Towards New Modes for ICT-Supported Education

The first of the afternoon sessions this Saturday at the 2005 AoIR conference is on 'New Research and Learning Models'. The first paper is by Trena Paulus from the University of Tennessee and Vanessa Dennen from Florida State University.

Trena Paulus and Vanessa Dennen: New Approaches to Analysing Asynchronous Interaction

Their main interest is in asynchronous discussion environments in higher education. There still is a lack of definition of what learning actually means - there is a need to look at the group processes involved, which are very dynamic, rich, and almost mysterious in an online context. Learning is a collaborative knowledge building activity, and it is about becoming a member of a discourse community. Current studies show limited attention to context, as well as to the ebb and flow of the dialogue, however; current measures of participation give points for posts, which rewards presence but emphasises quantity over quality and the individual over the group.

Content analysis, on the other hand, can identify topics and their development, but it is difficult to operationalise process constructs (problem solving, higher order thinking skills), so that coding and counting procedures are simply not detailed enough. A further approach is structural and social network analysis. This emphasises participation and addresses role and power issues as well as interaction patterns, but it focusses only on one type of conversation (argumentation) as valid.

New directions, then, might look more closely at the context through micro-ethnography, looking at text as well as context of the interplay, and there is a need for richer or thicker descriptions which also take into account what students are told to do (not just what they do), and also investigates the timing of interactions (through timestamps) and can triangulate the study of content through other forms of study (surveys, focus groups, etc.).

It is important, then, to move to conversation analysis, taking into account speech acts and turn-taking, and discourse analysis, also investigating with a critical stance issues of gender, culture, and power, and looking at argumentation as only one of several modes (finding connections, questioning assumptions, exploration and negotiation of meaning, reflective practice, and storytelling). Trena now runs through an example of how an online conversation could be analysed using these tools, and concludes that assumptions embedded in the dialogue can only be understood in the context of the larger setting for the discussion.

Michelle Kazmer: The Effects of Community-Embedded Learning

Next up is Michelle Kazmer, also from Florida State University, presenting on the idea of community-embedded learning; this means that students are both physically located in and strongly tied to their communities, kinship networks, households, and workplaces. Michelle suggests the need for a new research strand, beyond first-generation Web-based online distance education, technology effects, and student experiences. Instead, there is a need to research e-learning and 'hybrid' learning models which go beyond the student themselves. Indeed, perhaps it is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of the educational setting; how do geography and social settings interact with learning?

Community-embedded learners are tied to local settings; they take online distance education courses and bring their new knowledge into the community in which they are known, which can create a variety of issues. Online learners also live in social worlds that are defined by communication, activity, technology, and space, and are embedded in local, physically proximate communities. But what are the ways in which people use technology to embed activity?

1. Using technology in familiar physical settings (mobile phone in car, laptop at the airport);
2. manipulating the physical environment with technology (central air conditioning, bluetooth music);
3. creating virtual space using mobile technologies, using a changing and changeable array of technologies to access ever-mutating virtual places from any physical location; and
4. using technology in familiar community settings (focus on the people, ethos, activity rather than on the space).

Some emergent facets of this include:

1. community-embedded information sharing and knowledge building, but not in formal educational contexts and not necessarily as the sole focus of the activity (community networking);
2. agenda-based community-embedded training, e.g. training professionals (e.g. teachers, pharmacists in anti-smoking campaigns) to carry out an action agenda within the community they serve); and
3. physically-embedded learning, that is, learning in hybrid spaces.

How is learning affected by this embeddedness, then? How are longitudinal learning, personal effects of learning, and the learner's career trajectory embedded? How will gatekeeping and recruitment by distance alumni shape the new student body? Are we looking at an increasingly fragmented and influenced society, or a far-flung Web of savvy intellectual curiosity? Will tunnel vision and a limited worldview result from this, affecting society and pedagogy?

Sally Robertson: Towards e-Learning for Canadian Health Care Managers

The next speaker is Sally Robertson from Curtin University of Technology in Perth, presenting a study based in British Columbia in Canada, however. The health industry in this province is a public industry and has been reshuffled a number of times, amalgamating health authorities ultimately to six which cover the entire province. This reshuffle has decreased the total number of health managers especially at the top level, but also introduced a new level of regional management. Corporate senior managers do not have to have a health background, however, which introduces immense communication problems. Further effects of the reshuffle has taken resources away from the frontline managers, who now had to acquire better financial and human resource management skills. Sally collected information from some 50 health care managers for her study.

While there is health management education available, this is often focussed on human resources and dealing with change; it is mainly classroom delivered and does not offer academic credit. At the same time, higher education does not focus on the changing complex industry and is not necessarily focussed on health management as such. Sally studied the level of training in a number of key competencies for health managers, and found a mixed picture - there was no formal education in 8 areas, some education in 6, and even in areas where there was training already there was an acutely felt need for further education (especially change management). The majority of managers had received distance and e-learning education; more females and younger staff had received such education. The classroom was also favoured, however, as a useful social and networking support structure.

There is a need, then, for an education strategy in the sector. This needs to be open to all managers, and provide managers with electronic education tools to identify quality education options and monitor and track learning activities. Further, recognition for formal and non-formal learning needs to be offered, and managers must have greater choice of options, with a greater e-learning component. This e-learning should include measures for knowledge-sharing in the health industry, especially for newcomers into the industry, and this must use simulation, modelling, and problem-solving tools, capture 'war stories' from the industry, and capture customer information. For experts, there is a need to develop a larger community of managers; at the moment, there is not even a sense of linkage within single health care regions.

The e-learning component must have many choices of formal and non-formal learning - it must have a blended, flexible nature. It must be focussed on the health industry, and on skills rather than qualifications (most of the managers already have a Masters anyway). There is a need for new partnerships between the industry and education providers.

This is crucial as there is a crisis in health manager recruitment and retention in Canada at present. Many managers are already talking about early retirement (and the average age is 45 anyway), and managers need a more responsive and resilient learning strategy which puts information at their fingertips; time and distance should not be a barrier to learning - therefore, a strong e-learning strategy is the answer, Sally suggests.

Andrew Whitworth: Polyphonic Approaches to e-Learning Development

The final speaker is Andrew Whitworth from the University of Manchester, speaking on what he calls the polyphonic design of e-learning. He notes that the Internet of course does penetrate many existing environments, including education and indeed the everyday activities in this field. How can educational researchers become sensitive to this fact, and how can they, users, and managers enable a transition from research into practice? This is a question of developing literacy, developing an understanding of these technologies in a higher education context.

As Andrew points out, Bates suggest that these changes will be less painful if they are accompanied by cultural change, and cultural change might be equated with a sense of organisational learning - so how do organisations learn their way through this technological change? There is a need for a theory of technological and cultural change which is sensitive to the changes wrought by ICTs and the Internet and addresses the explicit educational remit of these organisations.

Further, there is an increased division of labour: there are multiple stakeholders in learning environments who may be coming from different backgrounds (software designers, etc.), bringing new forms of knowledge. There is also an increasingly rapid pace of change, and a need for adaptability (there must not be monocultures offering only one solution to a problem; it is impossible to close the debate of what approaches are appropriate).

Noble makes a distinction between education and training: in the latter, the goals are set in advance and are predetermined by the trainers and or those who enact the training. In education, however, educators merely set the parameters, not the end result of education; this helps introduce adaptability, which is facilitated by critical thinking and in turn facilitated by education.

Bakhtin suggests a a theory of the everyday, of micropractices as communicative interactions; chronotopes explain why different perspectives matter - they shape utterances, although they can be transcended through interaction. Polyphony, then, is a theory of the creative process. Polyphony takes chunks of best practice and blends them together.

All utterances in a dialogue are potentially meaningful; how is it possible to head as many as possible? Polyphonic design does not develop a magical consensus, no giant convocation; instead it offers a discursive, ongoing, fallibilistic search (much as does open source software production) - chronotopes come together in dialogue and action, but this is not a matter of technique, but of environment.

Double-loop learning involves situated action and communication; expertise can be located and managed as a collective resource, successes can be shared, and others can be allowed to apply and modify lessons in their own chronotope (or context). Instead of being authorities, managers must accept that they can set the parameters for action but cannot control what happens in the field. Perhaps this can be seen as expensive or subversive, but only insofar that the imposition of specific end results by management is flawed and must be subverted. Polyphonic design has long standing in ICT development and epistemic communities; IT and education can learn what they have in common under this model.

This, the, extends the community of practice idea and critical reflection in the Internet age; it recognises the interpenetration of the Net and its technologies in academia, and enhances creativity by (re-)achieving a sense of ownership of learning environments.