Chapter 15 - The Internet as an Educational Space

Chapter Summary

The Internet and its impact on learning

• Learning is a key activity of human beings.
• Learning can be informal or unofficial. It can be formal – i.e. taking part in a course.
• Teachers, lecturers and trainers take part in formal learning and design the instruction, teach and manage the assessment.
• There are external and internal factors that influence learning and the conditions of learning (Gagné et al., 1992).
• Mastery is achieved when learners are successful at learning tasks.

Before the Internet

• Before the Internet learning required movement, going to a library, making a phone call, attending meetings.
• Formal learning meant going to school or college, attending class and going to the library.
• Technology in education has had a long history but it is clear that different waves of technology had little impact on formal learning and some impact on informal learning.

The Internet

• The Internet was developed to network computers and enable communication around the world.
• Different kinds of media, memory and storage were developed and sharing media files both audio and video became much easier.
• Harasim (2012) argues that the Internet is the fourth major paradigm of communication following speech, writing and printing.

Tools and content on the Internet

• Access to digital technologies has become routine through devices such as mobile phones and tablets, as well as traditional desktop and laptop computers.
• There are many tools available for us to use and lots of content for us to access.
• We have the tools of content creation. The Internet has become an enabler of learning.

Informal and formal learning

• The Web enables us to keep up to date in a discipline or profession as well as finding out what is new.
• Informal learning takes place at an individual, group or indeed system level.
• The Internet can be considered a classic site of experiential learning.
• It seems to have had little impact on formal learning in the workplace, schools and colleges.

Learning in schools, colleges and the workplace

• Workplaces have changed as have schools and colleges.
• Workplace learning has seen a shift from face-to-face learning to e-learning but there is still a focus on delivery of content.
• Workplace technologies are now used in higher education and schools (Gilbert, 2011).
• The role of the Internet in learning is becoming both more accepted and more explicit.
• Key issues for formal learning such as the curriculum, the role of the teacher and the role of the student and the control of the process, particularly assessment, are still contentious.

Learning using the Internet

• The range of learning resources on the Internet is vast. There is a lot of information. There are many tools.
• Among the examples mentioned are Khan Academy, TED Talks and online videos, Lynda.com online videos and tutorials and ALISON free certified training for workplace skills.
• YouTube provides videos on almost any topic.
• These Internet resources can be used by individuals, groups or by teachers in classrooms. Using them is often experiential learning.
• The Internet provides access to many learning tools.
• Each year since 2007 Jane Hart publishes the Top 100 Tools for Learning. In 2014 the number one tool was Twitter (Hart, 2014c).

Twitter and wikis

• Twitter (2015) is a microblogging tool. It enables an individual to access ideas and thoughts from around the world.
• Twitter can be a resource for formal learning. Blessing et al. (2012) used Twitter to reinforce classroom concepts in an undergraduate psychology course. Students who received psychology-related tweets from the teachers outperformed students who did not.
• Wikis are Internet tools that enable online collaboration (Tierney and Palmer, 2014). One study suggests that online learning such as through a wiki has the potential to be a useful tool for professional development.
• The availability of resources and tools for learning on the Internet makes much of the argument for it as an educational space.

Formal learning using the Internet

• Classrooms are key sites of formal learning.
• The use of the Internet in the classroom is controlled by the teacher.
• Once classrooms are connected to the Internet, teachers and learners have access to a wide range of tools and resources for learning.
• Multimedia lectures in classrooms can be created as audio/video recordings – lecture capture.
• Multimedia lecture capture appears useful as a supplementary learning aid rather than as a replacement for traditional learning materials such as textbooks.
• Virtual learning environments (VLE) are closed Web-based systems for students and teachers.
• VLEs tend to support Web-facilitated learning (Allen & Seaman, 2015).
• There has been a shift from traditional learning with no technology use to Web-facilitated learning.
• Time in schools and colleges is often set, and the use of online activities such as discussions, blogs and reflection are additions rather than replacements.
• Students may use personal social networking sites to complement their academic experience.
• Online courses are widely available.
• Instructional design distinguishes a course from a resource.
• A teacher/instructor organises the learning and the interactions. It has a pathway designed by the instructor and assessments.

MOOCs

• Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, aim to enable large numbers of students to participate in learning and to work together to learn (Littlejohn, 2013) for free.
• The first MOOC ran in 2008.
• There are two types of MOOCs.
• In xMOOCs learners follow a traditional instructionally designed course working through learning activities set by the instructor.
• Udacity and Coursera provide such online MOOCs.
• In a cMOOC the goals are set by the learner who decides the pathway and participation is expected to be initiated by the learner (Littlejohn, 2013).
• Digital Storytelling is an example of a cMOOC.
• MOOCs have been characterised by large number of students with varied backgrounds but there is little empirical evidence about the learning achieved and the learner experience (Littlejohn, 2013).
• The Internet is being used as an educational space.
• It is used as an educational resource – i.e. a source of learning content and skills.
• It is also used as a space to connect with and work with other learners.

Interrogating learning and the Internet

• There are two ways to interrogate learning and the Internet.
• We can start with the technology and see how it can support and enable learning.
• We can start with what learning is and explore how learning is enabled by the Internet.
• The roles of learners and teachers/instructors are considered.

The impact of technology

• Technology, such as mobile phones or tablets, is now available to many.
• Technology can be used in range of contexts, educational settings and for different educational purposes (Selwyn, 2011).
• Littlejohn (2013) identifies four learning behaviours: consume, using knowledge; connect, with relevant knowledge, people, resources; create, making new knowledge through using it, and finally contribute back the new knowledge to the collective.
• The substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition (SAMR) model for technology-enhanced learning was developed by Puentedura (2014).
• Where digital technologies are used to substitute or augment tools/learning activities, this is seen as enhancement of the learning.
• Where technologies enable task redesign and new learning task development, they are seen to transform learning.
• Churches (2012) argues that digital technologies can enable learning activities.
• Bloom’s digital taxonomy (Churches, 2012) shows how digital activities can be used for learning.

Learning theories

• Views about how we learn with technology are informed by our beliefs.
• Traditional learning theories focus on the individual and on the design of the instruction with the setting of goals and objectives (Gagné et al., 1992).
• Mayer’s (2005) cognitive theory of multimedia learning argues that learning with multimedia makes specific cognitive demands on learners.
• Constructivist learning theories consider how learners learn by making meaning.
• More recent theories try to account for learning in a networked world such as the Internet.
• Downes (2012) developed connectivism to reflect the network of the Internet and how it enables learning.
• Bransford et al. (2000) summarise research into learning theories.
• They argue that effective learning requires thoughtful activity, collaboration for learning with learners taking responsibility for learning and that learners need to learn about learning (Bransford et al., 2000).
• Watkins et al. (2002) link experiential approaches to learning to the co-construction of learning by teachers and students.

Changing roles of teachers and learners

• Traditional approaches to teaching are being challenged by mobile technology.
• Yet ‘lecturers tend to make, on average, only incremental changes to their practice when faced with new technology’ (Cosgrave et al., 2011).
• McWilliam (2007) argues that we need to ‘unlearn pedagogy’ if we are take advantage of the digital world.
• She argues that educators/teachers should move from the ‘sage-on-the-stage and guide-on-the-side to meddler-in-the-middle’ (McWilliam, 2007).
• The Internet has changed learning and learning can take advantage of the paradigm shift.
• The Internet enables individuals to achieve mastery.

Future trends

• The Internet is now part of our personal learning space.
• Learning is being transformed by the access to technology and the ability of learners to create and develop in the online world.
• Some strengths and weaknesses of the Internet as educational space are identified.
• The challenge of the Internet as an educational space is for formal learning.
• Some key future trends are the integration of online, hybrid learning and collaboration.
• Another trend noted is a shift of learners from consumers to creators.
• Innovative pedagogies such as the ‘flipped classroom’ and ‘bring your own devices’ are now evident.
• These models challenge teachers to become managers of learning.

Strengths and weaknesses of the Internet as an educational space

• The strength of the Internet is the access to knowledge, tools and people.
• Access to knowledge for all is possible and teachers are no longer the gatekeepers.
• The weakness is the volume of information and ideas.
• Evaluating the information available and identifying its quality is a key issue for all.
• Teachers effectively are becoming curators of learning resources.
• Learners have to know where they get information.
• Referencing and attribution is a key issue for all.
• A second challenge is using the tools and apps for learning; a narrow subset of tools is used in teaching.
• There is a low level of digital fluency in teachers (Johnson et al., 2014).

Conclusion

• How the Internet as an educational space will develop is beyond our speculation.
• It now plays a role in all our learning.
• Teachers and learners use it to access information, create and develop solutions to problems.
• The Internet is changing the role of the teacher and how learning is organised – the external conditions of learning (Gagné et al., 1992).
• Most of all, it supports learners to achieve mastery in whatever they wish to learn. This makes learning available to all provided they have Internet access.