Модуль 4. Лекция 2. Онлайн-обучение: предпосылки, термины и платформы

 Здравствуйте, коллеги!

Надеюсь, вы изучили инструкции по одним из наиболее популярным образовательным онлайн-ресурсам. Пожалуйста, расскажите нам о своих впечатлениях - нова ли для вас эта информация, есть ли ресурсы, которые мы не упомянули, но вы считаете их очень важными для преподавания сегодня? Есть ли у вас опыт работы с какими-либо из представленных в учебных материалах к данной видеолекции ресурсах? Какой новый ресурс вы планируете использовать в своей практике? Какие задачи он будет решать? Есть ли у вас вопросы по работе с ним?

Academic promotion

Even though I have been awarded with a Candidate of Science (PhD) in 2015 science is still my passion and I keep on performing research but not in Linguistics - in eLearning.

The person who does inspire is Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research at Flinders University. One of her vblogs is on video abstracts and my colleagues from TSU MOOC team helped me to experiment with that.

Here is the first try

MOOC and Quality

Hi, my name is Ulyana Zakharova and I work as an instructional designer and an analyst at Tomsk State University.

Our team produce massive open online courses or MOOCs for Coursera, iversity, Lektorium, Stepik and Open education. Today I'd like to talk to you about the study that my colleagues and I performed.

MOOCs are considered to be one of the trends of modern education. They are called the courses from the best teachers, for anyone, anywhere.There might be hundreds and thousands of learners at a time with little or (to tell the truth) no support from an instructor. That is why many people are sceptical about such courses.

Here at Tomsk State University we are concerned about quality of MOOCs. We have elaborated a system for  quality evaluation.The majority of such systems are build up on either expert opinion or learners reviews. The system that we have implies participation of all stakeholders, from university supervisors to MOOC instructors and from experts in the subject field to learners who have just started studying it. Different stakeholders are responsible for different criteria:

When we start working with a MOOC proposal we answer the question: "What type is this course going to be?" In this case we are thinking about such big types as popular science online course and a specialized one. Understanding the course type our stakeholders concentrate of different aspects when evaluating the proposal.

Though these differences are not new for course production team and MOOC platforms, all systems that we are aware of do NOT differenciate types of courses when their quality is assessed. Let me show this with the picture:

Interestingly, when we were analyzing the results of the survey completed by our MOOC learners we found out that they DO evaluate popular science and specialized courses differently!

This finding gave us an idea that quality criteria should not be unified for different online courses and even if they are the same, the weighting system should balance the course difference.

Please, read our paper to get more details:

on Kudos 

on ResearchGate - pre-print

on Springer - the final version

If you take pictures from this blogpost, please add citations.

Regards, Ulyana S. Zakharova 

What future for education. Intelligence

I believe it is so right that our group brainstorming resulted in understanding intelligence as making use of skills and knowledge that one has. Those people who don’t benefit from their knowledge are called “walking encyclopedias” in Russia. Another phrase that came to my mind is “If you are so clever why do you live so bad?” Therefore, we see intelligence as something that helps us moving forward.

I don’t remember myself taking IQ tests seriously – they were taken either for fun or for trying myself (as an entering test for a traineeship that I didn’t plan to participate in). I suppose that might be due to the believe that Prof. Gordon Stobart and Sandra Leaton Gray shared with us this week that IQ tests have little in common with intelligence.

So-called “intelligence” tests that I took seriously were subject tests that influenced people’s judgments about me for sure. The most relevant example in my experience as a pupil was that teachers put me in a “high level” or “gymnasium-like” 6th form basing on my results in the 5th form that was an ordinary one. Later on, I was put into the group taught by a better English teacher according to the same principle, I suppose. So, yes, test results definitely affect future educational opportunities. There is an irony that being at a university I had to pass my English test five (!) times to be allowed to take exams while all of my group mates had already passed several of them. Why my instructor didn’t give me a chance to show my knowledge in any other form except from test then, I still don’t know. Maybe because she didn’t have time as teachers don’t have time to ask meaningful questions, as Prof. Stobart says.

Luckily, regardless of that I didn’t lose my passion to learning and I can consider myself to be a learner. I really love studying and I’m thrilled with discovery. I often think about the way I have been taught and the way I wish my future children be taught. Reading the article “Myth of Ability” I was thinking that I didn’t remember much from Physics, Chemistry or Biology school courses but I love reading popular science articles and watch BBC films covering these topics. Does it mean that my teachers were bad? No, I don’t think so. Does it mean that my brain is now ready to perceive this information? Perhaps. Do I want my children feel enthusiastic about our nature and its laws as I do watching scientific documentaries? For sure.

What future for education. My motivation

Я начала изучать МООК "What future for education?", на этот раз созданный нашими британскими коллегами из University of London & UCL Institute of Education.

Одним из элементов курса является ведение рефлексивных журналов. Собственно это и есть мои записи на тему будущего образования и той информации, что я черпаю из курса.

#wfe1

Week 1 Journal Entry: Based on your experience as a learner, what do you think you will be able to get out of this course? And what ideas do you already have about the future of education?

I have enrolled for this MOOC because of my curiosity for learning and education. Currently I work as an instructional designer and an analyst in Institute of Distance Education at a university. Taking this course, I would like to grasp the idea of the future of education in all of its aspects, its perspectives, risks and challenges for instructors, as well as students. Then I will be able to get prepared and to prepare our university instructors for that.

My ideas about the future of education are about the learning formats, type of knowledge and access to it.

As far as I am concerned, we shift from the model “instructor is a source of information” (back from the 18^th century, according to K. Robinson speech at TED) to the model “instructor is a guide in the world of information” that leads to the “sun fall” of lecturing. Instructors may use their precious time more effectively by conducting the learning process (expert sessions, more practice and case studies) rather that transmitting the information that needs to be taken into students’ notes. That is why the flipped classroom model gets more popular. Self-directed learning and learner-centered education are the trends, too. That is what I mean by learning formats.

Type of knowledge: there is an obvious crisis of Humanities all other the developed countries. People strive to acquire skills. That is what Eleanore Hargreaves in the lecture called "learning to do". STEM are the champions. Philosophy, Literature and Art are not prioritized. May be one day their time will come back. Unfortunately not today. "That is cool that you can tell what Greek myths are about but… what you need for life is data analysis". By the way, this phrase by Eleanore that we don't tend to teach "to be" and "to live together" was really impressive and thought provoking. Thank you, the MOOC authors, for that. 

Modern education requires a huge amount of money for e-learning platforms, apps building personal learning paths and many others. Not all of the schools and universities within one country can cope with that, not to mention the third world economies. That is why the educational gap between wealthy and financially deprived learners as well as rich and poor countries is going to increase. I hope that those students from the low-income families who wish to acquire simple manual professions won’t suffer because of that and will find a school for their purposes.

Итак, время пришло! :) Первый пост

Этим летом у меня был необременительный и полезный опыт обучения на МООК Гарварда на платформе EdX "Leaders in Learning". Рекомендую всем, интересующимся образованием и эффективным управлением учебных учреждений.

В качестве финального задания мы писали эссе "Идеальное образовательное пространство". Делюсь им здесь своей идеей Образовательного центра "Леонардо", чтобы не потерялось и чтобы нашли, кому надо.

People learn best when they are motivated for learning. My ideal learning environment is a learning center "Leonardo". This is a center for youngsters who show interest in sciences and crafting. It is half distributed individual half hierarchial collective learning organization. The idea is the Renaissance man, a person who is talented in many spheres and as far as I'm concerned, many scientific insights come from other fields that might be far from the study area of yours. Learning mode: Learners come to do their projects (individual or group ones) and they get inspired by stories of leading world scientists of all times. This teaches them to think like a scientist or a craftman. Leadership mode: Tutors-scientists help learners in searching for some new directions in their study or practice and in realizing themselves. Once a week learners share their results with fellows to get the feedback and perhaps find a colleague. I believe these learners should practice as much as they can but as far as some lab equipment might be expensive, dangerous for them (as soon as they are young) or some practice impossible (like preparing for a space travel or performing studies with the collider) the learning process implies using virtual reality equipment. Design: The building of the learning center has a shape of a human head. The inside environment is presented as a human brain with two semispheres - creative and logical ones. I am sure that learning cannot be held in sort of creative chaotic environment - it is great for brainstorming or discussions but a lion share of science is formulating your ideas orally for a conference or on paper for a scientific publication or a grant. So there is another semisphere that is ordered with typical chairs and desks,and with separate working places of course,in case of an individual work. At night the learning center is spectaculous - the lights are sparkling like activated neurons and spikes because human brain as human development is never off (с) 

Здесь будет мой блог. Как только появится время его вести ;)