Well my first module is over now and I handed the coursework in at the beginning of the month. So now I find myself with lots of free time on my hands. The last three months have been hectic, with the first module and work being mental at the moment. And tho it is even more hectic at work I am missing my studies. I am really looking forward to the next step now that I have caught the ’study’ bug. I find that I have continued with the reading dispite the fact that I don’t need to. I also missed writing my blog, which as you can see I have decided to continue to maintain.
So now I have a summer of free weekends and evenings spreading out ahead of me… perhaps I had better get some gardening done…! Roll on September!

So what is all the fuss about? Surely learning is learning? Well not exactly. It is well known that people learn in different ways, and that some methods of learning are more effective than others. In most case, deep learning is really the one you want to encourage.
So what is ‘deep learning’ and how does it differ from ‘surface learning’? These were two types of study originally identified by Marton F and Saljo (1976) and they describe two different learning styles.
Surface learning is basically a memorising of facts, figures and processes etc. with a focus on task completion for assessment purposes. Deep learning involves understanding the processes and applying and linking them to previous knowledge and apparently unrelated experiences. Deep learning is often a more exciting approach to learning because it involves developing a different understanding of reality and often occurs because the learner already has some kind of engagement with the ideas/topic. This is the type of learning that prepares the learner to use that knowledge in ‘real world’ situations and is the most beneficial to life long learning. It is important to consider that it is a learning approach, and not an individual type that we are discussing here. Therefore as educators we should be concerned with encouraging our learners to be ‘deep learners’ rather than surface learners simply guided towards passing assessments. Deep learning equals better learning.
It seems to me that one way of doing this is to engage the learner is using new technologies.

So how can e-learning encourage deep learning?
1. Access to information – the internet. The internet is a huge mine of information and can be used to access a wealth of interesting reading.
2. Encourage collaboration between individuals (using wikis, discussion forums, weblogs, etc). This encourages discussions between people who may never actually meet and stimulates the development of new ideas and concepts. This technology also offers a ‘level playing field’ when considering the relative ‘weight’ of the contributor.
3. Removing barriers to education including time constraints, geographical, social and economical issues. Users can access education from anywhere and it is often possible to start course as any time giving maximum flexibility to the e-learning consumer.
4. Linking ideas. Technologies like e-portfolios and hypertext allow users to create actual links between knowledge items which often would not seem related. This enables the user to link between their ideas and the ideas of others. This is a main function of deep learning because it develops a mapping element between experiences and knowledge.
5. Making learning fun – fun learning is better learning. Just look at the way children learn through play and adults are just the same. It is possible to make the most mundane tasks interesting if they are presented in a fun way (as I know as a keen World of Warcraft player). This is an idea which is gaining ground with the development of learning games and simulations for adults. It also offers the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’ because a simulated environment can be created where a real-world situation would be too costly or too dangerous to recreate in a learning environment. For example, the French government has released a game called “cyber-budget”, which allows citizens to pretend they are in charge of the nations finances. This is designed to give them some understanding of the decisions that need to be made by the government in order to ensure that the economy works. This would not be possible in the real world and can facilitate a better understanding of their own taxation system.
Obviously these benefits are only really experienced through good e-learning courses. Problems that can be experienced by learners:
1. Boring content. Just because the course is provided online does not mean that the content is well designed. A course based on a collection of word documents will not promote deep learning any more than giving the learner a huge pile of paper to wade through.
2. Technology. If there is not adequate access (i.e. access to decent hardware or broadband) the user will become frustrated and demoralised.
3. Isolation. I believe that it is important to foster some sort of social element between learners to replace that face to face contact that they would achieve in a classroom environment. This encourages discussion between learners and allows the exchange of ideas, and avoids the sense of isolation that can occur when studying alone. I am currently taking an on-line course at Edinburgh University and I have found that the sense of community we have built up has added to my learning experience, opening me up to different points of view, and sometimes just saying ‘I know, I didn’t understand that either!’
4. Learning outcomes. Good learning should really be supported with a clear understanding of the intended outcomes of the course. I always ensure that learners are clear on what these are prior to the course so they understand what they can expect. This is just as important with e-learning, especially as the resources available to the e-learner are so vast. Some sort of guidance is also required to prevent information overload occurring while surfing!
So in conclusion, I think that a well constructed online course where students are adequately supported enables us as educators to encourage a deeper level of understanding in a topic. This arms the learner with the tools to apply skills learnt to different situations and enhances their learning experience.

Read about the Cyber budget here

MARTON F and SÄLJÖ (1976) “On Qualitative Differences in Learning — 1: Outcome and Process” Brit. J. Educ. Psych. 46, 4-11

In my last post I lamented that the lack of facial expression in a digital world would create a barrier between learners and learning providers. And as usual, technology was one step ahead of me! Hiroshi Ishiguro is a reasearcher who has created a remote control copy of himself with very accurate looking facial expressions.
View it here
Hiroshi plans to send the driod to meetings in his stead and speak through him. The droid is very impressive, down to making all those subconcious little hand movements we all make when we speak. Perhaps this is the future - instead of attending meetings we will pack up our droid and courier it to the site instead while we sit our office and watch it all on a video screen.
What I did find interesting was my own reaction to the droid. I was impressed but detached until someone prodded his face and he responded with a look of distaste. At that point I felt like they were being cruel, like poking a puppy. Which is rediculous when you consider that he is a machine. But if a machine looks and behaves like a human, how do we in all conscience treat it with anything other than respect? Will we have to have a new class of rights, human, animal and robot? Who can guess but maybe we will look back and see this moment as the point where it all changed! Or maybe I watch too many sci-fi films and read too many Asimov novels!!

Well my course is over now. I will hand in my web essay in the morning and that about wraps it up for my first module. So this is the opportunity to tie it all up and conclude what I have learned over the last 3 months.
Technology - I have been introduced to a number of new technologies in the last few months including WebCT, Labyrinth and a couple that I already knew about like wikis, hypertext and online gaming which had new implications for learning that I had not considered before. Throughout this course I have gained confidence in using these new technologies and also been able to critically view these technologies with their strengths and weakness and evaluate how useful I think they would be to an e-educator. I would not have felt qualified to do that previously. I feel now that I am armed with an understanding of lots of possible areas of development. I have learned new skills that I will be able to transfer over into my work life.
I have learned a lot about alternative learning styles and how they can all be amalgamated into a single blended learning approach.
This course has also made me realise that the future is a very exciting place. I work in IT so I generally keep up with the latest technologies (or I thought I did…). I also use the internet a lot but many of these changes have passed me by. Now I can see that there is even more on the horizon. The development of gaming to be used in training is one such move. I have already discussed some of the new technologies that allow facial expressions to be accurately portrayed in games making the experience more realistic. SL has frustrated us at times because it is slow and unrealistic but I think that this will be a major development in the future. As technology improves, so will the ‘look and feel’ of the virtual world. When this happens I think we will see an explosion in the use of this technology for business as well as for learning. I have been reading ‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson about the virtual world of Metaverse and there was a passage that I thought is a portend to where we want to be:
“they all came to the realisation that it … was Juanita’s faces. Just ask the business men in the Nipponese Quadrant. They came here to talk turkey with suits from around the world, and they consider it as good as face to face. They more or less ignored what was being said – a lot gets lost in translation, after all. They pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of the people they are talking to. And that’s how they know what’s going on inside a person’s head” ‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson (1993 pg 59).
This seems to me to be the major stumbling block to replacing face to face with e-learning for the inexperienced user. I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and can see how a full online provision can be made to work, but I am also very comfortable using technology. Less confident users will still provide f2f until we can provide a clear streamed personal approach to their learning. I think the virtual world as it can be in the future will give us that opportunity.

Where do I go from here? I recently had an interview for an internal post at my company for an on-line learning consultant. This is not a direction my company has previously taken but it would be a great opportunity for me to move my career in the direction I want it to take. So from here I want to move into an online role, and continue my studies. I am interested in the opportunities for online gaming, and I am also interested in the role of politics and culture in the design and implementation of e-learning and how it affects accessibility. These are two themes that I am interesting in pursuing further during the rest of my masters.

Well – that about sums it up. The course is over but I am going to continue using my weblog. I have learned an amazing amount this term and I look forward to the next one with eagerness and a conviction that this is where my future lies.