George Veletsianos, PhD

Category: sharing Page 13 of 41

Digital Transformation in BC Higher Education

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On June 10, 2019

In sharing

I’m working on a report examining the digital transformation of Education in Canada, and more specifically in BC. I thought others might be interested in relevant information that is contained within the 2018/19 – 2021/22 service plan produced by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training.

The service plan includes the following relevant goals and objectives

  • Goal 2: Learners are supported to achieve their full potential with accessible, affordable and equitable education and training opportunities
    • Objective 2.1: Ensure affordable access to post-secondary education and skills training
    • Objective 2.2: Respond and adapt to the diverse and changing needs of learners
  • Goal 3: Ensure a high quality and relevant post-secondary education and skills training system that provides the services people count onfor good-paying jobs and opportunities to reach their full potential
    • Objective 3.1: Build on current strengths to enhance the quality and relevance of the post-secondary education and training system
    • Objective 3.2: Empower learners, educators, industry and government to make informed decisions

Relevant strategies listed include include the following

  • Ensure access to post-secondary education by providing operating funding to support public post-secondary education delivery throughout the province.
  • Provide tuition-free Adult Basic Education and English Language Learning programs for domestic students.
  • Continue to advance the development of free digital open textbooks and open education resources.
  • Provide learners hands-on experience to explore a variety of careers, as well as valuable information on high-demand jobs offered by employers in specific regions and throughout B.C. through the Find Your Fit Tour
  • Leverage digital technology options to cost-effectively expand the ability for post-secondary institutions to deliver education and training programs to more rural and remote communities
  • Support B.C.’s comprehensive transfer system that enables students to easily transfer courses and credits across the public post-secondary system.
  • Continue to ensure a seamless transition of students from the K – 12 system into post-secondary education and training.
  • Maintain a two per cent annual cap on tuition and mandatory fee increases at all public post-secondary institutions.
  • Provide programs, services, tools and resources for those who are struggling to gain a foothold in the job market through targeted programs for youth, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities and women in the trades to help them to gain needed skills and secure sustainable employment.
  • Under a new Canada-B.C. Workforce Development Agreement ensure vulnerable, unemployed, and under-employed people can access skills training needed for good paying jobs.
  • Develop, in partnership with the post-secondary system, a single, unified application system to make it easier for students to plan, search and apply to public post-secondary institutions in B.C.
  • Partner with employers and economic sectors to deliver skills upgrading to employees.
  • Work with other provincial ministries and partners to ensure B.C. students have the skills, experience and creativity that they need for careers that support the tech industry
  • Ensure the best available labour market information is used to align skills training priorities with labour market needs.
  • Continue to share labour market information on WorkBC.ca using innovative platforms and social media to help all British Columbians make informed education, training and career decisions and to promote entrepreneurship


In education, what can be made more flexible?

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On May 27, 2019

In flexible learning, future education, futures, instructional design, my research, scholarship, sharing

Even though flexibility and flexible learning most usually focus on enabling learners some degree of control and freedom over the location, time, and pace of their online studies (hence the terms “anytime anyplace” learning), flexibility may be applied to a wide range of pedagogical and institutional practices. Here’s some examples:

  • Flexible assessments (e.g., providing learners with “a menu” of assessment options to select from. Dr. Joan Hughes for instance allows students to complete a proportion of pre-determined set of badges in her course. This could also apply to assignment deliverables, wherein some students, for example, may produce essays while others may create videos)
  • Flexible admissions (e.g., providing multiple admission paths. For instance, at Royal Roads University students who do not hold an undergraduate degree may apply for admission under a flexible path that asks them to demonstrate how prior coursework and experience has prepared them for graduate study)
  • Flexible “attendance” (e.g., providing learners to attend class based on their emerging needs. Dr. Valerie Irvine for instance calls this multi-access learning; a situation where a face-to-face classroom is set up in a way that allows learners to choose whether they can attend in f2f or online mode, and to make that decision as needs arise/change).
  • Flexible pacing, not only with respect to activities pertaining to a course, but also with respect to program pacing (e.g., start-end dates).
  • Flexible exit pathways. While flexible admissions refers to an entry pathway, exit pathways refer to how learners choose to finalize their program (e.g., thesis vs. coursework vs. work-integrated learning project options).
  • Flexible coursework options. This is the option where students have some control about the courses they enroll in. Imagining this on a continuum, on the one end students have no option of electives and at the other end students create their own unique interdisciplinary degrees. Typically, students have electives that they select, though that option could be made more flexible through, for example, allowing learners to choose electives from institutions/organizations other than their own.
  • Flexible course duration and flexible course credits. At the typical institution, courses last for X weeks and are worth Y credits (e.g., semester-long and 3-credits, or some variation of the 3-credit system including 1-credit, 6-credits and so on). Flexibility could be applied to this form of structure as well, with course duration and credit dependent on learning needs vis-a-vis a predetermined calendar/schedule. One could imagine for example a 2-credit course, or a 1.5-credit course within a university that typically offers 3-credit courses.

While there’s benefits to flexibility, such as empowering learners through greater agency, I am not arguing for flexibility to embedded in all of these forms. There’s philosophical questions to explore. And practical concerns that need to be overcome: Student information systems for example, might prevent the creation of fractional-credit courses, as I’m certain many of of you know.

What are some other ways that institutions, courses, learning design practices, and education more broadly can be made more flexible?


What does a radically different future of higher ed look like?

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On May 13, 2019

In sharing

tl;dr There’s no real answers in this post, so if you’re looking for an actual future in this particular post, you’ll be disappointed.

In a recent paper around “flexible learning” (pdf) we argued that what is often described as an accommodating approach to online learning (aka flexible offerings that allow students who work and who have a family to complete their studies) may end up being oppressive (aka in addition to all other responsibilities, individuals are asked to make space for study, to upskill, to reskill, to efficiently fill in the remaining time that is remains in those paltry 24 hours with more productive activities… after work is done, after the family is fed, and so on). In other words, to pursue more education, the individual student is asked to be more flexible. To do more.

This, along with other work that I’ve been following, like Catherine Cronin’s and Laura Czerniewicz’s reflections from OER19, raise many questions about what a radically different future of education looks like. If, as some believe, there isn’t much difference between public higher ed and for-profit higher ed, then what does a public higher ed that is radically different look like?

  • Would it look to alternative areas to support one’s studies rather than the individual? In the example above, the onus on the individual invites one to subscribe to a particular ideological position. Why shouldn’t the employer make space for the employee’s study? Why is the individual asked to be flexible and not the employer?
  • What does teaching look like in this radical future? Who does it, and why? How do we harness field expertise, pedagogical expertise, and digital expertise without requiring instructors to be experts in all of these areas?
  • What do courses look like?
  • What is the role of instructional designers in developing visions for the future and how does one ensure that their voices are heard and valued in this conversation?
  • In a radically different future, are institutions “selective” or do they they open their doors wide?
  • In this future, do all institutions look alike? In proposing a radical future, should we be proposing multiple futures?
  • Whose interests are being served in radically different futures?
  • What would higher ed look like if it were more kind, more inclusive, more equitable?

Zed Creds at Royal Roads

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On May 7, 2019

In oer, open, Royal Roads University, sharing, z-degree, zed cred

There’s a lot of work happening in the province of BC around OER and Zed Creds/Degrees, much of it facilitated by government funding, the expert guidance of BCCampus, and early adopters such as Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

With my colleagues Elizabeth Childs and Jo Axe, we’ve been slowly transitioning our MA and Graduate Diploma in Learning and Technology into Zed Creds. A press release yesterday announced that we completed the process.

For our students, this means no textbooks to purchase and greater transparency on the full cost of their program.

For our faculty, this means more freedoms to work with OER than with copyrighted materials to achieve desired outcomes.

For the field of educational technology, this means that we now have an example of an MA degree that is completely textbook-free and mostly OER-based. Zed Degrees aren’t just for other disciplines and aren’t just for diplomas/certificates.

Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences Dec 2018 – June 2019

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On January 4, 2019

In sharing

Clayton Wright has once again provided the educational technology community with an updated (extensive) list of educational technology conferences for the upcoming 6 months. Download a pdf of the list below.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.veletsianos.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EducationalTechnologyEduConferences-40.pdf”]

Searchable directories relevant to educational technology

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On December 12, 2018

In online learning, open, sharing

Contact North | Contact Nord keeps a number of non-exhaustive searchable directories relevant to educational technology leaders, practitioners, and researchers that are really useful, especially because they can be downloaded in csv format. Below are links to the ones I could find on their website:

Searchable Directories of...

115+ Canadian Researchers in Online, Blended and Distance Education

Teaching and Learning Centres across Canada

65+ Open Universities Worldwide

Online, Open & Distance Learning Associations and Consortia Worldwide

110+ EdTech Start-Ups

3,200+ Vendors of Online Learning Products and Services Worldwide

Selected Journals in Online and Distance Learning

ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2018

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On November 1, 2018

In scholarship, sharing

Last week, EDUCAUSE released its 2018 study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. I served as a subject-matter expert on this project and I’m excited to see the report appear in public. The EDUCAUSE team did a fantastic job on this. The sections entitled Experiences with Instructors and Technology and A Day in the Online Life of a Student are really interesting, the former for its highlighting that banning technology in the classroom is an equity issue and the latter for providing a glimpse into students’ self-reported online activities.

The key findings are provided below, drawn directly from the report:

  • Practically all college and university students have access to the most important technologies for their academic success. US students reported near-universal access to a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, with no systematic differences in access based on ethnicity, gender, age, and socioeconomic status. However, students reported low levels of access to newer, more expensive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets and 3D printers.
  • While laptops, hybrids, desktops, and smartphones continue to be rated as very to extremely important to student success, the importance of these devices differs considerably by student demographics. Generally, women, students of color, students with disabilities, first-generation students, students who are independent (with or without dependents of their own), and students who come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds see their devices as significantly more important to their success than do their counterparts. White students are significantly less likely than non-white students to think desktops, tablets, and smartphones are important to their success.
  • Students’ overall technology experiences continue to be correlated with their evaluation of campus Wi-Fi reliability and ease of login.Students’ evaluation of campus Wi-Fi in various locations has remained largely flat in recent years, but significant gaps remain in terms of the quality of connectivity in dormitories/student housing and outdoor spaces, as well as ease of network login.
  • LMS use remains prevalent across higher education institutions, with continued high rates of use and student satisfaction. Three-quarters of all students reported being either satisfied or very satisfied with their institution’s LMS, and more than three-quarters of students reported their LMS was used for most or all of their courses. This likely reflects satisfaction primarily with the functional aspects of their institution’s LMS.
  • A majority of students continue to express preferences for learning environments that fall somewhere on the “blended” continuum (from mostly face-to-face to mostly online). While a plurality (38%) of students prefer fully face-to-face classroom environments, students who have taken some fully online courses are significantly more likely to prefer blended environments and less likely to prefer purely face-to-face courses.
  • Although a majority of students said their instructors use technology to enhance their pedagogy, improve communication, and carry out course tasks, there are limitations when it comes to personal device use. Instructors encourage students to use their laptops more than smartphones, but nearly a third of students are not encouraged to use their own devices as learning tools in class, suggesting that many students take courses in which faculty discourage or ban the in-class use of students’ technology.
  • Nearly three-quarters of students (72%) who live off campus reported their internet connections at their home/off-campus residence are either good or excellent, and only 2% reported having no internet access at home. Students who live off campus have a stronger preference for online and blended courses than do their on-campus counterparts. This preference may reflect how online learning can benefit those who need to juggle work schedules and family responsibilities.
  • The typical student is fairly serious about doing the work of being a student, spending 1 to 4 hours per day online doing homework and conducting research. Contrary to popular belief, students do not appear to spend most of their time using social media, watching TV, or playing video games. Indeed, the typical student spends 1 to 2 hours on social media and another 1 to 2 hours streaming video; more than half of students reported that they do not play video games.
  • A plurality of students who self-identify as having a physical and/or learning disability requiring accessible or adaptive technologies for their coursework rated their institution’s awareness of their needs as poor. According to students, larger and DR public institutions tend to have poorer awareness of disabled students’ needs than do smaller and AA institutions. In addition to institutional limitations, students’ fears of being stigmatized or penalized for disclosing their disabilities and engaging disability services to receive the aid they need may be contributing to low rates of awareness.
  • Students continue to view student success tools as at least moderately useful. Students view success tools that help with transactional tasks related to the work of being students (e.g., conducting business, tracking credits, planning degrees, conducting degree audits) as slightly more useful than those that help them academically (e.g., early-alert systems, academic resources, course recommendations, improvement of academic performance).
Joseph D. Galanek, Dana C. Gierdowski, and D. Christopher Brooks. ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2018. Research report. Louisville, CO: ECAR, October 2018.

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