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Next Generation  Digital Learning Environment

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Next Generation  Digital Learning Environment

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In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EDUCAUSE explored the gaps between current learning management tools and a digital learning environment that could meet the changing needs of higher education. Consultations with more than 70 community thought leaders brought into relief the contours of a next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE). Its principal functional domains are interoperability; personalization; analytics, advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; and accessibility and universal design. Since no single application can deliver in all those domains, we recommend a “Lego” approach to realizing the NGDLE, where NGDLE-conforming components are built that allow individuals and institutions the opportunity to construct learning environments tailored to their requirements and goals.

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the next generation digital learning environment: a report on research

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The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: A Report on Research

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In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EDUCAUSE explored the gaps between current learning management tools and a digital learning e

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Competence frameworks: the European approach to teach and learn 21st century skills

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Competence frameworks: the European approach to teach and learn 21st century skills

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On 10 June 2016, the Commission adopted a new and comprehensive Skills Agenda for Europe. The aim is to ensure that people develop a broad set of skills from early on in life and for LLL.

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On 10 June 2016, the Commission adopted a new and comprehensive Skills Agenda for Europe. The aim is to ensure that people develop a broad set of skills from early on in life and to make the most of Europe's human capital, which will ultimately boost employability, competitiveness and growth in Europe. Critical thinking, entrepreneurship, problem solving or digital competences are just some of the competences enshrined by the New Skills Agenda. These skills emerge today as key to allow people to develop good-quality jobs and fulfil their potential as confident, active citizens. But how can these new skills and competences be described and acquired?
Skills and competence frameworks
Education and employment authorities as well as companies and citizens from EU Member States count today with specific tools to improve and streamline these skills. The JRC's Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship framework (EntreComp), describes and breaks down entrepreneurship as a transversal competence useful to all spheres of life: personal development, participating in society, entering the job market as employee or as self-employed, and also to starting up and growing (cultural, social or commercial) ventures.

Another JRC-developed framework, the Digital Competence framework (DigComp) allows confident, critical and creative use of ICT to achieve goals related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and participation in society. Thirteen EU Member States are already implementing this framework and new applications emerge daily, adjusted to specific contexts and purposes. EntreComp will now follow the same development, from a solid theoretical framework, to a collection of locally adjusted implementation cases from regional and national EU authorities.

Last but not least, the European Framework for Digitally-Competent Educational Organisations (DigCompOrg), recently released by the JRC, helps educational organisations self-assess the use and integration of digital technologies and resources in the learning process. A group of primary, secondary schools and vocational education and training centres from several EU member states will soon start a self-assessment using the DigCompOrg framework, which is now being translated by education authorities of seven European countries.

Opening up education
The JRC also supports, through research and analysis, policy-makers dealing with opening up education. As documented in several recent JRC studies, open education is becoming increasingly important in Europe but is also facing a number of challenges. The JRC is analysing which measures could influence quality, efficiency, equity and innovation, and will soon release an Open Education framework for higher education institutions. These frameworks follow a common methodology based in a strong collaboration between academics, educational experts and policy makers across regions and member states of the EU. This is facilitated by the collaboration between the JRC and the Directorates-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and for Education and Culture.

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Competence frameworks: the European approach to teach and learn 21st century skills

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On 10 June 2016, the Commission adopted a new and comprehensive Skills Agenda for Europe. The aim is to ensure that people develop a broad set of skills from early on in life and to make the most of Europe's human capital, which will ultimately boost employability, competitiveness and growth in Europe.

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What is Heutogogy (self determined learning)

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What is Heutogogy (self determined learning)

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About knowing how to learn will be a fundamental skill given the pace of innovation and the changing structure of communities and workplaces.

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Next Generation Digital Learning  Environment

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Next Generation Digital Learning  Environment

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An exciting path forward in achieving the NGDLE vision is a next generation learning system designed to create great learning experiences that improve learning outcomes.

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An exciting path forward in achieving the NGDLE vision is a next generation learning system designed to create great learning experiences that improve learning outcomes. This learning system will understand learning outcomes, learner assessment, the learner record, and how to launch the right learning moments for each student.

By now we're all far too familiar with the new realities of higher education. Educators everywhere are facing tight budgets, experiencing greater competition, and trying to accommodate increased demands for accountability. To top it off, learners themselves are demanding better learning experiences and environments. This is the new normal ¾ and part of the day-to-day lives of postsecondary educators.

Serving this changing population - under these demanding conditions - is challenging for teachers, administrators, and institutions. As educators look for ways to resolve these complex problems, many are turning to education technology (edtech) as one possible solution.

I say this as someone who owns an edtech company: a learning management system (LMS) is never the solution to every problem in education. Edtech is just one part of the whole learning ecosystem and student experience. However, it is an increasingly critical part of the landscape.

Therefore, the next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE), as envisioned by EDUCAUSE in 2015, ¹ serves an important purpose: to keep us talking about and better defining our "True North." The NGDLE points us toward the vision and the direction we're all hoping to realize: the improvement of our society through education.

Looking at the NGDLE requirements from an LMS perspective, I view the NGDLE as being about five areas: interoperability; personalization; analytics, advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; accessibility and universal design.

Interoperability

Content can easily be exchanged between systems.

Users are able to leverage the tools they love, including discipline-specific apps.

Learning data is available to trusted systems and people who need it.

The learning environment is "future proof" so that it can adapt and extend as the ecosystem evolves.

Personalization

The learning environment reflects individual preferences.

Departments, divisions, and institutions can be autonomous.

Instructors teach the way they want and are not constrained by the software design.

There are clear, individual learning paths.

Students have choice in activity, expression, and engagement.

Analytics, Advising, and Learning Assessment

Learning analytics helps to identify at-risk students, course progress, and adaptive learning pathways.

The learning environment enables integrated planning and assessment of student performance.

More data is made available, with greater context around the data.

The learning environment supports platform and data standards.

Collaboration

Individual spaces persist after courses and after graduation.

Learners are encouraged as creators and consumers.

Courses include public and private spaces.

Accessibility and Universal Design

Accessibility is part of the design of the learning experience.

The learning environment enables adaptive learning and supports different types of materials.

Learning design includes measurement rubrics and quality control.

While this is all very exciting and captures most of what will be necessary in a vision for moving education forward, I feel the NGDLE framework is still missing a few key elements.

From Lego to Central Nervous System

The core analogy used in the NGDLE paper is that each component of the learning environment is a Lego brick:

The days of the LMS as a "walled garden" app that does everything is over.

Today many kinds of amazing learning and collaboration tools (Lego bricks) should be accessible to educators.

We have standards that let these tools (including an LMS) talk to each other. That is, all bricks share some properties that let them fit together.

Students and teachers sign in once to this "ecosystem of bricks."

The bricks share results and data.

These bricks fit together; they can be interchanged and swapped at will, with confidence that the learning experience will continue uninterrupted.

While the Lego approach would be an amazing technical feat, the issues that stop most instructors from using even the intermediate capabilities of the "one-size-fits-all" LMS would be magnified with such a system. It's hard to imagine instructors both constructing a new mash-up environment and crafting improved learning activities. Any "next-gen" attempt to completely rework the pedagogical model and introduce a "mash-up of whatever" to fulfil this model would fall victim to the same criticisms levied at the LMS today: there is too little time and training to expect faculty to figure out the nuances of implementation on their own.

To find a more appropriate analogy, let's back up to some arguable requirements for a next-gen student experience. Because to paraphrase the NGDLE paper, learning isn't simple or complicated - it's complex. And this complexity is the reason the creators of systems like the LMS¾not the instructor¾need to intelligently orchestrate all these different "bricks" to serve the student. We cannot leave it to instructors to be LMS, content, and pedagogical experts. We need to give them a ready-made, but flexible, system.

The Lego metaphor works only if we're talking about "old school" Lego design - bricks of two, three, and four-post pieces that neatly fit together. Modern edtech is a lot more like the modern Lego. There are wheels and rocket launchers and belts and all kinds of amazing pieces that work well with each other, but only when they are configured properly. A user cannot simply stick together different pieces and assume they will work harmoniously in creating an environment through which each student can be successful.

An additional analogy can better describe the NGDLE: the LMS needs to be a central nervous system that connects the components (the bricks) in a unified learning ecosystem. And the NGDLE nervous system needs to understand, at a minimum, the learning outcomes, the learner assessment, the learner record, and how to launch the right learning moments.

What's Possible?

Once we have an LMS that understands learning, it could help instructors construct advanced learning pathways that connect the bricks to support improved learning experiences and outcomes. Just as in our personal lives we need a core system that is a flexible way to get things done and intelligently coordinate all our activities, the hub coordinates different systems, which talk to each other.

To accomplish these improved learning outcomes, we need to purposefully design learning experiences that are personalized to a student and are highly engaging - and the most natural place for this to occur is in the LMS. People will not, and cannot, do this alone. Technology is needed to make it feasible to do this at scale. As the NGDLE paper states: "Despite the high percentages of LMS adoption, relatively few instructors use its more advanced features - just 41% of faculty surveyed report using the LMS 'to promote interaction outside the classroom.'"

Viewed from a workflow coding perspective, it would go something like this:

IF [Student chooses "Project Option" as assignment1] THEN [Release assignment folder, and project instructions, schedule project draft review meeting]

IF [Student hasn't read content1 by Wednesday] THEN [Send reminder to student with links to content1]

Or more generally, the LMS would connect the Lego bricks, similar to how the workflow engine would draw its recipes:

These examples are very basic; what's important is that they are practical. Having an LMS working as a central nervous system in this manner encourages practices like mastery-based feedback, timely and personalized communication, student choice in expression and activity, authentic assessment, and self-regulation.

The process of articulating, supporting, nurturing, demonstrating, and evaluating learning outcomes is, of course, far more complex than a series of simple "If/Then" statements. But this is what the next generation LMS is good at: being a central nervous system - or learning hub - through which a variety of learning activities and tools are used. This is also where the LMS needs to go: bringing together and making sense of all the amazing innovations happening around it. This is much harder to do, perhaps even impossible, if all the pieces involved are just bricks without anything to orchestrate them or to weave them together into a meaningful, personal experience for achieving well-defined learning outcomes.

We Have to Get "IT-Less"

I travel the world talking to educators, data scientists, administrators ¾ and everyone in between. Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing: "If new tools didn't require so much IT time, data exports, and integration, we might actually have some time to help our faculty design an amazing student learning experience. But it's so complicated!"

I think it's up to the edtech community, particularly LMS vendors, to give IT and instructional support staff more time. They can do so by being better partners:

Making a commitment to build easy, flexible, and smart technology

Working with colleges and universities to remove barriers to adopting new tools in the ecosystem

Standardizing the vetting of accessibility compliance (the Strategic Nonvisual Access Partner Program from the National Federation of the Blind is a great start)

Advancing standards for data exchange while protecting individual privacy

Building integrated components that work with the institutions using them - learning quickly about what is and is not working well and applying those lessons to the next generation of interoperability standards

Letting people use the tools they love and providing more ways for nontechnical individuals (including students) to easily integrate new features into learning activities

Many of these recommendations have to do with how a vendor builds a relationship with customers, though others rely on the community of vendors organizing around standards and breaking down accessibility barriers.

Open standards have a long way to go before they can become the frame for the NGDLE vision, but they're getting closer every day. I have seen amazing work being done to further the vision of the NGDLE in the last two years. Two examples are the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) Content-Item Message and Caliper, both of which are starting to show their promise. They are critical to allowing us to move beyond a simple integration of apps and leaving the data behind, to the ability to launch a third-party tool and get the data, context, and results back. The ability to easily record and analyze the learner record and activities is very valuable from an instructional perspective.

Even with these pieces in place, we still need to think about the experience for the student. Consistency as the learner moves between apps and services must be preserved. But that's all very technical edtech work. The real excitement of the NGDLE is found in rethinking the experience through the lens of what humans need rather than what technology can do.

Humanizing the NGDLE: Universal Design for Learning

One of the key lessons I've learned in building edtech is that real results require three ingredients to be transformational: technology, pedagogy, and system change (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Ingredients for Transformation

Technologists are often very focused on the technology, but the reality is that the more deeply and closely we understand the pedagogy and the people in the institutions - students, faculty, instructional support staff, administrators - the better suited we are to actually making the tech work for them.

When designing products, most software companies today take a human-centered approach, with empathy for the user being central to developing design goals. With this in mind, the question of "what will the next generation learning management system look like?" may be the wrong question. We need to ask other questions as well. For example: "How will this next generation learning management system improve learning outcomes for all students?" Critical to this question is the use of "students," plural. There is not one mythical "average" student. Each student is different, unique, and capable of succeeding when given the right chance.

I applaud the discussion in the NGDLE paper about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This is a model that encourages us to design learning environments, content, and services that systematically remove the barriers to success for our students. It seeks to provide multiple ways for students to consume information, to express ideas, and to engage. It is how we purposefully design a learning experience to reach every learner - something we should all be striving to achieve.

The impact of the NGDLE paper is huge. I've personally seen it impact the development of next generation learning models, such as the Macy Foundation paper on the future of the Health Professional Education. The NGDLE framework is now a regular part of conversations with executives at various universities and colleges, and I've seen it used as the measure of fit in several LMS selections. More and more, institutions are turning to partners to help them transform and realize their vision for student achievement through technology.

As the president and chief executive officer of an edtech company known for its LMS, I believe that our contribution toward the NGDLE vision is a next generation learning system designed to create great learning experiences that improve learning outcomes. This learning system will understand learning outcomes, learner assessment, the learner record, and how to launch the right learning moments for each student. It will be based on UDL, with flexibility and actionable data embedded in its core workflows. It will support standards and interoperability. It will let faculty and students use the tools they love. This is an exciting path forward in achieving the NGDLE vision in a way that can be practically applied by today's instructors and used for the benefit of all learners.

Finally, we all need to continue to focus on building learning experiences that deliver real results: improving adoption, strengthening learning outcomes, increasing retention, lifting engagement, enhancing learner satisfaction, and making our time more productive.

Note

Malcolm Brown, Joanne Dehoney, and Nancy Millichap, The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: A Report on Research, an ELI white paper (April 2015).

John Baker (@JohnBakerD2L) is President and Chief Executive Officer of D2L.

© 2017 John Baker

EDUCAUSE Review 52, no. 4 (July/August 2017)

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updating the next generation digital learning environment for better student learning outcomes

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Updating the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment for Better Student Learning Outcomes

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An exciting path forward in achieving the NGDLE vision is a next generation learning system designed to create great learning experiences that improve learning outcomes. This learning system will understand learning outcomes, learner assessment, the learner record, and how to launch the right learning moments for each student.

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HegartyAttributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources

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HegartyAttributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources

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A very useful model, with 8 dimensions of openness

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Blended Learning State of the Nation (ICDE)

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Blended Learning State of the Nation (ICDE)

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This ICDE Insight Paper on blended learning, state of the nation, targets a broad audience, especially practitioners, policy makers and leaders. It provides awareness, inspiration, insights, and dialogues into blended learning and the current debates. The report explains that blended learning is based on a pedagogical approach rather than on technology.

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Quality Models in Open Online Learning around the Globe (ICDE)

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Quality Models in Open Online Learning around the Globe (ICDE)

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This first global overview of quality models, an ICDE supported study, is a must-read for any person concerned with quality in online, open and flexible higher education. It presents quality models in use around the globe and offers 11 recommendations for future work in the field.

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The Excellence label is based on the essential basic elements of accessibility, flexibility, interactiveness and personalisation.

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The instrument is based on the E-xcellence manual containing the benchmark statements, with the criteria and indicators. In the guide you can find the criteria and indicators. The structure of the instrument is identical to the sections in the guide and are organised into six sections.

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This framework offers a set of 38 criteria that teachers might consider when creating or judging the quality of OER. These criteria are grouped as follows:

T - Teaching and Learning Processes

I - Information and Material Content

P - Presentation, Product and Format

S - System Technical and Technology

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COL Community of Practice (CoP) Platform

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Is there a Quality Assurance Framework for OER?

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Yes, there is a quality assurance framework to support the development and use of OER, known as the TIPS Framework. This framework offers a set of 38 criteria that teachers might consider when creating or judging the quality of OER.

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Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions

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Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions

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This framework proposes a wide definition of the term ‘open education’, which accommodates different uses, in order to promote transparency and a holistic approach to practice. It goes beyond OER, MOOCs and open access to embrace 10 dimensions of open education.

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This report presents a support framework for higher education institutions (HEIs) to open up education. This framework proposes a wide definition of the term 'open education', which accommodates different uses, in order to promote transparency and a holistic approach to practice. It goes beyond OER, MOOCs and open access to embrace 10 dimensions of open education. The framework can be used as a tool by HEI staff to help them think through strategic decisions: pedagogical approaches, collaboration between individuals and institutions, recognition of non-formal learning and different ways of making content available. Contemporary open education is mostly enabled by ICTs and because of this, there is almost limitless potential for innovation and reach, which in turn contributes to the modernisation of higher education in Europe.

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Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions

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10.2791/293408 (online),10.2791/553783 (ePub) - This report presents a support framework for higher education institutions (HEIs) to open up education. This framework proposes a wide definition of the term 'open education', which accommodates different uses, in order to promote transparency and a holistic approach to practice.

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Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement. Its goal is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Join us!

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Open Education Week's goal is to raise awareness about free and open educational opportunities that exist for everyone, everywhere, right now.

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UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 26-30 March 2018

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UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 26-30 March 2018

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Mobile Learning Week is UNESCO’s flagship ICT in education conference. Mobile Learning Week 2018 is being organized in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for ICT.

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Mobile Learning Week is UNESCO's flagship ICT in education conference. Mobile Learning Week 2018 is being organized in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for ICT. The event will be held from 26 to 30 March at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

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The Open Education Global Conference is where the world meets to discuss how opening education helps us achieve universal access, equity, innovation and opportunity in education.

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OE Global 2018 will take place from 24-26 April 2018 in Delft, the Netherlands, hosted by the Open Education Consortium and Delft University of Technology. The theme of OE Global 2018 is Transforming Education through Open.

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EXPLORING THE MICRO, MESO AND MACRO

Navigating between dimensions in the digital learning landscape

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There has been an impressive response to the Call, showing high level compliance with the theme and concept. The relevance and diversity of submissions is reassuring for a conference rich in content and in networking opportunities.

As every year, we announce the Programme Committee members responsible for evaluating submissions and arranging the Conference Programme together.

The EDEN Secretariat is taking care of the registration for the Annual Conference. Registration is now open!

The registration fee includes access to all conference facilities, the electronic Conference Proceedings, the Welcome Cocktail, lunches and refreshments during the conference days.

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There has been an impressive response to the Call, showing high level compliance with the theme and concept. The relevance and diversity of submissions is reassuring for a conference rich in content and in networking opportunities. As every year, we announce the Programme Committee members responsible for evaluating submissions and arranging the Conference Programme together.

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The Framework for citizen in Europe (dig competence)

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DigComp 2.1 is a further development of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. Based on the reference conceptual model published in DigComp 2.0, we present now 8 proficiency levels and examples of use applied to the learning and employment field.

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DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use - EU Science Hub - European Commission

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10.2760/38842 (online),10.2760/836968 (print),10.2760/00963 (ePub) - DigComp 2.1 is a further development of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. Based on the reference conceptual model published in DigComp 2.0, we present now 8 proficiency levels and examples of use applied to the learning and employment field.