Visiting Speakers – Page 9 – Digital Learning Dispatches

At the end of August 2016, Dr Maggie Hartnett a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education at Massey University in New Zealand gave a presentation on the topic of motivation in online learning, as part of the NIDL’s visiting scholar series.

Maggie argued that with the rapid growth of the internet and related technologies, the way we interact with each other and the world around us is changing. This is particularly true for education where formal and informal online learning opportunities are shifting and changing what it means to learn. Technology enabled learning offers many benefits including the flexibility to fit learning and study around other life commitments. But alongside the freedom to decide when, where and how to learn there are also challenges.

Dr Hartnett’s research shows there are a range of considerations that are crucial to online learner success. Primary among them is motivation. Digital technologies are often viewed as inherently motivating because they provide a number of qualities that foster motivation such as curiosity and novelty. But as Maggie showed the picture is more complex than this as poor motivation has been shown to be a decisive factor in contributing to high dropout and non-completion rates from online courses and MOOCs and is an important impetus for the introduction of game-like elements such as digital badging into courses. In this talk, Maggie dispelled some of the common misconceptions about motivation in the context of recent popular digital initiatives and discussed how our understanding of motivational concepts have changed over the years. She then described what the research tells us about motivation to learn and why it is a crucial consideration in well-designed contemporary digital learning environments.

Dr Hartnett is Associate Editor of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning and her presentation expanded upon a recent Springer book she has written entitled Motivation in Online Education.

The National Institute for Digital Learning hosted a number of visiting scholars in the month of December, many of which gave interesting and engaging talks that dealt with the implications and development of MOOC’s. MegBenke1.17.17 One such visitor was Professor Meg Benke, of New York State University. Visiting on December 14^th, Meg gave a visiting scholar presentation on current and future trends in both online and blended learning. Higher education, and the education system in general, is in a period of transformation, on a level which has not been seen for quite some time. The questions of how best to improve student learning and how technology-enhanced learning will play a part in this future are difficult questions to answer. Benke’s presentation aimed to tackle this topic, and proved to be a fascinating talk for the members of staff present.

Another notable academic visitor in December was Dr Tom Farrelly of IT Tralee. Farrelly’s talk, titled Who Owns My Lectures? An Exploration of Academic Ownership in the Digital Age, took place on December 18^th, and discussed the fascinating area of academic intellectual property in a digital age. This argument is a difficult one, as there are many people who make the case for academic information being openly accessible to best realise positive externalities.

s200_tom.farrelly While it is true that, in most cases, teachers and lecturers are happy to have their notes and PowerPoints shared online, there are often exceptions. Examples of this include, but are not exclusive to, a YouTube video with several hundred thousand hits, a popular book, or a MOOC course on the platform Udemy, which may have several thousand paying students. When a producer of content is making money from it, the task of making it free while still not hindering the income of the producer is an extremely difficult task, and one that there is no clear answer to.

Members of NIDL staff were invited to voice their opinions on the topic, and the talk highlighted the fact that, while the use of online media has made the creation and sharing of educational tools incredibly simple, the impact of this on the traditional lecture and classroom layout, from which it was much easier govern teacher income is a challenge that is still very much difficult to address.