eLearning Roadtrip

AAAS and the March for Science

Today's post is a PSA for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). I would like to share the letter I received this morning from Rush Holt, the chief executive officer of the AAAS, talking about the upcoming April 22 March for Science. If you like science, you might want to get involved.  Here it the letter: Now more than ever, we must demonstrate the importance of science to policymakers and the public. As you may know, there is a great deal of energy associated with the March for Science, which will take place in public spaces around the world on April 22, 2017. Activities will include marches and rallies, open houses, children's science festivals and teach-ins. AAAS has now signed a Memorandum of Understanding to partner with and support the March for Science, and we are developing a wide array of activities for before, during and following the March. We believe it is incumbent on AAAS to help ensure the March has a positive outcome. We want the March to remain a nonpartisan, educational, diverse, and ethical expression of the value of science to society, and we want to make sure the momentum doesn’t disappear after the March takes place. Over my entire career, I do not believe I have ever seen such a large, spontaneous outpouring of support for the idea of science. We think it is perhaps the best opportunity in many years to communicate a positive message to the public and public officials about the value, utility, beauty, and power of science, engineering, and technology. It is an important opportunity to advocate for the maintenance, and even the defense, of the conditions necessary for science to thrive. If you are interested in learning more, please visit www.marchforscience.com. However, we also need your help. Here are four things you can do right now: Visit our Force for Science website to stay up-to-date on the issues, understand the role that science plays in policy, follow AAAS advocacy activities, and find ways to engage and take action. Share your thoughts and ideas on our MemberCentral Trellis group. A team of AAAS staff meets every day to plan our advocacy activities, and we frequently take these discussions into account. Help make AAAS a stronger Force for Science by making a tax-deductible donation to our Flexible Action Fund. Tell others about AAAS, what we’re doing and why you’re a member of AAAS. You will be hearing more from us soon about new advocacy efforts and how you can get involved. Thank you for being a part of AAAS and for standing with us at this critical time for science. Sincerely, Rush D. Holt Chief Executive Officer, AAAS Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals

(tap, tap) Hey, is this thing still on?

During the past 6 years I have had the remarkable experience of taking an idea about predictive analytics all the way from brain-storming with smart, crazy people who wanted to try something new and different with big data techniques, to getting multiple grants from the Gates Foundation to see if our idea worked. It involved founding a not-for-profit organization to validate our ideas in the commercial ed tech marketplace, to being acquired by Hobsons, an international commercial software provider.  

Not bad for someone who had really just wanted a voice in the learning analytics conversation that was more focused on students than VC.

Now that I've had a chance to get settled in a new research job at Hobsons,  I've been reflecting on whether or not this work I've been doing in analytics still counts as elearning.  I'm thinking that it does.  I'm thinking that now, more than ever, using digital tools to extend out expectations of learning is exactly the next phase in learning innovation we elearning advocates have been waiting for.

There are some who continue to describe elearning as the activities utilizing electronic technologies to access educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom. In these cases, people are typically referring to an online course, program or degree. I get that. It helps define elearning as something distinct from other cognitive or pedagogical pursuits. Some people think of elearning as authoring, or collections of webcasts.  I've seen some people say that elearning is dying because mobile learning is about to replace it. 

For me, elearning is about leveraging technologies in support of designing, creating, producing, evaluating, distributing and managing learning experiences that engage and inspire, regardless of physical location or time. It's a much bigger tent than content or courseware.

My new job at Hobsons is a research job. I'm exploring learning impact and efficacy in the P-20 learning systems we depend on in the US to prepare our citizenry for college and and career success. I've been working on reports describing the impact of dual credit for accelerating college completion, on the impact of upward transfers from community colleges to completion institutions, on online learning efficacy, on the value of exploration and engagement in early childhood, the things we can do to support learning success among non-traditional students. 

I'm amazed to see, in all these discussions, the degree to which elearning has evolved beyond content and courseware. Today elearning is more about personalized, interactive, responsive experience.  If ed tech is where we concentrate on better tech tools, these days elearning encapsulates all we have learned to do to extend digitalization into our teaching and learning, education and training practices, constructs and values.

All this reflection made me realize I need a place to reflect on the transformative evolution of our practice as tech changes our expectations of our learning lives.

Looks like it's time to get back on the eLearning Roadtrip.