MOOCs and open practices: an activity theory view Michael Glover

7 AprilPGDip Educational Technologies, guest lectureUniversity of Cape TownMichael.glover@uct.ac.za @mjgresearch

Research question

How do educators’ openness-related practices and attitudes change or not

change after teaching on/creating a MOOC?

http://roer4d.org/sp10-3-impact-of-oer-in-and-as-moocs-in-south-africa

What is a MOOC?

Massive (thousands of participants)

Open (no entry requirements)

Online (digitally mediated)

Course •6 week course, each week divided into steps•Videos, text, links, quizzes, peer-reviewed assignments

What is a Mind? Mark Solms

Those are photos of a MOOC!Show me a real MOOC…

https://www.futurelearn.com/

What are open practices?Beetham et al 2012Opening up content to students not on campus/formally enrolledSharing and collaborating on content with other practitionersRe-using content in teaching contexts Using or encouraging others to use open content Making knowledge publicly accessible Teaching learning in open contexts

What are open practices?Hodgkinson-Williams 2014(1) Technical openness – e.g. interoperability and open formats, technical skill and resources, availability and

discoverability.

(2) Legal openness – e.g. open licensing knowledge and advice.

(3) Cultural openness – e.g. knowledge (on a continuum between homogenous and diverse) and curriculum (on a

continuum between institutionalised and autonomous).

(4) Pedagogical openness – e.g. student demographics and types of engagement (who is the imagined audience? Is

it conventional or imagined as diverse contextually differentiated. e.g. pedagogic strategy (choices around how one

teaches and facilitates learning – dialogic, didactic, collaborative, experimental).

(5) Financial openness (should OERs be free or come with a modest financial price tag?).

What are open practices?1) Sharing - Sharing ideas, content, technology (through networks)- Reviewing, rating resources

2) Learner Inclusion- Modify resources to meet learner needs

3) Growing Open content commons

MethodologyQualitative

Activity theory (framework)

Semi-structured interviews, group interviews, reflection sessions

Artefact analysis

Longitudinal: just before MOOC is live, 10 months later

Coding themes with Nvivo 10

Link to annotated bibliography

MethodologyActivity Theory, Engëström 1987

Heuristic, conceptual frameworkObject-directed systemsSubjects strive towards and consider an objectLocate educators’ practices and perceptions in context of mediating artefactsTrack and describe the introduction of new mediating artefactsObserve the system at different time intervals (T1 T2 T3)Always characterised by tensions/ contradictions/ disturbancesContradictions: tensions or disturbances indicative of change, innovation or concernLocate opportunities for changeLink to poster illustration of AT and changing practices

Object: advancing interdisciplinary field

“my pedagogical goal always is how do I speak to two different

audiences at the same time. How do I make the neuroscience

accessible to the psychologists, and how do I make the life of the mind

accessible to neuroscientists.

I think that this MOOC is trying to do the same thing”

Object

Mediating artefacts1) MOOC designthe design of the MOOC, which includes the learning design aspect, and the MOOC platform characteristics

2) Creative Commons licences

Activity Systems

Activity Systems

Difference between Activity systems

1) Thousands of participants have entered the system

2) MOOC design and CC licensed materials now live and accessible

MOOCs and CC licences @ T1

None of the subjects were knowledgeable of CC licences or legal aspects of openness

I didn't know about MOOCs. I knew nothing about online learning. - MS

I’ve never done an online course before the MOOC, or before I knew about it – AD

But I think that there’s just been a dawning realisation that, you know, the ownership of this intellectual property is antithetical to what we are trying to do. We are not trying to own ideas, we are trying to disseminate ideas maybe. Trying to advance knowledge. So I think it is a jolly good thing and I don’t know why we never did it before and I am all for it

Findings @ T1Multimodal affordances

Act as a kind of textbook, where “readings and additional materials” can be “immediately accessible” (vs f2f)

“You can see little case studies, and read selected publications…and you could never do that as a mere human being (vs f2f)

Findings @ T1Sharing, reuse, opening up

“it’s more bang for your buck…once the material is there, once it’s open access, you can multiply [the] effect” MS (reuse, opening up, sharing)

there’s just been a dawning realisation that, you know, the ownership of this intellectual property is like antithetical to what we are trying to do. We are not trying to own ideas, we are trying to disseminate ideas… I don’t know why we never did it before and I am all for it(sharing, opening up, publicly accessible)

MOOC “reduces geographic and economic impediments to access” (opening up)

Findings @ T1Sharing, reuse, opening up So even if it wasn't the case and it's happening anyway, I would be keen on it happening. I like the fact that people can just use it however they like. (reuse)Various [recorded] lectures I have given all over the place… and to me it is no different from people sitting in the audience.. You are talking to people because you want to explain something and the more the merrier (sharing, publicly accessible, reuse)Summary: learn while working; avoid geographic and economic hurdles

Findings @ T1Teaching and Learning in open networks

what I did learn is talking… is trying to convey – this I've never done before – trying to convey really complicated material in seven minute chunks. That's something. And it can be done (Teaching and Learning in ON)

Findings @ T1Pedagogic openness strategy To ask what is a mind. That's a pretty good starting point. So it's a fundamental question which is not daunting, doesn't look too technical. Can be talked about in a way that's interesting. But then also it provides you with a point of entry into the more technical, complicated aspects (pedagogic openness)

So the idea is to sort of remove resistances by making it simple, conversational, and of general applicability. And then you have a platform from which you can gradually seduce people into learning the technical complexities of it (pedagogic openness)

Contradiction @ T1“we were a bit constricted by the fact that the material… not the content of, like, the videos, but the extra resources, that there is permissions and licensing and those sort of issues” AD“it would have been nice to include more things, but then we’re constrained by this, by possible licensing or copyright issues.” AD

Contradiction @ T1there wasn’t really much difficulty in terms of licensing because there wasn’t all that much, sort of, more published elsewhere, material. So it wasn’t, it didn’t pose too much of a problem. I mean the authors on the academic articles, they were very happy for it to be used, but it, you know, because it was, it’s published already, you know, that comes with its own thing, so. Even when the authors were very happy for it to be open, open source, you need, you have to take into account that there’s other people involved. But it didn’t, it wasn’t too much of a problem.

What happens 10 months later (T3) ?

Findings @ T3Advancing the field If …you have something to say, then obviously the more people that you can communicate it to the better….both in terms of influencing your field, in terms of spreading your knowledge. So it’s done very well, from that point of view. (object, T&l in open networks)

I'm referring to a wish to break down barriers in particular between the neuro sciences and the sort of softer approaches to psychology, psychoanalysis in particular. And I think it’s achieved that (object, T&l in open networks)

Findings @ T3Advancing the field

And at all of them…notwithstanding the variety of different subjects that those conferences are devoted to…I find large numbers of people who’ve done this course and who know it’s about…they mention the world neuro-psychoanalysis which I'm not sure that they would have come across otherwise (sharing, object, T&L in open networks)

really everywhere I go in the world I'm surprised at how many people A, have taken this course, and B, have appreciated it. (sharing, object, T&L in open networks)

Findings @ T3Teaching and learning in open networks

Because there are very few people in this specialised sub-field that I'm working in, neuro-psychoanalysis there are very few people who really can teach in that domain now. I mean, hopefully it will change in future. And those few of us that there are, we’re scattered around the world.. This has taught me, and encouraged me, to use online platforms for teaching people in and about that field. (T&L in Open networks, opening up)

it’s clearly getting a message across to those disparate audiences. Of a positive kind, regarding what neuro-psychoanalysis is

Findings @ T3Teaching and learning in open networksI think that to be able to explain your point of view to people who don’t share your educational background you really have to have clarity of thought in order to convey complex technical arcane things to a non-technical, non-specialist audience

In order to be able to speak to a massive audience of god knows what educational background, cultural background, what sort of assumptions and so on they come with, you have to really pare your ideas down to the core essential content

Findings @ T3Teaching and learning in open networksWhen you have to teach in that way, it clarifies your own thinking process. (pedagogic openness)

I'm aware that many people are about, you know, this dumbing down and this is not... It’s mass learning rather than personalised learning, and you know, there’s something lost in terms of the human contact and... I’m... Whatever doubts I might have had, if I did it’s a sufficient measure of how reassured I’ve been that I don’t even remember having the doubts. That I think it’s a jolly good thing (encouraging others)

there’s a hell of a lot of... A hell of a lot, I would say the vast bulk of what we do, especially at undergraduate level at the university, I don’t see why it can’t be done in this format. I don’t even see why it can’t be enhanced by this format. Or versions of this format. So I'm all for it. That’s speaking about it in general (NOT SURE if this is openness related)

Findings @ T3ReuseMark really liked the answers he gave for our Ask Mark sessions…he felt was really useful knowledge…to give to… the users of the site. Who are basically the same cohort that, you know, the same… he feels that his answers for the questions, for the Ask Mark sessions were too much of a good resource to waste. So he wants that included as well (T&L in open networks, reuse, sharing)

I was thrilled to not have to redo it (reuse)

What is Ask Mark ???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avE-TECsDYo&list=PLqSYUJvxD-UAWU4FKCCT9qivDRJiUP_TE&nohtml5=False

Findings @ T3ReuseSomething…you’ve recorded for one purpose can then be redeployed for another purpose…I think the word is viral…that’s something good, you’re supposed to be happy about. So if anything we’ve done goes viral, that would be great. (reuse)there are ways in which we’re now... That project, that Talking Heads project is taking an entirely different shape from what I originally had in mind, because of what we’ve learnt in the MOOC

He [a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona] used it as an introductory seminar for his psychiatry registrars. And he wrote rave reviews of how well it went. Really got them engaged in... Interested in the field, and engaged with an interesting topic, conversing with each other…So he was delighted with it (reuse)

Contradiction @ T3SP1 we had a guy in America, he’s a well known psychiatrist. He had signed up for the second run but he wanted to quit the course he was doing at the time and wanted to show the video to his students. So I was able to send him... So we have, we were in correspondence about that, and I was able to send him the videos so he could the videos to his students.SP2 Is this for the MOOC?SP1 Yes, because it was in between the two runs and...SP2 Okay. Okay.SP1 He wasn’t signed up for the first one, so he couldn’t access it and the second one hadn’t started yet. So...SP2 Okay.SP1 So, so that was a really cool aspect of having access, you k now, being able to send him those videos, and then... He did the MOOC when it actually came about.

ConclusionAdvancing the fieldInclude more learnersReal learning can take place Multimodal affordancesReuseLearn to communicate ideas better (teach)Future use at UCT?

ReferencesBeetham, H., Falconer, I., McGill, L. and Littlejohn, A. (2012) Open practices: briefing paper. JISC.

Engestrom, Yrjo. "Learning by expanding." Helsinki: Orienta-

Konsultit Oy(1987).

Hodgkinson-Williams, C. Degrees of ease: Adoption of OER,

Open Textbooks and MOOCs in the Global South OER Asia Symposium 2014.