A New Year of #EDENchat

As the new year begins, I want to draw your attention to the new season of #EDENchat Twitter sessions we have planned.

In each one hour session, we discuss a topic related to technology supported learning, distance education or innovative approaches to education.

The chats cover all sectors of education and the discussion is global, drawing participants from all corners of the world.

Each #EDENchat is moderated and the archives are made available as Storified content on the EDEN website. All sessions are between 8-9pm (GMT) on the dates shown.

13 January: Openness in research. Moderated by Antonella Poce
27 January: Free content, free education? Moderated by Steve Wheeler
10 February: Critical thinking and technology. Moderated by Antonella Poce
24 February: Rhizomatic learning. Moderated by Steve Wheeler
9 March: Open Education Consortium Special - How open can we be? Moderator TBC
23 March: Emerging learning environments - what do we need to know? Moderator TBC
6 April: Theme and moderator TBC
20 April: Theme and moderator TBC
14 June: EDEN Conference Special - Live from Budapest
16 June: EDEN Conference Special - reflecting on the keynote speeches


More dates will also be announced in the future. Please consider joining us in this new year for some lively and thought provoking chats.

Photo by Chiltepinster on Wikimedia Commons


A New Year of #EDENchats by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New learning environments

Our final #EDENchat of 2015 focused on new learning environments, namely MOOCs, flipped classrooms and blended learning methods. It was one of the busiest we have seen, and the archive of the conversation can be viewed here. Those who participated shared their experiences of MOOCs and flipped learning both as teachers and as learners. One of the key discussion points was around the nature of these approaches and their effectiveness as learning environments. Some debated the merits of MOOCs, high attrition rates and the legitimacy of participating without completing a course. An inevitable comparison was made between the earlier cMOOCs (which were largely connectivist and student centred in their ethos) and the later xMOOCs (which are more commercially oriented and arguably less student centred). The merits and limitations of these are debated in finer detail here.

Other issues were raised around student motivation and the impetus required to sustain focus when away from tutors/parent institution. There were calls to provide students with incentive to persist in their studies through enhanced forms of interaction (with content, other students and teachers) and more authentic learning and assessment activities. Some raised the issue of lurking and peripheral participation, but the point was also made that wherever there are open and free events, we will find those who lurk in the background.

The final question asked whether new learning environments such as MOOCs, flipped classes and blended learning represented a new or emerging pedagogy. Opinion was divided on this, but what do you think? You views are welcome in the comments box below.

Generally the Twitter timeline was fast moving and thought provoking. We plan to continue to momentum of this chat series and have already started putting together a programme of #EDENchat sessions for 2016. The dates and topics will be announced on this blog and on the EDEN website soon.

Photo by Mark Brannan on Flickr

NB: #EDENchat is supported by the European Distance and E-learning Network


New learning environments by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Distance Education in transit? #EDENchat #EDENchatUS

What will distance education look like in the future?

Distance education has been with us for a long time. Some would argue that the first instance of distance education occurred in the first century, when Saul of Tarsus, otherwise known as the Apostle Paul, sent letters of instruction (epistles) by courier to the fledgling Christian church scattered across Asia Minor and Southern Europe. More formally, distance education has existed since the early, primitive but quite effective correspondence courses of Sir Isaac Pitman, who used the developing technology of the time, the uniform penny postal service to support his endeavours. This was in 1840, and correspondence courses became the dominant form of distance education for several decades. The subsequent introduction of new technologies such as the telephone, radio and television, and satellite telecommunication ensured that distance education became more accessible to many around the globe. The advent of the Web, along with wider access to computers, smartphones and other personal technologies, has transformed distance education to the point that anyone can now access free learning through MOOCs and other online forms of content delivery.

What will be the future of distance education? Will it be subsumed into online learning, blended learning or e-learning, or will it survive as a separate discipline? What new skills and knowledge do distance educators require today in the contexts of unprecedented technology development? What does it take to be a distance educator, and how does this differ from conventional (or contiguous) educators?  Can conventional pedagogy be adapted to distance education, or is a complete transformation of pedagogy required for learning at a distance to be successful? All these and other allied questions will be discussed when #EDENChat joins forces with the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) for a one hour special online Twitter chat on Wednesday 11th November, at 20.00 GMT (21.00 CET/15.00 ET) where we will also use the hashtag #EDENchatUS.

Please join us on Twitter to discuss the future of distance education. All previous #EDENchat transcripts can be found on the EDEN Website here.

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr


Distance Education in transit? #EDENchat #EDENchatUS by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#EDENchat How effective is mobile learning?

Mobile communication has become increasingly popular for a number of reasons. The cost of smart phones is falling, and we enjoy increased functionality. The advent of social media has further advanced this evolution at a pace. Hence, mobile learning is now becoming a key part of educational strategy. And yet it is still largely an unknown strategy for many educators.

In the #EDENchat on 22nd April we focused on issues surrounding mobile learning. In #EDENchats we critically evaluate what we know so far and share our experiences globally and this chat was no exception. There were several key conversations, around usability, around technological or social trends, around the nature of ubiquity, and of course there was some useful discussion around the perennial question about pedagogy and the impact of technology on learning.

The archive of the discussion on Storify can be found at this link. The transcripts of previous #EDENchats can also be found on the main EDEN site as Storified archives.

Photo by Johan Larsson on Wikimedia Commons


#EDENchat How effective is mobile learning? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#EDENChat What does openness mean to you?

A few weeks ago I featured an interview with Professor Martin Weller of the Open University. Martin will be keynoting the 20th Anniversary EDEN Conference in Barcelona in June, and is a passionate supporter of openness in education. It is therefore fitting that tonight's relaunch of the Twitter #EDENChat series should focus on the topic of openness in education.

I first heard of the idea of open education when I was working in the National Health Service. The year was 1993. A working group was set up in the School of Nursing where I worked, and I was invited to join the group. We investigated a number of ways in which we could open up education for our nursing students. My own particular research interest at the time was to use audio and video conferencing technology (videoconferencing was very new at the time) as a means of connecting together our remote study centres so that all students could access the same content and hear the same visiting lecturers without missing out on the experience. This was a way of opening up content and also opening up opportunities for wider participation. It worked quite well, and we eventually, with the aid of Plymouth University, were able to access satellite technology to broadcast some of our seminars across the region. Audio and text connections back into the TV studio enabled interactions between the speakers and the remote sites. It eventually became the basis of a £5 million European funded research project RATIO where we set up over 40 open access learning centres across the South West rural areas.

Open education has grown and matured beyond those early days of experimentation into a spectrum of learning experiences, and we now talk about open scholarship, open content and even massive open online courses (MOOCs). But what does openness in education mean to you? Is it a threat or an opportunity? How can we be truly open in today's educational systems and ecologies? Is it possible to be an open scholar and still maintain ownership of your ideas? Or is openness really all about giving everything away because there are people out there who will really benefit from it?

The latest #EDENChat took place on Twitter just after this post was published. The archive of the entire discussion, along with the records of 10 other #EDENChat conversations, can be found at the foot of the NAP EDEN site.

Photo by Marcel Oosterwijk on Flickr


What does openness mean to you? by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#EDENChat returns

Last year, as the newly elected chair of EDEN's Network of Academics and Professionals, I launched a new Twitter chat called #EDENChat. It ran for ten sessions lasting an hour each, over a period of several months, and we discussed a wide range of subjects such as the future of distance education, embedding technology into education and digital literacies. The sessions were moderated my NAP committee members, and were open for anyone to participate and engage in discussion. An archive of all ten previous #EDENChats has been created on Storify and can be found here.

It's our wish to continue this dialogue and develop #EDENChat, so as of tomorrow, it will return, and in the run up to the EDEN summer conference Expanding Learning Scenarios (our 20th Anniversary, in Barcelona), we will discuss some of the themes of the event, culminating in several live chats direct from the conference itself. Watch this space for further announcements about those, but for now, here's the schedule:

April 8: Openness in education: What does it mean to you? (20.00 CET)
April 22: What is the impact of mobile learning? (20.00 CET)
May 6: MOOCs and online learning: How will they shape the future of education? (20.00 CET)
May 20: What are your experiences of personal learning? (20.00 CET)
June 10: Live from the EDEN Barcelona Conference (various times to be announced)
June 11: Live from the EDEN Barcelona Conference (various times to be announced)
June 17: What next for EDEN? (Post conference discussion) (20.00 CET)

All times are in Central European time (one hour ahead of British Summer Time BST). Other dates will be announced for the remainder of 2015 in due course.

Please join us for an hour of informal discussion on the above topics, and do share this news with anyone you think might be interested! We look forward to hearing your views on #EDENChat!

Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr


#EDENChat returns by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.