kelle.de

OK now I am in Nuremberg. I got up too early, had to kill some time, so I started writing and writing… Ramble Productions presents their latest big hit: A TEL article-something!

As it happens, I seem to get more and more involved in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). Formerly the field was called “e-Learning”, but at some point that term got out of fashion and it changed to TEL. Definition-wise TEL seems to be somewhat of a more general term than “e-Learning” because “technology” could actually also be non-electronic technology like old-school typesetting and the like. But this is probably a rather meticulous observation. The real message is in the “E” of the TEL acronym: learning should be enhanced.

Personally I must say that there was a long time when I was not too concerned with the whole fuss about e-Learning. During my studies I usually just skipped lectures, borrowed books from the library, got bored during the first few pages, got more books, (repeat) until I finally found a cool or interesting book which I actually read voluntarily. Exams then forced me to huddle also through less interesting books at last. I never was bothering about electronic media so much. I followed some kind of survival instinct, and that instinct told me to go read real books.

But of course in doing so, I had made use of the electronic library catalogue to find out about book availability, browsed lecture slides on-line in order to find out what book to read, downloaded lecture recordings (for hamstering purpose rather than viewing, occasionally fastforwarding through them to check), communicated via email and ICQ with other students or university staff to get recommendations and hints. And so on. So I had used TEL all along without even consciously noticing. Getting to the point, learning was not only enhanced by electronic media, it was made possible in the first place.

Howsoever, the term “e-Learning” was, in those times, reserved for the university’s e-learning-system (or Learning Management System, aka LMS) which had the following main features:

• if you searched in the LMS for course material or course information, you would hardly ever find anything,
• if you still found some course in the system, there was no way to access learning materials other than first “booking” or “registering” in some certain way,
• learning materials were mostly incomplete because instructors had fallen out of love with the LMS along the way, or something else had distracted them,
• for an instructor the e-learning system was even more annyoing because it was far more long-winded to provide materials that way (and finding them again, for that matter) than just uploading them on a web site.

The term “e-Learning” had become synonym with “big annoyance” to both teachers and students. And now, after some years have passed, working as a university teacher myself, this impression persists in many ways, because the fumbling with an LMS is a very consciously perceived part of the “e” learning process: An LMS screams the word “e-Learning” into your face while you struggle with it to get (it) where you want.

But TEL also comprises the rather unconscious and hidden parts of the learning process in which technology comes into play (or might come into play in the future, in some respects yet to be developed).

For example the process of taking the decision what to learn before you actually start learning. This can be supported by recommender systems that draw conclusions from a person’s background, preferences, behaviour, actions etc. in an automatized way. Other than taking random chances without any base for decision, a learner can be pointed into the right direction.  Or can they? How to make sure the system interprets the information about the learner the right way? The easy answer would be: “Well, let’s just collect as much data as possible about this puny transparent bastard!” If you know everything about the user, you know the user. But this would essentially require a 1984 scenario of Stasi-like spying and zero-privacy. And that’s where the problems start. What if some political changes occur and the force in power starts to seize and voluntarily (ab)use that data? To suggest the least, the dream of equality of opportunities would not only fall apart, but turn into the opposite.

That’s why it is important to give people control about what is going on with their data, and why adaptable and decentralized systems are in that respect more desirable than centralized adaptive systems.

This whole conflict of different interweaved TEL models can be summarized as follows (especially to those who like dots at the left end of a paragraph):

• Adaptive systems adapt to the users needs, but they conflict with adaptability and privacy
• Centralized systems create a controlled environment which is important to gather and interpret user data, as well as creating an environment for assessment of learning outcomes. But the user has to rely on the system’s credability with respect to privacy.
• Decentralized systems give the user (almost) all power over their data, but usability can be a problem because technical understanding and the ability to manage their own data is required. The users have to protect themselves from attackers and have to build their own network of trust.
• Adaptable systems are typically decentralized systems, but also centralized systems can be made adaptable. The question is, how big is the usability barrier of a system that has to be adapted. There is no real way to just use them out of the box. The dichotomy between adaptability and adaptivity is a complex problem, especially in multi-lateral social learning environments. On the other hand, an adaptive system that adapts the the wrong way might not be usable at all.

Another aspect is the paradigm of Open Content or Open Courseware. TEL methods have the potential to help disseminating free content to the everyone in the right way, making use of recent technical developments of the world wide web. In a world where “equal opportunities” are but wishful thinking, it is important to come up with some wishful doing, and granting open access to (to some certain degree personalized) educational resources is the right track into that direction.