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Stuart C Berry
Camosun College Business Faculty&
Doctoral Candidate - Athabasca University
May 5, 2011
Enhancing Learning Environments:Making course archives available for current and
future learning
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Enhancing Learning Environments:
Making course archives available for current and future learning
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Evolution of an Existing Online CourseFrom One Iteration to the Next
Course Iteration 1 Course Iteration 2
Course Materials Course materials
Assignments Assignments
Class Contributions
The Course Archive
Start with clean environment
Removed - LostRemoved - Lost
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Enhancing Learning Environments:
Making course archives available for current and future learning
How can we capture, use, and reuse
artifacts contained within course archives
created as a result of the ongoing
interaction of learners within networked,
online learning environments?
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Questions to Frame This Presentation
•As a student would you use an archive, built over
time, by former students/faculty in your course?
•How might you see yourself using such an archive?
•How useful would an archive be to you?
•What barriers can you see in using or
accessing an archive?
Defining Terms
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Artifacts
Artifacts are everything that is recorded and
captured as a result of the interactions of all of
the participants of the online course.
Artifacts includes contributions from the teacher,
learners, and all materials brought into the
learning environment.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Artifacts
Artifacts can include threaded discussions, files
including assignments or external objects, blog
postings, synchronous and asynchronous
conversations.
This includes items added in current or past
sections of a course.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Archive
An archive is a non-linear repository.
Artifacts contained in an archive are not necessarily
held within a single location.
An archive is an overarching term encompassing a
themed but disconnected group of objects.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Archive
An archive is an organic and evolving repository
of artifacts that becomes a dynamic part of a
course.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Archive
The nature of an online learning environment
generally determines the location and relationship
of the artifacts within the archive.
Structured environment “LMS”
Versus
Open environment “Social Networked or Mediated”
Theoretical Foundation
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Knowledge creation: A means of generating
competitive advantage
Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory
… including Ba, the place or space within which tacit
understandings are shared (Nonaka and others)
Tacit and Explicit Knowledge (Polanyi)
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory:
…maps out different paths by which organizations
create and capture the process of knowledge
generation.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Organizational knowledge creation theory:
…examines the processes inherent in knowledge
creation including elements believed necessary to
support the generation of new knowledge while
ensuring that these knowledge processes become
embedded in the organization allowing for continued
knowledge growth and development.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Organizational knowledge creation theory:
“A central purpose of organizational knowledge
creation theory is to identify conditions enabling
knowledge creation in order to improve innovation
and learning” (Nonaka, von Krogh, & Voelpel,
2006, p. 1185).
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Organizational knowledge creation theory:
The use of course artifacts by current and future
learners is potentially an enabling condition for the
development of knowledge and the related
processes supporting knowledge creation in the
online classroom.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Theoretical Foundation of Study
Examine the process of knowledge creation in online
learning environments
Can this theory be applicable within another domain?
i.e. From management to education
Research Questions
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Questions - Summary
• How can an online archive support knowledge
creation and the learning process?
• What value can an online archive offer learners?
• What are the potential challenges to the access
and use of the archive?
Research Methodologyand Environment
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Model
Design-Based Research – a qualitative study
Based on work by Herrington, McKenney, Reeves and Oliver, (2007)
Four Stage Approach: (Anderson, 2005; Bannan-Ritland, 2003)
•Informed exploration
•Enactment
•Evaluation within a local context
•Development of design principles
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Model
The design-based research model supports
interventions in existing environments with the intent
of developing new theories and practices to influence
learning and teaching in natural settings (Barab &
Squire, 2004).
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Environment
The Intervention:
Redesign elements of two consecutive sections of an
online Master’s course. Alter course to have learners
use content of an existing two year course archive
held within a bounded social networked learning
environment (ELGG**) and add their artifacts in the
process.
(** an open source social networking platform)
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Environment
ELGG
(an open source social networking platform)
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Environment
ELGG
A social networked learning environment providing:
A sense of security
A sense of bounded openness
Access Controls
Control is in the hands of the user
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Environment
Access Controls
Research Themesand Challenges
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research ThemesInitial Broad Themes
Supporting Knowledge Creation• A resource of common examples• Support for those willing to spend the time
and look at the archive beyond the course assignments
Value of the Archive• Must have direct and tangible benefit
Challenges to the Use of the Archive• The course structure and assignments• The learning environment
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
•Research proposal did not originally anticipate
issues related to the learning environment (a
learning management system (LMS) versus a
socially networked learning environment). The
only available choice for the study of the use of a
course archive was through a social networked
learning space. The LMS was not designed to
house and reuse an archive.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
•It appears that we have acculturated learners in
terms of online learning environments through the
use of LMS’s and learners are greatly challenged by
the structure of the social networked learning
environment. (familiar vs unknown)
•At times learners appear lost and disoriented
and repeatedly express concern over the efficacy of
the networked learning environment.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
•A challenge to get students to engage with the
archive so that they can begin to understand it and
its relation to them and their learning. (Issues such
as time, perceived value, and the relationship of the
contributions of unknown learners/non-experts to
the learning environment).
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
•There is an apparent disconnect between
seeing the potential value of the archive from a
distance versus actually spending time in the
archive and getting to know what it contains and
how it can be of value to the learner. (The archive
perceived as a great idea but not accessed
because??)
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
•A tendency to search for answers (a quick fix)
versus looking for thinking or process in the archive.
•Limited understanding of protocols for tagging
and subsequent searching.
•Even at the graduate level there is the
appearance that the course is more about doing the
assignment and moving on and less about the process
of learning.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
Attitudes toward the archive
•I want to figure things out myself: I want to learn
on my own and don’t want to be influenced by the
processes of those who went before.
•I think time becomes a quintessential piece of the
puzzle… but keeping up with the 30 odd students
in my own cohort leaves little time to reflect on
what ghosts have said.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research Challenges
The archive has targeted value as long as the time
spent results in a direct benefit to the learner in the
course.
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Research ChallengesDeveloping New Theories and Practices
What elements are needed to build a course that
contains a meaningful archive that has a high ease-
of-use factor, is searchable/accessible, and contains
evidence of the tacit and explicit understandings of
learners and ultimately supports learners as they
learn from those who went before?
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Future Online CoursesFrom One Iteration to the Next
Course Iteration 1 Course Iteration 2
Course Materials Course materials
Assignments Assignments
Class Contributions
The Course Archivea living resource
Dynamic, Growing, Evolving
The Use and Value of an Online Archive
Developing New Theories and PracticesComing Full Circle……..
•As a student would you use an archive, built over
time, by former students/faculty in your course?
•How might you see yourself using such an archive?
•How useful would an archive be to you?
•What barriers can you see in using or
accessing an archive?
Enhancing Learning Environments:Making course archives available for current and
future learning
Thank You --- Questions? Discussion?
Stuart C Berry
May 5, 2011
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