Seminar on MOOCs, Lyon, France, Day 2

Again these talks are all in French so my note-taking may be inaccurate in places.
 
Denis Gillet
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Environnements personnels d'apprentissage ou d'enseigments


xMOOCs - the good
    - democratozation of access to learning
    - rethinking the way knowledge is transmitted - flip the classroom
    - rethinking the role of the universities    - flip the institution
    - facilitation of continuing education - interestingly, many of our students already have degrees
    - feedback on progress
      - the bad
    - english-speaking hegeonomy
    - scholarly style - vs a more open European style
    - reduction of diversity
    - need for a production team
       - the challenging
    - competition between institutions and centres
    - lack of control of IP
    - lack of control over personal data
    - fraud or identity theft
    - private intermediaries for evaluation
        - opportunities
    - cMOOCs - connectivism in action
    - it's important to use open standard
    - MOOLs - massive open online labs

Questions:
    - are institutions centers of learning or of teaching?
    - does MOOCification result in reduced quality? Can they improve quality without reducing proximity?
    - can the collection of personal data be negotiated?


Personal Learning environments (Environnements personnels d'apprentissage) (APE)
    - channels of communication
    - cloud resources - OERs
    - peer learning in social networks
    - SaaS

    Example: Chinese site - EPA dans Liferay
        (similar to an iGoogle or Pageflakes site)

    Social platform for personal learning environments:
        - enables agile creation of shared spaces for learning activities
            http://graasp.epfl.ch
            Allows you to specify audience, roles, entities
    PLEs in an institutional context
        - added value:
        - supports spontaneous activities without LMS
        - organize activities with external colleagues without access problems
        - flexible organization of student activities

    Responsible Open Learning Envrinments - ROLE
        - principally for students with sufficient digital skills
        - Reseau European d;Excellence STELLAR en Nouvelles Technologies Edicatifs
        - developed to teach the same menthods of collaboration found among reserachers

xEPA - Environments to support cMOOCs

    - designed to support connective activities
    - continuum betqween xMOOCs and cMOOCs, across domains:
        - aggregation & dissemination - generated a priori or found by participants
        - tutoring and evalaluation - normative or formative
        - sequence and structure - imposed by platform vs created by participants

    - Extensibility of Environments
        - project: tranforming platform for APE to support for a cMOOC
        - a lot of talk of OERs - less about the extensibility of platform services
        - these are typically scripts
        - eg. peer evaluation, questionairre creation, group formation, competence exchanges, etc.
        - Result: Open Social Web Apps

Case Study
    - principle innovation of xMOOCs - studented content in 15-minute chunks
    - cMOOCs and xMOOCs in social media
        - two student spresenting to each other
        - group projects
        - peer evaluation

Context
    Go-Lab - Global Online Science Labs for Inquiry Learning at School
    - mass access to:
        - scientific data
        - virtual experiences & simulations
        - actual scientific labs and instruments
    - as a means of access applications   
        - eg. analysis, interactivem visual

Motivation
    - practical leanring in science and engineering
    - support for professional competencies
    - support for the scientific creation and validation of learning
    - environment: circle linking
        - online labs
        - communications apps - eg. opensocial
        - cMOOCs
        - Go-Lab - private space for students to sstudy
        - edX - integrated space
    - Example: ILS MOOL

http://www.emoocs204.eu
http://react.epfl.ch
http://moocs.epfl.ch


Philippe Gillet
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne




    - The president went on a trip to California and came back talking about MOOC revolutions. We did a seminar with all the teachers and talked about it - talking in very general terms about the digital revolution, about MOOCs, etc. Open access, crowd sourcing.

    - MNOOCs in context - the idea of crowdsourcing (the example of the public solving a protein structure problem). Michael Nielsen, 'Reinventing Discovery'. Also the example of Wikipedia. The Human Brain Project.

    - Grouping of professors - you will always run into these personalities when launching a MOOC initiatuive
        - Le gourou de MOOCs (mooc guru)
        - Le Veteran
        - Le Pessimiste - the sceptic

    - MOOCs - the latest in a long line of educational innovations - eg. CMC, LMS, e-learning, etc
    - EPFL - centre for distance eductaion - huge increase in enrollments in 12 online courses
   
    - What have we done (one year later)?
        - productionm disseminatiion, collaboration, coordination
        - for us, it's not just a couple of professors mounting video
            - it requires rethinking pedagigy, collaboration, etc
        - platforms - Coursera, edX - no reason to pick one of the other
            - but also, we don;t want to depend on one or the other

    - So - why make MOOCs?
        - visibility - to augment the reputation of l'EPFL - future profs and students can see our work
        - internally, to support learning
        - tecahing in french-language countries (esp. developing countries)

    - outline of the MOOCs created - different models, English and French
        - geographic distribution - global
        - it's difficult to reach Africa - but with partnerships it is possible
        - the challenge: access to internet (it's what makes the difference)
        - dropout rate - common across all courses
            - a good MOOC has 10% of finishers
            - the best MOOC in this regard is the Scalia one
        - sampling successful students:
            - they like flexibility
            - they like watching the videos together
            - students demand data privacy
            - they want contact with the professors
        - professors:
            - we should have taken before-after pictures of the professors
            - takes a lot of work
            - it's risky, physically (because of the work) & in visibility
            - but they are happy to open the door to their teaching - ed has never been so exposed
        - student participation
            - on the surface - videos and quizzes
            - deep learning - in the assignments

        - Center for Digital Education MOOCs Factory
            - to guarantee a minimum quality
            - MOOC studio - design, record, review, etc
            - editorial process: committee, design, production, etc
            - MOOCs are more social than you believe
                (picture of a group watching a video together)
            - MOOCs - the new textbook?
        - Problems:
            - plagiarism is massive
            - flipped classrooms are difficult to set up; students want lectures
            - difficult to manages internal and external students
            - privacy
            - teacher workload
            - mosts - MOOCs don't make money


Alain Mille
Lab. LIRIS, Universite Lyon
Research questions and methods on the MOOC: what's new?


- what is a MOOC? May seem easy to identiofy the objevct of study...
    - xMOOC - top down
    - cMOOC - bottom up? constructivist?
    - iMOOC? - i for investigation - neither top down nor bottom up

- the web context - a man-machine complex environment
    - the fact that a new way of learning emerges form this enviornment is not surprising
    - the web is widely available - no place where it'snot present
    - we turn to the web to find information
    - many e-learning conferences (like to Wright list)

- Personalizing - adapting the learning process
    - change in focus from content to student (information vs process)
    - personalizing larning, learning analytics
    - gaming - gathering contributions of thousands of learners
    - today's games are simple - tomorrow will include mobile, etc
    - assessment  digital badges - peer-to-peer assessment
    - learning analytics - beyond logs, look at interactions
        - analytrics cab be a form of assistant, presented to the student
        - but againn data privacy concerns
    - learning activities
        - self-directed, atc
        - learner as co-designer
        - eg, like a mash-up

The COAT project (Connaissances Ouvertes a Tous)
    = Open Kowledge for All
    - animating the french reserach neto=work
    - MOOC pilot in Lyon - design-oriented researccg
        - can we use this in a rtional way?
        - developing genericm applications for website.       
        - model - design run the MOOC, evaluate for knwoledge
    - eg. Dokuwiki



       
Eric Bruillard / STEF
The Force of Number


- in this talk, a different stance on MOOCs
- in 85/86 we tried to convince everyone how important hypertext was, now everybody is convinced
- MOOCs are similarly a rapic innovation
    - democratization of knowledge
    - sharing of learning
- but it is also an avatar of past failures - the myth of the 'best course ever'
- innovation is firstly institutional
    - but learning is artisinal
- the x/c dichotomy must be overcome
    - DL + social learning + temporal framework

- the force of numbers
    - submitting to catholic law and english rule
    - gaza - a parallel
    but:
    - opportunities in large numbers, eg. analytics
    - richness of social networks
    but: processing is more marketing than cognitive so far (A/B testing)
     - and the tension between the individual and the collective
    plus: the ideology of reducing everything to numbers
        - education as technology
        - does big data explain or does it merely predict?
    - do moocs legitimize this sort of management?

Example: SITE 2014 - Paul Kim
    - massive global classroom
    - learning analytics and 'team projects'
    - but: it's a 'Darwinian standpoint'
    - if people are autonomous it will work

Example: Wikipedia
    - is Wikipedia like the MOOC? - decfrie, but everybody uses it
    - it is a collective activity - how do we understand this?
    - what does it produce? (what is its product?)
    - but not after a 'process of professionalization' there are in reasing recruitment difficulties
    - how do we assess the quality of articles? We don't understand collective writing yet

Openness
    - free registration for all,
    - but that doesn't matter if the rhythm is imposed
    - 'idiorythmie' - each according to our own rhythms
        - but MOOCs impose a rhythm

Autonomy
    - paradoxes of autonomy
        - doing what you want, when you want, vs
        - without autonomy, there must be support
    - the simplest would be to have a collaborative class
        - but whaat is the role of the tutor?

So, what do we learn?
    - autonomy and force of numbers - little rapport?
    - yet we have Google & Wikipedia
        - privileged links between the biggest actors on the web
        - potentially, we have access to everything, but in practice, we have access to Google results
        - how then do we give *(and support) individual autonomy?

So, learning...
    - inclusion in a learning system inside a social system (R. Hotte)

Why MOOCs? Who uses them?
    - not a simple answer
    - mostly lifelong learning - but also fun? to find a job?
    - survey - MOOCs are largely reaching the privileged
    - the rich get richer - MOOCs ppush this process along
    - it pushes right at the point of conflict between pubic and private institions
        (and the border between them vanishes)
    - teens use technology for fun in very different ways than what learning requires
    - universities are now facing a new (and very different) audience

MOOC dropouts
    - why? what would keep participants engaged?
    - three profiles (at least) of leavers:
        - free auditors
        - those who little by little abandon it
        - those who come and go
    - what is at stake is to find a tool to understand the reason for these failures

Example - English composition MOOC
    - is it a blog?
    - drawing of course - everybody doing everything
        http://world.edu/im-failing-my-moox/
       (drawn by a student relating his experience)

I. Quentin, M, Khaneboubi (factors influencing the dropout rate / success of a MOOC)
    - importance of the brand (eg. Stanford)
    - impact of 'reception conditions'
        - effect of proximity, video, discourse
        - control of video by the user
    - comportment - how people take the course
        - alone or with a group
        - checking the quizzes before video
    - the 'personalities'
    - collective phenomena, belonging to a group
    - availability of learning technology (ie., the absence of technology problems)
        - eg. automatic correction
    - tutors
    - certification

Example: MOOC on the MOOCs
    - Matthieu Cisel

Example: teaching and learning using digital technology
    - ENS Cachen and ENS Lyon, partners
    - focused on digital pedagogies
    - experiment in french versions of MOOCs
    - understand how to have a national look with local learning (ie., articulation)

5 Design principles
    - collective design and distributed delivery (eg., many authors)
    - allow enrollment in groups (binome et trinome) to support co-learning
        - this is a question of time and flexibility
    - offer the MOOC as supplemental resources for higher education
        - adapted to local contexts
    - participate in existing social networks
        - eg. les IREM Sesamath or e-Greta
        - they produce textbooks & have a collaborative working platform
    - associate the MOOC with research
        - it's easy to find unhappy people, more difficult to find satisfied ones

Projects / Tools
- ReVEA - living reosurces, communities that support them
- RPE - social learning network
- CALICO - sharing of discussion, analytical tools
- Castor - information concours with 180,000 participants; we have gathered this data   
- sharing of reserach data (eventually scientific publication will be possible only if data is shared)
- MOOC

MOOC pedagogies
    - pedagogy has to be reinvented, compatible with social patterns
    - there's a new science of learning - construction, diffusion, sharing
    - conditions of learning in the other culture
    MOOC = EAD + RS + participation conjointe

Mark Bernstein - 3 metaphors
    - working in a mine
    - working in agriculture
    - working in manufacturing (industrial organization)
        -> where do MOOCs fit? Where does information work fit?




Marcel Lebrun
MOOCs: Between fossilization of practice and development of digital pedagogy


- wil talk about learning, collaboration and distance
- I'm not an educator, I'm coming from nuclear physics
- But I often say, students are not elementary particles

- when my parents asked me what I learned at school, I said 'nothing'
- you always learn alone but never without the others

- in the talks today you heard about MOOCs that could carry knowledge to the entire planet
    - but is there a risk of global cognitive autism?
    - it is true for every human tool
        - Plato Phaedrus - 'writing is a tool for reminiscence, not memory'

- paradox of writing - it never happens that one technology replaces the other
    - they complete each other
    - before thinking of digital pedagogy, you have to think of pedagogy itself
        - because learning fundamentals have not really changed
    - John Biggs: it is coherence between objectives that matter
        - what are the goals of these learnings (x,c)?

- toward a principle of cohherence
    - evaluation: tools, objectives, methods
    - constrictivist alignment (Biggs 1999, Lebrun 2007)

- objectoves - you said competences?
    - when I began, it was simple - students had to integrate the knowledge
    - but in 2000s - voila les learning outcomes
        - not only did students have to perform in a context, they had to prove their competence (eg. with badges, portfolios)
    - knowledge is more and more externalized
        - lectures are available on the intternett
    - "we don't have an empty mind, we have a free mind" - from Serres
    - now we have the MOOC & we are going toward MOOC industrialization - actors read the lecture
    - Serre - our brain is made to develoo competence, to criticize knowledge
    - Stigler, reply - sociual networks are not toxic - iot shows we can use new technology
    - points to 'digital competences' - collaboration, criticial thinking, etc
        - everybody agrees about these XXIst century competencies (he says)
    - a continuum of competence development is needed

Learning by doing
    - competences are built by doing - but is knowledge build by doing?
    - speaking about project management, you can find plenty of textbooks
        - do you not think knowledge is built upon knowledge?

    - "training may be regarded as preparation for future learning opportunities. It is an interactive process and an intentional activity," (Broown & Atkins, 1988)
    - "I never teach my students - I merely provide the conditions where they can learn."
    - "I insist. What is there to transmit? Knowledge? It is everywhere on the web..."

- e-learning - forms
    - mediation of resources
    - mediation of conversation

MOOCs debark...
    - and universities in their current form will disappear (say the press reports)
    - demand the student exprrience of students
    - CCK12 - top down vs bottom up
        - socio-constructivist pedagogy
        - no they work in a network equally - more horizontal structures
    - vs. UBerkeley on YouTube - traditional pedagogy - teach, train
        et. al.
        vs. blogs, Google+, Twitter, etc
        + personal Learning Environments
    - they created their own connectivism MOOC around these courses
        - so what are they going to do with their campus?
        - we will have to bring out a new model for these institutions

    - it's MOOC and MOOC (comparing moocs to travel guides)
        - co-learning (trip-advisor; you add comments to evaluate)
        - teacher, traditional pedagogy (Michelin guide; you grade with stars)
    - I'm thinking of a combined approach (without falling into fossilization))
         - hybridaztion
            - we still need the lecture
            - we still need text
        - remember Luther taking a book and saying we will be able to access knowledge
        - it's typical human activity - with new tech, we first try to reproduce the old
            (examnple of digital photos)
    - as well, a new consideration of concepts such as presence/distance, teaching/learning, space/time
        - if you are doing transmissive teaching you can do it at a distance
        - but learning requires presence
        - so now space-time interferes with learning
            - comparing flipped classrooms with Coursera

    - eLearn2 - an x-c-MOOC
        http://www.elearn2.eu
        - online learning, tutorials based on individual projects - 30 participants
        - this embedded in a larger class online with 860 participants
        http://claco.univ-lyon1.fr
        - another 490 person google group overlapping
        - this way you always have someone answering the questions
            - it's a critical mass phenomena

    - the fossilization...
        - you can't use new technologies with old methods
        - you can't use a vacuum cleaner to beat a rug

    - TIC and pedagogy
        - what is the impact of technology on technology?   
            - LMS, MOOC, etc. 8could* comntribute to pedagogical development (this is the promise)
        - but meanwhile, the positive impact of technology *requires* a learning disposition by students
            (this is the condition)
        http://youtu.be/w5OqlbrXiOE

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