Commissioned by the Flexible Learning Advisory Group (FLAG) for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) to inform its planning cycle, the discussion paper, e-learning: emerging issues and key trends, provides a fascinating comparative view of the current and future directions for elearning both nationally and internationally and what these might mean for practice and policy. Led by Dr John Eklund, a principal usability analyst for Access Testing Centre in Sydney and Adjunct Senior Lecturer with the University of Sydney, the authors provide a view of the driving forces for e-learning and consider technical, organisational and pedagogical issues which are likely to generate change in the use of technologies in education and training.
Recently, we sent our intrepid reporter Alison Cutler out to ask Dr Eklund a few questions about this paper. Here’s what they said:
Your comprehensive discussion paper, e-learning: emerging issues and key trends, asserts that Australia is in a position of leadership in the deployment of new technologies, especially in the VET sector. How do you know this?
Evidence for this claim can be found in a number of arenas, including conference papers presented at large international e-learning events which is a reliable barometer for what’s happening. Over the last seven or eight years I’ve attended many forums on e-learning and I have found that there is no need to go overseas to find best practice. We can find it here in our own backyard.
A survey of projects undertaken domestically and internationally has also revealed that Australia is clearly up there in terms of what we’re doing and this is generally accepted in educational technology circles.
What then are the factors in the Australian VET environment, which have contributed to its position as one of the ‘leaders of the pack’?
There is a level of cooperation here not found overseas. Cooperation of the kind between government and industry and the different sectors in Australia in this sphere is hard to find elsewhere. Another key factor is the level of funding which, comparatively, has been good, especially in funding research and initiatives like the Framework. And the Framework is unique. As the report says, it is a world-class initiative and represents the clearest and most co-ordinated approach of any sector.
As well, Australia’s intimate knowledge of the tyrannies of distance and consequent traditional reliance on distance education has driven the quest for technologies to more effectively deliver that education.
There might, as well, be something in the Australian psyche. Australians often see themselves as dynamic go-gettters with a ‘can-do’ approach who like to experiment and be first!
On the other hand, your paper also highlights Australia’s failure to embrace a whole of government, strategic policy approach to e-learning so that, as yet, it has had little impact on health, finance and most of industry. Do you see signs of any national strategy being developed and what would be the consequences of failing to do so?
It’s not clear yet whether or not there are moves afoot to adopt a national strategy. Certainly, we do need to develop a national approach. In the paper we discussed the issue with many stakeholders and the message came through consistently that whilst the Framework is large and organised it has yet to penetrate other areas such as health and the primary and tertiary education sector. There is no doubt, though, that Framework initiatives are energetically trying to engage industry.
The consequences of failing to adopt a national strategy would be that the Framework will remain a stand-alone initiative, limited to the VET sector. And certainly it is true that whilst the Framework is well-known in VET, if it’s reach is to extend, it will need to raise its profile, it needs to become more mainstreamed.
You make recommendations in the paper for the future direction of the Framework. In a nutshell, where do you think the Framework should go? How can it best reach beyond the early adopters to other teachers and middle managers?
The Framework has really been refining the balance in its activities over the last few years. People we spoke to said its current emphasis on professional development, research, engaging industry, product development, innovation and policy was about right. I would see broadening its engagement with industry and overlapping with other initiatives as important.
Strategies to engage the next level of practitioners beyond the enthusiast are essential. LearnScope is an excellent vehicle for this and will need to continue because it engages practitioners on the ground. Also the Toolbox and Toolbox Champions initiative clearly demonstrated the need for local support in terms of an ICT-literate enthusiast who raises the confidence of early adopters, who then act as mentors for other practitioners.
I don’t think there is anything else the Framework should be doing, or if there is I don’t know about it. It’s a matter of persisting and fine-tuning existing initiatives. As the years go by and the market matures, more entry-level practitioners will have to be involved and students will increasingly expect to use technologies and have access to a range of learning options. This will drive mainstream adoption.
One of your recommendations for future Framework directions identifies the need to engage business and the corporate sector in recognising the benefits of e-learning? Have you some pointers as to how this could best be achieved?
There’s actually a very good paper* on the Framework’s website on methods for engaging business, its really a whole area to consider in itself. (*Links to this paper - Engaging Industry in Flexible Learning: Feedback to FLAG based on conversations with Industry - are provided at the end of this document).
Providing funding for collaboration between industry and the Framework is one way and this is already happening. Industry-driven initiatives are the key, thought, rather than Framework devised ones.
Once industry recognises that business can be improved by using e-Business and flexible delivery for training staff, they will come to the Framework with proposals to do this.
Continued engagement with industry is vital, where they see the value of flexible learning, not as an add-on but a fundamental way of improving training efficiency and therefore business.
You touch briefly on Mobile learning in the paper. Can you give some examples of its use? Do you see it becoming a significant arrow in eLearning’s quiver?
It’s very much early days with Mobile Learning and at present it is mostly used as a way of instant messaging to communicate with teachers or fellow learners. I think we will see the ongoing integration of mobile technology and email but at the moment the tools are quite clumsy. Once this improves, educational technologists will look at ways we can piggy-back on how it’s done in business and ways to integrate mobile learning more consistently with the web. And then how to create learning designs which will integrate with these mobile technologies.
The next six years will see lots of experimentation with learning design and mobile technologies.
Advocates believe that online training is better, faster and cheaper than conventional training. Do you agree? What do you make of Brabazon’s far less positive take in the book, Digital Hemlock?
Brabazon makes good points but at the extremes of the argument. It comes back to the need to demonstrate improved learning outcomes for learners and return on investment for business. Online learning provides a good business model in, say, new target markets and where distance delivery is concerned. In some instances this is not so and some will say that the best form of learning is the dedicated teacher in a face-to-face form who can integrate asynchronous formats – blended learning.
Online learning, though, can be more effective but it depends on the context. In many instances the kinds of ineffective learning experiences Brabazon talks about can be attributed to choosing the wrong learning design.
You also say that best practices that enhance the business return investment for elearning by improving its effectiveness will gradually overtake the passion for new technology for its own sake. Does this spell the demise of the technophile?
Technophiles are alive and well – yes! Partly this is because of the rise of the internet and increasing interactivity but maybe the technophiles have had their heyday!
As the paper says, we have a stable technology now and we can move on from experimentation and focus on quality processes. There will always be a ‘bleeding edge’ of technology but the maturity of both technologies and development practices will lead to a settling down in the field, moving toward an acceptance of standards.
Would you then say that we are getting e-learning right? What are we getting wrong?
I think there are some very good examples of best practice around to look at, although there are still people who are getting it wrong - lots of poor learning designs, over-use of technology and people who haven’t grasped the importance of profiling their users.
There is evidence of much improvement in the quality of output though. The Toolbox example is a good one here when you look at how dramatically the Toolboxes have improved from the early series. Also the expertise is growing in organisations such as The Learning Federation and OTEN who have robust quality assurance processes and outputs which are as good as they can be. Companies such as Access Testing Centre, too, are helping to create and test against a better set of quality standards.
The maturing market will sort the sheep from the goats. Rationalisation is already happening in product development markets as the poor providers fade away. The days when anyone could get into the market and anyone could call themselves an instructional designer have gone.
The paper discusses the notion that the role of the teacher in eLearning is more important than the instructional design of the content. Can you expand on this for our members?
This assertion came, in part, from our early work evaluating Toolboxes where we looked at instances of successful Toolbox implementation - where there were high levels of teacher/student satisfaction. Overwhelmingly, the content and learning design didn’t matter nearly so much as the way in which the teacher was able to take the content and modify and adapt it to the students. In other words, the quality of the facilitation was far more significant than the quality of the materials. The product can be great, it can have embedded artefacts for collaboration and so on, or you can have a poor product but ultimately, it’s not as important a the teacher taking it and communicating it.
Of course, for pure online delivery the layout and content is paramount and I don’t mean that we shouldn’t and don’t aspire to quality product. The need which this points to for striving for a balance between teacher training and product is one which the Framework has recognised and needs to continue to focus on.
The changing role of teachers is also canvassed in the paper. Is it inevitable that all teachers will need to acquire the skills to become competent practitioners of e-learning? Or will specialisation occur?
There is a distinction between the changing role of teachers and their use of technology. The development of student-centred approaches to learning and students accepting responsibility for learning is a separate issue to using technology in learning.
Students will increasingly expect technology in courses so teachers will need to look at integrating technology into what they deliver. Specialisation will occur – for example, some universities will specialise in face-to-face delivery and others will make flexible delivery their specialty.
Yes, technology is changing rapidly but the principles of using ICT for delivery don’t change. Any good course about educational technology will always focus on sets of principles based on pedagogy. It’s not about the tool itself but the appropriate use of ICT tools.
In your summary of Learning Object (LO) standards you say that the LO model is excellent as a set of standards for technical development but needs to be moderated with actual user contexts. Can you explain what you mean and perhaps give an example of how this might work?
Learning Objects are packaged pieces of content that achieve some learning goal for use by developers and teachers. The broader, essential tension, however, is to what extent do you create complete courses for easy use or create packaged elements?
At the moment, teachers might take bits and pieces from all sorts of places, modifying and recreating content to meet the needs of users. The problem with LOs is that even at low levels of granularity, users will want to modify them.
Familiarity with technology is key here. You need the skills to pick up the bits and make them meaningful. One day we will do this effortlessly. There will be high level authoring tools to enable teachers to more easily achieve this. At the moment, it’s not possible.
There is a controversial claim that LOs are important but will be less important in the short-term to teachers because, unsurprisingly, they aren’t yet able to use them properly.
Studies on LO Repositories (LOR) have shown that even ICT-literate users want to use the LOR as an adjunct rather than a primary source. Format was a secondary issue but the whole approach of LOs is more exclusive than that. It seems most users are not ready for this.
The idea of standardising materials and making them available, behind such initiatives as Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services (COLIS), is noble and the right way to go.
When you discuss e-learning as a product in a context, you say that the implications for the concept of a repository of learning objects is that the database will need constant renewal. Is this sustainable?
Learning Object renewal might be sustainable. Ultimately though, curricula and teacher presentation preferences change and need to be changed for different users. The concept of a big bucket of LOs is a bit unrealistic given the nature of change.
Digital repositories are yet to be proven and will, I think, be used predominantly by development houses. Teachers may well be more likely to use the web, which will have a section that’s learning oriented.
I would like to see some contextual studies into LOR use (perhaps by COLIS) where people in organisations are asked to use them and see how they go.
You say quite a lot in the paper about Toolboxes. In what ways have Toolboxes matured the multimedia industry? Do you see Toolboxes as continuing to play an important role?
One of the greatest contributions of Toolboxes is what they have done to mature the multimedia industry through the development of quality processes. For example, the Series 2 Toolboxes were quite ordinary compared with the current Series 5. This is largely because Series 5 Toolboxes have been developed within a quality assurance framework, which sets numerous standards for specification, user acceptance testing, technical standards and accessibility. All these standardised processes have come about through the development of the Toolboxes, and come about incrementally as products have been developed and processes continually modified.
Now we have literature on what is best practice and what are appropriate standards and it has all come about because of initiatives like Toolboxes. Individual development houses are now adopting these standards..
I was recently talking to Barry Reeves who works for OTEN and he was saying that it’s much more difficult to get product through now because the bar is getting higher!
Therefore the greatest contribution of the Toolbox initiative is not content but the knowledge of the developers, which continues to raise that bar Barry talks about.
As to Toolboxes’ future, I think they will continue to thrive and deserve to be funded. The initiative should, however, invest in investigating ways of making it more sustainable as, at present, they’re expensive to produce, cheap to purchase and therefore not a good business model.
Thinking about the learners of today and tomorrow, your paper says they will have advanced abilities to research, analyse, synthesise information and build their own learning experiences, in essence, they will be independent learners. What evidence is there that the current educational experience from primary onwards is building this kind of learner? How can our education system better equip learners with the abilities you mention?
There is a lag between what we need people to be and our schooling. Our system continues to feature bells going off to mark the end of a session and the system is test, assessment and declarative knowledge driven.
Initiatives at primary and secondary level are lagging – there are no practical, how-to Framework style initiatives. We need to get serious about primary/secondary school curriculum reform and yes, it’s a big challenge but I am positive about reform. It will find its way into primary and secondary schooling, constructivist approaches will increasingly be adopted and the curriculum will become less content driven creating more independent learners. But yes, at present the process is too slow.
Your paper captures the equity issues of e-learning very succinctly. How do you predict educational technology will become better able to meet the needs of learners with a disability, women and Indigenous leaners?
In a couple of ways:
By Standards – content, production of flexible learning materials with well defined accessibility standards and aids to people with, say, cognitive disabilities or vision impairment.
As well, a broadening understanding of what accessibility means will lead to the creation of materials suitable for a wide range of classes of users – not just the vision impaired.
User-centred design processes – improved understanding of specific demographics will inform appropriate use of technology for target groups.
My son, who, like most of his generation, is very much at home in the world of gameboys and playstations would be delighted to read your predictions on learner engagement. You suggest that much of the learning design of the future will be based on learner engagement via web-based role play, the use of microworlds and so on. Digitally challenged parents like me find this a bit of a worry. Should I be afraid, very afraid, or not?
As technology matures, higher levels of interactivity are possible. Educational technologists have the capacity to engage the leaner in lots of ways, especially visually.
And we want to make learning fun. David Jonassen has been saying for years that the best uses of technology are those which allow the learner to create their own environment or microworld. The leaner has far more engagement and ownership. Using this approach to build learning experiences would seem to be a winner.
Web-based games where leaners assume roles and act them out are not as plentiful as they should be and, in general, I don’t think we are doing enough with the increased interactivity that is available to us now. We have to look at what’s mainstream and let’s face it, playstation is, and education should piggy-back on it.
Microworlds have been around since Seymour Pappert created Logo in the late 60s and we need to do more with them.
Did you uncover any tangents outside the project brief, which our audience might be interested in hearing about?
The state of e-learning nationally and internationally was a pretty broad brief with welcome opportunities to be somewhat speculative and predictive. It was great to do something that wasn’t pure research and based on a broader view of technology.
So, no – no tangents, sorry!
Thank you very much John for such a large chunk of your time and talent.
My pleasure.
Links:
e-learning: emerging issues and key trends
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Engaging Industry in Flexible Learning: Feedback to FLAG based on conversations with Industry
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