Synkron Magazine for Flexible Education

SYNKRON

1:2019

MAGAZINE FOR FLEXIBLE EDUCATION

WHY WE SHOULD UNDERSTAND AI QUALITY IN EDUCATION IS HARD WORK THE OPPORTUNITIES OF VIRTUAL MOBILITY THE POWER OF ONLINE EDUCATION

SYNKRON

IN THIS ISSUE 04

CHINA’S YOUTH IS LEARNING ENGLISH

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QUALITY IN EDUCATION

In this article we will take a closer look at the New Chinese service called VIPKid. With only a few years up and running this online service has grown to over 60,000 teach­ers and 500,000 students.

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION NORWAY MAGAZINE FOR FLEXIBLE EDUCATION Published February 2019 SYNKRON is published by Flexible Education Norway (FuN) SYNKRON is following the rights and duties of the Editor This declaration is a joint document agreed upon by The Association of Norwegian Editors and The Norwegian Media Business

Flexible education Norway has published a guide to quality, both in Norwegian and in English. Quality in online teaching and learning is meant to be a framework for teachers. This initiative was undertaken by Flexible Education Norway’s Quality Committee. Synkron talked to two members of the Committee and the English translater, to hear first hand how they approached this very demanding task.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ebba Køber, FuN kober@fleksibelutdanning.no PUBLISHER Flexible Education Norway Torunn Gjelsvik, CEO gjelsvik@fleksibelutdanning.no EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Loveleen Rihel Brenna, SEEMA Oddgeir Tveiten, UiA June Breivik, Kulturtanken Susanne Koch, Diku PHOTO, ILLUSTRATIONS Georgia Soares Istock Creative Commons Ebba Køber ICDE COPYEDITOR PROOF & TRANSLATION Kari Olstad, EPALE, Georgia Soares, ICDE Art Director Ebba Køber CONTRIBUTERS THIS ISSUE Torunn Gjelsvik Georgia Soames Kari Olstad Susanne Koch June Breivik Ebba Køber Torhild Slåtto

CONTENT Editorials

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The Opportunity of Virtual Mobility

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English Language learning and the Power of Online Education

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The Project – EPICA

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A Chat with the Acting Secretary General of ICDE

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A Report about Lifelong Learning and Technology

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Reviews – Books, Conferences and Art exhibitions

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VISITING ADRESS Vollsveien 4 1326 LYSAKER NORWAY

Quality In education is hard Work and Structure

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Why we should understand Artificial Intelligence

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E-mail: post@fleksibelutdanning.no Web: www.fleksibelutdanning.no

We have to keep Learning all our Lives, but Where – and How?

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FACEBOOK, TWITTER: @nade_fun and LINKEDIN www.fleksibelutdanning.no

Flexible Education Norway – Projects and Publications

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International Conference Calendar

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Synkron is member of THE NORWEGIAN SPECIALIZED PRESS ASSOCIATION

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @NADE_FUN 2 Synkron 1:2019

EDITORIAL LIFELONG LEARNING IN THE NEW EDUCATIONAL ORDER EBBA KØBER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, SYNKRON As we go into the new year we approach our magazine SYNKRON’s tenth anniversary. This is a good opportunity to launch an English issue of our magazine for flexible education. The reason for doing so is to reach out to our international network. We also hope that our Norwegian readers in this field which becomes more globalized, can find an English edition useful.

The Publisher of this magazine, Flexible Education Norway, is one of the partners to the conference ICDE Lillehammer Lifelong Learning Summit with over 300 participants from 40 countries. The theme of the summit is lifelong learning,

which fits very well to the Norwegian government’s ongoing competence reform. Important issues as financial models for lifelong learning are being discussed, and the Norwegian prime minister will attend the conference as a keynote speaker.

This issue has a main theme; lifelong learning and the use of new technology to make this happen in a seamless and sustainable way. We wish our Norwegian and international readers welcome to this English edition of the magazine.

WHY AI AND ROBOT ETHICS CONCERN US ALL TORUNN GJELSVIK, CEO, FLEXIBLE EDUCATION NORWAY (FuN) Which words and concepts about the new technology dominated society and media last year, and how many of them will remain relevant in the future? I have noted several new job titles that are all related to the same topic, namely artificial intelligence (often abbreviated to AI): digital librarian, robot trainer and robot influencer, to name but a few.

In case you didn’t know what a robot influencer is, the short explanation is that it is an AI-based digital clone of a real influencer intended to represent a real person in different places around the world. It is perhaps not a very common job, but it is uplifting that several of these newly coined words represent new possibilities arising as a result of robotisation and automation. They have helped to shift the focus away from “disappearing jobs” and onto the new work opportunities that technological developments give rise to.

The research department of Norway’s foremost provider of digital telecommunication and computer services, Telenor, declare that ‘Whether artificial intelligence will have a strong impact on almost every industry and every society, is no longer a question’. They also predict that public as well as private players will establish ethical frameworks and clear guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in the course of 2019. When algorithms and smart systems are capable of making faster and better decisions than human beings without us even understanding the models they use, it becomes extremely important to establish human control over

ethical aspects. Since the machines themselves develop optimal strategies for achieving goals more quickly than any human being, consideration for values will be ignored if they are not explicitly stated in the rules.

For example, recruitment practices that produce a skewed gender distribution will only be reinforced unless gender balance is expressly defined as a value in rules incorporated into the algorithms.

The European Commission recently launched its Coordinated Plan on Artificial Intelligence, in which it urges member states to put national AI strategies in place by mid-2019. Several important players from the public sector and the business community alike are now calling for a national strategy for artificial intelligence, but the attitude of the Norwegian Government has so far been negative. It will be interesting to follow developments and public debate in the time ahead, as the matter will certainly not become less relevant.

Here at Flexible Education Norway (FuN), we are particularly interested in the effect of artificial intelligence on education and learning, and particularly its implications for lifelong learning and knowledge development. Norway should build its own competence, bring the expert communities together, strengthen this initiative and connect with the international communities to ensure that we are in the driver’s seat.

Technology provides new opportunities and arenas for adaptive and more flexible learning that is better tailored to individual needs. However, we must make sure that the systems used do not discriminate, communicate biased information or disclose data, and that they are secure, transparent and disseminate desirable values.

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VIRTUAL MOBILITY

The Opportunities of Virtual Mobility What is virtual mobility, why is it important and what is in it for you?

BY SUSANNE KOCH, THE NORWEGIAN AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND QUALITY ENHANCEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION (DIKU)

About twenty prosent of students within the European Union1 today take part in formal studies abroad.

It is a political goal both in the EU and here in Norway that the number of students who have a formal international experience during their studies should be considerably higher. Our Minister for Education and Research, Iselin Nybø, has stated a goal of 50 prosent.

In order to reach this goal, a combination of physical and virtual mobility is necessary. The next iteration of Erasmus+ starting in 2021, will allocate considerable funds for projects exploring the possibilities of virtual mobility. It can be expected that in the future almost all students will be involved in virtual mobility, including those who go abroad.

Physical Mobility and Virtual mobility Virtual mobility cannot replace physical mobility when this kind of immersive experience in another academic, linguistic and cultural environment is what is called for.

Yet virtual mobility will still change students’ academic and cultural point of view and challenge their preconceptions. In addition, virtual

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mobility has its own unique benefits (see fact box).

In the EPICS Handbook on International Mobility2, this added value is stated as follows:

”Virtual mobility should not only be considered as an instrument to enrich physical mobility but as an innovative and fully-fledged form of international mobility per se.”

Virtual Mobility in Global Health Education Developing innovative e-learning and teaching in global health education is the goal of an ambitious program funded by Erasmus+. The project develops nine e-learning modules, clustered into three pathways.

These will give students access to a learning experience that combines the expertise of the three different project partners and allows students to engage in virtual mobility across the partner

institutions.

Students will be registered at each partner organisation and will come to the host university to attend the first semester physically.

Students will then return to their home countries and complete the remaining modules online. This kind of blended virtual mobility has many pedagogical benefits and is likely to become widespread. You can read more about this project at https://bit.ly/2SM7JBX. Diku and Virtual Mobility At The Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (Diku), we have been working with the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) on virtual mobility throughout 2018. I was part of a task force for virtual mobility, which concluded its work in December of last year. Our findings and recommendations will be presented in a paper at the EUEADTU Summit in Brussels in April.

We will continue this collaboration.

1. According to Virtual Mobility Matrix (https://bit.ly/2RiDplO) 2. https://bit.ly/2shUGfY

VIRTUAL MOBILITY WHAT IS VIRTUAL MOBILITY Virtual mobility is defined in relation to physical mobility, i.e. formal student exchange, where an agreement exists between two or more higher education institutions, as well as a learning agreement with the student.

The studies undertaken should result in ECTS and contribute towards the degree the student is working on.

THE BENIFITS OF VIRTUAL MOBILITY Here are some of them, gleaned from EADTU’s Virtual Mobility Matrix1: 1. It is scalable: Because there is no need to travel, it can engage all students in a classroom.

2. It is sustainable.

3. It is flexible: can be applied just in time, synchronously and asynchronously.

4. It can create new, virtual learning spaces and communities.

5. It creates opportunities for intercultural exchange and for the development of online international communication and collaboration skills.

6. Students who want to study a subject which is not available at the home

university can follow online courses at a host university as well as a virtual seminar, a virtual lab, a MOOC, a micro-master, etc.

7. Part-time students can replace a face-to-face course in the home university programme by an online course at another university, which is improving the flexibility of learning paths.

8. Multiple universities and different countries/ continents can be engaged simultaneously.

9. Part-time and working students, mature students and students with special

needs can participate conveniently.

10. It is cost-effective for the student 11. It fosters important 21st century skills like: • Interactive and collaborative learning in an authentic international environment • Autonomy-driven learning • Media and digital literacy • Active self-regulated learner skills • Open-mindedness

1. https://bit.ly/2RiDplO

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ONLINE LEARNING

English Language Learning and the Power of Online Education

BY GEORGIA SOARES, ICDE

The rise of technological advancement has led many to fear that language learning would lose its purpose. Computers have progressively mastered the art of translation while companies like Google and Facebook work to optimize translation services on the web. However, recent developments in online education have proved just the contrary: technology has equally helped to create more opportunities for language learning online, extending resources to learners in every corner of the world.

Online teaching companies are particularly interesting for their learning platforms and outreach capability. I work as an online English teacher for VIPKid, a Chinese company that hires North Americans to teach immersive one-on-one lessons to Chinese children. VIPKid’s mission is to provide high-quality English education to millions of children in China without having to leave their home.

That VIPKid has succeeded in creating a global village strikes me as a particularly successful accomplishment. The company has hired over sixty-thousand teachers to serve more than five-hundred thousand students. Working for VIPKid is as multi-cultural as one can imagine: While living in Norway, I was referred to this job from an acquaintance living in France. From the comfort of my home, I taught children in China, collaborated with VIPKid staff based in the US and

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China, and joined an online group of teachers living in over thirty countries. In this group, we shared teaching resources to help each other hone our teaching skills and render class more engaging.

This global village also includes the students and their families. Overtime, I have built a close rapport with many children who became my regular students. Between speaking to each other in class, connecting with parents on social media to discuss class scheduling, and sending each other holiday gifts via VIPKid, we became increasingly more connected. My year-long teaching experience culminated in a trip to visit VIPKid headquarters in Beijing to better get to know the company and to meet with two students and their families.

Neither parents spoke English while the students spoke as much English as they had learned at VIPKid. They had never met a Western foreigner on a personal basis before. For me, it was my first time visiting East Asia and I could speak not a word in Chinese. And yet we connected: exchanging gifts, sharing meals, and crossing language barriers. The children told me they felt even more compelled to learn English, while I told them I was interested in learning Chinese for the first time. Online education has succeeded in not only promoting language learning but also in building bridges across continents and cultures, promoting a global village.

VIPKid VIP­Kid is a Chi­nese on­line ed­uc ­ a­tion firm that of­f ers an Amer­i­can el­e­men­tary ed­u­ca­tion ex­ pe­ri­ence to Chi­nese stu­dents aged 4–12. The com­pany hires in­struc­tors to give 25-minute, one-on-one, fully im­mer­sive lessons de­liv­ered via the com­pany’s learn­ing plat­form and based on U.S. Com­mon Core State Stan­dards. The process ad­heres to a flipped class­room model, en­tail­ing a pre-class video that in­tro­duces key learn­ing points, in­ter­ac­tive one-on-one in­struc­tion that re­ in­forces learn­ing ob­jec­tives, and fol­low-up, post class home­work.

The com­pany was founded in 2013 by Cindy Mi with early back­ing by angel in­vest­ment firmIn­no­va­tion Works, led by for­mer Google China pres­i­dent and promi­nent Chi­nese mi­croblog­ger Kai-Fu Lee. Speak­ing to the Wall Street Jour­nal in Aug. 2015, Lee high­lighted the com­pany as an ex­am­ple of China’s im­prov­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ial talent.

Fol­low­ing its angel round, in Oc­to­ber 2014, VIP­ KID was awarded $5 mil­lion in Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing led by Ma­trix Part­ners China, and in Oc­to­ber 2015, it was awarded Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing of $20 mil­lion in a round led by North­ern Light Ventures.

On Aug. 3, 2016, VIP­KID an­nounced Se­ries C fi­nanc­ing of $100 mil­lion in a round led by Jack Ma’s Yun­feng Cap­i­tal and Se­quoia Cap­i­tal.

Later that month the com­pany re­ceived a siz­able in­vest­ment from Bryant Stibel, a ven­ture cap­i­tal firm an­nounced by Kobe Bryant and Jeff Stibel at the NYSE. A $500 mil­lion fund­ing round in 2018 led to the com­pany’s being val­ued at over $3 bil­lion, mak­ing it a uni­corn.

In 2017 VIP­KID launched Lingo Bus, a Chil­dren’s on­line Chi­nese ed­u­ca­tion plat­form much like that of VIP­KID’s main one on one plat­form. Lingo Bus fo­cuses on high qual­ity Man­darin Chi­nese ed­u­ca­ tion in VIP­KID’s Eng­lish ed­u­ca­tion format.

Founder and CEO Mi, vis­ited the US Con­gress on March 13, 2018 for a three-year part­ner­ship for a Cross-Bor­der Ed­u­ca­tion under US-China Strong Foundation. Cur­rently, VIP­KID has more than 60,000 teach­ers and over 500,000 students.

ONLINE NEW MEMBERS LEARNING

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THE EPICA PROJECT – ICDE

By using e-portfolio – we will bridge together graduates and employers, universities and companies Since 2018, ICDE has been the lead partner and coordinator of a Horizon 2020 project named EPICA. The full project name is “Strategic partnership for the co-design of an innovative and scalable e-portfolio ecosystem to improve the quality and visibility of skills”. ICDE, as a global connector for online and open quality lifelong learning, has made strong investments in this strategic EuropeanAfrican partnership. The project strives to bring together businesses, organisations and universities in both Europe and Africa to design an innovative, scalable e-portfolio in order to improve the quality, visibility and availability of new skills.

We asked the project manager and coordinator from ICDE, Jean-Baptiste Milon, why ICDE engaged in this specific project: “Even though the project was primarily initiated by MyDocumenta, an extremely active SME located in Spain, the EPICA project was quickly brought to ICDE to benefit from its Global Network.

Naturally ICDE became the coordinator for the project and successfully led the submission of the project to the European Commission. Having an extended network in both Europe and Africa, ICDE supported from the beginning this initiative and enabled the establishment of the EPICA Consortium equally represented on both continents.”

The project manager explains that the

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goals and aims of the EPICA initiative are in line with the core missions and values of ICDE, since education also must be a catalyst for employment and social integration. The idea is that the technology developed by the EPICA project will increase the visibility of skills for students in Africa, ultimately benefiting both potential employees as well as employers and universities.

-What are the concrete goals for the EPICA project?

“The concrete project goal is to deliver an e-portfolio solution that is “user-friendly” enough to make possible its adoption by African universities. Also, and important goal is to find potential donors or funding bodies ensuring the sustainability of such a solution beyond the EPICA project.

Overall our goal is to increase the visibility of skills in Africa by bridging together in a more efficient way graduates and employers, universities and companies.”

-What are the most important lessons learnt so far in the project?

“For many partners across the EPICA consortium it is the first time they have been involved in a European-African collaboration. I believe that the main achievement so far of this project has been to bring together and successfully merge all these competencies from both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, and to set them in motion within a challenging but promising project. To this date all

TORUNN GJELSVIK, SYNKRON IN CONVERSATION WITH JEAN-BABTISTE MILON, AND MORTEN FLATE PAULSEN, ICDE

partners have demonstrated an extremely high commitment to the objectives and tasks of the project, which has made this journey enjoyable and fruitful for ICDE as coordinator, but also for all our partners.

We recently had our first meeting with our newly appointed External Advisory board made of experts and key decision and policy makers in Africa. To our great pleasure their interest and support to the project was extremely high, what looks promising for the next two years of the project.”

THE PROJECT In every issue of Synkron we present a project in the field of Flexible Education

EPICA – Strategic European-African partnership led by ICDE. The project strives to bring together businesses, organisations and universities in both Europe and Africa to design an innovative, scalable e-portfolio in order to improve the quality, visibility and availability of new skills. www.epica-initiative.com

THE EPICA PROJECT – ICDE A chat with the Acting Secretary General devoted members who contribute in the development of our field through their work with ICDE conferences, action committees, newsletters, report series etc.

Acting secretary General of ICDE Morten Flate Paulsen: -Could you describe ICDE’s role as a global facilitator for inclusive, flexible quality learning and teaching in the digital age and why this is an important network in our time?

-ICDE has a unique role as the major global membership organization in the field of online, open and distance education. Several of our members are among the largest universities in the world as they have more than one million students each. We have a proud, 80-year long history of promoting distance education starting with our first World conference in Canada as early as August 1938. Since 1967, we have been formally affiliated to UNESCO as a non-governmental organization.

ICDE also has an impressive network of

-You are a professor of online education with a long track record in academic work and international engagement for the field. What do you, as acting Secretary General of ICDE, see as your most important contribution to the development of the organization?

-I have followed ICDE and worked nationally and internationally as a practitioner and researcher of online education through 30 years. I have learned much about member organizations from my time as President of the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) and as board member of Flexible Education Norway (FuN). Now, my ambition is to use my experiences and networks to further strengthen and develop the international ICDE community and member services.

My other priority is to focus on the expectations the Norwegian Government presents us along with its financial support: to develop contacts with Norwegian educational institutions and

authorities to give them access to ICDE’s expertise and networks in international distance learning.

-How would you advice potential new ICDE members to get the most out of their membership in a global organization like ICDE? -Among the many services we provide to our individual and institutional members, I would like to highlight their opportunities to reach out and connect with our global community by promoting and sharing noteworthy projects, initiatives, research and practice. As an example, ICDE has a tradition of providing open calls to members. In 2019, we have, among others, an open call for a host institution for the ICDE 2021 World Conference, and an editorial team for Open Praxis – the ICDE open access scholarly journal.

I urge our members to present at our conferences, publish articles in Open Praxis and forward news that we can share through our website, newsletters and social media channels. In addition, we are interested in promoting and facilitating international collaboration and development projects that benefit our members around the world.

FACTS ABOUT ICDE ICDE has 200 institutional members from over 70 countries, speaking over 40 languages, impacting over 17 million students across 6 continents. The organization has collaborated closely with its’ Norwegian sister organization Flexible Education Norway (FuN) since the establishment of the permanent secretariat in Oslo in 1988.

• Founded in 1938 • Supported by Norwegian Government since 1988 • Permanent Secretariat with nine employees in Oslo • A partner of UNESCO for over 50 years • Initiates international projects, policy processes and reports • Organizes two international conferences a year • ICDE’s website www.icde.org • ICDE’s open access scholarly journal www.openpraxis.org

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TECHNOLOGY FOR LIFE

NEW MEMBERS

A report about lifelong learning and technology

BY JUNE BREIVIK, KULTURTANKEN

Technology is changing the way we work and the way we learn. One major shift is the fact that learning is becoming a lifelong endeavour. Partly due to the fact that machines and technology make many of our current jobs obsolete, and thus we need to acquire new competences to be employable.

Competence requirements in current positions change as robots and AI become our colleagues.

The Norwegian Board of Technology advises the Norwegian Parliament and Government on technologies that will be important to Norway. Because technology is changing the way we work and learn, they have appointed a group of experts that will look into the challenges and opportunities. This group has contributed to the report: Technology for lifelong learning. Also available and downloadable in English https://teknologiradet.no/wp-content/ uploads/sites/105/2018/11/LifelongLearning-and-Technology.pdf One of the questions the group of experts has debated is «How can the same technology that is posing a challenge to jobs also be used to strengthen the potential for lifelong

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learning?» The report outlines how new technology can help to strengthen the potential for lifelong learning in three fundamental ways: Remote: Digital technology enables new forms of learning. The fact that learning no longer is locked in time and space but can be available anytime from anywhere opens new possibilities and new groups. People, who for different reasons were not able to take time off to study at an institution, can now learn from home or at work.

questions towards the end; who will benefit from these new opportunities?

Will increased flexibility and adaptation lead to more people participating in learning, or will those who benefitted from the old model also benefit from the new? What about all the information that is gathered these digital arenas? As the technology gets more personalised what about privacy issues?

How a Norwegian skills reform might look like will be examined in the next report on the subject.

Personalised: Technology opens up for more flexible solutions, and adaptive technology can adapt teaching in realtime to each individual participant’s level and needs and provide immediate feedback.

Simulated: Various forms of simulated environments make it possible to design and customise programmes of learning, connected closely to real work tasks and situations. 2D, 3D, VR and AR all open up new ways of learning and ways for the learners to interact with each other and their learning material.

The report also raises some important

Technology for lifelong learning. Also available and downloadable in English https://teknologiradet.no/wpcontent/uploads/sites/105/2018/11/Lifelong-Learningand-Technology.pdf

AI Superpowers: China, GDPR and Data as the new Oil

BY EBBA KØBER In September 2018 The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman cited the book AI Superpowers in his summary of the emerging global dominance of China in AI. According to Kai-Fu Lee, “If data is the new oil, then China is the new Saudi Arabia.“ With this book, Kai Fu Lee takes us on a journey where he talks about the use of artificial intelligence, and about China’s ability to acquire new technology in relation to the US and Europe. And how Europe’s relationship with GDPR can slow down development.

Lee describes the conditions in China with a light pen, he calls what we perceive as stealing a patent for borrowing or copying. Even though the Chinese copied the whole of Google’s search engine (they were found out because there was a different colour of one of the letters in the logo) while he was the director of Google in China, he describes

A strong Case Against Education

BY EBBA KØBER When you work within the field of Education it is always interesting to read a critical book written from inside the walls of the “Ivory Tower”1. This time it is Professor of Economics Bryan Caplan at George Mason University who has taken upon himself to demonstrate everything that is wrong with education, at all levels.

He states that education is immensly overrated. The primary function of education is not to enchance the students skills, but to certify their intelligence, work ethic and conformity, to get them ready to become good employees. He states that employers reward workers with a degree with higher salary, even if they can’t use

(AUDIO) BOOK REVIEW this incident almost humorously.

And when it comes to education, he also has a description of the use of artificial intelligence without the debate regarding GDPR that we have in Europe. He talks about “flipped classroom”, but with face recognition to see if the students attend the lecture, and if they are participating. And that the parents are notified if the students fall behind. In China’s one-child society, there is a crisis for the parents if their son cannot pay for their pension, so they will be happy to monitor that he is successfully taking his exams to get an education.

Chinese Uber, where the company own the cars and the service- and gas stations.

This is both a scary and exciting book that touches on topics such as education and work, and outlines what the new revolution brings with it, good and bad.

“If data is the new oil, then China is the new Saudi Arabia.“ Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times

The authorities in China encourage the use of artificial intelligence and collaborate with both soft- and hardware manufacturers to set up camera and store measurements to get as much big data as possible. And much data is at the very heart of artificial intelligence.

Where the US is more reluctant to enter the infrastructure, the Chinese choose to build new highways to adapt to self-driving cars, and they invest in the whole chain. One example is from

what they actually learned. And since everybody must have a degree, the competition to have higher and longer education gets harder, So what can society do to mend this big gap between what you learn and what employers need? He states that the government should cut education fundings to stop this waste of time.

He also says that they should invest in vocational education, because practical skills are more socially valuable than the ratrace of getting into the best university.

Caplan is a big believer in online education and he believes that vocational studies also can be replaced by virtual classrooms. There is nothing stunningly new in this 416 pages long book from Princeton University Press 1.The term Ivory Tower has been used to designate an environment of intellectual pursuit disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life.

Title AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order Author Kai-Fu Lee Language English Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Published September, 2018

(or 11 hours of audio) but he has much knowledge and is not afraid to go against his friends in the Ivory Tower.

Title: The Case Against Education Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money Author: Bryan Caplan Narrated by: Allan Robertson Length: 11 hrs Unabridged Audiobook Release date: May, 2018 Language: English Publisher: Audible Studios

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REVIEWS: EXHIBITIONS

NEW MEMBERS

Rene Margrittes paiting Le blanc seing lent to V&A by National Gallery Washington. The image is not possible, but our mind put the scenes togheter. Cardboard Computer made Kentucky Route zero inspired by the painting by Magritte, using the same set of ideas to build the game.

Videogames revisited – DESIGN/PLAY/ DISRUPT Something exiting is happening to museums everywhere – they go from being dead to be the new interactive places to learn.

BY EBBA KØBER, SYNKRON This exhibition provides a unique insight into the design process behind a selection of groundbreaking contemporary video games. Design work, including concept, art and prototypes, feature alongside largescale immersive installations and interactives.

In the last 15 years, broadband, social media and innovations in digital tools have revolutionized how games are created, discussed and played. This exhibition explores the design and culture of this medium from the mid2000s to now, highlighting how these changes have enabled ground-breaking and unexpected new developments.

“From Insights into pioneering design, and debates around what games can and will be, to the dizzying exploits of player communities both on and offline. This is a moment to reassess and celebrate the craft and impact of contemporary video

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games, and confront and expand your expectations,” the curator says.

An interesting take of this exhibition is how the curators see video games as a work-in-progress that can develop into unknown territory. This open take on the field may trigger a wider and less narrow-minded understanding of games.

“Making games combines everything that’s hard about building a bridge with everything that’s hard about composing an opera.

Games are operas made out of bridges.”

Frank Lantz, “Hearts and Minds” GDC 2014

For educators, developers and gamers, this exhibition is a must, so hurry up!

VICTORIA & ALBERT What’s the deal: Exhibition about the art of video games, with raving reviews Time and place: Until 24 February 2019, Victoria & Albert Museum in London Organizer: Victoria & Albert Museum, London Number of attendees: Around 4 million visitors every year Best experience: The showroom with Q&A about the ethics and education of video games Worst experience: It’s huge, and can be a bit overwhelming, so plan in advance Recommended?

This is a must if you need reasons for using games in education and storytelling

REVIEWS: CONFERENCES

The BETT Show

BY KARI OLSTAD, SYNKRON BETT is one of the largest edtech events in Europe, more than 40,000 square meters full of exhibitions, installations, cafes, info kiosks and scenes where companies and change agents from all over the world offer their ideas and products to teachers and other school people with increasingly heavy heads and sore feet. BETT is all about schools, especially of primary and secondary levels.

This year we went to BETT the last two days. Although it was packed with people, the queues for the wardrobe / suitcase were acceptable. (Minus for having to pay with cash, who walks about with coins in their pockets these days? And at a tech fair?) To access toilets was also easy and we even got seats for our group of eight at one of the many eateries.

If it’s been a while since your last visit, you might remember BETT as a bit of a semi dark venue with DIY stalls. Now it’s huge and airy and polished. Worthy of a tech fair at the end of the 2010s.

Almost all the big ones like Google and Microsoft are there, but also more surprising exhibitors. For example, the United Arab Emirates had a very huge, state-of-the-art and smooth-looking installation (or maybe not so surprising when you know who owns ExCel).

The major installations have engaging activities like robot programming and manoeuvring, interactive displays, VR glasses, sensor mats and game consoles.

Some also have mini theatres with their own lectures outside of the common program. And then there are all those who are mostly present to display their logo and talk to existing and potential customers. You’ll find everything from the most state-of-the-art multi-sensory learning technology to rather uninviting reading tools with interfaces from the nineties, which only demonstrates the diversity and development of edtech.

Although many of the offers are out of reach for the average school budget, it’s useful to see what’s “out there.” What are the limits right now?

Norwegian education technology is also well represented. Oslo EdTech Cluster was responsible for the fourth collective exhibition “Norwegian Classroom” for the fourth time, and here you can meet many old acquaintances and some new ones. The cluster also arranges a social and professional meetup at The Trampery further north in the city. Other companies also have side events associated with BETT, so follow the various networks to get what’s happening at and around the ExCel.

BETT What’s the deal: Four days long interactive mega-edtechexhibition, mainly for K12 market Time and place: end of January, ExCel in London, Organizer: Its own enterprise in cooperation with partners and sponsors Number of attendees: 40,000 (2019) Best experience: Free access to an eldorado of technology and interactivity where you get to experience the newest cool stuff Worst experience: it’s huge, and can be a bit overwhelming, so plan in advance Recommended? BETT is a bucket list event for teachers – but there’s no need to return every year www.bettshow.co.uk

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QUALITY IN ONLINE EDUCATION

Quality in education is hard work and structure TORHILD SLÅTTO, ICDE, IN A CONVERSATION WITH METTE VILLAND, INLAND NORWAY UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES, SELL AND ANNE SWANBERG, BI BUSINESS SCHOOL

Mette Villand -The student must do the learning.

Tutors and others can only be helpers, either as supporter, mirror or corrective. This is approximately how it is written in a paper on quality in education from the University of Bergen. Still the educational institutions will have to work hard to plan the study programmes and facilitate for the students to achieve the learning outcome that has been promised to them, so to speak. This is always the case, independent of the arena or the technology chosen for teaching and learning. Assuring quality in education is hard work for all the involved. It is necessary to thoroughly plan and follow up.

In Flexible Education Norway’s newly translated Quality Guide the Quality Committee who has written the guide, has described various issues that independently and together can contribute to good quality in online education. The book is titled A Guide

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to Quality in Online Teaching and Learning. Anne Swanberg from BI Norwegian Business School and Mette Villand from The Centre for Lifelong Learning at Innland Norway University of Applied Sciences are two of the contributors to the guide. Synkron has been talking to Swanberg and Villand, who benevolently share their insight and experience with us.

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER Synkron: Is there a significant difference between teaching in an auditorium or classroom and teaching online?

You have tried both – what is the big difference?

Swanberg: This may sound weird, but when I teach online, I feel I can get closer to the students than I do in the classroom. The asynchronous mode makes it easier to adapt teaching activities during the programme. Also, asynchronous discussions provide more time for reflection, which I think contribute to increased quality in the online discussions. In the classroom I am physically closer to the students, I can look them in the eyes, correct misunderstandings, discuss in real time, facilitate collaborative learning and sometimes maybe even create a small magical learning moment.

Anne Swanberg QUALITY TIME Villand: I hardly ever teach so I haven’t got a lot of personal experience, but I have supervised teachers who are doing both. When we teach synchronously, we do it to guide and support a structured learning process online. We then organise the students in smaller groups of 5-10.

The teachers report that the dialogue with the participants is good, and the participants feel that they get quality time with the teachers. Mostly we make asynchronous web-based learning materials. We work a lot with the teachers to help them find a good structure to their lectures. We guide them in how to communicate clearly and consistently. We add texts, illustrations or videoclips to illustrate the topic. The teachers report that they become better classroom teacher after having recorded their lessons. They spend less time lecturing and more time on discussions, questions and reflections with the students.

QUALITY IN ONLINE EDUCATION

A Guide to Quality in Online Teaching and Learning. Flexible Education Norway

DISCUSS WITH COLLEGAUES! Synkron: You have been working a lot with quality and accreditation in your own educational institutions. Where is the best place to start for someone who is about to develop online study programmes for the very first time?

Villand : When developing an online course, you should try to have a holistic approach to planning the subject.

Start with the learning outcomes descriptions and think about which teaching and learning activities and which forms of assessment that best will support the learning process.

Engage one or more experienced colleagues and discuss potentially good learning activities.

Swanberg: In addition, you can benefit from the experience of experts in the field. At BI, we have employees with strong skills in learning design, including online courses, classroom courses and “blended� courses. We also have experienced that it can be a good idea to establish course teams in the process of redesigning existing courses or designing new ones. In a course team, the teacher or subject expert collaborates with the learning designer and multimedia producer.

SOLID FOUNDATION Synkron: You were essential in a pioneering project in which you developed a quality guide for online teaching and learning in collaboration with colleagues from other educational institutions. Please tell us a little about the foundation for this guide.

Swanberg: We spent a lot of time and had many good discussions before we decided to use the good, old didactic relation model as our foundation. The same pedagogic and didactic principles apply online as in the classroom. The role of technology in online education is to facilitate the pedagogy, so that the students achieve the best possible learning outcomes.

Villand: - The didactic relation model provided us with a structure to bring in all elements essential for planning a course. It was the basis of the pedagogy that we structured our work around, with two essential questions: 1. What should the students learn, and what should they achieve in the learning situation (learning outcomes)?

2. What learning activities (teaching and assessment) will result in the best

learning outcomes?

These two simple questions must be asked by everyone who has a teaching responsibility today.

TARGET GROUP ANALYSIS Synkron: When developing new study programmes, how would you make sure that all the relevant topics are covered and presented on the right level?

Villand: when we develop new study programmes, it is usually because somebody needs us to customise a training programme for their employees, or we see a need in the market which we want to address. So, from the very beginning we know a lot about our target group and the required topics, but we always do a target group analysis: Who are they? How old are they, are they distributed all over the country or are they all together in the same working space, what is their level of education etc. We ask ourselves where and when the participants should study; at the work place or in their homes? Should the studies be online or blended? Sometimes we make a short poll to investigate the needs of our target group.

Synkron 2: 2018 15 Synkron 1: 2019 15

QUALITY IN ONLINE EDUCATION “Asynchronous communications provide more time for reflection” Anne Swanberg

CONSTRUCTIVE ALIGNMENT Synkron: Learning outcomes is an important concept in education today.

How can the online teacher make sure that the students achieve the learning outcomes described for the study programme?

Swanberg: An essential part of the didactic relation model is the relationship between intended learning outcomes, assessment and learning activities. We call this triangle constructive alignment in teaching (John Biggs 2003). When the online teacher plans and facilitates the learning activities, it is important that the activities reflect what the students should learn (learning goals or intended learning outcomes) and how the learning outcomes will be documented (assessment). This is how we create a learning course with feedback to support the students’ learning process.

Villand: We believe that it is important for the students to accept responsibility for their own learning process, and that they can assess themselves and at any given time know where they are at in their own learning journey. We want the students to be active in their learning process, so the online teacher must support the best possible learning activities to achieve the intended learning outcome.

LEARNING LABYRINTH Synkron: So, the students are partly responsible for quality in the education.

How can the online educator stimulate student effort?

Villand: The students must take an active part in the learning situation. Initially they must know where they are going, i.e. have an active relation to the learning goals and their final learning outcome.

If we imagine that during the course of the study programme, the students are

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“Technology facilitates the pedagogy”Mette Villand inside a learning labyrinth, then we want to regularly lift them up so they can reflect on their own learning process from a bird’s perspective. “Where am I in my learning journey, and how can I best spend the remaining time?” When we facilitate for learning processes and learning activities online, we plan for when students should stop and make these reflections.

Swanberg: Whether learning is happening in the classroom or online, there is a shift in paradigm from teaching to learning which leads to a change from lectures as the main form of teaching to more student active learning. This again leads to changed roles for both the teachers and the students. We are currently redefining these roles; the teacher as facilitator for the learning process and the students actively taking the responsibility for their own learning. I think motivation through relevance and use is an important direction.

FROM MODELS TO PRACTICE Synkron: You were active contributors to the quality guide for online teaching and learning. It is now used by a lot of people. If it were to be developed further, what should be the next steps?

Villand: Educators and online teachers need practical tools for planning their teaching. The guide has models and content that can easily be turned into practical materials for planning a coherent course. The next step should be to create this learning material that can be used in planning workshops.

Swanberg: Learning technology and teaching methods are constantly developing. A next step could be, in addition to practical tools, to present new research and best practice from international and national institutions.

QUALITY IN ONLINE NEW EDUCATION MEMBERS

The Translators’ Comments KARI OLSTAD, SYNKRON, IN A CONVERSATION WITH TONY HOPWOOD, OPEN & DISTANCE LEARNING QUALITY COUNCIL UK Soon after the release of the book, there were demands for an English version. After a thorough discussion, the European Association for Distance Learning decided to sponsor the translation of the guide.

The task of translation was assigned to two members of the EADL R&D committee: Tony Hopwood and Kari Olstad.

Mr. Hopwood is the Chief Assessor at the Open & Distance Learning Quality Council UK. He advocated for the translation of the guide in the discussions and aimed for a panEuropean voice of the English guide, so we asked him about how he views the usefulness of the guide for an international audience.

Why did you think it would be a good idea to distribute a Norwegian how-to guide in online teaching to European trainers and educators?

It is part of EADL’s mission to disseminate ideas and good practice in distance education. We were attracted to the Norwegian guide because of the blend of clear structure, practical ideas and a solid theoretical base, not to mention the high standing of Scandinavian organisations in the sector.

Is there anything about the Scandinavian approach to quality in online teaching and learning that differs from the British? Or from the European?

An interesting question. I think that the connectivity, which is an essential feature of the sector, means that ideas and methods spread very quickly, and it’s very hard to distinguish amongst approaches. In very broad terms, the British

tend to favour the practical and the small scale - bottom-up rather than top-down. Judging from the guide, my only direct experience of a Scandinavian approach, the emphasis is on finding a balance between theory and practice, and particularly on ensuring that online activities are embedded in other forms of delivery and subject to the same principles of quality assurance.

What was important to you in the process of translation? Which aspects of the book did you find especially important to retain and which did you want to change?

We felt it was essential to be true as far as possible to the spirit of the original. This is, after all, a guide written for a specific audience and we wanted to make sure that this was acknowledged in the translation.

At the same time, we needed to find a style that would chime with a European audience. An example would be the use of rhetorical questions. These are used extensively in the guide, certainly more than in British English writing and probably more than is generally true in Europe generally. We decided to keep most of them, as they seemed true to the voice of the original. One area that we considered carefully was clarifying and standardizing terminology further education versus continuing education, teaching versus tutoring.

We wanted to ensure a consistent approach and one that would cause the fewest problems of interpretation for our readers. Looking back, it seems that we weren’t either tempted or constrained to change a great deal. It was a pleasure to work on such a thoughtfully-produced guide.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Why We Should Understand Artificial Intelligence “The possibility of creating machines that think also poses challenges” HILDE LOVETT, PROJECT MANAGER THE NORWEGIAN BOARD OF TECHNOLOGY INTERVIEWED BY EBBA KØBER , SYNKRON

What is AI, i.e. how do machines learn?

-Artificial intelligence means different things to different people, and even researchers do not agree on an exact definition. The field is driven by a desire to enable machines to solve both physical and cognitive tasks which had been previously reserved for humans.

While program developers used to be the ones to program rule based expert systems, computers can now learn new relationships, rules, and strategies on their own. They do this by studying real world data without anyone telling them what the relationships are. For example, this can mean studying a lot of images of moles to teach the machine to distinguish between benign and malignant, so that it will be able to then help doctors diagnose melanoma.

How will AI influence our lives?

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-Machine learning now allows machines to hear and see, interpret and understand, which can be combined in different ways. It makes machine learning a powerful and useful tool to be applied in many contexts.

Image recognition is the most welldeveloped area, but machines can also learn to interpret voices, like Siri on the smartphone, and understand native languages, which are now common in translation programs.

They can also detect abnormal incidents, like fake credit card transactions, and predict things that can happen in the future like housing prices or the weather.

One of the most commonly used AI applications is to personalize content, which we see online stores and streaming services like Netflix are getting good at. These techniques can be transferred to teaching and help teachers adapt their teaching to each

Hilde Lovett is project manager at The Norwegian Board of Technology.

student’s skills and development. An interesting research project aimed at helping all students succeed by adjusting levels of ease and difficulty per student. The project found that the dropout rate could be reduced to less than half, and entire classes could increase their grade by almost one point on average (on a scale of 1 to 6).

At the same time, we must be aware that creating machines that think also poses challenges. One example is that of systems that assess job applications and point out the best candidates. When the algorithms base their decision on previous experiences, they may offer skewed choices and

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

practices from job interviews. They can unintentionally perpetuate prejudices that may apply, such as race, gender, or ethnicity.

Machine learning poses a particular challenge when it comes to ethical choices. Machine learning allows machines to arrive at optimal strategies for reaching their goals, but they will override considerations not explicitly expressed in the rules. Self-driving cars illustrate this dilemma. They can potentially be very skilled at avoiding accidents. But in which direction should the car drive if there is a big animal on the road, which may cause major damage to the car and passengers, but at the same time there is a little child on the sidewalk?

How does this affect the need for skills [21st century competencies/skills?]? We have just received 130 million kroner over the state budget for a new “competency reform.� How do you see a

reasonable organization of additional [21st century skills?] competencies?

-There is a great need for training in the workplace. The OECD estimates that around 1/3 of Norwegian jobs will be radically changed in the future due to automation and artificial intelligence. As a result, around 850,000 Norwegians will need competenceenhancing training, which continuing education is not equipped for. This requires Norway to change today’s continuing education and customize it with new incentives. Singapore offers SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace, which provides digital skills training tailored to different professions. All citizens over the age of 25 receive SkillsFuture Credit, which amounts to 500 Singaporean dollars to spend on courses every year. The Singapore model is an interesting example of new incentives for lifelong learning.

intelligence, so they may think critically about it, participate in and design its use in the workplace and join the debate. In concrete terms, we can be inspired by Finland, which in May 2018 launched Elements of AI, a free, online, and award-winning foundation course on AI. The goal is to have one percent of the population gaining basic knowledge of AI every year.

It is also important that most people understand the implications of artificial

This article has been published in the norwegian issue of Synkron

The Norwegian Board of Technology recently published the report: Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities, Challenges and a Plan for Norway.

Synkron 1: 2019 19

LIFELONG LEARNING – WHERE AND HOW

We have to keep Learning all our Lives – but Where and How?

BY TORHILD SLÅTTO

We know perfectly well that the labour market will demand that we learn new things, take further education – in short, that we keep learning all our lives. But we will probably not do so seated in a classroom with pen and notebook at the ready.

The digital age, with its automation, robotisation and increasing use of artificial intelligence, requires more continuing education than before, as does ‘the green shift’, which entails investments in new energy solutions using state-of-the-art technology.

Our infrastructure is increasingly controlled by computers that have to be programmed and checked.

Internationalisation requires language skills and the ability to work in foreign companies and multicultural environments.

THE LIFELONG LEARNING REFORM The political signals are clear: Lifelong learning will become vital to employees as well as employers, and will also be important in order to maintain the competitiveness of Norwegian society at large. The Norwegian prime minister has expressed this in plain terms, and funding has been allocated over the 2019 national budget for a skills reform called Lære hele livet (‘Lifelong learning’).

The following is quoted from the budget proposal currently under consideration by the Norwegian parliament, the Storting: “ The government will implement a skills reform to ensure that people do not drop out of the labour market for lack of skills. The government proposes an increase of about NOK 130 million in funding for measures under the skills reform. This includes NOK 37 million for the development of flexible further education programs in the field of technology and digital solutions and NOK 30 million for industry programmes aimed at industries that

20 Synkron 1:2019

are particularly likely to be affected by digitalisation, automation and other forms of restructuring.”

BUSINESSES ARE INVESTING More than half of all Norwegian businesses have unmet skills needs, according to the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise’s (NHO) annual competence barometer for 2017. About 40% of businesses state that they will need more employees with engineering and other technical qualifications as a result of digitalisation and automation.

This simply means more further education of existing employees or taking on more highly qualified staff. At the same time, businesses are making big investments in technology and automation.

WHO DEVELOPS FURTHER EDUCATION? The educational institutions have to keep up when the need for skills grows and changes in nature. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has turned to research for help to map the skills needed in the area of digitalisation in the years ahead. This is necessary to enable the university to develop topical and relevant further and continuing education courses.

The Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) has given its preliminary answer, and sees a clear need for knowledge in the field of digitalisation. These needs will be particularly pressing in the following areas: -technical ICT skills -digitalisation process management -ICT security and privacy protection

-digital exclusion -ICT and health Providers of education have a lot of work to do here. They have to prepare relevant studies that ensure that enterprises get employees that can take part in the automated and technically advanced business and industry of the future.

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION The Ministry of Education and Research has realised that money is needed to develop relevant and flexible studies for people who are working and who cannot simply take time off to go back to school. The following was stated in the revised national budget for 2018: “The government proposes to increase funding for the development of flexible further education in digital skills and studies that support digitalisation

by NOK 10 million. The courses provided must be developed in close cooperation with business and industry and should be designed to be combined with full-time employment, for example by being divided into modules and use web-based and session-based formats.”

This initiative will be followed up in 2019.

HOW WILL WE LEARN IN 2030?

We know that the labour market is changing dramatically, and we know that whether we are employees or entrepreneurs, we have to keep up by acquiring new knowledge. But we don’t really know what our learning situation and learning environment will be like in, for example, 2030. New forms of education are developed that use

LIFELONG LEARNING – WHERE AND HOW

advanced web-based solutions, games and robots. Learning analytics can give us individually tailored education. A large number of massive open online courses (MOOCs) are available in a wide range of subjects. Pioneers at Woolf University in Oxford want to develop a blockchain university using the technology behind cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The idea is that teaching takes place in direct contact between academics and students on a one-to-one basis, with no university administration. Woolf University suggests that it might charge its students 5,000 dollars a year.

THREE SCENARIOS FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE FUTURE The future is unpredictable given the threat of climate change, volatile political situations in many countries and technological development progressing by leaps and bounds. But we can always give our imagination free rein. These are three possible learning environment scenarios for the future: Scenario 1: An open and social learning environment organised by learners.

We learn together in open groups, play

games together, listen to web-based lectures and video presentations, solve tasks, seek advice from robots, take part in web-based study groups, communicate on social media and ‘pick and mix’ education based on our own and our employer’s needs.

Scenario 2: A virtual and individual learning environment organised by the individual learner, possibly with the help of a personal educational consultant.

A course of studies is structured on the basis of individual wishes and needs. Courses are selected online, both paid and free courses. MOOCs (massive open online courses), games and chatbots are common. Woolf University’s blockchain model of oneto-one tuition may become a popular route to your exams. Or perhaps there will be no exams. Employability and suitability for certain duties can replace exam grades as the measure of achievement.

Scenario 3: A neo-traditional educational environment where classrooms and auditoriums make a comeback. Lectures and one-to-many

teaching may come back on a grand scale, but with some use of multimedia technology that allows students to work with teaching sessions and lectures online after they have been held in classrooms and auditoriums. Many are tired of the intensive use of the internet and advanced technology. We will see a nostalgic longing for the time before the internet, where the classroom and auditorium were the classic education venue.

WHAT DO LEARNERS WANT? An important part of the search for good learning environments and optimal learning situations will be to conduct research on what the students and learners themselves want. What works and what creates good learning? Research on continuing and further education is also important, as is asking questions such as ‘how can employees acquire the knowledge and skills they need to have a lifelong meaningful working life?’

This article was first published by NVL and translated by EPALE

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FLEXIBLE

EDUCATION NORWAY - PROJECTS AND NEWPUBLICATIONS MEMBERS These pages are dedicated to the membership organisation Flexible Education Norway, the publisher of Synkron Magazine. We will show you some of our many projects and tasks here.

Flexible Education Norway’s mission is to contribute towards obtaining optimal conditions for online and flexible education and to improve the recognition of its potential. We constantly develop quality standards for flexible learning modes and influence as a national voice to educational

policies for the future. Flexible Education Norway creates fora for professional educational debates and stimulates development and innovation to the field.

networks and projects. Our aim is to contribute to the Nordic, European and international flexible education community. We regularly publish handbooks, guides and reports on topical issues.

International collaboration Flexible Education Norway participates in Nordic and European

Project bank Flexible Education Norway is project partner in the following recent projects: Mentoring Network for Facilitating Access to upskilling Pathways -MENNET is an ongoing Erasmus+ project aiming to help low skilled adults to develop their basic skill sets and thereby their employability.

The self-assessment and training activities are developed as online courses. http://www.beti.lt/en/ node/63 Later Stage Dementia Care – Blended Learning for Families is an Erasmus+-project that seeks to develop the optimal blend of online and face to face support for families caring for loved ones in the final stages of dementia

Presence at a distance (PAAD) is a Nordplus project that collects experience from several distance learning projects to assess the long term impact. https://paadproject. wordpress.com/ Hanheld e-learning was a Nordplus project that aimed to inspire teachers to use digital tools to improve their teaching. https:// handheldelearning.wordpress.com Home Based Care – Home Based Education was an award winning Erasmus+ project where we developed an online course for people who care for loved ones with dementia.: www. http://hbchbe. blogspot.com/

Game Hub Scandinavia The project goal was to make the gaming industry a primary source of income for the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden through incubation of new businesses, gamification and knowledge sharing. www.gamehubscandinavia.dk

Game Hub Scandinavia: Incubation round table discussion

Publications in English 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

A Guide to Quality in Online Teaching and Learning Quality Standards for Online Education The GameIT Handbook SYNKRON Magazine English Edition GameWise Magazine GameWise MAGAZINE

THE GAMEiT HANDBOOK A Guide to Quality in Online Teaching and Learning

Throughout history games have been an integral part of human culture, and many different types of games have been played for both leisure and more serious purposes, such as practicing management strategies or learning relevant skills and competences.

In more recent times, digital games have effectively permeated most areas of popular culture and society in general. Digital games are no longer confined to arcades or the darkened rooms of teenage boys, but have successfully broken new ground, forcing us to keep revising what games are – and can be.

Quality Standards for Online Education

Throughout the book, we make an effort to clearly illustrate how games or elements of games can be included in educational practice, and to what end.

The GAMEiT handbook is one of the outcomes of an EU-project with the following Mission Statement: “We aim to identify, collect, test, and distribute good practice in game based learning (GBL). Our project will result in a framework of game based learning pedagogy.”

QUALITY AT EVERY STAGE Revised 2015

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION NORWAY

Project Website: http://www.projectgameit.eu Project Partners: CV2 (Denmark), ZAXIS (Denmark), NADE (Norway), University of Stavanger (Norway), University of Bournemouth (UK), University of Applied Sciences Koblenz (Germany)

Event!

The student group decided to go on another path. Spin a goal tile one time.

THE GAMEiT HANDBOOK A framework of game based learning pedagogy

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION NORWAY

- Project based education - Delivering a group project unit - iCamp46 – no ordinary game

ISBN 978-82-91766-25-6

9

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THE GAMEiT HANDBOOK

Our target group are course writers and tutors who teach online, whether on a blended or purely digital course. We hope the tips, advice and practical examples will be useful to our readers.

A Guide to Quality in Online Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning online can be challenging for both tutor and students. In this guide, we try to shed light on different aspects of online tuition and what should be taken into consideration when planning for learning online.

A framework of game based learning pedagogy

788291 766256

Edited by: Mathias Poulsen and Ebba Køber

- Becoming gamewise - 4 Keys to a Memorable University Experience

INTERNATIONALNEW CONFERENCES MEMBERS The following conferences are essential to the field of Flexible Education. The dates and places are indicative. Be aware of changes.

JANUARY BETT, London UK See review om page 13.

Four days long interactive mega-edtech-exhibition, mainly for K12 market www.bettshow.com MARCH Chain5 Annual Conference Chain5 is a network for level5 in the European Qualifications Framework, typically VET education. The annual conference is held early spring in Europe and aims to share good practice and facilitate network activities for educators, institutions, students, employers and others invested in level 5 education. www.chain5.net APRIL EUA, European University Association Annual Conference University of Warsaw Technological, medical, social, cultural and educational innovation is changing the world, and those driving it decide on the direction. As creators and providers of knowledge and places of societal reflection, universities have a central role to play in shaping the future and in nurturing the next generation of leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and researchers. www.eua.eu MAY EADL, The European Association of Distance Learning Different European country every year.

EADL organizes a conference where members meet and where views and new

developments in learning technology, pedagogy and business models are discussed and exchanged. www.eadl.org JUNE #EUNIS European University Information Systems organisation “Our mission is to help member institutions develop their IT landscape by sharing experiences and working together.” www.eunis.org World Learning Summit Kristiansand, Norway World Learning Summit is hosted by the research center and network Future Learning Lab, located at the University of Agder in South Norway. It is based on a previous set of conferences labeled Future Learning Annual Conference, which we have run since 2010 with growing numbers and all of them in collaboration with Stanford University as well as other international peers and returning friends. wls.futurelearninglab.org

EDEN, European Distance and E-learning Network Different european country every year. Major academic and professional ODL event in Europe, supporting professionalisation and international exchange of experience and expertise.

Gatherings where comprehensive and orientative contributions are presented by outstanding experts, politicians and academics.

Based on collecting best practice – every

year papers presented in conference sessions are selected for publication in the ‘proceedings’, serving as important resources for the professional community.

Genuine community feel to them, where existing workingrelationships strengthen and deepen, and where new partnerships are formed. www.eden-online.org/ NOVEMBER FunKon, Oslo, Norway FuNKon is Flexible Education Norway’s annual Norwegian conference on digital teaching and learning, edtech and important changes and trends in education. It is an important meeting place for educators and decision makers. Most of the presentations and workshops are in Norwegian. www.flexeducation.no DESEMBER OEB, Berlin OEB Global has gained an international reputation over the past two decades for its unique, cross-sector focus, fostering exchange between the corporate, education and public service sectors and for its conference community at the forefront of shaping the future of digital learning in organisations from all over the world. www.oeb.global

ICDE World Conference on Online Learning Biannual Conference with different hosts all over the world at different times of the year. www.icde.org

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Avsender Fleksibel utdanning Norge Postboks 385 1326 Lysaker

The robots are coming – put the kettle on!

Never before has digital change happened faster. Yet, we are not afraid. We welcome our new neighbours and are more exited than ever.

We participate in projects and conferences to improve the quality of our field. Flexible Education Norway is a Norwegian NGO and member organiastion that has long documented experience with international projects.

Does your organisation work with flexible education and is looking for a project partner?

Please contact us at www.flexeducation.no Flexible Education Norway organizes 50 Norwegian providers of flexible education; including independent distance education institutions, public universities and colleges, private institutions and training centers for business and industry. Our members provide an extensive range of subjects, courses and study programs from primary to university level, and customized courses for professionals.

FLEXIBLE EDUCATION NORWAY