Category Archives: education

“E-Learning: An Oxymoron?”

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Jakob Nielsen is a usability guru I have followed ever since my PhD days, who over the years has expressed many sound and insightful opinions on usability and human-computer interaction. So I had a real jolt when I read that headline in his recent column “Writing Style for Print vs. Web”. He writes first

“I continue to believe in the linear, author-driven narrative for educational purposes. I just don’t believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience. Instead, let’s praise old narrative forms like books and sitting around a flickering campfire — or its modern day counterpart, the PowerPoint projector — which have been around for 500 and 32,000 years, respectively.”

followed shortly by

“We should accept that the Web is too fast-paced for big-picture learning. No problem; we have other media, and each has its strengths. At the same time, the Web is perfect for narrow, just-in-time learning of information nuggets — so long as the learner already has the conceptual framework in place to make sense of the facts.”

I think that many in the e-learning community could reflect on this profitably. But though I may know a lot about e-portfolio related technology and interoperability, I certainly know much less about e-learning more widely, of which I have no practical experience. Does Jakob, I wonder? Is he thinking about the (too prevalent, but simplistic) model of e-learning as just putting lectures, notes and tests on-line?

And what’s this about books? To be sure, books are archetypally reader-paced, allowing time for reflection whenever wanted, and perhaps this is one factor missing from impoverished models of e-learning. But they could not be called interactive – that is more the province of the “sitting around the campfire”, when learners can ask questions and discuss matters with other learners and with their teachers.

Jakob favours “author-driven narrative” – but what about learner-driven learning? Can’t this be greatly facilitated by the kind of electronic tools that go along with enlightened approaches to e-learning? To risk being a little cynical, e-learning is probably less easy to profit from than books and lectures (for the author, that is!)

Renownedly, Moodle’s philosophy is constructivist – would that be a surprise to Jakob, or would he say that Moodle is attempting the impossible?

The “bottom line” here is that e-learning people need to check whether the modes of learning that they are encouraging, implying, suggesting or allowing do not fall foul of the valid points in Nielsen’s analysis.

GMSA advance

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As I’ve been involved with GMSA in various ways including through the ioNW2 project, I went to their seminar on 14th May introducing GMSA Advance.  This is to do with providing bite-sized modules of Higher Education, mainly for people at work, and giving awards (including degrees) on that basis – picking up some of the “Leitch” agenda. As I suspected, it was of interest from a portfolio perspective among others.

I’ll start with the portfolio- and PDP-related issues.

The first issue is award coherence. If you put together an award from self-chosen small chunks of learning (“eclectic”, one could call it), there is always an issue of whether that award represents anything coherent. Awarding bodies, including HEIs, may not think it right to give an award for what looks like a random collection of learning. Having awarding bodies themselves define what counts as coherent risks being too restrictive. An awarding body might insist on things which were not relevant to the learner’s workplace, or that had been covered outside the award framework. On the other hand, employers might not understand about academic coherence at all. A possible solution that strikes me and others is

  • have the learner explain the coherence of modules chosen
  • assess that explanation as part of the award requirement.

This explanation of coherence needs to make sense to a variety of people as well as the learner, in particular, to academics and to employers. It invites a portfolio-style approach: the learner is supported through a process of constructing the explanation, and it is presented as a portfolio with links to further information and evidence. One could imagine, for example, a video interview with the learner’s employer as useful extra evidence.

A second issue is the currency and validity of “credit”. Now I have a history of skepticism about credit frameworks and credit transfer, though the above idea of assessed explanation of award coherence at last  brings a ray of light into the gloom. My issue has always been that, to be meaningful, awards should be competence-based, not credit based. And I still maintain that the abilities claimed by someone at the end of a course, suitably validated by the awarding body, should be a key part of the official records of assessment (indeed, part of the “Higher Education Achievement Report” of the Burgess Group – report downloadable as PDF)

One of the key questions for these “eclectic” awards is whether credit should have a limited lifetime. Whether credit should expire surely should depend on what credit is trying to represent. It is just the skills, abilities or competences whose validation needs to expire – this is increasingly being seen in the requirement for professional revalidation. And the expiry of validation itself needs to be based on evidence – bicycle riding and swimming tend to be skills that are learned once for ever; language skills fall off only slowly; but the knowledge of the latest techniques in a leading edge discipline may be lost very quickly.

This is a clear issue for portfolios that present skills. The people with those portfolios need to be aware of the perceived value of old evidence, and to be prepared to back up old formal evidence with more recent, if less formal, additional evidence of currency. We could potentially take that approach back into the the GMSA Advance awards, though there would be many details to figure out, and issues would overlap with accreditation of prior learning.

Other issues at the seminar were not to do with portfolios. There is the question of how to badge such awards. CPD? Several of those attending thought not – “CPD”is often associated with unvalidated personal learning, or even just attendance at events. As an alternative, I rather like the constructive ambiguity of the phrase “employed learning” – it would be both the learners and the learning that are employed – so that is my suggestion for inclusion into award titles.

Another big issue is funding. Current policy is for no government funding to be given for people studying for awards of equal or lower level than one they have already achieved. The trouble is that if each module itself carries an award, then work-based learners couldn’t be funded for this series of bite-sized modules, but only one. The issue is recognised, but not solved. A good idea that was suggested at the seminar is to change and clarify the meaning of credit, so that it takes on the role of measuring public fundability of learning. Learners could have a lifetime learning credit allowance, that they could spend as they preferred. Actually, I think even better would be a kind of “sabbatical” system where one’s study credit allowance continued to build, to allow for retraining. Maybe one year’s (part time?) study credit would be fundable for each (say) 7 years of life – or maybe 7 years of tax-paying work?

So, as you can see, it was a thought-provoking and stimulating seminar.

ePortfolios, identity etc. Newcastle 2008-02-28

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When we saw the initial announcement, it looked like a good thing to go to, as it overlaps areas of keen interest. So Helen, Scott and I had written the paper – Social portfolios supporting professional identity – and Helen and I went along to the one-day conference in Newcastle organised by Medev. It was a good day.

Why, then, have I been hesitating to write a blog entry about it? The usual good lot of people were there, including a pleasing number of those I didn’t know. The proceedings were printed admirably. The food, the arrangements, were all very good. Even our paper went down well (OK, actually it was the presentation, not the paper, which had some, what shall we say, interesting content). There was some very stimulating discussion around that.

And I’m sure it was very interesting and useful to many. But to me, the interest and use was in the networking, which one can’t really blog about so easily, as it is much more personal. The presentations were all worthy, but perhaps one may be forgiven for not remembering much that stood out as being different from the many other portfolio conferences that some of us have been to.

Assessment think tank, HEA, 2008-01-31

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Assessment think tank, at The Higher Education Academy, York, 31st January to 1st February 2008

Several of these events appear to have been arranged, and this one was with the Subject Centres both for History, Classics and Archaeology (HCA), and for Philosophy and Religious Studies (PRS).

Around 20 or so delegates were present, mostly from representative subject areas, but including from the JISC’s Plagiarism Advisory Service. Previously, I only recognised Sharon Waller from the HEA, and had talked with Costas Athanasopoulos (PRS Subject Centre) at the JISC CETIS conference: he was the one who invited me.

I won’t try to document the whole event, but to pick out a few things which were highlights for me.

The discussion around plagiarism was inspiring. There was very little on the mechanics and technology of plagiarism detection (Turnitin is popular now) and plenty on good practice to avoid the motive for plagiarising in the first place. This overlaps greatly with other good practice – heartening, I felt. George MacDonald Ross gave us links to some of his useful resources.

Also from George MacDonald Ross, there was an interesting treatment of multiple-choice questions, for use preferably in formative self-assessment, avoiding factual questions, and focusing on different possible interpretations, in his example within philosophy.

As I’m interested in definitions of ability and competence, I brought up the issue of subject benchmarks, but there was little interest in that specifically. However, for archaeology fieldwork, Nick Thorpe (University of Winchester) uses an assessment scheme where there are several practical criteria, each with descriptors for 5 levels. This perhaps comes closest to practice in vocational education and training, though to me it doesn’t quite reach the clarity and openness of UK National Occupational Standards. Generally, people don’t seem to be yet up to clearly defining the characteristics of graduates of their courses, or they feel that attempts to do that have been poor. And yet, what can be done to provide an overall positive vision, acceptable to staff and student alike, without a clear, shared view of aims? Just as MCQs don’t have to test factual knowledge, learning outcomes don’t have to be on a prosaic, instrumental level. I’d be interested to see more of attempts to define course outcomes at relatively abstract levels, as long as those are assessable, formally or informally, by learner, educator and potential employer alike.

One of the overarching questions of the day was, what assessment-related resources are wanted, and could be provided either through the HEA or JISC? In one of our group discussions, the group I was in raised the issue of what a resource was, anyway? And at the end, the question came back. Given the wide range of the discussion throughout the day and a half, there was no clear answer. But one thing came through in any case. Teaching staff have a sense that much good, innovative practice around assessment is constrained by HEI (and sometimes wider) policies and regulations. Materials which can help overcome these constraints would be welcome. Perhaps these could be case studies, which documented how innovative good practice was able to be reconciled with prevailing policy and regulations. Good examples here, presented in a place which was easy to find, could disseminate quickly – virally even. Elements of self-assessment, peer assessment, collaboration, relevance to life beyond the HEI, clarity of outcomes and assessment criteria, etc., if planted visibly in one establishment, could help others argue the case for better practice elsewhere.

LSE SSIT 7 workshop, 2007-03-19

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The LSE’s SSIT 7 workshop “Identity in the Information Society: Security, Privacy, The Future” took place 2007-03-19 and 20 (Monday and Tuesday).Well, it was certainly a change for me to attend an event where there is no one who I have met before, and where my badge, declaring “JISC CETIS Portfolio SIG” drew curiosity but no recognition. The usual suspects were absent. And it’s refreshing to be reminded that there are a whole lot of people out there interested in identity coming from different starting points.

One of the starting points, relating to the venue at LSE, was the political slant. Human rights good, government interference bad; social workers good, information systems – well, if not entirely bad, then certainly highly suspect of being tools in the hands of an oppressive government. Confronted with what seemed to me like ancient lefty attitudes, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or just throw in a couple of questions into the pot. I tried the last, but to little effect I think.

What did puzzle and disappoint was that this workshop seemed to be put together on the premise that people wanted to get together to join in criticism for anything that could remotely be associated with surveillance and control, and in particular identity cards and databases with personal information, but neither to accept any positive reasons why these things should be put forward in the first place, nor to offer any constructive alternatives. The spectre of Orwell’s 1984 still seems to have the power to deprive people of many of their critical faculties, despite times having moved on. Why don’t people bother at least to suggest ways in which the feared technology could be kept more under control?

Bruce Schneier seemed to fit well into this mould. I felt there was an element of scaremongering, and I couldn’t discern much by way of serious analysis. I look forward to having a look at his newsletter, “Crypto-Gram“, to find the constructive and valuable things that I didn’t get from this presentation. A serious point of criticism I have relates to his view of law. If we want protection, we must have laws that enact that protection, he seemed to be suggesting. But since when have criminals, and particularly organised criminals, respected laws? Laws do “change the dynamic” for law-abiding citizens, but I’d say that law-abiding citizens aren’t the main problem.

Bruce thought that the idea of the “death of privacy” was overrated. But what exactly, I started to wonder, is this “privacy” that people champion? Do people want to interact with the information society by withholding all information about themselves, and being asked every time for their permission to access every smallest piece of it? That would seem pretty shortsighted and timewasting to me: the thought wasn’t mentioned in any case.

The next speakers were at least very stimulating and entertaining. Simon Davies and Gus Hosein (of Privacy International as well as visiting fellows of LSE) seem to have made a bit of a career out of challenging the government specifically about the Identity Card proposals. Nice to see some material reported that could have come out of Private Eye.

The highlight of the day for me came in the afternoon, when I was about to give up hope of anything solidly interesting. Prof Brian Collins is the Department of Transport’s Chief Scientific Advisor, with a distinguished earlier career. He gave a thoroughly professional presentation on some of the technical pitfalls and challenges associated with Identity Management. He sees no reason why people should not use multiple identities, allied to an assumption of minimum disclosure. I hope his slides become available to prompt more recall.

The following morning we were back to old themes for a while. Terri Dowty, the Director of Action on Rights for Children, did give a useful catalogue of the different databases on which personal information about children may appear, now or planned. But this was all in a sinister-toned presentation which, for example, almost portrayed the Connexions service as an agent of repression. How about, I asked, proposing something positive, rather than just criticising the negative aspects of current and planned databases? What would she suggest? More front-line workers like social and youth workers; more money to help families … you probably get the picture, though she didn’t say “tax the fat cats”. What I rescued with my other question was that parents and children are in principle allowed to see records on “ContactPoint” (used to be called “information sharing index”) which is where much of this information is brought together. Perhaps that is what we ought to be advising people to do: at least to know what is there, and correct if needed.

Terri seemed to have a pretty rosy picture of the world in which only about one in 500 children need any urgent intervention. She portrayed a society where the constant intrusion into children’s private lives accentuates their dependency and interferes with the development of their sense of self. I couldn’t see it, personally. What is credible is that people won’t use a service if they suspect the information may be passed on to others. I think that lesson has been taken on board in the e-portfolio community already. What it does highlight for me is the need to elaborate ideas on ethical development.

Another positive highlight followed: Ross Anderson of Cambridge University talked about “Identity Privacy and Safety in e-Health” (though e-health is not a term he likes). This was a brilliant and committed expose of the pitfalls of large government IT projects, and hence the risks inherent in the NHS IT project. Interestingly for us, he sees the way forward as being with standards-based interoperability, and an open market in IT systems development. This is how Sweden manages to have a system that works.

For me, privacy needs a model different from the one implicit at this workshop. I’d say, better and more constructive to stop focusing on what one doesn’t want others to see, and start focusing on just what one does want different groups to see – or conversely, who is allowed to see any particular piece of information. It seems to me that here is another lesson that has already been learned, a while ago, by the e-portfolio community. Perhaps when one’s focus is on systems controlled by others, it is easy to focus on the dangers, not the opportunities given by systems if under the control of the individual. Clear lesson: let’s make sure that we continue to clearly advocate the user-centric design and development of user-controlled systems.

There’s one other principle I’d like to float, and it is about the visibility of traces of accessing information. My intuition is that if one could reasonably guarantee that all accesses of personal information were both properly logged and available to the “data subject”, then we would be much less unhappy about our information being on the databases in the first place. Is such technology feasible? What would it take?