In this workshop you will work in a small team to design a collaborative online learning activity. You will have the opportunity learn about the principles involved, experiment with tools that can help you structure and analyse your ideas and learn from case studies of successful activities tried and tested on Open University modules. At the end of the workshop you will have produced an initial design which you can then develop further to be used in your online teaching activities. The workshop is being offered as part of the Metis Project (http://www.metis-project.org/), and it is one of three pilot workshops being run across different educational sectors across Europe. You will use several paper-prototyping tools and the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE), a bespoke environment for the co-design of learning, developed by the Metis Project. The ILDE aims to support practitioners in completing the "learning design" lifecycle from conceptualising designs to deploying them in virtual learning environments (VLEs) for enactment and eventual redesign. In particular, you will use WebCollage, an online tool specifically designed to assist you in creating collaborative learning activities ready to run in a VLE. Please keep in mind that this is a pilot workshop and the ILDE is a prototype. We look forward to your critical feedback in assisting the project to further improve the production of this prototype into a working system. Other resources used in this workshop are available from a pilot version of the ILDE: http://ilde.upf.edu/ou/v/b37 .

1. How to design Collaborative learning activities
A hands-on workshop exploring tools and techniques for
designing successful online collaborative learning activities
http://www.mentis-project.org/

2. A1: Introduction
• Context
• Today’s activities
• Tools and techniques to support you
• Your knowledge
Our knowledge as facilitators
Your goal: to design a collaborative online activity that will form part of a module
―Learning design is the act of
devising new practices, plans of
activity, resources and tools aimed at achieving particular educational aims
in a given situation‖ (METIS project, 2012)

3. A1: Metis project
3
contexts
Learning
design
expertise
Non-formal training
Istituto Tecnologie
Didattiche
Vocational Training
HE

4. A1: Learning design
• Design is ‗concerned with how things ought to
be, with devising artifacts to attain goals‘
(Simon, 1996, p. 114)
and
• Design: ‗creating new artefacts of good quality‘
vs.
• Craft: ‗creating artefacts of good quality‘
(Mor, Y., Craft, B., & Hernández-Leo, D. 2013)
Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
.
Mor, Y., Craft, B., & Hernández-Leo, D. (2013). The art and science of learning design. Research in Learning Technology, 21(22513).
doi: 10.3402/rlt.v21i0.22513

5. A1: Learning design
Two strands
1. How to represent teaching practice from a technical
perspective in the development and delivery of online
learning environments; and
2. how to represent teaching practice in an appropriate form to
enable teachers to share ideas about innovative online
pedagogy and think about the process of design.
Agostinho, S., Bennett, S., Lockyer, L., & Harper, B. (2011). The future of learning design.
Learning, Media and Technology, 36(2), 97-99. doi: 10.1080/17439884.2011.553619

6. A1: Background
Learning design at the OU

7. A1: Overview of today‘s activities
Introduction
Investigate /Work on/with ideas for
Re-investigate
design, e.g. creation of
representations of design
elements and their
interconnections, understanding
of the context and expected
users
Evaluate
Implement
Apply an authored learning
design using a specific VLE, a
particular group of students and
set of tools
Conceptualize /
Re-conceptualize
Author
Produce a prototype: a
detailed, formal and reusable
definition of a learning design

8. A1: METIS tools
Integrated Learning Design Environment
• Conceptualize
• Author
• Implement
http://ilde.upf.edu

9. A1: Using ILDE
• The ILDE is located here http://ilde.upf.edu/ou
– Login using username and password emailed to you
• When you upload resources, please tag them with the name
of your group, i.e. use one of:
»hsc
»mct
»oubs
»science

10. A1: Paper prototyping tools
Activity
Learner‘s
work
Learning
outcome
Resource
Tool

11. A2: How to ruin a collaborative
learning activity (20 minutes)
1.
2.
3.
Individually, write down 3 (or more ways) to ensure that an activity you are
designing will fail!. Write each on an individual Post-Its (5 minutes);
As a team, place all your Post-Its on a sheet of A1 paper and structure them in a
way that seems useful (e.g. by themes or arrange into a map) (10 minutes);
Make your representation of ways to ‗ruin a collaborative learning activity‘
available to the other teams by taking a picture and uploading it to the ILDE
(remember to tag it with the name of your team), and by affixing your sheet to the
wall nearest you using blu-tack. (5 minutes).
ILDE rich text editor

12. A3: Barriers and challenges
(40 minutes)
What are the barriers and challenges of collaborative learning from a
learner’s perspective?
•
•
•
•
Technical challenges?
Motivational challenges?
Temporal challenges?
Other challenges and barriers?
ILDE rich text editor
Personas

13. A3: Barriers and challenges
(40 minutes)
Pick 2 student personas each.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Individually, write down up to 4 barriers or challenges to collaborative learning—
from a learner‘s perspective—for your particular teaching and learning context.
Write each barrier/challenge on a separate green post-it. (5 minutes)
Collaborate with the others on your team by placing your Post-Its on an A1 page.
Collaborate to arrange them in some order or map. From the map identify
guidelines or heuristics that you believe a successful collaborative learning
activity should follow. Write these heuristics on yellow Post-Its. (15 minutes)
Present map to the workshop. Your team will have about 4 minutes to make its
present.
(20 minutes)
Make your map available to other teams by displaying it and by taking a photo of
it and uploading it to the ILDE.
ILDE rich text editor
Personas

14. A4: Conceptualize learning
outcomes (30 minutes)
•
•
Describe your vision for
a collaborative learning
activity.
Focus on describing the
effects the activity is
intended to have on the
learners.

15. A4: Learning Outcomes View
The Learning Outcomes view is a
notational view which shows how
the
learning
activities
and
assessment tasks are aligned with
the intended learning outcomes of
the course or module. The view is
informed by Biggs’ work on
Constructive
Alignment
(Biggs, 1999). The premise behind
this model is twofold:
• Students construct meaning from
what they do to learn
• The teacher aligns the planned
learning activities with the
learning outcomes
Biggs, J. (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for
enhanced learning. Higher Education Research &
Development, 18(1), 57-75. doi:
10.1080/0729436990180105

16. A4: Conceptualize learning
outcomes (30 minutes)
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Describe your vision for a collaborative learning activity. Focus on
describing the effects the activity is intended to have on the learners.
Listen to the introduction to the Learning Outcomes View and this activity (2
minutes)
As individuals, each write down one or more learning outcomes for a collaborative
learning activity, each on a separate Learning Outcome post-it. Use the supplied
verbs!
(3 minutes)
As a team, collaborate to choose and refine one or more learning outcomes that
your activity will produce (10 minutes)
As individuals, each write down one or more outputs a learner could produce to
show that they have reached one or more of these outcomes. Use a separate
Learner Output post-it for each output.
(5 minutes)
As a team, collaborate to choose and refine the definition of the learner outputs
(10 minutes)
As a team, collaborate to produce a Learning Outcomes View showing the
relationships between learners' outputs and learning outcomes. Upload to the ILDE
and display it (10 minutes)
Learning outcomes view

17. A4: Conceptualize learning
outcomes (30 minutes)
•
Describe your vision for a collaborative learning activity. Focus on
describing the effects the activity is intended to have on the learners.
Learning outcome verbs and phrases
particularly relevant to collaboration
analyse, build on, co-create, contribute, debate
with, discuss with, engage
with, enhance, improve
on, motivate, perform, share
……..and any others you can think of
Learning outcomes view

18. A5: Evidence and examples of
collaborative learning
(45minutes)
• Listen to the case studies of collaborative learning
activities and patterns (15 minutes)
• Working individually and as a team select features of the
patterns and case studies that are applicable to the
Learning Outcomes view you created in activity 4.
(30 minutes)
ILDE rich text editor

19. A5: Evidence and examples of
collaborative learning (45minutes)
1.
Listen to presentation about the case study (15 minutes)
2.
As individuals, think about which features of the examples and patterns
could be applied to your teaching context and used to support your
learners reach the learning outcomes you specified in Activity 4
―Conceptualize: Learning outcomes‖.
• Keep in mind the heuristics, barriers, challenges and ways to ruin an
activity you identified earlier.
• Pick one or more of the patterns or case studies, and for your chosen
one(s) write down ―pros‖ on green Post-Its, and ―cons‖ on red Post-Its
and attach them to the relevant print out. (5 minutes);
ILDE rich text editor

20. A5: Evidence and examples of
collaborative learning (45minutes)
3.
As a team, use the annotated print outs as prompts to discuss and agree on
features of the patterns and examples that you can reuse. (Nominate a note taker
to create a list of the pros and cons and other features you think will be useful in
the ILDE) (15 minutes)
4.
Using the ILDE, the note taker will create a rich text document describing these
pros, cons and features and tag it with their team‘s name. To create a rich text
document use the menu.
• NewLdS->Conceptualize-> For other conceptualizations.
• The other team members should check and advise on the content of the
document as it is being created (10 minutes).
ILDE rich text editor

21. A6: Conceptualize: Storyboard
(45 minutes)
Things to think about include:
• Which parts of the activity should be synchronous, and which should be
asynchronous?
• Which tools have the right affordances for your activity?

22. A7: Author - using WebCollage
(75 minutes)
•
A prototype is a way of demonstrating how a design will work.
Not the final product, but enough to clarify the functionality and technical issues for
meeting the user requirements.
•
Author: Use WebCollage to produce a detailed, formal and reusable prototype of a
learning design
(by Daniel Y. Go)
WebCollage
(by Zach Hoeken)

23. A7: Author (75 minutes)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Listen to the introduction to WebCollage (10 minutes);
This introduction will use a prototype for an online version of a face-to-face
activity ―Intervention and Reframing: Using Diagrammatic Thinking ‖ to show
you features of WebCollage.
Given that there is limited time available for this activity, you may want to
select a portion of your storyboard to author – the facilitators will help you with
this. (5 minutes);
Discuss and agree role to be played by each team member (use the role cards).
(5 minutes);
Use WebCollage to select the pattern that is most relevant to the storyboard. (5
minutes);
Customise the pattern to produce the first stage authored sequence. User of
WebCollage thinks-aloud during creation while other participants feed in
suggestions based on role. (40 minutes);
Note any issues related to your roles in a rich text document. To create a rich
text document use the menu.
New LdS->Conceptualize->For other conceptualizations (remember to tag it
with the name of your team) (5 minutes); &
Finalise the WebCollage prototype for presentation. (10 minutes)

24. A7: Author (75 minutes)
• WebCollage instructions
ILDE guidance
WebCollage

25. A8: Implement your activity in a
VLE (30 minutes)
1.
2.
3.
Listen to the introduction to GluePS. (10 minutes);
The facilitators will elect one of the prototypes and show how it
can be converted to a runnable activity in Moodle. (15 minutes)
(If there is time, facilitators will support other teams to
complete conversions of their designs.);
The facilitators will review the ways in which the Moodle
implementation can be refined in WebCollage or other tools. (5
minutes).
ILDE guidance
GLUE!-PS

26. A9: Heuristic evaluation
(45 minutes)
Heuristic evaluation originates in usability research, as a technique for early
formative evaluation of digital systems. A team of experts is asked to assess a
particular design using a given set of heuristics or ―rules of thumb‖.
•
•
•
a low-fidelity rapid evaluation which often uncovers design flaws at an early
stage.
a group of experts ―walk through‖ the evaluated system as if they were
users (learners) engaged in a typical activity.
The experts use a set of design heuristics - ―rules of thumb‖ against which
they are asked to assess their experience.

27. A9: Heuristic evaluation (45
minutes)
1.
2.
3.
As a team, select a view or representation of your design that summarises its features.
For example, you could choose WebCollage‘s ‗Summary View‘, or your Storyboard (5
minutes);
Make your chosen representation available to another team, i.e. display the selected
ILDE view on your team‘s monitor or display the storyboard (5 minutes);
As a team, carry out a heuristic evaluation of the design you have been given using the
heuristics provided. Bear in mind all the ‗Ways to ruin a collaborative learning activity‘
and the ‗Barriers and challenges‘ identified in this workshop. Your team‘s note taker
should create a document summarising your findings. To create To create a document to
record your findings use the menu:. (15 minutes)
• New LdS->Conceptualize->Heuristic Evaluation (title it ―Evaluation of <team name>‘s
deign‖ and remember to tag it with the name of your own team);
• Each team will present its evaluation to the workshop participants and facilitators
(you will only have about 4 minutes per team, so lead with the most important points)
(20 minutes)
Other team‘s design
Other team‘s checklist
Heuristic evaluation guidance
Heuristic evaluation template

28. A10: Wrap up & complete
workshop evaluation (30 minutes)
http://www.itd.cnr.it/Metis/questionnaire.html

29. A10: Evaluation
http://www.itd.cnr.it/Metis/questionnaire.html

30. (Photo by
Daniel
Slaughter)
Slides put together by Andrew Brasher, with help from Patrick McAndrew, Yishay
Mor, Christopher Walsh, Rebecca Galley, Simon Cross

31. How to design online
collaborative learning
activities