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“The impact of the pandemic on open schooling”

by Alexandra Okada

Understanding the impact of the pandemic on open schooling projects is a key topic of the European online event using “fishbowl approach” organised today March 24th  by  OStogether a network with nine European projects – all part of the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme – Science with and for society. The moderator was Maria Zolotonosa (from Make it Open). There were four speakers who started the debate.  

  • Alexandra Okada (The OU, UK – CONNECT): How can we help schools to connect and cooperate with local communities during the COVID pandemic?
  • Matteo Merzagora (Association TRACES, France – SALL) :the challenge of building trust at distance – difficulty of stakeholder engagement when actors do not know each other  
  • Nicole Salomon (OVOS media, Austria – COMnPlay): experience of organising a virtual makerspace
  • Erik Knain (UNIVERSITETET I OSLO, Norway – SEAS): Open schooling can help teaching during a pandemic, but maybe not teachers

The rapid spread of the new COVID-19 variants has put the world on alert. The various school lockdowns have affected the educational system in our countries.  Challenges and opportunities must be considered to better respond to these issues. How can our open schooling projects support schools during and post-pandemic? What can be done, and what can be done differently?

Open Schooling (OS) is a key approach promoted by the European Commission through nine funded projects to support the cooperation between schools, scientists and local communities for youth to become more engaged with science through real-world problems.

These OS projects have been developing a variety of relevant approaches to bridge formal, non-formal and informal science education to improve students’ experience in science. These approaches include a variety of relevant scenarios, themes, pedagogical methods, tools, environments and multi-actor platforms with high-quality resources, learning materials, and events, for example, workshops, courses, coaching and mentoring programmes.

A relevant issue suggested by a member of OStogether was

“How could we help schools connect and cooperate with local communities through open schooling in science during COVID-19?”

This question leads to many others.

Are schools interested in connecting with communities? What type of connections are they willing to establish? Will they benefit from cooperating with external partners? What are the advantages of cooperation for schools and partners involved in open schooling?    

To respond to these issues, more questions are necessary.

What are participants’ needs (what they care)? What are their priorities (what they need to know)?  What are their expectations (what they can do) during and post-pandemic? 

CONNECT is an open schooling project with 10 partners led by the AI enterprise EXUS  responsible for project coordination and technology and the Open University responsible for scientific coordination, ethics and evaluation.

Our aim is to increase students’ confidence towards using science in life now and future by connecting them with science professionals, family, and community members.

CONNECT is designed to facilitate teachers’ work through the curriculum enhanced by multi actors’ cooperation. Our open schooling model focuses on socio-scientific issues and societal challenges that:

  •   activate students and their local communities interests, concerns, “CARE”,
  •   create the need to KNOW linked to the curriculum supported by teachers and,
  •   offer opportunities for students to DO science-actions and develop skills guided by scientists and STEM professionals.

To facilitate connections and cooperation, schools are provided with future-oriented support by scientists, engaging activities, fun participatory science tools, and more inclusive teaching strategies with special attention to disadvantaged students, gender equality, and educational equity.

Pandemic has affected significantly the education system. Schools and universities had to move to distance education during various lockdowns. Many teachers and students were not prepared nor equipped to work with technology. A large number of disadvantaged students of state schools with free meals missed social relationships, learning, and food.

UNESCO (2021) has been calling our attention to the human capital loss during COVID-19.

“Approximately half of the world’s population (some 3.6 billion people) still lack an internet connection… 463 million or nearly one-third of students around the globe cannot access remote learning. The pandemic shows that connectivity has become a key factor to guarantee the right to education. Digital skills and learning must be incorporated into education systems in order address the injustice of the digital divide”

 The context that we have now with COVID-19, school lockdowns and self-isolation,  is completely different from when we develop our open schooling proposals. To identify the needs, priorities, and expectations the OU team developed three studies with students, open education researchers, and teachers during the pandemic.  

The first study examined students’  views of an introductory module of the Open University (Okada & Sheehy, 2020). We contacted 4,500 students, and 550 participated in our exploratory study about online learning during the first lockdown in the UK. Our aim was to understand their views about collaborative learning, cooperation with others, problem-solving and inquiry based-learning, traditional teaching approaches, and the value of fun/enjoyment in distance education. The OU is the largest university in the UK open to all learners with a significant number of disadvantaged students, 72% work full or p-time, 26% live in the 25% most from deprived areas, 34% of new students come from secondary schools or failed to complete it and 33% with a lower qualification at entry. (OU, Facts, and Figures)

 Our findings revealed that more than 85% of students valued fun in learning to support well-being, motivation, and performance. However, approximately 15% indicated that fun within learning could result in distraction or loss of time. Three groups were identified   (1) students who value fun in collaborative learning wish more interacting activities and cooperating with others, (2) students who think that fun gets in the way of their individual learning prefer to learn at their own pace and on their own with useful activities problem solving and inquiry-based activities to succeed in their exams,  (3) students who mentioned that there is no fun in online learning think that online learning is transmissive – focused on content, they do not want to waste time with discussions, teamwork, and participatory approaches. There are also students who cannot see the point of cooperation, fun and engagement. They  are struggling to study, feeling depressed, or stressed, they mentioned that are not capable nor ready to engage with collaborative projects 

 

 

The second study focused on a workshop organised at the OEGLOBAL conference with 700 attendees, 277 presentations with 12 studies about open education and COVID-19 pandemic.  We investigated the key issues for open education – open schooling including learners’ competencies, learning environments, open partnerships, and education 2030 with SDGs. In this workshop, we also discussed the recent reports of UNESCO, World Bank, and OECD about Education and COVID – technologies.

Four key topics emerged in our discussions – a significant loss of human capital: 1. learning disruption including low achievement and high dropout rates; 2. students’ health (mental, physical, and emotional);   3. teachers’ workload (pressure and stress) and 4. Inequalities (increased gap of disadvantaged students).

Participants highlighted eight key drivers: education for all, special attention for girls, affordability, free education, pedagogy, new education policy, each one –  teach one, the added value of open school/ open education. Fifteen recommendations were grouped to enhance open education to support learners’ access, learners’ retention, learners’ attainment, and learners’ progress.  

 

The third study focused on various communities of teachers from Amazon, Pantanal, and the large semi-arid area of Brazil. This study will be completed for the book  “Adversities in Education” edited by Dr. Holliman and Prof. Sheehy.

While all eyes are on COVID-19, both the Amazon forest and the world’s largest tropical wetlands Pantanal face fire… Conservation and environmental protection are in crisis

BBC (Nov. 2020) Highlighted that  “The number of fires blazing in Brazil’s Amazon region in October 2020 was more than double those in the same month last year, satellite data suggests. The Institute of Space Research said there were 17,326 fires in the Amazon, compared to 7,855 in October 2019. Data released by INPE   suggests there were 2,856 fires in the Pantanal region in October.

Our study reached more than 7,000 teachers from these areas. More than 1,000 teachers completed our questionnaires, participated in our webinar, discussed their issues, practices, needs, and expectations related to open schooling through webinars, questionnaires and interviews. We are now discussing what type of connections and kinds of cooperation are relevant for state schools and communities considering not only the effects of the pandemic, digital divide but also environmental socio-scientific, and political issues.  

To sum up, CONNECT project was designed before the pandemic and started during the peak of COVID-19. Understanding the stakeholders’ needs and more inclusive and future-oriented strategies are fundamental especially in the UK, Brazil, Spain/Catalunya, Greece, and Romania.  Some research studies developed with schools during various lockdowns in CONNECT indicate some challenges and drivers. In terms of challenges, the negative effects of the pandemic for schools to implement open schooling are :

  •   More emphasis on completing the curriculum and fewer opportunities for external activities.
  •   More teaching time is needed and fewer learners’ centered opportunities.
  •   More emphasis on preparing students for exams and less time for inquiry-based learning and community-based projects.
  •  More concerns with students’ achievement – knowledge acquisition (short term) rather than scientific skills development (long term).
  •  More resources and support online but limited opportunities for the most needed students, who do not have access to the internet nor digital devices.

In terms of drivers, the positive effects of the pandemic for schools to consider open schooling integrated into their lessons are:

  • More high-quality learning resources linked to the curriculum.
  • More enjoyable activities – fun and relevant – that are meaningful for students’ learning.
  • More opportunities to help students become more confident, more interested in, and more capable to succeed in science.
  • More strategies to deal with outbreaks and foster scientific and digital literacy
  • More support through cooperations to help a large number of disadvantaged students, educating girls and the various minority groups.

To open up further discussions, our preliminary findings suggest that there will plenty of relevant societal issues for developing useful open schooling projects. There will be some meaningful practices to evaluate the value of open schooling approaches/ models in-depth. However, …

…will there be opportunities to scale up our open schooling models before the end of our projects and keep it sustainable after it? How?

 

Questions discussed during the event:

  • What are the challenges for open schooling? How have these challenges changed with the pandemic? 
  • How can we engage parents/families in your open schooling projects, given that their role changed a lot during the pandemic? 
  • How can we best support teachers?  And the rest of the stakeholders including policymakers? 
  • How do we find the balance between being on time with your open schooling projects (in terms of following the Grant Agreement) and not pushing schools too much?
  • Have we made any big adjustments to our projects due to the pandemic? 
  • How can we convince schools to stay on board when things get tough? 
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Fun and the benefits of Sign Supported Big Books in mainstream Indonesian kindergartens

http://oro.open.ac.uk/78253/1/78253.pdf

Khofidotur, Rofiah; Sheehy, Kieron; Widayati, Sri and Budiyanto (2021). Fun and the benefits of Sign Supported Big Books in mainstream Indonesian kindergartens. International Journal of Early Years Education (Early Access).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2021.1956440

Abstract

Inclusive kindergarten provision remains relatively rare in Indonesia. This article indicates factors that contribute to this situation (stigmatisation, lack of resources and training) and reports on an approach to begin to address it. Sign Supported Big Books were evaluated in mainstream kindergartens (i.e. classes without children with special educational needs ) as a way of enhancing their inclusive affordances. These books used Signalong Indonesia, a keyword signing approach, to support whole class stories with 76 children in five kindergarten classes. Four classes used books with signs, and one used a book without signs as part of their everyday activities. Five teacher interviews suggested that the approach enhanced pupils’ engagement and was enjoyable and fun for pupils and teachers alike. There were also positive effects for children’s story comprehension and sign learning. The findings of this study support the novel position that having a disabled child in a class is not necessary in order to justify using an inclusive keyword signing approach. The implications of these findings are discussed for developing a proactive approach to facilitate inclusive practices in Indonesian kindergartens.

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Factors and Recommendations to Support Students’ Enjoyment of Online Learning With Fun

A Mixed Method Study During COVID-19

http://oro.open.ac.uk/74143/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2020.584351/full

Okada, Alexandra and Sheehy, Kieron (2020). Factors and Recommendations to Support Students’ Enjoyment of Online Learning With Fun: A Mixed Method Study During COVID-19. Frontiers in Education, 5(1), article no. 584351.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.584351

Abstract

Understanding components that influence students’ enjoyment of distance higher education is increasingly important to enhance academic performance and retention. Although there is a growing body of research about students’ engagement with online learning, a research gap exists concerning whether fun affect students’ enjoyment. A contributing factor to this situation is that the meaning of fun in learning is unclear, and its possible role is controversial. This research is original in examining students’ views about fun and online learning, and influential components and connections. This study investigated the beliefs and attitudes of a sample of 551 distance education students including pre-services and in-service teachers, consultants and education professionals using a mixed-method approach. Quantitative and Qualitative data were generated through a self-reflective instrument during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed that 88.77% of participants valued fun in online learning; linked to well-being, motivation and performance. However, 16.66% mentioned that fun within online learning could take the focus off their studies and result in distraction or loss of time. Principal component analysis revealed three groups of students who found (1) fun relevant in socio-constructivist learning (2) no fun in traditional transmissive learning and (3) disturbing fun in constructivist learning. This study also provides key recommendations extracted from participants’ views supported by consensual review for course teams, teaching staff and students to enhance online learning experiences with enjoyment and fun.

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Drawing as a mediating artefact to support Responsible Research and Innovation with fun

by Alexandra Okada

In the context of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), drawing when combined with other methods can be considered a useful instrument for explorations of participants’ views. RRI aims to examine the priorities, views and values of all participants; so that scientific development is aligned with the expectation and needs of societal actors including youth (EC, 2020).

A research study in Ireland developed by Tatlow-Golden (2011) investigated the views of young people about “Who am I?” through the activities and types of relationships they valued most. This was explored through drawings and other graphic means such as ‘Identity Pies’, as well as interviews. Drawing combined with conversation and writing was important to identify what the young people thought was important and why.

“When young people talked, drew and wrote about what was important to them, and why, they foregrounded many relationships beyond peer popularity (friendship, and relationships with parents, siblings, extended family and even pets) and activities beyond sports and school (very many creative and active pastimes)…

Young people almost never mentioned school or curricular learning — unless it was to discuss relationships or activities in the school context, or the obligation to ‘get an education’. ” (Tatlow-Golden & Montgomery, 2020:13)

This study was selected for the RUMPUS – we explore fun – blog to highlight the importance of selecting enjoyable instruments and procedures that help participants to express themselves in a more pleasant way.  Drawing combined with dialogue can promote the involvement of youth to respond to questions with more freedom than articulating words. It also supports researchers by creating opportunities for a more spontaneous conversation and reflection which can generate more meaningful data when participants are enjoying the experience.

The methodology of this study is also useful for CONNECT and OLAF researchers who are interested in fun participatory approaches to explore learning and engagement.  Drawing can be an engaging and helpful artefact to externalise views and values where words may be more difficult than visual representation. Artefacts that are enjoyable for participants are helpful to obtain more expressive and authentic views; so that the values, expectations and priorities of young people can be unveiled in the research. Although Tatlow-Golden found that participants aged up to 13 years readily engaged with these tasks, an important feature of using drawing in research is that some participants lack confidence in their own drawing ability, so it is crucial to create an atmosphere in the research encounter of exploration and play, rather than setting an expectation that participants will make a ‘good’ drawing.

The work of Tatlow-Golden (Tatlow-Golden & Guerin, 2010, 2017; Tatlow-Golden, 2011) is considered original and relevant because it examined the voices of youth about their lived   experiences through qualitative instruments (conversation, drawing and writing) to question the validity of quantitative self-concept scales that are widely used in psychological and educational research. This body of work found that conventional self-concept research scales are limited as they omit domains of self that young people value.

Tatlow – Golden and Montgomery (2020) highlight that “it is impossible to  imagine  how  psychological  measures  that  do  not incorporate children’s perspectives can yield accurate, meaningful psychological findings about young people’s selves.

Without such insights, psychologists are unlikely to achieve their ultimate goal of supporting children and young people to develop and fulfil their potential, and so this is another area in which Childhood Studies perspectives and methods have the potential to enrich psychological research”.

The methodological approach that combines drawing and dialogue to for participants to express themselves is congruent with RRI which highlights the importance of incorporating participants’ perspectives – their thoughts, views and voices during the process of research and innovation.

Figure 1: An example of a child drawing (1) basketball after school, (2) breaktime, and (3) videogames at home   from Tatlow ‐ Golden & Guerin

Figure 2:  Procedures to combine drawing, dialogue and writing from Tatlow ‐ Golden & Guerin (2011)

Figure 3:  Visual Analogue Scale to check participants’ self-rated importance of aspects of self featured in their drawing   from Tatlow ‐ Golden (2011), see also Tatlow-Golden & Guerin (2017)

Figure 4:  Identity pie from Tatlow ‐ Golden (2011)

Other studies that use drawing as part of the research methodology also highlight that drawing needs to be integrated with other instruments. Sondergaard and Reventlow (2019) examined drawing as a facilitating approach when conducting research among children. Their findings revealed that children expressed feelings, emotions and, experiences through drawing. The authors suggest that visual representation helps children to express themselves more easily than through words. However, two requirements are vital, including other fieldwork data to support the interpretation of drawings and above all having a solid contextual understanding of the field.

Blog Video Interview   

Mimi, could you please let us know what inspire you to use drawing in your research? What were the challenges and benefits?

What are your recommendations for researchers who are looking for research instruments that are fun (children will enjoy it) to explore fun in learning ?

Glossary

Identity Pie

 

 is a   graphical method  for representing the relative importance of my self-concept domains used to describe who I am.
Self-concept
(Who am I?)
me-self		 Is a self-description about what I am;
it  includes self-representation, for example,
about my values, roles, activities, goals in my life.
It is closely related to self-esteem
Self-esteem how much I appreciate and like myself, what I am.

References

Søndergaard, E., & Reventlow, S. (2019). Drawing as a facilitating approach when conducting research among children. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406918822558.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi and Montgomery, Heather (2020). Childhood Studies and child psychology: Disciplines in dialogue? Children & Society (Early access).

Guerin, Suzanne and Tatlow-Golden, Mimi (2019). How Valid Are Measures of Children’s Self-Concept/ Self-Esteem? Factors and Content Validity in Three Widely Used Scales. Child Indicators Research, 12(5) pp. 1507–1528.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi (2011) Who I Am: Exploring the Nature, Salience and Meaning of Children’s Active and Social Selves. PhD Thesis. University College Dublin.

Tatlow-Golden, Mimi and Guerin, Suzanne (2010).   ‘My favourite things to do’ and ‘my favourite people’: Exploring salient aspects of children’s self-concept. Childhood, 17(4) pp. 545–562

Questions suggested by Mimi for researchers and readers to establish a conversation about drawing in research: 

1. What are the challenges of using drawing in research?

2. What are the recommendations for analysing drawings?

3. How about reliability and rigour? Is drawing reliable as a projective method?

You are very welcome to leave your comments on our blog … We will be glad to interact with you!

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“I like to climb and pick coconuts”

Moving Towards A Child-Guided Agentic Participatory Research Methodology: 7 To 11 Years Children’s Experiences Of Physical Activity.

Plowright-Pepper, Linda Caroline (2020). “I like to climb and pick coconuts”. Moving Towards A Child-Guided Agentic Participatory Research Methodology: 7 To 11 Years Children’s Experiences Of Physical Activity. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.000121bd

Abstract

In 2018 only 18% of children met the UK Chief Medical Officers’ recommended physical activity levels in England (Public Health England, 2018). Despite emerging evidence suggesting that declines in physical activity may originate from 7 years old, little research has been undertaken with middle childhood children. This study addresses gaps in research which gives children an opportunity to express their lived experiences of physical activity.

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the extent to which a new child-guided approach to researching lived experiences of middle childhood physical activity provided insights into children’s activity choices and familial influences. Informed by social constructivism this study assumed that children were agentic social actors capable not only of contributing to research but capable of guiding research into matters which affected them. Participatory and existential phenomenological methodologies were brought together in a new model of agentic child-guided (AChiG) participatory research. Physical activity was conceptualised as an embodied experience and framed as an individually socioecologically contextualised phenomenon (e.g. Merleau-Ponty 1962).

I enabled coresearchers to identify fresh conceptualisations of physical activity through the use of the AChiG model. Coresearchers conceptualised physical activity for instance as ‘conquering creative challenges’ and ‘playing at’ structured activities.

High levels of imagination and creativity together with a strong motivation to connect with close family members underpinned fun and enjoyment which drove physical activity. Coresearchers also contextualised physical activity within a broad range of physically active and inactive free-choice pursuits. These competed for coresearchers time in fluid, layered and spontaneous ways. These insights and lessons learnt from the new child-guided approach provide potentially fruitful strands to inform further research.

“Sources of fun and enjoyment were multi-stranded and interconnecting. For instance, perceived competence and a sense of mastery(Mccarthy and Jones, 2007b)could be underpinned by a sense of autonomy and agency in the decision to participate,(Mackintosh et al., 2011). Fun was found both in the activity itself but also in having a friend with whom to share the activity (Agbuga, Xiang and McBride, 2012)”

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The value of fun in online learning

a study supported by responsible research and innovation and open data

http://oro.open.ac.uk/71012/

Okada, Alexandra and Sheehy, Kieron (2020). The value of fun in online learning: a study supported by responsible research and innovation and open data. Revista e-Curriculum, 18(2) pp. 319–343.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23925/1809-3876.2020v18i2p590-613

 

Okada, Alexandra and Sheehy, Kieron (2020). The value of fun in online learning: a study supported by responsible research and innovation and open data. Revista e-Curriculum, 18(2) pp. 319–343.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23925/1809-3876.2020v18i2p590-613

Abstract

Humanistic learner-centred curriculum approaches that use new technologies are vital as a response to a world dominated by grand challenges such as the COVID-19. This article examines the value of fun in distance education to promote student success and retention. Although the experience of fun is part of human nature, research in this area is sparse. This mixed-methods study, informed by Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and open data, focused on 206 students including teachers, consultants and education professionals. The results indicated that 91% of participants valued fun in online learning; highlighting well-being, motivation and performance. However, 17% believed that fun within learning could take the focus off their studies and result in distraction or loss of time. This article introduces the new concept of emancipatory fun and offers some educational recommendations

Portuguese Abstract – Abordagens curriculares mais humanistas centradas no aprendiz com tecnologias são vitais como uma resposta para o mundo dominado por grandes desafios, tais como a COVID-19. Este artigo examina o valor da diversão na Educação a Distância visando promover o sucesso dos estudantes e reduzir a evasão. Embora a experiência da diversão seja parte da natureza humana, pesquisas nessa área são escassas. Este estudo de métodos mistos apoiado pela Pesquisa e Inovação Responsáveis (RRI) e dados abertos focou 206 estudantes, incluindo professores, consultores e profissionais da educação. Os resultados indicaram que 91% dos participantes valorizaram a aprendizagem on-line divertida, destacando bem-estar, motivação e desempenho. Entretanto, 17% acreditaram que a diversão na aprendizagem poderia tirar o foco dos estudos, resultando em distração ou perda de tempo. Este artigo introduz o novo conceito de diversão emancipatória e oferece algumas recomendações

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In celebration of sensory methods and movement

By Sarah Huxley

Can you understand what an ice cream is without eating it, but by only looking at it and describing it? Without experiencing its texture, taste, coldness, flavour, smell, and examining the multi-faceted and layered sensory experience that is all part of the process of eating an ice cream. This process is in its own way a celebration of sensory experience, movement and being. The process of eating an ice cream is a blog post in itself, but I won’t digress.

Source: Unsplash @Foodism360

For my research on exploring fun and learning, I understand ‘fun’ to be an ice cream of sorts. This may also be partly because I am writing this blog in 32-degree heat, but the metaphor stands.

Fun is an ambiguous concept, which has different connotations in different cultures and deserves to be better understood alongside learning processes.  This is the premise upon which my thesis is based. I am looking at what fun is, does and why it may be important with a sport for social change organisation called Coaches Across Continents (CAC) https://coachesacrosscontinents.org/.

Source: Coaches Across Continents (CAC)

For the purposes of this post, I want to acknowledge and focus on the work of the anthropologist Tim Ingold, in particular, his joyful book “Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description” (2011). Here he sets the case for his beliefs that “it is by moving that we know… a being that moves, knows and describes must be observant…[and] is being alive to the world” (Ingold, 2011: xii). Ingold does not like binaries: the mind is not a separate entity to the body (drawing from Merleu Ponty), nor is the world we inhabit a separate entity to humanity. For him ‘wayfaring’ is the rhythmic patterning of how people contribute alongside “through their movements to its [the worlds] ongoing formation” (p.44).

Ingold (2011) reminds sensory researchers of the bias of “head over heels”, and that the sense of touch, especially via feet and its wayfaring with the ground, especially in Western research practices is often ignored. Actually, there is much to be learnt as a researcher from his call to focus on the movement of intransitive and haptic experiences: not from the “accumulation of knowledge through successive points of rest”, but rather to consider that “for the most part we do not perceive things from a single vantage point, but rather by walking around them” (p.45).

As I am starting to build and prepare my methods using sensory ethnography, and this will mean participating and observing the ‘on-pitch’ games that CAC develop and use with their partners and children across the globe. Ingold’s work, therefore, reminds me to not lose grounding with my feet and embodied experiences, and to not simply focus on what I see at certain points. Rather examine if and how my sense of touch and movement throughout can communicate a reality about how fun and learning are understood through the play-based games of CAC.

Source: Ramesh Iyer

By the way, my favourite ice cream is pistachio: it’s not just about the vivid colour, or the visual audacity of it – I love the crunchiness of the nuts alongside the creamy texture, and it’s almost almond taste. It reminds me to be grateful for being alive.

To learn more about my PhD research or discuss your ice cream preferences you can follow me here: @AidHoover or write to me at: sarah.huxley@open.ac.uk

 

 

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Fun learning with Problem-based Learning

Rebecca Ferguson, innovator of pedagogy and watcher of Buffy joined Pedagodzzila podcast

Source: Pedagodzilla Podcast 

Can we figure out the classroom conundrum of problem-based learning, and the metacognitive monster of computational thinking?

Source: Anna Thetical

She suggested the Innovating Pedagogy report   Innovating Pedagogy Blog (access here),

 

 

Download Innovating Pedagogy 2020

Please add your comments on the report and the innovations on this blog, or comment on social media using the hashtag #IP2020report,

and try something a little different in the shownotes by the way, here’s a cheeky cheat sheet  by @pedagodzilla.

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Communicating the value of fun through visual media: “I like school, I think it is a fun and happy environment”:

By Emily Dowdeswell

I am a research student in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies of the Open University. I am also a member of the Rumpus research group. My expertise focuses on art, creativity and learning.

My doctoral research project explores children’s narratives about their everyday classroom. I will be examining what 9 to 10-year old students think about ‘fun’ and ‘learning’ in the school. I am interested in the meaning and relationships between fun and learning expressed by preteens.

My master’s study was a pilot for my project. It revealed the frequent use by children of the word ‘fun’ to describe positive learning experiences. These findings encouraged me to seek better understanding about the value of fun for children’s learning.

The Open University Poster Competition was a great opportunity to communicate my study to others.  Having attended the poster workshop delivered by the Graduate School, my design centred on the idea that with graphic representation, less is more.

Unfortunately, fun in learning is currently a complex and slippery concept that resists easy definitions and models. My supervisors advised focusing on one aspect of the study.  Therefore, my poster presents some key findings of my literature review in order to show where the gap lays.

My work sets out the importance of education in the UK, the ubiquity of fun in accounts of learning and the contrasting lack of established framework for fun in learning.

It  describes how the existing literature is dominated by adult perspectives in order to show the need for a focus on children’s perspectives.  My poster was awarded on the  5 top list. 

The poster’s most appealing feature, however, was the cute photo of a dog wearing glasses. My approach will interrogate how fun and learning emerges from human, non-human and material encounters. This gave me the perfect excuse to to look for a fun photo on Unsplash.

A dog wearing glasses may not be a sufficient condition for fun in learning, but it certainly helps make a fun poster!

WELS research students snag top places in Poster Competition
Several postgraduate students from WELS participated in the 15th OU Research Students’ Poster Competition. An online awarding ceremony on 10th June announced the following winners:

Judges’ Choice – Winner: Claire Saunders (ECYS) – Building a community of writers in a university (click image to view)
People’s Choice Multimedia – 3rd Place: Emily Dowdeswell (ECYS) – Fun in learning (click image below to view animation)
Community Choice – Equal 4th Place: Shi-Min Chua (IET) – Starting a conversation in online discussion and Emily Dowdeswell, PhD student (ECYS) – Fun in learning

Many congratulations to everyone who took part!

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Fun in different platforms

By Mark Childs

With the edict to Remain Indoors due to The Event, I’ve been looking at alternative platforms with which to collaborate with other members of Rumpus in a fun way. We had one meeting this year in the physical world, in the creative suite on the Milton Keynes campus, then tried a second one in the virtual world of Second Life.

I’ve also been experimenting with Engage VR and Altspace VR. The attempt to inject more fun into other platforms within other groups I’ve been interacting with has also met with different amounts of success. Below is my attempt to rate and summarise the pros and cons of each platform.

Second Life and Learning


Second Life. 8 out of 10. Compared to RL, SL is far better supported in its representation features. There are a range of options to choose from, and which can be changed far more simply. I found accessibility far easier than RL. It takes a few minutes to download and boot up SL, whereas accessing the MK campus takes about 30 mins (if you include finding somewhere to park). The environment is more engaging too, and the choice of communication channels, voice and chat, makes interaction far less problematic. Not everyone found the platform so easy to access, however. Wayfinding is far easier in SL than RL, as it’s possible to share links to a location. Locomotion is comparable. Although learning to move my avatar the first time (a matter of minutes) didn’t take as long as it took me to learn to walk in RL the first time (several months) after practice at both they’re about comparable. Overall, I found this environment much more fun than RL. The environment (though lower resolution) is easier to manipulate, and this promotes a sense of engagement and creativity that isn’t always possible in RL. Movement is fully supported; unlike RL teleporting and flying are both possible, and if you have build privileges, it’s possible to rezz objects.

Oculus Quest Educational Games


The Oculus Quest is a VR headset released in 2019 that differs from other VR headsets in that it is a standalone device; it doesn’t need to be linked to a computer to run. It’s possible to download different apps that provide social interactions. I’ve tried interacting in two, Altspace and Engage. VR Chat is another app I’ve explored, but have yet to interact with other people within it. All VR apps can detect head and hand positions, so some rudimentary body language is captured within the environments.

ENGAGE – hosting a virtual meeting

Engage VR. 3 out of 10. Then 9 out of 10. The reason for the two marks is that the process of setting up Engage on a Quest is torturous. I won’t go into the details here, but in two attempts at setting up people (first me, then a colleague) I’ve only got the time down from 90 minutes to an hour. It requires getting three different devices to communicate with each other, and installing software on two of them, and screaming in rage at several points when it doesn’t work. However, when it’s set up, it’s excellent. The images are still quite low resolution, and representation options are only slightly better than RL, but the sense of immersion when you are actually inside the environment is striking. The option to rezz objects into those environments, and move freely within them, is much higher than RL and almost up to SL standards. Teleporting around Martian hills is inherently fun, and it feels like the options can only expand as the technology matures. I’d need to experiment more to see how options like chat, and bringing in webcontent (fun things in SL and Skype respectively) would work.


Altspace VR. 5 out of 10. This was the first shared VR environment I tried. Accessing the space in the environment was difficult, no links here that can take you right to the correct area, and lots of wandering around quite crowded areas listening to lots of people who weren’t my idea of fun. There were activities to do (like throwing things) but the resolution was so poor it wasn’t that engaging. Think avatars that look like the removal men in that Dire Straits CGI video.

Games platforms

I’ve also looked at using game environments as fun platforms, so far Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Lord of the Rings Online.

Both of these actually were hardly any fun at all. As meeting platforms, they weren’t successful as they require participants to complete quite a few tasks before they can add colleagues and then meet them. I rated LOTRO as 2 and ACPC as 1, because the latter seemed to bombard me with a whole lot of tasks I really didn’t want to do in order to get anywhere. The advantages of ACPC are that it can run on a mobile quite effectively. However, this then makes the communication channels more difficult to engage with.

Physical world

The physical world (“RL”). 7 out of 10. The Creative Suite is a lot more comfortable than a lot of other spaces on campus. It has sofas. The space was used in a particularly fun way as we had large pieces of paper and drew round each other. So if you can be inventive in your interactions with the platforms it can be quite fun. Disadvantages are, however,

  • Although not far from my home, most physical spaces for interaction are still an inconvenient distance away for most attendees. I find accessing it, and the operability of it, leaves a lot to be desired. If they installed a teleport option it would fix some of the issues, but that seems to be a long way off.
  • Backchannel functionality isn’t properly supported, which means that expressing your ideas at the point at which you have them isn’t possible.
  • Presence features. These are limited. Within RL I find that there’s no opportunity to change the default option I’ve been given – which severely limits my identity representation.
  • Movement and rezz options. Movement is slow, although the responsiveness of the environment and feedback is effective, there’s no camera movement option, so no zooming in on objects. Rezzing from an inventory (rezz is a term coined in the 1982 move Tron to describe placing objects within the environment) isn’t even possible.

Skype / Skype for Business

Skype. 8 out of 10. Again, easier for me to access than RL, and those who struggled with SL still managed Skype. Representation is more limited than SL, and also the demand on bandwidth of larger meetings means you may have to turn off video and then are reduced to a single static image. However, within the meeting it was possible to move around the physical spaces at our separate ends, and share different images there. As we were all at home, this promoted a more fun environment. We were also able to bring different elements into the dialogue (cats, masks, food preparation, etc.) spontaneously, which would have been more difficult within a co-located physical environment. Taking all our stuff to campus would have required us to plan what we were going to do in advance, which is far less fun. Finding stuff on google and sharing our screens (such as in the “choose your favourite trap door” activity) is also a functionality missing from RL and SL.

Skype for Business. 5 out of 10. Just less fun because it’s harder to add people who aren’t in your institution.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams. 6 out of 10. Less fun again because it’s such a pain adding people from outside your institution. It took me two days to work out how to do this. Also, less fun because there’s no admin facility to tidy up the conversations when they go all over the place. However, once the synchronous meetings take place, there’s a similar amount of fun to be had as in Skype. Teams also supports asynchronous fun better, so caption competitions, round robin stories, and simple activities like that are well supported. What’s useful about Teams is that all the contributors get an email telling them the activities are going on; they can contribute when they have time, but all get to feel invited.

Other platforms

Adobe Connect – I’ve used this extensively, but not to support fun, it’s difficult to see how fun things would work, because it seems to be such a formalised structured environment, but I don’t want to anticipate anything here.

Also still to analyse – Facetime. Discord. House Party. Zoom. Minecraft Edu

What would a “10” look like?

I think one thing that emerges from the analyses is the extent to which the functionality of these different environments is complementary, but there is none which is best at everything. Longer term, an ideal environment would combine the advantages of each. An augmented reality environment which can synthesise aspects of RL and VR may be the acme of collaborative fun environments, with representation features fully supported (such as motion captured avatars that respond in realtime as in VR), razzing and movement functions properly supported (as in virtual worlds), higher resolution and better sensory feedback (like touch as in RL), easily bringing in web and chat functionality (like Skype) and asynchronous content (like Teams) may be a few years off, but that really sounds like fun.