E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

At the annual EADTU conference Open, Online and Flexible Higher Education Conference at Aarhus University (Denmark) I was also invited to present about the European project we are currently participating in. The Erasmus+-funded project focuses on developing a European Maturity Model for Blended Education (EMBED).

 My keynote focused on the three levels of blended education that our framework will connecting.

Defining the blend

In the project we focus on the blend between online and face-to-face activities. We use these definitions:

• Blended Learning
  learning as a result of a deliberate, integrated combination of online and face-to-face learning activities.
  
  
• Blended Teaching
  designing and facilitating blended learning activities.
  
  
• Blended Education
  the formal context of BL that is determined by policies and conditions with regard to the organization and support of blended learning.

Three levels

Within the project we identified three levels:

• Micro
  blended learning and teaching of a course or programme. Primary actors are the students and teachers.
• Meso
  This is the context of the institute for blended education. Is there a policy for blended learning? Is there support available for teachers? Are classrooms setup suitable for blended learning?
  The primary actors are the leadership of the institute and support staff to make blended teaching and learning possible
• Macro
  the macro level is outside the institute, such as governmental policies, accreditation organisations. Interesting societal discussion on more classtime for students can influence the maturity of blended learning on the micro level.

In the feedback I received, it is especially the MESO level that is a eye-opener for many people. It is important that all three levels align to reach a level of maturity in blended education.

 Below the slides of my keynote, the session was not recorded.

Two weeks ago I attended the annual EADTU conference Open, Online and Flexible Higher Education Conference at Aarhus University (Denmark). One of the interesting presentations was of Diana Laurillard. She is working at the Knowledge Lab of University College London (UCL). The title of her presentation was Blended and Online Learning: Teachers changing the pedagogical landscape. Central in here presentation were two questions:

• Does pedagogy need to change for a digital world?
• How do we change the landscape of pedagogy?

She answered these questions with the help of the Conversational Framework she developed.

This framework is

• a series of iterative exchanges
• between learner and a ’teacher’ and
• between a learner and their peers
• at two levels of concepts and practices.

Her conclusion was that the fundamentals of learning have not changed, but the range of means by which we support learning differs. There are many more activities you can do online to learn a concept and to practice. Teachers need support to show them the options and learn them when to use specific means. Below her slides:

HP/Educause have published an interesting report on extended reality (XR). XR is a wide range of technologies along a continuum, with the real world at one end and fully immersive simulations at the other. The HP/EDUCAUSE Campus of the Future project explored the efforts of 11 colleges and universities to investigate the ways that augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and 3D scanning and printing technologies can benefit teaching, learning, and research.

This report describes a wide range of pedagogical uses of 3D tech in higher education, from augmenting experiences in the physical world to creating simulations of things that are inaccessible in the physical world, and from designing virtual things that may be made into physical things to repeating experiences virtually that cannot be repeated in the physical world. The report also discusses hurdles in implementing 3D technology and the possible future of 3D technology in higher education, and it makes recommendations—in terms of technical requirements, support needs, and organizational policies—for institutions wishing to deploy 3D technology on campus.

The key findings of the report:

• 3D technologies give users virtual superpowers. In a virtual reality (VR) simulation, a user can fly like Iron Man, have superstrength like Wonder Woman, and walk through walls like Kitty Pryde. VR and augmented reality (AR) give users X-ray vision like Superman’s. VR and 3D printing give users the ability to manipulate very small objects, like Ant-Man and the Wasp; to manipulate energy, like Magneto; and to create objects from empty space, like Doctor Manhattan and Elsa of Arendelle.
  
  
• VR is like being there. A well-constructed simulation is visceral: One’s intellectual and physiological reactions to objects and events in VR are similar—and sometimes identical—to one’s reactions in the physical world.
  
  
• VR and AR are multisensory experiences. Much VR and AR development focuses on the visual functionality of those technologies, but they are capable of more. The auditory functionality of VR and the haptic functionality of both VR and AR are critical for creating a realistic simulation.
  
  
• 3D technologies enable active and experiential learning. Virtual reality simulations enable users to interact in a space or around an object in ways beyond what is possible in the real world. Augmented reality enables users to interact with an object while possessing “superpowers,” such as the ability to see through surfaces or to see data overlying objects. With 3D printing, users can quickly create physical objects that might otherwise exist only in simulations. These functionalities enable users to gain hands-on experience with objects that might otherwise be inaccessible in teaching and learning contexts.
  
  
• Simulations enable individual practice and skill-building. In the medical professions, for example, VR enables students to repeat hands-on experiences that might not otherwise be possible (e.g., repeating a dissection multiple times) and to experience events that they might not otherwise be able to (e.g., diagnosing a rare condition, testing specific types of emergency medicine). Through repeated practice, students emerge more skilled.
  
  
• Simulations enable high-touch, high-cost learning experiences to be scaled up. While developing a simulated lab may be expensive, it is far less expensive than building and maintaining a physical lab. Furthermore, a simulated lab can be made available to individuals who are not co-located. VR and 3D printing therefore make it possible to provide lab experiences to a far greater number of users, perhaps even simultaneously.
  
  
• 3D technologies foster and sometimes require collaboration between campus units. The deployment of new technologies often fosters new collaborations across campus. Supporting users of 3D technology on campus requires a range of expertise, which encourages (if not requires) collaboration between campus IT units and instructional designers. The use of 3D technology has also fostered collaborations involving students and faculty across academic disciplines.
  
  
• Training is critical. Some early adopters on campus will teach themselves to use 3D technology, but many campus users will need support to learn to use this technology. The development of training sessions and workshops on 3D technology–related topics is critical for these technologies to gain traction on campus beyond the rarefied circles of early adopters.
  
  
• It takes time for the benefits of 3D technology to be realized on campus. While 3D technology is getting easier to use, it must still be set up and configured; software must be installed and possibly updated. Furthermore, users need time to learn to use the technology, and instructors need time to figure out how to use the technology in their teaching. Courses take months to be redesigned. The first year of deployment of 3D technology may be largely devoted to learning to use and integrate it into teaching and support practices; it may take until year two for the full benefits of using 3D technology on campus to be realized.

The report gives a good overview of current activities in the field of extended reality. On the website there is a lot of additional content.

Reference

• Pomerantz, Jeffrey. Learning in Three Dimensions: Report on the EDUCAUSE/HP Campus of the Future Project. ECAR research report. Louisville, CO: EDUCAUSE, August 2018.

Last Thursday was the official opening of the new education building Pulse at TU Delft. This building is a state-of-the-art teaching building to facilitate the growing number of students on campus.

Blended and active learning

There are no traditional lecture rooms in this building. All rooms are setup for interactive teaching and learning. The students are grouped around a table (or can be easily turned around) to work together on assignments. Almost all walls double up as whiteboards and there are numerous LCD screens to enable groups to share information.

For the design of the building we used different inputs:

• According to the TU Delft Vision on Education we use "diverse teaching methods to stimulate active learning and use digital technologies to enhance  teaching & learning" (page 12). 
• Since a couple of years we have a team from different departments that created together the cookbook Education Spaces. The cookbook describes requirements for lecture halls, classrooms and study workplaces at TU Delft and contains four generic chapters: A) Pedagogic Classification, B) Education Space Typologies, C) Education Space Requirements, and D) Study Workplaces. It has been drawn up in close co-operation with teaching staff, students and supporting staff.
• Analysis of our current educational spaces and the expected demand in the coming years. This analysis showed that we especially needed rooms for 60-120 students.
• Pulse’s design came about in close cooperation with students and lecturers who discussed the preferred lay-out for the instruction rooms and the experience of the study landscape in the building. Their input has, for instance, resulted in the building having a lot of writable walls in the lecture rooms, extra lockers and longer opening hours. Students will be able to take classes by day, have a nice meal outdoors on the patio and then continue to study until late in the evening.

The building

The result is a building of 4,700 m2 with a total of  1,020 education spaces:

• 2 terraced rooms with a capacity of 125 people
• 8 rooms with capacities of 60 to 100 people
• Three special rooms for non-standard educational settings
• Approx. 160 self-study spaces

Energy-neutral building

Pulse is the first energy-neutral building of the university and scored the highest BREEAM score. The building is equipped with approximately 750 m2 PV panels combined with underground thermal storage and a triple-glazed façade. An intelligent building management system ventilates, lights, cools and heats the various spaces at Pulse in accordance with their usage. 

Training for lecturers

My team is offering a short training session of 1,5 hours. The training will focus on the delivery of lectures from an active learning perspective, whilst trying to fully benefit from the didactic advantages of the 4Q system and digital writing system. It would be disappointing if these beautiful rooms would be used for classical lectures.

Tomorrow the first official lectures will start in Pulse. Then we will know how students and lecturers will experience the new building. The proof of the pudding is in the eating!

Photos

Below some photos to give you an impression of the building or take a look at the virtual tour of the building. Photos are provided by the education spaces team and are copyrighted TU Delft.

EADTU has conducted a follow-up study on the first Changing Pedagogical Landscape report (published 2015). Based on qualitative research in various European countries, this report identifies patterns in policies and practices of new models of teaching and learning:

European societies changed and will further change, due to the impact of new technologies and through new developments in the economy and in society at large. This has consequences for universities.
An increasing number of universities and colleges offer, next to degree programmes, continuous education and lifelong learning, and open education mainly related to OERS and MOOCs. In all three areas of provision, new pedagogies have emerged, strongly enabled by the innovation/ICT push and facilitated by different support structures at various levels. Universities start to develop visions and strategies to position themselves at the national and international level in each of these areas. Universities need sufficient autonomy to determine their position in these three areas and to act flexibly and rapidly to respond to changes in society and economy. They need a vision and support as well from their governments to enable them to innovate their institutions.
This report is a continuation of the first Changing Pedagogical Landscape study conducted from January 2014-June 2015 (Haywood, Connelly, Henderikx, Weller &Williams, 2015). During 2017, EADTU members conducted a follow-up study with seven additional countries.

The main observations in this study are:

• Key factor: leadership and institutional strategy
  An increasing number of European universities seem to have a digital education strategy of some kind.
  
  
• Gradual innovation at course and curriculum level
  Universities evolve to blended education in their mainstream provisions to enhance quality and to meet the needs of more a diverse and larger number of students.
  
  
• Many incentives for digital education
  Next to an institutional strategy plan on education and leadership for an innovative climate, the development of expertise on blended teaching and learning within the institutions and the continuous development of staff are seen as essential incentives.
  
  
• Increased (scalable) continuous education and continuous professional development offerings
  Online education is seen as a promising field for universities for increased offering for new kind of students related to lifelong learning and CPD.
  
  
• MOOCs as an enabler for innovation
  In many universities, the development of MOOCs by key staff resulted in broader innovations with regard to blended teaching and learning at the bachelor and master level. MOOCs are a lever for innovation in mainstream degree education.
  
  
• Increasing internationalisation of higher education
  Online and blended education is increasingly changing the landscape of internationalisation and student mobility.
  
  
• Important role for governments
  The role of national governments is mainly to create favourable framework conditions to capitalize on the opportunities of digital education in higher education.
  

Their general conclusion is that the uptake of new modes of teaching and education is accelerating although many challenges still exists.

Recommendations

in the report they also have many recommendations on university strategies for digital education, implementation of new modes of teaching, recommendations for teaching staff, continuous education and CPD, OERs and MOOCs, new modes in international education and for governmental policies.

Conclusion

It is a comprehensive report that includes many, if not all, of the trends in European higher education. There is a lot of interesting information in the 88 pages from the different European countries.

Reference

• Haywood, J., Connelly, L., Henderikx, P., Weller, M. &Williams, K., The changing pedagogical landscape – New ways of teaching and learning and their implications for higher education policy, European Commission, Education and Culture, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.changingpedagogicallandscapes.eu/publications/
• Henderikx, P., & Jansen, D. (2018). The Changing Pedagogical Landscape: In search of patterns in policies and practices of new modes of teaching and learning. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/CPLreport2018

Last month Class Central published an article about MOOCs that focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and only one course of DelftX was mentioned. Last week I talked to Dhawal Shah of Class Central and I told him that we had many more courses that focus on the SDGs. In 2015 I already published a list, this is the updated list of MOOCs.

Update: Class Central has included the courses below in their article.

Goal	MOOC
	Healthy Aging in 6 Steps Learn how to make healthy choices and adjustments to your lifestyle and environment to help you live a healthier, happier and longer life.
	Introduction to Drinking Water Treatment Learn about urban water services, focusing on conventional technologies for drinking water treatment. Introduction to the Treatment of Urban Sewage Learn about urban water services, focusing on basic sewage treatment technologies.
	Solar Energy Discover the power of solar energy and learn how to design a complete photovoltaic system. Sustainable Energy Learn how to make the transition to 100% renewable energy from wind, solar and biomass for electricity, heat and fuels for a sustainable future. Solar Energy Engineering Master the technical knowledge required to start or further your career in solar energy.
	The Next Generation of Infrastructure Explore the challenges and complexity of both global and local infrastructure (IT/Telecom, Energy, Water and Transportation) and how to make the best decisions to improve it. Industrial Biotechnology Learn the basics of sustainable processing for biobased products to further understand their impact on global sustainability.
	Sustainable Urban Development: Discover Advanced Metropolitan Solutions Learn why cities are key in resolving global urbanization and sustainability challenges and how you can engineer tomorrow’s cities today. Rethink the City: New Approaches to Global and Local Urban Challenges How do you plan future cities? Explore alternative theories and innovative solutions for urban challenges in the global south. Co-Creating Sustainable Cities Learn how citizen’s co-creation is key in making cities worldwide more sustainable.
	Responsible Innovation Responsible Innovation – exploring the interface of ethics, society and technological innovations. Circular Economy: an introduction Learn how to contribute to a sustainable economic system by implementing novel business and design approaches. Sustainable Packaging in a Circular Economy Learn how to apply the principles of the circular economy to sustainable packaging systems. Waste Management and Critical Raw Materials Learn about waste management and its key role in saving critical raw materials. Engineering Design for a Circular Economy Discover and develop sustainable design and engineering methods to improve the reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling of products for a circular economy.
	Introduction to Water and Climate Explore how climate change, water availability, and engineering innovation are key challenges for our planet. Building with Nature Learn how to use ecological and engineering design principles to develop more effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructure.

I also left out Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning. Because that includes all our MOOCs and our online courses for lifelong learners.

This week I was invited to speak the 9^th international e-learning conference of the Thailand Cyber University project. The theme of the conference was MOOCs and beyond. Normally I don’t hear or read a lot about the developments around MOOCs and online education in Asia, so this was good opportunity to learn.

Keynotes

They had a great line-up of keynotes with Paul Marca of Stanford Center for Professional development, Zoraini Wati Abas of Wawasan Open University Malaysia, Madya Alyani Ismail of Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia, Dhawal Shah of Class Central, Masato Kajimoto of University of Hong Kong, Anuchai Theeraroungchaisri of Thailand Cyber University (TCU) Project and me.

General Impression

Every Asian country has initiated a national MOOC project in the last couple of years. Most of these projects are directly funded by the government. For example, the ThaiMOOC project is funded by three ministries (education, science & technology and ICT). In Thailand this project is included in the national education strategy 2017-2036(!).

Most of them use open.edx as platform to offer MOOCs. Most important reason is setup their own platform is the language. English is still a barrier for most Asian people. They all configured the platform in their native language(s). It is positive that they are using open.edx platform and not developing their own.

The goal of most projects is not specifically about MOOCs, but more about modernising the educational sector. What I understood is that the education sector was still very traditional and suffered from declining enrolments. A lot of students wanted to study abroad and now also online. The government needed to do something to kick-start this transformation and MOOCs were the perfect project to do this.

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Today I was invited to give a keynote presentation at the 9th international e-learning conference of the Thailand Cyber University in Bangkok. The theme of the this years conference is “MOOCs and beyond”.

The long-run impact of MOOCs

In my keynote I used Amara’s Law to build my presentation:

we tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but we underestimate it in the long run

I think this is the case for MOOCs as well. In a lot of articles lately there is disappointment of the impact of MOOCs, but when I look at the long-run impact MOOCs have had, it is much more than we anticipated.

I identified five long-run impacts that were caused or accelerated by MOOCs:

• From Courses to Programmes to Credits
• From National to a Global World of Education
• From Initial Education to Continuous Education
• From Traditional lecture rooms to Blended Learning
• Towards Open Education

Below are my slides and soon the recording will be online soon:

 Video recording of my keynote:

Part of our participation in the EMBED project (European Maturity Model for Blended Education) is the organisation of a couple of training events to share our knowledge and to give you the opportunity to learning about state of the art research and innovation in blended and online teaching and learning.

The first training event will be 26-28 September 2018 in Tampere, Finland. The training will be done by experts from KU Leuven and TU Delft. The training event is free to attend, but you have to register and pay for your own travel, hotel and food.

More information about the event and registration is available on the EMBED website.

A little over a week ago the Open Education Global Conference 2018 was finished. More than a year we have been preparing for this conference. The conference was a blast: everything went according to plan or better!

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