CRAM - Unpacking the Model with #DEANZ

This afternoon i joined a Google Hangout session with Bill Anderson from DEANZ. Today's informal hangout was to provide an opportunity for DEANZ members to connect and 'talk or ask questions about any of the newsletter items such as the CRAM model; Creative Commons Clinics; the National Digital Forum; the Blended Synchronous Learning Handbook... or any of the latest items about DEANZ.'

It was great to have an opportunity to meet with other like minded professionals and talk about not just whats new in flexible and online learning but how this reflects in our experience within our own institutions and teaching practice.

Bill unpacked the theory behind CRAM (Course Resource Appraisal Model), showcasing it as a tool that can help provide a framework for us to analyse the design and quality of our online courses. He advocates for it to be used as a reflective tool for inquiring into the quality of our teaching and not as a tool for institutional efficiency. From the newsletter:

'CRAM is an acronym for Course Resource Appraisal Model. Doesn't exactly sound 'sexy' does it?
Yet, CRAM is a little online tool that I think is really interesting, and well worth a look. It attempts to support tertiary teachers (and maybe others) who want an answer to the question
“Can we improve the quality of students’ learning experience without increasing staff
workload, even for greater student numbers?” and I think does a pretty good job helping them There is a caveat. To use the tool effectively (even to consider using it at all) you have to be familiar with Diana Laurillard's work on learning and technology – especially her most recent work “Teaching as a Design Science”, although a quicker read is the article “Making meaningful decisions about time, workload and pedagogy in the digital age: the Course Resource Appraisal Model” published in Distance Education here (Caution: You'll need library access or else be prepared to pay!)'

There were lots of good ideas to follow up on around learning design of online courses and support for teacher professional development. In following up on Diana's work in learning design, I found myself at this website http://learningdesigner.org/  an early release version of an online tool for learning design. For the learning designers out there - do you have a particular model or framework that you use and/or specific tools that help you pull it all together. Please share, i would be interested to know.

Call to action for Governments & Policymakers - support Open, Online & Flexible Learning.

"Access to, and success in, open, online and flexible learning are key solutions to the pressing development challenges and needs of 21st century societies, emphasizes the November 2014 Bali message by ICDE’s higher education leaders.

Recommendations from a recent summit in Bali called on ICDE and UNESCO to continue their efforts to support and encourage governments to:

• Create favorable frameworks for opening up education – making education at all levels available to all through open, online, flexible, blended and distance education.
• Stimulate the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) – publicly funded educational resources licensed to make materials needed for learners freely available to all.
• Enable learner mobility through the development of transnational qualification frameworks, which make the recognition and transfer of qualifications, course credits and learning within and between jurisdictions part of the fabric of an open, global education system.
• Encourage the adoption of quality standards, guidelines and benchmarks for open, online and distance learning to be mainstreamed into quality frameworks and protocols.
• Foster innovation in the form of new approaches to the assessment of learning outcomes, prior learning and work-based learning; new approaches to instruction, which both increase learner engagement and learning outcomes; and new ways of collaborating and connecting to learners and higher rates of student success.
• Invest in research focused on best practices in the design, development, deployment and delivery of open, online, distance and flexible education; the use of open educational resources; the mobility of learners; new business models for the operation of educational institutions; and new models of public assurance and accountability."

Some key messages for our government here - not just for higher education but for the schooling sector too. These recommendations are not about bandwidth, networks or infrastructure but about building capacity in people, systems and open resources. 

More detail from the Bali UNESCO Policy Forum here.

Eyes on the Horizon, Feet on the Ground

As all of my work is exclusively in the virtual and online education world, it has been a welcome change in the last couple of weeks to have the opportunity to meet with teachers and get my feet on the ground in schools. It's exciting to be working on the edges of educational change but it's so important to keep it real too! Here's my first update:

EBOP Connected Teachers

Thanks to Edgecumbe Primary for hosting, @jeanettem1 for organising and leading this initiative and  @mrs_hyde for supporting this first event. This builds on from other Connected teachers groups in Rotorua, Taupo & more recently Napier. DIY PLD, the knowledge is in the room! Good to be around classroom teachers, hearing what is important and happening in their schools and getting to know people in the Eastern Bay. Looking forward to another hui at the end of the month in my town Matata.

Ngatea Primary School

Image attribution:http://karlas-learning.blogspot.co.nz/

I have been following @Neil_NPS 'Principal of Ngatea Primary School where we challenge and re-define our learning environment.' and had been keen to stop in and see what was happening at this school, so just to be nosy i invited myself for a school visit on my way up to Auckland. Thanks @hull_karla for showing me around and sharing your school's learning journey with me. Lots of great things happening with student centred personalised learning, flexible timetables, collaborative teaching, open learning spaces, 1:1 chromebooks. Most of my questions were around logistical things like how to support learning in flexible time & space; now I'm keen to go back and find our more about about the learning than the organisation. Has any research been done yet in our MLE schools? Would be interested to see.
Check out this short virtual tour: