SOF2008: Week 1 Discussion

Hi Vivian,

I did some work on this last year (see http://tinyurl.com/5ve9mn). There is actually a great deal of work that has been done in the area of diffusion in e-learning; what we lack is a series actually bringing it all together. Distance Education was well served by the Kogan Page and Routledge series of books which could be cited with confidence. These books drew together the abundant research available into reputable and authoritative touchstones. Now, at the risk of sounding old-fashioned, perhaps this is what e-learning needs if it is to progress beyond a multiple and highly fractured literature.

This fragmentation, it seems, is across the board when it comes to e-learning related topics. How about an international series, centrally edited by a reputable band of e-learning scholars, with contributors from across the globe - drawing on experts who synthesize the best of literature? I know that this could never be comprehensive, but it could at least be authoritative.

In Boyer's (1990) terms, we have abundant literature that is discovery, application and teaching based... where are the touchstone works synthesizing literature? I am aware of many individual candidates, but none to my mind fits within a shared, general framework or paradigm.

I would like to propose that such a series be considered by us all. What would be the merits of such an idea? What would be the risks? Moving on from this, what might the various topics for synthesis be? I suggest that institutional development would be a good one.

I like this approach, Vivian - adoption/diffusion.

In the K-12 sector in our province, it has *not* been the research in e-learning that has moved the adoption process ahead, but a disruptive force in the educational funding model - funding online learning at the same level as face to face through legislative action.

At a senior level, the decision has been made that e-learning is a valid instructional process. Next will come the diffusion challenges of support, quality assurance, and more engaging models of practice.

Clearly a test-bed for adoption/diffusion research is in front of us in this instance, and would be an exciting follow-up on the ready-fire-aim approach that has spurred the adoption process.

d.

Bill Fricker writes,

"...unless some of the key stakeholders (1) recent major research initiatives (per Stephen Downes' post), (2) likely players (AUCC, ACCC, CMEC, etc) and (3) various federal and provincial educational government offices, (4) perhaps there are more, have yet to post, we may be missing a key foundational element - {we need} the strength of the broadest possible participant base. 

So how do we connect with this community. My VP Academic is active in the Alberta Senior Educational Officers (SEO) community and I imagine agenda items and points-of-discussion bubble up from the membership. For example, last fall they were all doing mini-surveys of each other in Alberta about who's doing what vis-a-vis adoption of Blackboard versus Moodle (some called it Noodle), but with no real critical enquiry about what lies beneath the surface of this debate. I think the discussion was spurred due to financial implications, concern about the investment in eCampus Alberta as a single system shared service model, and risk management (perception of some Senior Officers is like the old IBM paradigm - "if it's a big company then I'll be safe" way-of-thinking).

But talking about an LMS platform, as we all know is the thinnest element of e-learning adoption/diffusion. I have been drawing conceptual model pictures to illustrate how the LMS is about 10% of the issues and opportunity, but don't have the appropriate audience with whom to share these ideas (great to share with the already-converted in this community, but as Bill says, how do we get the attention of all those other players?

Perhaps this Pan-Canadian forum needs to agree on some key talking points prior to formulating a proposed research agenda, and then we need to invite senior leadership participation at the conferences and through the publications targeted at this community, so that they are with us from the beginning. 

I completey agree with Vivian suggestion to investigate how to build learning communities online as well as using blended approach. Given that I work for the government, I would very much like to have adult learners (and unionized) included as target audience.

Vivian:

I'm glad you raised the issues of diffusion. As you may recall, this is the focus of our research agenda at BCIT and we have taken some modest steps towards trying to understand what factors help the diffusion process. A Royal Roads Masters student I have been working with has just completed a study of the factors that affected the diffusion of the learning technologies supported by our Technology-Enabled Knowledge (TEK) Initiative. )Stay tuned for more on this.)

I agree with the comments about the need to define both e-learning and diffusion. Diffusion, for example, happens at both an individual and an institutional level. People tend to talk about diffusion as an individual process...how many faculty have adopted WebCT etc. One of the reasons the "embedding" isn't happening is that the the diffusion process at the individual and the institutional level are not in sync and we often overlook the importance of institutional support for diffusion. It isn't enough to provide money and tools. Institutional processes and culture has to change.

The meaning of the term e-learning adds another level of confusion that may cause us to overlook relevant research. In fact, I'm starting to think the term gets in the way of our efforts since people either don't know what it means or have such different understandings that is hard to engage people in our institutions.

Mark.

Thought I should share an emergent diffusion approach that I am involved with at SAIT Polytechnic. 

SAIT has a well-developed Strategic Plan, that names Curriculum Excellence, Teaching Excellence and E-Learning as key elements of academic goals. This Strat Plan was developed through a broad participatory process circa 2005 - 06. But there are a total of 26 strategic goals (some of them are related to enrolment processes, etc.). So the institution had to settle on 5 strategic goals for the first few years because it didn't have capacity to tackle everything at once. Curriculum Excellence and Teachng Excellence made the cut, but E-learning was back-burnered. By back-burnered I mean it is considered important but no significant resources other than what is already in operation are attached to this goal at this time.

I was given the job of "operationalizing" Curriculum Excellence. This has been a very interesting journey - what is curriculum? how do we measure excellence? who all is involved? etc. We developed a curriculum philosophy, a framework, a measurement rubric and are in the process of implementing various improved curriculum development processes and methods. But how can we talk about Curriculum Excellence in a vacuum, and not consider technology? (or teaching excellence?). After all, my department is responsible for re-developing upwards of 200 courses per year, most of which are earmarked for blended delivery through Blackboard (currently WebCT 4.1; evolving to Vista). In addition we have the mandate for faculty development, of which a significant element is "effective application of learning technologies". 

So we are quietly building "integration of technology", aka e-learning, into Curriculum Excellence. In the Learning Design phase of our ADDIE-like model, we expect a teaching and learning plan that maps to the program learning outcomes and in most cases identifies learning activities that are technology-mediated.  Our goal is really learner engagement, and if technology-mediated approaches can help, then we build it into curriculum and course design. The challenge is that major technology infrastructure requirements for e-learning cannot be directed from the course design phase, but we are anticipating this, and working with the IT department and others on upgrading the LMS, putting web 2.0 tools in place, and playing with podcasting and other tools. 

At first, I was a bit annoyed with this idea of e-learning as a stealth strategy - I had just come from BCIT, where I had been part of the original team who architected an e-learning strategy and built a very public profile of ambitions, expectations and projects under the program TEK (Technology-Enabled Knowledge). Here I was at a different polytechnic and I was supposed to hide e-learning under a Curriculum Excellence approach.

But maybe this isn't such a bad idea vis-a-vis diffusion. After all, we know who all is "afraid of e-learning". Maybe they are not so afraid of Curriculum Excellence that happens to include technology-mediated learning. If we design technology-mediated learning into curriculum from the get-go, then we are no longer "selling" e-learning, maybe we are just doing it. 

It is too soon to tell if this approach moves the institution, the pedagogical approaches, the teaching approaches, the learning outcomes, the learner engagement and success, and e-learning along the evolutionary vector. But maybe e-learning, like e-business, like e-commerce is an early 2000 concept, and we are better off with a diffusion approach that drops the "e" word.