The Mysterious Future of Learning Environments

Lately, I’ve been following along with the JISC #codesign16 challenge. It’s been asking what the next generation of learning environments should do. They want to know whether current systems are meeting the needs of the education. It’s been really interesting.

I’ve been intending to write a blog about this for about a month but, as usual when I plan on writing a blog, I haven’t. So, rather than do a full blog, I thought I’d jot down some half formed thoughts. It might add something to the discussion. Of course, it might not.

Why did I want to get involved with this whole #codesign16 malarkey? It’s because I’m a product manager in the Learning Systems team at the Open University. I spend my days helping to decide what learning systems should do. I can say that the future of learning systems is something we think about a lot. By ‘we’ I mean me and the rest of the team. And by ‘rest of the team’ I include all our boffins in TEL Design and Learning Innovation as well. And we don’t just think about it. We talk about it. We draw pictures about it. We hold workshops and hackathons about it. We’ve even recorded a song about it. Actually that bit’s not true.

But, even with all of that we don’t yet have definitive answers. We can’t say for certain what a successful future learning environment will look like. Sure, we’re working on various things that our feedback suggests have potential. But there are still so many uncertainties.

And I guess that’s my first point. It’s really hard to decide what the learning systems of the future will do, as we don’t know what the future will be. Predictions are always going to be a bit pot luck (anyone have a Leicester, Brexit, Trump accumulator on at the bookies?). But here are a few thoughts from me. I need to emphasise the ‘from me’ bit as these are personal views. You’ll find plenty more views from other bods at the OU. I’ll leave it to them to make their own cases.

Is there anything that I’m reasonably confident about?

I’d say it was reasonably safe to predict that the next generation of (successful) learning environments will be scalable, secure, accessible, usable, efficient, reliable, responsive, well integrated and, above all, useful.

These are basic ‘must-be’ factors, just the same as they are now. Get these right and nobody says much or particularly notices. Get them wrong and there’s hell to pay with people screaming ‘not fit for purpose’ at any given opportunity.

Arrrrgggghhhhh……VLE!!!!!!

I expect these ‘must-be’ factors will still be broadly relevant in 2020–2030. Probably with some, as yet unknown, additions.

At a higher level successful learning environments will need to be desirable, technically feasible and economically viable. Being pedagogically sound won’t be enough on its own.

There needs to be a desire from users, be they learners, academics or support staff, to use the systems. They must benefit from its use in some way. It’s feeling a benefit that builds positive relationships between people and systems. Systems that don’t benefit the user become a chore to use, no matter how many ‘great’ features they have. This is the human aspect. What will benefit users and give them joy?

Systems need to be technically feasible. I know this is something of a truism, but it needs to be borne in mind. We all hear plenty of great ideas and concepts that are appealing and exciting at a high level. The question is, how can they be supported through a computerised system? How will you grow a feeling of community? How will you create a space for collaboration? Of course, these things can be done, but we need to be able to detail precisely how we hope to achieve them. At the end of the day a list of specific requirements needs to be handed over to a developer to code. Something like ePortfolios are an example. Loads of people like the idea. But trying to tie down a unified set of requirements from a range of stakeholders can be like herding cats. This is the technical aspect. What can we actually achieve with technology?

And then there’s the money. It’s a pain isn’t it? But it’s unavoidable. Systems need to be economically viable. Will your new cloud based, super AI, bird migration analyser that costs umpteen million pounds to set up and maintain actually deliver enough value to make it worthwhile? Or will it simply drain revenue for little benefit? This is the business aspect. How do we decide what tools and systems do we implement with limited funds?

So I’m confident the successful learning environments of the future will do the basics well. They will also be useful and affordable. Doesn’t seem like rocket science does it? But you’d be surprised how often some of these aspects aren’t considered right from the start when designing new systems. These are the systems that end up being unsuccessful.

What’s harder to predict?

Well, just about everything really.

What I can say is that the ‘benefit’ bit mentioned earlier is quite important really. It seems clear we, as a sector, haven’t yet nailed down how to use systems to best benefit our current educational models. We’re behind the curve. Will future learning environments satisfy today’s educational models? If they do then they will still be behind the curve.

The learning environments of the future must benefit tomorrow’s models of education, not today’s.

And that’s why determining what these learning environments look like is a tad tricky. Some things that influence education are going to change. But people don’t necessarily agree about what is going to change. Nor do they agree with how they will change and the impact this change will have.

What follows are my own thoughts on some things that might influence education in the future. I’m sure some will find some of what I say disagreeable. But I say it with the genuine belief these things are possible, even if they’re not desirable. I just think they’re worth adding into the conversation.

Steve’s thoughts on things that might happen and stuff…

So what might be different about future education models? What factors might influence them?

From a learner point of view…

It’s likely that many more people will be learning with providers who aren’t part of the traditional HE/FE sector. Partly due to greater availability and awareness. And partly due to changes in the work culture/environment. People will benefit from updating their skill sets more frequently. Genuine lifelong learning will become more common place. There will be a shift of focus from youth based set-piece learning. People might be taking short MOOCs for fun. They may be committing to paying and working for a boot camp or a nanodegree certification. Perhaps they’re just picking up some foreign vocabulary through Duolingo. Maybe they’re doing a form of learning we haven’t envisaged yet. Regardless, people will be experiencing varying forms of learning systems. Together these will form a learner’s personal learning environment.

In many cases these learning systems will be specialised to best deliver a particular form of learning. A successful system for teaching a foreign language will be quite different from a system aiming to teach someone Bayes’ theorem.

This will put learners at the centre of their own learning ecosystem. Institutions will orbit around them. This will be a real shift from a institution focused model to a student focused one. Having ways to integrate elements of a personal learning environments may prove useful. Systems that don’t play nicely in this respect may find themselves out of favour with learners.

Another aspect that may have an impact is the ‘Good enough beats great’ trend. Learning that is easy to access, affordable, efficient, on demand and ‘good enough’ could thrive. It could be a suitable alternative to traditional, but less accessible, ‘gold standard’ offerings. While systems may be specialised they need not be all singing, all dancing pedagogical wonders. The system and the experience need to be good enough to meet the learner’s needs. As long as they give the user what they need, and they haven’t put too many motivation sapping barriers in the way of the user then they could do well.

Systems must be designed to benefit the educational models of the future. So, more learners carrying out more learning on specialist systems. Systems that focus on ‘just good enough’ learning. Systems with an appropriate mechanism for integration. This could be a learner’s personal learning environment in the future.

From a provider point of view…

The digital advance has already had an impact on traditional economic models. Business models based on scarcity of supply have been hit. Where products can be delivered in digital form the digital economy allows for an almost infinite level of production at a minimal marginal cost.

Bricks and mortar establishments who choose to go digital can expand their geographical reach. They no longer have their capacity limited by the physical size of their estate. The Open University was for many years the only major player in UK distance learning. It now faces a future of battling competitors for every student. And while competition might increase, the rewards are going to get bigger. The number of learners a particular provider can serve increases massively if they move into online provision. Many providers, new and old, will move into this arena. Innovation in learning systems may be one way providers look to differentiate themselves in this new era of competition.

Increased competition could deal a blow to levels of collaboration between traditional providers. New collaborations could be formed between learning providers and non-traditional partners. Could these new collaborations form the basis for new concepts in accreditation? In tech will a Udacity nanodegree, with its close support and involvement to the major technology firms, become accepted. Will design firms recognise certificates from IDEOU?

Will these new providers come to monopolise particular segments of learning? Could Udacity come to dominate computer science? How would traditional institutions react to such a scenario? Would they look to compete? Or would they decide to remain a localised face to face provider — a potentially shrinking market?

Their choice of strategy will influence decisions around their future learning systems.

What aspects will providers have to consider when deciding on a learning system? One will be the range of subjects they want to support. Learning systems become complicated when many, vastly differing, areas of study have to be supported. You may find yourself working to confirm that umlauts appear correctly in all tools, making sure free form text responses are autonomously assessed appropriately, ensuring the underlying system architecture allows split second precision in adjusting row upon row of physical scientific equipment which are being accessed by remote learners through an online interface in your science labs, whist also making adjustments to enable your online design studio to be responsive across a wide range of devices. And that’s just a typical Wednesday. Giving this sort of support is certainly possible. But it needs a solid team behind it and it does lead to a complex system. And complex systems have a habit of failing from time to time.

Specialist systems, focusing on one particular area should be more robust where more limited resources are available. They also allow for greater focus for enhancements. This could prove beneficial in achieving a successful learning system.

Will we see some traditional HE institutions rationalise their course provision? Will we see some institutions banding together to pool development resources whilst splitting subject area specialisms between them?

With an increase in life long learning there will be a greater focus on gaining repeat learners. How will systems best provide for that? How can they support a feeling of continuity and commitment?

We’ll see growth in the lifelong digital learning market. The impact of this, both positive and negative, may force traditional institutions to decide what levels of learning to provide, and in which subject areas. These decisions will influence the nature of the learning systems the institutions will need to put in place. Specialist learning systems will offer advantages for those willing to focus on specific areas of learning.

What about the technology itself?

Huge things are happening in technology. How will this impact decisions around learning systems?

The biggest technical unknown from my point of view is the impact AI will have on the future. Its impact is likely to be massive. Its impact is likely to happen soon. How that impact pans out between the positive and the negative remains to be seen.

How will it change learning? How will it change what people want to learn? How will it change why people want to learn?

As an example, its more than likely that soon we will have chatbots that are competent enough to carry out full conversations in a foreign language. That’s great supporting learners who want to practice their conversational skills. But what is the impact, if machines can carry out near perfect translations? Will demand for courses that teach languages decrease? What about those people whose jobs are currently based around translation? Will they look to education to allow them to change careers? That’s just one example. What about those people whose jobs are related to driving? What happens when self driving cars and trucks arrive?

How will learning providers support these people effectively?

Or will it not go that far? Perhaps the ‘robots’ will be performance enhancing, rather than human replacing. Will there be greater demand from people wanting to learn how to effectively work with AI?

Again, that’s the big issue. We just don’t know yet. How do learning providers prepare for uncertainty? The best thing they can do is to ensure they can adapt quickly to emerging scenarios. Be able to adapt offerings and systems in response to the changing environment.

And we haven’t even mentioned things like interfaceless systems, wearables, the internet of things etc etc.

Learning systems and institutions will need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be able to harness the best of technology. They need to be able to react to the impact technology has on society.

Perhaps the flexibility and adaptability comes from using a range of third party tools that integrate well. Academics and students may already have their own preferred tools that they’d like to use. Why not let them use these where we can? Have a ‘bring your own app’ policy where appropriate? It could certainly be useful to students if they could use their favourite tools with all off their learning providers.

The alternative, implementing an institutional version of a popular tool might prove to be an unpopular and costly error. Social media is a case in point. An institution specific set up has some obvious potential benefits. However, students who already in use social media often have preferred existing platforms. Students will have already committed time to building up their networks. It can be a tough sell to get them to use an additional, similar tool. And if spontaneous peer support groups form on these existing platforms, like Facebook, is that not enough? Yes, institutions lose some control and insight, but this is about the learner. Additionally, the third party providers will be focused purely on their tool. They will have far more resource to keep their platforms performing well in the changing technical environment.

And then there’s data. We will be living in a world where big data and machine learning is ubiquitous. Those organisations who hold their own large data sets (of both qualitative and quantitative data) will have an advantage. They will learn what works, and what doesn’t more quickly than those that don’t. They will be able to enhance their systems to improve the students’ experience far more effectively . But that’s a whole other conversation.

Learners will be more likely to have relationships with several providers in the future. It makes sense to allow students to use their own preferred third party tools where possible. Learning environments can be an amalgam of multiple tools or content platforms. Only some of which will be specific to a single institution. Data has the potential to make a big difference.

Summary

I’m tired and I’ve barely said half of what I’d like to say. I’ve gone on far too long with just some rough thoughts. Sorry about that. But if you’ve got this far I guess this is the summary.

• The successful learning systems of the future will be designed from the outset to do the basics well.
• They will be desirable, technically feasible and economically viable.
• They will be developed to benefit the educational models of the future, not the models of today.
• Technology will not just be a tool, it will be the cause of societal change that education must adapt to.
• There will be a growth of real, life long learning — more learners, learning more frequently.
• There will be more ‘just good enough’ specialist provision.
• Integration is key in a learner’s personal learning environment.
• Providers will have to make tough decisions on their range of provision and how they will support it technically.
• AI will be massive.
• Greater use of third party tools — ‘bring your own app’.
• Flexible systems and adaptable organisations will be the best way to cope with the uncertainty and change of the future.
• Need to focus on building the systems people need. Not the systems academics would ideally want. There will be a lot of crossover between the two. But learners need to be the focus.

Basically, good luck JISC — you’ll need it!

Right, I’m done. Thanks for reading.