Learning Analytics: the rise of the data wrangler

The rise of online tools for delivering courses enables educators new opportunities to harvest and use data.  Buckingham Shum and colleagues at the OU presented the ways that data can be used in education as three overlapping spheres;

• Customer relations management
• Business intelligence and
• Learning analytics

This post examines just one of these, the possibilities of data to support the learning process.

Examples of ways that data might be used;

• To diagnose those not engaging in their studies
• To diagnose those who have not done a critical task eg downloaded the assignment brief by a certain point
• To display to a student how they are doing in relation to the rest of the cohort
• To signpost a learner to resources to their particular needs.

Daphne Koller’s presentation describes the features of the Coursera platform which she has been involved in developing.  The platform has many features which make use of large scale data to help to support the learning process.

Examples include

• The platform automatically takes the top graded submissions and presents them as exemplars in a gallery.
• Seeing frequently occurring wrong answers and using them to provide targeted support for students (Koller, 2012, 28-31 mins)
• Feeding back to lecturers on common mistakes
• Understanding what the best students are doing and advising others appropriately.
• improving the usability of forums through enabling students to vote on the most useful questions, so that valuable questions ‘bubble up to the top’.  In addition if a student is about to post duplicate question to one that has already been formed the students is pointed to this before they post.  (28min)

She argues that using online learning in this way means that the face to face time in the classroom can be used for more engaging learning activities.  The notion of the flipped classroom, where listening to videos occurs at home, and face to face time is focussed on interactivity is relevant.  She provides examples from her practice eg using classroom time to focus on the questions that students got wrong – facilitated by the immediate feedback of MCQs, higher level discussion, real life examples from experts, problem solving in small teams, immediate feedback. (37 min).

Of course such advances raise more questions than they answer:

• there are ethical debates about what we capture about our students and how we make this available to them to their funders etc:
• there are questions about whether we use what is easy to measure rather than what is important or valuable
• once data is harvested and repurposed to make it meaningful the challenge is how do make sense of it. (Staff and students will need a new literacy in this)
• What roles do institutions need to enable them to generate learning analytics (the data wrangler)
• Ensuring that there is time and space in the curriculum to make sense and use LA
• Dangers of Senior Managers with a love of stats!
• Predictor systems closing down choice rather than opening up choice to students
• What pedagogic models will underpin developments in LA?

This is an issue of growing importance.  Some blogs to watch

Sheila MacNeil CETIS

Simon Buckingham Shum

MOOCs – the educational technology ‘du jour’

MOOCs, Massively Online Open Courses

The idea of the MOOC has come to prominence in the last year or so.  The idea is that courses can exist online provided by organisations such as universities or profit making bodies and students from across the world can sign up and take these courses.  They courses aren’t constrained by the physical size of the classroom buildings.  Some offer badges for completion.  See the OU’s Innovating Pedaogy pamphlet for a discussion (p. 19-21).

I have criticqued the concept of the MOOC under three headings;

Democratising HE?

Some have argued that MOOCs represent an opening up of HE courses to those without finances to attend face to face classes and will enable all to benefit from a higher education  (Koller 2011 2mins).  However this notion has been challenged by Laura Czerniewicz from Cape Town University who argues that the opening up of access to HE in Africa is about ensuring students’ preparedness for HE and about ensureing the success of non whites rather than about access to knowledge.

Pedagogy

The MOOCs that I’m aware of appear to have two alternative pedagogical models.  The first type of MOOC applies the model of Connectivism see  or rhyzomic learning.  These models are about student led activities where learning occurs without the constraint of the curriculum but where students make connections and forge their own way through the myriad of resources available on the web.

My view is that this sort of MOOCs may work fine for those who already have a high degree of autonomy and criticality but it is not an effective model for the majority of students new to higher education.  This opinion is supported by Rita Kop whose doctoral thesis explored connectivism, where students learn under their own guidance and make connections as part of their self directed learning on the web (2010).  Kop studied how connectivism worked for adult learners and found that the role of the educator was critical to its success.

The other MOOC pedagogic model uses a more didactic and programmed learning approach.  These MOOCs consist of videos of subject experts giving lecturers and students participate by engaging in  MCQ, multiple choice questions..  It has been criticised by Knox et al. in that it attempts to mimic of the values and style of traditional educational formats.

Other examples of large scale video based learning include the Khan Academy.  ( Khan started out on his own creating videos but has been supported by Gates and Google subsequently.) The Khan academy’s pedagogic model is very like the programmed leanring model where you are directed through the teaching of a subject through a structured programme of tasks.  Motivation is supported by ‘badges’ rather than accreditation  which students earn by getting questions right.

The critique I have of this model is that it mimics conventional learning rather than being designed around sound pedagogy.  In addition it is just doesn’t work for some subjects eg discursive ones or ones based on skills.   Having said this, there are some very good pedagogical innovations that the Coursera platform has developed for ‘softer’ subjects for instance the use peer assessment and rubrics (See Koller around 30mins in).  These approaches enable students to get feedback on these ‘soft subjects’ within a large scale environment without teachers needing to mark loads of essays.  Koller also explains how this model gives much faster feedback and that peer grading and self grading has been shown to be a powerful learning exercises (Sadler and Good 2006).  In addition the Coursera MOOC platform encourages the formation of study groups – another sound pedagogical approach.

What do MOOCs mean for us?

My opinion is that providing MOOCs is not going to be where many HEIs will want to go – as it is a distraction from the other things that they do for which they get funding.   The smaller less prestigious HE/FE institions are unlikely to want to set up and deliver their own MOOCs because they won’t get the scale of uptake to make it worth their while in terms of publicity or getting other ‘spin off income’ – for instance if people finish the MOOC and want to continue studying at the MOOC providing instution.

However MOOCs that are available do they present a challenge to HE and FE as people can study  and get some sort of ‘badged’ learning whilst this may not be as official as the accredited learning that HE/FE offer it is a form of competition.  Where I think HE/FE needs to respond is by focussing on what we can do well which is

• quality of the interaction between student and tutor;
• understanding and supporting highly contextualised and nuanced practices such as digital literacies, or professional competencies;
• working to ensure that the face to face interactions are used as effectively as they can be to support active engagement rather than content delivery.  Koller provides some examples of how she does this in her class (2012 37mins).  The notion of the flipped classroom is pertinent here. (There are several ways of understanding the notion of the flipped classroom one is that the face to face time should be used for active learning activities with peers and with the teacher and this is the way that I’m using the term here.  Another version of the flipped term is student as teacher and teacher as learner.)

In conclusion, I think the rise of the MOOC presents HEIs with a chance to sharpen its game to hone our offering in terms of quality pedagogy and student satisfaction.  I think we also have a lot to learn from MOOCs, see my post about Learning Analytics.

Digital literacies; a challenge for all

In Doug Belshaw’s TEDx talk on digital literacies, Doug makes a persuasive argument for understanding the new types of culture/language and practices surrounding digital literacies.  He argues that they should be built into lifelong learning through focussing on the intersection between students’ interest and the important contemporary issues.

The video focussed on a couple of memes, which he defines as  idea or behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. One example is Kitchener’s war time poster which has been reappropriated many times.

The memes he uses in his talk illustrate the power of photos that are reused and remixed with words to make new points. He suggests that memes are more possible through use of digital technology (in terms of production) but also the communication possibilities of the internet change the speed and reach of their distribution.

He proposes 8 essential elements of digital literacies.  He suggests that these are like elements of a cake in that they can be combined in different proportions depending on the desired outcome.

• Cognitive
• Construction
• Communication
• Civic
• Critical
• Creative
• Confident
• Cultural

I like the 8 C model but I prefer Beetham and Sharpe’s (2010) distinction between access, skills, practices and attributes. I used Sharpe and Beetham’s model for the basis of my Digital Practitioner Framework (Bennett 2012)

 

What does it mean for HEIs/FEIs?

The debates about who supports digital litercies – academic staff, librarians, IT support or academic skills is one that is only just emerging as we grapple with the new skills, practices and attributes that students needs to study and be prepared for working in a digital world.

Learning from the Early Adopters: Web 2.0 tools, pedagogic practices and the development of the digital practitioner

Link to my doctoral thesis.  Here is the abstract;

The radical and transformative potential of Web 2.0 tools to impact on learning has been widely discussed.  Their promise is of participative, collaborative learning in which students are producers of knowledge, connected in learning communities.  This thesis examines Web 2.0 tools in use in teaching and learning in a ‘post 1992’ university in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2012.  The focus is on how lecturers make use of the tools in their teaching; how the radical potential of these tools is harnessed in practice and how tensions and contradictions between Web 2.0 and traditional ways of learning are mediated. This phenomenological in-depth study utilises a small sample of lecturers, the ‘early adopters’ of Web 2.0 technologies, and focuses on their personal journeys in relation to making changes in their pedagogic and broader academic and professional practices. 

The study concludes that early adopters have similarities, independent of the subject that they teach, in terms of their beliefs and attributes: they are willing to experiment with change: they are confident in their approach to Technology Enhanced Learning: they understand the radical pedagogical possibilities of the application of Web 2.0 tools: they balance risks associated with adopting new practices with an understanding of their potential: they are willing to invest time in exploring and evaluating Technology Enhanced Learning.  The motivation that drives the early adopters to adopt new Technology Enhanced Learning practices is their commitment to enhancing their students’ experience by making the learning more participative and collaborative.  They believe that Web 2.0 practices have the potential to support this objective.  Whilst change can be ontologically challenging when adopting practices which are disruptive to existing norms and routines, these early adopters do not experience adoption of Web 2.0 tools in this way.  This thesis argues that this is because the changes are concomitant with the early adopters’ orientation to teaching and learning.  The study also highlights the complexities of the decision to adopt new practices which can be emotionally challenging, associated with feelings of uncertainly or liminality, and involve juggling conflicted notions of the self and ideas of ‘giving up’. 

The study adapts Sharpe and Beetham’s Digital Literacies Framework and proposes the Digital Practitioner Framework depicting lecturers’ characteristics in relation to the adoption of Technology Enhanced Learning practices.  The model is holistic, in that it represents not just the skills associated with being a digital practitioner, but also beliefs and values, practices and access.  The model is used to understand the process of adoption of technology mediated learning by the early adopters in this higher education institution.  The implications for lecturers’ development are also discussed.

Please cite as

Bennett, E. (2012). Learning from the Early Adopters: Web 2.0 tools, pedagogic practices and the development of the digital practitioner. University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield.

TeachMeet article for SEDA Newsletter

Teachmeets: Guerilla CPD

Liz Bennett, Course Leader MSc Multimedia and Elearning, University of Huddersfield

 

Dubbed as ‘Guerilla CPD’ TeachMeets are a relative new-comer to the style, structure and principles of continuous professional development, CPD.  They are radical in that their intention is to provide teachers with a forum for sharing their practices outside of the classroom without the structures of normal staff development.  This article introduces TeachMeets and discusses how their principles and practices have been adapted for use in formal CPD.

What are TeachMeets?

TeachMeets were developed by a small group of people including Ewan McIntosh, who is an educational consultant and founder of NoTosh company which promotes innovative classroom practices.  TeachMeets originated in the schools sector in that their adoption was originally focused on the needs of teachers in the primary and secondary schools.  Participation in a TeachMeet is growing with teachers from other education sectors (for instance FE and HE) interested in their use.  Teachmeets have also been co-ordinated by Schools of Education to encourage trainee teachers to build up their professional networks and engagement in CPD activities. 

Teachmeets usually last a couple of hours often in the evening and are focussed around teachers sharing ideas with one another based on their classroom practices – the things that they’ve used and found effective in their teaching.  The event is structured around two different lengths of presentation: the 2 minute or ‘nano’ presentation or a 7 minute or ‘micro’ delivery. 

Very few rules that apply to TeachMeets but one of them is that they are not sponsored and they do not allow any commercial activity.  They are ‘low key’ events in that they do not have a budget, although sometimes a small charge is made to lay on refreshments: for instance Bolton TeachMeet recently charged £2 for a pie and pea supper.  The notion is that teachers organise their own events, often in the school premises and publicising them themselves, through word of mouth and its electronic equivalents including the TeachMeet wiki page (teachmeet.pbworks.com) and social media, such as Twitter.

 

Accusations of ‘technocentricity’

The focus of TeachMeets on innovation has led to accusations of ‘technocentricity’ – the principle that the technology takes centre stage and that participants are concerned with showing off their newest, whizzist gadget.  However this is certainly not their intention and, as Ewan McIntosh says, if the technology takes over then the TeachMeet idea has failed. 

The overlap between technology and pedagogy is one that is frequently debated by academic developers and learning technologists.  There is a familiar adage of ‘prioritising the pedagogy over the technology’.  However a more nuanced way of understanding the adoption of technology in the classroom suggests that rather than technology and pedagogy being discrete forms of knowledge, instead there is overlap between the two.  As Mira Vogel, concluded in her literature report for the HEA on the role of Academic Developers there is a need for technological skills and understanding and that this need “challenges the prevailing espoused theory that the technicalities should be subordinated to educational concerns” (2009, p.14).  Likewise Mishra and Koehler (2006) note that it is necessary for teachers to have new forms of knowledge when adopting technology in their teaching practices that it is the knowledge of how the technology interacts with the content and pedagogy.  They argue that it is inappropriate to separate technological skills from the way that they impact on both the content knowledge (what is going to be taught) and the pedagogical knowledge (how it is going to be taught). 

Mishra and Koehler (2006) have theorised the way that technology, pedagogy and content knowledge interact.  Figure XX illustrates intersections between these types of knowledge with at the centre of the Venn diagram is the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPCK).  Kennedy and Lefevre (2009) explain these intersections as new forms of expertise which requires all three forms of distinct knowledge (content, pedagogical and technological) as well as an understanding of the way these three components interact with one another:

a teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator). Effective technology integration for pedagogy around specific subject matter requires developing sensitivity to the dynamic relationship between all three components. (2009, np)

 

Figure xx Pedagogical Technological Content Knowledge, PTCK. The Three Circles, Content, Pedagogy, and Technology, Overlap to Lead to Four More Kinds of Interrelated Knowledge (Source: Mishra and Koehler, 2006, p.1025)

 

The PTCK model suggests that to effectively integrate technology into one’s teaching practices requires all three forms of knowledge as well as knowledge of how each interacts with the other.  Teacher education has traditionally been concerned with developing the pedagogic knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge.  Hence a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice may focus on principles of teaching and learning and participants are required to apply this to their own subject setting drawing on advice and guidance of mentors within their subject context and wider reading about the teaching of their subject.  The use of technology is sometimes relegated to a session on using the VLE, virtual learning environment, or perhaps on interactive white boards.  If this is the case then the technology is being taught as discrete separate form of knowledge, the technology knowledge and the connection between it and how the technology supports effective learning is likely to be missing.

The PTCK model proposes that there is a new type of knowledge needed in order to integrate technology into their classroom practices, this is the knowledge of the technology, the tools and how they work.  TeachMeets provide examples of how new tools can be adopted and applied to support new approaches to teaching in classrooms, that is they exemplify Technological Pedagogical Knowledge. 

The other aspect of the Venn diagram is applying knowledge of technology and pedagogy  to one’s own subject area, and this is the intersection of all three circles – the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.  TeachMeets are open to teachers from all subject areas and there is much to be learned from exploring the contextual and subject related aspects to any teaching situation.  Good teachers committed to their CPD will be asking themselves “what can I learn from this example? What is similar and different about my context and my subject?”  Working across subject and sectoral boundaries is a topic that I return to later in this article.

Exploring the notion of ‘bottom up’

Whilst TeachMeets appear to be an interesting and imaginative way of doing CPD in which participants can take control over their direction and content of the event they do require some sort of facilitation.  There is still a role as the host to make people feel welcome: both veterans and regulars.  The facilitators must also encourage participation, which is achieved through signing up to the event on the TeachMeet wiki site and arrange the running order.  More than this, Ewan McIntosh comments that it is the attitude of the people that lead the events is crucial and, in particular, the facilitators need to value looking irreverently at what teachers do and to challenge existing ways of thinking.  These attributes of facilitation and vision are likely to be critical to the success of this model and to enable it to grow and develop.

TeachMeets are part of a broader movement – the ‘unconferencing movement’ which suggests that the value of a conference is not the key notes, or even the workshops, but the conversations that happen in the corridor or over coffee.  It is the social capital that we build by participating rather than the fact of attending.  The ‘unconferencing’ idea derived from Harrison Owen’s (2008) idea of Open Space which argues for a similar fluid emergent style of meeting where there is no planned agenda, and where issues discussed come from the interest of the participants rather from someone with an organising role

Open Space Technology requires very few advance elements.   There must be a clear and compelling theme, an interested and committed group, time and a place, and a leader or facilitator.   Detailed advance agendas, plans, and materials are not only un-needed, they are usually counterproductive. (Owen, 2008, np)

Open Space, like TeachMeets, see there as a role for a ‘facilitator’ rather than a leader..Owen (2008)argues that leadership in the Open Space model must come from the group and that this presents challenges to those who like to control the learning environment.  Instead the facilitator is responsible for setting the time and place for the event and providing a theme however the emphasis on the agenda emerging from the direction in which the participants take the discussion. 

There are similarities too between the TeachMeet approach and the work of Dave Cormier (2008) who has proposed the notion of rhizomic learning, drawing from the notion of rhizome plant, one that propagates through spreading horizontally.  It is an organisation without a central locus of control and one where no individual can really impose their will upon proceedings.  This notion is one that applies to this sort of ‘bottom up’ CPD activity.  Given cuts in the funding to local authorities it is one that is likely to be a model those in Government would approve. 

Rhizomic learning, is part of a radical trend away from ‘teacher-led’ forms of education to ones that are led by the students.  There are many other variants on this approach including many of which are focus on the use of networks facilitated via the internet to achieve their learning connections.  See for example George Siemens and Stephen Downes’ (2012) theory of Connectivism and Cathy Davidson and Theo Goldberg’s participative learning (2009).  Learning of this type enables people, independent of formal academic structures, to build their own learning network, to access learning materials online and to develop themselves propelled by their own motivation.  It is an idea that has currency.  Several key note speakers at conferences I’ve attended recently making reference to this informal approach to learning. See for example Alex Couros (2012), from University of Regina talking about learning to break dance from YouTube videos and informal contacts made through social media; Professor Andrew Ravenscroft (2012), from University of East London, discussing young people learning to play the guitar likewise from YouTube videos; Professor Stephen Heppell (2009), from University of Bournemouth, talking about viral, peer to peer learning made possible through social media.  It appears that ideas of ‘bottom-up’ student-led approaches to learning are part of the zeitgeist of the current educational landscape.

 

TeachMeets and accredited learning

I have applied the ideas from TeachMeet within an accredited programme.  The MSc Multimedia and Elearning at the University of Huddersfield is a course for teachers from a variety of sectors (e.g. school, FE and HE).  It is a blended programme with around six day schools which take place on Saturday in Huddersfield, with the remaining contact mediated electronically.  The TeachMeet format is used at the day schools.  Students are invited to sign up to talk for 5 minutes on how they are using teaching tools in their classrooms to solve real challenges that teaching their subject in their context throws up.  The session lasts for around an hour of the day school and ideas for technology use in practice are swapped. 

GoAnimate: http://goanimate.com/ to create animations to a script.  Prezi: http://prezi.com/ web based presentation software which zooms around as you run the presentation. Line o it http://en.linoit.com/ A web tool which enables you to use sticky notes. Jing A free screen capture tool.  http://www.techsmith.com Answergarden http://answergarden.ch/ A way of collating feedback easily ActivExpression  Handheld classroom response system allowing for a variety of answers. Hot potatoes: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/ a tool for creating interactive web based resrouces Twitter: http://twitter.com/ the social networking tool Text Wall: http://www.textwall.co.uk/ Pupils can send in messages which can be displayed in various ways Triptico: Tools to use on interactive whiteboards http://www.triptico.co.uk/ Diigo: http://www.diigo.com/  Online repository for book-marking websites. Favourites only stored in one place – this allows you to access it from a cloud.    Box XX Technological tools featured during the TeachMeet session on the University of Huddersfield’s MSc Multimedia and Elearning.

 

After the day school the students often add to their blog posts to summarise what they learnt and to link to resources and the tools that were demonstrated.  As focus for the MSc Multimedia and Elearning course is the transformations that are possible through technology our sessions have focussed on a range of technological tools. examples of the technical tools are given in Box XX.  However, whist the technology is clearly a critical component for the MSc Multimedia and Elearning, it is only part of the story, much of the discussion is around how they can be used to support more active forms of learning for students. 

The students on the MSc Multimedia and Elearning come from a range of sectors (including primary, secondary, FE and HE).  Their subjects are likewise diverse, including both vocational courses (eg brick laying) and academic (eg degree in fashion).  From my experience this breadth is not a barrier to activities which are based on principles of students sharing their stories and experiences.  Students can learn from the different challenges of a different setting, and how their colleagues seek to address these.  The depth of the discussion increases through the critical engagement that comes about through these discussions.

I fear I may sound rather apologetic for the technological focus of the MSc Multimedia and Elearning TeachMeets, but perhaps it is worth celebrating the power and potential of the web for enabling new forms of learning and for supporting new participatory and collaborative tools.  Indeed one might argue that not focussing on the possibilities of new tools and technologies risks leaving educators copying fourteenth century, pre Guttenberg model of educational practices in which lectures were the dominate model and monks came to copy down by rote the text being read to them!  Instead we live in an era of connectivity, where access to apparently infinite resources is free and almost immediate.  As Barry Wellman has argued “The developed world is in the midst of a paradigm shift both in the ways in which people and institutions are connected. It is a shift from being bound up in homogenous “little boxes” to surfing life through diffuse, variegated social networks”(2002).  Thus to not make use of the transformative potential of the web might be considered negligent for the 21^st century educator.

The tools listed in Box XX are mostly fee and web based ones.  They fall in to the category known as Web 2.0 in that they participatory and collaborative and through these features can support constructivist and social constructivist approaches to teaching and learning.   Box XX provides identifies some of the possibilities of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education practice. 

Web 2.0 is a set of internet services and practices that give a voice to individual users. Such services thereby encourage internet users to participate in various communities of knowledge building and knowledge sharing. (Crook, 2008,p8) Web 2.0 technologies fit perfectly with a particular pedagogic approach – the constructivist approach – which holds that learning is most effective when active – by doing; undertaken in a community; and focused on the learner’s interests. (Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience, 2009, p.36) Web 2.0 technologies are attractive, allowing greater student independence and autonomy, greater collaboration, and increased pedagogic efficiency (Franklin and Van Harlem, 2007, p.1).   Box XX Possibilities of Web 2.0 tools identified in recent research reports.

 

The potential of web based tools to support independent and or collaborative learning is only just coming into the awareness of many Higher Education educators. Armstrong and Franklin (2008, p.1) noted “usage to date has been driven primarily by the particular interests of individual members of staff rather than institutional policies”.  This finding was also echoed by the Committee of Enquiry into Changing Learning Experience (2009) and UCISA’s, University and Colleges Information Systems Association, biannual survey of TEL practices in UK HEIs which reported low levels of interactive use of technology (Browne et al., 2010, p.26).  See table XX

	Discussion boards	Access to multimedia resources	PDP	Enquiry based learning	Collaborative working
100%	0%	1%	3%	1%	3%
99-75%	3%	8%	4%	14%	3%
74-50%	3%	13%	2%	58%	23%
49-25%	9%	37%	19%	4%	59%
24-1%	59%	30%	53%	22%	0%
0%	13%		7%		13%
Don’t know/not answered		6%	13%

Table XX Proportion of courses that use Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) tools for teaching and learning purposes in all HEIs in the UK (After Browne et al., 2010, pp.10-26)

 

Conclusion

TeachMeets offer a new structure to CPD activities which are informal and led by participants.  They also offer possibilities for more formal CPD courses and provides a model for engaging in more student to student interactions.  Principles of building community within formal CPD programmes is not new, but the TeachMeet structure offers one way that it can be organised effectively.  To attend a TeachMeet visit the TeachMeet wiki page at teachmeet.pbworks.com which contains information about events planned across the UK.

 

Further information about Teachmeets

Ewan McIntosh’s web page; http://www.notosh.com/2011/01/teachmeet/

TeachMeet wiki page; teachmeet.pbworks.com

 

References

Armstrong, J., & Franklin, T. (2008). A review of current and developing international practice in the use of social networking (Web 2.0) in higher education: Franklin Consulting.

Browne, T., Hewitt, R., Jenkins, M., Voce, J., & Yip, H. (2010). 2010 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education in the UK: UCISA.

Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience. (2009). Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World: Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience.

Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(5).

Crook, C. (2008). Web 2.0 technologies for learning: The current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions: Becta.

Davidson, C., & Goldberg, T. (2009). The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age

Franklin, T., & van Harmelen, M. (2007). Web 2.0 for Content for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: JISC.

Heppell, S. (2009). Future of Learning.   Retrieved 29 June 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JTc9HeTh1A

Kennedy, D., & Lefevre, D. (2009). Epigeum: Learning Technologies Online. In T. Anderson (Ed.), Internet Based Collaborative Technologies

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017 – 1054.

Owen, H. (2008). A Brief User’s Guide to Open Space Technology 3rd from http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm

Ravenscroft, A. (2012). Technology Enhanced Transformational Learning: Radical learning for new educational challenges? Paper presented at the TEL Cluster Meeting. Retrieved from http://www.uel.ac.uk/cass/staff/andrewravenscroft

Siemens, G., & Downes, S. (2012). Connectivism & Connected Knowledge 2012. from http://cck12.mooc.ca/

Vogel, M. (2010). Engaging Academics in Professional Development for Technology-Enhanced Learning A synthesis project for the UK’s Higher Education Academy: .

Wellman, B. (2002). Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches. In M. Tanabe, P. van den Besselaar & T. Ishida (Eds.), (Vol. 2362, pp. 337-343): Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.