me that Professor Bryk should be giving this talk in the USA, where they do not have a coordinated education system, not in Australia where we do. I suggest Professor Bryk should first look to the education systems of other countries not manufacturing or health care in the USA.
In contrast Australia needs to look at the US education system to work out what not to do. One example is the problems with student loans in the USA, a problem which now occurring in Australia with VET diplomas.
