The twentieth Online Educa Berlin conference took place December 3rd through 5th, 2014. The conference brought together 2332 partcipants from 100 countries. I intended to skip the conference this year, but changed my mind for three reasons: Howard Rheingold, George Siemens, and Stephen Downes.

Stephen Downes reminded the conference that he and Siemens invented MOOCs, something that’s often forgotten. Matthew James Constantine from Spain offered practical tips for MOOCs: keep videos under 7 minutes; plan a 4 to 6 week duration for the MOOC overall.

Howard Rheingold spoke convincingly about the empowering potential of learning and the importance of networks. Teachers should discuss with students, find out their needs, and enable them to take responsibility for their own learning. The instructor’s task is to learn along with students instead of teaching. Rheingold recommends replacing pedagogy with peeragogy, which highlights different co-operative methods such as co-writing. Instead of memorizing we should consider meanings and connections. Effective networking requires that students create their own public voice. When someone enters your name in Google, you want the results to include your own outputs, not only information written by others.

Stephen Downes, in turn, advocated that each person needs his own independent online space. In the same way, every student should have his own personal learning environment, which is linked to other environments. The main idea is linking rather than using a joint platform. Services like Facebook are based on the premise that users are a product to sell to advertisers. Learning management systems, similarly, collect student data for the benefit of the organization and for the LMS company, even though the student should have the primary right to decide on its use. Content creators should always be able to take their data with, when they stop using the service. Our technology choices will define our future.

Thursday evening’s Oxford-style debate is always the culmination of the conference; two debaters stand for a given claim while two others argue against it. George Siemens and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger defended the idea that big data is not corrupting education, but rather helps to enhance and personalize instruction – as long as its use is open and transparent. Ellen Wagner and Inge de Waard were sceptical about the methods and goals of data use. In the post-debate poll, 72% of the audience agreed with the men. The debate was entertaining as usual, but it didn’t deliver such sparkling arguments as in previous years.

Things Are Getting Better, Even If It Doesn’t Look Like It 

Keynote speaker Lisa Lewin illustrated with her own personal history that political decisions have both micro and macro impacts. In her case, they made it possible for her to study at Harvard. For many women and minority groups, good political decisions have opened access to higher education which was previously reserved for the elite. With the help of technology we can continue to increase educational opportunities. Lewin thinks that educational technology has now passed the rapid assimilation phase and has reached the endpoint of an S-curve. Now we need new innovations, which may come from the fields of big data or neuroscience.

Ola Rosling delivered another interesting presentation. He began by posing three questions to the audience to find out if the participants viewed the world based on facts or illusions. It turns out that we education professionals were nearly as well-informed as chimpanzees. Rosling demonstrated that we believe the state of development in general is far darker than statistics show it to be. Poverty has been halved, women’s education has increased, and natural disasters have been less devastating than we think. Instructors in particular should rely on a fact-based worldview.

Tablet Is Not a Solution

Beyond its keynote speakers, the Online Educa conference offered many interesting presentations for smaller audiences. I was inspired by three Canadians – Thomas Stenzel, Michael Canuel, and Donna Aziz who dealt with teaching English in Thailand. The Thai government had ordered nine million tablets as part of an effort to improve miserable student performance on the PISA exams. The tablets ended up on the shelf. No content had been planned for them, and they couldn’t even charge the batteries. Only after this failure was the Canadian group invited to establish a workable, web-based model for learning English. The case is a typical example of what happens when a so-called reform begins by purchasing technology without a pedagogical plan and without training teachers. Technology deployment requires their skills and commitment. Without their own e-learning experience, it’s impossible to implement new teaching methods. Unfortunately, the acquisition of tablets in particular seems to be a value in itself, rather than their purpose. Before deciding on a device, we should analyze its intended use: is it a tool for working and interaction, or mainly a reader for ready-made materials? In the search for fast solutions, we often grasp the wrong end of a problem.

Educa offered several smaller sessions. Canadians Thomas Stenzel, Michael Canuel, and Donna Aziz presented a web-based model for learning English. New generation virtual glasses attracted attendees: there was a continous queue in front of the booth.

MOOCs were vigorously defended by Donald Clark. Théo Bondolfi led people in trying out collaborative group writing tools. Mister Blackboard Rick Van Sant vividly shared his opinion of man’s ability to multitask. Educa veteran Juhana Nieminen presented an interesting KungFu feedback tool.

Again in 2013, Online Educa Berlin gathered a few thousand e-learning professionals from 91 countries. Despite turbulent weather, the conference proceeded in a relaxed atmosphere. The main topics did not change from last year, but MOOCs–massive open online courses–were examined in greater depth from various perspectives.

Are MOOCs working? The answer is yes and no. They attract a huge number of participants and offer a wide audience the opportunity to participate in courses from top universities. Not everyone can take part, however, because MOOCs demand a computer, Internet access, and usually skill in English. One of the biggest problems is the large number of drop-outs; only a fraction of those who enroll will formally complete the course. MOOCs, therefore, require a fair amount of student self-direction, which is why they may be particularly suitable for university graduates.

We already have experience in MOOCs, and they can be designed in the traditional method (X MOOCs) or in the spirit of connectivism (C MOOCs). Donald Clark encouraged people to try different types of courses for different target groups. Not all participants need credits; many are involved because of the joy of learning. It might be possible to reduce the drop-out rates, so that massive open and small closed online courses are connected to each other. According to Clark, the financial problem can be solved in many ways, for example by state aid, donations, sponsorship, small participation or certificate fees and advertising.

One solution for time-consuming feedback is peer work, but there’s also the development of data collection and automatic feedback. Keynote speaker Victor “Big Data” Mayer-Schönberger illustrated how raw data collected in MOOCs is processed to support learning. When statistics show, for example, that a specific discussion comment helps in solving a problem, then students who have failed are automatically guided to read the comment. The huge amount of participants in a MOOC makes such massive data collection possible, which in turn supports the personalization of education.

The other keynote speaker Jeff Borden strongly advocated active learning. As evidence, he described a survey of 16 000 students who were asked about their favorite courses. The respondents almost unanimously cited those courses that require critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Borden also surprised the audience by saying that critical thinking is more likely with a cafeteria-like noise level around 65 to 80 decibels, while a lecture hall with 35 decibels is not as good for brain activation. If you need an environment that does not in any way support learning, he said, choose a classroom. MIT’s research on activiting the brain shows that student attention is lower while listening to lectures than while sleeping.

Finns are always active in the Educa; perennial participants Petri Lounaskorpi and Leena Vainio are talking with Ulla Tirronenand Johannes Pernaa. Linda Saukko-Rauta delighted the Educa audience with her sketchnotes. Kari A. Hintikka and Maija Kärnä talked about the use of social media; Inge de Waard guided teams in the design of MOOCs. The annual highlight of Educa is the debate, in which mass course opponents and supporters faced off this year. Almost unanimously, the audience voted the mass course on to the next round.

Michael Barber predicted an avalanche of change for higher education. Steve Martin showed how to bring about change through the force of persuasion. Online Educa Berlinattracted e-learning experts from 98 countries.

Two thousand e-learning enthusiasts from nearly 100 countries gathered in Berlin at this year’s Online Educa conference. Finns were well represented – the biggest foreign group came from the UK, the second from the Netherlands, and the third from Finland. Some Finnish organizations value this event enough to send teams of six or seven people.

Among the major trends discussed at the conference was the coming avalanche of change in higher education.Michael Barber‘s keynote speech pointed out clear evidence of forces pressing just below the placid surface of the academic world. University education costs have risen several hundred percent, yet at the same time the employment level of graduates has decreased. For example, in the UK last year, recent university graduates had a lower employment rate than people of the same age without university degrees. Popular massive open online courses, MOOCs, are pioneering new methods in universities, but financial viability is still a problem. Robert Cummingscaptured the current situation: MOOCs do not make us rich, but they can make us famous.

Getting Ready for a World Full of VUCA

Besides MOOC, the other popular acronym at the conference was VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), which describes the current situation of organizations in general. Success in a constantly changing environment requires vision, clarity, understanding, and agility, according to Edith Lemieux. Organizations in every field need to strengthen their ability to learn and to change.

This year the most attention focused on the educational use of video; Ville Venäläinen shared great examples from Finnish schools. A number of presentations also discussed educational use of Facebook. The most beneficial to me was Nick Kearney‘s talk: he defended such use of this entertaining service because learning should be easy and fun. Open sharing can increase transparency and trust among learners and instructors. However, one disadvantage of Facebook is that learners have great difficulty finding older materials and references in the continuous stream of updates.

So, Steve Martin – How Do I Accomplish Change?

A presentation on persuasion really got the participants buzzing. Steve Martin isn’t the American comedian, but like his namesake makes his points with humor. Martin says that people don’t understand what really affects their behavior. If we want people to behave in a certain way, we should tell them about others who are already acting that way. One of Martin’s points emphasized how context and impression influence the way people react to messages. Working with the UK tax authorities, he greatly increased tax compliance by replacing threatening letters with persuasive ones that emphasized how many taxpayers play by the rules. His book on persuasion has been translated into 26 languages.

My absolute favorite event on the Educa program was once again the Thursday evening debate. This time the question was whether the eliminating of formal degrees would improve lifelong learning. Debaters Jef Staes, Donald Clark, Sue Martin and Philip Ellaway delivered sparkling speeches in support of their viewpoints and greatly entertained the enthusiastic audience. More conferences should have such thought-provoking debates!

Nick Kearney believes that education can change: “Shift happens”. Finnish attendees at the conference included online learning specialists from FCG, InnoOmnia, colleges and universities.