Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
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Reconceptulising the Role of the Visiting Lecturer: : Using Educational Technology to Enable Practicum Placements in the ‘New Normal’
Get PDFThe national lockdown during semester one of 2020 meant the Manukau Institute of Technology Early Childhood teams needed to revisit the existing requirements of their programmes in terms of practicum. In response, the teams developed ‘virtual’ meetings to replace the usual observation visit by a visiting lecturer. By using communication software (Microsoft Teams with cell phone back up) the student and Visiting Lecturer engaged in weekly critically reflective conversations that mentored the student in thinking about their practice, setting goals to work on and articulating their learning. By using the software in this way, the Visiting Lecturers changed their role from merely assessor of practice to firstly, mentor and guide. In the online triadic meetings (also using Microsoft Teams and cell phone back-up) it became clear that the traditional model of the student being told how the assessor felt they had met the practicum criteria was replaced with one where the student was able to articulate for themselves.
At the end of the semester, students and lecturers were invited to give feedback via a survey. The responses focused on the deep learning experienced, ownership of learning, and the confidence the students felt at the on-line triadic. Much more unexpected was the correlation between survey responses and much of the literature. Drawing on these findings, this presentation poses some possibilities for what both the practicum and a reconceptualised relationship between visiting lecturer, associate teacher and students could look like in the ‘new normal’. 
Virtual Scholarship and Real Academics: : A Blended Hyperflexible Technology Approach to Scholarly Practice in a post-pandemic world
Get PDFLike many other regional universities in Australia, the authors’ university is well equipped to deal with distance and technology (Chugh, Ledger & Shields, 2017), with staff distributed across more than 10 campuses, and many working from home on a regular basis in a non-COVID year. Yet despite this, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 presented challenges, as staff are not immune from the digital divide issues of bandwidth speed and stability, especially as the whole world moves to a video conferenced meeting solution. This presentation will discuss how our university handled this new triple headed challenge of a renewed focus on Scholarship of Learning & Teaching (SoLT) in relation to Australian government advice (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2020), along with a desire for upskilling in TEL, but simultaneously the limitations of technology in the pandemic, with a view to providing guidance for other institutions looking to mount this challenge.
In tackling this issue in 2020, we were fortunate that our university already provided several avenues for staff to engage in and learn about SoLT. Among these, the Scholarship of Tertiary Teaching (SoTT) conference ran over two days via Zoom and offered several virtual concurrent sessions and topics allowing staff to share the results of their systematic evaluations into their teaching practice and student’s learning. Each session is recorded and made available via a YouTube channel, providing opportunity for conference participants to watch sessions they were unable to attend and this year we recognised the work of our presenters, abstract reviewers, and session facilitators with digital badges.
Based on this successful model, we realized we had the essential tools already to move our other major training avenue, the Intro to SoLT workshops (previously delivered face-to-face), online. The aim of the workshops is to provide staff with a collegial environment to discuss and develop research ideas. The virtual environment makes this harder to achieve however the SOTT conference showed us that smaller sessions (four hours over four days), along with the use of breakout rooms could provide opportunity for small group discussion and that the value of Zoom Chat as a back channel for discussion was essential and should be encouraged amongst participants to provide an environment where we could maintain consistent support (Soon & Cowling, 2019).
Attendance and feedback showed us that this worked. Over 50 staff attended the event over four days, and feedback was universally positive, and this led us to rethink how our L&T events should be offered. Specifically, the success of the changes suggests the development of a hyperflexible model of delivery, asynchronous but with guided support and local contacts (assisting to build campus networks), and the foundation knowledge of how to complete a systematic evaluation turned into an online module/micro-credential as a prerequisite for face-to-face and virtual workshops. The result being a L&T model that leverages the lessons learnt during the pandemic into a new blended model, bringing the best aspects of face-to-face and online delivery into a new academy of best L&T practice
Social Geographies of Educational Leadership: Exploring Social Structure and Influence in Social Media
Get PDFEducational leaders across the globe are facing a growing set of challenges that include concerns around academic performance, but go well beyond to include the pandemic, equity, climate, and poverty. This is a defining time for leaders to attend to the needs of students in the face of ongoing and developing challenges. Better understanding how educational leaders engage with one another in developing community and accessing timely and context connected information is an important line of investigation during these challenging times. One of most widely used and simplest strategies is engaging communities through communication and collaboration in online spaces which involves accessing just in time information (e.g., news, ideas, approaches) and the exchange of information, knowledge, and strategies. Social media platforms provide multiple opportunities for these exchanges and yet we know very little about how educational leaders are engaging with these platforms.
The rise of social media has led to a panoply of online communication spaces or sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, wherein individuals can engage into the informal learning with others. Furthermore, a growing number of studies have shown that educational professionals use social media, such as Twitter, to access and share information that helps them and others to face their everyday challenges. Being embedded in their immediate (work) environments, media constitute social opportunity spaces enabling individuals to engage discussions with a wide variety of others and stimulate a process of critical reflection. Consequently, educational leaders can benefit from participating in social media to help them (and their colleagues) in their efforts to engage in high quality practice. However, traditional views of leader activity have constrained work in the space.
Leadership is one of the most examined concepts in the education literature, and while the study of online social networks is also gaining interest, the intersection between leadership and online social networks has received limited attention. The key notion underlying most traditional leadership research is that the behaviors or attributes of a leader, typically a person in a formal position, matter for a variety of outcomes. While offering valuable insights, this dominant view of leadership behavior and attributes underestimates the impact of (informal) social networks particularly those in online spaces.
Scholars are increasingly recognizing the importance of social processes involved in leading. Leadership in its broadest sense has often been conceptualized as a process of influence toward an outcome. Social relationships through networks may provide leaders with the necessary infrastructure to access resources in achieving outcomes. A social network perspective brings to the fore the dependencies of actors within a social system. This perspective shifts the focus away from individual attributes toward an examination of the ties between individuals, thereby placing leadership directly in the role of a social undertaking. Leadership from a network perspective emphasizes the interdependence of action that are reflected by a network of ties, which may ultimately moderate, influence, or determine the activity and movement of resources such as practices and knowledge.
Presentation: https://vimeo.com/51825293
Designing for authentic learning using immersive 360 videos
Get PDFTeaching students ethical financial accounting practices and decision making can be complicated and challenging at good times. It requires the students to have a deep level understanding of the accounting requirements and professional values to be able to make fair and ethical judgements. However, for students who have no or little work experience making professional judgements without authentic contextual awareness and understanding may hold little significance (Mintz, 2019).
Moore (2013) elaborates that for students to develop financial reporting professional judgment proficiency they need to experience practical business world scenarios and learn to question and think as a professional financial accountant. He further argues that is imperative to develop these skills as these are pre-requisites for subsequent units of study and a graduate attribute expected by professional accounting bodies and employers.
In this session, we will discuss how we created an authentic and immersive case study for the students in collaboration with a professional accounting firm and other industry experts. We will discuss how authentic learning (Herrington, Reeves & Oliver, 2010) and heutagogic principles (Hase & Kenyon, 2000) were adopted in the design of the learning module to help develop critical thinking skills and understanding of connections within and implications from financial reporting professional judgements.
References:
Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. ultiBASE, 5(3). Retrieved from http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec00/hase2.htm
Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning (connecting with e-learning). New York: Routledge.
Mintz, S. (2019). A new approach to teaching ethical decision making to accounting students. The CPA Journal, Online. Retrieved fromhttps://www.cpajournal.com/2019/10/14/a-new-approach-to-teaching-ethical-decision-making-to-accounting-students/
Moore, T. (2013). Critical thinking: seven definitions in search of a concept. Studies in Higher Education, 2013, Vol. 28, No 4, 506-522
Reconceptualising the Role of the Visiting Lecturer: Using Educational Technology to Enable Practicum Placements In The ‘New Normal’
Get PDFThe international pandemic and the national lockdown during semester one of 2020 meant the Manukau Institute of Technology Early Childhood teams needed to revisit the existing requirements of their programmes and particularly in terms of practicum. In response, the teams developed ‘virtual’ meetings to replace the usual observation visit by a visiting lecturer. In this revised approach, the students and lecturers engaged in weekly conversations and in these meetings the role of the Visiting Lecturer was significantly changed. By using communication software (Microsoft Teams with cell phone back up) the student and Visiting Lecturer engaged in critically reflective conversations that mentored the student in thinking about their practice, setting goals to work on and articulating their learning. By using the software in this way, the Visiting Lecturers changed their role from merely assessor of practice to firstly, mentor and guide. In the online triadic meetings (also using Microsoft Teams and cell phone back-up) it became clear that the traditional model of the student being told how the assessor felt they had met the practicum criteria was replaced with one where the student was able to articulate for themselves.
At the end of the semester, students and lecturers were invited to give feedback via a survey. The responses focused on the deep learning experienced, ownership of learning, and the confidence the students felt at the on-line triadic. Much more unexpected was the correlation between survey responses and much of the literature. Drawing on these findings, this presentation poses some possibilities for what both the practicum and a reconceptualised relationship between visiting lecturer, associate teacher and students could look like in the ‘new normal’. 
The need to provide students and educators with the tools to cross the digital divide
Get PDF2020 will be remembered as an unprecedented ‘global’ socio-economic and educational crisis. As a lecturer in a tertiary institution in Aotearoa New Zealand, this pandemic has heightened my awareness of inequalities in education and the impacts these have had on students and educators. Educational institutions around the world decided to continue teaching and learning online to ensure physical distancing among students, as if institutions, lecturers/teachers, and students, among others, were prepared for this shift. As a result of this shift, digital poverty and illiteracy are considered for some to have ‘emerged’ from the pandemic (Baker, 2020) failing to recognise the pre-existing digital divide (Ayre, 2020; Holmes & Burgess, 2020; Ouahidi, 2019; Wolstencroft & Zhou, 2020). However, these are problems that governmental and educational institutions have neglected to address until the pandemic rendered these issues unavoidable. Both students and lecturers were affected. For example, many lecturers were unfamiliar with online learning tools and/or strategies for online teaching and/or lacked appropriate devices and/or access to stable internet connections. Similarly, many students struggled with online platforms, such as Blackboard, or did not have access to devices or internet connections. The high demand from both students and lecturers for support from their educational institutions overwhelmed tech support infrastructures, revealing the neglectful assumption that these issues did not already exist (Ayre, 2020; Madianou, 2020; Montacute, 2020; Norris, 2001). As an educator, this year was particularly challenging because it made me reflect on how accessible my teaching practice was, how I could respond to digital poverty and illiteracy, and what gaps remained. Nonetheless, I also learnt many lessons about the amazing possibilities that technology-enhanced education can offer. This conference addresses many of these innovations, which will inspire educators. Learning can undoubtedly be enhanced by technology but this presentation endeavours to start a conversation about what changes are necessary to ensure that all students have access to what they need for their learning to be technologically supported and for lecturers to be able to utilise technological enhancements in their practices. I provide a range of instances from my practice where I tried to address the aforementioned issues and some examples of the limitations I encountered
Mobile Technology : Innovative and creative practices enabling learning environments in Higher Education & Business
Get PDFThe digital transformation of society is reaching a state of maturity, which provides people with new and exciting possibilities (NESTA, 2019) and implies a preponderant change in terms of inclusive collaboration, human-centred global economy and governance. Conjointly, ‘knowledge is the impetuous for communication’ (Carayannis & Clark, 2011, p. 203) with respect to foster ‘social capital’ and to thrive ‘cultural knowledge’ (Levallet & Chan, 2019, p. 182). Within this context, mobile technology, thanks to its affordance (Ahonen, 2011; Volkoff & Strong, 2013) and its contextuality (Cochrane et al., 2016), can enable creativity which supports the Cognitive Process Dimension (Anderson et al., 2001). Scilicet, mobile devices become the interface between people and processes (Morel et al., 2018; Dampérat et al., 2019) in relation to innovative practices (Makri et al., 2017) and real-world learning (Saleh et al., 2019) in formal and informal contexts. Moreover, it can enhance the developing of ideas inner/outer an organisation, or a classroom (Hall et al., 2020), and the serendipity flow of learning experiences (Makri et al., 2015). To a certain extent, mobile technology can bolster ‘collective knowledge’ (Pont, 2013; Levallet & Chan, 2019) by enabling quick decision-making and by connecting with a glocal network (Antonczak, 2021).
From a transdisciplinary approach, amidst learning sciences (Sommerhoff et al., 2018), management and organisational research, this presentation canvasses mobile technology (Jones & Marsden, 2006; Ahonen, 2011) as being a key apparatus and interface for collaborative innovation (Demil & Lecocq, 2012; Suire et al., 2018), which allows organisations to develop their ‘information ecology’ (Nardi, 1999) through a dynamic sense of what is inside and what is outside their boundaries. Said differently, it deciphers how mobile technology can enable exchange information and co-creative practices beyond formal structures and systems across industries and/or academia.
To start, the presentation quickly outlines some key concepts from an inter-disciplinary literature reviews (Baumeister & Leary, 1997), including collaboration, creativity, knowledge dynamics such as knowledge creation and/or conversion (Sawyer, 2008) as well as ‘knowledge retention and/or knowledge loss’ (Levallet & Chan, 2019). Next, it epitomises a few technological enabling conditions (Makri, 2017; Levallet & Chan, 2018; Cheng et al., 2019) such as autonomy, diversity, interactivity, contextuality through mobile social media and mobile-first applications (Apps) in relation to collaboration and learning practices beyond the limits of a physical environment. Then, it introduces the methodological and qualitative approach used for the analysis and findings, as well as the interpretations of practices in Education and Business. Finally, this presentation concludes with some features about how mobile technology practices support collaborative and innovative learning environments, the co-creation of new frameworks, and it suggests further avenues for supplementary research
In search of the margin spaces : An inquiry into the interaction between learners and digital text in the context of secondary school
Get PDFVirtual and Distance Learning are certainly not disruptive technologies, but rather a trend in contemporary education. However, the potential of new mobile technologies, and the openness to new pedagogies associated with them, is enabling teaching professionals to design learning instances that could truly disrupt traditional schooling (Agarwal, 2013).
Societal changes such as the rise of the knowledge society and disintermediation of education (Prince, 2014) demand a learning ecosystem where learners can create their own opportunities to develop life-skills and problem solve (Hannon, Patton & Temperley, 2011). This means that learners should be given the opportunity to be their own agents of learning and build collaborative networks with both instructors and peers. However, secondary school education is still organised around students’ attainment and standardised testing, where curriculum normalisation demands supersede student-centeredness (Leadbeater, 2005).
This paradigm-clash together with some limitations on teachers’ digital capabilities or/and the organizational constraints on the adoption of technology challenges the full implementation of ICT as a neural network that could enable full-personalisation and, therefore, a deep learning ecosystem.
Digital technologies can no longer be considered a simple tool to access, organise and communicate information. At its lowest denomination, technology becomes a constitutive structure “which partly constitutes the things to which is applied” (Van der Hoven, 2006, p68), and acts as a medium that both impacts on the way we explore reality and mediates its understanding (Carr, 2011; Cardinali et. al; 2009; Doidge, 2007; Kurtweil, 2005, quoted by White, 2011).
At its highest denomination, technology can be understood from the perspective of sociomateriality, where material means are “constitutive of both activities and identities” (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008, p 455).
From the perspective of the Extended Mind Theory (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) humans and tools can work together as a functional organ, blurring the boundaries between human and technology (Hannon, 2018).
Technologies are not the only medium capable of enabling deep learning, since “learning is not only the development of the fundamental competencies [but] also developing the personal, interpersonal and cognitive capabilities that allow one to diagnose what is going on in the complex, constantly shifting human and technical context of real-world practice and then match an appropriate response.” (Fullan & Scott, 2014, p4.). However, it would be naive to disregard the impact that emerging technologies are having not only on pedagogy, but also, on the economic and political pressures being transferred into secondary schools (Bolstad et al.,2012. p1).
The aim of my research is to inquire into the tools that high-achieving senior secondary school learners are using to interact with digital texts in order to (a) structure their learning [organising]; (b) articulating the "external mind" [signposting] and (c) representing mental processes [synthesising] and its intersection with Biesta’s (2010) notion of the dimensions of Education from the perspective of Complexity and ANT (actor-network) theory
Transforming public health education in Aotearoa New Zealand: : Using 21st century learning in the time of COVID-19
Get PDFThe face of public health is changing in response to local and global trends of rapid technological development, worsening inequities, and the prominent role of the COVID-19 pandemic (Mays et al., 2012; Dahlgren et al., 2015; Schleicher, 2020). Public health jobs reflect these shifts, emphasizing a need for greater online collaboration and project design, complex problem-solving, and more fluid work patterns. Concurrently, education globally is in a process of transformation reflecting similar concerns to that of the public health industry. This change is paradigmatic and evolving from that of factory model education (traditional Campus 101 in the university or higher education setting) to something which must now reflect 21st century employability (Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Bolstad et al, 2012; Robinson, 2020).
In 2020, COVID-19 brought rapid and significant change to the teaching of public health education in the Aotearoa New Zealand university setting. In this presentation we reflect on the short-term change that took place across higher education as delivery of existing curricula shifted from classroom to online; including in our own practice of public health education. Moreover, we consider the greater agenda of a transformative educational paradigm, broadly conceptualized as a shift from a factory model education to one of 21st century learning, with an emphasis on fostering creativity; heutagogical (student-driven) models underpinned by technology (Bolstad et al., 2012; Robinson, 2020); and real-world application of this involving problem and project-based learning in a changing health industry (Topol, 2015; Mesko, 2015). Such change has stemmed both from the impact of COVID-19 on the education system, and in response to a momentous transformation in public health careers and societal expectations of a public health workforce.
Prior to COVID-19, public health education primarily consisted of classroom based learning, online resources, and standardized assessment. These methods fulfilled the criteria of giving students much needed ‘knowledge’. However, the standardized nature of delivery and assessments (and indeed the non-digital nature of public health education) was also reflective of graduates being trained to enter an industrial workforce, which has complied with uniform 20th century organizational processes and norms. COVID-19 has demanded a complete change to delivery of education to encompass online methods. It also offers opportunities for the move towards creative, flexible and personalized learning that emphasizes student choice, personal identity and strengths, in a time where the nature of organisation and work is transforming. It is not yet clear whether Aotearoa New Zealand higher education will make the most of such opportunities. As society becomes more diffuse and complex with many different players joining in a complex multisectoral and interdisciplinary workforce that is bounded by the digital era; public health higher education, in partnership with community and industry, must undergo change to respond accordingly
Creative Forest: : an emergent learning environment
Get PDFCreative Forest is an educational space that connects, facilitates and empowers learners in education, enterprise and local community. Using an ecosystem methodology that resembles a forest metaphor, learner’s co-construct networks, interact, collaborate, and seek out and share expertise as a way of transforming social and cognitive relationships and values that craft a future of learning that is distinctly different and unconstrained. Learners are integral to the operation and success of the learning community as a way of designing, managing and promoting individual or group/community design projects for either self-discovery and knowledge creation or creative and entrepreneurial endeavour. The essence of the ecosystem relies on a permeable structure that allows participants to reveal tactics to reinvent, subvert, and recontextualise the folds and refolding of the learning space for meeting the needs and understanding of encounters of everyday practice. Learners are central to the ecosystem. “Learning is usually a progressive change in what we know or can do” (Nuthall, 2001). For Creative Forest, learners is a term that applies to everyone, everyone is a learner, everyone is a teacher, and learning to do by doing.
Creative Forest is a reorientation in educational thinking that has challenged traditional, didactic education for its implied assumption of a separation between knowing and doing, where knowledge is treated as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used. This assumption is in conflict with the social knowledge that emerges from learners’ interaction with each other and the Internet, which they use as a tool to reach out, interact, mentor and share experiences and knowledge. Given this situation, learning organisations are sometimes challenged to shift from their traditional role, perceived as the transfer of abstract, decontextualised formal concepts rather than personalised interconnecting socially constructed experiences (that promote critical learning and citizenship). Building a system that encourages students to co-construct, interact and collaborate on individually orientated projects shaped the foundation structure and supportive mechanisms for the development of Creative Forest.
This paper presentation will discuss a journey into building Creative Forest as an emergent innovative learning environment and talk through its application in education, business and community contexts.
Presentation: https://vimeo.com/518505148
References
Nuthall, G, A. (2001) Student experience and learning process: Developing an evidence based theory of classroom learning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle.