Welcome to this week’s blog post on the future of online student support – given not by Joe Bloggs but by someone known only to us as the Time Traveller. He has watched the reality altering video ‘Shift Happens’ which filled him full of inspiration, wonder and, above all, terror about the speed of technological change and what it means for the future of online student learning.
So many questions arise from this video – how will future online courses be designed? What role will teachers and students play? What new tools will assist in student learning? How will their perceptions of the learning experience differ from today’s students? How can we as teachers and facilitators keep up with technological innovations? Well there is only one way to find out – and so the Time Traveller downloads the “Time Hop” app from the iTunes App Store to his iPhone, keys in the destination year and is instantly transported 25 years into the future!
The Time Traveller is now sitting in the same room 25 years in the future and his computer, iPhone and all other electronic devices are now gone. Has he mistakenly been sent back into the past instead? Apparently not as sitting in front of him is a peculiar pair of futuristic looking glasses with the print “Google Glass v.100” across the top. He places them onto his head and his surroundings are instantly transformed into a virtual reality world with floating apps that he can touch and activate, live social media and news updates fed directly into his brain, Google instant web searches on voice command and Skype 3D video conferencing with anyone that he has ever met in his life. He decides to enrol in a new BOE course and so asks Google for assistance in paying the enrolment fee of 570 Googles (the new global currency which superseded every currency in the world when Google bought out all the world’s banks). After digitally enrolling he is virtually transferred to an online 3-dimensional forum room where hologramatic simulations of his new classmates are projected in front of his eyes. His classmates call themselves the “Eloi” and they are a new genetically enhanced race of online students that have a purely positive outlook on future digital learning practices. They introduce themselves and extol the wonders of their learning environment in a way that astounds and fascinates the Time Traveller.
The Queen of the Eloi, Fiona, is the first to speak and advises the Time Traveller that the learning system is now completely personalised with a unique blend of activities and technologies for each learner, as predicted by Littlejohn and Pegler (2007). Another Eloi called Lyn then reveals that teachers must now pay close attention to student interactions with each other through emphasising clear roles, guidelines and objectives, as predicted by Keskitalo et al. (2011). In terms of online tools, the Eloi Anne informs the Time Traveller that eTextbooks are now the preferred choice of teaching tool and Google Apps are now utilised through them to offer a universal platform for collaborative learning, as predicted by Lee and Yau (2015). Lastly, the Eloi Angelique advises that all learning now involves game-based and immersive, social and interactive elements, as predicted by De Freitas and Liarokapis (2011).
The Time Traveller is astonished by these educational support revelations but wonders how these developments have affected the teacher role and the relationship between them and the students. Before he has a chance to ask, he is unexpectedly transferred to another virtual forum room and hologramatic men dressed all in black are projected ominously in front of him. All of the Google glass features have now been disabled and he realises that he is their prisoner. The leader introduces himself as Laurence – King of the Morlocks – and explains that it is his life-long quest to eliminate the admiration towards this new online learning environment as propagated by the Elois. His prejudice against this learning environment, he explains, is driven by the fact that this new generation of students expect exceptionally high-quality and flexible online learning experiences, as predicted by the HEFCE OLTF report (2011). Another Morlock called Mark steps forward and adds that one of the key challenges now is the changing role of staff in their support mechanisms and especially the blurring of physical and virtual classrooms, as predicted by the UCISA report (2014). A third Morlock, Bryden, also reveals that there are now personal learning environments owned by the students and not controlled by educational institutions, as predicted by Downes (2006) in his webcast seminar. Yet another Morlock, Richard, then advises that open education resources now require teaching faculties to leverage every potentiality that now exists with the Internet, as predicted by Kamenetz (2010). One final Morlock, Duncan, insists that as the budget climate for education is now even more desperate than 25 years ago, there are significant concerns over the allocation of targeted external funding and the sustainability of BOE educational initiatives, as predicted by Wiley (2007).
The Time Traveller is overwhelmed by the negativity – in addition to the well-structured and logical arguments – of the Morlocks. He realises that he must stop them before they succeed in their diabolical plan to exterminate the Eloi and their positive perceptions. At this point he discovers that the iPhone he used to travel here is still in his pocket and he wastes no time in using it to escape the evil clutches of the Morlocks. However, he decides not to return to 2016 but to travel further back in time, so that he can meet Laurence before he turns to the dark side. In doing so, he hopes to teach him everything he has learned about the pros and cons of future online learning practices, so that Laurence can in turn inspire a class of BOE students to consider a more balanced view and not end up as either Elois or Morlocks.
The end.
References
de Freitas, S., & Liarokapis, F. (2011). Serious games: a new paradigm for education?. In Serious games and edutainment applications (pp. 9-23). Springer London.
Downes, S. (2006) ‘The student’s own education’, webcast seminar at Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 5 June 2006.
HEFCE OLTF (Online Learning Task Force) (2011). Collaborate to compete: seizing the opportunity of online learning for UK higher education. HEFCE. [Web link]
Keskitalo, T., Pyykkö, E., & Ruokamo, H. (2011). Exploring the Meaningful Learning of Students in Second Life. Educational Technology & Society, 14 (1), 16–26.
Lee, H. J., & Yau, K. L. A. (2015). Addressing the major Information Technology challenges of electronic textbooks. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(2), 40-47.
Littlejohn, A. and Pegler, C. (2007) “Preparing for blended e-learning” London: Routledge. Chapter 2. Different approaches to blended e-learning pp 29-48. [Digitised chapter]
UCISA (2014) UCISA 2014 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education in the UK: Case Studies. Oxford: UCISA. [PDF file]
Wiley, D. (2007). On the sustainability of open educational resource initiatives in higher education pp 1-21.
joe bloggs boe blog 
Interesting blog post, Jordan! One of the things that struck me was the bipolar effect of the Eloi and Morlocks – as in the film (The Time Machine, one of my all-time favourites (The Rod Taylor version)) the Eloi are not capable of critical thought, while the Morlock have become monstrous. I hope that this doesn’t happen – a healthy dose of scepticism is needed just as much as a willingness to embrace new technology. One of the interesting things that we heard that people picked up at Digifest was John Traxler’s assertion that mobile learning is dead. I wonder (a) if it was ever as big a thing as it was predicted to be and (b) what will replace it, if it is dead. What are your views on all of the Elois’ “predictions”? Where do you sit in relation to all of this emerging technology?
Thinking back to your video, I think there is a problem with the rate at which the amount of “knowledge” is accumulating. The issue with this is that with so much of it, it becomes impossible to keep up to date with it, and so a lot of it is in danger of being lost, just because it will sit in a repository somewhere and no-one will use it. I wonder if there comes a point where the accumulation of knowledge starts to decline precisely because there is so much of it. I always think about archaeology as an analogy here. Old civilisations are often judged and categorised on the basis of their ceramics, or potteryware. This can be pre-historic or historic civilisations, as pottery tends to be ubiquitous, and also durable (although that may be fragmented remains rather than entire pots). The development of pottery within a civilisation starts off with crude, hand made pots with little design. It then goes through a period of development where craftsmen refine their manufacturing and decorating techniques so that we see improvements in the quality of the potteryware. Then, however, the pottery goes through a period of mass production. In this period, although the quantity of pottery increases, the quality of the pottery declines as mass production techniques predominate, and decoration wanes. I do wonder if we are at the “mass produced knowledge” stage of our civilisation, where we have a great volume of knowledge but some of it is not of the best quality.
Any thoughts?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very interesting response Anne regarding the quantity of knowledge reaching saturation point and beginning to negatively affect the quality of knowledge in the digital age. I think this will make a suitable topic for this week’s blog post so I’m going to do some reading around these issues. Best wishes.
LikeLike
Pingback: Too much of a good thing? Coping with information overload in online learning environments | joe bloggs boe blog
Pingback: The journey ends… | joe bloggs boe blog