Blog: http://markmcguire.net/ Twitter: @mark_mcguire https://twitter.com/mark_mcguire Abstract: In many countries, the increasing costs associated with higher education combined with reduced funding for public education during a period of fiscal restraint threatens the sustainability of current models of provision. Glenn Harlan Reynolds (2012) warns of a “Higher Education Bubble” in the United States. Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity.com, a for-profit platform for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), predicts that there will be only 10 institutions delivering higher education in 50 years (Steven Leckart, 2012). In contrast to these doomsday scenarios, Audrey Watters (2013) and others counter that professors and the institutions that employ them are not necessarily resistant to change, and that we should not “hack education” in a way that dismantles public institutions and threatens local economies, the community, social justice, and the public good. In this presentation, I briefly trace the development of MOOCs and I discuss the differences between the high profile platforms that rely on lecture videos and machine marking (xMOOCs) and earlier experiments that follow what George Siemens refers to as a “Connectivist” approach (2005), which encourages participants to build their own personal learning network (cMOOCs). Using a case study method, I discuss three types of Design courses that leverage open strategies and serve as exemplars of “digital scholarship” (Martin Weller, 2011). The first, #Phonar (Photography and Narrative), is a Coventry University course that uses blogging and social media to connect place-based students to online participants. The second, ds106 (Digital Storytelling), is an online-only course offered by the University of Mary Washington that requires students to interact with one another and with the wider world through blogs, social media and an Internet radio station. The third, DOCC2013: Dialogues on Feminism and Technology, is a Distributed Open Collaborative Course that was offered for the first time in the fall of 2013 by fifteen universities in the United States and Canada, with academics working collaboratively across institutions. I argue that by encouraging a paradigm shift in education from Push (broadcast) to Pull (accessing an archive) to Co-create (collaborative production) Design education can provide positive examples of how we can do more, and reach more, sustainably. Blurring the boundaries between teacher and student, online and offline, and formal and informal, education can enhance learning and extend its benefits beyond the lecture theatre and design studio. This pedagogical shift is in line with contemporary Design practice, in which collaborative and participatory processes are crucial, especially when working to solve wicked problems.

1. Open
Strategies
in Design
Education
Cumulus Dublin 7-9 Nov. 2013
Dr Mark McGuire
University of Otago
Dunedin, New Zealand
Copenhagen Oct. 16-18 2008
Photo: Mark McGuire (CC-BY)
email: mark.mcguire@otago.ac.nz
Twitter: @mark_mcguire
Blog: http://markmcguire.net/
Dept.: http://www.otago.ac.nz/appliedsciences/staff/markmcguire.html
Photo by gottanew
CC-BY-NC-SA http://goo.gl/lL6vJ

2. Front Page, WSJ October 25, 2008 as the financial crisis spreads globally.
Photo by MyEyeSees CC-BY-NC-SA http://www.flickr.com/photos/myeye/3151605485/

3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/03/24/college-costs-are-soaring/

4. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/university-tuition-rising-to-record-levels-in-canada-1.1699103

5. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/may/31/tuition-fees-obstacle-students-ucas

6. Glenn Harlan Reynolds
“The Higher Education
Bubble”
2012
My question is whether traditional
academic institutions will be able to keep
up with the times, or whether – as Anya
Kamenetz suggests in her new book, DIY U –
the real pioneering will be in online
education and the work of “edupunks” who
are more interested in finding new ways of
teaching and learning than in protecting
existing interests.
“The upshot is that higher education is
facing a major structural change over the
next decade or so, and the full impact is
likely to strike sooner than most people
expect. Change is coming, and it is unlikely
to be either modest or gradual.”
Glenn Harlan Reynolds. “The Higher Education Bubble”
Anya Kamenetz
“DIY U: Edupunks,
Edupreneurs, and the
Coming Transformation
of Higher Education”
2010

7. Jon Kolko. 2012
https://www.wickedproblems.com/

8. Wicked Problems
Social or cultural problems that are difficult or
impossible to solve for 4 reasons:
1. incomplete or contradictory knowledge,
2. large number of people and opinions involved,
3. large economic burden,
4. interconnected nature of these problems with
other problems
+ These problems are typically offloaded to
policy makers.
Jon Kolko. Wicked Problems. 2012 p. 11

9. “Introduction to MOOCs: Avalanche, Illusion or Augmentation?” by Barnaby Granger, UNESCO July 2013
http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214722.pdf

10. cMOOCs

11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc
Massive Open Online Course
> A participatory, distributed, open event
> Working on a topic of shared interest
> Engaging with other people’s work in a structured way
> Making connections to other individuals and to their ideas
> Construct a personal learning network for life-long learning
> The building of a distributed knowledge base on the Net

12. Tony Bates: “Transforming teaching and learning through technology management”
Change11 MOOC Live Session 16 October, 2011
Bates, A. W. T., & Sangra, A. (2011). Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning: Jossey-Bass.

16. http://www.scoop.it/t/connectivism
Accessed 10 April, 2012

17. George Siemens
by Stephen Downes 2009 (CC-BY)
“Connectivism is the integration of principles
explored by chaos, network, and complexity and
self-organization theories. Learning is a process that
occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core
elements – not entirely under the control of the
individual. Learning (defined as actionable
knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an
organization or a database), is focused on connecting
specialized information sets, and the connections
that enable us to learn more are more important
than our current state of knowing.”
George Siemens. “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age” 2005
http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

18. Stephen Downes
by Stephen Downes 2011 (CC-BY)
“At its heart, connectivism is the
thesis that knowledge is distributed
across a network of connections,
and therefore that learning consists
of the ability to construct and
traverse those networks.”
Stephen Downes. “What Connectivism Is” Feb. 3 2007
http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html

19. Stephen Downes
by Stephen Downes 2011 (CC-BY)
> A pedagogy supporting “learner
autonomy in an open environment.”
> Enables “engagement and activity
within an authentic learning
community — a community of
practitioners, where people practice
the discipline, rather than merely
just talk about it.”
Stephen Downes. (May 12 2010). The Role of the Educator.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-downes/the-role-of-theeducator_b_790937.html

20. xMOOCs

21. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/ff_aiclass/all/1
> Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig
> “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” 2011 (through Stanford)
> free, open enrollment, no recognized credits
> 160,000 registrations from 190 countries, 23,000 completed

22. Udacity (Launched June 2011)
https://www.udacity.com/ (29 October, 2013)

23. https://www.udacity.com/course/design101 (29 October, 2013)

24. https://www.coursera.org/ (29 October, 2013)
Coursera: Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, April 2012,US$16 million in venture capital

25. https://www.coursera.org/course/design (29 October, 2013)

26. edX: April 2012, MIT & Harvard contribute US$30 million each https://www.edx.org/ (29 Oct. 2013)

27. iversity, Design 101 MOOC 26 Oct 2013 https://iversity.org/courses/design-101-or-design-basics

28. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-onlinecourses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

29. http://chronicle.com/article/The-MajorPlayers-in-the-MOOC/138817/#id=overview

30. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/education/masters-degree-is-new-frontier-of-study-online.html?_r=1&
“Next January, the Georgia
Institute of Technology
plans to offer a master’s
degree in computer science
through massive open
online courses for a fraction
of the on-campus cost, a
first for an elite institution.
If it even approaches its goal
of drawing thousands of
students, it could signal a
change to the landscape of
higher education.”
A MOOC-based online master’s degree in computer science
On-campus: $45,000; MOOC: $6,600 (Udacity gets 40% of the profits).

31. Stephen Downes
by Stephen Downes 2011 (CC-BY)
Stephen Downes on xMOOCs:
“I think they are marvels of marketing and of
the naivety of venture capitalists. Looking at
the platforms from a technological point of
view, I see virtually nothing innovative. These
courses [reach] 100,000 or more people, but
use video lectures and old-style threaded
discussion lists. The idea of Moocs as an
experiment in pedagogy and educational
organisation has been completely abandoned
by the new platforms, to the detriment of
Moocs.”
17 October 2013. Times Higher Education.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-creators-criticise-courses-lack-of-creativity/
2008180.fullarticle

32. George Siemens
An Open Letter to Canadian Universities
(July 6 2012):
George Siemens
by Stephen Downes 2009 (CC-BY)
“Piecemeal outsourcing,
growing prominence of
adjuncts, and tendering key
functions of the university
(online course development),
are creating a context where
the university will no longer be
able to direct its own fate.”
http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/06/open-letter-tocanadian-universities/

33. “[T]he whole history of private
involvement in public education
has been one of extracting
resources. However wellintentioned, we don’t need a
Trojan horse product that will
take money out of the system.”
Trojan horse
(Simon Hooks CC-BY-NC-SA)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogap/
253649673/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Chris Newfield
University of California, Santa Barbara
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/education/masters-degree-is-new-frontier-ofstudy-online.html?_r=0

34. Audry Watters
(by Catherine Cronin CC-BY-NC-SA)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
catherinecronin/8489535396/
Audrey Watters:
“But what happens, when we
“hack education” in such a way that our
public institutions are dismantled?
What happens to that public good?
What happens to community?
What happens to local economies?
What happens to social justice?”
3 March 2013
http://hackeducation.com/2013/03/03/hacking-your-education-stephens-hole-in-the-wall-mitra/

35. “[T]he Open Scholar
is someone who makes their intellectual
projects and processes digitally visible and
who invites and encourages ongoing
criticism of their work and secondary uses
of any or all parts of it — at any stage of its
development”.
Gideon Burton, 11 Aug. 2009, Academic Evolution Blog
(by way of Terry Anderson) http://www.academicevolution.com/2009/08/the-open-scholar.html

36. http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/
view/DigitalScholar_9781849666275/
book-ba-9781849666275.xml
In a world that is digital,
networked, and open,
“people become less defined
by the institution to which
they belong and more by the
network and online identity
they establish.”
— Martin Weller
“The Digital Scholar” (2011)

37. “[T]he networked environment makes
possible a new modality of organizing
production: radically decentralized,
collaborative, and nonproprietary,
based on sharing resources and outputs
among widely distributed, loosely
connected individuals who cooperate
with each other without relying on
either market signals or managerial
commands. This is what I call
commons-based peer
production.”
– Yochai Benkler
The Wealth of Networks (2006, p. 60)

38. The Connected Course

39. #Phonar (31 Oct. 2013) http://phonar.covmedia.co.uk/

40. (Photography and Narrative) annual, since 2009
> Jonathan Worth, Chantal Riekel , Jonathan Shaw, Matt
Johnston (Coventry University, UK)
> Investigates notions of ‘trans-media’ and how this can be
applied to modern photographic practices
> Weekly tasks, guest lectures, seminars & workshops on
location at Coventry (versions shared via the #Phonar site)
> “We propose that by drawing on the cumulative
knowledge of our entire class-community we can come
to a better understanding together”
#Phonar (31 Oct. 2013) http://phonar.covmedia.co.uk/faqs/

41. Jonathan Worth:
“I curate a journey through a
structure of learning,
providing contextual links
between specialist
contributors,” says Worth.
“Each year the journey is
different (and relevant), and
each year it accrues a long tail
of content.”
WIRED. Aug. 11 2011
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/08/free-online-classshakes-up-photo-education/

42. Locations of visitors to the PHONAR website, December 2010
Open and Connected Teaching and Learning
> Open as in openly accessible (free-speech),
open to improvement (in beta) and open to
being shared.
> Connected refers to both our on and offline
communities and acknowledges that we are
part of their fabric.
> ‘Teaching Openly’ means we can draw
on our communities as a resource . . . these
relationships are collaborative.
Jonathan Worth New Photographics, 1 Oct. 2013
http://newphotographics.org/

43. Twitter as “a listening device” and a means “to tune the network.”
Jonathan Worth, WIRED. Aug. 11 2011
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/08/free-online-class-shakes-up-photo-education/

44. The Power of Open (2011)
http://thepowerofopen.org/

45. The Distributed Course

46. http://ds106.us/ (30 Oct. 2013)

47. “Digital Storytelling (also
affectionately known as
ds106) is an open, online
course that happens at
various times throughout the
year at the University of Mary
Washington… but you can
join in whenever you like and
> University of Mary Washington,
leave whenever you need.
Fredericksburg, Virginia.
This course is free to anyone
> Jim Groom, Martha Burtis, Alan Lavine who wants to take it . . .”
> an experiment in open, connected
and social learning
http://ds106.us/about/ (30 Oct. 2013)

48. ds106 course objectives:
> Develop skills in using
technology as a tool for
networking, sharing,
narrating, and creative selfexpression
> Frame a digital identity
> Critically examine the digital
landscape of communication
technologies
http://ds106.us/about/ (30 Oct. 2013)

49. http://ds106.us/handbook/success-the-ds106-way/quick-start/

50. 614 ds106 assignments and 5701 examples (30 Oct. 2013)
http://assignments.ds106.us/

51. http://inspire.ds106.us/

52. DS106 Flow (30 Oct. 2013) http://ds106.us/flow/#

53. “ds106 Radio is a free form live
streaming station that has been
setup for this course . . . It provides
a global, 24 hour/7 day-a-week
happening for the creations of the
course and much, much more. And
more than anything, ds106 radio is
place where anyone can submit
their work and help program the
course radio station in order to
commune and share around works
and ideas while at the same time
making the web safe for democracy.”
http://ds106.us/ds106-radio/
Tim Owens: “Broadcasting on ds106radio”
http://timmmmyboy.com/2011/03/broadcasting-on-ds106-radio/

54. http://umwdomains.com/#about

55. Oct. 30 2013 http://ds106.us/2013/07/21/coming-soon-the-headless-ds106-course/

56. The Collaborative Course
DOCC2013

57. http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/the-network/
FemTechNet is an activated network of scholars,
artists, and students who work on, with, and at the
borders of technology, science and feminism in a
variety of fields including STS, Media and Visual
Studies, Art, Women’s, Queer, and Ethnic Studies.

58. http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/docc2013/
> 15 Colleges & Universities (U.S., Canada), each offer
own course for credit
> First iteration of the DOCC 2013 will take place from
September-December, 2013

59. http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/docc2013/
> Demonstrates “the innovative process of feminist
thinking that engages issues of networked
infrastructures for learning, learner-centered
pedagogies, collaborative knowledge creation, and
transformational practices of design and media
making”
> Recognizes that “expertise is distributed
throughout a network, among participants situated
in diverse institutional contexts, within diverse
material, geographic, and national settings, and who
embody and perform diverse identities”

60. http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/docc2013/
> 10 Video Dialogues - prominent and innovative
thinkers and artists address the question of
technology through feminist frameworks.
> Storming Wikipedia designed to write women and
feminist scholarship of science and technology back
into our web-based cultural archives.
> Course content will grow through the exchange
among participants.
> Participate through independent studies, selfdirected learners, drop-in learners

61. http://femtechnet.newschool.edu/teaching-learning-all/ (1 Nov. 2013)
Teaching & Learning Resources for All
Welcome! What is a Self-Directed Learner?
A self-directed learner is a DOCC 2013 participant
who is not formally enrolled in or teaching a current
course but who wants to engage with some focus,
and even participation, in the DOCC 2013. Unlike a
MOOC, you will not be receiving knowledge from
DOCC 2013, but rather, participating in designing
and directing your own experience with DOCC 2013
materials and with other participants.

62. http://vimeo.com/channels/580726 (1 Nov. 2013)

63. Teaching and Learning Paradigms
Locus, Mode, Temporality, Structure, Objective
PUSH
teacher, broadcast, synchronous, hierarchical, educate
PULL
resource, download, asynchronous, nodal, individual learning
SHARE
site, co-create, continuous, networked, knowledge network

64. Wicked Problems
“They can’t be “fixed.” But because of the role of
design in developing infrastructure, designers can
play a central role in mitigating the negative
consequences of wicked problems and
positioning the broad trajectory of culture in new
and more desirable directions.”
Jon Kolko. Wicked Problems. 2012 p. 11