{"id":1857,"date":"2011-11-25T12:20:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T10:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/OEB_Newsportal\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2016-11-22T12:17:17","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T10:17:17","slug":"personalised-learning-cultures-an-interview-with-jeff-borden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/personalised-learning-cultures-an-interview-with-jeff-borden\/","title":{"rendered":"Personalised learning cultures: an interview with Jeff Borden"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jeff Borden<\/p><\/div>\n

In spite of the increasingly prevalent role of technology in all facets of our lives, the uptake of learning technologies remains limited. OEB 2011 keynote speaker Jeff Borden argues in favour of the personalisation of education through technology and outlines how education data can help this process.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Why the push towards online education?<\/h3>\n

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Technology has obviously become ubiquitous in our society.\u00a0 Almost every cornerstone business has transformed due to both the promise of and the pragmatic capability of technology.\u00a0 Every industry that is, except education.<\/p>\n

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While we trust technology to help us manage our money, our automobiles, our houses, and even our correspondence with everyone from friends to colleagues, there is still a large contingency of educators who do not wish to allow technology to transform how we teach or how students learn.\u00a0 Typically partnered with the fallacy of tradition (e.g. \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019ve always done it this way, therefore we should continue\u2026\u201d) technology is sometimes ignored, other times disparaged and almost always under-used by educators.<\/p>\n

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So, rather than help our students learn how to use tools that will only grow with them over time, we often ask our students to leave these tools at the door, assuming that the old way of doing things must be the best.<\/p>\n

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In 1980, Eduventures reported that the average American university student lived less than 5 miles from campus.\u00a0 By 2006, that number jumped to 50 miles.\u00a0 Today, the number is over 78 miles.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because students are demanding online education.\u00a0 They are telling their local institutions that if they refuse to offer technology- enabled courses that offer flexibility as well as the same outcomes and engaging learning, that they will take their classes somewhere else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, technology can improve learning dramatically.\u00a0 There is technology that can actually measure a person\u2019s individual \u201cforget curve\u201d and promote learning concepts at the exact right time for a single brain.\u00a0 There are serious games that have been shown by studies to increase the speed of learning by over 400% while making student long-term retention 2-3 times longer.\u00a0 There is immersive technology that allows students to make real-life, practical mistakes in a safe environment, rather than only delivering theory and hoping the mistakes are not made in the \u201creal world\u201d by those same students.\u00a0 Technology in the right hands can teach students far better than a classroom without.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The push for online learning is not only the right thing to do: It is also the best thing to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You claim technology can transform education – how?<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Imagine a world where \u201cseat time\u201d is no longer warranted.\u00a0 Picture an educational landscape that allows one person to take a class in an amount of time that is appropriate to them.\u00a0 Why do we measure student learning based on clock hours anymore?\u00a0 Especially when we know that some students learn specific concepts faster than others.\u00a0 Some students apply concepts better than others.\u00a0 Some students need remediation.\u00a0 Some students need acceleration.\u00a0 Some students have brains that are better equipped to learn at midnight.\u00a0 Yet we continue to force the 8 a.m. class on some students despite the fact that their brain waves are biologically muted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That personalisation happens far better and far faster through technology.\u00a0 The ability to measure an entire student persona happens far easier using technology.\u00a0 Data based decisions around behaviour, cognition, outcomes, activity, time, etc., are all much easier to get and use with technology.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those data points lead to true personalisation.\u00a0 I cannot possibly teach so that every student\u2019s memory is utilised at the right time for the right content.\u00a0 We all remember and forget in our own patterns.\u00a0 Yet, technology can create a personalised flash-card set for anyone to help them remember any concept for years.\u00a0 I cannot possibly push 25 students through different paces and different levels of understanding over a 16 week period with only my lectern and my senses.\u00a0 So, I am forced to teach to the middle, catching failing students more often, but still not to the degree with which technology can help them automatically.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How will technology transform education?\u00a0 Through data which leads to true personalisation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why is education data so important for both the future and for transformation?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Data is rapidly changing our world.\u00a0 Entire industries are finding efficiencies through data mining that are saving hundreds of millions of dollars.\u00a0 Businesses are discovering how to target specific parts of the population for products and services thereby saving time, money, and energy as well as creating a more personalised world for every consumer.\u00a0 Data shows us both trends, through pattern mining, and it also gives us the ability to monitor the here and now.
\nEducation is no different from almost every other industry.\u00a0 Data can change how we think about tuition, seat time, classroom management, activity time, outcomes mastery, grade inflation and on and on.\u00a0 We can look for patterns, discover holes and create new instructional models when we do the right things with data.\u00a0 Data can create quality and can help with accountability when set up properly and implemented effectively.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who benefits more from technology in education?\u00a0 (The student or the instructor?)<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, I would guess that the balance of power shifts toward the student with regard to technology.\u00a0 Even when an instructor refuses to incorporate technology \u2013 sometimes even \u201cbanning\u201d its usage, students still incorporate technology into their learning plan.\u00a0 I heard a keynote speaker at a conference say that the most used resource around the world by students was Wikipedia.\u00a0 At the same time, Wikipedia is the technology tool most disparaged by professors, typically being \u201cbanned\u201d for use in their classrooms.\u00a0 So, rather than teach students how to use this tool as a fantastic starting place and instead of teaching them how to evaluate a Wikipedia entry for authenticity or credibility, it seems that many educators are simply ignoring it in hopes that it will go away.\u00a0 (Hint \u2013 it\u2019s not going away.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But as instructors go to conferences, speak with colleagues, and explore technology on their own, I think they are all starting to find wonderful uses for it in the classroom.\u00a0 I also should say that I believe a decade from now, there will not be a question of how technology helps education.\u00a0 Online education and face to face education will just be modalities used at various times in various places.\u00a0 But until then, we have some catching up to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conventional wisdom suggests that technology in education is just a fad.\u00a0 Why do you suggest otherwise?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

I still hear this at conferences, although admittedly I typically hear it from instructors who are close to retirement.\u00a0 If I had 5 years left to teach, I don\u2019t know that I would change my methods either.\u00a0 That kind of change is difficult.\u00a0 It puts the emphasis on the student instead of the instructor, which can be a pretty major paradigm shift for some.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, to suggest that the technology that is all around us will not infuse itself into our educational constructs seems extremely short-sighted.\u00a0 The technology of the pencil and the printing press changed forever the way education was handled and the technologies that we are inventing today are one thousand times more powerful than a pencil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking about a specific tool or technology.\u00a0 This is not a conversation about DVD vs.\u00a0 Blue-Ray.\u00a0 One technology will win out, and another will eventually die.\u00a0 What I am talking about is the ability for us to surround our teaching with social technologies, with memory aids through technology, with technology that helps us both measure and deliver outcomes more appropriately.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeff Borden will be a keynote speaker in the opening plenary session on Thursday, December 1st. \u00a0He will also be taking part in Meet the Keynotes on Thursday, December 1st at 11.45 \u2013 13.00. He will then present \u00a0Education 3.0 at 14.15 \u2013 \u00a015.45 and deliver \u00a0teaching workshops at the Pearson stand (B54 Foyer Potsdam).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In spite of the increasingly prevalent role of technology in all facets of our lives, the uptake of learning technologies remains limited. OEB 2011 keynote speaker Jeff Borden argues in favour of the personalisation of education through technology and outlines how education data can help this process.<\/p>\n

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