Developing Practice Based Arts Massive Open Online Learning Communities

UAL Learning & Teaching Day 2014, Chelsea College of Arts

Chris Follows | DIAL Project Manager, Digital Integration into arts Learning (DIAL) At CLTAD and Technical Coordinator for Digital L&T at Chelsea •  - 10 Years at UAL, for past 4 years working on projects •  - The agile development of process.arts.ac.uk (Grassroots development) since 2006 •  - A year long Open University SCORE Fellowship (Explore the use and reuse of OER) •  - The Arts Learning and Teaching projects ALTO & ALTO UK (JISC funded project to create a

OER repository) •  - Digital Integration into Arts Learning (DIAL) project

•  What does all this mean in terms of my practice professional practice?

http://process.arts.ac.uk/

David White Visitors & Residents Principle David presenting at Visitors and Residents JISC NETSHILLS workshop 14/01/14

Visitors and Residents and Practice

For Arts U

AL

My Visitors and R

esidents Map

How/Should staff and students participate in open online learning communities?

As a casual observer (Visitor) or as an active contributor (Resident): What are the: -  - Challenges -  - Motivations (Motivation to Engage) •  - Benefits? •  How important is being ‘resident’ online as a learner and/or teacher to our

careers and creative & professional practice? – DIAL explored this area …

Digital integration into Arts Learning (DIAL Project) JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme & CLTAD Twitter: @DIALProject and @ProcessArtsUAL Aims: Cultural change and improved graduate employability Objectives: Encourage and support self-sustaining communities of practice in the creation of: •  New resources •  Processes (self sustaining and sustainable models) •  Learning networks for supporting digital literacies

Approach: •  Self-identifying groups and Individuals •  Provide small support incentives, replacement hours, student researchers, equipment loans,

mentorship, online tools/development and support etc. •  Encourage partnerships and collaboration across projects.

What DIAL did: Baselining and Groups

Developed & supported Communities of Practice and Interest groups

The digital baseline blogs

http://ualdigitalbaseline.myblog.arts.ac.uk/ A place for staff and students to contribute, view and map with the project, how we at UAL are integrating the ‘digital’ into all aspects of our day-to day practice.

http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/dial-projects-and-activities

DIAL supported the development of Clusters Groups, promoting good practice and sharing interests

6 X DIAL CoP groups: Led and stewarded by the group initiators and participants

Who: 6 x Stewards (5 staff 1 student) 60+ BA Students & Alumni and 15 Staff (Participants) Collaboration partners: DIAL, CLTAD, CSM PDP, SEE, Learn IT, OD&L, Own-IT, CC Skills Resources: Resource posts on process.arts documentation, resources & OERs (80+ resources, each receiving between 1k to 6k reads)(Second pilot) Online Identities Pilot Programme 2013/14 (First pilot) Online Identities POI Programme 2013 Exploring new approaches LSP Lego Serious Play Identified key skills a graduate should have for developing online professional practice (Data, standards, possible unit)

Who: 3 x Stewards 52 x Library services staff (Participants) Collaboration partners DIAL, CLTAD, Library services Resources: The Things unlimited resource group (15 Resources between 500 and 2k views per post) The final prototype see examples here The Forum LILAC Conference poster Journey: Blog

Who: 1 x Steward 4 x Staff 20+ MA Students (Participants) Collaboration partners DIAL, CLTAD, SEE, Speaking Out. MA LCF Fashion Entrepreneurship Resources: Video Presentation Skills Resources on process.arts (20 resources between 400 and 3k views per post) Video presentation skills, reflections: on developing VPS workshops Workshop documentation - Teaching video presentation skills Journey Blog

Who: 2 x Stewards 40 Staff (Participants) Collaboration partners All Colleges, DIAL, CLTAD, ALTO & ALTO UK Resources: Resources on process.arts OER (30 Resources between 600 and 12k views per post) Co-development of the Open Practice Unit: Here Developed an Open UAL Policy ‘Draft document’: http://goo.gl/CY2580 Digital literacies for open education Focus groups Journey: Blog

Who: 1 x Steward 70 x Student teachers PG Cert (Participants) Collaboration partners DIAL, CLTAD Resources: Student Teacher videos: 75 self-reflective videos CLTAD Teaching Development Projects. (Between 400 and 3k views per resource post) The monthly activities for the two core units: Monthly activities & examples Teaching Development Project unit: Monthly activities & examples. Online Reflective Practice Case Studies Journey: Blog

Who: 3 x Stewards 15 Staff and 5 Students (Participants) Collaboration partners DIAL, CLTAD Resources: Resources on process.arts (40 resources between 300 and 3k views per post) Gained UAL communities of practice funding and college wide interest for this project Student developer resources

6 x Community of Interest: DIAL supported the development of Clusters Groups, promoting good practice and sharing interests

•  Clusters are stewarded by DIAL or others and may have many different affiliates. Resources are organised by either project groups or clustered by related tags

Many other DIAL related projects: Research groups, conference groups, experimental groups and new projects in the early stages of development receive support and advice from DIAL

What deliverables did the project produce?

‘Self-identified digital skills and attributes needed to support personal and professional digital practice, ranging from awareness and participation, application of good practice through to participation in emergent and innovative digital practices’. DIAL 2012

“The DIAL resources attached to these core attributes have influenced a staged approach at Glasgow School of Art which aims to provide developmental and iterative initiatives to support existing expertise as well as encourage adapted forms of engaging with emerging technologies.” Read more here on process.arts and DIAL blog

Open Educational Resources (OERs) including: DIAL Digital literacies model and approach Video Resources Workshops/teaching templates Activities for units Case studies New prototypes Open Practice unit development Open UAL/Scholarship Policy document Digital Literacies UAL Glossary of Terms and new standards Emerging definitions of Digital Literacies at UAL Approaches for assessing Digital Literacy Levels Impacts: The DIAL project and groups Influenced and supported strategic planning Created new UAL cross college Collaborations for Digital Literacies Support

“I was the tutor who felt physically sick having to engage with the digital. I can see that potentially it could enhance the student experience and, dare I say it, the tutor experience! However, the language of the digital may as well be in Swahili (sp.?) for all I can understand. I’m grateful that the DIAL team clearly understand this.” See Michael Spencer blog post comment

Lessons learned and reflection

Tools:

•  Bring your own Device (Expected & Essential)

•  Bring your own environment (need to support)

•  More Course Equipment (Staff and Students)

•  Finding a balance between face-to-face and digital

People/ Individuals & development:

•  Huge need for support in creative online practice •  Huge gap in support for creative online practice •  Lots of fear of not being ‘Digitally Ready’ for online

practice •  Managing Expectations •  Guidance and support for Digital Literacies •  A deeper Understanding of what student DLs needs •  Students providing project support •  Open practice and online reflection •  Alumni and post grad/research, need DL support •  Staff and students working and exploring DLs together

University Integration:

•  Trust & confidence: Dealing with DLs can be tricky and sensitive work. Handle with care

•  Small steps towards local strategy •  Partnerships for sustainable growth, exchange

expertise

College integration

•  Understand the disciplines, culture and processes •  Defining DLs and competencies: this needs to be

an agile on-going process •  Proof of concept/use case for equipment needs •  Lack of digital strategies in Colleges and sharing

of experience

Curriculum integration

•  Huge gap in support for creative online practice •  How/do we need to embed DLs •  Communication email & course calendars •  Teach Digital Literacies in context •  Little time for DLs with busy courses & teams

Click image to see video

What Next at UAL?

CLTAD DIAL 2014 CLTAD Open Practice Unit

What Next for Open Educational Practice?

MOOC Image above: Every letter negotiable Attribution Some rights reserved by mathplourde

The original principles of ‘cMOOCs’, based on connectivism, and its four principles – autonomy, diversity, connectedness and openness. The term MOOC 2008 by Dave Cormier Stephen Downes and George Siemens connectivist open learning First MOOCs 2011, then Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig Graduate-level artificial Intelligence MOOC

http://www.artsmooc.org/

•  artsmooc is a new experimental social enterprise approach to integrating online open educational practice into practical face-to-face based arts subjects, bringing together a unique ‘hands on’ research and development network/consortium.

•  artsmooc focuses on addressing the digital/

web literacies challenges based on the creative needs of its stakeholder groups by co-developing and creating new arts MOOCs Massive open online course/communities, learning environments and interest groups with and for its stakeholders.

Thank You Email: c.follows@arts.ac.uk

Twitter: @ProcessArtsUAL Online: http://process.arts.ac.uk/