Enhancing Lifelong Learning with Navigational Support

1. Navigational support in lifelong learning: enhancing effectiveness through indirect social navigation José Janssen, Colin Tattersall, Bert van den Berg, Rob Koper; presented by Eric Kluijfhout Educational Technology Expertise Center

2. Learning Networks • Self-organized, distributed eLearning systems, designed to facilitate lifelong competence development in particular domains. • ‘Network’ refers to the connection of: • actors in various roles • learning artefacts in various forms and aggregations • the physical ICT network and facilities

3. Navigation in Learning Networks

4. Navigation implies: • Position: where you are • Target: where you want to be • To do list: learning activities left to complete to reach target

5. Navigational support Traditional approaches: • Pre-detremined study route • Institutional study advice Approach related to principles of self-organisation • Social navigation through social filtering, but • Requires large amount of ratings • Is time consuming • Stigmergy: indirect social navigation

6. Indirect social navigation requires: • Decision on what to feed back, how and when • Learner record data store • Filtering and processing of information

7. ROMA experiment: • Feedback on learning activities other learners completed next • Prototype of the feedback tool • Large scale experiment to determine: • Impact on effectiveness • Impact on efficiency

8. A B C D E {} 1 3 2 4 5 A 4 2 5 1 B 2 2 1 3 C 3 4 1 2 D 4 2 4 5 E 1 2 5 3 Feedback on next completed learning activities E = {ABBCCCCCDDD} E = {ABBCCCCCDDD}

9. Hypotheses on experimental and control group: • Increased effectiveness in experimental group: • Average number of learning activities completed • Goal atttainment (number of learners having completed all learning activities) • Increased efficiency in experimental group - Time to complete all learning activities – # of days between start and completion date

10. Minicourse Internet+ Two Moodle sites • Internetcursus.ou.nl (control group) • Minicursus.ou.nl (experimental group) • Each group 1 helpdesk • 11 learning activities on internet for beginners • Prerequisites: basic computer skills (e-mail) passive knowledge of English • An estimated 2 hour study load per learning activity • Multiple choice test (5 questions) – 60% = completion • March 17th – June 17th 2005 • 1012 learners enrolled

12. Learning paths:

13. Results: effectiveness – average completion of learning activities

14. course completion

15. RMA: last three weeks

16. Completion of 11 Ans Group Controla Experimentalb No 66.6 59.8 Yes 33.4 40.2 Results: effectiveness - goal attainment Completion rates (percentages) in control group and experimental group prior to intervention 2 = 4.04, df = 2, p < 0.05 a n=398 bn=410

17. Results: efficiency Avarage time needed to complete all 11 modules • Control group: 38,9 days • Experimental group: 36,5 days T-test: not significant

18. Conclusions Impact of feedback tool on: • Effectiveness: - # of completed learning activities: significant • goal attainment: significant 2. Efficiency: not significant

19. Thank you 