Learning online

LEARNING ONLINEMOODLE, MOOC’S AND OUR MODEL FOR DISTANCE LEARNING.PAUL TREADWELL | MARCH 2013

GOALS FOR THIS WEBINAR

At the end of this session you should

• Leave with an understanding of what “distance learning” is

• Understand our history of involvement with structured online courses

• Be able to locate “MOOC’s” on a map of distance learning

WHAT IS DISTANCE LEARNING?

LEARNING AT A DISTANCE

Is not a new thing• Correspondence courses (1890’s)• Radio (1930’s)• Television (1960’s)• Internet (late 1990’s)

THE LAND GRANT AND DISTANCE ED

The land grant attempts to open access to education to a broad population

The presence of county offices, across NYS, embeds the institution in the community

Educators (previously county agents) facilitate the exchange of information and creation of knowledge

Learning is both a facilitated and collaborative process

CURRENT DL TOOLS/TECHNIQUES

We use a variety of tools for “distance learning” Moodle

WebEx (previously connect)

Youtube

Camtasia

Etc….

It all depends on what you mean (and what your intent is) when talking about Dl

BOUNDARIES OF OUR DISCUSSION TODAY

“Distance learning” encompasses a lot of territory.

Today we’ll be focusing on:• Structured• Scheduled (with duration)• (Generally) asynchronous• Social (Not solitary)

Online learning

INTENT AND OUR PARTICIPANTS

When I think about our participants/learners: Small groups of aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh and vigorous; who begin to

learn by confronting pertinent situations; who dig down into the reservoirs of their experience before resorting to texts and secondary facts; who are led in the discussion by teachers who are also searchers after wisdom and not oracles: this constitutes the setting for adult education, the modern quest for life's meaning. Lindeman 1926a: 4-7

Lindeman, E. (1926). The meaning of adult education. New York: New Republic.

OUR FIRST VENTURE INTO STRUCTURED ONLINE LEARNING

The How, When and Why of Forest Farming

Initial development of learning content for presentation online.• Video “modules” demonstrating

practicesNon interactive presentation of content

EMBRACING THE CHALLENGE OF LEARNING WITH

• Academic knowledge constitutes a part of the overall • Practice based knowledge constitutes an equal, if not

greater, part• Documenting, sharing and testing this knowledge

becomes part of the learning process

The knowledge base for forest farming in the Northeast is

broadly distributed:

• The role of the instructor/facilitator becomes one of creating a space for sharing and discussion.

• Expert knowledge is not held by one, but distributed among many

In this case, Learning is a collaborative

process among peers

SOCIAL E-LEARNING, CIRCA 2005

HWWFF V2 - CHOOSING MOODLE

SARE funded project to support development of the Forest Farming learning community

Evaluation of lcms packages, other software to host learning community

Selection of MOODLE

• Integrated social features (Forums)• Assessment tools• Repository

EARLY LESSONS

The initial run of HWWFF Demographic diversity

Participants ranged in age from mid-twenties to seventy plus

Technical challenges

Access to video content is problematic on a dial up connection

Alternative provision of video content was needed (cd’s)

Questioning the value of free

Erratic participation

EXPANDING OUR PORTFOLIO

The potential of distance learning as a viable method for engaging learners, and creating opportunities for participatory, social learning was demonstrated (albeit with some qualifications) by the successes of the HWWFF

Subsequent courses developed included: Grafting ( a remaking of an existing course by Ken Mudge)

Organic Gardening

Internal (Staff) development courses

CURRENT EXAMPLES

Beginning Farmers Program

Botanical Illustration

Permaculture

Suffolk County courses

PMEP

WE ARE NOT MASSIVE

Our (CCE) online courses generally have between 15-40 participants per “session”• This represents what our experiences have shown to be

effective for engaging in social e-learning• At the upper end (30 to 40 participants) there are often 2

instructors/facilitators• This insures adequate and timely responses to forum

postings, assignments etc…

MOOC’STHE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

MOOCMANIA

Massive Open Online Course Massive | 100’s to Thousands of participants

Open* | (theoretically) accessible, reusable

Online | Online

Course | Structured learning content

MASSIVELY OPEN ONLINE COURSES

Educause – (3 of)7 things you should know about MOOCs

a massively open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to virtually any person—with no limit on attendance—who wants to take the course.

A MOOC throws open the doors of a course and invites anyone to enter, resulting in a new learning dynamic, one that offers remarkable collaborative and conversational opportunities for students to gather and discuss the course content.

the most significant contribution is the MOOC’s potential to alter the relationship between learner and instructor and between academe and the wider community

MOOC MADNESS SWEEPS THE NATION

• Thomas Freidman January 26,2013 New York Times• “Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of

poverty … Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems. ”

Revolution Hits the Universities

• Press-Telegram Long Beach, CA. February 17, 2013

California universities see future in online

classes

• David Skorton and Glenn Altschuler, January 28, 2013 Forbes

MOOCs: A College

Education Online?

EDX

UDACITY

COURSERA

COURSERA COURSE DESCRIPTION

COUNTERING VOICES

A selection of voices counter to the MOOC madness:• For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?• http://chronicle.com/article/The-False-Promise-of-the/13630

5/• Unthinking Technophilia• http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/01/14/essay-sa

ys-faculty-involved-moocs-may-be-making-rope-professional-hangings

• Inequality in American Education Will Not Be Solved Online• http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ine

quality-in-american-education-will-not-be-solved-online/267189/

• Tree Sitting • http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/tree-sitting/

IS THIS REALLY THE FUTURE?

• Revolutionary• Transformative• Reinventing education

The flurry of aspirational,

optimistic language promoting MOOC’s

And MOOC’s may be all of the above but the question is after the revolution - after the transformation and re-invention – what does education look like?

CONTACT

Paul Treadwell pt36@cornell.edu

@ptreadwell

http://www.paultreadwell.com

March 27, 2013

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