Pushing the Frontiers of the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment

Ambrose, G. Alex, Abbott, Kevin, Lanski, Alison (2017) “Under the Hood of a Next Generation Digital Learning Environment in Progress” Educause Review.

Key Takeaways

*A first-year experience course at the University of Notre Dame offered the opportunity to develop and test a next generation digital learning environment.

*As a guiding framework for the digital architecture of the new FYE course, the design team followed the five dimensions of an NGDLE described in an ELI report to close the gaps between current learning management tools and digital learning environments.

*The FYE course required innovating beyond the supplemental course-level learning management system to create a more holistic NGDLE in order to fully support the teaching, learning, and student success missions of the program.

*Because they used an open-source LMS, they had a flexible hub with a campus support staff that could quickly, inexpensively, and safely begin to innovate at scale without high vendor cost or long development times.

 

2015-16 Digital Portfolio & Badge Year in Review

Notre Dame, Digication, & Credly Pioneer First
Digital Portfolio & Badge Integration

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ND’s Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning Wins Campus Technology
Innovator’s Award for ePortfolios with Evidence-Based Badges (E2B2)

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32 Badges Created as of 5/4/16

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Issued to 417 Learners, Clicked on 26.8K, and 89% Traffic from LinkedIn

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Top 10 Badge Activity

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Notre Dame Hosts Conference on Digital Portfolios & Badges

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ND Issues (& Studies) 5 different Open Badges
in 3 edX MOOCs issued to 231 global learners

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Click here to read the full story

2015-2016 Academic Year ePortfolio Census at Notre Dame

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What Alaa Taught us about Open Learning Evidence (in a MOOC with a Digital Portfolio & Badge)

Let me introduce you to Alaa. Alaa is a Syrian Architecture student at Damascus University. Last month she completed a Notre Dame Architecture edX Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called The Meaning of Rome: The Renaissance and Baroque City.

Click on image to zoom in.

Click on image to zoom in.

This wasn’t your typical MOOC that culminated in a verified certificate (at cost). Notre Dame faculty, Office of Digital Learning course designers, and the Center for Teaching & Learning researchers designed this MOOC with an optional performance/project-based capstone challenge that gave students (who passed the edX course with a 70% or higher) the opportunity to build an ePortfolio that demonstrated skills and knowledge from the course. In essence, they offered a free opportunity for students to showcase their learning in a public, dynamic way. This was far more than your run of the mill watch videos and take a multiple choice quiz for a MOOC certificate. (To see the resource and the documentation website with the ePortfolio project description and details on how to get started–including a template–click here.) The campus ePortfolio group worked with engineers from Academic Technologies and Digication (our campus vendor) to build a first-in-kind seamless integration into the edX platform, giving all MOOC learners a free ePortfolio account that was connected to their edX profile. The MOOC learners then submitted their ePortfolios for Faculty & TA review through Digication’s back-end Assessment Management System. A rubric was used to evaluate the quality of the MOOC learner’s ePortfolio.

Back to Alaa. She was one of four MOOC learners that not only completed and passed the course but also received a passing rubric score that earned her a digital badge. See the screenshot below for the completed details of the badge, description, criteria, and list of earners.

Click on image to see verified page in Credly

Click on image to see verified page in Credly

One of the first and most evident benefits of issuing badges to Credly profiles is that it begins to humanize the MOOC classmates by providing profile pics such as those seen above. Clicking deeper provides another level of significance. For example, when you click into Alaa’s pic, you can see the meta-data that is baked into and connected with the badge. Most importantly (and usually under-used) is the “evidence” field.

Click on image for a link to the verified page on Credly

Click on image for a link to the verified page on Credly

When you click on Alaa’s evidence link it takes you to her public ePortfolio, which can viewed here. I encourage you to click around to see her evidence of what she gained from the MOOC. Below you will find some of my favorite snippets of her pictures, drawings, videos, and reflections.

Click on image for a zoomed in view

Click on image for a zoomed in view

While her country is being torn apart through a civil war from ISIS, Alaa states that she wants “to bring attention” to her ancient city. This is the potential of open evidence. The ePortfolio and the open badge empowered this young Syrian woman to use Notre Dame’s free Massive Open Online Course to demonstrate her interest in and competency with architectural analysis–using her city as her canvas. This is what open evidence of learning means: to be transparent, to give public visibility, to bring attention to Alaa and her skills through her city of Damascus. At the center of his is digital portfolios and badges. If paired right,they can unlock the power of evidence behind the open badge and optimize a student’s ability to collect an available body of projects and the process to make and prove a claim.

If Notre Dame didn’t offer this free Massive Open Online Course would Alaa have had this opportunity?

Could we have known or seen Alaa, her work, her story, her learning, her architectural analysis of her ancient city without the ePortfolio?

Would we have bubbled up Alaa from the thousands who enrolled in the course, hundreds who finished the course, the dozen who built an ePortfolio without the badge?

If you haven’t gotten enough here is a gallery of three more badged ePortfolios from the MOOC

Click on image for a zoomed in view

Click on image for a zoomed in view

From St. Patrick’s Cathedral (NYC), Dublin (Ireland), and Salt Lake City (UT).

Integrative Student Assessment in the First Year Experience through Analytics, Digital Portfolios, and Badges

Abstract:


In the academic year 2015-2016, the First Year of Studies in collaboration with the Division of Student Affairs launched the Moreau First Year Experience, a two-semester course sequence designed to assist first-year students in making a meaningful transition to collegiate life at Notre Dame. In our inaugural year of Moreau First Year Experience, we were able to collect, store, and analyze student data through Sakai and ePortfolio submissions in collaboration with the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning and Office of Information Technologies (OIT). The data are used to provide interventions for students with at-risk performances and show how students meet course goals of integrative learning and increasing sophistication in the use of technologies (audio, image, and video) through voluntary digital badges. In this presentation, we will show how the two spectra of interventions and celebration of exemplar work are being used to enhance the value of the Moreau First Year experience course.  The Moreau First Year Experience has significant campus-wide impact because it involves students and instructors from all university disciplines and will soon be the one academic experience common to all students at Notre Dame. As such, the Moreau First Year Experience is a uniquely powerful way to study and analyze successful student behavior.


Citation:


Dawson, Maureen, Ambrose G. Alex, Lanski, Alison, Anggara, Trunojoy, Dillon, John (2016) “Integrative Student Assessment in the Moreau First Year Experience through Analytics, Digital Portfolios, and Badges” Association of Authentic, Experiential, and Evidenced-based Learning (AAEEBL) Midwest Regional Conference. Notre Dame, Indiana.  

About the Conference:

The Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning, in partnership with the Open Badges in Higher Education, is hosting the Association of Authentic Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) Midwest Regional Conference on Wednesday May 11 and Thursday May 12, 2016. Click here for more details about the conference, program, and registration.