Designing Online Learning Experiences for People

Online learning is a hot topic, but discussions often either fetishize new technologies or go weak-kneed at dreams of “scaling up” to reach audiences of thousands or millions. Yet learning is a fundamentally personal and human experience; it is more valuable (and easier) to connect real people to each other than to attempt automating topic-specific instruction and evaluation. Most designed environments for online learning are exercises in frustration; we need new platforms with interfaces that get out of the way, supporting a natural, collaborative “flow” attainable in physical classrooms but so far absent online. Drawing on my own experiences of online teaching as well as recent research, I’ll demonstrate several recent experiments in new media for learning and outline a vision for the first great human-to-human online learning experience.

Transcript

1. 2016 June 16 Scott Murray Learning Group O’Reilly Media @alignedleft alignedleft.com Designing Online Learning Experiences for People An Introduction t
7. Veep, “Testimony,” 2015
8. Fitbit, 2015
9. Tinder
10. Amazon Echo, 2015 This is the role of interface design: to facilitate learning across digital (machine) and analog (human) realms.
13. “Uber’s Phantom Cabs” Alex Rosenblat, Motherboard, 2015
14. If… - digital experiences are mediated by designed interfaces, - interfaces wield power by influencing (constraining) behavior, and - we value learning What kinds of learning are we designing for?
15. Casey Reas, Dan Shiffman, Scott Garner, and Scott Murray, 2013
18. Scott Murray, 2014
25. Big Online Courses, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, UT Austin, 2015
26. My Dream Learning Platform would: > facilitate human-to-human interaction > encourage collaboration and conversation > provide space for play > emphasize socialization and community development at least as much as the explicit learning > work best for temporally bound learning communities > handle “courses” of different lengths > support synchronous and asynchronous communication > serve self-motivated learners but also engage less motivated ones > be useful for a wide range of subjects and content types > support an array of payment mechanisms and business models
27. Google Hangouts, appear.in, talky.io Google Docs, Etherpad, Github, Slack Minecraft DIY, specialized communities ? Khan Academy Chat, audio, video, forums ? ? OSS My Dream Learning Platform would: > facilitate human-to-human interaction > encourage collaboration and conversation > provide space for play > emphasize socialization and community development at l > work best for temporally bound learning communities > handle “courses” of different lengths > support synchronous and asynchronous communication > serve self-motivated learners but also engage less mot > be useful for a wide range of subjects and content typ > support an array of payment mechanisms and business mo
30. 2016 June 16 Scott Murray Learning Group O’Reilly Media @alignedleft alignedleft.com Let’s discuss bit.ly/28Aec60 An Introduction to Designing With D3 My Dream Learning Platform would: > facilitate human-to-human interaction > encourage collaboration and conversation > provide space for play > emphasize socialization and community development at l > work best for temporally bound learning communities > handle “courses” of different lengths > support synchronous and asynchronous communication > serve self-motivated learners but also engage less mot > be useful for a wide range of subjects and content typ > support an array of payment mechanisms and business mo