L@S: The New SIG of openTEL

The launch of our new Special Interest Group: Learning at Scale (L@S SIG) happened on Wednesday, May 26th, 2021. Dr Shi Min Chua led the first online meeting of the SIG, which featured a presentation from a Senior Lecturer at The Open University (The OU). The interdisciplinary event welcomed 21 people across the university who had the opportunity to share their work on L@S with others.

Dr Anna Comas-Quinn kicked off the session with her presentation: Learning beyond the classroom: online volunteer translationShe shared findings from her doctoral research project that explored the experiences of a global sample of online volunteer translators. Anna also reported on two action research projects (Comas-Quinn & Fuertes-Gutiérrez, 2019Cámara & Comas-Quinn, 2016) that piloted and implemented the use of online volunteer translation activities in language and translation teaching.

The meeting was then followed by a roundtable discussion with academics and researchers interested in learning more about the SIG. Attendees mentioned how their research and practice related to learning at scale. All the members in the meeting agreed that The OU is a pioneer of this learning modality, considering the large number of students taking distance learning modules at our institution since 1969.

The organiser also prompted the attendees to think of the aspects they would like to explore further in the upcoming sessions of the SIG. They mentioned the following topics for the L@S SIG agenda of 2021:

  • Impact on learners & educators
  • The methodology and data used to research L@S
  • The context of L@S in developing countries, including F2F and community centres
  • Automated feedback
  • Learning Analytics
  • MOOCs
  • Digital badges
  • Microcredentials
  • Self-regulated learning
  • Learners’ disposition and cultural influences
  • Assessment at Scale
  • The distinction between delivery and learning at scale

One of the members shared their thoughts on L@S and wrote: “What dimensions can ‘scale’ have? Obviously, the number of learners, but inspired by Anna’s talk and other comments, others come to mind. E.g. number of Learners, Teachers, Subjects (Sciences, Languages, Arts etc.), Pedagogical approaches, Technologies used, Communication media (audio, video, text, image, hypertext etc.), Distance (various forms: physical, transactional…), Languages, Emotions”. Another attendee shared an interesting article on students who set up their study support at scale in places like YouTube and Reddit. These platforms are part of The Study Web, “a constellation of digital spaces and online communities—across YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Discord, and Twitter—largely built by students for students”.

The discussions from the meeting will inform the future SIG events. If you would like to keep up to date with the Learning At Scale SIG agenda, please email us to add your name to the new L@S mailing list.  

Show & TEL 2021: Five presentations in a nutshell

Show & TEL has become an opportunity to learn more about the work of colleagues from The Open University (OU) and other researchers with similar Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) interests since 2015. This year’s event was not an exception. Members of openTEL hosted five online presentations on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021, from 09:00 until 13:00. The presentations included TEL-related topics, such as learning analytics, students’ success, chatbots and science. In a nutshell, we present here what you may have missed from these exciting talks on that day of the event.

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What’s in the openAIED SIG agenda for 2021?

The Special Interest Group focused on applying Artificial Intelligence in Education (openAIED SIG) from OpenTEL had its first meeting of the year on Wednesday, May 12th, 2021. The SIG event was led by Dr Duygu Bektik and Dr Francisco Iniesto from the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University.

The online session kicked off with a timeline that displayed what the openAIED SIG has done since it was launched by Dr Wayne Holmes and Dr Duygu Bektik in April 2018. The brief history of the SIG includes an animated series of sessions bringing together researchers across the university and beyond who are interested in AIED.

As you can tell, the SIG has welcomed numerous experts involved in a diverse range of topics, including ethics in AIED, e-assessment and learning analytics. They have also run a bidding workshop where researchers have had the opportunity to work together and write a proposal for potential research projects. It is expected that the upcoming sessions of 2021 will follow a similar vibrant timeline to the one presented above. Hence, the purpose of the meeting was to give people an opportunity to engage and decide the future agenda of the openAIED SIG.

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openAIED SIG: 12th May

openAIED Special Interest Group
12th May (14:00 – 15:00)

We would like to invite you to the first openAIED SIG meeting of 2021. This informal meeting will allow you to participate in steering the upcoming plans of the openAIED SIG which will be introduced by Dr Duygu Bektik and Dr Francisco Iniesto.

Duygu and Paco will present their latest updates around their work as well as the direction of the SIG, which will be followed by roundtable discussions. We would be delighted to hear what you are doing in this area, what you would like to get out of this group, and how to steer the SIG’s future.

Join this meeting to decide together the openAIED SIG agenda for 2021!

Please email openTEL for an invite or to be added to the openAIED mailing list.

New Special Interest Group: Learning At Scale

openTEL are pleased to invite you to join our first Learning@Scale SIG in OpenTEL. In this first event, Anna will present her research about online volunteer translation. After her presentation, we will have a roundtable to discuss the agenda for our SIG in the future.

You are welcome to join any of the programs. Please email openTEL or ShiMin for an invite.

Programme (26 May 2021)
15.30 Introduction
15.40 Dr Anna Comas-Quinn presents Learning beyond the classroom: online volunteer translation (see info below)
16.30 Roundtable: What do we want for our SIG
17.00 End

Speaker Bio
Dr Anna Comas-Quinn is a Senior Lecturer at The Open University, UK, where she has been teaching languages and translation for the last 20 years. She has led teaching and research projects, edited two volumes on open practice in language teaching, and published on open education, technology-enhanced language teaching and the integration of online volunteering in language and translation education.
Continue reading New Special Interest Group: Learning At Scale