What are the Main Trends in Online Learning? A Helicopter Analysis of Possible Futures
Mark Brown
Ireland's First Chair in Digital Learning and Director, National Observatory for Digital Education, Dublin City University
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a game-changer for online learning on several levels, the field has a long and rich history. This history has not always featured in our response to the pandemic. Earlier in the year, I was asked to undertake for an external organisation a helicopter analysis of the main trends in online learning with an eye on the future, but anchored in this history. What follows in this post is a raw version of my analysis that has yet to find its way into a formally published paper. The intention of this post is to share some of my analysis and the related thinking arising from both the research and the more popular literature before we start another potentially memorable year in the evolution of online learning. The analysis identifies five macro-level trends:?
The Definition Problem
Before setting out to consider major trends in Online Learning, it does help to set some parameters for the analysis or at the very least to establish from the outset that defining the field is a challenge. Online learning is far more complex than usually understood in everyday language and practice. According to Singh and Thurman (2019), the term “Online Learning” was first used in 1995 in the early development of the Learning Management System (LMS), which in Europe is better known as the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Since then, online learning has evolved and is a term whose meaning has become less clear over time (Irvine, 2020). As Irvine (2020) observes,?
“What used to be a simple binary of face-to-face or online has now become so extremely complex that our ability to understand each other is impaired” (p. 42).
The semantics have been muddied as online learning is often spoken about in the context of many overlapping terms such as e-learning, blended learning, digital learning, distance learning, flipped learning, hybrid learning, to name a few. Therefore, as mentioned above, defining online learning for this analysis was not a straightforward task, with Singh and Thurman (2019) identifying 46 definitions in their recent literature review. Notably, common features of most definitions include but are not limited to concepts of time, space, distance, interactivity and use of technology, particularly the Internet. While physical distance is not always an element for defining online learning, it is mentioned consistently. For this reason, the following discussion frames the analysis of current trends in online learning around the following definition:
“Online learning is defined as education being delivered or experienced in an online environment either synchronously or asynchronously through the use of the Internet where learners do not need to be co-present in a physical space” (adapted from Singh & Thurman, 2019).?
A wealth of literature falling under this broad definition has been published over the past 25-years. Importantly, a great deal is already known about the effective design of synchronous and asynchronous online learning environments, as reported in several major literature reviews (e.g. Means, et al., 2010; Siemens, Gasevic & Dawson, 2015; Martin, Sun & Westine, 2020). There is a body of scholarly literature exploring major trends and patterns in online learning in a similar vein. For example, the annual Horizon Report (EDUCAUSE, 2021) and Innovating Pedagogy Report (Kukulska-Hulme, et al., 2021) help to identify past, present, and future trends. There are also efforts to retrospectively analyse trends such as Bozkurt and Zawacki-Richter’s (2021) interesting visual representation of the online (distance) learning landscape. More popular opinion pieces on future trends and speculative scholarly works looking into the future also make up the literature, which collectively informs this analysis.?
The remainder of this paper outlines five macro-level trends in the evolution and potential future development of online learning. Set against the background of these trends, how we choose to shape, reshape and reimagine the future ways that online learning can be deployed in the service of education, lifelong learning and the type of [digital] societies we want to create is a very different matter. This is a much bigger question that needs to frame any discussion of our possible, probable and preferred futures.
1.???Convergence
The trend of?convergence?has already been noted in the above discussion concerning the blurring of modalities. The term ‘modality’ usually refers to the physical location and timing of teaching and learning interactions. The shift away from a simple face-to-face/online binary has muddied the waters (Irvine (2020), with?Gourlay (2021) even arguing that '…the notion of ‘virtual learning’ is a flawed one (p. 57). In explaining the embodied and increasingly entangled relationship we have with technology from a socio-material perspective, she claims learning is always in person, even when the learner is studying alone at home in front of a screen (Gourlay, 2021). While this perspective is more than semantics?the key point is that online learning is complex and is not a single monolith thing as it encompasses many forms, variations and modifications. Accordingly, there is a great deal more to online learning than the practice of Emergency Remote Teaching that emerged in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis. It is noteworthy that against the backdrop of the pandemic and increasing modality convergence, the term ‘hybrid learning’ is now becoming more common with efforts to better define hybrids, hybridity?and?hybridization?in a deeper way as we seek to build back better for the next normal (Norgard,?2021).?
Photo by?Yuxiang Zhang ?on?Unsplash
On a more practical note, Butler et al. (2017) provide a good example of the convergence between different modalities in the context of teacher professional learning. In addressing the problem of scalability, they build on Laurillard’s (2016) claim that “MOOC pedagogy fits well with the combination of instruction and peer community learning found in most professional development” (p. 1). More specifically, Butler et al. (2019) illustrate how teacher professional learning can be augmented through a hybrid model that incorporates MOOCs to promote critical reflection and deep pedagogical conversations, which also provide opportunities for educators to share ideas and resources to foster co-learning. An?underlying assumption of this line of hybrid professional learning, which is confirmed in a recent literature review on the value of?online teacher communities, is that?they ‘…can be a valuable means of developing supportive and collegial professional practices’ (Lantz-Andersson, Lundin, & Selwyn, 2018, p. 302).
However, increasing convergence or blurring of modalities should not be confused with homogeneity. A basic assumption of this hybrid approach is that a one-size online teacher professional learning model will not fit all. To put it another way, in the context of online exchange platforms, different folks may need different strokes depending on their needs and educational settings (Butler et al., 2017).?
2.??Massification
A second important trend in online learning is?massification?or the development of massive pedagogy. This term refers to education being delivered or experienced at a mass scale (Brown, 2016). Typically, the MOOC movement is viewed as the catalyst of mass online participation, but large social and personal learning networks existed before the MOOC. While the level of attention given to the MOOC by popular media may have faded in recent years, the phenomenon continues to evolve and challenge traditional models of instruction, including those designed specifically for online distance education. In particular, the MOOC challenges assumptions about optimal class size and the teacher’s ability to manage large cohorts of learners.?
Photo by?Kyle Glenn ?on?Unsplash
Massification is not without well-documented problems in terms of low completion rates, but most critiques fail to recognise or encapsulate the many faces of MOOCs. More to the point, the MOOC movement has challenged our traditional conception of course completion (Maartje, et al., 2017) and given new insights into the barriers of online learning (Rabin, 2020). Independent of the claimed under-evidenced benefits or exaggerated promises, MOOCs should no longer be viewed as lingering on the fringes of education. In November 2020, the number of MOOC learners was over 180 million worldwide, with one third having joined in 2020 (Shah, 2020).
During the early period of the COVID-19 crisis, MOOC’s attracted almost 500 million visits from learners worldwide in the 30 days before June 2020, up 2.5 times on January 2020 (HolonIQ, 2020).
Notably, during 2020, over 90,000 educators registered for the course?How to Teach Online?offered through the FutureLearn platform. This award-winning course was officially launched on March 26th, 2020, within only a few weeks of lockdown restrictions in Europe.?
While the MOOC movement is associated with the increasing unbundling,?disaggregation, globalisation,?marketisation and monetisation of higher education (Morris, et al., 2020), not all online learning platforms or partnerships are created equal. And the reality is that the MOOC is now a permanent feature of the global education and training landscape, especially as demand continues to grow for flexible models of continuous professional development. Current European-wide initiatives in the area of micro-credentials to promote increased participation in lifelong learning and enhanced employability in response to the changing nature of work is evidence of how massification is redefining old recognition and credential models (Brown, et al, 2021).?
Bozkurt, Akgün-?zbek, and Zawacki-Richter (2017, p. 131) describe the gradual mainstreaming of MOOCs in terms of a shift from “…disruptive to a sustaining innovation”. While the MOOC phenomenon is here to stay an area of future innovation and growth is likely to be schooling education. A recent literature review suggests there is increasing use of MOOC platforms by teachers and younger learners (Koutsakas, et al., 2020). The key point is learning at scale through new platforms and open educational pathways will continue to be an important trend in?future?online learning developments. Accordingly, online exchange platforms need to support massification in their design and recognise the value of private-public partnerships.?
3.???Openness
The?openness?movement is another major trend set to continue to play a role in shaping the future of online education. The concept of openness has many dimensions and sits within a broad spectrum of open initiatives (Conole & Brown, 2018). Weller et al. (2018) suggest there are a number of?principles associated with open practices, including freedom to reuse, open access, free cost, easy use, digital/networked content, social/community-based approaches, ethical arguments for openness, and openness as an efficient model. Consistent with these principles, the following statement from the?2012 Paris OER Declaration?is often cited as one of the?touchstone definitions:?
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions” (UNESCO, 2012).?
While open education is not a new term and has attracted research interest for over 30 years (Zawacki-Richter, et al., 2020), it continues to evolve and covers a range of philosophies and practices. According to Zawacki-Richter, et al. (2020),
‘Throughout history, openness has been given many meanings: access, flexibility, equity, collaboration, agency, democratization, social justice, transparency, and removing barriers’ (p. 321).
They argue that openness is a living idea that continues to evolve and become associated with many more meanings and interpretations. Ideologically, openness is associated with promoting social justice and the assumption that education through the internet can help to fix social disparities (Almeida, 2017).
According to?Almeida?(2017), it is hard to overstate how much the openness movement has dominated recent conversations about the future of education. However, there is a lot of utopian thinking and rhetoric written about the potential of the openness movement and the level of uptake of OERs remains patchy and often limited within institutions to a small number of evangelists. In 2015, a European survey found that Open Education was not a big issue for around a half of the responding higher education institutions (Casta?o Mu?oz, 2016).?
Photo by?Tim Mossholder ?on?Unsplash
More?recently a?US study?found that the use of OERs as required course material during the COVID-19 crisis did not increase (Seaman & Seaman, 2021). On a positive note, for the second year running a majority of responding faculty self-report at least some level of awareness of the term OER.?This result continues a trend of increasing awareness of OERs over the previous five years.?Importantly, faculty who are aware of one or more OER initiatives were found to be much more likely to be OER adopters.?The large number of educators participating in free online courses and professional development webinars during the COVID-19 crisis, as reported by EDEN (2021), may have increased the level of OER awareness in Europe. Although speculative the high level of interest in these open professional learning events is a positive legacy of the pandemic, which may, in turn, feed greater demand for more open, online exchange platforms.?
Another positive development is?how the integration of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and educational data mining algorithms could help to increase and enhance the use of OER for learning and teaching. In presenting a future vision. Tlili et al. (2020) discuss the potential of these solutions in addressing the problem of locating and selecting the most appropriate OERs among the many thousands, if not millions, that are published and that are available online, and trusting them. However, Lee (2021) in?a recent critique of the relationship between?openness and innovation, challenges through a case study the assumption that there is alignment between aspiration of being fully open to diverse student groups and being technologically innovative.
This study underscores that the value of openness, and the use of OERs more specifically, depends not on the digital resource itself, but rather?how they are appropriated by educators in teaching practices and learning experiences.
The concept of ‘Open Pedagogy’, which has grown in popularity, gives more attention to the mediating role of the social, cultural and educational context, but a recent?review of the literature shows there is no agreed-upon definition of what this term means either (Tietjen & Asino, 2021).???
In recognising that?openness is a complex phenomenon,?Cronin (2017) suggests that in order for educators to grasp Open Educational Practices (OEPs) they need to be considered at four different levels from nano to macro. At the macro-level,?Conole and Brown (2018)?argue that the meaning of openness?is influenced by a number of competing and co-existing drivers. On the one hand, open education provides a real opportunity to reduce costs, enhance quality and address increasing global demand for higher education. On the other hand, the openness movement inhabits and transverses the contested terrain of globalisation, fast capitalism and neo-liberalism (Brown, 2016). As?Almeida?(2017) writes, openness may propagate a two-tiered educational system under the guise of liberation that reinforces a neoliberal formulation of education that precludes social change.
To put it another way, OER may help to widen access to learning opportunities but they cannot be a substitute for “a well-funded public education system” (Bates 2015; cited in?Almeida, 2017, p.5).?
A recent critical text exploring?Open at the Margins?(Bali, et al., 2020) recognises that?open education is at a critical juncture now having been infiltrated to some extent by corporate interests. As we look to the future an important call is made for more open dialogue and critical pluriversalism to avoid the watering down of the ideological roots of openness (Bali, et al., 2020). To this end, the current European-funded ENCORE+ project (ICDE, 2021) is notable for the way it seeks to engage different groups and support the uptake and innovation of OER for education and business. Whether the two different worlds can work together for the same end goals remains to be seen, but a key question remains around sustainable business models. A related question is, does such a business model truly support, promote, and walk the talk of openness?
4.???Interactivity
The role of?interactivity?is well-established as being essential for active and meaningful online learning (Picciano, 2017).?Interaction has long been a defining and critical component of the learning process. In the context of online distance education, Moore (1989) was the first to propose three types of interaction that Anderson (2003) later encapsulated in the?Interaction Equivalency Theorem. This seminal theorem continues to define the core parameters of interactivity and how online learning can be used to create rich learning and knowledge building communities.?At a basic level, Anderson (2003)?describes three common types or?dyads?of interaction involving learners: learner-learner; learner-teacher; learner-content. Other types of interactions are also recognised such as teacher-teacher, teacher-content, and content-content and over the years several scholars have added further dimensions of interactivity to the model.?
Photo by?John Schnobrich ?on?Unsplash
A key assumption underpinning the theory is that “Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three forms of interactions is at a high level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels or even eliminated, without degrading the educational experience” (Anderson, 2003, p. 4).?However, frequency of interaction by itself does not equate to better quality learning experiences?per se.?There are important qualitative differences in the value and quality of interaction.?The key point is the mere presence of new digital technology does little to increase the level of online interactivity or support more fundamental changes to the formal spaces within which people learn (Brown, 2015).?
The concept of presence is central to arguably the most well-known and extensively researched model for online learning known as the Community of Inquiry Framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000). While many critiques and variations have been proposed over the past 20-years (see for example,?Rourke & Kanuka, 2009;.?Swan & Ice, 2010;?Zawacki-Richter,?Alturki & Aldraiweesh,?2017;?Castellanos-Reyes, 2020), essentially?there are three interdependent structural elements of the framework: cognitive, social and teacher presence.
The educational experience occurs at the intersection of these presences and while the mix may vary depending on the context, all three presences are believed to be required for successful online learning to occur. It is important to note that?these presences have not been as well applied or researched in school education as of yet (Brown, Conole &?Beblav?, 2019). Moreover, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, there is increasing recognition that both learner presence and emotional presence matter in promoting interactivity, student engagement and a sense of community and belonging (Henritius, Lofstrom & Hannula, 2019; Jiang & Koo, 2020;?Hong, & Samon, 2021; Nkomo, Daniel & Butson 2021).
Notably, the role of the learner and the importance of emotion in learning was explicitly addressed in a free online course,?A Digital Edge: Essentials for the Online Learner,?available for students in 2020 on the FutureLearn platform. A basic assumption underpinning the design of this course is that learning how to learn online is now an essential life skill (Beirne, Nic Giolla Mhichíl, & Brown, 2021).
Another way to think about interactivity is to consider the places and spaces?when?and?where?learning can occur. As Figure 1 illustrates, today’s learners can now learn on-site at scheduled times for formal learning, on-site at unscheduled times for informal learning, off-site at scheduled times for formal learning and off-site at unscheduled times for informal learning (Brown, 2015). This representative of online learning suggests there is an increasing leakage or convergence across these four domains.?Having said that, it remains to be seen whether off-site formal learning either?synchronously or asynchronously?will become more common for all learners in the post-pandemic learning environment.?
Figure 1: The New Digital Learning Ecology (Brown, 2015)
While digital technologies provide affordances for interactivity in these four different spaces the blend or a precise mix of this new learning ecology very much depends on the decisions both teachers and learners make about how they choose to interact. Importantly teachers’ pedagogical decisions and the way students decide to engage in different learning experiences can lead to very different outcomes through the same technology. The crucial point is that whether an experience is active or passive within and across these learning spaces?depends on the pedagogy applied, learners’ motivations and the choice of technology. Put another way, it is important to recognise that these spaces are pedagogy-agnostic, meaning they do not address the issue of?how, and thus their value is limited to expanding our conception of?when?and?where?learning can take place.?
Historically,?the study of interaction in online and distance education contexts has tended to focus on asynchronous communication which offers a flexible pace for learning (Butler, et al., 2020). The term asynchronous learning refers to communication that is delayed, not live or happening at the same time (Irvine, 2020). The early literature reports how online discussion through email or web-based technologies could provide valuable learning opportunities?where people have time to critically reflect and then respond. More recently, LMS and MOOC platforms have tended to rely on?asynchronous forms of interactivity through?the act of online discussion where people communicate, share and exchange information at a time of their convenience.?Siemens, Gasevic and Dawson (2015)?confirm the observation in their major literature review that,
‘Asynchronous forms of distance education received much more attention than synchronous or mixed modes of education delivery’ (p.44).??
Thus, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, as evidenced by a?comprehensive guide for fostering asynchronous online discussion?(Verenikina, Jones & Delahunty, 2017),?this form of interactivity was essentially the foundation of most online learning.?
While much of the section has focused on?asynchronous?online discussion, it is important not to overlook new types of interactivity between teachers and content and learners and content. The emergence of rich media learning through video accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 crisis offers an exciting area of development. There is an increasing body of literature seeking to understand how best (and not) to deploy video in the service of active and meaningful learning (West, et al., 2017;?Chorianopoulos, 2018;?Mayer, Fiorella & Stull, 2020). In synthesizing the existing literature,?Mayer, Fiorella and Stull (2020) conclude that:?
“People learn better from an instructional video when the onscreen instructor draws graphics on the board while lecturing (dynamic drawing principle), the onscreen instructor shifts eye gaze between the audience and the board while lecturing (gaze guidance principle), the lesson contains prompts to engage in summarizing or explaining the material (generative activity principle), a demonstration is filmed from a first-person perspective (perspective principle), or subtitles are added to a narrated video that contains speech in the learner’s second language (subtitle principle)” (p. 837).
Notably, a recent survey of?nearly 50,000 Irish students across 25 colleges and universities found that recorded lectures were the single most dominant positive element?of the online/blended COVID-19 learning experience they want to retain when on-campus studies resume (Irish Survey of Student Engagement, 2021). This finding is mirrored in an innovative crowdsourced?“Your Education, Your Voice, Your Vision”?campaign where students were asked from April to May 2021 through social media to provide an insight into how they see their ideal education experience going forward (IUA, 2021).?
In response to the question, “In an ideal world which of the two scenarios would work best for you”, 61% of respondents reported lectures online, tutorials on campus (IUA, 2021).
Other future applications of rich-media learning include the use of?video for more authentic assessment and feedback. While adding the use of video to?existing teaching has been shown in a recent literature review to lead to strong learning benefits (Noetel, et al., 2021),?the question remains whether more engaging applications will in the future replace the traditional concept of “lecture capture”. Such use of video for teaching usually adopts an instructional approach where the learner is a relatively passive recipient of digital content.
In contrast to the wealth of?asynchronous?literature, before the COVID-19 crisis, there were relatively few dedicated resources on the application of synchronous interactivity in online learning environments.?One notable exception was the handbook produced in Australia on the potential of blended synchronous learning (Bower, et al., 2014).?A recent systematic review of two decades (1995 to 2014) of research on synchronous online learning confirms the relative dearth of literature as no research articles were found to be published before the year 2000. Having said that, the study did identify over 150 publications since this date but much of the research lacked?granularity and tended to focus on attitudes and?perceptions?(Martin, Ahlgrim-Delzell & Bunhrani, 2017).
The pivot to Emergency Remote Teaching appears to have resulted in a significant uptake of?synchronous interaction as regularly scheduled face-to-face classes were replaced by live online lectures and tutorials. Paradoxically, the move to synchronous online delivery augmented by the development of new online platforms such as Teams and Zoom typically reduces the flexibility of online learning and according to Hodges, et al. (2020) may not have been the best choice under the circumstances. At the time of this observation, Hodges, et al. (2020) were cognizant of the tendency for live synchronous delivery to be?overly teacher-directed with often few meaningful opportunities for interaction between the instructor and learners and between learners and fellow learners.?
Photo by?Lucrezia Carnelos ?on?Unsplash
There is now renewed interest in the question of how to facilitate and promote deep discussions using synchronous online learning tools. While an emerging research area, a recent?systematic literature review conducted by Raes?et al. (2020)?identifies many important?gaps in the literature?on what they call synchronous hybrid?learning.
The authors conclude that ‘…existing research suggests cautious optimism?about synchronous hybrid learning which creates a more flexible, engaging learning environment?compared to fully online or fully on-site instruction’ (Raes?et al., 2020,?p. 269).
Importantly, new wearable technologies for more immersive?synchronous?learning made possible by developments in?Augmented Reality (AR),?Extended Reality (XR) and?Mixed Reality (MR)?are rapidly emerging such as the new?ECIU XR Campus (ECIU, 2021).?Such developments?challenge the conceptual definition of what constitutes a learning environment (Hamilton, et al., 2021) and offer ‘…the possibility for learners to have first-hand experiences that would not be possible in the real world’ (Natale, et al., 2020, p. 2006). Accordingly, these technologies?are likely to be one of the most exciting new trends in online learning over the next 1-5 years.?
Yet,?Raes?et al. (2020)?also?identity several pedagogical and technological challenges. While further developments in the design of tools and platforms are important to promote more widespread uptake and seamless integration in the learning experience, this does?not guarantee that deep and meaningful discussion will be engaged in by all participants.?The affordances of new?synchronous immersive tools for online learning?do matter, but?knowledge of how to design and lead rich discussion using these platforms will be paramount towards promoting meaningful live interaction. Such interactions will continue to rely heavily on the skill, knowledge and competence of educators to design quality discussions where learners?engage in deep knowledge construction. The key lesson for future online exchange platforms is that interactivity happens by design and requires careful scaffolding and active facilitation by people.?
5.???Diversification?
The increasing?diversification?of digital tools and technologies and associated growth of demand for online learning is another trend likely to continue. In his keynote back in November 2019 at the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning,?Simon Nelson, CEO of FutureLearn made the observation that “the global market for online education is still very much in its infancy”.?Few could have predicted “the great onlining of education” in 2020 (Bozkart, et al., 2020) and the impact this would have on schools, colleges and universities as well as the field of Educational Technology.?Even before the pandemic, there were claims that?“EdTech is the next Fintech” (Bainbridge, 2017; cited in Shulman, 2017) and the?COVID-19 crisis has fuelled even greater global growth in the sector.?As a result,?there is an ever-increasing variety and diversity of digital learning solutions available to educators.?
Photo by?Greg Rosenke ?on?Unsplash
On the other hand, despite predictions of the death of the LMS/VLE (Farrelly, Costello & Donlon, 2020), it still lives and plays a core role at most higher education institutions. This role is unlikely to be replaced in the foreseeable future, but as the diversity of digital tools has grown the online learning environment is increasingly viewed as a complex ecosystem of interconnected technologies. As this ecosystem becomes more complex there is a need for more specialist and distributed knowledge. However, ecologically speaking greater diversity is also crucial to building resilience and adaptability to future shocks or more gradual changes to the environment (Weller & Anderson, 2013). The need to build and distribute this specialist knowledge across the ecosystem is partly supported in cases where open source applications have strong global networks. It is noteworthy that many learning technologies are free and openly available, as Bower and Torrington (2020) illustrate in a typology of tools. They identify and map 226 free web-based tools arranged into 40 types and 15 clusters. Building on this latest dataset as well as the list of open tools and technologies published in 2015 (Bower, 2015),?the analysis provides an interesting gauge on trends in online learning technologies over the last five years. The authors extrapolate the following implications:
“Firstly, we would expect that smaller tools without a significant differentiation or business case will either discontinue, marketize, or be taken over. Secondly, it would appear that larger players in the online technology ecosystem will continue to crowd-out smaller players, as their suites of tools become more ubiquitous and integrate greater functionality. We can expect that the built-in intelligence of tools will continue to increase as the machine learning and learning analytics fields become more mature” (Bower & Torrington, 2020,?p. 14).?
The trend towards larger players squeezing out smaller innovators is not an entirely new phenomenon and this could be accelerated by growing concerns about data protection and cybersecurity.?However, influenced by the rewilding movement which seeks to retain ecological diversity in the natural environment, there is a small yet?growing?call by some educators for restoration of a less managed ecosystem. Rewilding within an educational technology context is an endeavour to ensure that a more diverse ecosystem can develop so there is space or habitat for all.
Photo by?Vincent van Zalinge ?on?Unsplash
As Weller (2022) writes, the aim is to enable a more sustainable, diverse system to develop, which better reflects the broader environment outside of formal education. This more organic bottom-up approach to online learning advocates greater local pedagogic experimentation through the adoption of small scale, low impact tools that make it as easy as possible to innovate without becoming an institution-wide tool. An example of this is the SPLOT website [https://splot.ca] which promotes the use of the Smallest/Simplest, Possible/Practical, Latest/Lightest, Open/Online, Tool/Technology. The SPLOT initiative is anchored in Norman's (2013)?Law of eLearning Tool Convergence, which states:
“Any eLearning tool, no matter how openly designed, will eventually become indistinguishable from a Learning Management System once a threshold of supported use-cases has been reached”.?
It is noteworthy that students already choose a diverse range of digital technologies to support their learning beyond those provided by institutions. For example, a major Irish National Digital Experience survey of 32 higher education institutions conducted in autumn 2019 found an interesting gap in both the type and number of digital tools used between staff and students (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2021). When students?were asked to give an example of a digital tool or app they found really useful for learning, over 600 unique tools and apps were identified demonstrating the wide range of technologies students use to support their learning. In contrast, when staff who teach were asked to give an example of a digital tool or app they found really useful in their job role, they identified around 300 different tools. The National INDEx survey attracted over?25,000 students and almost 4500 staff responses.?
In the future, arguably, what is probably more important than the number of digital tools available for teaching and learning is the interoperability (or not) between them. As the digital ecosystem becomes more complex, we are likely to see even more strategic partnerships emerge between institutions and commercial suppliers to provide a more fully integrated online learning experience. Some of the larger MOOC platforms are already changing their business models to integrate with other IT systems so they can better support credit-bearing micro-learning experiences.
Over the next few years, several new online?learning platforms and services are likely to emerge that have affordances so rich and compelling it will be hard to ignore their potential.
The aforementioned wearable and immersive learning technologies may fall into this category along with new developments in virtual laboratories (Reeves &?Crippen, 2021). On a related note, learners are likely to become more mobile as smartwatches, hearable and wearable technologies become more commonplace in educational settings (McGreal, 2018).?
However, new digital solutions can be impactful and even transformative without being functionally rich as they may challenge the current business model. For example, in the future, some institutions may choose to outsource student support services on a 24/7 online basis to improve the learning experience (e.g., maths tutoring, writing development, and health and wellbeing counselling). Further developments in adaptive technologies and learning analytics are likely to help personalise some of these services to students at the point of need. This example only touches on the potential of learning analytics and there are many other emerging areas such as hackathons, escape rooms, gamification, and online assessment, to name a few, that are likely to influence the future of online learning. While there is insufficient space to cover these innovations, they all share a common question. As?Zawacki-Richter et al. (2019) ask in their?systematic literature review of research on AI in education:
Where are the educators?
It is essential that educators, as well as learners, are given a strong voice in any new efforts to help shape the increasingly diverse digital learning ecosystem.?
Summary
This think piece and helicopter analysis of the literature has identified five macro-level trends which are likely to shape?future developments in online learning.?The analysis of these trends underscores the point that technology matters.?If you do not have access to the latest technology, then online learning in whatever format is problematic. At the risk of sounding technocentric, a related observation is that the choice of specific tools and platforms for online learning also matters as the innovative pedagogical affordances of some systems are not as easy or intuitive to use as others. However,?metaphorically speaking, the discussion illustrates that the field of online learning remains a bit like running to catch a moving train (Becker 1998; cited in?Brown, Conole, & Beblav?, 2019).?
Photo by?Heye Jensen ?on?Unsplash
This metaphor demonstrates that educators, as well as learners, will need to continually learn, unlearn and relearn as new?possibilities and opportunities emerge. However, as outlined above, there are well-developed theoretical frameworks that provide a strong foundation for understanding how to apply new digital technologies for effective online teaching, learning and assessment. Nevertheless,?the success of any new online learning initiative?ultimately depends heavily on teachers (Brown, Conole, & Beblav?, 2019).?With the demand for online learning increasing, numerous studies show there is a need for more professional development that reflects a deeper understanding of the pedagogical competencies teachers require to realise the potential of new digital technologies (Fernndez-Batanero, et al., 2020;?Leary, et al., 2020). The literature also suggests three other critical points.
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To conclude, technology matters but teachers matter more. We know that transformative models of teacher professional learning are required to fully realise the benefits of new digital technologies. Well-designed digital tools and online platforms offer a valuable learning space to challenge teachers and educational leaders to ask and respond to critical questions.?However, simply expanding access to technology and building online professional learning opportunities for educators with rich content and opportunities for interactivity does not automatically guarantee a high level of uptake and transformative use by key stakeholders. Realising this transformative goal depends on many different factors and stakeholders.??
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AI & Education | Digital Education & Innovation | Author: Generative AI and Education
2 年Thanks for this, good to see the inclusion of VR and immersive environments here, which we are currently testing over at the Innovation Academy. This exciting element of the “symbiotic web” definitely requires the human touch to make it a meaningful learning experience, which for me means the design of discussion and accompanying resources that tie the virtual experience to the real world in the form of skills and competencies that can be used and applied in ways we can see, understand and maybe even measure.
OpenEduHub, Distance Education
2 年I found a meaningful discussion of these issues in your course (FutureLearn), this is a very important study, especially regarding the students' readiness during the educational transformation. We also pay serious attention to research in this area, in particular, the impact of innovative technologies on the portfolio of teachers of prior and lifelong learning, aimed at developing diverse and inclusive learning environments.
Leading, Teaching, and Engineering Online Education. The next big tech in education will be Quality-Lean.
2 年Mark Brown I like the content and will need to go through it a few more times. There is a lot here. My original idea for Online Faculty Presence (2002) was a lot of what is in social presence. Certain practices such as referring to students by name, thanking them for their contribution, referring to something in the student's post... made the faculty less like anonymous text. With this, Online faculty were able to make a greater difference in the quality of the learning by better humanizing the online course room. ??
Professor of Learning Technologies. Speaker. Consultant. Evaluator.
2 年Great paper, Mark!