Enhancing learning through good design

Tom Boyle

Learning Technology Research Institute (LTRI)

London Metropolitan University

ICT 2010, Singapore July 1 2010

Design for learning in the 21st century

What is the problem?

Everthing has been thought of before,

The difficulty is to think of it again

Goethe

Learning in a period of rapid and repeated

change that affects both the means and goals of

learning

What should be learned…?

What changes and what remains deeply the same ..? …

How do we foster this learning?

Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world

Archimedes

Where do we stand in order to apply these levers in education? What knowledge and skill do we need?

Levers

A place to stand

ICT provides the levers to move the world of the

21st century

We need a deep and sound pedagogical base to ground ourselves in the use of the

new technologies

How can we enhance learning through design that

effectively uses ICT?

Different levels at which design for learning can be focused (Autodesk

Model)

Reusable learning objects

Effective media mix: visualization

Dynamic visualization of muscle action

Active learning with effective media mix

Language games

Games to encourage engagement

Interactivity

Interacting with music for non musicians

Delivery on mobile phones

Some design principles

Appropriate and effective use of media– use the natural blend of media to suit the learning

task– visualization, including dynamic visualization– making the abstract concrete and familiar

Interactivity

– quality of the interaction for learning

User control

Design for reuse

Agile Development of Learning Resources

The Process of Designing

Developing multimedia learning objects

‘Agile’ development

Small groups

Tutor (learners) and developer

Driven by learner needs

Workshops

Iterative prototyping

Evaluation

Boyle T. et al.(2006) An Agile method for developing learning objects. Proceedings

of the 23rd Annual ASCILITE conference

The birth of a learning object

www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk

CETL for Reusable Learning Objects

‘Learning design’

at the lesson level

Repositories of “Inspirational" lesson plans and supporting

materials

‘Executable’ lesson/activity

plan

http://aragorn.scca.ecu.edu.au/tsldb/

LAMS: Learning Activity Management System

LAMS creates "digital lesson plans" that –– are ‘executable’– can be run online

with students, – stored online and

shared among teachers

IMS-LD “inspired” James Dalziel

Transforming a course

Facilitating the process of designing

Viewpoints project

LDSE

Learning Design Support Environment Aims to create a toolset for pedagogical planning at

the course and session levels Led by Diana Laurillard at the Institute of Education Attributes economic and pedagogical values to various

teaching decisions Provides suggestions to teachers Reuse of open educational resources (OERs) Reusable design ‘frames’ + OER (content)

Articulating the relationship between design and ‘learning

object’

Learning design revisited

Three problems with learning objects

Successful educationally

but

Limitations in productivity

Weak support for repurposing and local adaptation

Successful designs are implicit and not easily available for reuse

Generative learning objects (GLOs)

The basis for reuse should be the pedagogical design rather than ‘content’ of the learning object

This gives a tremendous increase in productivity

A richer basis for reuse

Allows local tutors to repurpose learning objects to meet their local needs and preferences

– including international adaptation

GLO Maker 2 Demo

www.glomaker.org

glomaker.wetpaint.com

http://www.glomaker.org

GLO Maker 2

Design for Learning in the 21st century

Broader ecological world view

Creating effective, reusable learning designs

The process of designing

Capturing and reusing learning designs

Need to find better ways of representing, exchanging and reusing learning designs

Need to articulate more clearly a model of how designs at each layer relate to each other

Finally, if this all seems a bit too structural

Good design works … and is deeply aesthetically satisfying

… design is also about beauty

Questions?