Systemic Change Management in Education

Before we adapt e-learning in our education system, one must analyze the systemic change process of the transition from the traditional face-to-face teaching to interactive learner-based e-learning.

In order to develop supportive education systems, all stakeholders must feel that they have some sort of ownership of the shared new education system, so that everyone feels part of this new vision. In order to do this, everyone must achieve this vision and be able to initiate the change the members’ desire. Decisions about the changing beliefs and values about schools and the new system are now to be taking as a group in a wider interconnected global society. Systemic change considers the impact of change on the whole system of both the personal psychological learning (inner) and the social psychological learning (outer). Thus reconnecting the stakeholders and the educational systems involved, system design becomes creative and generative learning process for everyone involved in the process.

In 1977, Ross (as cited in Menchaca, Bischoff, & Dara-Abrams, n.d.) demonstrated a structure for models with inputs going into the central activity box, constraints coming down into the central activity box, and the output coming out of the central activity box. The central activity is the e-learning event, while taking as input the stakeholders as change agents of the e-learning process i.e. administrative management, strategic plans, technology, organizational infrastructure, professional development. In the systemic change in schools; students and staff will also be included as inputs.

The constraints that may limit the process are economic issues, leadership of the system, monitoring of the system etc. Finally, this whole part will form the outputs such as successful students, collaborative work between staff and students etc. This whole process is cyclic i.e. the outputs will be the inputs for the next e-learning cycle.

References:
Menchaca, M., Bischoff, M., & Dara Abrams, B. (n.d.). A Model for Systemic Change Management in Education. Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2(1), 1-6.

Being alert of copyright issues in an on-line environment

E-learning is nowadays found in various areas of education, where learning materials can be put online so staff and students can have some online learning environment experience. Teachers use library resources that they find useful for teaching in an online environment. Teachers are not doing anything more than they would in the traditional form of teaching where they hand students lesson notes and activity sheets, but this time they are doing so in an ‘innovative learning environment’. The difference is that they are having a ‘content repository on-line’ where they upload presentations, video files, music files, readings etc. into a VLE; thus lacking the interactive environment element where students contribute also to such content and not just access this content.

Unfortunately, teachers may not be aware of the licensing that school libraries have for e-journals and e-books and they would upload full text materials that are copyrighted. They apt to upload and give direct links of many on-line subscribed resource to students to enhance the learning material, without realizing that these lead to copyright issues. They might argue that by giving students the chance to download material, scanned copies from copies from books; they are aiding students in their studies. But this would infringe others’ copyright.

It is likely to be much more difficult for students to understand that some resources cannot be made available to them freely just so easy. Thus, I think that teachers must inform and make students aware of such copyright issues, not just in the traditional mode of teaching or in an on-line environment as discussed above; but also in everyday life where lots of them download gigs of movies and mp3s. We must alert them!!

References:
Secker, J. (2010). E-learning and copyright: background. In Copyright and E-learning- A guide for practitioners (Chapter 1). Retrieved from http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/downloads/file/secker1.pdf

Educational Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-learning

The semantic web intends to facilitate web-based content to be understandable and reusable by human and machines. Ontologies is a major component of the semantic web where categorization of a shared conceptualization of a specific domain is represented. Formal taxonomies and rules are likely to play a major role in enabling the shared and re-usable learning content. It is predicted that the Semantic Web and ontologies will have a big influence on the next phases of e-learning!

Devedzic (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004), claims that the key advantages of integrating Web Intelligence in Artificial Intelligence in Education are improved adaptation, better learning reassurance by providing the learner the most up-to-date web content, and course sequencing.

Aroyo and Dicheva in their paper “The New Challenges for E-learning: The Educational Semantic Web” (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004)suggest a framework for Educational Semantic Web – a modular semantic-driven and service-based interoperability framework plus ontology driven tools. All this for a user friendly, ordered, and automated authoring web-based educational systems. Indeed, to offer a balance between making use of explicit semantic information and exchanging educational information and also to keep up the information semantics.

Henze, Dolog & Nejdl in the paper “Reasoning and Ontologies for Personalized E-Learning in the Semantic web” (as cited in Laytras, Wagner & Diaz, 2004), also suggest a framework for personalized learning content and show how the semantic web can facilitate automatic generation of hypermedia structures.
As you can see various researchers have showed that the semantic web and ontology-based tools can facilitate education for our students; catering for all the abilities we find in today’s classrooms, since everyone have make use of the personalized learning content on the web.

References:
Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004). Ontologies and the Semantic Web for E-learning. Educational Technology & Society, 7(4), 26-28. Retrieved January 12, 2011 from http://alexandria.tue.nl/openaccess/Metis172208.pdf

What is the idea of the Semantic web?

 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW).  Consecutively in 1994, he created the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  Later on, Berners Lee also took part in the invention of the famous Semantic Web.  WWW provides information that can only be understood by human beings while being meaningless to machines.  In contrast, the Semantic web consists of languages that are used to provide information that is machine readable, therefore provides information that the machine understands. 

The main purpose of Semantic Web is to supply ‘machine-understandable information’ [1]. The semantic web embraces computer machines rather than users (human beings) only.   WWW is used by human beings to manipulate information through searching and retrieving; users easily understand web pages since it uses people’s language.  In addition, the semantic web also provides web pages that are easily comprehended by computer machines.  Therefore computer machines would also be able to search and retrieve information as human beings do.  The fact that the information on the web is also understood by machines implies that machines can do more work for the users.  According to Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004), “The Semantic Web is the emerging landscape of new web technologies aiming at web-based information and services that would be understandable and reusable by both humans and machines.” (Sampson et al, 2004, p26). 

Reference:

 [1] http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Semantic.html

[2] http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2007/Semantic_Web.asp

[3] Sampson, D. G., Lytras, M. D., Wagner, G., & Diaz, P. (2004). Ontologies and the Semantic Web for E-learning. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (4), 26-28.

Copyright in Malta

The mentality of nowadays youngsters is to simply use the web and copy any information which is appealing enough to them. The degree of reliability and the quality of the concerned information are put aside. Moreover, the issue of copyright is ignored and not addressed adequately. I recall my own schooling days where no one made me aware of the importance to credit other author's work. Little did I know that when I made use of an image without the author's acknowledgment, I was infringing the copyright law.

I noticed that there is a certain trend in youngsters to download and copy music, software or games without paying. This is also a type of illegal activity. Unfortunately, this issue in Malta is not being taken seriously to the extend that youngsters have now adopted the idea of making use of any information found on the web without asking for permission to the rightful owner. It is very interesting to mention that in Germany, anybody who downloads films for commercial use could be jailed for up to five years. The copyright issue seems to be an ongoing battle for Google in Germany. Germans have a number of cases suing Google for not preventing illegal content from being uploaded to certain sites like You Tube.

In contrast to this, the Prime Minister David Cameron is of the opinion that copyright laws should be adjusted so as to cater for the new era of the internet. Cameron states that the United States make use of a ‘fair use’ which "…some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services”. Thus the UK prime minister decided to keep the costs of obtaining permission from rights holders to a minimum.

Back to Malta and the current situation in schools, I think that more awareness is needed on this issue of copyright infringes. It would be ideal to maybe organize a seminar where the students are given the chance to discuss copyright in general and how does it effect e-learning. We should make sure that students are aware that it is the expression on one's idea which is copyrighted and not the idea in itself. It could also be interesting if during such seminar, students will have the chance to make use of a Web 3.0 personalized learning environment. One can then explain to them that in order to achieve such PLE, resources have to be shared. Sharing an educational resource is not copying, on the other hand if one respects the author and make good use of the resource, then the benefits of PLE are being achieved.

I personally believe that this issue is still not being emphasized enough in Malta especially in the primary and secondary schooling years. I agree a lot with one of my colleagues Sarah in her blog “E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR ” that indeed it is up to us as future teachers to make sure that we start making our students aware of this issue as from a tender age.

References:

Lawton, C. (2010, September 7). German court rules against Google in copyright case. The Wall Street Journal, Technology news and insights. Accessed from http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/07/german-court-rules-against-google-in-copyright-case/

Boyes, R. (2006, March 24). Two years in prison for downloading latest film. The Times. Accessed from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article694986.ece

BBC News. (2010, November 4). UK copyright laws to be reviewed, announces Cameron. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416

Assistive Technologies and Adaptive Strategies

I have come across a very interesting paper regarding how people with disabilities use the web - http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-Use-Web/.  It tackles important issues such as different types of disabilities, assistive technologies and adaptive strategies and illustrates various scenarios of impaired users utilizing the web.  People with disability have the same right to access the Web as people with no disability do.  In order to facilitate these people’s lives, WAI provides standards and guidelines for easier web access.  Moreover, people with disability to simply access the web, need various types of assistive technologies and adaptive strategies. 

One may assume that only special software is required for people with disability to use the computer and the web, but special and adequate devices are essential!  Assistive technologies and adaptive strategies are needed to help the user with a particular impairment to use the computer and the web easily without any difficulty.  People who can not use the ordinary keyboard due to physical impairment requires special keyboards such as on-screen and eye-gaze keyboards.  Speech recognition would also be necessary for people with physical disability.  Blind people require Braille devices such as Braille keyboard and monitors.  Furthermore screen readers would also facilitate his/her computer/web access.  On the other hand, people with vision impairment would need screen magnifiers for better viewing.  A variety of both adaptive software and hardware is available nowadays catering for the needs of people with disability.  Furthermore there are also alternative browsers such as text and voice browsers since some users would not be able to use the GUI browsers.

In my opinion, it is really fascinating how things have evolved throughout the years and how much improvement has been done so far to include all people with different kind of disabilities, thus being inclusive!  

IPRs and Copyright in E-Learning

Not long ago, IPRs of e-learning were considered ambiguous due to the “lack of knowledge and expertise about IPRs and how to manage them” (Casey. J, 2004, p3).  Consciousness related to IPRs has increased due to their vital role in all sectors.  Nowadays, there is such urged for the protection of the contents of e-learning and for the further improvement in the e-learning system itself.  Content created in e-learning involves a lot of work and effort by developers thus its’ respective IPR must be appreciated by others.  Developers of these e-learning resources should clearly establish who can access and utilize them through their particular IPR information. 

I came across a very good definition of IPR. which is “the legal protection available in relation to certain property that is intangible which can be created by individuals.” (Casey. J, 2004, p4)  IPR is directed by other laws and rights such as Copyright which involves “the right to grant or withhold the right to others to make copies of the work.” (Casey. J, 2004, p6).  There are various interesting copyright features which one would not consider such as that:

·        Copyright protects the originality and skill of the particular work. 

·        Once the intellectual content is produced, the developer can instantly apply the copyright law on his/her work. 

·        If the intellectual work is produced by more than one individual, each of them would be the author. 

However, ideas and concepts are not protected by copyright law; they can be utilized without the permission of the inventor.  Regarding employment and work of place, if the intellectual work is created on the work premises and during work time, the employer owns that particular work.

Some teachers and educators create various resources and intellectual work such as notes, Power Point presentations which they do not share with nobody else!  Incorporating these resources in an online learning environment such as e-learning, “these resources are already subject to IPR law, but storing and sharing them in this new and very public manner makes it important to ensure that these resources comply with IPR law and can be protected by it.” (Casey. J, 2004, p4)

Because of IPR, teachers may be more motivated to share their resources if they know that their resources will be protected with IPR law and will not be re-produced but only re-used with permission.

Reference:

Casey. J (2004). Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Networked e-Learning. A Beginners Guide for Content Developers.  JISClegal information. Retrieved 6-1-11 from http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Portals/12/Documents/PDFs/johncasey.pdf