SocialLearn

This morning on the opening day of the CALRG 2011 Conference, we presented some of the recent thinking we’ve been doing on learning analytics, specifically in a social learning context.

A technical report setting out the line of argument in more detail…

Buckingham Shum, S. and Ferguson, R. (2011). Social Learning Analytics. Available as: Technical Report KMI-11-01, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK. http://kmi.open.ac.uk/publications/pdf/kmi-11-01.pdf

Abstract: We propose that the design and implementation of effective Social Learning Analytics presents significant challenges and opportunities for both research and enterprise, in three important respects. The first is the challenge of implementing analytics that have pedagogical and ethical integrity, in a context where power and control over data is now of primary importance. The second challenge is that the educational landscape is extraordinarily turbulent at present, in no small part due to technological drivers. Online social learning is emerging as a significant phenomenon for a variety of reasons, which we review, in order to motivate the concept of social learning, and ways of conceiving social learning environments as distinct from other social platforms. This sets the context for the third challenge, namely, to understand different types of Social Learning Analytic, each of which has specific technical and pedagogical challenges. We propose an initial taxonomy of five types. We conclude by considering potential futures for Social Learning Analytics, if the drivers and trends reviewed continue, and the prospect of solutions to some of the concerns that institution-centric learning analytics may provoke.

I recently  attended Alpine Rendez-Vous 2011, meeting people from all over Europe with an interest in technology-enhanced learning (TEL). For most of the time, we were split into eight workshops – my group was exploring ‘Methods and models of next-generation technology enhanced learning‘, examining the roles of assessment and evaluation in learning.

A focus for the workshop was to identify the ‘Grand Challenges’ for future research – constructing a framework for the development of TEL over the next ten years. The ideas were wide-ranging and exciting, for example:  Develop new technology to harness the power of emotions for learning. One challenge was closely related to our work at SocialLearn on learning analytics and recommendations engines: ‘How can learning be assessed in an open, social TEL environment?’

Our current model for the assessment of learning is primarily summative and individual, firmly bound to hierarchical education structures. It is a model that was developed for use when educational technology had only just moved beyond the horn book, knowledge was not abundantly available, groups of learners were taught and examined at the same time in the same physical location, teachers and learners were clearly differentiated and online collaboration and publication were undreamed-of possibilities. As new models of learning have been widely adopted, this model of assessment is no longer fit for purpose. We need new approaches and new models.

Open, social TEL environments have made new models of learning possible. Learners now draw upon many different people and resources, knowledge is dispersed and distributed, individuals may move rapidly between the roles of teacher and learner, and their collaborations extend across time and space. Despite these changes, the group work, the growing archives of activity and the available data about learning networks, there is still a focus on summative assessment of individuals.

TEL environments offer learners and educators a wealth of new resources in the form of the data they record – learners’ demographics, activities, interactions, participation and engagement – but little of this is currently harnessed to support assessment and even less is used to provide formative feedback and to help learners develop their metacognitive skills, their learning dialogue, their skill-sets or their knowledge.

Colleges and universities are beginning to make use of this data, but educational data mining and analytics are often viewed from an institutional point of view – how can we recruit more students? how can we retain students for longer? how can this institution maximise its income? A wordsearch for ‘teaching’ or ‘learning’ in the current literature produces woefully limited results.

Our challenge is to make use of new resources and technologies to develop and build on learning analytics – analytics that can make a real difference for learners, producing measurable improvements in areas such as:

• Engagement with learning – supported by appropriate and personalised feedback
• Quality of online learning dialogue
• Engagement with online learning networks
• Enjoyment – due, in part, to development of a students-in-trouble alerting system
• Learners’ and teachers’ awareness of the value of learning analytics and recommendations.

Our project title – SocialLearn – focuses attention on social learning, but our remit is wider. From the start, SocialLearn has faced the challenge of aligning current thinking on good pedagogy with the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

There is a continuing tension between social learning, with learners freely ranging the Internet and constructing meaning together, and institutional provision of selected high-quality resources and individual assessment.

I’m currently looking back at SocialLearn’s work over the past year – not only in terms of how it supports learning, but also in terms of the principles articulated at the start. These are currently available in various articles and blogs, and I am linking them together here in order to support evaluation of what we have done so far, and development of what we will do in the future.

Two years ago, Martin Weller identified six principles of SocialLearn (the hyperlinks are mine):

• Openness
• Flexibility
• Disruptive
• Perpetual beta
• Democracy
• Pedagogy

These articulated the underpinnings of the project, connecting it with the underpinnings and origins of The Open University, where SocialLearn is based.

Following a series of workshops and discussions, Gráinne Conole set out the proposed learning principles of SocialLearn in her blog and, in a related article, articulated how these would be linked to characteristics of learning, specifically: thinking & reflection, conversation & interaction, experience & interactivity and evidence & demonstration.

• Supports a range of pedagogies and styles
• Formalises the informal; informalises the formal
• Is built on relationships between people
• Harnesses the net
• Aggregates learning events, resources and opportunities
• Provides structures and scaffolds for the learning process
• Uses metaphors and simple approaches to impart pedagogy
• Encourages a range of participation
• Provides evidence via range of informal and formal assessment mechanisms
• Provides lifelong support across different learning goals
• Provides access to expertise
• Supports collaborative elements
• Helps surface incidental learning
• Wraps learning around an individual’s interests
• Enables learner control and learner responsibility
• Allows users to build reputation within the system
• Encourages legitimate peripheral participation
• Encourages learning through observation
• Supports different subject areas and styles
• Encourages mentorship

Over the next weeks, I shall be investigating how these sets of principles have influenced the development of SocialLearn.

One of the crucial aspects of becoming a more open project is that we can share our thinking, opening it up for debate and discussion. We want to discuss the principles underpinning SocialLearn, to show how they were implemented on our Closed Beta site, and to share what we have learned.

To start with – what do we mean when we talk about ‘social learning’? What is learning ‘based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions’ (Seely Brown & Adler, 2008).

To give an example: I want to learn why someone has sawed down half of the beautiful cedar tree outside my office window. I can’t easily find this out from a book or a website, and I don’t know anyone with the precise knowledge that I am looking for. It is as I engage in conversations with different people that my understanding of what I see outside my window increases and I learn more about the tree’s history, health, ecosystem and future possibilities.

It’s not just the social construction of understanding that’s important – that is a part of most human interactions. My intention to learn is part of what makes this social learning, as are my interactions with others. This isn’t a one-sided engagement with books or with online content, it involves social relationships. As such, it has lots of  ‘affective’ aspects – people must be motivated to engage with me and I must have the confidence to ask questions in the first place, as well as some way of assessing the expertise of the people I’m talking to.

I’m not convinced that ‘social learning’ is a useful term in a purely face-to-face context. Without the Internet, social learning is just a subset of social constructivism, with an emphasis on affective and interpersonal elements. It may sound more user friendly, but it’s just another label – and not one that adds much to our understanding.

Web 2.0 extends the possibilities for social learning, making it possible not only to locate and access a vast amount of content from all around the world, but also to engage in extended interaction around and about this material. Learners – particularly those learning outside formal settings such as schools and colleges – may find themselves adrift in an ocean of information, struggling to solve ill-structured problems, with little clear idea of how to solve them, or how to recognise when they have solved them. It’s here that social learning has its place – helping people to use these resources to construct knowledge together effectively.

Social learning can take place when people:

• clarify their intention – learning rather than browsing

• ground their learning – by defining their question or problem

• engage in focused conversations – increasing their understanding of the available resources.

These three actions help us to build meaningful connections online, and offer learners the benefits of co-operative activity and of collaboration.

The challenge for SocialLearn is to support and encourage users to clarify their intention, ground their learning and engage in focused conversations.