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How do we learn collaboratively?

Following on from last month’s post, this post aims to review the statement ‘how do we learn collaboratively’ by looking at current learning platforms.

From experience in an institution I think of all the times I've learnt with others and realise for the most part it’s been troublesome. 

Going to university, where it’s an ever-changing, environment with people from all over the world and shifting around constantly with multiple projects and jobs makes it a difficult environment to collaborate in. When you need to work in a group it can be hard to get everyone together and so usually you end up emailing stuff back and fourth and using whatsapp/facebook group to talk it through. Whilst most courses require collaboration, it is only a small amount for most degree programmes and when there’s an 'option' to work with others most will refuse because of the stress. 

On the occasion you do collaborate, whether that be by force or choice one of the following usually happens

1)      You meet as a group once and divide up the tasks and never meet again

2)      Don’t bother meeting till the last minute, rush it all and get really stressed out.

3)      Try to get the group to meet before or after a mutual class but usually fail. In the space of a second everyone has disappeared.

The common thread within these options is that they’re all about meeting face to face. In a world where I can have my phone read me the morning headlines and where I can control my sky box from anywhere in the world on my phone – we still find it hard to learn together remotely using technology.

If I think about when I have learnt remotely, I think of facebook groups. Whilst they did get me through university, they were as distracting as anything and on top of that, when I deactivated my Facebook how was I going to keep up with the work group conversations? The thing with students is, we find a way of getting around things – most of the time we want quick, easy and cheap options and so we’re pretty innovative in that respect.

I remember after the my first term at university, I realised a few things.

It was easier and more efficient to download the lecture slides on my laptop and take notes that way.

For students, Moodle and BlackBoard was a dark, scary and confusing space where we only went to download slides and reading material.

With bucket loads of reading (according to my library card 428 books over three years not including all the journals) I needed a lot of printing credit and highlighters

And what did we do about this? We found free/cheap apps and programmes either by recommendation or through searching App stores. I used Evernote during class to take notes for all my classes- which was extremely useful. I created different books for each class and it meant I really didn’t need to have 5 different folders.  For annotations and commenting, I downloaded PDF X-change viewer and I had dropbox for storing files - once again, these were brilliant for learning. With classes and lecture split between Apple and Windows, there was always extra software needed to make documents compatible when sharing files with friends. Nevertheless, I found a bunch of apps that worked, yes it was time consuming but it was available and like many others it got me through university.

This next section aims to discuss the current platforms we are using for learning and collaborating whether it’s the intended use or not. We’re going to take a look at:

Learnist

Yammer

Pinterest

Twitter

Starting with Pinterest – I should note that I already use and adore Pinterest . I use it as a base for ideas, when looking for a friend for a gift or more recently when looking for wedding table designs. How do you ‘learn’ with it though? Well I can see it’s great for sharing ideas, it’s also quick to send, save and favourite a pin. You can also follow boards, comments and can view recommended pins. As the name suggests, it’s like having a wooden pin board in front of you. It’s a great type of informal learning, yet there isn’t really scope to personalise. When I think of wanting to learn something collaboratively I think of me here in the UK and four of my friends dotted around Europe. If we had to collaborate, could we do so effectively in Pinterest? To an extent – Yes. We can find and share ideas on a board and whilst a discussion is a little difficult, the main idea is there.  Lastly reading the Pinterest ‘About Me’ it states that “Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organising the things that inspire you”. Technically, it’s not made for learning collaboratively although some have adopted the use.

Next we look at Learnist. Most recently after a makeover Learnist has been described as ‘Pinterest but for education’. Having heard of Learnist but not having used it this was an interesting find. The first thing I noticed was the tag line ‘The world’s knowledge, at your fingertips’.  Then reading more about it, Learnist describe themselves as a collection of the world’s knowledge. Sounds good so far, but how easy is it to learn with it? I picked a topic that I wanted to learn with a friend based in Southampton.  Having recently seen an interesting programme on Caves, I decided to search the keyword ‘cave’ and ‘formation’ but the search results produced nothing and so I searched ‘caves’ alone and was instantly given lots of information boards. The first thing that I noticed was the sources. I saw the BBC come up first which to me is a reliable source to go to for information. I saw it was a documentary and noticed I could share it via facebook and twitter, add it to my reading list or add it to a board.  When creating a board I could add a collaborator which was great. I could personalise it and add different types of content/learning without trouble.  A great feature when adding videos to boards is that you don’t have to go onto youtube and copy and paste the link – you can search within Learnist (makes you procrastinate less too). The same with adding an Image – there’s no need to open a new tab and search for an image.  The downfall with learnist lies in that I wasn’t able to discuss/comment on a board or anywhere for the matter. In addition the results of content were not enough me and I’m not sure what’s worse having 50 pages to through or an eight of one page. In addition I feel while it allowed personalisation of how your content looked, it lacked the basic personalisation features such as making notes, or highlighting. Overall I think it’s a great informal learning platform if you want to dip into and out of various topics without a built path. Whilst you can definitely learn I’m not sure how effective that learning is without any tools to allow for it. But, as a way of light casual reading, I think it’s great. 

Yammer was my next target.  Made by Microsoft I couldn’t as an individual learner make an account which makes sense in this case as it is aimed at businesses. As I wanted to see what it could offer I came across their video ‘Yammer Moments’ which was brilliant. A little long, but it didn’t hurl information, specifications or details at you but instead shows its purpose. From the video Yammer screams collaboration and good collaboration creates a pathway for effective learning.

Yammer Moments from Yammer on Vimeo.

Twitter, one of the most recent forms of communication and one of the strongest marketing social marketing tools. It’s definitely a way of learning and even has an element of collaboration.  Having a twitter account I don’t really use it to tweet, in all honestly I use it as way of reading interesting articles by companies I follow or suggested through friends.  Now that I think of it it’s kind of like an email mailbox.  On twitter generally I check my feed and you’re given article title’s and headings and even a line or two describing the content and a thumbnail ( most official twitter pages now use twitter cards, so it’s a lot more than just text). I like twitter because it’s convenient. It’s a quick source of good content and on my phone it’s über convenient to save content to read later. So, twitter has the reputable content, it was fantastic recommendations, a great preview size for content and you can discuss/comment to an extent. Back to the main point of collaborative learning I think it doesn't allow (and not intended) for collaborative learning but instead informal personalised learning.

So far we've reviewed technological methods of learning. As mentioned in previous posts, the most recent evolution in collaborative learning is CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning). However we must also look at ways of learning without technology.

The first is the idea that kids can teach themselves, This a concept brought forward by Sugata Mitra. With a project called 'A hole in the wall' Mitra has shown that without formal teaching but with motivation learners can teach themselves. This conclusion was made after an experiment whereby Mitra and his team made a 'hole in the wall' on the boarder of a slum in India and installed an Internet-connected PC. With a hidden camera they were able to observe the children and their interaction with the computer, with one another and their process of learning. This project showed that without a teacher a curious environment can enhance learning through collaboration.

Secondly, Bunker Roy of Barefoot college has managed to teach several illiterate women and men to become solar engineers. Its a very good example for how people can teach and learn from each other collaboratively. And you don't have to spend several millions to make this happen!

So what does all of this mean? All these platforms you can learn with they just represent informal learning with some being more personalised than others. They’re all extremely successful, widely used by millions but their balance between collaboration and personalisation is unequal. It's time for a highly personalised collaborative platform - one that empowers learners, learns with them and gives them the necessary tools to become live long learners - CoLearnr.

Author: Shiran Juttla 

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What is collaborative learning?

The phrase ‘collaborative learning’ is one much heard and discussed especially in the last few decades. This post aims to give an overview of the intelligence surrounding collaborative learning by going through its concept, definition and evolution.

What do you think of when you hear the words collaborative learning? What do you picture? For me, I think of group work, I think of peer assessment and Facebook groups. The first two come from secondary school where we did a lot of group work. Then one year, the school I was at switched from splitting my year up by their academic abilities to putting everyone together mixed. This was to pair students who needed help with those who understand – the end goal to improve everyone’s knowledge. The thought of Facebook groups comes from my recent years at university. Whilst overall being an individual experience with a lot of personal study, when group work was involved the way we shared notes and data was usually through email and the almighty Facebook groups.

Here is an image outlining collaborative learning taken from George Mason University. 

And this is how FutureLearn explains Social Learning (apologies for the bad photograph). This slide explains social learning in various ways.

Collaborative learning is a concept much researched and discussed (Stahl et al., 2006) with 2,020,000 results on Google Scholar. Unsurprisingly it is not a ‘new’ concept; rather the opposite with some of the oldest literature dating back to the mid nineteenth century. Whilst there isn’t much constancy within its definition, the perpetual involuntary action to learn is undoubtedly one that has stayed with us throughout time. The underlying concept surrounding collaborative learning can be derived from its definition.

Definitions

The definition of collaborative learning naturally is one without a general consensus (Dillenbourg et al., 1999). Despite this, a broad notion would define collaborative learning along the lines of ‘two or more people attempting to learn together’ (Dillenbourg et al., 1999).  Below are 4 valid but different definitions:

Literal definition from Latin. The word "collaboration" brings together the Latin "col-" meaning "with or together" with the Latin "labor" or toil.

Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches involving joint effort by learners (Education Scotland)

A teacher’s definition: a comprehensive term for "a variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together.

A business definition: Cooperative arrangement in which learners of different abilities and interests work jointly in small groups to complete a project or solve a problem.

These varied definitions tell us that different forms of collaboration exist, with the most recent in its evolution being CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning).

Concept

If you are new to all these or want a refresher, start with this video.

This second video gives the concept of collaboration from an educators prospective.

So now we know how collaborative learning is defined, and that it’s been around for a while but what is its concept and why is it heavily researched and discussed? If it was truly a fad, then why are we still talking about it? The number of journals, educators and institutions answering this are countless. More recently, Ibáñez et al., (2013) clearly states that within learning, an overall unanimity exists where the most effective method of learning involves collaboration and where any attempt to collaborate will improve learning outcomes. Its importance has led to innovation within education enhancing traditional methods making them more collaborative and thus effective.

How are we learning collaboratively

Now we know broadly how it’s defined, the concept and reasoning. We can now enter the vast world of collaborative learning and think about how we learn. I mentioned peer assessment and group work, but that from over a decade ago. Present day collaborative learning has been implemented in all stages of education and in the professional workplace in many ways including more group work, re-developed courses and encouraging the creation and use of collaborative software.

The video below explains how young adults are using collaborative learning

Whilst there are many techniques and tools the most recent and widely used tools point to CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning). This can be seen in the wide range of informal networks that exist and whether it was the intention or not, these networks are being used for collaborative learning.

From a learners prospective comparing what my primary education was like and what I've seen of it currently I see a great difference. The collaborative learning stick is hitting not only primary schools and but also higher education.  Below is video by UTS (University of Technology, Sydney that briefly describes how it is changing its learning environment.

Before I knew about what collaborative learning entailed, I didn’t know if we were a collaborative culture and after much research, I still don’t know. It’s hard to say, but what is clear is that the emphasis is as strong as ever and this is shown in the ever changing education methods, increased research and the focus in institutions. The fundamentals of learning have not changed – we still write, read and share notes. Mamat et al., (2013) states how these traditional learning styles can be converted online which leads us to the most recent stage of the evolution of collaborative learning CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning).

MOOCs

MOOCs (massive open online courses) marked a new stage within the education system when launched in 2008 and has had inconceivable success and growth around the globe  with the year 2012 been dubbed as the year of the MOOCs.  For a brief overview , the video below is a good place to start

CoLearnr is also an excellent place to learn about MOOCs. MOOC platforms such as Coursera and edX are a bit of a disappointment to be honest as far as collaboration is concerned. While the content of the courses are good, the platform lacks innovation.

Where does CoLearnr fit into the world of collaborative learning?

With such a wide range of collaborative learning techniques where does CoLearnr reside? The figure below helps us visualise where we place ourselves.

We aim to create, encourage and aid collaborative learning by giving learners the necessary tools. We’re an academic tool created and thought about by various people with different ages, background and levels of expertise that have come together with the common aspiration of creating a personalised, collaborative and flexible environment for all. What sets us apart is our approach. We stepped away from what was going on and went back to basics allowing us to building a platform with a strong base with infinite chances to grow - we hope to enhance, improve and build on the collaborative learning experience.

Author: Shiran Juttla

References:

Constructing Knowledge Together (21-45). Extract from Telecollaborative Language Learning. A guidebook to moderating intercultural collaboration online. M. Dooly (ed.). (2008) Bern: Peter Lang.

And hSmith, BL and MacGregor, JT, "What is Collaborative Learning?" in Goodsell, Maher, Tinto, Smith & MacGregor'sCollaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education; National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment; Pennsylvania State University: 1992.

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TECHNIQUES USED TO ENGAGE ONLINE LEARNERS: PART 1

Our very first blog post here at CoLearnr discussed the ideas around online learning by looking at two contrasting videos and the reasons for them. This new series of posts aims answer a question sought by many: How do you engage online learners today? As we've seen traditional methods are typically based around language, media or through current examples. Present day these methods still exist, they've just evolved greatly. By digging deeper into the types of techniques currently used we aim to find out the golden recipe (if there is one) in engaging online learners. 

Online learning has evolved since its dawn; however a majority of the advancement has occurred in the last decade. The list of online learning platforms are plentiful with each bringing something new to the table.

To start with, a current engaging video includes that used by Levi’s.

This video like many others we will see is short, informative and to the point. These factors combined with the accessible language and story line set up make it successful and engaging.

Another example includes the ‘Life Saver’ series (click here) which are categorized as interactive films. Videos such as these create a personal relationship between the viewer and the video. In addition the viewer is involved interactively, as the video progresses. Also in this video the way the video is designed allows a sense of reality, as if you were actually there.

A further branch of videos includes a series of videos by Benjamin Arthur. This particular video ‘Why can’t we walk straight’ is my favourite.

Within this video the animation in this video is eye catching; it’s in sync and informs the viewer without a single fact printed on the screen.

Videos such as RSA Animate use a series of images produced in front of you to teach a concept. This type of engagement can be used throughout online learning. One again the video is short, concise and uses a language and tone accessible to most

An alternative method of engaging online learners is shown in videos through the use of typography. This is seen in a video whereby speech in converted into typography, in this case following a film script.

The way in which this is done, allows for a different viewing. In addition research on topography has shown hearing the words said and seen written help emphasise learning. Using typography alone without a moving image on the screen is the example by Rick Thompson who created a kinetic motion animation to a comedy show.

Whilst categorised as typography the difference between these shows how each are better suited to different learning situations.

In a similar way the brand Tostitos creates a video that engages in a dangerously locking way as you watch your page transform into a different screen image.

As viewers we are not required to do anything but just sit and experience. In particular this video is bright, eye-catching and unlike others doesn't require speech but instead focuses on the story line presented.

Videos where the viewer is involved can further be seen in the series La Lenia.

Within these videos you have a chance to complete the story yourself. Once again the videos are short and concise. An example where these videos can be used are as a recap after learning a chapter. The ongoing interactive storyline continues as you pick the next option.

From this small sample of engaging videos, a few key similarities can be seen and so the key characteristics to creating a successful video can be seen below.

We’ve seen how people use videos engagingly but how very well-known sources such as The BBC, the Guardian, and the New York post show a different side to engaging videos. Because of the size of these companies, their videos range from news to weather to interviews and so on, so for the purpose of this blog, we’ll be looking at informative videos, educational videos conveying a message. The BBC video teaching glaciation uses all the characteristics of an engaging video with a key emphasis on short, accessible to most and widely visual characteristics. This is also the case with The Guardian and The New York Post. The difference between these sources is the styles of video, whether they are interview styles or recaps via one person.

Attending a lecture in an institution can be draining. They can be up to three hours long with an inadequate break. You can’t pause, rewind or forward. This is beauty of online learning. However it’s only one side of it. The other is using technology to your advantage- going online to learn means you expect something different. All in one, the first necessary step in engaging online learners is in the visual aid and animation. No one enjoys reading text off a PowerPoint slide, we’re beyond that. As shown a little colour, animation and humour doesn’t hurt. Whilst this is all easier said, one must realise the cost factor this represents. Aside from the content and lecturers, when using animation many other key costs are involved e.g. artists and illustrators. Other costs include specialist software, supplementary equipment and even time. Like at universities, there are hidden costs and online learning has them too.

This blog post completes part one of engaging online learners. Part two aims to discuss the concept of avoiding distraction and the ways that can be achieved.

Author: Shiran Juttla

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STEM and the forgotten rest

We recently came across an article about the STEM crisis. Ever since when CoLearnr was just a title for a research topic, one thought always got stuck in my mind. What is so special about technologists, engineers and scientists when compared to someone from say arts, literature or humanities background. (Disclosure: I am a techy and an MBA).

There is a clear dichotomy in the world for a while. STEM is cool and has an artificially high demand. Learning about our very own culture, history and civilisation is boring and is really for the rest. In fact, non-stem degrees are also cheaper. I always thought we are building a gigantic bubble here waiting to be burst at some point (A cost for the future generations?). Isn't this a classic market failure?

While the article focuses on the "why this situation exists part", we at CoLearnr wondered how could we approach this problem as a collaborative learning startup. Below are some of our thoughts.

High Opportunity cost - This explains why even if the degrees themselves are cheaper, student demand keeps plummeting. No matter how low we price these degrees, we will never be able to compensate for those opportunity cost.

Lack of bundles - Because of the low demand and with fear of degrading the quality of the product (higher education), the market place (university system) doesn't bundle these degrees with other profitable ones such as the engineering or management courses. Any other industry, (for example the cable industry) would have bundled such inferior products with popular ones. (Inferior product is an economics term and doesn't represent the quality. Check out our concepts page if you are new to these)

Need of an overhaul - The learning experience in general for these degrees are in need of a radical rethinking. The format has not changed much to suit modern learners.

Having identified these issues, how did we approach the solution? Well, for a start, we dedicated significant efforts to making humanities as personalised, on-demand and collaborative as possible. We worked with the top experts in the field while curating our humanities topic. We made sure our learnbits (Learning materials or learning objects) are as self-contained as possible. The advantage of this approach is that even if you are watching only few videos because of time constraints, you will still be able to pick up on the key concepts. Consumers are used to these sort of experience while watching movies and tv shows on Netflix. CoLearnr is Netflix for Learning!

Below is how our current topic structure for humanities look like.

The entire topic is semi-structured (similar to the other topics @CoLearnr) and really lets the learners to choose the path that interest them. Community of learners and experts really helps during the process of learning. Realtime discussions add the much needed feedback loop, something we all used to have in schools and then tend to forget when we move to higher education!

We believe that only with the help of on-demand learning platforms like CoLearnr, we can really start encouraging students to get a wider knowledge on topics like humanities, which may not be possible otherwise.

Collaborative Learning is the way to go and we are redefining this learning as we know it!