Online Feedback

As a final techie flourish, the symposium feedback form is available online at:

http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/ilrt/crs2004

Record of the event

Someone asked how long the website and the blog will remain after the conference.

The website, including the blog, IRC logs and the Chump, will remain as a permanent record of the symposium. However, we will be switching off the blog login tomorrow so you will lose your ability to post and edit entries although the blog content will remain.

Key themes from the symposium

Grainne Conole had the unenviable task (which she did very ably!) of summarising the key themes from the symposium and linking these to what's going on in current research and policy areas.  She identified six themes:

1. The good and bad of ICT
2. The Speed of Change, the Web in 2010
3. Supporting new collaborations and discourses
4. Harnessing needs, understanding end users
5. Changing practice
6. The wider impact

Delegates were asked to identify things that had particularly struck them about the issues under discussion over the past two days:

• Maybe we've missed the 'survival of the fittest?' element of the title
• Maybe we're missing the point: scale of teaching (student numbers) and assessment so much greater
• Maybe we need to focus more on the skills we're engendering through the curriculum from school through to HE: critical thinking not specific technologies

Grainne didn't have time to talk through the detail of all the themes, but her full slides will be on the Colston2004 Web site.

She concluded by identifying the impact the issues we've been discussing have in current research areas, including e-pedagogy; eSocial Science (ESRC); eScience; HEFCE/DfES eLearning strategies and the many established research centres around the UK.  Also key at international levels.

Final thoughts from the delegates (you can add more here!):

• Narratives very exciting, but need to explain new contexts as well as new resources, new concepts in learning design
• Need to educate people at policy level about this (Diana Laurillard can't do it all on her own!)
• Trying to pull together many different communities: technologists, learning technologists, teachers, learners - haven't had enough research into the learner's experience

Notes from breakout3 groupG

Colston Symposium: Day 2: Breakout group G: facilitator – Ros O’Leary.

  

Oleg’s question:  What do teachers really want?

• As learners, we have access to a lot of information, but it is more important to get in touch with knowledge communities than access information.  Moving into a field, want to get into a located (not necessarily physically) community.  Today, technology is offering information, but this is not what learners want, the need is deeper than that.  Perhaps SW is one approach to this deeper need.
• Another view: What can technology offer me that is radically different / better than face-to-face?  Currently, as a lecturer, I use it as a resource / links base, plus multiple-choice quizzes.  Learners can potentially collapse a 12 week course into a few evenings, but the online component is not designed to substitute for attendence, which is compulsory.  But only 40% students ever log on.  So, I am looking for a benefit to sell to the students, because they don’t believe in elearning at the moment.
• So, a key question is, “how do you get students to learn effectively and take some control over the process?”
• A key role for technology might be in joining remote students, enabling them to learn together (like research practice); students do not see this possibility immediately.  But assessment is individual, so this might put a limit on this role.
• As an ICT champion within an HE department, I get criticised for putting stuff online, maybe putting colleagues out of a job, plus IPR issues.

• Oleg noted that teachers want help with lesson plans, and support for teacher’s expressiveness.  We agree, but VLEs are currently used mainly to substitute for lectures, textbooks, etc.
• We want to be able to support tutorial-type activities online, with 300 students, in groups.

• We want students to gain a certain amount of knowledge, then make links between it, and they then need to practice these skills.  But then assessment kills this process.  Technology is potentially good for this because it motivates students, like a (strategy) game.  But it is difficult to get appropriate software to do this.

Enrico’s question: To what extent to people believe that using the semantic web for learning services is feasible?

• The main issue of internet content is critically reviewing that content, rather than accessing it.  The issue is one of trust.  SW may move in this direction, but not enough (yet).  It may speed up review, but it may not improve the quality of review.
• SW sifts information, but who decides the criteria? (ontology?)
• It is very difficult to express the complex context of a query to a tool – where is the interpretation?

Wendy (Grainne)’s question: How do you predict the unpredictable?  (When we solve today’s problems, tomorrow’s technologies will be very different)

• Not possible to answer this – we have to start from where we are.  Practice in the classroom is very different to the research presented at this event.
• Importance of mobile technologies for learning, and connecting small mobile technologies (eg texting over the phone).  Good for practicing language skills, collaboration, motivation.
• But is this giving us (educationalists) the technology again, and we are again wondering what to do with it.  This is the wrong way round (see Oleg’s question).  Technology doesn’t solve the problems we have now.

Issues raised:

·        Importance of an activity-driven rather than a content-driven approach

·        Importance of student motivation

·        The need is for tools to support joining communities not gaining information

·        Students don’t do what we ask (they do strategic learning) – tools only work if students use them in the way we intend.  We have got to think how students will actually use this tool, and build tools which cope with strategic learning.

Questions

• How can we make use of technology to create a more supportive environment for motivating students?
• How much effort is involved in doing semantic annotation – is this scalable?
• Is SW taking away a level of understanding about the web, disempowering us?

Questions for the final panel

The panel on day 2 didn't get to address all the questions posed.  Use comments to add any thoughts you may have on these.  The questions from the breakout discussions included:

• How does research impact current teaching practice, to generate the time teachers need (this one was addressed by Wendy Hall - the irclogs for 23 March)
• Why aren't learning materials open source? (see the irclogs for Enrico Motta's response)
• How can we encourage communities of practice as Oleg suggested?
• Can learning objects be used to support the dialogue between teachers?
• What is the ultimate objective that will justify or make it practical to build shared resources?
• Who is going to describe all of the dta to make the semantic web possible?
• How can we make use of technology to create a more supportive environment for motivating students?
• How much effort is involved in doing semantic annotation? Is this scaleable?
• Is the semantic web taking away a level of understanding about the web, disempowering us?
• Is technology transforming learning, or is it business-as-usual?
• Is learning fundamentally to do with human interaction?
• How might we bring together the bits of the jigsaw? or 'who do we want at the party?'
• The need for various disciplines, groups, communities to get together ... one huge project or lots of small ones?  how do we get the links and contacts set up?

 

Group H notes

1. How do we predict the unpredictable? how do we take account of the fact that technologies will change?

Given the status quo now - what might not be there in 5 to 10 years?

• the end of the browser?
• what methodology do we use to make sure we are ready for the technology changes that we don't know what will happen?
  

Follow what W3C does - be aware of emerging standards, critical mass, communities of practice

2. What are the possibilities of the semantic web? are they feasible?

Some uncertaintly in the group about what the Semantic Web is.
One answer: objects, their relationship and attributes; connecting your vocabulary and identifiers for people, documents and things, with my vocabulary and identifiers - webbiness.

Also non-text interfaces, and associative memory: "thingy who was in that film with whatsisname, (the one with the beard) and the soundtrack won an oscar..." == RDF

Potential problems/feasibility. web/vs hypertext - the web had broken links but that was fine.

Feasible:

• who adds the tags?
• trust
• loads of information, all public? everyone can find out anything about you

3. What do teachers really want from learning objects/something else?

TLTP produced CDs, lots of content, only one route around it - cool simulations, buried; could not reuse content. The practitioner needs to be able to cherrypick to fine detail.

Open source learning objectss? - coming - creative commons; however, in some cases universities are cracking down; can't share the materials even if they want to.

Teachers in schools - don't have the skillset, tools or time to create reusable content; need to be given time and training, or a new generation. But would teachers like this? do they want it?

'sage on the stage' vs 'guide on the side'

Question for the panel: why aren't learning materials open source?

Grainne's final keynote

From Libby Miller (mobile)

danbri and ruth

From Libby Miller (mobile)

Group D

 

Enrico’s question: Is the Semantic Web for learners feasible? Is it “superior” to a learning object approach?

Who defines “structure” for Sem Web? How do we deal with multiple vocabularies on Semantic Web. e.g. my “home page” v your “web address”. We still need standards (and/or statements of equivalences?)

Enrico’s linguistic mapping front-end to map “home page” to has-web-address.

c.f. Google as text-based.  Maybe linguistic mapping + Google will be sufficient?

Sem Web places emphasis on collective, distributed responsibility, community involvement. Cf. Laurillard’s bottom-up approach: if it is to work, needs input of teachers.

Oleg’s question: What do teachers really want?

Refine the question: What do teachers want out of technology? What do teachers want and how can technology support?

Challenges not only of teaching and learning but also of control, especially in schools – perhaps more pressing interest in solving control problem!

Teachers have different levels of control of technology. Some teachers don’t know how to use Web. Reality of working across different classroom environments means having to ask others for help! Admitting you don't know does introduce status/authority issues. Compare yesterday’s discussion re live IRC/weblogging, and whether presenter keeps control or not.

Need to separate resources from delivery technology. Teacher wants to use multiple resources flexibility; but in practice need multiple backups of just one resource to cope with potential delivery problems.

Can get caught out by new technology. Never enough time for teacher to exploit properly – end up using lowest common denominator for security! Conversely, some go for new tech for sake of it – appear impressive but content weak. Some good teaching based on (physical!) blackboard.

Technology does support variety of approach.

Question for panel: Is technology transforming learning? Or is it business as usual? Is learning fundamentally to do with human interaction?

Expectations/requirements of assessment. Teachers are judged by results: huge pressures on teacher to deliver results. How to “relax” and allow students to “become researchers” in this context?

Technology is becoming easier to use. Younger generations are familiar with tech, take it for granted.  Cannot be avoided. But teachers need to be able to choose technologies to meet pedagogical requirements. But much valuable work not yet accessible in digital form  e.g. Online journals only available from circa 1980

Children are good at certain ICT tasks (e.g. circumventing filters to play games!) but can’t work Google.

Children can’t put knowledge together. Getting info is easy bit. Separate getting knowledge from creation of meaning – need to discuss what found, teacher provides “scaffold”. Sem Web may assist making connections by meaning rather than simple association.

If technology provides metadata, will children ever learn? Is there a risk of technology doing too much for students? Need to transform pedagogy (e.g. issue of teaching spelling). Skills – research, evaluation, analysis – are needed. Must be taught. Not solved by teaching HTML! Sometimes better not to use computer!

Compare spelling with critical thinking. Yes, some basic level of spelling needed. But can use tech to take care of basic levels, leaving opportunity to concentrate on “higher” level skills

Meaningful connections essential. Example of (MSWord-based) mini-Sem Web of Syllabus – Learning objects relations, as “guidebook to conceptual space”, including links to external resources. Build in terms of answers to questions (Wendy’s unresolved relations).

Mobile technology in schools: dealing with challenges/problems. Can’t ignore very real community concerns re e.g. inappropriate use of mobile photography.

 

Group B

The questions posed by speakers on 23rd March (Wendy Hall, Oleg Liber, Enrico Motta)

------------------

“What do teacher’s really want?”

 “To what extent is it realistic to use semantic content in delivering Learning Objects” or “the feasibility of the semantic vision?”

 “How does one predict the unpredictable?”

------------------------------------

The group thought of other possible questions “What are the connections between these speakers”, “Who would we like them to meet”. We eventually posed:

“How might we bring together the bits of the jigsaw” the various disciplines and groups that need to get together “Who should be at the party”?

How do we close the gulf(s) between, say, AI and Web practitioners and also the Engineering and Social Science communities? An example - researchers unaware of pedagogical developments that have taken place outside her field?  What about the Concept mapping work of Novak in 1980’s? Common Language between disciplines does not exist. “We have a 5,000 piece jig-zaw and most of it is blue.”

The compartmentalisation of research funding in UK is not conducive to finding answers.

Research into Pedagogical Content Knowledge – Learning Objects don’t (can’t?) approach address this.

Reductionism – the danger of LOs. AI to replicate full knowledge of real world. Tensions between AI (reductionism) and how do we enhance our day-to-day practice.

What about a trans-disciplinary research programs with all the Research Councils? Probably not realistic? At least one problem would be there would be no label to apply to the field of research!

What are the conditions in which serendipity might produce an answer? Does it need to be market-driven? Was the Web market-driven, was text –messaging market driven. Will the need to deliver to more and more students provide the market force behind elearning?

Are cultures and organisation in HE too resistant to change? Is HE too rigid? Exeter experience = no inherent resistance from individuals but a major organisational resistance. The benefit unlikely to outweigh the  investment – will this always be so?

Award schemes for teachers in adopting eLearning. How do you provide them with the time and motivations to adopt? (time is the crucial factor)

Are we looking at context rather than objects Are the communities there to share context and practice. Learning Objects  may prove counter-productive?

Group C - Session 3

What do teachers really want? (Oleg Liber)

• Want research and design of courses to be available
• Confirmation of what they are doing and some examples to adapt for themselves
• Already plenty of guidelines and advice but need role models and ways of bringing this to peoples attention
• Familiar, everyday tools to development tools (although often a tension between easy and flexible)
• Transferable skills
• Time and some acknowledgement of the time spent developing materials
• To improve teaching and to adapt to change
• To help support students (especially at school age)

Questions:

How can we encourage the development of CoPs as Oleg suggested we needed?

Can Learning Objects be used as part of the dialogue between teachers?

To what extent is the vision of the semantic web realisable? (Enrico Motta) Often don’t need a 100% hit rate

The dependence of the author to code in the information needed for the Semantic Web is a fundamental flaw, won’t Google get there first?

Questions:

What is the ultimate objective to justify or to make it practical to build shared resources?

Who is going to describe all of the data to make the Semantic Web possible?

How do you predict the unpredictable? (Wendy Hall)

We can learn from the past.

Approach has been to have finer grained descriptions, content and functionality in order to hedge against what might happen but only time will tell whether this is the right approach.

Although you shouldn’t be driven by the technology it often allows you to move into new areas (e.g school children use the Web for research) perhaps as teachers we have to be more open to finding new ways of learning and teaching through using the technology.

Breakout Group3 A

1. Question: What do teachers really want?  (How do we find out).

 School Teachers don't have time, yet materials exist on the net. Therefore they want someone to find information relating to corriculum, put into an easy to use format, safe (controlled) to involve no marking.  In time, they would love to be able to modify it. 

In HE they want the time.  They want to be free from constraints of copyright and IPR issues.  As soon as material goes on the web, there are extra issues, e.g. actors in videos charge more as soon as material goes on the web.

There is a move towards open  source for copyright in the states.  The owner of the materials grants permission which is embedded in the material.  This has the potential to help overcome this problem.  There are however differences in subjects (science easier than Arts for example.

Don't want pre-packaged materials (want pictures, videos and articles). 

In both schools and HE, they want some way of relieving administrative burden.  It is easier for schools with the curriculum than in HE where only some have set objectives.

In schools DFES provide lesson plans and recommended resources but don't insert media into the lessons. 

Conclusion: Need ability to find resources and copyright and IPR needs streamlining. Still not sure about learning objects.

 

2. Question: What are the possibilities for the semantic web?

Has the potential to help with problems above.  Question, how do we make sure the cataloguing is done properly.  This is then met tag problem over again.  Frameworks, templates are needed (VLEs or Macromedia contribute).   Could services be the answer in the wider context?  Could 'somatic librarians' add value, just as librarians do in physical librarians?  Probably not.   The authors need to do it, but it needs to be extremely easy to do or largely automated (semantic passport).  It is the extra really useful description that it will be hard for people to do.

Do we need the semantic web when google works as a search engine?  It may offer more efficient retrieval.  Partly depends on whether freely accessible Internet material will grow or be locked behind passwords.  Can we really get what we need instantly from goggle?  Do we need to know how to search goggle and will semantics make it harder.

Semantic web used as a research tool to find links and patterns, but is this relevant to 8 year olds.  Do they need a lot of knowledge and direction from the teacher before children can benefit from the semantic web?  Conclusion: depends on your pedagogical beliefs.

Will semantic web help to create networks of information?  Can we do this without semantic tagging? 

 

3. Can we predict the unpredictable?  We can't predict where technology will go so how do we plan ahead.

Are we at a stage where we believe technology can do almost anything? Should we not just be able to say what we want and assume that the trench will soon be able to do it?

Examples: Use of technology to record what people do and where we are?  Voice control would be useful. Computer understanding what we are saying and putting into the context of where we are (nearest place to find a good or information about a service). What we want is 'more time, more sleep, more sex' but technology is doing the opposite.  In reality, can we shape the future to give us what we want?  Possibly not.  The leisure industry will invent what they can sell, and we may have to work with what they invent.  Maybe we need to try to predict the leisure industry

 

Question for panel? 

How can the research into learning technology impact on teaching practice to create more time for teachers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes from Group F session 3

Chaired by Simon Price

How do we predict the Unpredictable?

• Ask teachers what they want – might help predict 

New learning possibilities for the Semantic Web? What is possible and practical?

• Idea of Agent is attractive? But ontologies are not value free...
• Can it help with re-use? Perhaps support re-use by teachers, economy of effort
• ... lots of discussion about Learning Objects... How much of LO’s are driven by economic and political factors – should start with hard teaching problems we need solving are problems in teaching from DLs talk yesterday.
• ... ILS based systems -> centralised view...
• Can Sem Web help make this more flexible?
• Can be used badly too...
• Example that AI logic/rules etc... didn’t work with intelligent tutoring...
• DanBri – noted that Sem Web is not focused on AI... more like Enrico’s example of doc annotation...
• Difference between Sem Web – Learning Objects... Sem Web allows choice of ontologies/vocabs... allows mappings between – Not a unified worldview.
• Possibilities ... examples of mapping field of research – groups/people/views/approaches... automatically.
• There are huge swaves of human life that can’t be formalised...
• Can it do more theoretical relationships more than

What to teachers really what?

• What do Learners really what?
• Do teachers really know what they want?
• Might want what they used to be.
• Need a dialogue between the teachers and technologists...
• Technologists working with teachers ... e.g. project interviewing teachers... new technologies arrive all the time. But some are more useful than others. Consultation to get more meaningful and useful...
• What do we do first? E.g. of company with teacher as developer...Learning Objects developers used differently
• Is it about evolution? Start anywhere and many flowers bloom... fittest survive
• Need many support systems some technological and some not. 

Questions for the Panel

Oleg. What are the first step that Oleg wants Learning Objects to deliver to do what teachers want?

Does the panel think that the Sem Web can answer more complex questions e.g. organising theoretical relationships more than factual relationships?

Does the panel think that asking teachers what they really want the wrong question?

Group E

What do teachers really want?

We found the question overboard but considered various aspects of how to answer it. At what level is this considered? It is very different for schools in comparison to HE/FE. Teachers want a large range of materials for supporting their teaching methods. In particular, they want to work in their way, and would appreciate support for being worked with. However there is a range of responses - some want to do what they have always done, some want to do what they have always done, and some don't want to be dictated to.

Ownership of the process of creation of this content, and ownership of the content itself has to be clear and agreed with the participants. Only then can a proper community be generated. There are also issues with the HE/FE reward structure with respect to such teaching development.

Is my vision feasible? Enrico Motta

It is feasible if the trust and authenticaion issues are sorted out. It is important that if the machine technology is making content, gathering and aggregating adaptive content that the provenance and quality is assured, given that there is no human involvement.

How does one work around one's routed-ness in today's techology? Wendy Hall

Predicting the unpredicatable - tricky! Do take account of things that seem fanciful, such as science fiction. People are put off by long term horizons, wheras looking 3-4 years ahead is a lot more feasible.

Tracey and Lesly

From Libby Miller (mobile)

Requirements for a sustainable Learning object environment, Professor Oleg Liber

There is no question that one of the major opportunities offered by the Web is vastly increased access to content. However this has brought with it a number of problems. Whereas paper based publication has evolved a range of effective mechanisms and standards over time – the structure of text books, mechanisms for review and publication, delivery methods – online publication is struggling to develop its own mechanisms, that do not restrict the benefits of access, but do provide confidence in its validity. In particular, traditional educational structures, processes and roles are well harmonised with the technology of printed materials – teachers and learners know how to work with books and libraries, and how to use them to support their purposes; institutions know how to acquire and pay for them.

This is not the case with online materials. Almost every aspect of online publication is problematic; although it is very simple to write and publish on the Web, describing content (metadata tagging), finding material, aggregating and disaggregating materials, reviewing, and rewarding authors are all areas that still need attention. There is no doubt that recent work in defining and developing a learning object approach addresses some issues, in particular making reusability more likely. The development of learning content interoperability specifications for metadata and content packaging directly address the searching and aggregation/disaggregation issue. If these specifications are widely adopted, then content will be able to run in different learning environments, preserving materials as environments evolve.

Despite this, major problems remain. What is the motivation for lecturers to make their resources available to others by tagging them with metadata? What is the role of information professionals (librarians) in this online world? Does eLearning require a restructuring of job roles? Who are the players in the learning object economy, and what will their roles be? How will it achieve sustainability?

This paper will discuss possible scenarios for a learning object economy, and examine the implications for the structure of educational institutions processes and roles.

Enrico and danbri

From Libby Miller (mobile)

Semantic Webs for Learning, Professor Enrico Motta

Augmenting web pages with semantic contents, i.e., building a ‘Semantic Web’, promises a number of benefits for web users in general and learners in particular. Semantic technologies will make it possible to reason about the Web as if it was one extended knowledge base, thus offering increased precision when accessing information and the ability to locate information distributed across different web pages. Moreover, it will become possible to develop a range of additional educational semantic web services, such as interpretation or sense-making, structure-visualization, support for argumentation, novel forms of content customization, novel mechanisms for aggregating learning material, etc.

In my presentation I will first describe what semantic web is about and then illustrate a number of scenarios showing how semantic web technology can be harnessed to provide a much richer ‘web experience’ than what currently provided by web browsers and static web pages. In particular the ideas presented in these scenarios will be grounded on some of the work currently being carried out at the Knowledge Media Institute on semantic web browsing (Magpie) and on new forms of scholarly publishing (ScholOnto).The Magpie tool makes it possible to dynamically associate services with items found in web pages, on the basis of an underlying ontology. Thus, Magpie can be used to provide access (via a contextual menu) to complementary sources of knowledge, which can be used in contextualizing and interpreting the information found in a Web page.The ScholOnto project is building a prototype infrastructure to support the task of making scholarly claims about the significance of research documents. 'Claims' are made by making connections between ideas. The connections are grounded in a discourse/argumentation ontology, which supports innovative services for navigating, visualizing and analysing the network as it grows. Such a tool could be used in educational settings to allow students to develop easily a model of the current dialectics in a particular area of research.

Of course, the semantic web, like any other attempt at formalizing knowledge, carries a risk: to simplify what is complex, to impoverish what is rich. This is also a potential risk with some of the current work on learning objects. For this reason it is important not to lose focus of what the technology should be about: it should support users in making connections, engaging in critical analysis, locating the right knowledge and navigating and making sense of alternative teaching narratives. If used correctly, this technology could provide a quantum leap in the level of support available to students. If not, it will become yet another tool supporting reductionist approaches to learning and teaching.

Wendy Hall's keynote

Good morning, Wendy

Web technologies in evolution – a context for learning cultures, Professor Wendy Hall

Long before the Web existed hypertext visionaries and researchers foresaw a richly inter-linked world that allowed authors and readers alike to move easily between related items of information in a global network: many were excited by the idea that such environments could be used to support learning. The Web provided the infrastructure to enable those ideas to become reality but in some ways is far more limited than many of its antecedents. Links, the fundamental building blocks of any hypertext system, are still difficult to author and maintain. Associative, personalised links, which formed the basis of Vannevar Bush's off-cited article "As We May Think", are largely missing from both the theory and the practice of building Web sites, and it is left to search engines to fill the gaps. However, the development of the Semantic Web promises to provide a much richer environment for exploring these ideas, and in particular how they might provide a context for learning. This talk will consider how the Web is used today to support learning, and will look forward to the potential for more sophisticated Web-based learning environments in the future as the Semantic Web evolves.