Usynlige studerende i åbne online forløb: Nye muligheder for efteruddannelse

The objective of the paper is to examine different kinds of participation in open online courses with a specific focus on participants who are seemingly inactive and possibly drop out during the course. In the paper, this group is termed invisible students. The paper begins with an overview review of key literature within "open education" and the tradition of offering education to people with limited access to the traditional educational system. The paper is based on a qualitative study including 11 interviews and 51 questionnaire responses. The analysis identifies five different kinds of participation in an online course: students, participants, members, observers and visitors. In the analysis, the paper examines what and how invisible students learn in open online courses. The analysis identifies a number of key activities for invisible students: reading and watching content, following and being part of, participating in networks, reflecting, and utilising. Finally, the analysis shows that inspiraton, being updated and getting input for your own practice are key objectives for the invisible students in the online course. The results indicate that there are opportunities for developing new further education formats that can add value to invisible students’ own context - without determining the learning objectives.Formålet med artiklen er at undersøge og diskutere, hvordan såkaldte usynlige studerende deltager i åbne online forløb, og hvordan og hvad de lærer. Usynlige studerende betegner i denne artikel de deltagere, der er inaktive, tilsyneladende falder fra, og som ikke gennemfører de obligatoriske kursusaktiviteter. Artiklen indledes med et overbliksreview af central litteratur inden for “open education” med særligt fokus på målet om at nå målgrupper, der ikke nås gennem traditionel uddannelse. Artiklen er baseret på et kvalitativt studie, som er funderet i 11 interviews og 51 spørgeskemabesvarelser. Analysen udpeger fem forskellige måder at deltage på i et online undervisningsforløb: Studerende, deltagere, medlemmer, observatører og gæster.  Artiklen sætter i analysen af den empiriske undersøgelse fokus på, hvad og hvordan de usynlige studerende lærer gennem åbne online forløb. Analysen leder frem til fem centrale aktiviteter for usynlige studerendes læring: 1) at læse og se indhold, 2) at følge med og være en del af, 3) deltage i netværk, 4) reflektere og 5) anvende og ibrugtage. Endelig peger analysen på tre centrale former for udbytte for de usynlige studerende: 1) faglig inspiration, 2) at blive opdateret, samt 3) at få input til egen praksis. Resultaterne peger på, at der især er muligheder i at udvikle nye efteruddannelses-formater, der kan bidrage til usynlige studerendes egen kontekst - uden at etablere traditionelle kursusforløb med fastlagt læringsmål

Dissolving the dichotomies between online and campus‑based teaching: a collective response to The Manifesto for teaching online

This article is a collective response to the 2020 iteration of The Manifesto for Teach-ing Online. Originally published in 2011 as 20 simple but provocative statements, the aim was, and continues to be, to critically challenge the normalization of education as techno-corporate enterprise and the failure to properly account for digital methods in teaching in Higher Education. The 2020 Manifesto continues in the same critically pro-vocative fashion, and, as the response collected here demonstrates, its publication could not be timelier. Though the Manifesto was written before the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the responses gathered here inevitably reflect on the experiences of moving to digi-tal, distant, online teaching under unprecedented conditions. As these contributions reveal, the challenges were many and varied, ranging from the positive, breakthrough opportunities that digital learning offered to many students, including the disabled, to the problematic, such as poor digital networks and access, and simple digital poverty. Regardless of the nature of each response, taken together, what they show is that The Manifesto for Teaching Online offers welcome insights into and practical advice on how to teach online, and creatively confront the supremacy of face-to-face teaching

Networked Learning in 2021: A Community Definition

Introduction (Networked Learning Editorial Collective): Since the turn of this century, much of the world has undergone a tectonic socio-technological change. Computers have left the isolated basements of research institutes and entered people's homes. Network connectivity has advanced from slow and unreliable modems to high-speed broadband. Devices have evolved: from stationary desktop computers to ever-present, always-connected smartphones. These developments have been accompanied by new digital practices, and changing expectations, not least in education, where enthusiasm for digital technologies has been kindled by quite contrasting sets of values. For example, some critical pedagogues working in the traditions of Freire and Illich have understood computers as novel tools for political and social emancipation, while opportunistic managers in cash-strapped universities have seen new opportunities for saving money and/or growing revenues. Irrespective of their ideological leanings, many of the early attempts at marrying technology and education had some features in common: instrumentalist understanding of human relationships with technologies, with a strong emphasis on practice and 'what works'. It is now clear that, in many countries, managerialist approaches have provided the framing, while local constraints and exigencies have shaped operational details, in fields such as e-learning, Technology Enhanced Learning, and others waving the 'Digital' banner. Too many emancipatory educational movements have ignored technology, burying their heads in the sand, or have wished it away, subscribing toa new form of Luddism, even as they sense themselves moving to the margins. But this situation is not set in stone. Our postdigital reality results from a complex interplay between centres and margins. Furthermore, the concepts of centres and margins 'have morphed into formations that we do not yet understand, and they have created (power) relationships which are still unsettled. The concepts … have not disappeared, but they have become somewhat marginal in their own right.' (Jandrić andHayes 2019) Social justice and emancipation are as important as ever, yet they require new theoretical reconfigurations and practices fit for our socio-technological moment. In the 1990s, networked learning (NL) emerged as a critical response to dominant discourses of the day. NL went against the grain in two main ways. First, it embarked on developing nuanced understandings of relationships between humans and technologies; understandings which reach beyond instrumentalism and various forms of determinism. Second, NL embraced the emancipatory agenda of the critical pedagogy movement and has, in various ways, politically committed to social justice (Beaty et al. 2002; Networked Learning Editorial Collective 2020). Gathered around the biennial Networked Learning Conference,1 the Research in NetworkedLearning book series,2 and a series of related projects and activities, the NL community has left a significant trace in educational transformations over the last few decades. Twenty years ago, founding members of the NL community offered a definition of NL which has strongly influenced the NL community’s theoretical perspectives and research approaches (Goodyear et al. 2004).3 Since then, however, the world has radically changed. With this in mind, the Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC) recently published a paper entitled 'Networked Learning: InvitingRedefinition' (2020). In line with NL's critical agenda, a core goal for the paper was to open up a broad discussion about the current meaning and understandings of NL and directions for its further development. The current collectively authored paper presents the responses to the NLEC's open call. With 40 contributors coming from six continents and working across many fields of education, the paper reflects the breadth and depth of current understandings of NL. The responses have been collated, classified into main themes, and lightly edited for clarity. One of the responders, Sarah Hayes, was asked to write aconclusion. The final draft paper has undergone double open review. The reviewers, Laura Czerniewicz and Jeremy Knox, are acknowledged as authors. Our intention, in taking this approach, has been to further stimulate democratic discussion about NL and to prompt some much-needed community-building.lic

Dissolving the dichotomies between online and campus-based teaching: a collective response to The manifesto for teaching online (Bayne et al. 2020)

This article is a collective response to the 2020 iteration of The Manifesto for Teaching Online. Originally published in 2011 as 20 simple but provocative statements, the aim was, and continues to be, to critically challenge the normalization of education as techno-corporate enterprise and the failure to properly account for digital methods in teaching in Higher Education. The 2020 Manifesto continues in the same critically provocative fashion, and, as the response collected here demonstrates, its publication could not be timelier. Though the Manifesto was written before the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the responses gathered here inevitably reflect on the experiences of moving to digital, distant, online teaching under unprecedented conditions. As these contributions reveal, the challenges were many and varied, ranging from the positive, breakthrough opportunities that digital learning offered to many students, including the disabled, to the problematic, such as poor digital networks and access, and simple digital poverty. Regardless of the nature of each response, taken together, what they show is that The Manifesto for Teaching Online offers welcome insights into and practical advice on how to teach online, and creatively confront the supremacy of face-to-face teaching