From distance learning to open education: a changing landscape

EADTU Krakow, Poland, 2014

Alan Tait

Professor of Distance Education and Development The Open University UK

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From distance learning to open education: a changing landscape

Alan Tait Professor of Distance Education and

Development The Open University UK

Lost city of Dunwich

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• In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was the capital of the East Angles but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion. At its height it was an international port similar in size to 14th-century London.

All Saints Church Dunwich, 1832 and 1906

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To the right of the diagonal blue line: all gone!

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From correspondence education to distance education 1970-1980’s

• From private sector correspondence colleges to open universities

• From ICCE to ICDE 1982

• Change of language

• Open universities new powerful actors, pushing aside commercial correspondence colleges

• New landscape

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Dominance of Open Universities

• EADTU founded 1987

• Core members: Open Universities of Western Europe, 1 per country

• Open Universities the paradigm of innovation with technologies for learning

• Scale

• Access and quality

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The distribution of innovation: Dual mode institutions

• EDEN, founded in 1991

• ‘new Europe’, i.e. East, Central and West

• Dual mode and blended institutions

• All sectors, not just Higher Education

• Innovation seen as distributed

• Open Universities major players but not monopolies in ODL

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Neither distance nor campus, but TEL

• Association for Learning Technology

• Founded 1993 in UK • Conference; journal;

professional certification

• ‘Our purpose is to ensure that use of learning technology is effective and efficient, informed by research and practice, and grounded in an understanding of the underlying technologies, their capabilities and the situations into which they are placed’

• Online Educa • Founded 1995 • Education in all sectors;

employers; government ‘ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN is the event for learning professionals to discover innovative solutions, absorb new thinking and take action by implementing changes in the field of learning and technology’

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From Distance Learning to Open Education

• Via Open Learning (major discussion in 1989/1990) • ODL: Open and Distance Learning • E-learning • Web-based learning • Online learning • Mobile learning • Flexible learning • Distributed learning Then move out of ODL institutions post 2000 • TEL: Technology enhanced learning • OER’S, MOOCs, and Open Education

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From distance education to open education

• All campuses have learning management systems • Learning resources available on campus through LMS • Students on campus Email with lecturers • Assignments submitted electronically • MOOCs within modules • Learning decentred from campus • Edinburgh University and postgraduate students: aim

for postgraduate teaching parity of numbers of campus and distance in 10 years

• c. 100 of 160 UK Universities offer some Masters teaching online

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MOOCs from 2008: who stole our cheese?

• 2012 move out of pilot projects to major phenomenon • Scale innovation from research based universities such

as MIT and Stanford • Major MOOC platforms not from open universities • E.g. expertise in University of East Anglia MOOC • Painful for self-image of Open Universities:

-- ‘Access, pedagogy and completion are poor! ‘ – and – ‘How dare ‘conventional universities’ lead in innovation in

TEL?’ – FutureLearn and EADTU MOOC initiatives now reclaim

innovation

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Prisoners of our identity in ODL?

• But do Open Universities lead or follow with MOOCs?

• Dual mode institutions now focus of innovation in TEL?

• Or does digital revolution make divide old-fashioned?

• Has widespread ICT changed landscape of innovation in TEL?

• Language, power and landscape have changed

• Do we risk being prisoners of our identity in ODL?

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Mobile learning

‘gradually even the term ‘mobile learning’ will fall into disuse as it is increasingly associated with learning in a more holistic rather than a more specialized or peripheral sense’

UNESCO 2013, The future of mobile learning: implications for policy makers and planners, p 71

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ICT now ‘normal’

• From divide of ‘ODL’ and ‘Conventional’ institutions

• Smart phones, tablets and wifi • Decentering of learning from

place of study • Disembedding: living local,

national and international lives now the norm

• Searching and evaluating: Learning society more possible than ever

• Normalisation of digital media and TEL

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The landscape is changing

• Technology enhanced learning now everywhere, on campus as well as in ODL

• Lead in TEL not necessarily now in open universities

• Open Universities have won? Or lost?

• Open Universities have to rethink their ecological niche

• Professional associations based on ODL need to rethink place in landscape of TEL

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From Distance Learning to Open Education: changing landscapes

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‘Alles Ständische und

stehende verdampft’ ‘All that is solid melts into air’