No abstract
New technologies that influence how information is created and shared and how people connect and socialize hold promise for adoption in education. Much like the idea of a book necessitated the development of the library or the idea of structured curriculum and domains of knowledge produced classrooms, the idea of the Internet -distributed, social, networked -influences the structure of education, teaching, and learning. Educators and researchers face a challenge in determining how the existing education system will be influenced and the new roles that will be expected of learners, teachers, and administrators. Information-centric fields such as journalism have struggled with the new democracy of information creation for over a decade. The music industry continues to grapple with access issues and the "unbundling of the album" initiated by Napster and firmly entrenched by iTunes. Telephone companies face an uncertain future as Skype, Google Voice, and other web-based communication services increase in popularity. Essentially, the Internet has remade how society creates and shares content and how people communicate and interact.The implications for education are significant. Educators have explored the role of the Internet as a research and learning tool for several decades. In the late 1990s, social network services (e.g., Friendster) and easy publishing tools (such as blogs) increased the ability for anyone with an Internet connection to both publish and engage in online conversations. Since that time, we've experienced a decade of amazing innovation in social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter), in openness movements (open source, open access), in mobile technologies (mobile phones, iPads), in the growth of broadband, in gaming, in multimedia (YouTube, podcasts), and in new tools that blend the physical and virtual worlds (location-based services such as Foursquare and Groupon, augmented reality, "internet of things"). The next article by Rita Kop, "The Challenges to Connectivist Learning on Open Online Networks: Learning Experiences during a Massive Open Online Course," contrasts the potential of learning in open and social networks with the reality of literacies, autonomy, and skills of learners as evaluated in a large online course. In order for connectivism to make an impact beyond a small cluster of heavy web-users, skills, literacies, and competencies will need to be defined and developed. Implementing a new approach to learning requires acknowledging and addressing numerous challenges and frustrations on the part of learners. InternationalIn "Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0," Roy Williams, Regina Karousou, and Jenny Mackness explore the conditions and ecologies that best enable self-organized learning to occur. Their emphasis of the impact of learning ecologies on existing educational practices is an important consideration. Existing practices are systemically embedded. How can institutions move from monolithic systems to learning ecologies?Diego Ernesto Leal Fonseca, in "EduCamp Col...
Editorial -Volume 15, Issue Number 2 Nn OnlineCourses Rory McGreal Co-Editor, IRRODLThis spring edition of IRRODL begins with several articles describing open educational resources (OER) followed by some financial considerations and a MOOC investigation.These papers will also be included in the OERKnowledgeCloud, which is supported by the UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning/International Council for Open and Distance Education Chairs in three countries. (I am one of them.) For those readers, who are interested in OER and MOOCs, I would recommend that they visit this repository of more than 600 research articles and reports on issues of relevance to researchers in the field. These are followed by papers on student interaction and support as well as synchronous and asynchronous learning. The later articles investigate blended learning, educational research, and the mobile cloud. MOOCs can be seen as a development emerging from the OER movement. In his blog mining analysis of MOOCs, Chen highlights some of the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure sustainability. In contrast, Marty, focuses on monetizing distance education, with fieldwork analyzing the cultural evolution of a French educational institution from a "public good" mandate to a commercial orientation.The next topic includes the themes of interactivity and student support. Wang et al.provide us with a framework for analyzing interaction within a connectivist paradigm with four levels (operation, wayfinding, sensemaking, and innovation). Barberà et al. This edition is rounded off with two articles. Teräs and Herrington, using an iterative design and rapid prototyping, show how this helps to "refine design principles" for an authentic elearning programme. Wang et al. provide us with a case study of mobile learning using cloud computing in a higher education institution.The notes sections include a critique of MOOCs by V. Dolan followed by a book review by T. Anderson. Mass Customization of Education by an AbstractOne of the claims the OER movement makes is that availability of (open) digital learning materials improves the quality of education. The promise is the ability to offer educational programs that take into account specific demands of the learner. The question is how to reach a situation where a customized demand can be met using OER with acceptable quality against acceptable costs. This situation resembles mass customization as is common in industry for several decades now. Techniques from an industry where an end product is assembled with the demands of the customer as a starting point can be translated to the field of education where courses and learning paths through a curriculum are assembled using a mixture of open and closed learning materials and learning services offered by an institution. Advanced IT support for both the modeling of the learning materials and services and a configurator to be used by a learner are necessary conditions for this approach.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.