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Perspectives on Pro-D

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what we mean when we talk about professional development, especially when we talk about it in the context of higher education (or post-secondary education). As a long-time edu-consultant, I’ve been in a kind of ongoing flow of PD throughout my career; sometimes that PD was formal and credentialled but often it was open, self-directed and visible through my practice or open sharing. I’ve been involved in helping faculty, staff and students learn more effectively with and through technologies. I’ve often wondered at the lack of consistent approaches to PD and varying reasons given by faculty, administrators and technology staff as to why everyone is not more ‘digitally literate.’

A recent research report (Summer 2020) by Professor George Veletsianos and colleagues offers some insights derived from a careful analysis of narrative comments in data collected by annual surveys (2017-2019) conducted by the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association (CDLRA). (Note: a brief summary of findings is available on Veletsiano’s blog Institutional Perspectives on Faculty Development for Digital Education in Canada.) 1

Although the report’s findings and suggested actions are often derived from a relatively small number of responses to the pan-Canadian surveys, they are supported by some significant prior research papers or publications. As I finished reading the paper I was not surprised to learn that the digital education PD training was handled differently across the country, that it wasn’t always available to non-faculty, and that faculty was often perceived to be uninterested in teaching online.

The recommendations for action included finding ways to change the institutional culture to support and reward or recognize ongoing PD and to collaborate with other institutions to offer some types of digital education, accessible to all (the paper specifically mentioned the efforts of BCcampus and eCampusOntario in this regard). While it is useful to have such a thorough analysis of Canadian educational institutions (thanks to the work of the relatively new CDLRA) and the recommendations are useful, I think that they didn’t go far enough in encouraging collaborative PD options through a focus on Openness.

I have been an enthusiastic participant, consumer, producer and practitioner in many open educational opportunities over the years (despite being on the outside of formal options through higher education). And, luckily for me, we live in a province where the government supports an organization like BCcampus and they, in turn, provide so many Open options and offer me ways to share my enthusiasm for Open with others.

During this final week of January we (I’m co-facilitating with my colleague Gina Bennett) are offering a FLO MicroCourse – Open Options to Enrich your Career. Gina has been exploring and participating in Openness for longer than I have and in different directions so we’ve had a lot of fun pooling our resources and experiences in open learning and practices. I’ll be blogging and tweeting any highlights or issues that catch my eye and interest and, better still, after we’re done, BCcampus will convert the resources and basic learning structure into a freely available OER on SCoPE.

1 The paper is open access: VanLeeuwen, C.A., Veletsianos, G., Belikov, O. Johnson, N. (2020).  Institutional perspectives on faculty development for digital education in Canada. The Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 46(2), 1-20. https://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/27944

More perspectives on professional development in higher education – https://www.veletsianos.com/2020/04/07/a-canadian-national-effort-in-online-education-pd-not-content/

An appy ending inspires renewed focus on openness

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So much for end of the year reflective posts – I’ve been in full-immersion workshop development since Christmas and then digging out from under a nasty cold – so here’s my mid January “looking back – looking forward” post for 2017!

I’ve always been curious about and involved (at some level) in open practices – from participating as a learner in open educational MOOCs, to blogging and presenting and teaching about open education, open learning and sharing of resources to, finally, exploring what it means to teach more openly.

Looking Back

12 apps featured by BC event

This last fall (2016), I was lucky enough to work with an amazing team (Leva Lee, ETUG and Clint Lalonde, BCcampus) to put together the first Canadian (West Coast!) iteration of the popular, free, open licensed, UK-event “12 Apps of Christmas.”  As I’ve written in other posts, I participated in four different 12 Apps events from the UK last year and had so much fun – and learned lots too. The original event was developed by Chris Rowell and Andy Horton of Regents University London in 2014.

Our BC-based event was the result of individuals and teams from different educational institutions around BC; each day featured a different free mobile app, explaining how to get it, sharing ideas of how it might be used in teaching, and posing a brief, fun challenge to encourage people to try the app. We had 194 email subscribers and I spoke to several people who were grateful that the site (http://12appsofchristmas.ca/) and the microlessons would remain available as they planned to explore when time allowed.

Other “open” explorations last year:  I joined the BC Open Educational Practices group coordinated by Rosario Passos (on leave from BCIT) of BCcampus. Primarily a group of instructional designers who are interested in promoting open practices and the creation and use of open educational resources in BC higher education, it’s been interesting but a little slow to coalesce. As everyone is so busy, we’re lucky to have Rosario to keep us connected and share all kinds of interesting events in the “open” universe.

I also kept up with maintaining a Scoop-IT page – FLO Learning – to capture and share open events internationally that I find interesting and contributed to and maintained the FLO Harvest Wiki, a collection of tools, readings, artifacts, etc. from repeated offerings of Facilitating Learning Online. Although FLO is not fully open, the resources are open licensed by BCcampus and hosted on the SCOPE site.

Looking Forward

So what’s ahead for my open practices explorations for the coming year? Maybe it’s best to just focus on the immediate future – I’m about to pilot a four week FLO-Design workshop for BCcampus. As with the foundation FLO, the resources will be open licensed and available once we complete the review and edits suggested by the pilot. I’m going to be blogging about some of my teaching intentions and lessons I learn as we proceed. I planned to share my designs as they evolved but they were really too messy to be of any great interest; part of teaching in the open seems to be to find the time to share what you are doing in a way that is digestible – takes time I just don’t have right now.

As soon as we’re launched I’m signing up for an open educational practices course from The Open University. I’ll report back on what I’m learning and whether it changes my thinking about what it means to teach in the open.

And I’ve discovered the rich goodness that is UBC’s http://open.ubc.ca/ site. I was drawn there to explore the stories from people who have taught in the open; and I started poking around. I can hardly wait to explore the challenges – more blog posts coming and maybe some OERs on my website!

I’ve also made a commitment to get more comfortable with the Confluence wiki we’re using for the BCOEP group. They’ve started up a couple of initiatives I think I can contribute too. Some of my first blog posts are going to be about finding ways to maintain a streamlined open publishing process so I don’t lose myself in the maelstrom of opportunities 😉

So, ‘appy New Year and good luck to all for 2017.

Sylvia

 

‘appy holiday fun…

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It's been a12apps UBrightonn 'appy time (yuck-yuck 😉 and I've learned a lot over the last couple of weeks – and had fun doing it! Thanks to the energetic, thoughtful teams at the Dublin Institute of Technology (#12appsDIT), Regents University London (#RUL12AoC), and University of Brighton (#12brightapps) for the engaging activities, clear instructions, and great ideas around how to use mobile apps to personalize and energize learning and make teaching more interesting.12apps RegentsU London

Although I didn't participate as much as I would have liked, I've discovered a few apps I hadn't heard of (or tried) and I'm inspired to try a similar approach in an open community of practice (SCOPE https://scope.bccampus.ca/) we've just set up around online facilitation. So great to see that the 12 apps of Christmas materials are open licensed. Although our Facilitating Learning Online workshops are only open to registrants, the materials are always open licensed. Our new CoP will be open licensed as well (although the BCcampus open license allows for commercial uses, unlike the UK version)BlogImage425

I did some further reading about the 12 apps of Christmas workshop and found that six UK institutions participated (see The six 12 apps of Christmas spreadsheet – http://bit.ly/1Zhy5cp.) While Brighton and Regents used the same basic structure (established by Regent'sU in 2014?) The Dublin Institute of Technology got more creative. Each institution selected 12 apps (lots of variety although there was soe overlap) and provided short tasks (to encourage you to explore the potential uses of each app) as well as hosting discussions (on web boards and through Twitter) on potential pedagogical issues and uses. The value for me was primarily due to their focus on the educational value of each app but I also found the variety of tasks, explanations and approaches to each day very inspiring.

The basic structure of 12 apps of Christma (for any of you thinking of following suit next Christmas season) is:

Part 1:
  • What is it?
  • What can it do?
  • Download link and instructions
  • 10 Minute Task
  • And Finally… (some Christmas humour ??!)
Part 2:
  • Discussion Board and/or Twitter with starter questions (directed at ways to use this in education):
e.g., Try to think up ways that iMovie (or Video Maker Pro Free) could work for you in your classrooms and lecture theatres? How would you use it? Recording student-presentations? Oral-Exams? Short video demonstrations that you can use to “Flip” your classroom?
Part 3:
  • Further Task(s)
  • Useful resources

Some highlights from the three that I followed this year:

I thought Regent's University did a good job of providing a clear, comprehensive and consistent presentation each day and I found they had the best selection of Useful Resources. I've got hours of additional exploration and some potentially really useful ideas from these sections. My favourite Regent's app was WhatsApp – lots more exploring to do with that app!

e.g., Useful Resources (Instagram)

I appreciated the effort that University of Brighton's team put into offering separate tasks and apps for participants from outside their institution (and outside of the UK). Thanks to all of you for being so inclusive. I also appreciated the many embedded, annotated illustrations and the thorough explanations of the tasks for each app. My favourite UofBrighton app was ExplainEverything.

It was pretty much a tie between Regent's and Brighton as to who posted the sickest (funniest?) jokes. I've been regaling friends and colleagues with them (inflicting?) since this started. Thanks for the smiles (and chuckles) you generated – laughter may be the best medicine but it also keeps learners engaged (at least this learner).

I found the Dublin Institute of Technology's unwrapping apps icons the most visually appealing and their zoho unwrapapp_iconsite was very easy to use and navigate. They broke with the structured approach I described above and focused on personalized learning – using the VARK framework to explore the day's app from the perspective of a Visual Learner, an Auditory Learner, a Read/Write Learner and a Kinesthetic Learner.

Although I'm not a big fan of learning styles, in this case the framework provided a structured way to explore different ways of presenting learning – very successfully!  I loved Frances Boylan's Soundcloud clips and have shared them with several instructors – hopefully we'll all be more creative in the future. Auditory Learners

Also loved DIT's selection of apps – some overlap with other institutions but their creativity in exploring different types of learning (using the VARK framework) meant that they certainly provided a really good introduction and overview of the power of personalizing learning!

A great 12 days of learning – thanks to everyone who participated. Maybe we'll try a Canadian version next year!

 

 

 

 

Online learning activities jam – messy learning!

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SCoPE online communityWell, it’s been a couple of weeks since I wrapped up my first open online learning seminar with the wonderful SCoPE community. I have always enjoyed the interesting discussions and activities and people you meet during these open seminars and had benefited so much from this community when I lived and worked up north. It was a great chance to share back; I hope someone else steps up soon. If you have any ideas you’d like to explore with a varied audience of educators, contact Sylvia Currie, the community steward!

jammaking3My intent for the Creating Engaging Online Learning Activities JAM was to start from a focus on what motivates people who learn online, and then to move on to planning a single online learning activity and sharing it with an audience of informed and experienced educators who would provide constructive criticism, suggestions, ask questions and generally help us all polish our initial designs. I even had hopes that we’d have time for a few practical participation sessions where people could demonstrate part of an activity to see how it worked with “students” before trying it in a “real” class. So…obviously that was too ambitious for two weeks. Hindsight is always 20:20 and I certainly see ways I could have restructured it, narrowed the scope and perhaps segmented the sessions? I’ve posted a feedback survey and, even if you didn’t participate in the whole seminar, if you have any thoughts to share, please do.

20150604_BonktripWhile I didn’t get the participation I’d hoped, I had an unanticipated but welcome guest. Professor Curtis Bonk (whose book with Elaine Khoo “Adding Some TEC-VARIETY” I’d used to help us organize our thinking about learning activities from a motivational perspective), stopped by to share some of his adventures since the book was published. He’s had the book translated into Chinese and spent time in the last year visiting Chinese universities to talk about his books. Check out his latest book – MOOCs and Open Education Around the World.

For my own online learning activity (OLA), I developed a rough plan to gather 4-5 videos found on the Internet (TED Talks, Google Talks, etc.) that focused on new ideas about teaching online. I wanted to explore ways to use videos to provoke more critical thinking and then use them to “seed” online/face-to-face discussions for a workshop about new approaches to teaching and learning. I had been playing with a new tool H5P that I’d added to my new website (educomm.ca) and decided to use it’s ability to create html5 annotated videos.

The value of testing OLAs in a community like SCoPE were quickly evident when I received some really thoughtful questions and suggestions about my initial plan. My final sample video was reviewed in detail by a very knowledgeable participant who pointed out a potential copyright issue I hadn’t recognized, and tested the playback in different browsers and using an iPhone. She also provided some “best practices” around using videos including some accessibility issues I had thought of but hadn’t addressed.  I’m in the process of creating a map to the questions I embedded in the video and I plan to provide a link to the interactive transcript (a bonus of using a TED Talk!). I’ll have to choose carefully for the next 4 videos as I would like to ensure that the resulting OLA is accessible as well as engaging.

We’ve posted all the resources – from a great collections of links to digital Bloom’s Taxonomy ideas to some open digital bulletin boards with questions to ask yoiurself when planning an OLA. And I’ll share the revised interactive video(s) as I develop them, on this site.

Sylvia

 

 

 

So long, and thanks for all the fish…

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goodbyeSix weeks has just flown by and I received the final notice from the UNSW MOOC – Learning to Teach Online on Sunday, August 16th ! Although I wasn’t able to be as involved as I had hoped, I gathered some great ideas, contributed some good resources back, and participated (lightly) in the online forums.

The primary “nuggets” I’ll take away from this MOOC are:

  • dealing with students questions by having them post in a forum and vote on which questions were of most interest – then the instructors responded to the top questions in short discussion-based videos emailed out to registered participants each week (very helpful);
  • well-organized and structured course (never felt lost – could always find forums, assignments, videos quickly);
  • collaborative Googledoc to accumulate suggested resources to support the weekly topics (easy way to involve participants!);
  • criterion (and explanatory videos) to support peer-grading of optional assignment (interesting to listen to why and how); and, finally,
  • the friendly, open supportive instructor presence established by Simon McIntyre and Dr. Negin Mirriahi!

Learning to teach online MOOCI enjoyed the flexible design of this MOOC and, although I didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to complete activities and participate in the peer-feedback cycle, I found the process interesting to observe. I would think that the resulting feedback would have been very helpful but can’t be sure. I’ve been reading more about the efforts at improving the quality of peer assessments or self-evaluation in MOOCs and in the UK (Re-engineering Assessment Practices in Higher Education). I’d be curious to hear how the participants in the process felt about any improvement in their ability to assess and share?

During the final week of LTTO, Simon and Negin shared some of the demographic stats they’d collected. This MOOC (2nd one) was much more successful than the first; more participants who stayed involved (7,000) and a broader range of countries. There were:

  • 11,727 participants from 167 different countries
  • 36% were from emerging economics
  • top five countries – USA, Australia, India, United Kingdom, Russian Federation
  • most (90%) participants had at least a bachelor’s degree
They anticipate publishing future journal articles once they’ve had a chance to analyze the data they’ve collected. And it sounds as though they plan to offer the MOOC again so keep an eye on their Twitter feed UNSW ltto – (probably same time next year?)

If you haven’t already found UNSW’s COFA Learning to Teach Online project site – see http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/about-the-project  or their Youtube channel – https://youtu.be/SIgK2cHwD_g