Pass the SoLT

A special issue of the Journal of Computing in Higher Education was recently published on the topic of Distance Education. The issue contains a number of interesting papers, including a reasonably comprehensive review of the distance education literature (Simonson, Schlosser and Orellana, 2011). In short, the review piece concludes with the 'statement that it is not different education, it is distance education; what is known about effectiveness in education is most often also applicable to distance education' (p.124).

Although I found the review was quite descriptive, it reports findings from most of the major studies in recent years and was useful in reminding me of work that I had largely forgotten. For example, the review summarizes Berge and Muilenburg's (2000) study of potential barriers to distance education in which they identify as the strongest barriers in rank order:

1. Increased time commitment

2. Lack of money to implement distance education programs

3. Organizational resistance to change

4. Lack of shared vision for distance education in the organization

5. Lack of support staff to help course development

6. Lack of strategic planning for distance education

7. Slow pace of implementation

8. Faculty compensation/incentives

9. Difficulty keeping up with technological changes

10. Lack of technology-enhanced classrooms, labs, or infrastructure

The paper also reintroduced me to Tony Bates' 12 ‘‘golden rules’’ for the use of technology in education which still appear relevant and make good reading. That said, I think the rules would benefit from a contemporary update in light of the growth of new digital and social media. A brief summary of the rules follows:

1. Good teaching matters.

2. Each medium has its own aesthetic. Therefore professional design is important.

3. Education technologies are flexible. They have their own unique characteristics but successful teaching can be achieved with any technology.

4. There is no ‘‘super-technology.’’ Each has its strengths and weaknesses; therefore they need to be combined (an integrated mix).

5. Make all four media available to teachers and learners. Print, audio, television, and computers should all be available.

6. Balance variety with economy. Using many technologies makes design more complex and expensive; therefore, limit the range of technologies in a given circumstance.

7. Interaction is essential.

8. Student numbers are critical. The choice of a medium will depend greatly on the number of learners reached over the life of a course.

9. New technologies are not necessarily better than old ones.

10. Teachers need training to use technology effectively.

11. Teamwork is essential. No one person has all the skills to develop and deliver a distance learning course; therefore, subject-matter experts, instructional designers, and media specialists are essential on every team.

12. Technology is not the issue. How and what we want the learners to learn is the issue and technology is a tool.

I've always been a little uncomfortable with the 'technology as tool' metaphor a I believe this underestimates how technology effects people as much as people have an impact on the way technology is used. No technology is neutral. Overall the literature review comes to the following tentative conclusions:

• Distance education is just as effective as traditional education in regard to learner outcomes.

• Distance learners generally have a more favorable attitude toward distance education than do traditional learners, and distance learners feel they learn as
well as if they were in a regular classroom.

• Successful distance learners tend traditionally to be abstract learners who are intrinsically motivated and possess an internal locus of control.

• Although interaction seems intuitively important to the learning experience, interaction should not be added without real purpose.

• Focusing on building collaboration and group interaction may be more important than focusing on individual participation.

• Each form of distance education technology has it own advantages and disadvantages in contributing to the overall quality of the learning experience.

Reference

Simonson, M., Schlosser, C., & Orellana, A. (2011). Distance education research: a review of the literature. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 23:124–142.

For staff and students a full electronic copy of this article is available through the Massey University Library.

This is just a quick placeholder to alert readers to this interview arranged by Capella University with Professor Tony Bates and Dr Michael Simonson on the history of distance education. The predictions for the future at the end of the interview are particularly interesting and I'm still reflecting on the half-full and half-empty scenarios described by the interviewees. Another valuable aspect of the interview is the way in which Adobe Presenter is used in a far more engaging way than merely dumping content at the audience. Futher comments about the interview are available on Tony's website which I regularly keep up to date with.

enjoy!

I get a little tired of hearing people complain about the current state of technology-enhanced learning in their institution without offering solutions to the problems they raise. Typically they assign or direct blame for the lack of vision, support, infrastructure, and so on, towards senior staff in formal leadership roles. Without denying the importance of these leadership roles, including my own, the so-called leader is an easy scapegoat and much of this attention reflects a very narrow and traditional view of leadership.

In recent years the leadership literature has increasingly acknowledged the importance of micro leaders and distributed leadership models in the effectiveness and sustainability of any educational innovation. In light of this literature a key distinction needs to be made between (a) the leader, (b) leadership and (c) leading as all three layers of leadership--macro, mesa and micro--are essential in a modern organization.

In a similar vein, Tony Bates and Albert Sangra (2011) in their recent book on Managing Technology in Higher Education argue that leadership can be understood in terms of two different senses. Citing the work of Mintzberg (2009, pp. 65-66) the first is with regard to position and the led: the leader is in charge, motivates and inspires, elicits shock and awe….In the second sense, leadership is seen more broadly, often beyond formal authority: a leader is anyone who breaks new ground, sets direction that shows others the way.’

The concept of vision and lifting other peoples' aspirations of what is possible is common to many definitions of leadership. Notably, Michael Fullan argues that vision building rests heavily on the shoulders of micro leaders as top down visions can be blinding. These are the people who will ultimately determine whether specific innovations are successful and go on to become institutionalized features of the organization. In contrast to John Kotter, Fullan claims that vision is something you should build over time and end with rather than necessarily establishing at the outset.

The key point is that leadership is possible no matter where you are in an organization's hierarchy. And everyone can play a role in leading through influence. Sometimes the most influential people are opinion leaders who have the respect of their colleagues. I have found through my own experience that these are the people you need to establish strong working relationships with as they can be far more influential on the outcomes you wish to achieve than early adopters and centrally driven efforts.

With these general points is mind, I'm currently involved with colleagues from Charles Sturt University (CSU) in an interesting research project looking at different approaches to leadership in the context of blended, flexible and distance learning. The specific aim of the research is to build knowledge and understanding of the impact of distributive leadership approaches to transforming teaching and learning in relation to the new normal of distance education. The research involves eight stories or case studies of adaptation at CSU and Massey at the macro, meso and macro levels of the institution. More information about the project is available from the following link:

• Fostering institutional change through distributive leadership approaches: Stories of adaptation in blended and flexible learning and distance education.

On a related topic, I'm also centrally involved as an expert reviewer in the development of a suite of online professional development courses on university leadership and management through the Epigeum team at Imperial College. I was the person who originally proposed the development of this course and it has been an interesting project so far working with some leading scholars in the educational leadership literature. We hope to complete the beta version of these courses in the next few months.

This is just a brief entry for anyone interested in the Open Education Resource (OER) movement. I'm currently involved in an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded research project ($220K) investigating the adoption, level of use and current policy initiatives around OERs in higher education.

Over the next few months we will be surveying the Australian sector to help establish the current 'state of play' along with conducting a thorough literature search and discourse analysis of local, national and institutional policies in this area. More information about the study is available on the project wikiresearcher site. In addition, you can view the Pecha Kuch presentation we have prepared for the EdMedia Conference in Lisbon which provides a useful summary of our objectives and intended outcomes.

On a related topic, the recent eLearning Africa Conference included a highly publicized debate on whether the OER movement is flawed and this newsletter contains a useful summary of the arguments. Tony Bates also provides some critically reflective thoughts on the recent debate, which he points out is likely to continue for some years, and Stephen Downes captures the ebb and flow of the debate in a summarising blog posting.

Tony Bates has written several books over his long career on the costs of using new technologies in education. In the past I have shared some of his findings in debates on the relative merits of specific technologies and in discussions around the use and real costs of video conferencing in comparison to asynchronous options.

A recent blog posting grabbed my attention when Tony claimed that the cost of online learning works out to be $12.50 an hour. In many respects this figure is far less important than the principle underpinning it that there is a cost associated with teaching, as in my experience too often educators fail to acknowledge this point. And of course the intensification of academic work is well documented, so ignoring the problem or dismissing this line of research won't help to find creative ways of reducing the increasing demands being placed on teachers.

Whether the actual cost is $12.50 per hour I think really does depend on the institutional context, but the blog posting offers a useful starter methodology for thinking more seriously about the actual as well as opportunity costs of investing in online and blended forms of delivery for the return on investment. Of course it needs to be said that such calculations must also be done for the real costs of more conventional forms of teaching - for both staff and students.

Postscript

This follow up blog posting by Tony might also be of interest with a link to an article on the costs of distance education in Indonesia. And this monographic on the economics of elearning may also be relevant to this line of discussion.