Digital Learning & Sustainable Development : Opportunities , risks and challenges

1. Digital Learning & SustainableDevelopment: Opportunities, risks and challenges Prof. Albert Sangrà, PhD. Academic Director, UNESCO Chair in Education & Technologyfor Social Change UniversitatOberta de Catalunya (UOC)

2. Content • Global World’s Challenges: going towards Digital Learning • 2) Opportunities • 3) Risks • 4) Final remarks

3. Global World’sChallenges

4. “Ifyourtimetoyou Isworthsavin’ Thenyourbetterstartswimmin’ Oryou’llsinklike a stone Forthe times they are a-changin’.” Bob Dylan (2016 Nobel Prize in Literature)

6. Internet ischangingthewayeconomy, work, communication, and alsoeducationperform in thesociety Information and KnowledgeSociety (Castells, 2001)

7. OECD UNESCO Working Party on Measurement and Analysis of the Digital Economy SKILLS FOR A DIGITAL WORLD 2016 Higher Education in the World Report 6 Towards socially responsible HEI, globally and locally engaged A Skilled Workforce for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth 2016

8. Rationales for theuse of ICT in TeachingandLearningatHigherEducationInstitutions • Enhancingthequality of teachingandlearning • Accommodatingthelearningstyle of millennials • Increasingaccess to learningopportunitiesandflexibility for students • Developpingskillsand competències needed in the 21st. Century • Improvingthe cost-effectiveness of thesystem • (Bates & Sangrà, 2011)

9. Learning is changing http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/why-social-networks-matter

10. [They’re digital natives] http://www.slashgear.com/babys-first-ipad-24121114/

11. Opportunities

12. Students involved in online distance education: 5.8 million (fall 2014) • 2.85 million (taking all online) • 2.97 million (taking some, but not all, courses at a distance) • Growth rate of students taking at least one distance course: 3.9% (2013-2014) • Education level: • 72.7% undergraduate • 38.7% graduate • Students not taking any distance education courses: 390,815 and dropping down • Allen, E. & Seaman, J. (2016). Online Report Card. Tracking Online Education in the US

13. E-Learningisthesecond more usedmethodfor training in companies (43,5%) • Training forEmployment 2014 Key findings (Fundación Tripartita para el Empleo) • Traditionalface-to-face training slowsdown in favour of e-learning • BeyondKnowledge (Barómetro del Observatorio Cegos, 2014) • “Thepotential of e-learningtoimpactlearning, society and economy in developingcountries, and to produce a worforcecapable of leadingcountriesintoglobalized, knowlege-basedeconomiesisveryrelevant” • Michigan StateUniversity (2011). AnAnalysis of e-learningImpacts & BestPractices in DevelopingCountries. The ICDT4D Program. • UOC students had positive relative earnings gains • Carnoy, Jarillo, Castaño-Muñoz, Duart & Sancho-Vinuesa, (2012)

14. Efficientemployabilityskills • Adulteducationprinciples: • Responsiblelearning • Experientiallearning • Cooperativelearning • Reflectivelearning • Cleary, Flynn & Thomasson (2006) Significant improvement through online education (Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 2009)

15. Critical thinking, analytical thinking • Ability to analyze and synthesize, critical thinking, interpret relevant data • Management skills: ability to manage teams • Improve professionally in my job • Competitiveness: Latest state of technologies. • Help me grow on a personal or emotional level; Personal enrichment • Help me learn and solve obstacles that present themselves professionally; personal ability to solve problems • Autonomy and opening new work borders • Knowledge development and its application to both personal and work life • Discovery of new concerns • Better time management • Organizational skills • Self-criticism • Cultural knowledge • Ability to work in teams Skills students value they got through online education Research in progress PSU-UOC (Sangrà & Qayyum, 2016)

16. Students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction. Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to-face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.20 favoring online conditions Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (2010). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, D.C.

17. “Cyberlearnersperformedsignificantlybetterthantraditionallearners. Mean score (final exam) forthecyberlearnerswas 11.3, whilethe mean score fortraditionallearnerswas 9.8” • Navarro & Shoemaker (1999) • “Online learning for teaching clinical skills is no less effective than traditional means.” • McCutcheon, Lohan, Traynor & Martin (2014) • “FTF and online students perceived equal degree of academic self-concept.Effect of social presence on learning and satisfaction were higher online than FTF.” • Zhan & Mei (2013) • “With proper support structures in place, students who are at-risk for dropping out can overcome challenges and find success in an online learning environment.” • Lewis, Whiteside, Garrett Dikkers (2014)

18. Main pillars for the future of learning • Flexibility(Burge, Campbell Gibson & Gibson, 2011) • Personalization(Buchem, Attwell & Torres-Kompen (2011) • Interaction(Garrison & Anderson, 2011) • Collaboration(Dillenbourg, 1999; Guitert, 2014) • Informalisation(Cross, 2010; Redecker, 2011)

19. Formal, non formal and informal learning 18,5% 7,7% (The LIFE Center, 2007) Lifelong and ... Lifewide

20. Learning Ecologies Barron (2004); Jackson (2013); Sangrà, González-Sanmamed & Guitert (2013)

21. My Lifelong Learning Ecology

22. Learning Ecologies Analysis Framework INFORMAL NON FORMAL FORMAL FACE-TO-FACE BLENDED ONLINE

23. Online education as good as or better than face-to-face instruction: 71.4% in 2015 (57.2% in 2003) Source: Babson College-OLC Online Report Card 2016 Graphic: http://www.pearsoned.com/higher-education/online-report-card-2016/

24. Openness The power of networks and data

25. Risks

26. Massification of access • Disruptivebusinessmodels • “Uberisation” of education Fromeconomy

27. Quality Massification of access Technology Access Cost

28. Disruptivebusinessmodels (Christensen, 2011)

29. “The economic value of high-quality teaching” • ( Hanushek, E. (2010). The EconomicValue of HigherTeacherQuality. Working Papers, 56. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in EducationResearch. ) • “To meetstudents’ needs, then, colleges need to eithermoreexplicitlybuild instructor presenceandguidanceinto online courses.” • Smith Jaggars, S. (2014). Choosingbetween Online andFace-to-faceCourses: Communty Colleges StudentsVoices. American Journal of DistanceEducation, 28(1), 27-38.

30. Source: emilianoperezansaldi.com

33. Student data as the ‘new black”, as oil, as a resource to be mined Image credit: http://fpif.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/great-oil-swindle-peak-oil-world-energy-outlook.jpg

34. How much (more) student data do we need? ‘how much is enough data to solve my problem?’ (Adryan, 2015) Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uncle-leo/1341913549 Idea: Paul Prinsloo (UNISA)

35. “Datafication” of education • A panacea for many corrent educational challenges andproblems • A newway for governingandcontrollingeducationsystems • Reproduction of inequalitiesand social relations • Intensification of managerialismwithineducation • Dataveillance • Thereductivenature of “whatcounts” as “education” • (Selwyn, 2016)

36. Caught between correlation and causation Image credit: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

37. - “My teacher told me I’ve improved my writing since I do my homework with a laser printer …” “Uberisation” of education

38. Technology should support, but not shape life. “Foodies are reactionaries” “Rinehart criticized people who eat regular food as being “reactionary.” He thinks that his own industrialized food product is going to save the world, and that “new” and “different” are necessarily better.” (http://www.returnofkings.com, June 1, 2013) SOYLENT The need of humanistic competencies for technologists “… ifwesaythatrealityisone, wealsoknowthatitiscomplex and ifwedon’tcollaboratebetween disciplines, fromscience and art, wewilllive a partialreality.” (Aymerich, Ara, 7/6/15)

39. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools “are producing compelling advances in complex tasks, with dramatic improvements in energy consumption, audio processing, and leukaemia detection”, we are also faced with the reality that “AI systems are already making problematic judgements that are producing significant social, cultural, and economic impacts in people’s everyday lives.” (Crawford & Whittaker, 2016, par. 1)

40. Quality The future of learning: Digital, distributed, data-driven – but … increasingly unequal Access, funding and rankings Technology Access Cost Justice, care and student support in a resource-constrained world Source: Paul Prinsloo, University of South Africa

41. Image sources: https://twitter.com/urbandata/status/695261718344290304 https://za.pinterest.com/barbaralley/fair-is-not-equal/

42. Quality Recognition Methodology Technology Cost Access Openness

43. Final remarks

44. Increase of learningopportunitiesfor as manypeople as possiblebasedonqualitycriteria, sustainability and equity. • A new, more flexible and adaptable structure of HE educationprograms and courses has to be carriedout. • Industries and Universitieshave to developframeworkagreementsfor mutual benefit. • Online education has a potentialthat has to be unleashedthroughqualityprovision. • Brasil has togo a stepfurtherbybeingtrusted in publicorprivate, notforprofit, quality online educationprovisiontofoster social and economicgrowthbasedonequity.

45. Research has to deepen in the contribution of online education for getting a better skilled workforce (learning design, quality assurance, accreditation, online teacher training) • Relevant data on interactions (opportunities provided for a good learning experience) are needed. • Guarantee of well-trained and competent group of teachers in online education is a must. • Resources for learning have to become more and more available to the students • Basic and applied research, particularly in online education methods and the results achieved by the students (student performance)

46. Muitoobrigado Thankyouall asangra@uoc.edu http://edulab.uoc.edu/ twitter: albert_sangra http://unescochair.blogs.uoc.edu/blog/