a learning management system (LMS) is never the solution to every problem in education. Edtech is just one part of the whole learning ecosystem and student experience.
Therefore, the next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE), as envisioned by EDUCAUSE in 2015 … Looking at the NGDLE requirements from an LMS perspective, I view the NGDLE as being about five areas: interoperability; personalization; analytics, advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; accessibility and universal design.
Interoperability
Content can easily be exchanged between systems.
Users are able to leverage the tools they love, including discipline-specific apps.
Learning data is available to trusted systems and people who need it.
The learning environment is “future proof” so that it can adapt and extend as the ecosystem evolves.
Personalization
The learning environment reflects individual preferences.
Departments, divisions, and institutions can be autonomous.
Instructors teach the way they want and are not constrained by the software design.
There are clear, individual learning paths.
Students have choice in activity, expression, and engagement.
Analytics, Advising, and Learning Assessment
Learning analytics helps to identify at-risk students, course progress, and adaptive learning pathways.
The learning environment enables integrated planning and assessment of student performance.
More data is made available, with greater context around the data.
The learning environment supports platform and data standards.
Collaboration
Individual spaces persist after courses and after graduation.
Learners are encouraged as creators and consumers.
Courses include public and private spaces.
Accessibility and Universal Design
Accessibility is part of the design of the learning experience.
The learning environment enables adaptive learning and supports different types of materials.
Learning design includes measurement rubrics and quality control.
The core analogy used in the NGDLE paper is that each component of the learning environment is a Lego brick:
The days of the LMS as a “walled garden” app that does everything is over.
Today many kinds of amazing learning and collaboration tools (Lego bricks) should be accessible to educators.
We have standards that let these tools (including an LMS) talk to each other. That is, all bricks share some properties that let them fit together.
Students and teachers sign in once to this “ecosystem of bricks.”
The bricks share results and data.
These bricks fit together; they can be interchanged and swapped at will, with confidence that the learning experience will continue uninterrupted.
Any “next-gen” attempt to completely rework the pedagogical model and introduce a “mash-up of whatever” to fulfil this model would fall victim to the same criticisms levied at the LMS today: there is too little time and training to expect faculty to figure out the nuances of implementation on their own.
The Lego metaphor works only if we’re talking about “old school” Lego design — bricks of two, three, and four-post pieces that neatly fit together. Modern edtech is a lot more like the modern Lego. There are wheels and rocket launchers and belts and all kinds of amazing pieces that work well with each other, but only when they are configured properly. A user cannot simply stick together different pieces and assume they will work harmoniously in creating an environment through which each student can be successful.
As the NGDLE paper states: “Despite the high percentages of LMS adoption, relatively few instructors use its more advanced features — just 41% of faculty surveyed report using the LMS ‘to promote interaction outside the classroom.'”
But this is what the next generation LMS is good at: being a central nervous system — or learning hub — through which a variety of learning activities and tools are used. This is also where the LMS needs to go: bringing together and making sense of all the amazing innovations happening around it. This is much harder to do, perhaps even impossible, if all the pieces involved are just bricks without anything to orchestrate them or to weave them together into a meaningful, personal experience for achieving well-defined learning outcomes.
Making a commitment to build easy, flexible, and smart technology
Working with colleges and universities to remove barriers to adopting new tools in the ecosystem
Standardizing the vetting of accessibility compliance (the Strategic Nonvisual Access Partner Program from the National Federation of the Blind is a great start)
Advancing standards for data exchange while protecting individual privacy
Building integrated components that work with the institutions using them — learning quickly about what is and is not working well and applying those lessons to the next generation of interoperability standards
Letting people use the tools they love [SIC] and providing more ways for nontechnical individuals (including students) to easily integrate new features into learning activities
My note: something just refused to be accepted at SCSU
Technologists are often very focused on the technology, but the reality is that the more deeply and closely we understand the pedagogy and the people in the institutions — students, faculty, instructional support staff, administrators — the better suited we are to actually making the tech work for them.
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Under the Hood of a Next Generation Digital Learning Environment in Progress
The challenge is that although 85 percent of faculty use a campus learning management system (LMS),1 a recent Blackboard report found that, out of 70,000 courses across 927 North American institutions, 53 percent of LMS usage was classified as supplemental(content-heavy, low interaction) and 24 percent as complementary (one-way communication via content/announcements/gradebook).2 Only 11 percent were characterized as social, 10 percent as evaluative (heavy use of assessment), and 2 percent as holistic (balanced use of all previous). Our FYE course required innovating beyond the supplemental course-level LMS to create a more holistic cohort-wide NGDLE in order to fully support the teaching, learning, and student success missions of the program.The key design goals for our NGDLE were to:
Create a common platform that could deliver a standard curriculum and achieve parity in all course sections using existing systems and tools and readily available content
Capture, store, and analyze any generated learner data to support learning assessment, continuous program improvement, and research
Develop reports and actionable analytics for administrators, advisors, instructors, and students
The sound of dial-up internet haunts your nightmares and you remember when floppy disks were actually floppy. Was your first crush called Corey? Perhaps you were born between 1977 and 1983
The online magazine Good says xennials are “a micro-generation that serves as a bridge between the disaffection of gen X and the blithe optimism of millennials”.
The New York Times VR app (available for iOS and Android) we can now experience parts of Antarctica in virtual reality. As a part of their Antarctica series The New York Times has published four short films (9-15 minutes) that can be viewed in virtual reality.
Request from Plovdiv University faculty and teachers from the Plovdiv school district for literature on the issue of online reading for K4 students
Putman, S. M. (2014). Exploring Dispositions Toward Online Reading: Analyzing the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors. Reading Psychology, 35(1), 1-31. doi:10.1080/02702711.2012.664250
Research continues to emerge that pro-vides us with information about the cognitive skills and strategies relevant to the proficient use of the new literacies of the Internet, but conclusions regarding dispositions and affective variables are notably limited. For this reason, it is important that researchers begin to focus concurrently on both areas to inform the educational community regarding how to meet the rapidly changing needs of our current and future students.
Coiro, J. (2011). Talking About Reading as Thinking: Modeling the Hidden Complexities of Online Reading Comprehension. Theory Into Practice, 50(2), 107-115. doi:10.1080/00405841.2011.558435
Hutchison, A. C., Woodward, L., & Colwell, J. (2016). What Are Preadolescent Readers Doing Online? An Examination of Upper Elementary Students’ Reading, Writing, and Communication in Digital Spaces. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(4), 435-454. doi:10.1002/rrq.146
he performance of 1,262 fourth and fifth graders on the Survey of Internet Use and Online Reading.
(c) despite reporting a preference for using the Internet, preadolescent students believe that it is more difficult to use it than to read a book, and believe that they would learn
more from a book than from the Internet;
Huang, S., Orellana, P., & Capps, M. (2016). U.S. and Chilean College Students’ Reading Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Reading Research Quarterly, 51(4), 455-471. doi:10.1002/rrq.144
My note: this may seem peripheral study to the request in terms of age, but the cross-cultural study can help the Bulgarian research
Due to the impact of the Internet on reading resources, students’ reading patterns today are different from how they were in the past. College students’ reading practices have moved to different venues with the advent of Internet technology, and the modality has migrated to online reading.
Naumann, J. (2015). A model of online reading engagement: Linking engagement, navigation, and performance in digital reading. Computers In Human Behavior, 53263-277. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.051
model of online reading engagement is outlined. This model proposes that online reading engagement predicts dedication in digital reading. Dedication in digital reading according to the model is reflected in task-adaptive navigation, and task-adaptive navigation predicts digital reading performance over and above print reading skill. Information engagement is assumed to positively predict task-adaptive navigation, while social engagement is assumed to negatively predict task-adaptive navigation. These hypotheses were tested using OECD PISA 2009 Digital Reading Assessment data from 17 countries and economies ( N = 29,395).
Alvermann, D. E., & Harrison, C. (2016). Are Computers, Smartphones, and the Internet a Boon or a Barrier for the Weaker Reader?. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(2), 221-225. doi:10.1002/jaal.569
If boys are spending nine hours a day media multitasking and prefer computers to books, shouldn’t they be successful at online learning? Online learning requires online reading, which means that boys, who are significantly poorer readers than girls in every nation in the world, may well be struggling to keep up. an online student may not have access to the learning that can come from group interaction, nor to the social and emotional support that can come from peers or a teacher, and the online reader could be heading for a learning apocalypse
Park, H., & Kim, D. (2017). English language learners’ strategies for reading online texts: Influential factors and patterns of use at home and in school. International Journal Of Educational Research, 8263-74. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2017.01.002
five fourth and fifth-grade English language learners’ (ELLs) strategy use when they read online texts at home and in school. We also identify factors that play a role when these learners read online texts, as well as similar and different patterns in reading strategies at home and in school. The findings show that three factors influence the ELLs’ selection of online texts and use of reading strategies. In addition, the ELLs used nine reading strategies to enhance their reading online texts. Based on these findings, we discuss (a) the ELLs’ online reading strategies in different contexts, (b) the multidimensional zone of proximal development, and (c) collaboration between parents and teachers.
Leu, D. J., Forzani, E., Timbrell, N., & Maykel, C. (2015). Seeing the Forest, Not the Trees. Reading Teacher, 69(2), 139-145. doi:10.1002/trtr.1406
a primary goal is to develop the ability to read in order to learn with online information. Technologies that support this goal, especially the Internet, and instructional practices that support the development of online reading should be our primary consideration for reading and literacy education, beginning in the primary grades.
Brynge, E., Case, H., Forsyth, E., Green, G., & Hölke, U. (2015). Libraries: Sustaining the Digital Reader Experience. Scholarly & Research Communication, 1-10.
The survey findings reveal a mix of confidence and concern about an uncertain future for U.S. higher education:
83 percent of respondents believe that the higher education system today is the best or one of the best in the world;
61 percent think the higher education system will still be the best or one of the best in the world in 10 years;
91 percent expect the number of online programs at their institution to increase in the next decade;
78 percent said colleges and universities are doing a good, very good or excellent job of fostering academic innovation;
A quarter of respondents think the higher education system is heading in the right direction; and
A third of respondents said the pace of change at their own institutions is “too slow,” citing lack of money as the biggest hurdle to change.
“We also found that, amid rising tuition prices and student debt, most deans still believe that higher education is a good return on the investment,” added Selingo.
My notes: this is a 1997 article
the explosion of information is not accompanied by understanding of information.
p. 337 However, if one accepts a definition of information as a process rather than as a thing, then such policies can at best form a framework for the creation of mean- ing by the individuals or groups who are creating information by bring- ing their knowledge to bear on the data available to them
Data acquisition, maintenance and delivery are a vital part of organisational life, but problems arise when we fail to recognise the necessary links to knowledge.
p. 338 However, just teaching users the practi- calities of applications has been seen to be deficient. It leads to an exces- sive focus on ‘how’ to use a particular application rather than on ‘why’ it should be used 13.
p. 379 Information literacy is a stage above computer literacy, the latter usually implying the ability to use a personal computer . My note: some librarians assume that “computer literacy” is the same as “digital literacy” and were trying to convince me that information literacy is succeeding digital literacy, where it is the other way around
p. 380 There are those within the LIS community who warn that librar- ians should not stray into areas that are not appropriate. Behrens points out that the future is likely to see an increased emphasis on a part- nership between librarians and educators. My note another glaring discrepancy between myself and the librarians at SCSU
p. 386 The phrase information literacy has some value in expressing what might need to be done if the aims of information policies are to be made concrete. It points to the need for an emphasis on the awareness of the individual using data of a range of issues. These are not, it has been argued, to be limited to issues of storage and retrieval but have, centrally, to be concerned with issues of definition and meaning. These issues might be tackled in this order: what are the issues in this field surround- ing the nature of knowledge (i.e. how do we formulate questions); how might data be best acquired, stored, etc. in order to answer these ques- tions? (this might well best be paralleled by training in computer literacy); and what factors, both social and individual, place constraints on our ability to use the data?
These are the top 10 workforce skills students will need by 2020
By Laura Ascione, Managing Editor, Content Services, @eSN_Laura
June 20th, 2017
a recent McGraw-Hill Education survey, just 40 percent of college seniors said they felt their college experience was helpful in preparing for a career. Alarmingly, that percentage plummeted to 19 percent for women answering the same question.
1. Extreme longevity: People are living longer–by 2025 the number of Americans older than 60 will increase by 70 percent 2. The rise of smart machines and systems: Technology can augment and extend our own capabilities, and workplace automation is killing repetitive jobs 3. Computational world: Increases in sensors and processing makes the world a programmable system; data will give us the ability to see things on a scale that has never been possible 4. New media ecology: New communication tools require media literacies beyond text; visual communication media is becoming a new vernacular 5. Superstructured organizations: Social technologies drive new forms of production and value creation, and social tools are allowing organizations to work at extreme scales 6. Globally connected world: Diversity and adaptability are at the center of operations–the U.S. and Europe no longer hold a monopoly on job creation, innovation, and political power
The top 10 workforce skills of 2020 include:
1. Sense making: The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems
2. Social intelligence: The ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems, globally connected world
3. Novel and adaptive thinking: Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems, globally connected world
4. Cross cultural competency: The ability to operate in different cultural settings. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, globally connected world
5. Computational thinking: The ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data based reasoning. The Drivers: New media ecology, computational world
6. New media literacy: The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication. The Drivers: Extreme longevity, new media ecology, Superstructured organizations
7. Transdisciplinary: Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. The Drivers: Extreme longevity, computational world
8. Design mindset: The ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, computational world
9. Cognitive load management: The ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functions. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, computational world, new media ecology
10. Virtual collaboration: The ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, globally connected world
The numbers reveal a year-to-year online enrollment increase of 226,375 distance education students–a 3.9 percent increase, up over rates recorded the previous two years. More than 6 million students are now online learners, according to the report.
More than one in four students (29.7 percent) now take at least one distance education course (a total of 6,022,105 students).
Graduate students are twice as likely to take all of their courses online (26 percent) as undergraduate students (12 percent).
The number of students studying on a campus has dropped by almost 1 million (931,317) between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of “exclusively distance” students live in the same state as their institution (55 percent), while 42 percent are studying online at an out-of-state institution.
Public institutions educate the largest proportion of online students (67.8 percent), though more online learners in private institutions attend nonprofit schools than for-profits, according to the data.
And according to LMS provider Docebo, the 2016 world-wide revenue for self-paced online learning products and services (in US$ millions) exceeded $23 million in North America, beating out Europe and even Asia by a large margin.
Going corporate: According to the latest market study by Technavio, the size of the global corporate online learning market is predicted to reach an approximate amount of USD 31 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.
An important component: Within online learning, the LMS market is expected to grow at an incredible rate—a CAGR of 24 percent by 2020.
The biggest growth: Within online learning, the cloud is also growing at a tremendous rate. IT spending is steadily shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services, and the aggregate amount of cloud is expected to go from $111 billion in 2016 to $216 billion in 2020.
The Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, and advancements in online learning have changed the way universities reach prospective students, engage with their current student body, and provide them the resources they need.
The Internet of Things has opened up a whole new world of possibilities in higher education. The increased connectivity between devices and “everyday things” means better data tracking and analytics, and improved communication between student, professor, and institution, often without ever saying a word. IoT is making it easier for students to learn when, how, and where they want, while providing professors support to create a more flexible and connected learning environment.
Virtual/Augmented Reality
Virtual and augmented reality technologies have begun to take Higher Ed into the realm of what used to be considered science fiction.
