The Ecology of Distributed Education

Professor Frank Rennie

Lews Castle College UHI

www.slideshare.net/frankrennie

Complex Adaptive System

• Dispersed interaction• Absence of a global controller• Cross-cutting hierarchical

organisation• Continual adaptation• Perpetual novelty• Far-from-equilibrium dynamics

Complex Adaptive System

Complex Adaptive System

The internet at a moment of timeen

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Stability Domains

We often fall back into familiar areas of “stability”

Stability Domains

The Managed Online Learning Environment is emerging as one form of a Stability Domain

Self Organisation

Self Organisation

Similarities with the personalisation of learning

Complex System Cycles

Growth

Equilibrium

Dissolution

Reorganisation

Complex System Cycles

Images from: commons.wikimedia.org and flickr.com/photos/mpolla/282496506/

So, what’s new?How do we learn?

We see

We listen

We discuss

We do

Learning Communities

Third Places

Learning Communities

Learning Communities

TrustReliabilityCompatibilityContext

Learning Communities

Feedback LoopsConstant fine-tuning and learning by taking decisions

SupportiveDiagnostic

Opportunities for further study

Build on stability domainsLayer the nodes of resources

Personalised Learning

Fit the course to the student, not the student to the course

Elgg Personal Learning Environment

How far is too far?

Levels of Course Networking0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

Delivered at one site Fully networked

Seven levels of networking:

1) Common Core Frameworks and Local Options agreed

2) Common Assessments and Assessment Strategy Agreed

3) Common Core Teaching Materials shared and developed

4) Learning and Teaching within an Academic Partner blended using ICT and face to face

5) Common delivery schedule agreed

6) Cross teaching of selected/ all modules

7) Learning and Teaching materials wholly online/ distance, with local facilitator support

UHI Network Learning Audit and Planning Guide, 2005

Rural Sustainability

• Reduced travel costs and travel time• Less environmental impact• Local economic multiplier• New social networks & diversity• New intellectual & economic skills• Higher quality of life perceptions• Retention/attraction of skilled citizens

Graduation with a university degree

Trends and

Troubles

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Trends

http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/11/the-lamb-formula-good-enough.html

DigitalNetworkedOpen

Troubles• “Pick-and-mix” superficiality of “courses”• Tensions between Open and Closed resources• Tensions between Teaching and Learning• People problems – Old Habits Die Hard • New Technology versus Old Etiquette• Copyright, Amazon, and Lateral Thinking• Questions on the “half-life” of knowledge

Lessons Learned

• Increasing user (learner) control• Clear learning guidelines are required• Need to encourage inter-activity• The need to apply contextual relevance• Education for what…? Whose standards?• The importance of an educational

facilitator actually increases.

Key Concepts for online learning (amazon.co.uk)

View this presentation again atwww.slideshare.net/frankrennie