Assumptions and Challenges

I've finished reading an article by George Veletsianos and Royce Kimmons about the Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship written in 2012. With five years of change since this piece was written, I looked for shifts in understanding from this article.

They describe the current and emerging stances around open scholarship. This includes

• publication in open access journals
• providing and using open educational resources while leading and engaging in open courses and open teaching practices
• managing and maintaining a digital presence in networked participatory spaces

These forms of open scholarship are founded on ideologies and assumptions. These include:

• open scholarship has an ideology rooted in democracy, human rights, and justice
• open scholarship emphasizes digital participation focused on improved scholarly outcomes
• open scholarship is co-evolved with technological advancements
• open scholarship is a practical & effective way to achieve socially valuable scholarly aims

The authors continue to critically examine the unintended consequences.

Open scholarship requires a paradigm shift in "the ways we think about education, knowledge, learning, teaching and research" (p. 181). Future research needs to continue to explore the assumptions using "both theoretical and empirical approaches" while sharing the challenges that individuals face while engaging in open scholarship.

Opening Up

I've just re-read an article by Catherine Cronin - Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. I've reflected on Cronin's work on open educational practice before [Cronin Comes into Focus]. This is a piece that I will come back to from time to time since it feeds my research and SoTL directions - "critical approaches to openness are required".

I returned to this piece after a 'trigger' conversation from a hangout held recently. In this general discussion about educational technology in our teaching practice, there appears to be pushback from students who find it challenging to engage in multiple digital spaces within a course of study. The issue brought forward, that created a feeling of discomfort for me, was that of multiple sites for locating information about course content. Since this is exactly what I require and model in each of my courses, I paid particular attention to these comments. The issue appears to be the navigation from closed LMS spaces to open web spaces where similar but not identical information is presented. Conflicting information from one location (LMS) to another (web site) was challenging the students to make sense of what, where, when, and how to complete the course requirements. Mirroring the LMS into open web spaces with consistency and attention to detail is challenging at best, and a web designer or course creator's major concern. Ensuring that the due dates, assignment descriptions, and the specific requirements for each element of the course need to be consistently communicated in each location. With responsive and agile course design, this can be particularly challenging.

As I struggle with this issue - since I firmly believe that course content should live outside the LMS space. I struggle with the LMS requirements from the organizational standpoint. How can I continue to support student success with open course design when the students themselves are pushing back on the open nature of course design? Where can the shift for simplification be reversed to one where complexity and messiness, and an attitude of 'not-yetness' are accepted (Ross & Collier). I'm struggling with this negotiation of open learning while balancing student needs, learning success, and well being. My messy learning opportunities with open and emerging web technologies may not be what students want, need or welcome. How do I find out what students 'really' need? How do I balance that with what I really 'want' to see happen in my teaching practice? Tough questions for self reflection.... more opening up to come.

References:

Cronin, C. (2017, October 17). Open education, open questions. Educause Review. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/10/open-education-open-questions 

Cronin, C. (2017, August). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL), 18(5). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3096/4301

Ross, J. & Collier, A. (2016). Complexity, mess, and not-yetness. In G. Veletsianos (2012) Emergence and innovation in digital learning. AU Press. DOI: doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991490.01 Retrieved from http://www.veletsianos.com/2016/06/14/complexity-mess-not-yetness/

The Functional Art - continued

I've finished reading the book The Functional Art by Alberto Cairo. Now I'm reflecting and recreating the content as visualizations - sketch note graphics.

Here is the image done for Chapter 3 The Beauty Paradox: Art and Communication.

Here is the image done for Chapter 4 The Complexity Challenge: Presentation and Exploration.

Tensions

Since the previous article I've read made reference to tensions in the spaces between complexity and simplexity in online learning spaces, it's time I took some time to watch Caroline Kuhn's webinar
Tensions concerning personal open designs and institutional closed artefacts in a HE Institution. 

There will be some continuity in thinking between Ross & Collier's article and this work, I think.

I'll capture my notes from this video on a 'vialogue' for further collaborations and discussion. [with the inherent issues of accounts, access, privileges, permissions, etc - the price of annotations in the open]. The Vialogue notes can be found HERE. 

Complexity, messiness and 'not-yetness'

This title refers to a book chapter from Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning (Veletsianos, G. 2016) that I've just read. It's Complexity, Mess, and Not-Yetness from Jen Ross and Amy Collier. In this chapter they tackle the utopian vs dystopian narratives currently found in digital technology - from tech determinism to tech imperatives. They suggest a shift away from simplistic narratives and binary reductionism to build on three dimensions of emerging technologies in education - design, embodiment and socio-political contexts of accountability. They argue for messiness in thinking and practice, for working within complexity and being productive within 'not-yetness' (p 20).

First - designing online learning with emerging tech should be 'born digital' not application of face to face experiences transferred to online spaces. Instructors and designers should examine how to thrive in the tensions between complexity and rigidity e.g. "How might instructors design for complexity in learning in spite of these rigidities?" (p. 20). This includes the use of asynchronous, multimodal, collaborative, using speed, brevity, serendipity as pedagogical possibilities. Designing with a 'born digital' perspective means "embracing the open web as a vehicle for complexity and emerging practice (p. 21). Examples such as DoOO and Rhizo14 are shared, where 'emerging' is not fully understood or set in stone.

This connects for me in terms of the CDL course design that was 'born digital' and continues to live digital - in all it's messiness and complexity. Some of the students are enjoying the experience, thriving on the loose, less rigid, multiple means of expression. Others are challenged in this type of environment - requiring more guidance, structure and frequent 'announcements, emails, and notices' to keep themselves organized in the 'flow' of the course. Since I've been there, done that, know the experiences as a student (with the MET program) it's easier for me to live in this complex, messiness than other instructors could/would be.

Second - Ross and Collier examine the messiness that is the 'embodiment' of the instructor within emerging tech spaces. Face to face embodiment involves issues relevant to power, gender, race, sexual orientation, disabilities, etc - all of which disappears in digital teaching spaces, where it's believed that the 'body is left behind'. [This specifically links to the COI model of instructor presence, which isn't mentioned here.] Emerging tech and immersive environments further the need to examine the embodiment of 'instructor' through the use of avatars and digital representations. Relating to this is Audrey Watters' writing about the importance of 'bodies' when we learn in communities. Ross and Collier conclude this section by stating that "theories of online embodiment should acknowledge the complex interplay between physical bodies, the digital objects that are constructed or perceived as the instructor's online body, and the online learners and their physical and digital bodies" (p. 24).

This connects to my current work as both a face to face instructor AND an online instructor - how I use my 'presence' in each space is dramatically different. In the online course, I reach out and 'meet' each of the students in a google hangout just so they have a sense of ME as the instructor. In the physical classroom, I sit down at the table or wander around the room as conversations and technologies are being used so this 'embodiment' is still challenging but differently. The 'negotiation' required in the online, digital sessions requires agreement between student and instructor to determine the time, space, location. In-class 'embodiment' requires little negotiation or navigation.

Third - Ross and Collier address the idealogical framework and current cultural context in which emerging tech is bound - where there exists "narrow views of how products and services can demonstrate value to consumers" (p. 24). This tackles the messy issues of value propositions, return on investment (ROI) and accountability (what counts, counting clicks and time). Mechanisms of data collection, learning analytics and data trails aim to simplify the learning equations, where 'what counts as learning' is not always what is counted or revealed in the data. Within teaching and research with emerging technologies, the messiness should be exploited and complexity embraced. Narrow outcomes don't capture the lived experiences or holistic learning, often closing off areas worth investigating or exploring, privileging some while failing to acknowledge others. This heightens the need for qualitative approaches to contribute richer pictures of learning in emerging tech spaces that 'accountability-based analytics' can provide.

For me, this echoes the feelings I have in managing the 'click' tracking that can be done within an LMS juxtaposed with the fluid data trails found in the open, exploratory spaces such as Twitter, Slack, and web productions. This 'collecting evidence' is time consuming but I do it as a model for 'reflective practice' in digital spaces. Keeping a record of what I said, when I did it, what I was thinking, while I was doing it, are all pieces that are default mode for me. This is not true for my students. Curating and managing their own data trail through a course is not something they've ever done - most courses they consume information and producing disposable assignments. Keeping a record, journal, copy/paste of digital contributions is an add-on for them, where it's a next step for me. This is a messy practice, many switch-backs, rechecks, revisions as I collect, curate and manage the digital trails for the students. The technology supports this, but the technology cannot do the analysis and reflection for me - or the students. It is their 'lived experience' in the confined and open spaces of the course - a reverse map of their digital journey through the course. 

Finally, Ross and Collier share their purpose - to "persuade you that what we need in the practice, conceptualization, and investigation of digital education is MORE rather than LESS complexity and mess. For me, their call to find 'fruitful learning' that can come from "thinking of the body as a relevant site of exploration of the online instructor's role" (p. 27) is a challenge - to think about how emerging and digital technologies opens or closes the image, expression, emotion and connection that individuals have with/from/toward each other in digital spaces. This has direct impact on how we, as instructors, learners, supporters of open educational practices 'dial it up' into the OPEN.

Reference:
Ross, J. & Collier, A. (2016). Complexity, mess, and not-yetness. In G. Veletsianos (2012) Emergence and innovation in digital learning. AU Press. DOI: doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991490.01 Retrieved from http://www.veletsianos.com/2016/06/14/complexity-mess-not-yetness/

Open dialogue in the classroom

This is a bit of a reflection on things done in class, how they were done and why these teaching decisions were made.

• creative story telling activities done over a few weeks - one of the students just wrote a blog post about these activities and the impact of these activities to her learning

• making rubrics in class - applied to digital storytelling - conversations while they were doing this - I had four working groups gathered around large chart paper; I wandered from group to group to respond to points, challenges and discussions. This created conversations about having time to practice something before they were evaluated on it - as they had a rubric due for another instructor without having any time or opportunity to explore & experiment in guided practice.

These items, from the eyes and voices of my students are NOT items I would take into the open. These are personal, reflective and focused on my relationship with these students. Not open for open publication. But important for the feeling of openness within the classroom in terms of topics of conversation. 

Practice in opening things

I'm marking assignments today - it's often an effort to open documents that are locked, privacies and permissions not opened to allow others to engage. This time it's in Mindomo concept maps that students have created to 'map out' their inquiry projects before the finalize their information into a logically sequenced presentation. Mindomo's default setting is to keep it locked and private. In order to share a map the settings need to be changed and then passwords can be added to allow others to access with the appropriate code.

Despite the fact that I have sent a 'how to guide' out to the students in order to allow access, many have not completed those steps prior to submitting their URL in D2L or Slack. There are multiple requests over time to multiple users (students) to open their access. As my students begin to realize the code-breaking and the navigational elements of opening stuff - their google docs, slides, Mindomo maps - they'll become more aware of how to USE permissions and privacy settings to their advantage. For now, it's a practice in patience as I teach and learn about 'opening things'!

IMAGE of the 'how to guide' [created in Canva] to open permissions and sharing in Mindomo.