Class 11: March 18, 2010

Is E-learning Just Another Educational Fad?

Hi. Sorry that I missed class, but you may say that is where I belonged. Sore throat, coughing, nasal... you get the idea.

So what was said? I already posted remarks about Horizon 2010 and 21st Century Skills in the March 11, No Class entry. So, here I'll discuss the film Jap Zero and Thwarted Innovation. But true to form, not all at once.

NOTE: I did the wrong report for Lana. I'll put some thoughts about Kaiser here in a day or so (today is Sunday, March 21st).

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March 22

Kaiser Report. What can I say? It’s a work of statistical beauty, and when reading it, one doesn’t even need to know much about multivariate analysis!

Since I chose the wrong article initially, I skimmed this one or read only parts of it, so I’ll just give a highlight reel. What I read did tell me a few things. First, in a big way, this report challenges one of the assumptions stated in Thwarted Innovation: “If we build it, they will come.” Kaiser’s data tells me that if it is built, they will come. The report definitely shows that as the number of media products to hit the market has increased, so has the number of teen hours consuming content delivered via that media. It appears that Say’s Law (economics) is at work here – supply creates its own demand (Keynes). If it is built they will come, especially when the first ones find the experience irresistible. Then, it’s like a fire. There’s nothing like word-of-mouth advertising.

So, if they have come, what do we do? Did Kaiser cite e-learning as a category? No, but this is very interesting: for the 1999 report, the survey included two questions about why time was spent in front of a computer or TV. Participants were asked if it was to be entertained, to kill time (who in their right mind, at least as one gets older, ever wants to “kill time” *), or learn something (see pp50-51). Curiously, for the 2004 and 2009 reports, those survey questions were dropped. In fact, the word learning is not present anywhere else in the report other than in the 1999 edition questions. Yes, there is lots of talk about grades and race/ethnicity, and the correlations make sense, but this report is tuned with white bias; consider the oversampling of African and Hispanic Americans. Remember X-Box boy from the video?

All data/information seen and considered, the most significant point for me in the report has to be the influence parents have on the way their children spend their time. Connectedness, rules for media use, parent readers likely producing child readers – a certain type of parenting has almost everything to do with how youth spend their time. The sad thing to think is that parents might be either be too tired or just not interested in spending quality development time with their children. Too tired because of work... something needs to change; not interested in your kid... that is just wrong.

* I once heard Dr. Charles Stanley, a Baptist minister, talk on the radio about the foolishness of killing time. We don’t get much of it, so why waste it.

March 20

I heard that Jap Zero wasn’t shown during the class, so I won’t elaborate about it, but since I have watched it I’ll just say it makes one think about how to best offer a film for learning, which I’ll add, is connected to learning objects in a big way.

Thwarted Innovation. Was that an academic work or a written infomercial applauding the success of a research methodology? Sometimes it was hard to tell. Take away the festoon of charts and the verbiage surrounding the innovative tracking tool, and the paper might be condensed to about 20 pages or so, minus the appendices. But having said that, I was pleased that these authors addressed the biases associated with predictions, in particular the way they explained Michael Moe’s wild speculation of what was going to happen. In the long-run, Moe may well be right, but he was obviously wrong for the short-term.

The heart of this paper, for me, was the focus on learning objects. I am partial to them in many respects, and I agree with the authors when they say that the future of e-learning rests with the implementation of such tools. The thing is, depending on the kind of learning object (LO) that is being created, there can be a fair amount of labour expended when making one, not to say a set of them to support a course. Making a PDF is easy, making a Flash animation... not so.

The report commented on the fact that there is a very good LO repository on the web called MERLOT. I have known about MERLOT for a while and I can say that there’s a lot there, but one has to go shopping to find something of value. MERLOT in itself is a good repository because it tags the objects and allows ratings and comments. But it is by links that LOs are accessed, and some links may contain ads or other distracting extraneous information; hence the shopping. Further, many of the LOs that I’ve looked at there are not geared toward K-12 students.

My survey of the LO literature within the last two years shows that there has been a fair amount done about repositories, principally about how to best make one. It’s amazing what can be written about such a simple concept. When it comes down to it, a repository is just an archive, and it doesn’t really do anything to further the use of LOs. That needs to be done by users, and creators. It is true that by definition, an e-learning object (LO) is just a re-usable computer (digital media) file. It might be an applet or an animation, a video or a podcast, or a PDF file or some kind of interactive website, but none-the-less, it’s just an electronic file. But if I make a file and you make a file, who is to say that the files are compatible for use in a course, or that they will equally meet the same student’s needs? This is the current problem with the volume of independent learning objects out there. Sure they are re-usable, but as the report points out, the interface of the objects may be very different, not to mention the content or presentation. The report suggested that what is needed if LOs are to take-off is a consistent system that people can gravitate around, a defacto standard like PowerPoint or Blackboard. To me, in general, this just goes to standards. But to define a standard interface for LOs when the number of creators potentially number in the 100’s of thousands, well, that just might require legislation! Whose is the best? Why? I have asked why the Manitoba government doesn’t create LOs for the on-line courses. The report answers that clearly: it’s about money. There may be institutional will, but support to develop means big budgets, and when there is no proof to show the effectiveness of a program, budgets can shrink fast.

The proof? Where is it? What data exists to show that the use of LOs really does make a difference in teaching and learning? Thwarted Innovation didn’t offer much. Yes the study did find that both faculty and administration said that e-learning is valuable, but it also said that there is little evidence LOs are in demand.

So where does e-learning stand? Will it be just another educational fad? I don’t think so. Though in the early days there may have been a lot of innovators to bring a bunch of very differentiated e-learning products to the market in the hope of a dot com boom, get rich very quick outcome, and though there was a speculation-not-realized failure, as it says in the report at the end, “ultimately, the lure of anywhere-anytime learning will prove irresistible – educationally as well as financially.” Being able to access education at one’s convenience is the catalyst that will keep the fire burning, hence providers need only supply good product. The marketing of on-line benefits will be handled by the communications and tech companies – consider cell phone ads showcasing text messaging. The e-learning engine may be slow to develop, but I am optimistic and think that the 21st century will see an educational revolution. And, I think e-learning will pay for itself, easily. What it may have a very hard time doing – maybe impossible – is replacing the quality of face-to-face learning. Consider this: when a student asks a question in class, say to have an explanation repeated, let the repeated explanation become a canned video. If e-learning, the student would replay the video if the concept wasn’t grasped the first time (another explanation, please). But, exactly the same explanation would be given. With whom does the student connect when the video explanation is heard? In a live setting, perhaps the student needs to connect with the teacher at a deeper level for the concept to be grasped, and maybe that’s the real need to make the concept stick. Possible? Perhaps, but with whom is someone connecting on-line in an e-mail if there has never been a face-to-face encounter or at least telephone conversation? Oh yeah, last tidbit... in the report, the statement was made, “no one had ever asked the students whether or not they actually liked e-learning.” I wonder how significant that is.