Mart Laanpere
email: mart.laanpere@tlu.ee

Hans Põldoja
email: hans.poldoja@tlu.ee

Peeter Normak
email: peeter.normak@tlu.ee

Designing Dippler -a Next-Generation TEL System

Keywords: learning environment, socio-technical transition, digital learning ecosystem, design-based research

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

1

Socio-technical transitions and software system generations

In the scope of this study, we refer to various types of software application with educational purpose as Technology-Enhanced Learning systems (TEL systems). We are focusing at major shifts in technological platforms of TEL systems across the last 50 years, but also in the ways teachers and students have been using them. As we are interested not only in the structure and design of learning-related software systems, but also their implementation patterns, we decided to set a wider perspective on TEL system as a complex socio-technical system, involving various political, economical, academic and technological aspects.

There is a solid academic foundation for studying socio-technical transitions, starting from Schumpeter [START_REF] Schumpeter | Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process[END_REF] who interpreted technological discontinuities as creative destruction, which is a natural part of multi-dimensional innovation process involving changes in products, production processes, markets, supplies and organisations. Christensen [START_REF] Christensen | The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[END_REF] has shown that evolution within a technology generation is taking the form of a S-shape curve (see Fig. 1). Ansari & Garud [START_REF] Ansari | Inter-generational transitions in socio-technical systems: The case of mobile communications[END_REF] have used Christensen's approach to explore inter-generational transitions in the context of mobile service generations, where changes in transmission speed within a mobile service generation took a form of S-shape curve.

Fig. 1. S-shapes in mobile service generations [START_REF] Christensen | The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[END_REF] Although the concept of Web 2.0 as the next generation of the WWW has been critically disputed [START_REF] Scholz | Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0[END_REF], it illustrates well the fact that sometimes the reason for claims of a new generation comes mainly from the social context (incl. the radical change in technology usage patterns) and not from emergence of disruptive technology.

While it is evidently much easier to identify technology generations in case of mobile services than in case of learning-related software applications, we argue that it makes sense to conceptualise generation changes also in case of TEL systems. We believe that the era of LMS is coming to its end. Figure 2 below illustrates (yet, does not prove) our claim by showing the stagnation in the number of Moodle instances around the world. However, an increasing number of authors [START_REF] Rajagopal | Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them[END_REF][START_REF] Casquero | iPLE Network: an integrated eLearning 2.0 architecture from a university's perspective[END_REF]7] argue for emergence of next generation TEL systems, which will replace traditional Learning Management Systems. Our aim is to provide a justification and a new conceptual framework for nextgeneration TEL system so it could be coherent with digital ecosystems approach.

2

Identifying the generations of TEL systems Some of the key concepts in the domain ontology of Technology-Enhanced Learning (e.g. Virtual Learning Environment, Learning System, e-learning platform, educational software) are not defined by the TEL community in a consistent and consensus-based manner. The reason for this peculiarity could be that TEL domain is not yet mature, or, due to its inter-disciplinary character, it is open to discourses and vocabularies which are taken over from other domains.

In this paper, we tried to establish a sound system of concepts, which is coherent with both existing TEL practices and theories, as well as with our proposed framework of digital learning ecosystems. Venn diagram on the Figure 3 below illustrates the proposed set of concepts for domain ontology of TEL systems. First, TEL systems are either offline or online learning systems. Offline learning systems (e.g. desktop software used for learning and teaching, drill programs, multimedia textbooks on CD-s) can be seen as the first generation of TEL systems. The second generation of TEL systems (Virtual Learning Environments, VLE) appeared with the emergence of WWW and online learning systems. Virtual Learning Environment is defined as "a software system that combines a number of different tools that are used to systematically deliver content online and facilitate the learning experience around that content" [START_REF] Weller | Virtual Learning Environments: Using, Choosing and Developing your VLE[END_REF]. The most prominent type of VLE are Learning Management Systems (LMS; can be also called Course Management Systems), which became the mainstream among second-generation TEL systems. LMS is defined as "a wide range of systems that organise and provide access to online learning services for students, teachers, and administrators" [START_REF] Paulsen | Online Education Systems: Discussion and Definition of Terms[END_REF]. In parallel with LMS, Learning Object Repositories (LOR) appeared as the content was separated from the software and

VLE

made reusable. Some LMSs also include a built-in LOR, thus a slight overlap on Fig. 3. We argue that the rise of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) was scaling up since 2008 as a form of democratic reaction and dialectic anti-thesis against closed and rigid nature of LMS. PLE is still a kind of VLE, but it is not (in most cases) especially designed for educational purposes and did not become a next-generation TEL system in itself, as it was argued by Mott [7]. A blog-based PLE causes some usability and privacy issues and together with growing tension between PLE and LMS, these two factors are creating a fruitful ground for the new generation of TEL systems: Digital Learning Ecosystems (DLE). Uden et al [START_REF] Uden | The future of E-learning: E-learning ecosystem[END_REF] have defined DLE as an integrated system of mutually connected/interacting digital species and their environment. However, their definition does not specify, which entities are interpreted as "biotic" (evolving, active) part of DLE and which parts are seen as "abiotic" environmental factors. To address this issue, we define DLE as an adaptive sociotechnical system consisting of mutually interacting digital species (tools, services, content used in learning process) and communities of users (learners, facilitators, experts) together with their social, economical and cultural environment. While the second generation of TEL systems interpreted software systems as an environment where learners and teachers interacted with each other as well as with learning resources, we propose to turn the roles upside down for DLE. In DLE, the symbiotic "species" or "organisms" are various interacting software tools and services along with their user and developer communities, while social, economical and cultural context plays the role of the "environment" for them. This is a change of paradigm, which will help us better understand, analyse and design the future tools and services to enhance learning. Table 1 below depicts generation changes in TEL systems in four dimensions: software architecture, pedagogical foundation, content management, dominant affordances. Geels [START_REF] Geels | Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study[END_REF] proposes a Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) as an analytic framework for studying changes in socio-technical systems on three levels of aggregation: macro (socio-technical landscape), meso (technological regime or paradigm) and micro (niches: spaces of experimentation, protected from market pressure), see Fig. 4 below. Radical innovation happens mainly on the micro level, in niches appearing outside of dominant technological paradigm, as a result of changes in macro-level landscape and influencing through dynamic interplay the meso-level technological regime. MLP suits well to analyse also the ongoing generation change in TEL systems. Current technological regime in TEL is clearly associated with the dominance of LMS, radical innovation happens in niches emerged on the Web 2.0 landscape, where increasing number of learners and educators find more flexible, open and social affordances to support their self-directed learning. The number of niche-seeking experiments involving blogs and other social media tools in teaching and learning have been steadily increasing in universities, one evidence of this trend can be drawn from [START_REF] Buchem | Understanding Personal Learning Environments: Literature review and synthesis through the Activity Theory lens[END_REF]. All together 77 academic publications from 2006 to 2011 were included in an extensive literature review on personal learning environments, involving 9 case studies from 2006, 19 from 2008 and 23 from 2010, demonstrating clearly the up-scaling of this phenomenon. While blog-based Personal Learning Environments are easy to implement on the level of single innovative teachers, these are hard to scale up to institutional level, even more difficult to integrate with existing university information systems. We argue that the next-generation TEL systems should combine the strengths of both approaches: ease of management, scalability and privacy of LMS and, on the other hand, flexibility, learner control and personalisation of PLE.

Methodology: design-based research

The general research approach of this study was following the design-based research methodology [START_REF]The Design-Based Research Collective: Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry[END_REF]. This iterative way of doing research is increasingly used in learning sciences to design and implement pedagogical interventions and to test them in a real learning environment. Leinonen et al [START_REF] Leinonen | Software as Hypothesis: Research-Based Design Methodology[END_REF] claim that the design of a product should communicate the theoretical findings made during the design process. For designing learning tools they propose a research-based design approach that sees final software prototype as hypothesis -potential solutions to the design challenges defined during the process. When designing Dippler as a set of software products we have followed the phases of research-based design process, which will be followed by design-based research interventions using the Dippler prototype as hypothesis.

The first phase (contextual inquiry) aimed to define the context and preliminary design challenges. The context of this study was blended learning and fully online courses in higher and vocational education. The design challenge was to combine the strengths of PLE and LMS approaches into a next generation online learning system. In the contextual inquiry phase we have conducted a number of studies on using weblogs and other social media tools in formal higher education courses [START_REF] Väljataga | Considering Students' Perspectives on Personal and Distributed Learning Environments in Course Design[END_REF][START_REF] Väljataga | Open Online Courses: Responding to Design Challenges[END_REF]. These studies have indicated that there is a need for a more structured online learning system that would (1) allow learners to continue using social media tools while (2) making it easier to follow and coordinate learning activities for the facilitator and (3) to manage and support the system at the institutional level. The contextual inquiry phase involved also trying out alternative approaches for managing blog-based courses. We developed two software prototypes for different course settings. LePress is a WordPress plugin that allows create courses and to manage course assignments [START_REF] Tomberg | Learning Flow Management and Semantic Data Exchange between Blog-Based Personal Learning Environments[END_REF]. EduFeedr is an aggregator for blog-based courses that doesn't require any plugin in a learner blog [START_REF] Põldoja | EduFeedr: following and supporting learners in open blog-based courses[END_REF]. These prototypes helped us to refine the final requirements for Dippler.

The second phase of research-based design process is participatory design where important stakeholders are involved in the design process. Here we combined participatory, pedagogy-driven design with scenario-based design [START_REF] Carroll | Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions[END_REF]. We prepared four scenarios that described typical use cases of Dippler: (1) facilitator sets up a course, (2) learner sets up a weblog and enrolls to the course, (3) submitting assignments and giving feedback, and (4) moving Dippler blog to another university. These scenarios were evaluated in a participatory design session involving 4 lecturers and students who had previous experience with various online learning environments.

The next phase entailed product design, aiming to define the use cases and basic interaction with the system. In that phase we wrote agile user stories [START_REF] Cohn | User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development[END_REF] that were negotiated and prioritized in a web-based software project management tool Trac7 . Various interaction design methods such as paper prototyping [START_REF] Snyder | Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces[END_REF] and card sorting were used to design the user interface for Dippler.

We are currently in the final phase of research-based design process. We have produced a functional software product as hypothesis and completed pilot-testing it during four months in two MA-level courses. Feedback from these pilot courses will be used to evaluate the design decisions. Real data from actual use will help to refine the user interface details and to develop the next version of the Dippler.

Context of and requirements for Dippler project

In order to promote and develop e-learning nationwide, two consortia have been established under the lead of Estonian IT Foundation: Estonian e-University and Estonian e-Vocational School. One example of joint efforts was that instead of acquiring by each university separately an institutional WebCT/BlackBoard licence, a country licence was bought for a central LMS server. Similarly, a number of centralised e-learning services (LOR, video-hub) were implemented or developed, including a next-generation TEL system called Dippler. Initially the following general requirements for Dippler were specified, as a result of a literature review and participatory design session:

 Use of Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies (RSS, folksonomies, web services, widgets, embedding, semantic annotation, ontologies).  Modularity and open source code (GNU LGPL or BSD license), which would allow community based development.  Different levels of use: suitable for both beginners and advanced users.  Compatible with learning technology standards and specifications (LOM, QTI, SCORM, LD, Common Cartridge etc).  Interoperability with other TEL tools (blogs, wikis, repositories).  Support for Single Sign-on and authentication with OpenID and ID card.  Multilingual and easily localized.  Possibility to add individual tools and services, personalize the look and feel.  Possibility to apply different business models.  Powerful Learning Analytics possibilities.  Compliance to general software requirements: scalable, secure, welldocumented, adaptable, easy installation and administration. Based on these requirements, the iterative design process started in 2010 and software was ready to be implemented in two pilot courses in spring term 2012.

5

Software implementation

Dippler is implemented as a set of distributed online tools and services, not as a monolithic server software. Technical implementation of Dippler consists of three core components:

 Back-Office Service (BOS): a Java-based middleware application together with SOAP Web services and MySQL database that is used for storing data and communicating with other components of Dippler ecosystem,  Dippler Administrator (DiA): a PHP application with institutional interface and structures (e.g. departments, curricula, domain ontologies) for setting up, managing and evaluating courses and conducting powerful learning analytics,  Dippler plugin for WordPress (DiP) which turn learners' blogs into enhanced PLEs, which communicate with BOS in order to enroll to courses, receive assignments and submit homework. Student can disconnect her blog from home institution, but all artefacts created and received during the course will remain in her Personal Learning Environment. The same blog can later be re-connected with DiA of any other university or school using Dippler.

These three core components form the heart of a larger digital learning ecosystem, where learners use their personal WordPress blogs, learning resources are stored in various Web 2.0 environments (SlideShare, YouTube, Issuu) and various social media tools can be connected with Dippler (via RSS or iFrame widgets). Dippler is also able to re-use learning objects created and/or hosted by other learning technology tools: our self-developed test authoring tool Questr, Learning Object authoring tool LeMill, and Learning Object Repository Waramu. An iPhone/iPad client for Dippler has also been developed. DiA acts as a catalogue of online courses and facilitators interface for managing a course. Course page is divided into 9 sections (see Fig. 5). Course feed page displays recent announcements, assignments and activity stream of the course. Learning outcomes section allows facilitator to specify learning outcomes that can be later attached to assignments, evidences in learner portfolio and other relevant objects. In the assignments section it is currently possible to create six types of tasks (free post, pre-structured post, file upload, self-test, test, group task, embedded widget), more types will be implemented in the future. In order to guide facilitators to use web-based open educational resources it is not possible to upload learning resources as files, learning resources can be only added as links or embeds. Dippler is able to retrieve learning resource metadata from YouTube or Slideshare based on URL of a resource and display the embedded resource. Both assignments and learning resources can be annotated with domain ontology concepts, which connect them to specific learning outcomes and are allowing more meaningful learning analytics.

Learners will use their WordPress blogs as personal learning portfolios. In order to connect their blog to BOS service they need to activate Dippler plugin (DiP) for WordPress. The plugin extends the blog's user interface with some new pages and widgets: course feed, assignments, learning resources, etc. Learners submit their responses to assignments as blog posts that will be copied to BOS and connected with a selected learning outcome as well as some concepts from domain ontology. Dippler Dippler is open-source software, distributed under Apache 2.0 license. The source code of Dippler can be downloaded from http://trac.htk.tlu.ee/iva2.

Conclusion and future research

This paper proposed a conceptual framework for next-generation TEL systems -Digital Learning Ecosystems, along with an illustrative case study on designing and developing the Dippler platform. The case study followed the participatory designbased research methodology, resulting with an innovative ecosystem of open-source tools and open learning resources, which is designed to combine the strengths of blogbased Personal Learning Environments with that of traditional Learning Management Systems.

In the next phase of our design-based research, we are planning to expand and cultivate the digital learning ecosystem of Dippler by integrating or associating it with new learning tools (e.g. concept mapping tool CMapTools, Knowledge Building tool FLE4, Twitter, Wookie widget server) and training or inviting the new groups of users, communities, educational institutions to populate the system with activities. As all activities in Dippler ecosystem leave semantically rich traces to BOS database, we foresee it as a new powerful tool for new type of learning analytics in Digital Learning Ecosystems.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. S-shape curve illustrating the end of growth in Moodle installations worldwide [8]

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Inter-relation of key concepts in the domain of TEL systems

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4.A dynamic multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions[START_REF] Genus | Rethinking the multi-level perspective of technological transitions[END_REF]

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Conceptual design of Dippler ecosystem

  facilitator to keep her feedback and grades private. Otherwise learners have full control over their blogs: they can change its outlook, add sidebar widgets, plugins, pages, blogroll etc.

DLE Digital Learning Ecosystem OnLS Online Learning Systems Hybrid Learning Systems PLE LOR LMS OfLS

	Offline Learning Systems
	Virtual
	Learning
	Environ-
	ments

Table 1 .

 1 Dimensions for distinguishing inter-generational differences of TEL systems

	Dimension	1st generation	2nd generation	3rd generation
	Software architecture	Desktop software	Single-server	Cloud architecture,
			monolithic system	mobile clients
	Pedagogical foundation	Stimulus-response-	Pedagogical neutrality	Social constructivism,
		reinforcement		connectivism
	Content management	Content was integrated	Separated from	Open, web-based,
			software, re-usable	embeddable
	Dominant affordances	Presentation, drill, test	Presentation,	Reflection, sharing,
			assignments,	remixing, tagging
			discussions

http://trac.htk.tlu.ee/iva2

Acknowledgments. This research was funded by Estonian Ministry of

Education and Research, targeted research grant No. 0130159s08. Development of Dippler was funded by Estonian IT Foundation and BeST program of European Social Fund.


Kairit Tammets
email: kairit.tammets@tlu.ee

Peeter Normak
email: peeter.normak@tlu.ee

Learning Outcomes for Blog-Based Courses: a Case Study

Keywords: Blog-based course, learning outcomes, university studies

We specify the learning outcomes achieved through blog-based courses for students who have never experienced this type of course before. We also describe the main problems the students faced during the course, analyse the reasons for these problems and propose some scaffolding possibilities. The study relies on two consecutive presentations of the course "Intelligent Computer Use" in Tallinn University.

Introduction

It is commonly accepted that contemporary competitive and sustainable society is a learning society where education extends far beyond formal education. Some authors even claim that more than 80% of competences which people use in their professional activities are acquired through informal learning 12. Learning environments and learning patterns in informal learning are mostly quite different from those traditionally used in formal classroom-based learning: informal learning takes place mainly in social networks supported by different web-based tools. Effective informal learning assumes the ability of learners to use suitable learning tools and to direct their learning in a chosen learning environment. Acquiring these skills and developing a culture of informal learning should certainly be included as tasks of formal education.

More and more university teachers are using different social media tools in teaching: social networking tools for discussions, blogs and slide repositories for presentations, e-portfolios for assessment etc. However, the extent of using social media tools in different subject areas varies greatly. For example, portfolio based assessment that is relatively widely used in teacher training is used infrequently in informatics' studies [START_REF] Du Plessis | Portfolio Assessment of Information Technology Students at a University of Technology: a case study[END_REF].

On the other hand, some critical questions can be asked. For example, how many of those teachers who extensively use social media tools in teaching are even asking themselves about the development of students' skills for informal learning? Do the teaching methods that are used support lifelong learning skills? Laurillard [START_REF] Laurillard | Rethinking teaching for the knowledge society[END_REF] has already stressed the need of using adequate teaching methods to keep pace with what is needed in professional life. Not only are ICT-skills necessary, such as word-processing, e-mailing, programming, using web browsers etc.; the learner should also be aware of how information and knowledge can shape their lives, their community, and the world around them [START_REF] Ezziane | Information Technology Literacy: Implications on Teaching and Learning[END_REF]. This in turn assumes certain knowledge sharing and self-reflection skills. For a suitable tool for development of these skills, many authors suggest using blogs [START_REF] Boud | Using journal writing to enhance reflective practice[END_REF][START_REF] Roland | Blogging" As an Educational Enhancement Tool for Improved Student Performance: A Pilot Study in Undergraduate Nursing Education[END_REF]. Nevertheless, according to our experience, blog-based courses have not yet become established as a common practice at universities. This paper studies the problems of implementing blog-based courses in informatics in university undergraduate studies. The goal of this study is to find answers to the following questions: a) What competences does a blog-based course predominantly develop in a student? b) What are the main problems that students identify when using blogs for learning purposes?

The findings are based on two consecutive case studies after conducting the course "Intelligent Computer Use" at Tallinn University.

Using blogs in educational settings

During the first decade of the 21 st century, universities started massive use of Moodle and Blackboard type of learning management systems. These systems wereand still areinstitution-centred and accessible to authorized people only. The fact that students after graduation lost access to these systems erected a firm barrier between formal and informal learning. To overcome this, universities are opening up education to a wider audience by implementing personal learning environments that integrate blogs, e-Portfolios, and networking functionality [START_REF] Atwell | Maturing Learning: Mashup Personal Learning Environments[END_REF].

Some universities started to use blogs for supporting student-centred learning a number of years ago [START_REF] Forster | Weblogs and student-centred learning: Personal experiences in MBA teaching[END_REF]. Compared to traditional classroom learning, blogs have many advantages: students can choose the time and place for discussions, interactivity supports peer-assessment and self-assessment; students can reflect on their studies as well as develop their own writing skills etc. [START_REF] Chuang | Weblog-based electronic portfolios for student teachers in Taiwan[END_REF]. The importance of reflection as part of the learning process has been emphasized for decades [START_REF] Boud | Promoting reflection in learning: A model[END_REF][START_REF] Moon | Learning journals: A handbook for academics, students and professional development[END_REF]. Nevertheless, blogs are mainly used for self-reflection in educational sciences and medicine and not so much in ICT studies.

On the other hand, previous studies about using blogs in teaching and learning have clearly shown that blog-based courses can be innovative, both for students and for facilitators. Study of Williams and Jacobs [START_REF] Williams | Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector[END_REF] indicated that using blogs offer for the support students' autonomy and greater interaction with peers. Ebner and Maurer [START_REF] Ebner | Blogging in Higher Education[END_REF] have claimed that using blogs in higher education settings enhances learning and teaching process in multiple ways and makes learning more student-centered. However, a blog-based course per se is not necessarily effective: a suitable course design and implementation that releases the full potential of a blog-based course is needed. For example, a course design should promote activities that support selfdirection, sharing ideas, commenting, etc. [START_REF] Tammets | Self-directing at social spaces: conceptual framework for course design[END_REF][START_REF] Väljataga | Considering learners' perspectives to personal learning environments in course design[END_REF]. Luján-Mora & Juana-Espinosa [START_REF] Luján-Mora | The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers[END_REF] experienced in their study that there are some significant barriers in using blogs: assessing student participation in the weblog is difficult as several indicators like group grading, individual posting, and quality of posts should be taken into account, using technology is restricted etc. Some students and teachers are reluctant to use blogs because they prefer more privacy in learning. Another concern is related with the hesitations of the public reflections process in weblogs by the facilitators [START_REF] Luján-Mora | The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers[END_REF] and students [START_REF] Luján-Mora | The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers[END_REF][START_REF] Farmer | Using blogging for higher order learning in large cohort university teaching: A case study[END_REF]. Therefore, a blog-based course can be even more challenging for facilitators. Although the facilitators usually understand the potential of blog-based courses, they still have difficulties in making use of new opportunities in guiding discussions, monitoring students' contributions, leading students to suitable learning resources in an open environment and providing feedback etc. [START_REF] Väljataga | If a student takes control: facilitators' tasks and responsibilities[END_REF][START_REF] Väljataga | Open Online Courses: Responding to Design Challenges[END_REF].

Methodology

This study followed the case study methodology for data collection. Yin [START_REF] Yin | Case study research: Design and methods[END_REF] has claimed: "a case study is an empirical enquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context". For the case study we chose a blog-based free elective course "Intelligent Computer Use" that was open to the students of all specialties. The course was designed and implemented in 2010 and 2011 in the Institute of Informatics at Tallinn University. As a model of delivery, rotational team-teaching was used. Rotational team-teaching means that there are a number of teachers involved in teaching the course; they instruct classes separately and attend class only when teaching their particular topic 10.

The aim of the course was to support development of students' knowledge and skills for using IT tools that support effective operation in an information society. The course curriculum included the following topics:

 The information society and its members; The course had a separate blog that contained course materials and links to the personal course-related blogs of the students. Every week there was a 90-minute class on a specific topic followed by a one-week web-based study by the students. Students were expected to define their personal learning goals for the course in their personal course-related blogs, present a self-analysis and perform the following activities every week: a) Elaborate, discuss and reflect on course materials on the topic; b) Perform practical assignments on the topic; c) Comment on peers' blog posts.


Students also had to select three topics during the semester and compose an essay on each of the selected topics. During the final stage of the course, groups of 3-4 students were formed for designing and presenting a course related project. The course ended with a double evaluationtextual and form-based. In the textual evaluation, the students had to assess different aspects of the course: the learning environment, topics of the course, tasks for home assignments, structure of the course, and identifying the problems they perceived. The evaluations were collected and analysed with the content analysis method.

Results and discussion

Although exactly 32 students participated in the course in each year, none of them had previously experienced a blog-based course (almost all students were in the first semester of their university studies). This was a 4-credit course and therefore every student was expected to spend a total of 4x26 = 104 academic hours on the course. These were estimated to be divided as follows: 28 hours for classroom studies, 46 hours for elaborating course materials and performing practical assignments, 24 hours for composing essays and 6 hours for completing the course project. The vast majority of the students gave the course an extremely positive ratingthe average score on the scale 1 -5 was 4.9.

Based on the data collected from students' blogs, discussions and completed course feedback questionnaires, the course contributed predominantly to the development of the following competences of the students:

a) Improving written communication skills (composition of comprehensive texts)

Because the students had to present the solutions of the practical assignments in their blogs, about half of the time was spent on text composition. In fact some students probably spent even more time on writing, judging by some comments such as "the amount of writing was not in accordance with the number of credits of the course and more credits should be provided". On the other hand, although some students complained about the required amount of writing, the majority of blog posts were of very high quality (with the average score of 4.5 on the scale 1 -5). One possible explanation for this high quality is that free accessibility to the blog posts motivated the students to put extra effort into elaboration and 'fine-tuning' of the texts.

b) Acquaintance with the principles of self-directed and community-based learning

The students were free to decide on the topics for essays and on the course project and they could manage their time, exchange information and discuss ideas etc. On the other hand, there were a few students who expected that the teachers should drive the whole process including student-to-student communications: "it seemed that the goal of the tasks was just to make the students perform assignments, but not to encourage them to have discussions and learn from others or to work collaboratively" as one student commented.

c) Gaining experience of systematic use of social media tools for learning

In addition to the blogs which the whole course was based on, using certain other social media tools was necessary for performing home assignments as wellcourse aggregator EduFeedr, viewing slides from Slideshare.net etc. The students considered "blogging" a very efficient tool. One said: "updating the blog as part of the course assignments was new and interesting and I'd be glad if other courses would use the same approach". Another added: "I got the blogging experience that I never had".

Another opinion: "I have never been a blogger, but now I know what a blog is and what can I do with it".

One student said: "the most exciting thing about the course was blogging".

d) Blog-based learning enhanced the learning skills of the students and contributed to their knowledge and skills on the topics of the course

The feedback from students proved that the course led them to a different learning style. One student said: "I liked the structure of the course and that I had to perform individual tasks and analyse this process; it made me think more thoroughly". Another added: "It was good that we used blogs for assignments; therefore I discovered a lot of new solutions and tools for my everyday practices". An additional opinion: "Although I don't enjoy writing, these reflective tasks influenced my learning a lot and lecture subjects became clearer to me". Reading others' blogs was considered important as well: "peers' blogs provided me the possibility to see things from another angle and even more importantit developed my understanding of things". Some students who were suspicious about using blogs at the beginning of the course did change their position later. One student said: "Using a blog for presenting tasks seemed pointless at the beginning of the course, but actually it was really an interesting solutionall the course-related content is in the same place and I have access to it everywhere". Another student claimed at the beginning of the course: "blogging supports the individualism of learners". At the end of the course he had a different opinion: "social networking tools might even be better tools than blogs but I learnt a lot about how information flows between blogs and bloggers, which is extremely important and needed".

Although the students assessed the whole course very positively, if we take into account the problems some students identified during the course, there are still some possibilities for further improvement in organizing the course. From the point of view of students, the main problems were the following: a) Uncertainty and fear of composing low quality texts Some students admitted that they did not like bloggingespecially during the initial phase of the course -because of not having the necessary writing skills. "I don't like public reflections, because I am afraid I can't produce texts without feeling embarrassment later", explained one student. Another student added: "at first I did not like the idea of blogging because I am poor at writing, but by doing it repeatedly over weeks I started enjoying it". How uncertain some students were in deciding on the quality of texts becomes evident from the comment of one student: "excellent blog posts from previous years could be presented for students as examples" (all blog posts of a previous year were freely available in the archive section). This indicates that providing some general guidelines for composing texts, as well examples of high quality blog posts would be useful. Stressing at the very beginning of the course that the focus in writing should be put on the content of the texts and not so much on the grammar, would most probably also lower the psychological barrier for some students.

b) Technical skills for effective blogging were insufficient

A few students experienced technical difficulties, mainly during the initial phase of the course. One student wrote: "At the beginning it was technically difficult to use a blog, but this was probably caused by lack of experience". Another stated: "the Wordpress service is a totally poor blogging environment, I faced problems with every blog post that I tried to publish, text-editor is horrible and I was very upset at the beginning of the course". A clear message is that the different features of blogging environments should be more thoroughly explained to the students at the very beginning of the course, accompanied with a number of practical exercises. Moreover, a dedicated section for discussing technical problems would be beneficial as well.

c) Irregular feedback from the teachers.

Although the ten [START_REF] Normak | Rotational Team-Teaching of University Courses Based on the Connectivism Learning Theory[END_REF] teachers who were involved in the course were required to provide feedback to the students on a weekly basis, some of them did not do it properly or did not do it at all. This was clearly a non-motivating factor for students to present the tasks in time. One student said: "the only thing that I did not like about this course was the lack of feedback -I expected that every week a teacher would comment on my blog post and if that had happened, then I would have tried harder to present my assignments on time". Another student complained in his blog: "For example currently I don't know if my assignments are appropriate, because I have received no feedback". The last comment is very important and reveals explicitly the importance of providing feedback to students.

An additional problem came up during the study: how to motivate students to actively comment on each other's blog posts. The students were interested in getting more feedback from their fellow students while being quite modest themselves in commenting. Here is an example of a students' sentiment: "Currently the statistics concerning my blog indicate that there are many visitors but very few comments on my blog posts. I think that more discussions should take place, but I don't know what carrot and stick should be given to students for doing it. Maybe the blog is not the right place for it? Maybe it would be even more efficient if teachers published the assignments in the course blog and students commented on them, instead of posting comments to fellow students' personal blogs?" Another student posed the question very explicitly: "how can we increase the traffic between peers' blogs?"

A lesson from this is that comments on peers' blog posts could be taken into account when assessing the students.

Conclusion

A blog-based course offers opportunities to intensively develop some skills: communication skills, skills for self-directed and community-based learning and skills for applying social media tools in the learning process. The development of these skills is not always obvious in traditional classroom settings.

On the other hand, a blog-based course is equally challenging for learners as well as for teachers, especially for those who have not experienced this type of course before. Special attention should be paid to following [START_REF] Du Plessis | Portfolio Assessment of Information Technology Students at a University of Technology: a case study[END_REF] Explaining the features of blogging software and providing necessary technical assistance to both students and teachers,

(2) Students should be given regular feedback; this keeps them motivated and encourages more systematic work,

(3) Development of the culture of community-based learning assumes certain guidance on the part of the teachers: initiating discussions, providing examples and relevant web links, identifying and providing personal assistance to students not taking part in discussions etc., (4) Incentives are necessary for motivating students to comment and give feedback on the blog posts of their peers; for example, by placing an obligation on each student to comment on the blog posts of a selected number of their peers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

This study was partly funded by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research grant 0130159s08.


Mark Frydenberg
email: mfrydenberg@bentley.edu

Aligning Open, Physical, and Virtual Spaces in the CIS Sandbox

Keywords: Social Media, Collaborative Learning, Learning Space, Socio-Technical Systems, Computer Lab

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Digital students assume unlimited online resources [START_REF] Tapscott | Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing World[END_REF], engage with social media, and learn through collaborative and informal settings [START_REF] Andone | Digital Students Across Europe[END_REF] [START_REF] Atwell | Personal Learning Environments -the future of eLearning?[END_REF]. They tend to mix virtual with physical spaces and need creative spaces in order to develop their own innovative and technology skills. As today's world requires reliance on social technologies and being connected to the Internet, it is important to for learning spaces to provide these online opportunities for connection to augment the physical spaces where students interact.

The opportunity to renovate a university computer lab for the first time in over a decade into a collaborative learning space also presented an opportunity to build a supporting online presence based on social media and social networking tools. This paper describes how this virtual environment complements the newly renovated physical space.

In researching the design of physical and virtual learning spaces, these questions guided this study:

 What strategies may be employed to transform a computer lab to a physical and virtual collaborative learning space?

 How can social media and Web 2.0 collaboration tools create an online presence that will promote learning both within and outside a physical computer laboratory space?

2 From a Physical to a Virtual Learning Space

Rethinking Physical Learning Spaces

Figure 1 shows the former lab prior to renovations. It is approximately 900 square feet, housed 36 desktop computers around the perimeter, and a long table at the center of the room. Networking equipment is mounted on the back wall. Students gather informally in an area with comfortable seating and a Google TV [START_REF] Tapscott | Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing World[END_REF], engage in tutoring at tables where they can share their laptop screens on a large monitor [START_REF] Andone | Digital Students Across Europe[END_REF], work together on diagrams on the SMART board (3), project screens on the SMART board or the back wall when giving informal demos(4), use networking equipment or one of twelve desktop computers with specialized software for CIS courses [START_REF] Smith | Americans and their Gadgets[END_REF], and explore new technologies such as an early release of Windows 8 on a touch screen [START_REF]Designing Spaces for Effective Learning: A guide to 21st century learning space design[END_REF].

This design recognizes suggestions from the Joint Information Systems Committee [START_REF]Designing Spaces for Effective Learning: A guide to 21st century learning space design[END_REF] which advises that physical learning spaces be flexible, to accommodate both current and evolving pedagogies; future-proof, to enable space to be re-allocated and reconfigured; bold, to look beyond tried and tested technologies and pedagogies; creative, to energize and inspire learners and tutors; supportive, to develop the potential of all learners; and enterprising, to make each space capable of supporting different purposes. Several of these traits were also found in recently redesigned physical learning spaces at Rutgers University [START_REF]The Alcove[END_REF], University of South Carolina [START_REF]Technology Lounge Dedicated at Thomas Cooper Library[END_REF], University of Missouri [START_REF] Milne | MU's Technology Lounge mimics corporate office trends[END_REF] and other American universities, but none of these spaces also launched with an accompanying virtual presence to promote learning.

Creating a Virtual Presence with Social Media Tools

The CIS Sandbox is staffed by 6 graduate and 12 undergraduate students, also called tutors or lab assistants, whose responsibilities bridge supporting both the physical and virtual learning spaces. In the physical space, they perform mentoring and tutoring, and monitor equipment. Extending their roles to support a virtual space, they blog regularly, create tutorial videos, and use web-based collaboration tools to support an internal knowledge base. The CIS Sandbox extends beyond an informal learning space located in the basement of a university classroom building; it lives online as an evolving ecosystem formed of several integrated social networking, social media and web-based collaboration tools. "Developing spaces where students can collaborate outside class provides support for an increased emphasis on teamwork, both in and outside higher education." [START_REF] Clayton-Pederson | Curricula Designed to Meet 21st Century Expectations[END_REF] Abedin studied social patterns in computer supported collaborative learning environments and found that non-task interactions take place in computer-supported collaborative learning environments, often the result of interacting with peers in an online social environment. [START_REF] Abedin | Investigating the Trend of Non-Task Social Interactions in Online Collaborative Learning Environments[END_REF] Socio-technical systems consider both social and technical factors in creating evolving computer-based systems that benefit from social media and user-generated content. [START_REF] Baxter | Socio-technical systems: From design methods to system engineering[END_REF] The system includes the network of users, developers, information technology and environments in which it will be used and supported. [START_REF] Scacchi | Socio-Technical Design[END_REF] Social networks and social media tools play a significant role in the creation of sociotechnical systems. Wheeler [START_REF] Wheeler | Learning Space Mashups: Combining Web 2.0 Tools to Create Collaborative and Reflective Learning Spaces[END_REF] uses the term "learning space mashups" to refer to the combination of Web 2.0 and social media tools to create collaborative and reflective learning spaces. This paper uses the term "socio-technical infrastructure" to describe the relationships between social media and social networking tools, shown in Figure 3, used in the daily operation of the Sandbox. Each of the online tools listed promotes the physical space of the CIS Sandbox (1). The public face of the CIS Sandbox is its Wordpress blog 11 (2), shown in Figure 4. It is edited by student workers who regularly post homework tips as well as articles reflecting their own interests in information technology. Facebook status updates and Twitter posts (3) occasionally report on new blog posts or special happenings in the CIS Sandbox, and add a social dimension, as students like or follow the facility. EventBrite allows visitors to sign up for special events. Prezi ( 4) is used to create digital signage to draw students into the physical space.

Tutors use YouTube (5) to host their original instructional videos demonstrating explanations related to course topics. Live chat with a tutor by text with Meebo or Skype, or in a Google Hangout ( 6) is available via a link from the Sandbox blog, providing virtual support to off-campus students and those who are unable to visit the physical location.

Upon entering, students who visit the CIS Sandbox swipe in with their ID cards. Tutors complete an online form recording their tutoring activities with students [START_REF]The Alcove[END_REF]. Originally the tutor form was implemented as a Google Form, and later replaced with a custom web application, written by a student assistant, to automatically populate the form with the names of students who recently swiped in. These reports provide faculty with information about students in their classes who came for help and the type of questions they asked, and provide usage statistics, enabling the scheduling of more tutors at busier hours.

Google applications (8) facilitate the administrative management of the CIS Sandbox. A Google Site (wiki), shown in Figure 4, is the internal face of the CIS Sandbox. There, lab assistants contribute to an evolving knowledge base by documenting technology in the room, policies and procedures, and related information. They also share weekly status reports on their own "mini blog" pages within the wiki, describing their work on tutoring and special projects. Sharing status reports on an internal site allows their co-workers and supervisor to stay aware of what each lab assistant doing. In addition, it forms a permanent record that easily chronicle's a student worker's contribution over time.

Tutors keep their hours on a shared Google Calendar, whose collective content for all staff automatically populates the schedule page and front page sidebar of blog; a Google group encourages easy communication by email between assistants. This distribution list is often used to disseminate announcements, ask for shift coverage, and share information about Sandbox or campus happenings. Both the feed from the Google group and the calendar are embedded on the front page of the wiki for Sandbox staff to easily review.

By blogging on topics of interest to their peers, creating instructional videos, tutoring online, and sharing their activities on social media sites, CIS Sandbox staff extends the reach of the physical learning space into an online learning space.

Research Methodology

To determine effectiveness of the physical renovation and its virtual counterpart, a voluntary online survey was offered at the end of the Fall 2011 semester to all students who had visited the CIS Sandbox at least once during its first semester of operation. 142 of the 608 students, or 23%, responded to the survey. 39% were female, 61% male.

Facility Usage

Swipe data showed that 608 unique students visited 2804 times from September to December 2011. This is more than twice the number of visits during the same semester a year earlier prior to the renovation. 12129 students shared how often they visited, as shown in Figure 5. Students use these technologies for classroom and extracurricular learning. While nearly all of the students sit at the group study tables, apparently only 69 of142, or 49% use the large monitors for collaborative work. This may be due to the fact that instructors of programming courses prohibit students from displaying code on the large screens when getting help with homework, so other students are not able to copy it. Students generally use the wireless networking equipment when making up an assignment that their peers completed earlier in the classroom. Some sections of the introductory IT course give extra credit assignments for students who learn to use the SMART Board, Google TVs, or Windows 8 machines. Several student assistants independently explored the Microsoft Kinect SDK to configure software demos and begin to develop their own applications.

To attract advanced and interested students to the Sandbox, Microsoft evangelists offered seminars teaching students to create xBox games and mobile applications during the Fall 2011 semester. During the Spring 2012 semester, an alumnus working for Mashable, a provider of APIs for web and mobile application development, presented about the company's web services and career opportunities. These activities, many championed by the students themselves, created occasions for learning about both course-related and extracurricular topics in the CIS Sandbox, and often resulted in creating blog posts and multimedia artifacts online.

Aligning the CIS Sandbox's Physical and Virtual Spaces

Users access the CIS Sandbox virtual spaces via the Sandbox blog, chat rooms and online tutoring spaces, social networking sites, and a YouTube video channel. This section describes how each of these aligns with and extends the physical space.

The Sandbox Blog. The CIS Sandbox Wordpress blog started as a way to chronicle the renovations of the physical space online and continues to evolve as a web site to inform visitors about happenings as well as a blog where lab assistants are encouraged to post approximately twice a month about frequently asked tutoring questions, hints for students, and technology interests. For example, lab assistants learning about Windows 8, the xBox and Kinect posted about these topics. Unfortunately, there is no way to understand if these posts contributed to higher use of these technology tools by other students visiting the CIS Sandbox. Figure 7 shows the number of posts in a variety of categories during the blog's first six months. The blog is currently not open for readers to comment. Doing so would foster communication between readers and blog authors. Implementing this would require assigning a student moderator to review comments before they are posted. This change has been requested and is anticipated for a future semester.

Online Tutoring. Tutoring via Skype and screen sharing has been shown to be effective [START_REF] Staupe | Online interactive learning arena over the internet[END_REF] [16] and the logistics of implementing this on a regular basis are currently being investigated. Several tutors have informally used these tools during the first four months of operation, survey results suggested 62% of students surveyed would find this service useful. Social Networks. The Sandbox social media campaign got off to a slow start. Despite links on the blog to follow on Facebook and Twitter, only 34 liked the Facebook page and 14 followed @CISSandbox on Twitter during its first four months. Attempting to improve these numbers during the spring semester, some tutors encouraged students to follow the Sandbox during their tutoring sessions and distributed business cards with social media information. This raised the numbers to 115 followers on Facebook and 48 on Twitter during the following semester, but a better social media strategy is required to reach students more effectively using social networks. YouTube Videos. During the Spring 2011 semester, 4 tutors created 15 instructional videos on Excel concepts taught in an introductory IT course for which approximately 400 students are enrolled across multiple sections. Several of these videos had over 200 and as many as 255 views. 13 This suggests that at least half of the students watched at least some of these videos. Staff also created videos of special events in the CIS Sandbox, and "how to" videos (such as how to hook up a laptop to an external monitor). All of these videos were embedded on the Sandbox blog and are available directly from the CIS Sandbox YouTube channel.

Conclusion

The CIS Sandbox has grown beyond a tutoring lab, to one where lab assistants and students can also explore their interests in technology in person and online. For students utilizing the services of the CIS Sandbox, learning occurred through inperson and online tutoring, and informally by reading the Sandbox blog, watching instructional videos, or attending extracurricular workshops.

For the lab staff, learning occurred not only on course subject matter that they were faced with explaining to their peers, but also through their own interactions with social media tools that make up the Sandbox's socio-technical infrastructure, and software applications and technologies that they investigated as part of special projects. 85% of the tutors surveyed commented that working in the CIS Sandbox enabled them to learn about IT trends and concepts beyond what is covered in their classes, and that they developed beneficial social media and technology skills that will help them in their future careers.

The integrated use of social media, social networking, and web-based collaboration tools as part of the CIS Sandbox's day-to-day operations provides opportunities for both lab staff and university students to interact with these applications, and prepares them to be productive contributors to the business world they are about to enter.

Fig. 10 .Fig. 11 .

 1011 Fig. 10. Before the Renovation

Fig. 12 .

 12 Fig. 12. Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Managing the CIS Sandbox

Fig. 13 .

 13 Fig. 13. The CIS Sandbox blog (left) is the public face of the CIS Sandbox. The CIS Sandbox Wiki (right) houses institutional knowledge, policies, and procedures for internal use.

Fig. 14 .

 14 Fig. 14. Frequency of Visits to the CIS Sandbox During its first semester, 85 of the 126 students surveyed said they had visited the blog at least once.Figure 6 lists several technologies available in the CIS Sandbox and the number of respondents who used them during the Fall 2011 semester.

Figure 6

 6 lists several technologies available in the CIS Sandbox and the number of respondents who used them during the Fall 2011 semester.

Fig. 15 .

 15 Fig. 15. Technology Use in the CIS Sandbox.

Fig. 16 .

 16 Fig. 16. Blog Posts by Category snapshot from Google Analytics shown in Figure 8 suggests that the blog has generated a following, with 51% of returning visitors and 48% of new visitors during its first four months. It receives on average 100 hits per day. Visits are cyclical, with fewer visitors on weekends.

Fig. 17 .

 17 Fig. 17. Google Analytics reports on new and returning visitors

Rebranded as the CIS Learning and Technology Sandbox, the new facility marks a transition from the individualized computer lab where students face the walls, to an informal space where learning takes place around tables or in a lounge setting. In engineering, "a sandbox environment consists of a controlled set of resources for trying … new app[lication]s without the risk of damaging critical parts of the system."[START_REF] Malizia | Has Everything Been Invented? On Software Development and the Future of Apps[END_REF] The new name promotes discovery, learning, and a sense of playfulness within a business context. The increasing number of students who own laptops, tablets, and other mobile devices[START_REF] Smith | Americans and their Gadgets[END_REF] pointed to the need to provide more desk space and fewer desktop computers. The renovated facility, whose physical footprint did not increase, is shown in Figure2.

http://cis.bentley.edu/sandbox

Previously students signed in on paper, so this value is an estimate based on counting pages of signatures in a notebook.

Some faculty made these videos required viewing; others did not mention them to their students.


Sebastian H D Fiedler
email: fiedler@zsi.at

Terje Väljataga
email: terje.valjataga@tlu.ee

Challenging Learning Myths Through Intervention Studies in Formal Higher Education

Keywords: learning myths, intervention, higher education, new learning culture

The introduction of open and networked learning practices in formal higher education regularly collides with the personal beliefs and convictions that students hold in relation to their own capacity for learning and the structural and procedural conditions that they expect to be met in such settings. A series of systemic intervention studies at Tallinn University highlighted the disabling role that these personal learning myths can play when students are confronted with practices that promote a new culture of learning. This paper offers some selected examples from a qualitative data analysis and discusses the possibility to embrace personal learning myths as a core concept for further research and the development of more effective intervention instruments and approaches.

Introduction

"For most of the twentieth century our educational system has been built on the assumption that teaching is necessary for learning to occur" (p. 34) [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF]. In this conception teachers transfer information to students, who need to prove (usually by testing) their acquired knowledge in accordance with pre-defined standards. In general teachers control the learning activity of others and assume that a process of quality instruction actually "produces" desired outcomes on the receivers' end [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF].

This dominating pattern has become deep-seated in our culture and has produced pervasive beliefs of how education in general and learning experiences in particular should be structured and organised. Throughout history these rigidly held beliefs have determined every aspect of pedagogical practice: the roles of teachers and students; teaching (learning) methods; assessment procedures, supporting environments, and so forth. The continued exposure to this type of teacher dependent learning environments throughout formal schooling leads many people to develop a set of potentially disabling beliefs and convictions that function as a personal "commentary" on their own capabilities for learning. These deeply engrained beliefs are labeled as "learning myths" [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF]. They were able to show in their empirical work that such myths were regularly invoked in educational settings and influenced the capacity to learn of many adults.

Professional educators also hold beliefs and prejudices about learning [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF] and their students' capabilities. Their professional myths influence how educational systems and the embedded teaching and learning practices develop over time, thus contributing considerably to the acquisition of specific personal myths about learning among students [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF].

Among many other researchers and educators, [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF] claim that the current, mainstream educational system can't keep up with the rapid rate of change in the twenty-first century. The omnipresent and continuously expanding digital transformation requires and enables fundamental shifts and changes from old models to new approaches of learning. The process of establishing a new learning culture, however, is fundamentally restricted by the values, myths and beliefs about education and learning among the various stakeholders. Establishing innovative approaches, which are conflicting with the current traditional views and principles of formal education and learning requires not only the implementation of new technological instrumentation but also rather different mindsets, values and beliefs. The development of a new learning culture poses formidable challenges to existing learning myths, which need to be explored, elaborated, de-constructed and re-built.

Open and Networked Learning: Intentional Change Meets Learning Myths

Over a period of 5 years the authors of this paper have been engaged in a series of intervention studies that tried to promote a shift towards more open and networked forms of teaching and learning at Tallinn University (TLU), Estonia. One master level course administered by the Institute of Informatics at TLU has been used as an evolving test-bed for the iterative implementation and evaluation of intervention ideas and concepts related to various aspects of personal learning and its digital reinstrumentation through networked, open access and open source tools and services in formal higher education. Existing teaching and studying practices have been fundamentally re-designed to support the advancement of competencies for selfdirecting one's study and change in increasingly networked environments in work and education. This required a re-configuration of patterns of control and a redistribution of responsibility over instructional functions (such as setting objectives; selecting and executing appropriate actions and activities; selecting, combining, and integrating resources and technological tools and services; and defining criteria and procedures of evaluation). A learning contract procedure [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning to Change. A Resource for Trainers, Managers, and Learners Based on Self Organised Learning[END_REF] has been adapted and used to support this shift of control and responsibility. Students have been encouraged to explore a wide range of digital instrumentation options (such as wikis, weblogs, and so forth) that fundamentally allow the opening up of networked learning activities beyond the confines of their local institutional context (for a more detailed overview of the intervention studies see [START_REF] Fiedler | Interventions for Second-order Change in Higher Education: Challenges and Barriers[END_REF][START_REF] Väljataga | Supporting Students to Self-direct Intentional Learning Projects with Social Media[END_REF][START_REF] Väljataga | If a Student Takes Control: A Facilitator's Tasks and Responsibilities[END_REF]).

Observational data gathered throughout our intervention studies continuously indicated that the reconfiguration of typical patterns of control and responsibility in general, and the emphasis on the exploration of personal digital instrumentation options in particular, seemingly clashed with the learning myths of a good number of students. Those students expressed very strong beliefs on how formal educational environments should be structured and organised and what conditions need to be met to make "learning" in such settings possible for them. Furthermore, we were able to observe a reoccurring developmental trajectory among a number of students whose initial rejection of all concepts and practices that ran against their myths slowly gave way to personal experimentation and exploration, and finally resulted in the adaptation and reconstruction of their own systems of meaning.

These initial observations were extended into a more systematic review of data that could be interpreted as the expression of personal learning myths running counter to the intentional change goals promoted through our interventions. In particular, we analysed the students' written reflections on the course and on their study progress in relation to the courses from the academic years of 2009, 2010 and 2011. An initial qualitative content analysis [START_REF] Krippendorff | Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology[END_REF] was conducted and complemented with the facilitator's observations of students' reactions, thoughts and complaints gathered during face-to-face meetings. The purpose of the content analysis was to detect students' challenges; problems and contradictions and map a range of personal learning myths. The analysis was also looking for any indication that the students claimed to have changed their personal learning myths by the end of the course.

Traces of Personal Learning Myths: Examples from Our Data Analysis

Being exposed to a rather different way of going about learning in a formal higher education setting immediately triggered some of the participants' resistance and protest. These adult learners had largely arrived at convictions about their own learning, their myths of themselves as learners, and the formal educational system altogether. For instance, one of the students shared her experiences: "When I went to the first face-to-face meeting I was first pleasantly surprised about the unusual way of going about learning. In the next moment I was shocked, when I heard that there are no traditional lectures waiting for us, we have to think ourselves what we want to study and how; we are going to use weblogs. How is it possible, no lectures? How come all of the sudden I have to write down my learning objectives? Presenting my homeworks on the weblog? Where am I now…?" Our data analysis showed that one major issue for a number of students was the level of "openness" that was promoted within the re-designed course. Presenting course-related tasks and reflections publicly, being open for critical and constructive comments from peers and wider audience was met with surprise and resistance. Being asked to document and expose in public what had been so far a predominantly private activity challenged many students' personal learning myths. The following statements illustrate it rather well: "In the beginning it was quite strange to share my thoughts with the whole world through my weblog, it was so unusual and produced resistance" and the other one claimed: "Blogging and me…totally opposite words. We'll see later whether I'll be addicted to blogging after this course or I'll turn back to my aforementioned statement". Statements like "I really had to work hard on myself before publishing my first homework on my weblog. I have never use it and I have some prejudices about that" have been rather typical throughout the 5 years of intervention work carried out at TLU. Although being skeptical of sharing one's thoughts in public, students tended to enjoy reading, for example, weblog posts of their peers. One of the students admitted: "It is exciting to read peer students opinions and be part of the other person's wisdom".

Research has suggested there is a difference in how openness and public weblog authoring should be interpreted in education [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF]. Using weblogs in education should be understood as generating the space for a conversation to emerge [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF] and a support for the construction of a community. However, this requires a give-and-take approach, adopting the idea of sharing, active engagement, and participation, instead of merely belonging. For instance, one of the students admitted: "I didn't become a commentator. I read and explored what the others were doing, but I was too shy to comment on others' work myself". This leads to the next related issue, which trigged students' resistance. The notion of getting feedback from others besides the teacher or facilitator is rather contradictory to many students' ideas of learning and turned out to be challenging to accept. One student claimed: "The thought that everybody can read my work, even comment on it and cited it, it requires a lot of courage to publish" and another added: "I also have to mention how HORRIBLE was to read comments, especially if the comment consisted of a poisonous remark. I guess it is a matter of one's feelings and obviously not discussed with oneself, because not everything shouldn't be taken so seriously". Realizing that this approach not only allows learning from each other but also learning with others [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF] takes time. Obviously the myth that a lot of knowledge exists in a rather fixed form and needs to be provided by a teacher is still a rather dominating conception among students.

Taking control and responsibility (setting objectives; finding the right strategies and resources; and defining the desired outcome) is not a common occurrence within a traditional way of learning in formal educational settings. This is expressed in statements of the following kind: "I have never created something like this [learning contract] for myself or thought about my learning objectives". Such statements demonstrate what students tend to perceive as the typical roles and responsibilities of teachers and students alike.

In addition, the students also expressed their resistance in relation to technology and the exploration of digital instrumentation options for their purposes. One of the students shared her preferences: "I would rather like an environment like Moodle or Blackboard, where everything is in one place and I don't have to learn and fiddle with different tools" and the other one added: "Jumping into an unknown situation, the speed, new information and tools, made me feel I am drowning, chronic lack of time, feeling stupid…I could continue with this list endlessly. I am never able to learn how to use these tools, what for? This is too much for me".

Although, some of the students had initial difficulties to get started within an overall system of considerably increased personal degrees of freedom and responsibility, they regularly admitted at the end of the course that their learning myths did not remain entirely stable throughout the overall educational episode. For instance, one of them said: "I feel a bit better and more relaxed now. This kind of learning can be quite nice. Blogging is difficult, but possible to overcome, commenting is even more difficult, but I am developing. The next step is to overcome of myself and swim on the surface. I have to admit it is a very unusual situation". The aforementioned statement can also be interpreted as the student's understanding that learning has changed and requires different ways of thinking, new attitudes and skills, yet also constant reflection on one's activities and progress. This is clearly stated by one of the students from the 2011 course, too: "This course turned out to be a totally new experience -a weblog-based learning environment. It took me almost two months to get used to this. I still have to practice to be faster in reflecting, reading and commenting peer-students Weblogs. My understanding of learning has definitely changed -a web-based learning, working together on assignments…"

Throughout our intervention studies we were able to collect recurrent empirical indication that personal learning myths played a key role for the individual reception of structural and procedural changes to existing teaching and studying practices among our student body. While we are currently in the process of refining our categorisation of seemingly disabling or limiting personal learning myths (as they were recorded through our data gathering efforts), we can already share that there is some indication that certain personal learning myths seem to hold some diagnostic, or even projective value, in relation to potentially problematic trajectories of adaptation (or rather objection, rejection, and resistance) in the context of decisively open and networked forms of learning practice in higher education. This preliminary insight, however, requires further analysis and more thorough empirical validation.

Discussion and Concluding Remarks

While we certainly cannot get into a more comprehensive exposition and discussion of our qualitative data analysis in this short paper format, we would like to argue that systemic intervention into current teaching and studying practices with the purpose to establish more open and networked learning formats can generally benefit from the exploration of students' personal learning myths and their potentially disabling influence. Students who are unable to revise their personal myths run the risk of remaining victims of their own, strongly rooted constructions [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF]. This often results in low levels of motivation, performance, and commitment, if not an overall drop out from their educational endeavor [START_REF] Thomas | A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change[END_REF]. Understanding their personal obstacles and beliefs, educators and teachers can better support students to overcome their difficulties while they are getting gradually immersed into a new culture of learning. Many students need to be supported while they are undergoing (an often underestimated) process of personal transformation in which they need to adapt to the practices and conventions of open and networked learning, re-build their learning myths accordingly, and become integrated into the new culture. Although, personal myths do not tend to be changed overnight, they can be purposefully and selfcritically brought into awareness [START_REF] Harri-Augstein | Learning Conversations: the Self-organised Way to Personal and Organisational Growth[END_REF] by consciously and systematically exploring and analyzing them. Our preliminary analysis showed that learners being imprisoned by their rather rigid personal learning myths tend to "assimilate" new practices and technologies during the early stages of adoption and attempt to replicate existing practices and trusted patterns of action. Even, if students embrace new practices by the end of a course, it is often not enough to achieve a sustainable and lasting effect on students. The new practices need to continue in the context of other course environments or educational episodes to encourage students to refine, elaborate, deconstruct and re-build personal learning myths that can be actually experienced as enabling within an increasingly networked society.

The intervention work at Tallinn University of the last 5 years has made some progress in this regard. Some of the open and networked learning practices that were established and refined within the context of our test-bed course have been expanded into other parts of the various Master curricula that are administered by the Institute of Informatics. Some of our intervention instruments (such as the personal learning contract procedure and the systematic use of individual weblog authoring) have proved to be considerably effective in eliciting qualitative material that expresses disabling personal learning myths held by our students. However, we feel that our educational intervention work could benefit from further research into the range and specific quality of personal learning myths that manifest themselves in the context of open and networked learning practices. We are thus planning to extend our data gathering with explorative interviews that are carried out at various points in time while students are attending our test-bed courses. Furthermore, we are interested in the longitudinal oriented mapping of individual trajectories of development when students are actually exposed to a whole series of educational episodes that embrace open and networked formats of learning. Fundamentally, we believe that the systematic exploration and integration of the concept of personal learning myths should enable us to develop more effective intervention instruments and strategies over time.

Acknowledgments. This research was funded by Estonian Ministry of Education and

Research targeted research grant No. 0130159s08.