Towards some Grand Challenges for Technology Enhanced Learning

Towards some Grand (? ) Challenges for Technology Enhanced Learning Richard Noss London Knowledge Lab University of London (IOE/Birkbeck) TLRP - Technology Enhanced Learning www. tlrp. org/tel

TEL projects 2009 Semantic Technologies: for the Enhancement of Case-Based Learning Inter-Life: interoperability and transition Learning Design Support Environment for Teachers and Lecturers Echoes: Improving Children's Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment Migen: Intelligent support for mathematical generalisation. Hap. Tel: Personalised learning with Haptics when Teaching with Online Media Personal Inquiry: Designing for Evidence-based Inquiry Learning across Formal and Informal Settings Synergy. Net: Supporting Collaborative Learning in an Immersive Environment.

TEL grand challenges?

Personalisation Transforming the quality of learning and teaching by exploiting the responsive and adaptive capabilities of advanced digital technologies to achieve a better match with learners’ needs, dispositions and identities.

Inclusion Improving the reach of education and lifelong learning to groups and individuals who are not best served by mainstream methods. http: //www. tlrp. org/tel/digital_inclusion/

Flexibility Enabling the provision of education and skills to be deployed in more open, variable, and accessible ways, so that learning opportunities are available in a more seamless environment that can link classroom, home, workplace, and community.

Productivity Achieving higher quality and more effective learning in affordable and acceptable ways

Redefining the challenges • • the right size resonate with practice researchable scalable

the rest of the talk • some key themes of learning, teaching and technologies • some example projects • challenges emerging from them

theme 1: semantic technologies

Ensemble Creating a ‘momentum of reuse’ by combining semantic web technologies, grid technologies, social software and digital repositories to support case-based learning in advanced education settings.

the educational semantic web “ is at a stage in its development comparable to the Internet prior to the Mosaic Web Browser in 1993, when the Internet too was conceptualised primarily as accessing or disseminating information, rather than as a learning environment or means of collaboratively constructing knowledge”. .

Challenge 1 • to understand better the evolving relationship between information and knowledge

developing tools

Challenge 2 • to recognise what meanings learners are creating for themselves as they engage with new tools and artefacts • digital literacies

theme 2: new kinds of technological infrastructure (3 d worlds, mobile, . . . )

an educational environment of web-based and mobile technologies to support the development of a virtual space for young people and their teachers engaged in activities to develop transition skills

an example scenario to develop a set of student-generated activities leading to a flexible, sustainable, online resource to help the school to university transition.

Interlife research questions How can transitional change be handled in the virtual world? How do personal identities develop during transitions in the virtual world, and how does this map onto real world activity? How can integrated use of mobile technologies be employed to enhance skill development in transitional experiences? How can ‘interoperability’ be successfully achieved between applications, documents and media?

the problem of interdisciplinarity • “I find it a little difficult to stay focused on what my priorities are because there is so much information coming through about what can be done. I think it is evolving and I think people are starting to learn that to move forward we do need to keep going because that is the nature of working with a mixed group of strong researchers in terms of the computing science expertise and the education and social science. ”

Challenge 3 develop a research community that acknowledges and redefines disciplinary boundaries early-career researchers ethical considerations

theme 3: supporting teachers

Learning Design Support develop an interactive environment to enable teachers to lead the discovery of innovative pedagogical designs that exploit the potential of TEL

Challenge 4 • facilitating learning scientists and computer scientists to reshape each others’ models in order to design for productivity

Challenge 5: redefining what we are trying to teach technology enhanced research

“We were seeing things that were 25 -standard deviation moves, several days in a row, ” said David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer. The age of the universe is about 5. 1012 days The expected waiting time for this event, 25 s. d. , is 3*10137 days. 6*10124 lives of the universe

TEL: www. tlrp. org/tel London Knowledge Lab: www. lkl. ac. uk Richard Noss: r. noss@ioe. ac. uk