Engaging Students Through Transmedia Storytelling: Do MOOCs Offer New Ways for Students to Control Their Own Learning?

1. SDDU and DLT SEC3: The Third Annual University of Leeds Student Education Conference Engaging Leeds Friday 10 January 2014 Rebecca Dearden (SDDU) Carol Elston (Digital Learning Team) Neil Morris (Digital Learning Team) Engaging Students Through Transmedia Storytelling: do MOOCs offer new ways for students to control their own learning?

2. Today’s session: Engaging Students Through Transmedia Storytelling: do MOOCs offer new ways for students to control their own learning?

3. MOOCs and the University of Leeds Massive Open Online Course • FutureLearn announced December 2012 • Beta site launched September 2013 • 10 pilot courses announced September 2013 • UoL course 2nd on the platform, 21st October • First course to complete and provide evaluative data

4. Staff engagement • MOOC forum • For staff pages • Corporate site • Digital Learning team website http://www.sddu.leeds.ac.uk/sddu-mooc-forum.htm

5. Staff engagement • MOOC forum • For staff pages • Corporate site • Digital Learning team website http://www.leeds.ac.uk/forstaff/homepage/368/moocs_and_futurelearn

6. Staff engagement • MOOC forum • For staff pages • Corporate site • Digital Learning team website http://www.leeds.ac.uk/moocs

7. Staff engagement • MOOC forum • For staff pages • Corporate site • Digital Learning team website http://digitallearning.leeds.ac.uk

8. Discussion: Please introduce yourselves to your colleagues. When did you last learn something online and what did you learn? Please take about 5 minutes to share your experiences with your colleagues

9. What we did: Principles of MOOC design: Thinking of our audience and the story we wanted to tell: Designing learning outcomes, a ‘narrative arc’, and methods of keep students engaged

10. Course orientation… Planning your learning journey Using FutureLearn Learning online

11. The learning journey A variety of routes:

12. Learner feedback ‘I am really looking forward to this course. Unfortunately, I won't be able to follow the course map schedule, due to time constraints on some days. Hopefully I will get as much out of it by working on it during my available times instead.’ ‘I'm looking forward to studying this (and other) Future Learn courses. As this course is only two weeks long, I wasn't sure how much content there would be, but I'm happy with the clear direction and options available. So far so good!’ ‘Lovely clear instructions on how to move around, access information and participate.’ ‘So far so good, at least I understand the structure. Phew! Now for the course itself...’

13. Telling the story Telling the story through video and animation narrated by the expert voice.

15. Learning outcomes

16. Learner engagement

17. Learner engagement

18. Learner engagement It is important to include the right amount of content for the journey – using the Downloads and See also options for additional materials helped with this. ‘Really interesting and thought provoking, and a really good way to learn. Spent way longer than the two hours a week (not sure how it could be done in that time), but thoroughly enjoyed it all. Thanks all and good luck with your future studies....’

19. Learner engagement Accessibility proved to be important - providing sub-titles and versions of the HD videos in alternative formats was popular. ‘The course looks really good to me. No problems at all so far. I thought it was really good that the subtitles were automatically on as I'm watching whilst volunteering on reception for a charity (I am allowed!) but unfortunately have no access to speakers or headphones. Looking forward to getting stuck into the learning.’ • 86% liked the course orientation materials • 72% liked the study skills advice • 87% liked the accompanying written transcripts • 74% liked the subtitles on video content • 44% liked the accompanying audio download ‘A very interesting two weeks, it challenged some of my preconceptions. I particularly enjoyed the video discussions and found the printed back up useful.’ ‘First course and stark reminder of problems with my on-line video downloads! Not sure what to expect but hope that I will be able to follow course material.’ ‘I had some buffering issues too. Having a transcript version to read alongside is a great idea. Am also looking forward to the next bit.’

20. Pedagogy • Working towards: • Social learning • Small group discussion (on demand) • Study groups for duration of the course • Group feedback mechanisms – polls, summary postings • Sorting and filtering of comments • Mechanisms for ‘following’ and direct communication between learners • Review and feedback • Peer review • Learner contributed content • Note taking facility to be saved as part of the learner profile • Assessment • Extended quizzes – multiple response, drag and drop, multi-media and question banks • Branching options based on responses • Learner interaction • Inclusion of interactive graphic elements and simulations through embedded HTML5 objects

21. Discussion: Who are our students? What do MOOCS offer in terms of giving students control? How do MOOCs support us to think of new ways to engage our students in a more traditional setting? Please discuss these questions with your colleagues. Are there some common ideas?

22. Framework The above diagram was adapted by Mike Shaples for the FutureLearn Pedagogy Vision and Strategy (not publicly available) from the Framework presented in the final report of the Becta CAPITAL project (http://www.naace.co.uk/capital).

23. Bibliography Department for Business Innovation and Skills [2013] The Maturing of the MOOC. Literature review of Massive Open Online course and other forms of online distance learning. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/massive-open-online-courses-and-online-distance-learning-review [accessed 10 January 2014] DeWaard I., Abajian S., Gallagher M.S., Hogue S., Keskin N., Koutropoulos A.,Rodriguez O.C. [2011] Using mLearning and MOOCs to Understand Chaos, Emergence, and Complexity in Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning [Internet]. 2011 November; 12:7: [22pp]. Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1046/2043[accessed 10 January 2014] Sharples M. Learning as conversation: Transforming education in the mobile age.Proceedings of Conference on Seeing, Understanding, and Learning in the MobileAge 2005 April 28-30; Budapest, Hungary. Birmingham (UK): University ofBirmingham; c2005. Available from:http://www.eee.bham.ac.uk/sharplem/Papers/Theory%20of%20learning%20Budape st.pdf [accessed 10 January 2014] Siemens G. [2011] Moving beyond self-directed learning: Network-directed learning.[Internet]. [Canada]: Connectivism. Available from:http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=307[accessed 10 January 2014] Universities UK [2013]. Massive open online courses: Higher education's digital moment? Available from: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2013/MassiveOpenOnlineCourses.pdf [accessed 10 January 2014]