An alternative e-learning model within
traditional learning for small regional
Universities
More of what is desirable and less of what is
already the practice.
By Dr Constantine Kyritsis Technological Educational Institute of Epirus,
Greece Ckiritsi@teiep.gr
International week SDU Odense 2009
Is e-learning creating new values , qualities
goals, power etc besides convenience?
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Do the new procedures of e-learning create new values in human
relations, creative work and social impact?
Is e-learning suggesting new types of goals in education?
Is e-learning crating new momentum of development in Universities?
In society?
Is e-learning suggesting new forms of intelligence in perceiving
sciences?
Is e-learning favoring different interplay and procedures of power?
Pre-view of the presentation
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The presentation focuses not in examining new technologies,
platforms or software of e-learning but in analyzing possible
innovation in the experience of education.
Starting with an inconvenient reality of small regional University
Institutes (TEI) in Greece suggest an alternative model of
educational procedures which is mostly e-learning.
It analyses new values, qualities, concepts, power effects and
social impact advantages and disadvantages.
It suggests requirements of new types of e-learning software
that is thought will advance the learning intelligence.
An inconvenient reality of small regional , Universities
in Mediterranean countries and in Greece in particular
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As the University Institutes (TEI) are regional and away from
the large population centers, often the Lecturers have to travel
long distances every week.
It is supposed that such regional Institutes contribute to the
development of the local towns, but sometimes this secondary
goal may get higher priority that the original educational and
convenience goals of students and lecturers.
Some students stay in their native towns close but not in the
location of the University Institute and have to travel totally 1-3
hours every day.
An inconvenient reality 2
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The Institutes hire many part time lecturers that although of good
qualifications, PhD’s etc work only few only hours (2-6) per week and do not
feel a significantly responsible part of the University. This affects the perceived
from the students of the quality of education.
There is significant absence of students in the classroom
There is aggressiveness of students towards lecturers, educational procedures
and the society in general.
There is a lot of cheating
Students are emotionally targeting the goal of the final paper and are valuing
the social honor of the University diploma, but are unwilling to follow and do not
value the intermediate educational procedures
The Lecturers may be exhausted in mundane tasks and get frustrated by the
absence of the students.
In some departments that the specialization is high, there are years that the
number of students is so low that the produced educational utility in the society
does not correspond to the high fixed public sector costs in maintaining the
Institution.
To the above we may add the increasing rates of violence/ social crime/ and
traveling safety which is highly correlated with illegal immigrants
A map of Greece
Is the panacea of traditional live lecturing, really the best way of
teaching? Average memory retention for different learning methods
After 24H
5%
Lecture
10%
Reading
20%
Audio-visual
30%
Demonstration
50%
Discussion group
75%
Practice by doing
90%
Teach others
Reference: The National Training Laboratories. Bethel Maine. USA
Psychology tests can reveal the best
learning style for each student
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The “listening” style
The “reading” style
The “watching someone else doing the task” style
The “doing the task” style
The “teaching how to” style.
All the above styles (and some more) can appropriate different
e-learning method and tools for different students in the same
course.
Resolution through e-learning
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A case where e-learning can be not only technological
elaboration of the existing traditional procedures, but also an
innovative transformation of educational values and experience
of learning.
For this goal the Lecturer and the students may be able to
chose between a full spectrum of degrees of involvement of elearning technologies from almost 0% to almost 100%.This
freedom is not supported yet .
A simple map of traditional Learning
(8 entities)
The public/community/enterprises
The University
The curriculum
The course
The classroom
The Lecturer
The student
The book
What are the new principles
and values? 1
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The “web may know more and better than the University”
Interpretative power is more important than information memory:
It is better to shift students from reading and listening to thinking.
Information processing tactics are more important than spending time in linear
reading
Globalization context is sometimes more significant than domestic context
Guided reading and teaching leadership is more interesting than lecturing
Differences in minorities and majorities in students and lecturers can be
respected and with e-learning are handled better.
It is worth creating a high quality course even only for a minority of good
students.
It is worth following a small university's curriculum even only for a minority of
very good professors.
What are the new principles
and values? 2
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More honesty in education creates satisfaction and higher essential qualifications
More sincerity goes together with higher integrity , self-acceptance , and stronger feelings
of belonging
Mutual convenience makes it practical and desirable.
Better less authority power and domination from the lecturer to the student, and more
friendliness honesty and intelligence: Natural contact might be overrated in education.
Students and lecturers are both empowered by the processes of e-learning.
More horizontal flow than vertical flow of the power and decision functions in the
University’s Organization is appropriate with the faster flow of electronic information.
Guided research , projects are closer to the sacred function of discovering and learning
Enterprises handle 1st hand training , Universities handle 2nd hand learning, (Usually in
social sciences). The Enterprises can start through remote e-learning to teach both students
and lecturers.(community involvement in teaching). E-learning may help to create common
values.
Successful use of the technology in a classroom requires leadership from the community,
the enterprises and the University administration.
It is better to conceive education as a convenient and fruitful experience rather than as an
unpleasant and boring discipline.
What are the new principles
and values? 3
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The desire of learning is indispensable but
can be lighted too.
The goals of learning and the goals of society
should have higher overlapping.
The new age society of information creates at
the same time more open and non-disclosed
knowledge as well as highly secured classified
knowledge.
Education cannot ignore the issues of new
power , new wisdom and new intelligence.
Globalization and e-learning
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Inside the University:
It is better less of the lecturer teaching, what he already 2nd-hand way knows ,
and more of guiding the student to learn what both may not know, but are
able to interpret and understand.
It is fruitful conceiving as the real teacher, the web, and the public material of
all the universities , while the physical person of the supervising lecturer as the
catalyst and midwife of the baby of the student’s learning.
It is better to substitute the ambition to teach the students what they will need
in their particular job (especially in social sciences) with the ambition to teach
him how to learn and research when he will need ,what he will need in his
future unknown job.(Contextual strategies versus memorizing information )
Outside the University:
It is powerful to create not only learning for the students but also of university
standards free e-learning for the domestic and international public. It is cheaper
to educate through the web the 3rd world than to pay for antiterrorist weapons,
or unemployment salaries to emigrants. Free public E-learning helps to close the
gap between “haves” and “have nots”
The shift in the interplay of power
The traditional power interplay: A=the lecturer,
B=the student (power in the 2nd person of the grammar)
A
B
The e-learning empowerment (power in the 3rd person of
the grammar)
A
The other people
The web
B
The alternative model: The
Lectures
10% Live traditional
classroom Lectures
25% live
web conferences
(synchronous)
65% Pre-recorded
Video and mp3
(asynchronous)
The pre-recorded video lectures
are downloadable from the web pages
of the course
To webcast a live lecture sufficient
many students must have register
And the topic must have been agreed
one week earlier
To have alive traditional classroom
Lecture sufficient many students
must have register one week earlier
Lectures and consulting:synchronousasynchronous modes
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The pre-recorded lectures cover the 100% of the syllabus, so that if a
student will choose to watch only them, can still complete the project
and pass the course. The videos are of small size (10-20-30 minutes)
The live traditional or web-conference lectures focus on topics that
have special difficulties. They may overlap with pre-recorded videos, or
maybe as consulting for the project and web research.
Both the electronic and the traditional lectures are recorded too and
are downloadable together with the pre-recorded videos in the web
pages.
Even if no student registers for a live lecture, still at least 35% of the
total learning time, the lecturer must be available for consulting either
in his office or through web conferencing.Consulting is different from
Lecturing and can be with even only one student.
The University instead of spending money to offer a large number of
books for each course and student spends money to offer a small size
laptop or mobile palmtop with web cam and microphone.
The dependence order of the Lectures:
synchronous -asynchronous modes
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While the pre-recorded lectures have a clear and declared
dependence order, the live traditional or web lectures do not
have are mutually non-depended from each other, so that
totally different students can participate in different lectures,
without creating any continuity problems to the lecturer.
If the voting of the students decides that a topic is to be
repeated as a live lecture the lecturer may repeated it (with
different students) as long as the 35% limit has not been
reached.
Assessment methods
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The final assessment methods are divided to
1) Midterm online exams, tests ,self-assessment etc
2) Project marks
The Lecturer decides the percentages of weighted
averages of the above, but the project marks cannot
be less than 75% of the total mark.
The project assessment can be live or not for all or
for some projects, according to the decision of the
lecturer.
The scenario of an e-learning course in the
more difficult case of a theoretical only type.
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The Lecturer has created many months before a complete set of recorded lectures (the
basic ideas) preferably in the form of videos (preferably graphical videos in other words self
lecturing white-board) or mp3’s plus other static word or .pdf or excel etc files,together
with the non-linear dependence structure of them.
The lecturer gives 10% of the lectures (the ones of critical concepts arguments etc) in a
traditional classroom procedure, but only after sufficient students have registered for them
The lecturer gives 25% of the lectures (the ones of critical concepts arguments etc) in a
live web-conference mode , but only after sufficient students have registered for them.
The students in small groups choose from a list of projects (they can contribute to the list)
a topic to work on.
The lecturer acts as a consultant in agreed hours in his office or though web conferencing.
The lecturer may offer online self-assessment exams
By the end of the semester the lecturer has given a mark to each student of each project
either after live presentation or not depending on the total number of students and his
decisions. In any case the students are available (even online only) to answer questions by
the lecturer about their written report. The project mark makes all or at least 75% of the
final mark of the course.
The University keeps the right to store the best projects or final year dissertations of the
students as files in an online database that exposes them to search engines in the site of
the University or in online libraries.
Advantages for the Lecturer 1
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Higher technology benchmarking quality standards (this of course does
not mean using the technology for the sake of the technology)
Less transportation costs
Less time speaking and more time creating and thinking
Reduction of Lecturers effort during the semester more than 58%
More free time for research and other educational interest
Less boring work more interesting time
Less collision problems with the aggressiveness of some students.
more intelligent automatic filters in that makes him communicate more
with minorities of more intelligent students and avoids wasting time
and communication effort with students of lesser desire for learning.
Advantages to the Lecturer 2
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Gives time and incentives for renewing and improving the course material.
Technology upgrades is an opportunity for content upgrades too.
As minor improvements are saved easier and defined cleared in the
asynchronous electronic material compared to oral improvisation, he creates the
momentum of perpetual improvement of quality (keisen: Higher quality is easier
an feels better)
The lecturer feels more of an author and less of a speaker.
The Lecturer is more of an intelligence explorer, and less of an information
provider. Pursuing an never ending growth of his mind means discovering his
mind as a source of more life for his consciousness.
Eliminates feelings of being guilty for the absence of students from the
classrooms.
He is more honest and sincere with himself and towards the students.
He eliminates frictions with the present reality of the classrooms, and feels on
the top of the evolution wave of his time.
Advantages for the students 1
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The student makes legitimate his absence from the classrooms,
and feels accepted from the educational system
He has less expectations of failures from himself and more
expectations of normal or better performance.
He can tailor his effort according to his mental and emotional
ups and downs, and so increases the fruitfulness and the
performance in learning.
He is involved more in the team work that substitutes
temptations of cheating.
He is closer to the real life conditions while in demand of
knowing and reporting as when he will be employed. (When
employed he is closer to the conditions of project creator than
lecturers listener.)
Advantages for the students 2
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He realizes that participating or not participating in the live (traditional or
remote) lectures affects the lecturer and the flow of the learning more than
what he thinks, and so he becomes more responsible, and careful when
registering or not for live sessions.
The students voting to select the live lectures topics and frequency, makes the
flow of the learning adoptive to the particular cluster of students thus more
democratic and intelligent.
The student spends less money in transportation and is more able to handle
personal accidents, illness, and family emergencies.
Some students have less collision problems with the personality of the Lecturer,
and learn more to value him for the content and meaning he is creating in
knowledge interpretation and organization.
He respects the Lecturer more for what role really plays, and condemns him less
for roles that teachers used to have but do not really have and do need to have
anymore.
The student may have more free time, and travel away from the location of the
University for more days.
Advantages for the students 3
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The student has more opportunities to get passionate with his project, and thus
spending more time for the course than traditional learning, but this not
enforced.
By expecting that the student will act in a more responsible way, he might act in
a more responsible way, and this of higher value compared to enforcing the
student to act in a responsible way.
The learning effort will be more uniform during the semester, thus a better
learning, compared to concentrated effort only a few days before the pen and
paper examinations.
The student has more freedom to choose in to what he will be assessed by the
lecturer, compared to the traditional methods where the lecturer decides more
for the student in to what he will be assessed.
The student acquires less skills of how to gain marks and more skills on how to
learn.
So learning is less a forced discipline and more of an inner development of the
consciousness.
Disadvantages
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The comfort zone of lecturers and students: many students and lecturers in spite the
inefficiency of the traditional methods are emotionally feeling comfortable with the habit of
them. Therefore they will resist and oppose radical changes.
To the above we may add that some old age professors (some of them of excellent past
success) are either ideologically in denial of modern electronic and internet methods in
learning or already have lost the train of following the new technology developments.
Some students that find their way to the diploma through excess cheating and no work, will
find the new methods hard to follow.
With the group work in the project it is difficult for the lecturer to assess fairly each student
separately, the case that one of the students did almost nothing will be hard to detect,
especially in non-live marking of the project. On the other hand, the lecturer may rely on to
that the other students of the group will not tolerate it.
There will many inside and outside observers that will claim that giving in this way to the
students more freedom to be present or not in the classroom, will lead to a degradation of
education. The counter argument of course is that the students are already mainly absent
from the classrooms in spite the consequences within the traditional methods.
The keisen of learning methods has a
unavoidable path through e-learning
Keisen=the momentum to improve itself by repetitive incremental steps
A fast changing and developing society requires a fast changing
and ever improving learning method.
Creating a momentum of perpetual improvement is vastly more
valuable than maintaining accomplished quality
In such a process the abstractness and flexibility of the rules is
more valuable than their rigidity
Quality assurance and e-learning
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Classical quality assurance of the learning procedures is clearer
and easier to define and maintain with e-learning methods (e.g.
objectivity and efficiency of the online assessment methods)
Third parties intervention (external examiners) is faster, easier
and thorough
Globalization and e-methods suggest new concepts of quality (It
is easier to be aware of new benchmarking standards and is
easier to reproduce then locally)
Exposing the best student’s projects and Dissertations , through
the University’s site and University’s copyright, as public
available free knowledge, not only creates a better world but
also makes the students to want to create work of higher social
value and quality rather than of higher marks.
Free, public, of University standards, e-learning empowers
students, lecturers, the public and the University
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The simplest tools of e-learning should be implemented e.g.
Small videos (20,000-100,000 downloads)
Webinars (1,000-10,000 participants, one-way web-conferencing with limited
functions of polling,questions,and answer sessions)
The students can participate actively in creating the public webinars, and after all, the
best way to learn something is to teach it.
The boundaries of the University are in this way changing
Shifting the public attitude from passive audience of mass media to active e-learners
and thinking workers is a global benefit.
The goals are
1) to to cover the demand of the public to familiarize with some sides of the
advanced University knowledge , in ways better than plain search engines results, or
mass media programs.
2) To create a better reputation of the universities (especially of smaller universities)
about their worth in the society, so as to attract more students , collaboration and
financing from the private sector (industries, enterprises etc)
3) To help the public both domestic or international to create a higher quality
mentality and a better world-view.
Appendix:
Zoom in to some innovative features of the e-learning
tools
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In the next few slides we highlight and suggest some
very important features of various e-learning tools in
respect to new values in learning.
Some of the ideas can be used to design new
software or assess existing software.
The
Briefing
levels
of
the
course;
From the abundance of concrete details to the economy
of the abstract
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100% :The full book : Write more, mean less
80% : A smaller book
50% : A short version
30%: A detailed outline : Write less, mean more
10% : A concise outline
2% : A summary
1 page : The key idea that makes the difference of this course
to all other courses
Evolution and involution of ideas
The ability of finer discriminations between ideas and concepts
The ability of bolder unifications of ideas and concepts
Information and Meaning
Meaning per word
Concrete
Details
Size of the authoring
hypertext
100%
80%
50%
Interpretive
power
30%
10%
2%
Abstract
ness
1 page
The “liquidity” of the e-book and its derived printable
different versions is a basic skill of student’s learning.
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Electronic form of the text books
Intelligent navigation strategies and ability to create many different briefing levels
Also the ability to create :
Summaries
Dependence tree of the definitions (e.g. in mathematics)
Automatic separation of claimed statements from the proofs (in mathematics, physics ,
engineering etc)
List of all referenced previous theorems in each proof (mathematics)
Automatic lists of new terms in each chapter
cross-link structure of topics
List of used facts concepts and terms from previously taught courses
Automatic separation of physical/chemical/biological/pathology terminology in medical
books, and automatic finding of relevant links in the web through search engines or through
other stored e-books
In short the user-interactive ability to organize the material in different modes of authoring
hypertext similar to the help-hypertext of software products
It is important to understand that this “Liquidity” of the e-book of the course, is a skill to be
developed by the students rather than the lecturer.
The multi-course hypertext
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Implements the dependence or non-linear structure of the
different courses of the curriculum of studies in the form of a
hypertext that synthesizes the hypertexts of each course.
Terminology, definitions, symbols, references, tables of data,
figures, and arguments, should be handled and interrelated in a
unified way.
The goal is to create in the mind to the student the abilities to
synthesize knowledge, to make more powerful abstractions, to
simplify complexity, to ramify details, make sharper
discriminations, and unify knowledge through the practical goals
of society’s interests.
In short to increase the students IQ through inter-course
management of knowledge and also goal based synthesis of it.
The design and implementation of such a software is a task of
the group of lecturers.
Review of the presentation
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The presentation focused not in examining new technologies,
platforms or software of e-learning but in analyzing possible innovation
in the experience of education.
Starting with an inconvenient reality of small regional University
Institutes (TEI) in Greece it described an alternative model of
educational procedures which mostly through e-learning not only
solves problems but also, creates new experience of learning.
It analyses the new involved values, qualities, knowledge concepts,
human power effects and social impact advantages and disadvantages.
It can be used as a guide for requirements of new types of e-learning
software that is thought, will advance the learning intelligence.
Some references 1
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Ainsworth, S. E., & Peevers, G. J. (2003). "The Interaction between informational and
computational properties of external representations on problem-solving and learning." In R.
Altmann & D. Kirsch (Eds.), Proceedings of 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society. Baldwin, T.T, Ford, J.K (1988), "Transfer of training: a review and
directions for future research", Personnel Psychology, Vol. 41 pp.63-105.
Bassi, L. & McMurrer, D., (2007). Maximizing Your Return on People. Harvard Business
Review, March 2007, Reprint R0703H.
Bassi, L., Gallager, A., & Schroer, E. (1996). The ASTD Training Data Book. Alexandria,
VA: American Society for Training and Development.
34:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2007). LCMS Knowledgebase
2007: A Comparison of 30+ Enterprise Learning Content Management Systems. Published
by Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA.
33:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2006a). PowerPoint to ELearning Development Tools: Comparative Analysis of 20 Leading Systems. Published by
Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA.
750:1 Chapman, B. and the staff of Brandon Hall Research (2006b). Online Simulations
2006: A Knowledgebase of 100+ Simulation Development Tools and Services. Published by
Brandon Hall Research, Sunnyvale, CA.
Some references 2
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Clark, Richard (2001). Learning from Media: Arguments, Analysis, and Evidence.
Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing.
Clark, Ruth, Chopeta, L. (2004). Graphics for Learning: Proven Guidelines for Planning,
Designing, and Evaluating Visuals in Training Materials. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. Note: Ruth
Clark also has a good pdf file on using multimedia and John Medina's (Brain Rules, 2008)
video on graphics.
Delahoussaye, M & Ellis, K. & Bolch, M. (2002). Measuring Corporate Smarts. Training
Magazine, August 2002. Pp. 20-35.
The eLearning Guild. (2002). The e-Learning Development Time Ratio Survey. Retrieved
October 27, 2007 from:
http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/1/time%20to%20develop%20Survey.pdf
Frei, B. & Mader, M. (2008). Perspective: The productivity paradox. C/Net News, 1/29/08.
Retrieved 3/2/08: http://news.cnet.com/The-productivity-paradox/2010-1022_36228144.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news.
Georgenson, D. L. (1982). "The Problem of Transfer Calls for Partnership." Training &
Development Journal. Oct 82, Vol. 36 Issue 10, p75, 3p.
Keller, Fred (1968). Good Bye Teacher. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
Some references 3
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Locke M. (1995). "The transformation of IR? A cross national review." The Comparative Political Economy
of IR. Wever K & Turner L Eds. IR Research Association: Champaign, Illinois. pp 18-19.
Marzano, Robert J. (1998). A Theory-Based Meta-Analysis of Research on Instruction.
McMurrer, D., Van Buren, M., & Woodwell, W., Jr. (2000). The 2000 ASTD State of the Industry Report.
Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training & Development.
Pascarella, Ernest T. & Terenzini, Patrick T. (1991). How College Affects Students. San Francisco: Jossey
Bass (894 pages that syntheses over 2,600 studies).
Pfeffer, Jeffery (1998). Human Equation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Reeves, T. (2006). Do Generational Differences Matter in Instructional Design? University of Georgia, U.S.
Department of Labor, and UPS. Retrieved 1/7/08:
http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper104/ReevesITForumJan08.pdf
Saks, A. M., & Belcourt, M. (2006). "An investigation of training activities and transfer of training in
organizations." Human Resource Management, Winter 2006, Vol. 45, No. 4, Pp. 629648
Shulman, L.S., and Grossman, P.L. (1988). Knowledge growth in teaching: A final report to the Spencer
Foundation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Trolley, E. (2006). Lies About Learning. Larry Israelite, ed. Baltimore, Maryland: ASTD
Twitchell, S., Holton, E., & Trott, J. (2000). "Technical Training Evaluation Practices in the United States."
Performance Improvement Quarterly, 13(3), 84-109.
Some references 4
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Case Study: Converting an Existing Course to E-Learning
By Bill Qualls http://www.astd.org/LC/2009/0409_qualls.htm
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/index.html
Clark, Richard (2001). Learning from Media: Arguments, Analysis, and Evidence.
Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing. Klopfer, E., K. Squire & H.
Jenkins (2002). Environmental detectives PDAs as a window into a virtual simulated
world. Paper presented at International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile
Technologies in Education.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
Massachusetts: First MIT Press.