| OER11 Further Reading: OLI and Knowledge Forum: Integrating pedagogies and technologies that support individual learning and group knowledge building |
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How do we blend pedagogy and technology designed to support individual learners with those intended to foster knowledge building communities? Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative (OLI) and the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) at the University of Toronto shared their work on this question at OER 11 in Manchester, UK last week. OLI and IKIT are layering OLI courses with an open discourse environment, Knowledge Forum, to encourage collaborative knowledge building. Knowledge building calls for community discourse to advance knowledge on shared problems of understanding. With Knowledge Forum, learners interact within a shared social space using tools designed to help structure and organize their ideas. The OER11 presentation demonstrated the combined OLI/KF environment and discussed the research questions being exploring such as if learning is enhanced for a few students, do their contributions to the collaborative space enhance the work of the group; how can we assess growth and spread of ideas; can we keep ideas alive and improving in a worldwide open community? Learners in the blended OLI/KF environment will be encouraged to raise questions, share ideas, and engage in collaborative problem solving as they progress through the OLI course. They will use the OLI course as an authoritative source in the shared discourse and observe how ideas in the discourse connect to instruction in the OLI materials. Learners will collaborate in virtual cohort groups to modify and extend each other’s ideas, creating public knowledge thereby transforming and extending the OER and building a community of support. |